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BigJKO

The Legend of Zelda

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For the record, I've never played a Zelda game I didn't think was pretty great at minimum. Like Mario, it's one of the most frighteningly consistent series ever in that every major installment is quality. (And that qualifier is simply to account for stuff like the CD-i games and Mario Is Missing! or something. Zelda II, the Capcom Gameboy games, Majora's Mask or whichever are supposedly the black sheep are all righteous.) Whenever people name their favorite Zelda - and the nominations run the whole gamut - it's impossible to think they're wrong just because each and every game is so strong. (See also: favorite LEC adventure game.)

I agree with Henroid in that a) the article in question is largely wrongheaded and B) the first games and what followed them simply represent different, rather than absolutely good or bad, design philosophies. But some of the observations being made here regarding sense of freedom and discovery are completely valid. I personally think that modern Zelda is right to err on the side of clear goals in propelling the player through the main quest. After all, there's no shortage of tedious sidequests in the newer games if that sort of thing floats your boat. The truth is collecting everything in Zelda 1 never gets nearly as ridiculous as finding all 100 gold skulltulas in Ocarina of Time, accumulating the FUCKING pictograph figures in Wind Waker or tracking down all 52 heart pieces in Majora's Mask (there might be even more in Twilight Princess but happily I stopped attaching my ego to getting 100% in a game by that junction). I could literally exhaust Zelda 1 in an afternoon - do not doubt me - whereas I could never do that for the modern games. Just something to consider. I would also point out that the relatively recent (and admittedly an intentional curveball) Majora's Mask, possibly my favorite Zelda, has probably the highest learning curve of the whole series, or is at least the hardest to get into.

I can't comment on Skyward Sword, which is apparently relentless in its linearity, but I'm looking forward to digging into it. I played about fifteen minutes before my free time entered the fantasy genre, and when I return to it someday I refuse to let this thread color my predisposition. If I dislike it, that will be a first, and thanks in advance for letting me blame you guys if that happens. :tup:

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If I dislike it, that will be a first, and thanks in advance for letting me blame you guys if that happens. :tup:

Well.

Also, allow me to join your enthusiasm for Majoras Mask. I used to be a bit of a Zelda fanboy in my youth, and while most of that has fallen away I still consider Majoras Mask one of my favorite games ever.

It's a pity that a lot of what it tried never caught on. But I suppose one reason I regard it so fondly is that it remains so unique (for a Zelda game at least).

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I used to say the same thing - there's not a Zelda game I've played that I didn't like! - until I played Skyward Sword.

Not that I'm saying I don't like Skyward Sword. I was enjoying it well enough while I was actually playing it. But once I stopped (because I had to focus on school for a couple weeks), I never felt any desire to go back. That was two months ago now. I know I'll get back to it eventually, and, in fact, this thread has kind of made me want to do it sooner than later, but it's not like I'm fighting some huge urge as I sit here and type about it rather than just play it. U:

It's mostly just that... For me, Nintendo being Nintendo is keeping a good game from being fantastic. Darksiders is a better Zelda game to me than most Zelda games, in no small part because the developers streamlined a lot of shit. Everything is quick and snappy in that game. Menus, dialogue, whatever. It still has its share of flaws, but I enjoyed it way more than I was enjoying Skyward Sword. (I won't go in to the actual gameplay mechanics, as I think that's irrelevant to the discussion (but I like how much more freedom of movement War has as compared to Link (just give me a fucking jump button already, Nintendo))).

It's even more frustrating when I look at a game like Super Mario Galaxy. It's from the same corporation, but it's got a completely different design philosophy. It's all about the fun. There's tutorial-ish levels in the beginning, but it's not holding your hand the whole time, and after a while, it's just like, "go to town, buddy!" Skyward Sword never reaches that point. At least not as far as I played (which is probably about 2/3 through the game). I think EAD Tokyo is perhaps the only studio within Nintendo that really gets how to make a good game from start to finish. Actually, Retro is pretty consistent, too, in my opinion, but they're a Western studio, which already means they're going to have different core philosophies from Nintendo proper.

