General Zelda Your Opinion on a Sparce Overworld?

[ihateghirahim]

TP overworld> SS or WW overworld.

 

[LittleGumball]

I read this as "space" overworld. I ain't even mad.

 

[JuicieJ]

That's not a bad thing, it just spread it's secrets out a little more. Gave you more space to be epic and stuff

It's a very bad thing. That's called padding. It's a cheap attempt to make the game SEEM larger and more adventurous than it really is, even if that wasn't Nintendo's intention. Twilight Princess's secrets are also insanely easy to obtain, partially because the landscape is so empty and hallway-ridden. It's much, much harder make something challenging to get to when the overworld is designed in such a way to say "lol here it is". It didn't help that Nintendo clearly didn't even try to make placing the key in the lock to get to the game's secrets remotely difficult to do, making it twice as much of a "lol here it is" deal.

This is why I've constantly talked about how Skyward Sword improved on this issue. The overworld itself had flawed design, yes, but that's not even what I'm talking about at the moment. If I was, I'd be talking about how the Sky should have had more substance and how the surface shouldn't have been so cooridorish even though they were a slight improvement over other modern overworlds (besides The Minish Cap). I'm talking about how the secrets were hidden/placed. The landscape was designed in such a way that getting to something required actual effort rather than just running up to it (besides the first couple of Goddess Cubes), and the lock-in-key methods were stepped back up to where they were in the past -- not too hard, not too easy, not too clear, not too vague.

Anyway... lots of empty space + easily-obtainable secrets = bad for Zelda, and Twilight Princess is the prime example of that equation.

I read this as "space" overworld. I ain't even mad.

 

[ihateghirahim]

The space itself must be distinguished from what is in it. We can't oversimplify this problem.

A large overworld is wonderful. It provides a sense of adventure and fun when done right. Add the right atmospheric music along with good visuals, and we get a tone capable of facillitating a proper adventure.

TP seems to have done this well. The overworld was vast and filled with many features to distinguish and add variety between the various provinces. When you travel over the land, you get a sense of Hyrule's vastness. You get lost in an epic quest as you battle enemies atop your horse. The horse makes traversing this world quick and easy. We are thus able to move around see the many features of this world. The warp portals are convenient, but the horse allows you to get lost in the experience of Hyrule. Smaller overworlds tend to be more about getting the next bomb-bag or getting from A to B. The large overworld creates an amazing experience that makes the quest itself more meaningful.

As for what's in the overworld, I think the size and scope are more important than anything else, but the rest matters as well. TP allowed us to get lost in the sheer size of the game. Making things too difficult would have made it harder to enjoy. We'd get caught up in finding everything, that's not what large overworlds are about. The land itself is the most important thing, the puzzles can't too hard, or they detract from the experience by bogging down your journey. What is put in should be small, or otherwise use the landscape your in. TP did this perfectly. You have the canoe challenge, the battles on horseback, the spinning thing shooting across canyon walls, even just moving a statue across the bridge of Eldin made me feel the epic scope of Hyrule.
Large overworlds need to be about the visuals blending with gameplay. If you get caught up on the difficulties of small puzzles, (I thought some of them were pretty hard) you miss the point of a large overworld. There should be challenge, but it shouldn't the point of the overworld (Remember how well that went in SS).

Large overworlds are a chance to use epic visuals and scope to build an epic world for an epic journey. The visuals and atmosphere are more important than silly complaints about the difficulty of getting a Heart Piece.




Also, I recall a lot of people complaining about how hard it was to find things in OoT. You complained that it made the game to hard to complete and bogged down questing. Master Jedi to his Padawan: Pick a side and be consistent. You don't want to invalidate your own arguments.

 

[JuicieJ]

TP seems to have done this well. The overworld was vast and filled with many features to distinguish and add variety between the various provinces. When you travel over the land, you get a sense of Hyrule's vastness. You get lost in an epic quest as you battle enemies atop your horse. The horse makes traversing this world quick and easy. We are thus able to move around see the many features of this world. The warp portals are convenient, but the horse allows you to get lost in the experience of Hyrule. Smaller overworlds tend to be more about getting the next bomb-bag or getting from A to B. The large overworld creates an amazing experience that makes the quest itself more meaningful.

