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Zelda's biggest sin/mistake

Castle

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why is wind waker so bad?the lore?the gameplay?

the lore?
Yes. It begins at Start. That intro. The entire backstory of the game is writ to shoehorn the game into the Zelda series. More evidence to me that WW began as an idea and ninty did that obnoxious thing they do where they find one of their existing IPs to cram it into where it never belonged.

It spits on Ocarina of Time by disregarding the Hero of Time's epic struggle. Do you have fond memories of your perilous and wondrous adventure in OoT? Well screw you. Some time later Ganon inexplicably reappeared but for some inane non-reason some hero didn't and the Gods just deus ex apocalypse'd Hyrule anyway. Too bad. Why'd you even bother?

All so ninty could put tow-headed midget freak Link in a boat and sail around neon-watercolor Caribbean. That's it. They needed an ocean where an ocean never was before. Except - OH WAIT!! Hyrule does have an ocean! Hyrule's had an ocean since the first game. The first time Hyrule didn't have an ocean was in ALttP more than half way through the series. But ninty's long term memory failed decades ago so that little detail is completely lost on them so all they could do was lore bomb the series to make Waker's concept work.

the gameplay?
Yes. It was someone's idea to let players set sail in a boat and explore an open world ocean with dozens of islands to discover. Why then is the act of sailing in Wind Waker about as exciting as actual sailing? Why is it just minutes upon agonizing minutes of nothing happening just to get from point A to point B? Why is it that any time I need to make a 90 degree turn I have to come to a complete stop and play that stupid DDR minigame and then wait while the game plays that obnoxious song I just played back at me? Why is it that maybe I might have to jump or shoot at something that doesn't even pose a serious threat anyway as it passes by? Why is it that the only other thing to do in the boat is stop and slowly inch it over arbitrary rings of light to press a button that draws up a treasure chest with a useless crane game prize in it? Why is it that the last third of the game is entirely that over a hundred times over???

Why is it that for 3/4th of the game that stupid boat won't even let me sail in any direction other than a straight line to the next island???

Why does the game even have any other button for combat when you can just Press A in a somewhat timely manner to spam a counter attack that simultaneously attacks and avoids all damage? What's the point of a shield? Why are the first two dungeons tediously long and every other dungeon in the game so obviously truncated? Why are boss fights so simple? Why are puzzles so painfully obvious? Why is half the challenge of this game just navigating a straight line for minutes on end???
 
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DarkestLink

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I think tWW's a good game, personally, but it is the point where I feel that Nintendo lost faith in Zelda and lost faith in themselves too. It became much more about pointless gimmicks than trying to make the best experience they could. In the end, that's the biggest problem...when they introduce something like sailing or motion swordplay, they don't do it to present a new idea that works with the existing formula to evolve the series, they do it because they don't want to compete with their old ideas.

Do you like the three day system? Motion swordplay? Maybe you do and that's fine, but ultimately none of it went anywhere. As soon as they'd add a new concept, they'd drop it immediately. They do this under the pretense of trying to compete with the "revolutionary OoT", but OoT wasn't revolutionary. The N64 was revolutionary, but OoT itself is justly nicknamed "aLttP 2.0". It added very few new ideas to the series. It didn't take pointless risks. It was a safe game and that's why it was a good game. Just by trying to improve off their old work, they took aLttP (the only Zelda I honestly hate) and turned it into a game I could call a masterpiece without changing any of aLttP's core ideas.

Since then, they stopped trying to compete with themselves. The closest they came was with TP, but even then Aonuma chickened out last minute and added the motion gimmick. It's kinda depressing to be honest. That he had no faith in his own team and his own ideas and figured it wouldn't do well unless he attached a gimmick to sell it. In the end, I'd say it just made the game worse for those who got it on the Wii.

Back to tWW, I will reiterate and say that I found it to be a good overall game, but it highlights Nintendo's main flaw when it comes to game design. They're scared of competition. Nobody can say your graphics are subpar to your competitors if you don't compete with them. Nobody can say the horse system isn't as good as it was last time if you don't have a horse. Nintendo has some of the best developers I have ever seen, but sheer skill and ingenuity can only take you so far. Competition, whether it be internal or external, is what brings out our best work. Without it, Nintendo will not reach their full potential and will only continue to stagnate.
 