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Udvarnoky mentioned the one thing I avoided like the plague in Wind Waker, my utmost favorite game in the series ever - the pictograph / statue figure collecting. Seriously, even I couldn't bring myself to do that. My brother did, though, to his credit. So I still got to see it all!

Also, I was able to drop the facade of liking "every" Zelda game probably earlier than most. Before reading the next line of text, imagine I'm reaching to my chin, pulling a rubber mask off my face and revealing my true dark nature. Got it? Okay.

I hate Majora's Mask, worst Zelda game ever.

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Majora's Mask is a naturally polarizing game because it's such a deviation, and it definitely betrays the "nonexistent barrier of entry" design maxim that the series otherwise adheres to pretty faithfully.

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Majora's Mask is a naturally polarizing game because it's such a deviation, and it definitely betrays the "nonexistent barrier of entry" design maxim that the series otherwise adheres to pretty faithfully.

Wow, not only is this the first time someone hasn't responded to me in vitriol upon seeing how I feel about that game, but you also nailed what made me dislike it. I feel better now.

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I hate Majora's Mask, worst Zelda game ever.

How is that possible when it's the best one?!

Life is so confusing sometimes.

I have to admit, the reasons why I like Majoras Mask have absolutely no resemblance to the reasons I like any other Zelda game. I like the multitude of relatively fleshed-out npcs, all the scheduled stuff happening in tandem, the uncharactaristic creepiness, etc. For me, Clock Town is the closest thing I've experienced to the oft-talked-about-on-Thumbs 1-city-block game that Warren Spector used to talk about in interviews. The actual Zelda parts of the game are run of the mill.

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Also, I was able to drop the facade of liking "every" Zelda game probably earlier than most.

That implies it's a facade!

I quite literally do like every single Zelda game that I have played. The ones I haven't played include: Zelda II, the Oracle games, and Spirit Tracks. I guess Skyward Sword counts as played, although since I intend to go back to it, and I had fun while playing it, I wouldn't say I dislike it. As I already explained so blah blah blah.

Also Majora's Mask is easily my favorite because it is Zelda with Whipped Cream and a Cherry on Top.

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I enjoyed the tone of this article if not the actual content... It's very much a 'beehive kicking' piece intended to stir up conversation and debate, and in that it has obviously been quite successful.

...bombing every tile is an archaic and terrible, but there's probably a better ways to handle it in modern era without visibly marking it.

Link to the Past and Link's awakening actually DID have this- Not every bombable spot was marked with cracks, (typically only the critical path ones that would prevent you from finishing the game if not found) and you could check for the more secret ones by holding your sword out and pushing it against the wall to hear a more hollow 'tunk' sound. This meant you still scoured for secrets, just a without expending ammunition, and I think that's a GREAT design compromise... Weirdly they left the 'sword check' mechanic in at least up to Majora's Mask, past the point where they stopped really trying to disguise bombable points. I don't recall trying it much in Twilight Princess, but Skyward Sword did away with the audio cue and it kind of messed me up on a dungeon with a fake wall that they tell you about- As a veteran I kept hitting it with my sword and thinking that I must have mis-seen the hand holding cutscene!

So funny thing about Majora's Mask... *this would be your cue to scroll past the wall of text like usual, heh*

It really is my favorite Zelda game now, in hindsight and with experience, but this was not always the case!

When I first got my hands on MM, I felt betrayed- I had acquired an N64 RAMspansion pack just to play this game, and not two hours in it had completely lost me. Not lost in the locational sense, mentally and emotionally lost. The plot dragged Link kicking and screaming from his natural setting and way of operating and plopped him down in a frankly creepy place that resembled a sort of warped mockery of Hyrule. The newness and relative lack of hand-holding was thrilling at first, but it wasn't long before I was feeling like I just wanted to be the hero in control of everything from the actions of townspeople to time itself again.