The irony is that everything about TP, right down to the overworld, is about getting from A to B. The game is easily the most linear in the entire series, and tts overworld may be large, but it's insanely restrictive... and doesn't have much variety at all (seriously, all of Hyrule Field looks the same, as well as everything else within the other respective places -- although Zelda in general is guilty of this).

 

[ihateghirahim]

Come now, the fields are far from that dull. Recall the broken stone walls, chasms, river, forests, that rock with the giant dead tree, and all the other little features they throw in there. It's a massive world and the scope is done well.

TP may be to some extent linear, but the character is free to explore the world as he wishes. The events of the story reverberate in the mini-games and puzzles of the overworld, and don't anyone blame Nintendo if you're too lazy to take advantage of the world they built for you. It's huge, the quest goes all over it, and its your job to explore it.

 

[JuicieJ]

Come now, the fields are far from that dull. Recall the broken stone walls, chasms, river, forests, that rock with the giant dead tree, and all the other little features they throw in there.

They're pretty dull (although that's partially due to the dull palette). They may not be ugly, but they're nothing special. Don't believe me? Just look at Shadow of the Colossus and Journey in comparison.

It's a massive world and the scope is done well.

It's massive in theory, but not in reality. It's every bit as sectioned off as Skyward Sword's overworld is. Provinces are connected by lengthy hallways for no reason at all rather than being one giant land mass.

TP may be to some extent linear, but the character is free to explore the world as he wishes. The events of the story reverberate in the mini-games and puzzles of the overworld, and don't anyone blame Nintendo if you're too lazy to take advantage of the world they built for you. It's huge, the quest goes all over it, and its your job to explore it.

Not really. You can only go to areas when the game says you can. Being "free to explore the world as [one] wishes" is being able to explore a large extent of the world from the get-go. There's never even a moment of deviation in Twilight Princess. Modern Zelda in general has been pretty bad about this, including Skyward Sword, but there's just not enough breathing room at all in TP due to both the game design and the structure of the overworld.

 

[Justac00lguy]

Not really. You can only go to areas when the game says you can. Being "free to explore the world as [one] wishes" is being able to explore a large extent of the world from the get-go. There's never even a moment of deviation in Twilight Princess. Modern Zelda in general has been pretty bad about this, including Skyward Sword, but there's just not enough breathing room at*all*in*TP*due to both the game design and the structure of the overworld.

The game is linear from the beginning in order to build up the plot and the characters, even though rather long it worked. The Twilight Realm sections could be seen as a bit tedious but I think it was a great way to show advancing in a game, for example letting you explore the entire world from the get go is something very little games actually do. I don't see how letting one explore the world from the start would actually benefit a Zelda game, Zelda games are to an extent open overworlds but in order to get that sense of advancing through the plot and building up the game these beginning sections where key.

Plus after lifting the Light from Lanayru you are pretty much free to explore the depths of Hyrule as you please, and truth be told I didn't mind this. If I got to explore the world from the get go then it wouldn't give me the same sense of accomplishment, the thing that the Twilight Realm did was greatly the player a reason to save Hyrule. You got that sense of evil actually in Hyrule that little games achieve, once you clear up the Twilight it feels great to explore an area without that limitation and especially after the final one. I do believe to an extent a world should be open and instead of plot points blocking the path a more subtle solution could very used to make the world feel more realistic.

 

[Lamentizer]

I think that a sparce overworld would be nice, but at the same time boring. The only way Nintendo would get us to explore a sparse overworld would be for them to put a ton of hidden caves, ones that could go on forever. Kind of like that one in Twilight Princess. It's in South Hyrule Field, near the entrance to Ordon Province. Facing away from the Providence, it's to the left (on the Wii version.)

 

[The Marshal]

What I'd like the most is the ability to reach point B from point A withouth having to pass through the same routes over, and over again.

How would a more open world like Skyrim work? I'm not saying that it should be huge, just without artificial routes that make us follow them.

 

[JuicieJ]

The game is linear from the beginning in order to build up the plot and the characters, even though rather long it worked. The Twilight Realm sections could be seen as a bit tedious but I think it was a great way to show advancing in a game, for example letting you explore the entire world from the get go is something very little games actually do. I don't see how letting one explore the world from the start would actually benefit a Zelda game, Zelda games are to an extent open overworlds but in order to get that sense of advancing through the plot and building up the game these beginning sections where key.

