The Legend of Zelda Why the Series Should Never Look Back to Legend of Zelda

[Ventus]

Oftentimes you'll hear from the hardiest of Zelda fans that the series has lost something, that it should look back at the series' roots. But that is just a wrong point of view. Here is why.

1) The "exploration" in this game is bad.
Have you ever been born and just left there by your lonesome, with no real objective? Magically just had a name and knew how to walk? No. This is not natural. You will never see a human born and just learn how to cope; there is always some sort of parent or parent figure waiting to get the human on its feet, eat food, etc. Legend of Zelda completely rips all notions of regular, humane behavior away and basically tells the player through its nonexistent "introduction" to fend for themselves. Everything in theg ame is forced, with little to no hints. This is not what real life humans are accustomed do. It is bad. I tis not conducive to society, and it should never touch Zelda again. It's despicable in all sense of the word. This exploration is bad and can never be found in real life.

2) The game is basic.
Four directions of movement. A sword button. An item button. Nothing else. This game is beyond basic. It is filth.

3) The game lacks any semblance of a story.
Bar the introductory movie which, by the way, only plays when you let the start menu sit, Legend of Zelda lacks any sort of story. This is not how ANY game is created in this day and age.

Well what is all I can thing of at the moment. Do you agree or disagree? Should the series ever look back to Legend of Zelda, or are the original game's days over and done with?

 

[Big Octo]

1) The "exploration" in this game is bad.
Have you ever been born and just left there by your lonesome, with no real objective? Magically just had a name and knew how to walk? No. This is not natural. You will never see a human born and just learn how to cope; there is always some sort of parent or parent figure waiting to get the human on its feet, eat food, etc. Legend of Zelda completely rips all notions of regular, humane behavior away and basically tells the player through its nonexistent "introduction" to fend for themselves. Everything in theg ame is forced, with little to no hints. This is not what real life humans are accustomed do. It is bad. I tis not conducive to society, and it should never touch Zelda again. It's despicable in all sense of the word. This exploration is bad and can never be found in real life.

The "never can be found in real life" argument seems fruitless, as it's a video game and is meant to pull the player away from real life, not have them fall back on reality and berate the game for lack of logic. In my opinion, LoZ has the strongest exploration in the series, because you have no idea where to go, and everything is up to you. The manual tells you how to get to the first dungeon, but that's all the help you're going to get with the game. I have always enjoyed getting lost in this game and then crying out for joy when I find a dungeon or secret.

2) The game is basic.Four directions of movement. A sword button. An item button. Nothing else. This game is beyond basic. It is filth.

It's an NES game, of course it's basic! However, for its time, it was a pretty big deal. Most games were side-scrolling, and a good top-down game was hard to come by. This game accomplished that very well, and provided us with an epic adventure to embark on. There's really no point in berating the first game of a series for having such simple gameplay mechanics, especially if it was released in 1986. Furthermore, many indie games have simple gameplay mechanics that don't reach beyond running, jumping, and attacking, but they're still great fun as well. Simple inputs and mechanics does not automatically make a terrible game.

3) The game lacks any semblance of a story.Bar the introductory movie which, by the way, only plays when you let the start menu sit, Legend of Zelda lacks any sort of story. This is not how ANY game is created in this day and age.

Again, it's a game for the NES. All story exists in the manual. There's no reason for it to be any more complex than "the princess has been captured, go save her!" Zelda has never been a story-driven series, because all action is in the gameplay. Also, going back to indie games, some have stories that don't go beyond "save your girlfriend." Similar to LoZ, these games don't need overcomplicated stories.

Also, if you really want to bash a game for a lack of story, try essentially any game for the Atari 2600.

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The moral of the story here is that people don't mean that the series should go back to the exact same mechanics when they say "Zelda should go back to its roots." They mean that it should follow the spirit of the original, which includes going back to some mechanics, such as the exploration. I think the problem is that apples are being compared to oranges (original LoZ vs. newer Zelda games) instead of apples to apples (original LoZ vs. other games of the time).

 

[DarkestLink]

This feels more like something to be found in an article. I would also add no sense of direction. I love finding new areas by following a cryptic clue but blasting every single tree to smithereens in hopes of finding a passage isn't my idea of fun.

 

[Salem]

Eiji Aonuma is the current producer of the Zelda series, he couldn't beat the original Zelda and he didn't like it, so it's unlike they will look back to it.

