When it comes to visual design, do you think the Zelda series has a philosophy of anti-clutter?

[Dogzilla]

Besides their long-running philosophy that story is a byproduct of gameplay, it seems that all designs elements in Zelda games steer clear of clutter. Things like xp systems, over busy UI, info dumps on maps, weapons systems. There’s very little excess that doesn’t serve elegant presentation for the sake of getting right on with gameplay. Even the upgrading of outfits in botw uses a star rating up to 3 instead of constant calculating of high levels and huge xp points.

Any disagreements on this?

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

No.

Although people involved with the franchise have often mentioned that the games have a "gameplay first" method of development, it'd be silly to treat that as something special. Although there are some incredibly story-focused games out there that put narrative ahead of player interaction (stuff like Telltale's The Walking Dead or any David Cage game), putting gameplay above narrative is incredibly common. It's something that can be pointed out even in games that fall in the middle of the road in terms of quality.

If anything, Zelda's design philosophy has made the franchise more cluttered. It's a mess of plot contrivances, contradictions, and lazy characters Only a few games in the series have managed to break away from this, and the series inevitably regresses into an earlier form where it insists on telling the same story over and over.

So, no. Zelda is more cluttered than most game franchises.

 

[Dogzilla]

No.

Although people involved with the franchise have often mentioned that the games have a "gameplay first" method of development, it'd be silly to treat that as something special. Although there are some incredibly story-focused games out there that put narrative ahead of player interaction (stuff like Telltale's The Walking Dead or any David Cage game), putting gameplay above narrative is incredibly common. It's something that can be pointed out even in games that fall in the middle of the road in terms of quality.

If anything, Zelda's design philosophy has made the franchise more cluttered. It's a mess of plot contrivances, contradictions, and lazy characters Only a few games in the series have managed to break away from this, and the series inevitably regresses into an earlier form where it insists on telling the same story over and over.

So, no. Zelda is more cluttered than most game franchises.

Are you talking visual design though?

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

Are you talking visual design though?

No, I'm talking their design as a whole. UI, world, character, and story design.

 

[Gorozoron]

No, I'm talking their design as a whole. UI, world, character, and story design.

Well uh ^ check the title

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

Well uh ^ check the title

You are correct. My apologies, I should not post when inebriated.

I would amend it to this: Zelda is only anti-clutter when it comes to the pro UI in Breath of the Wild. Everything else feels comparable to games at the time.

 

[Dogzilla]

You are correct. My apologies, I should not post when inebriated.

I would amend it to this: Zelda is only anti-clutter when it comes to the pro UI in Breath of the Wild. Everything else feels comparable to games at the time.

No worries! You still make a good point about the other aspects of design. How would you say OoT suffers from plot contrivances, contradictions and lazy characters? Or are you talking about the clutter of the mythology in terms of trying to be a coherent and consistent whole?

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

No worries! You still make a good point about the other aspects of design. How would you say OoT suffers from plot contrivances, contradictions and lazy characters? Or are you talking about the clutter of the mythology in terms of trying to be a coherent and consistent whole?

I'm speaking generally in terms of the leaps the mythology makes as a whole. There hasn't been an attempt to establish anything consistent in terms of mythology, so each game spends a great deal of time trying to reiterate the exact same plot points introduced in the previous game. The example I've taken to using is this:

Imagine if each Star Wars film were about Luke, Leia, and Darth Vader. Not analogues or older versions of the characters, but that each film treats itself as the first time these characters have met while going through the same motions. Now imagine that same franchise trying to tie the films together into a cohesive lore while dancing around the fact that none of the characters make any effort to understand why they keep coming back, nor do they attempt to deepen the relationship between the three.

Unfortunately, that's how I see Zelda right now. The series has somehow managed to be overly complex and messy while at the same time being stupidly simple.

 

[Dogzilla]

I'm speaking generally in terms of the leaps the mythology makes as a whole. There hasn't been an attempt to establish anything consistent in terms of mythology, so each game spends a great deal of time trying to reiterate the exact same plot points introduced in the previous game. The example I've taken to using is this:

Imagine if each Star Wars film were about Luke, Leia, and Darth Vader. Not analogues or older versions of the characters, but that each film treats itself as the first time these characters have met while going through the same motions. Now imagine that same franchise trying to tie the films together into a cohesive lore while dancing around the fact that none of the characters make any effort to understand why they keep coming back, nor do they attempt to deepen the relationship between the three.

Unfortunately, that's how I see Zelda right now. The series has somehow managed to be overly complex and messy while at the same time being stupidly simple.

Yes, as a coherent and consistent mythological whole, the Zelda series is a mess.

Otherwise, when it comes to visual design, do you not think that it generally keeps things anti-clutter?

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

Yes, as a coherent and consistent mythological whole, the Zelda series is a mess.

Otherwise, when it comes to visual design, do you not think that it generally keeps things anti-clutter?

I suppose it's not that I think Zelda's UI is cluttered so much as I don't think it's less cluttered than the UI you'd find in most other video games. While it's true that there are franchises like Call of Duty with incredibly messy user interfaces, there are plenty of games that are more minimalistic than Zelda has managed to be (the pro mode from Breath of the Wild being the one notable exception).

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

Skyward sword lets you completely remove the UI, a feature I, a pro gamer, appreciate

 

[Chevywolf30]

I personally have found BotW to be very cluttered when compared to other Zelda games in terms of UI. It's a more complex game, so that probably plays into it, but there's still a lot more stuff there than TP or OoT.

 

[Gorozoron]

I personally have found BotW to be very cluttered when compared to other Zelda games in terms of UI. It's a more complex game, so that probably plays into it, but there's still a lot more stuff there than TP or OoT.

Yo here's thing you can do , go to the options section or somethin and set the ui to pro mode way less cluttered

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

Yo here's thing you can do , go to the options section or somethin and set the ui to pro mode way less cluttered

You lose out on the minimap when you do that though and that one's really important

 

[Gorozoron]

You lose out on the minimap when you do that though and that one's really important

Eh... I lived without it