My normal method of completing these games was to go as SLOW as possible, noting EVERYTHING that looked like it could be accessed later with an item not yet in my possession in a handy notebook. I was so careful and methodical that I obtained every single thing in most Zelda games up to this point with no hints or guides of any kind. I don't know how I can stress enough how GLACIALLY PATIENT I was; I don't think that I had actually had my hearts depleted to 0 since A Link to The Past.

Majora pushed me out of my comfort zone. The clock was ticking, there was no time for hand drawn notes and maps. There was no time to explore every inch of Termina, because the world was going to end soon. The second time it forced me to witness defeat at the hands of a sadistic child and a nightmare-inducing moon, I was ready to quit; Never mind that the clock had been turned back, forget that something I obtained the last time around came with me, shit was NOT Zelda and I was done with it...

Well, that holographic gold cartridge sat there taunting me for some time. I didn't have anything else for the N64 at the time that I wanted to play, so it just stared at me while I played vapid snowboarding games on the PlayStation...

"What kind of Zelda player are you?" It seemed to intone.

So I got angry and purposeful about it. "I'll beat the crap out of this game if for no other reason than to legitimize my endless ranting about what a betrayal it is!" Hah!

Flash forward 10 hours in or so- I'm tracking villager patterns in my in-game notebook. I've forsaken the handwritten completionist notes because I just want to destroy it ASAP. I'm mastering the various forms of the creepy mask system. Most importantly, I've finally got a handle on the looping time system, and have been rewarded with some more of the control I was originally seeking... but not TOO much. I still need to plan my treasure hunts and dungeon runs around that infernal leering moon, fucking thing WATCHING my struggle to stop it, LAUGHING at how little fun I'm hav-

...Wait. Actually I WAS having fun. A different kind of fun borne of mastering new systems using a familiar springboard. This really surprised me at the time- I literally caught myself cursing the moon out loud and realized that this game had challenged me and sucked me in to a degree that no other game in the series had managed, (and none since). I no longer plod through Zelda games with slow, paranoid, completionist sweeps. I dive into them and take risks, seeing if I can eke that Majora feeling or challenge out of them. Sadly, they haven't been living up to the new ideal.

I actually had a decent time with Skyward Sword- Mastering the new motion mechaincs was a little like mastering a new way to manipulate time, but the feeling was fleeting and easy. I had some fun, but I doubt I'm going to remember SS fondly in 10 years...

Edited by Xeneth

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I similarly bought Majora's Mask when it came out, couldn't get into it, then returned to it some indeterminate time later more out of stubborness than anything and was blown away. It is definitely not a game that rewards without your putting some considerable time and patience into it upfront, but those rewards are huge. Majora's Mask is the kind of game a company can only get away with making after Ocarina of Time.

The funny thing about Majora's Mask is the way its Three Day conceit oddly restores some gradually lost Zelda staples. Because you lose all your rupees, arrows, bombs, and other replenishables when you restart the cycle, you actually have to go out and ammo up. The money situation is addressed with the bank system, but that's mostly for huge purchases or claiming the rewards you get for reaching certain account balances. When you want to make some purchase up to 100 rupees, it's preferable and easy enough to just go work for it rather than withdraw.

That means the game encourages you to go out into the overworld and slash enemies and bushes and stuff for rupees and items, just like you had to do in the old games. As good as Ocarina of Time is, it failed in this regard. While Hyrule was a satisfyingly huge overworld, it was bizarrely scarce, especially during the day. An unfortunate trend that started around Ocarina is an excessive generosity with rupees and items - when you need to buy something, it's rare that the game hasn't cleverly found a way to make sure you have the money for it. If you're about to access an area that requires bombs or arrows to proceed, the game makes sure that nearby chests contains them or nearby enemies will spit them out. And I get that, and it's good design, but there's something kind of ridiculous about the way shops that sell just regular items (hearts, arrows, bombs, seeds, etc.) are almost completely superfluous in Ocarina.