Plus after lifting the Light from Lanayru you are pretty much free to explore the depths of Hyrule as you please, and truth be told I didn't mind this. If I got to explore the world from the get go then it wouldn't give me the same sense of accomplishment, the thing that the Twilight Realm did was greatly the player a reason to save Hyrule. You got that sense of evil actually in Hyrule that little games achieve, once you clear up the Twilight it feels great to explore an area without that limitation and especially after the final one. I do believe to an extent a world should be open and instead of plot points blocking the path a more subtle solution could very used to make the world feel more realistic.

It's linear the entire way through. You're never "free to explore the depths of Hyrule as you please". You can freely visit areas you've already visited/completed as many times as you want, sure, but even after completing the third Twilight area, you can't just explore to your heart's content. Twilight Princess isn't the only Zelda guilty of this by any stretch of the imagination (Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword), but it's guilty of it nonetheless, and very heavily so.

 

[Justac00lguy]

It's linear the entire way through. You're never "free to explore the depths of Hyrule as you please". You can freely visit areas you've already visited/completed as many times as you want, sure, but even after completing the third Twilight area, you can't just explore to your heart's content. Twilight Princess isn't the only Zelda guilty of this by any stretch of the imagination, but it's guilty of it nonetheless, and very heavily so.

Well of course you're not allowed to visit the likes of Snowpeak and the Gerudo Desert, if you were allowed to visit these areas then it would halt the progression in the game, in almost every Zelda game it has a similar concept and most of the time the world is less open. However the thing that the Twilight does is very clever, you have already visited the area but under a certain limitation, after you have restored the Light you are able to visit that area free if restrictions and explore many more areas.

 

[Demise_]

It's linear the entire way through. You're never "free to explore the depths of Hyrule as you please". You can freely visit areas you've already visited/completed as many times as you want, sure, but even after completing the third Twilight area, you can't just explore to your heart's content. Twilight Princess isn't the only Zelda guilty of this by any stretch of the imagination (Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword), but it's guilty of it nonetheless, and very heavily so.

I'm not sure what you mean. Of course, you can't access Snowpeak, the Desert, the Sacred Grove, or the Sky, until the relevant point in the story. But these are minor areas, that mostly don't contain much (except for GD, and after restoring light to Lanayru all you had to do was to complete the temple there to gain access to that). There are also a few places where blocks block your road (lol), and can be annoying if you like exploring with Epona, but they aren't that much of a deal.

The only really annoying thing that supports your argument is Illia's Charm. By the time you get it, you either already have all the bugd and poe souls and stuff and won't need it, or you have given up on Epona and only ever travel by warping. In the best case, you'd have put off sidequests until you got the charm, but then it really is a long wait, and your argument stands.

The point is the overworld may have been big, but it had a ton of stuff, it was just more spread out. Again, LOOK at the map and tell me there weren't secrets and stuff in the TP overworld. I do however, have to agree with you Ventus on the difficulty curve, but that's off topic.

That's what I'm trying to say. A vast overworld isn't necessarily empty; it can contain as much (or more) stuff than a tight overworld. The difference is in the way you collect it; you can slowly progress through a tight and corridorish area, or you can ride across vast fields on Epona while looking out for caves and stuff. I much prefer the second; it gives you space to breath, at the very least, and feels much more adventurous. Better in general, IMO.

Also, TP wasn't prefect; and this thread isn't exactly about whether TP's overworld was good, but rather about vast overworlds in general.

PS: I do agree with the idea of a seamless world, though I don't mind something like TP's layout either. As I said before, I don't want Nintendo to spend 5 years out of 6 developing the overworld, then ending up with a copy of Skyrim with a crappy everything that's not an overworld. :bleh:

 

[Kirino]

No, a space overworld in Zelda would be completely-

Oh. Sparse.

I don't mind sparse overworlds, as long as they have content proportional to their size, and allow exploration. Actually, that would be fantastic. But I'd much rather have a small overworld filled with content than a large one with barley any.

 

[Demise_]

No, a space overworld in Zelda would be completely-

Oh. Sparse.