Jirohnagi

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Breath of the Wild

Don't @ me

BOTW really didn't feel like a game more an open test of what nintendo could do with new hardware, the things that makes the game bad is pointless collectibles and horrific rewards, Koroks are utterly useless after 450, and you get a magic turd for it, for filling in the compendium you get a crappy photo you can't look at, for slaying all the Tali, Hinox and Molduga you get medals (should've been an armor set or something) and what about the biggest baddest things to roam hyrule? You don't get **** for killing all the lynels. The story is lacklustre (what there is of it) the deutagonist Zelda is a whimiscal fart who is a pain in the ass and in all honesty the game just feels like it was trying out Far too many new concepts and mashed them together.

Not the shrines though those were good just a few too many perhaps.
 

Dio

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Definitely caving in to all of the so called “Zelda fans” and making Twilight Princess.

Once again: not a bad game, just a bad Zelda game. I feel like the devs hearts just weren’t in it when they made it.

Twilight Princess was a spiritual successor to the game which was universally loved and got many people into Zelda in the first place. It was true to the series it came from and sold over twice as well as Wind Waker as a result. You could tell it was the game which had the most thought put into its story and as Midna is the most well written character in the series I'd say a lot of thought and heart was put into her.

I'd say their biggest sin was making Wind Waker in the style they did. It was a move which split the fanbase in half. As much as some didnt like the sailing mechanic I don't think the gameplay was WW's downfall at all.
 
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thePlinko

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Twilight Princess was a spiritual successor to the game which was universally loved and got many people into Zelda in the first place. It was true to the series it came from and sold over twice as well as Wind Waker as a result. You could tell it was the game which had the most thought put into its story and as Midna is the most well written character in the series I'd say a lot of thought and heart was put into her.

I'd say their biggest sin was making Wind Waker in the style they did. It was a move which split the fanbase in half. As much as some didnt like the sailing mechanic I don't think the gameplay was WW's downfall at all.

First off, Windwaker was also a spiritual successor to OoT, and it was also true to the series, so I don’t see your point.

As for the story, Twilight Princess has gotta be one of the worst in the series, adding in a brand new dimension integral to the plot that has not even had so much as a singular reference in previous games to it might be acceptable in LttP when the series was still young, but makes no sense in the THIRTEENTH INSTALLMENT OF THE SERIES, and it does stuff like that all. The. Time. The city in the sky, the light spirits, Ordon, they just kept shoving things in there that didn’t fit in to the already explained lore. All of the characters (including zant) were garbage, and it by far has the worst version of Ganondorf. I’m sorry but Midna was not well written at all. She was just another “asshole with a change of heart halfway through yet is still a bit of an asshole” cliché. Tatl and linebeck IMO were both Midna but 100x better, at least I didn’t absolutely despise them like I did Midna.

I think miyamoto himself summed it up perfectly, he said (and I’m paraphrasing here): “twilight princess was by no means a bad game, it was just, missing something.” And I think that something was heart. Remember they didn’t want to make twilight princess in the first place, they only made it because of all of the crybabies who didn’t get exactly what they wanted. What they wanted happened to be a watered down, overly edgy ocarina of time clone.


As for your arguments about windwaker, obviously the art style turned out to be not as polarizing as you think in the long run, seeing as how they have reused the art style for 6 different games in the series since. All of these, while not exactly the greatest games ever, were still commercial hits, Something the “Almighty” Twilight Princess definitely can’t claim. I guess people just don’t like art styles that look like literal (and I mean LITERAL) ****.
 

Dio

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First off, Windwaker was also a spiritual successor to OoT, and it was also true to the series, so I don’t see your point.