This isn't some lament about the repudiation of over-the-top grind - I don't think the series was ever guilty of that, except maybe when you're desperately trying to level up toward the end of Zelda II - but fighting enemies and abusing the environment to build up your stash is in my mind a fundamental part of Zelda, and it's been somewhat forsaken. It doesn't have to be some unbearable slog - you can get your wallet, quiver, and bomb bag filled up in a matter of minutes in Majora's Mask. Killing that thieving bird thing in the southern part of Termina gets you 200 rupees, and if you've got the Goron mask you can roll around the field and collect the fuck out of most anything you need in no time flat. And because the game presents this need, the overworld itself is teeming with creatures, in stark contrast with Ocarina. There are dodongos in this game's overworld, for Pete's sake. And restoring the original overworld music doesn't hurt either.

In Majora's Mask, the trading post actually has a purpose. When you've smacked the owl statue in front of the latest temple and are ready to embark on it, you travel back to Day 1, slow down time, quickly get some money, buy the necessary wares, then warp to the temple entrance, ready to rock. There's something kind of satisfying about that. I've always felt that Link being rich and well-supplied comes a bit too naturally nowadays.

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I started out most three day cycles by picking up 300 rupees from the three places in Clock Town that always had silver rupees in them.

I never needed that much money, it was just a routine I got into. It felt comfortable to have that much money on hand, but more importantly it felt comfortable to have a routine at the dawn of the first day.

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Udvarnoky YES, I am not alone!

Oh god the rupee systems! Thank you for reminding me of this-

How the hell have they been calculating drops, wallet size, and costs recently? When was the last time money meant much of anything in a Zelda game? I recall wanting for money in Majora's Mask at times, so good call there... Was your wallet almost always capped in A Link to the Past? I feel like it was NOT...

So, by far the worst abuser of rupees was Twilight Princess- I wasn't even hunting for goodies that hard, and distinctly recall being capped out AND having unsold golden insects to the tune of several thousand rupees, and I literally could NOT find anything in the world to spend them on.

I'm guessing they've been tuning such that the most casual guy ever can speedrun through without breaking anything incidental and still be able to afford the core stuff they'll need, but even my more recent carefree Zelda romps at least involve, you know, finding a way to each chest I sopt with my eyes... If they're not going to put in sinks like a bow that shoots rupee tipped arrows or something, wouldn't it make more sense for Link to just barter for everything he needs? We've got all these supportive NPCs now that pretty much accept him as a hero, just give him stuff for his deeds I guess?

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I actually did a fair bit of rupee hunting in Skyward Sword. I had a limited amount of time with the game (I was borrowing a Wii to play it) and I wanted to buy and upgrade as much stuff as I could... and to do that quickly I actually did have to go out of my way to collect rupees.

I have the feeling, though, that this would not have been the case if I were playing more leisurely. The fact that you can apparently hold up to 9900 rupees at once if you upgrade your wallet enough... yeah, you're probably expected to never really want for money.

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The economy in Zelda has always been completely fucked up and useless. Yuo need Rupees only for these big splash items, everything else you can buy is stupid and unnecessary (bombs and stuff, which you can find for free in bushes).

I'd be interested in an expanded items/armor system in Zelda. It's one of the things that might give it a little nudge in the right direction.

Disclaimer: I've always enjoyed Zelda, but feel that I'm pretty much done with the whole series for a while.

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I'd be interested in an expanded items/armor system in Zelda. It's one of the things that might give it a little nudge in the right direction.

Have you played Skyward Sword? It does that. Your items and shield can be upgraded at shops. Not necessary, but makes them more effective as you go. It's actually kind of sweet. This thread has got me to jump back into it. I'm about 9 hours in now, still very hand-hold-y, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

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Yeah, the upgrade system is one of the better things Skyward Sword brings to the table for sure. Nice hooks into treasure and bug hunting, and even though I never really wanted for rupees to purchase upgrades, the incentive to find 'another copy of that beetle' or whatever seemed like a step in the right direction.