 

[ihateghirahim]

How can we not look back on it. It is the basis of the whole series. It's popularity started Zelda and kept it going. I've played it and its a pretty cool game. I enjoy looking for hidden walls and battling the bosses. I also can't get enough of the punishing NES difficulty. I see no reason we can't look to it for inspirations, and even if it's bad, we can look back to look upon the mistakes made.

 

[DarkestLink]

Eiji Aonuma is the current producer of the Zelda series, he couldn't beat the original Zelda and he didn't like it, so it's unlike they will look back to it.

Was that the ONLY game he couldn't beat?

 

[DuelMark]

I would agree partially, mostly on the first part. People seem to forget that the dungeons DO have an order. You just need to find out for yourself.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

i just hate the stupid random tree burning or wall bombing,i mean i guess its fine for a secret but freaking dungeons are hidden in these spots!
the lack of direction is also a problem
'you got your sword?great now go explore around this completely complex & confusing land w/ a horrible map and absolutely no hint on where to start or how long this'll take,you're on your own'

 

[Salem]

Was that the ONLY game he couldn't beat?

I have no idea.

ALTTP is what inspired him though.

 

[A Link In Time]

Of course The Legend of Zelda is outdated by today's standards, but its large open world and save system were unprecedented nearly 30 years ago.

While being thrust into an unforgiving landscape with no objectives might seem foreign to today's gamers, it's the heightened difficulty and lack of "hand holding" that players want to return. How many times did Navi, Midna, or Fi pop out with advice for where to search next? A lot. How often did the mysterious man or woman in the NES original prod Link in the right direction? Never.

Ventus, you're also taking the game's parameters out of context. Think of the adventure as a military expedition. Just like medieval soldiers, Link knows only the general area he travels to, not its specific geography. He does have an objective-rescuing Princess Zelda-but accomplishing this goal requires looking in the strangest of places like beneath suspicious bushes and within graveyards. While it wasn't entirely clear in the first game, Ganon is a cunning opponent, and defeating him requires an extroverted, "out of the box" state of mind.

 

[DarkestLink]

I have no idea.

ALTTP is what inspired him though.

Weird...I always thought aLttP was much harder than LoZ.

 

[Salem]

Weird...I always thought aLttP was much harder than LoZ.

He couldn't get past the octoroc:S

Funny you should think that alttp is harder, I though the original loz is harder.

 

[Sir Quaffler]

I'm mostly in agreement with the OP. I didn't care for this game's form of exploration, I much prefer following cryptic clues and solving devious puzzles rather than bombing every blasted rock and burning every infernal bush just to find out where to freaking go. I also just do not understand this supposed "difficulty" of LoZ that many keep going on about. The enemies are beyond basic and are almost all of them idiotic; my main strategy was just running around and stabbing until they died because they didn't react at all to my presence (except for the bosses). I did die many times, but that was because I was bored out of my mind and just didn't care anymore whether I lived or died, not because I ran across a foe that bested me in combat. Disregarding the one overall objective, the entire game is just aimless. You just go from screen to screen and kill enemies until you die or somehow run across a secret. That's not very fun to me.

The only point of dissent I have is this: Figuring out the layout of Hyrule was actually pretty fun. Once I stopped wandering aimlessly, got a pad & paper, and methodically drew out the land, I found myself enjoying the game a little more. But that has more to do with the fact that I like cartography as a hobby than anything else; once I got the entirety of Hyrule mapped out I just totally lost interest and stopped playing.

 

[The Wanderer]

Your points in and of themselves are valid, Ventus, and I agree with them. Nevertheless, I think it's the "idea" of some of those problems that players want to go back to. My idea of exploration is not randomly bombing every stupid rock to find a path, either. We have to go back and ask why Nintendo did some of the things they did and then take how they did it into consideration. If the how is poor but the why is a genuinely good concept, it's only natural we should pursue the why and alter the how accordingly.

I don't think players are looking forward to virtually zero story and the simplest form of "exploration." What they are looking for is the ability to further project themselves into Link and having a greater freedom of choice with their steps and actions. Those are the "whys" of the original game's mechanics. Burning down every tree you find in the name of discovering secrets is a flawed "how," but many people are still in love with the "why" in that same action. If this makes any sense to anybody.

 

[Salem]

I think the lack of direction and clues in the first game is partly because of cartridge limitations.