As for the story, Twilight Princess has gotta be one of the worst in the series, adding in a brand new dimension integral to the plot that has not even had so much as a singular reference in previous games to it might be acceptable in LttP when the series was still young, but makes no sense in the THIRTEENTH INSTALLMENT OF THE SERIES, and it does stuff like that all. The. Time. The city in the sky, the light spirits, Ordon, they just kept shoving things in there that didn’t fit in to the already explained lore. All of the characters (including zant) were garbage, and it by far has the worst version of Ganondorf. I’m sorry but Midna was not well written at all. She was just another “asshole with a change of heart halfway through yet is still a bit of an asshole” cliché. Tatl and linebeck IMO were both Midna but 100x better, at least I didn’t absolutely despise them like I did Midna.

I think miyamoto himself summed it up perfectly, he said (and I’m paraphrasing here): “twilight princess was by no means a bad game, it was just, missing something.” And I think that something was heart. Remember they didn’t want to make twilight princess in the first place, they only made it because of all of the crybabies who didn’t get exactly what they wanted. What they wanted happened to be a watered down, overly edgy ocarina of time clone.


As for your arguments about windwaker, obviously the art style turned out to be not as polarizing as you think in the long run, seeing as how they have reused the art style for 6 different games in the series since. All of these, while not exactly the greatest games ever, were still commercial hits, Something the “Almighty” Twilight Princess definitely can’t claim. I guess people just don’t like art styles that look like literal (and I mean LITERAL) ****.

Wind waker was set on islands and a great ocean. All other Zelda games previously were set in lands with a field. Particularly in the 3D games, field and horseback travel was the done thing. So it is somewhat of a departure and not really a spiritual successor to OOT like TP was.

Twilight Princess is the third best selling title in the series! So of course it was a commercial hit. And the games reusing WW's style have not sold as well as Twilight Princess so I don't know why you brought those up WW, PH, ST...none of them sold as well. Just because the style was chosen for re use doesn't make it a good idea.

Wind Waker harmed the growing of the popularity of Zelda back in 2002 and sold only just over 4 million copies when the original OOT on the N64 sold well over double that number. Which means that at least half the 9 million OOT players decided not to even bother going for WW. Then TP sold a similar amount to the original OOT indicating that many of those fans returned for it once Nintendo changed course to the style of game they had originally come for. After TP we didn't see a game of that style again and until BOTW apart from OOT no Zelda sold as many copies as TP. Zelda has only resurged now because they copied the open world asaassins creed thing and the mainstream gamers love open world games. That was their big selling point to the masses with BoTW.

Twilight Princess introduced many new and exciting elements to a previously more simplistic and underdeveloped lore. Which is understandable considering times were changing. Game storytelling was getting better. TP featured the biggest world yet of the time and they made it feel more believable and alive with a rich history and the new elements. And as for what Miyamoto said, he may have created Zelda but he is not necessarily the reason the best games were as good as they were. Yoshiaki Koizumi and Eiji Aounuma actually both snuck in story elements to OOT and MM under his nose because Miyamoto wanted less story. If he'd have had his way I am sure there would have been more than a bit missing from TP. It was mainly an Aounuma project.

Midna is the only character in Zelda to have a full and developed character arc whos character grows throughout the entire game.You are completely wrong to say she wasn't well written. You are allowing your personal taste to cloud your vision of the masterful character development which was implemented with Midna, which Nintendo have yet to emulate since 2006.
 
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thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
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Yes. It begins at Start. That intro. The entire backstory of the game is writ to shoehorn the game into the Zelda series. More evidence to me that WW began as an idea and ninty did that obnoxious thing they do where they find one of their existing IPs to cram it into where it never belonged.


So first of all the whole ocean thing was a direct result of the art style, not the other way around, the whole game making process started when somebody drew a picture of a moblin in the toon style. One thing led to another and the sailing was made to combat the fact that toon link would look weird on a horse

[/QUOTE= Castle, post: 1154512, member: 21788”] It spits on Ocarina of Time by disregarding the Hero of Time's epic struggle. Do you have fond memories of your perilous and wondrous adventure in OoT? Well screw you. Some time later Ganon inexplicably reappeared but for some inane non-reason some hero didn't and the Gods just deus ex apocalypse'd Hyrule anyway. Too bad. Why'd you even bother?[/QUOTE]

So now summerizing the events of a prior game is bad? Yeah Ganon came back but it’s not like this hasn’t happened before in the series, there is a reason why he’s the main villain in more than one game after all, not to mention that twilight princess did the same exact thing. Obviously Ganon came back because he still held the triforce of power, and obviously the hero of time didn’t return because he was sent to the other timeline.