Of course, from a pure menu and UI standpoint upgrading gear is always an eyerolling process.

I wish Nintendo UI designers would play a game released after 1998 some time... It's not like redundant UI even helps with new players or non-gamers, really. A 90 year old that's never heard of Zelda might balk at the 20th time you tell them that a monster claw is a treasure that can be used to upgrade your equipment, followed by an unskippable cutscene showing exactly which slot in your inventory UI you can find out how many you have while animating the number ticking up in case you forgot that having one and finding one more means you have TWO now!

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About half of the latest Progresscast (The Third One) is about this article, but also more generally the Zelda series.

Now that I've listened to it, I'd be interested in finding out if the Thumbs have played Majoras Mask and what they thought of it. Chris argued (and I'd probably agree) that Zelda has become too systemic and entrenched in it's own conventions, and that Zelda 2 is an interesting case in that it seems to branch off in a direction that the rest of the series ignored. Majoras Mask didn't do anything of the sort mechanically (controls and weapons are more or less identical to Ocarina of Time) but the structure of the world, story, and overall flow of the game were very un-Zelda. Nobody in the cast mentioned playing it so I'm guessing at least Chris didn't, but I'd be interested in hearing what they thought of it if they did.

I always imagined it as a game that the Thumbs would like, perhaps due to their love of The Last Express. But perhaps I just like to imagine that cool people like what I like.

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I don't think comparisons to Majora's Mask and Psychonauts would be completely off-base either. There are touching moments and some all around nice character stuff in Majora's Mask that's downright graphic adventure-y, and the list of action/adventures that achieve (or indeed, pursue) that kind of depth isn't ponderous.

Zelda 2 is an interesting case in that it seems to branch off in a direction that the rest of the series ignored.

It is not an entirely peerless phenomenon to observe a second installment take a series in a new direction (and not necessarily unsuccessfully), or is at least not a clone of the original, and then for installment #3 to reactively revert to the formula of the original, retroactively making installment #2 a black sheep. In movies I can think of the second Nightmare of Elm Street and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as apt comparisons. A Link to the Past and Last Crusade are fantastic, but it ain't Adventure of Link/Temple of Doom's fault for not being a rehash. In a world where only the first two Indiana Jones movies exist, Temple isn't breaking the formula for not having Indy looking for a Judeo-Christian artifact or not showing him at the college or not having Sallah and Marcus as sidekicks. There was no formula yet!

And you're right on about Majora's Mask being different in unique ways that have nothing to do with the presentation. When Majora's Mask was announced, it was ostensibly a cash grab, an endeavor to squeeze out one more N64 Zelda with the exact same engine and even some of the same assets (Termina being an "alternate world" is the excuse for re-using many of Ocarina's character models) before the console's life cycle came to end. And hey, maybe that's exactly what it was from a business standpoint. But the team handled it with such brilliance and originality that it doesn't matter.

Edited by Udvarnoky

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...But the team handled it with such brilliance and originality that it doesn't matter.

Hear hear!

I jumped back to this excellent thread as soon as I heard the direction the 'cast was taking... I too would love to hear more opinions on Majora as an outlier, even if they're largely negative. I find that important things tend to be polarizing, and MM In my experience is usually lauded or reviled by those that have experienced it.

I do wish that some of the handheld zeldas had been less like A Link to the Past and more like Adventure of Link. It would have been neat to see the side scrolling take evolve alongside the evolution of the top down stuff into 3D. Was anyone else randomly super inappropriately excited when Link's Awakening would flip to mock side scrolling when underground or swimming? It was totally lame and just involved floor sprites rendered on their sides with invisible walls preventing you from walking up or down unless there was a "ladder" background, but my kid brain was like "OMG it's like Zelda II right nao aaaaaah!"

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