[/QUOTE=Castle, post:1154512, member:21788”]

All so ninty could put tow-headed midget freak Link in a boat and sail around neon-watercolor Caribbean. That's it. They needed an ocean where an ocean never was before. Except - OH WAIT!! Hyrule does have an ocean! Hyrule's had an ocean since the first game. The first time Hyrule didn't have an ocean was in ALttP more than half way through the series. But ninty's long term memory failed decades ago so that little detail is completely lost on them so all they could do was lore bomb the series to make Waker's concept work. [/QUOTE]

They still needed a reason for link to BE on the ocean though and not on land. The best way to go about this is to make it so that there is no land to be on. It’s not like the entire earth flooding is an incredibly left field event either, there are multiple real world religious texts that state events similar to that of windwakers. Calling it “lore bombing” is quite the stretch too. That’s like saying the war before the events of OoT is stupid because there was already a war in the series and links mother dying could have just as easily fit there.


[/QUOTE=Castle, post:1154512, member:21788”]

Yes. It was someone's idea to let players set sail in a boat and explore an open world ocean with dozens of islands to discover. Why then is the act of sailing in Wind Waker about as exciting as actual sailing? Why is it just minutes upon agonizing minutes of nothing happening just to get from point A to point B? Why is it that any time I need to make a 90 degree turn I have to come to a complete stop and play that stupid DDR minigame and then wait while the game plays that obnoxious song I just played back at me? Why is it that maybe I might have to jump or shoot at something that doesn't even pose a serious threat anyway as it passes by? Why is it that the only other thing to do in the boat is stop and slowly inch it over arbitrary rings of light to press a button that draws up a treasure chest with a useless crane game prize in it? Why is it that the last third of the game is entirely that over a hundred times over??? [/QUOTE]

Ok I’m actually going to agree with you on this one. I personally liked it, but I can see why others wouldn’t, even then the HD remake fixed most of these issues.
[/QUOTE=Castle, post:1154512, member:21788”]

Why is it that for 3/4th of the game that stupid boat won't even let me sail in any direction other than a straight line to the next island??? [/QUOTE]

Ok that is a huge exaggeration. It’s at most 1/4 of the game, and once again twilight princess does the same thing.

[/QUOTE=Castle, post:1154512, member:21788”]

Why does the game even have any other button for combat when you can just Press A in a somewhat timely manner to spam a counter attack that simultaneously attacks and avoids all damage? What's the point of a shield? Why are the first two dungeons tediously long and every other dungeon in the game so obviously truncated? Why are boss fights so simple? Why are puzzles so painfully obvious? Why is half the challenge of this game just navigating a straight line for minutes on end???[/QUOTE]

You apparently didn’t play ocarina of time OR twilight princess because if you found dragon roost tedious than you would never survive the water or lakebed temples. The bosses puzzels, and combat were just as simple in those games as in Windwaker, and the great sea was nowhere near as bad as in TP, at least in windwaker you had little islands, submarines, big octos, and watchtowers to play around with. In TP all you had was a singular tree. And a rock. And some grass. All in the biggest overworld in the series at the time, it took you just as long to cross hyrule field in TP as it did in WW.
 

Spiritual Mask Salesman

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As for the story, Twilight Princess has gotta be one of the worst in the series, adding in a brand new dimension integral to the plot that has not even had so much as a singular reference in previous games to it might be acceptable in LttP when the series was still young, but makes no sense in the THIRTEENTH INSTALLMENT OF THE SERIES, and it does stuff like that all. The. Time. The city in the sky, the light spirits, Ordon, they just kept shoving things in there that didn’t fit in to the already explained lore. All of the characters (including zant) were garbage, and it by far has the worst version of Ganondorf. I’m sorry but Midna was not well written at all. She was just another “asshole with a change of heart halfway through yet is still a bit of an asshole” cliché. Tatl and linebeck IMO were both Midna but 100x better, at least I didn’t absolutely despise them like I did Midna.
So the Zelda series has never really gotten the story part exactly right, imo. But TP is by no means bad in this aspect. You're saying they crammed things that didn't exist prior to that game, but every game has done this, not just TP. The Light Spirits are exclusive to TP and are minor deities that are easily dismissable. The Minish Cap as well as the Oracle games had the oracles, Skyward Sword had the dragons, Wind Waker had the minor wind gods, and just like the Light Spirits from TP, those characters which were important to the respective games they were in are now cast aside and have never been seen again. You bring up the city in the sky, well what happened to Skyloft? What happened to the Shadow Temple? Every Zelda game has elements that are unique to it alone and that never do get expanded on in later games.

I kind of what to hear you elaborate on why you think the characters in TP are garbage.
 
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A large part of that was due to OoT, if I remember discussions back then correctly. And it's reflected in the sales numbers:

OoT managed 7.6 million sales, but the following games all did much worse:

Majora's Mask got 3.36 million
Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons combined got 3.99
Four Swords got 2.82
Wind Waker got 4.43
Four Sword Adventures got 0.81 (this is the lowest point in the Zelda franchise as far as sales)
Minish Cap got 1.76

Twilight Princess is the first time we see the bleeding Zelda series begin to recover, at sales of 8.85 million.

Basically, OoT ticked off a lot of people at the time it was released and signaled the series going into a serious slump that nearly killed it as it bled fans and sales over time. I know a lot of this had to do with how NoA handled the timeline discussion back in the day, and the resulting outrage from fans, but also a lot of it seemed to do with the fact people just didn't like a 3D Zelda at the time. OoT has long-since been redeemed in player memory, as it heralded games like Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild, but at the time it was released it was a massive stumbling block for the series and it took some time for the negative feelings that resulted to fade and nostalgia to set in.

So, I think the major stumbling block in this case is how NoA handled OoT and the resulting bad blood that stained the Zelda series for some time.
 

Dio

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A large part of that was due to OoT, if I remember discussions back then correctly. And it's reflected in the sales numbers:

OoT managed 7.6 million sales, but the following games all did much worse:

Majora's Mask got 3.36 million
Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons combined got 3.99
Four Swords got 2.82
Wind Waker got 4.43
Four Sword Adventures got 0.81 (this is the lowest point in the Zelda franchise as far as sales)
Minish Cap got 1.76

Twilight Princess is the first time we see the bleeding Zelda series begin to recover, at sales of 8.85 million.

Basically, OoT ticked off a lot of people at the time it was released and signaled the series going into a serious slump that nearly killed it as it bled fans and sales over time. I know a lot of this had to do with how NoA handled the timeline discussion back in the day, and the resulting outrage from fans, but also a lot of it seemed to do with the fact people just didn't like a 3D Zelda at the time. OoT has long-since been redeemed in player memory, as it heralded games like Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild, but at the time it was released it was a massive stumbling block for the series and it took some time for the negative feelings that resulted to fade and nostalgia to set in.

So, I think the major stumbling block in this case is how NoA handled OoT and the resulting bad blood that stained the Zelda series for some time.

Are you sure? OOT was universally loved by critics and players alike as far as I am aware. It sold great too. I know you said it 'managed' its sales but 'managed' would imply it struggled after the highs of previous entries. This is not the case. It reality it exceeded all Zelda's before it with the N64 version selling better than the original LoZ's 6millionish on the NES, Zelda 2's 4 millionish on the NES (that's the one people didn't like) and then of course ALTTP's 4 millionish on the SNES. Many people were introduced to Zelda with OOT, and mechanics borrowed from it have been used in almost all 3D games ever since. It's always been seen as revolutionary and the greatest game of all time. Consistently topping polls.

It's been a sin to criticize OOT and I don't remember encountering anyone who has said they actually don't like it apart from complaints of it being too hard. I wouldn't say Nintendo mismanaged the handling of its publicity because everyone loved it. The only mismanagement I would say is not capitalising more on it and waiting until 2006 to make a true spiritual successor.
 
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