Legend Of Zelda - Evolution Of A Franchise

Thanks to Nintendo Power for its transcript of "Zelda guru" Eiji Aonuma's speech at last month's GDC conference. Aonuma, who's "been doing work related to a game known as Zelda... for roughly eight years", from the N64 through the current GameCube iterations, discusses his pre-Zelda influences ("What kinds of games did suit me? Those would be Text-Based Adventures"), the "three-day system" in N64 title Majora's Mask ("[done] to make the game data more compact while still providing deep gameplay"), and the essence of the series ("Zelda is a game that values REALITY over realism.")

Comments

Re:Zelda is the best game of all time!

[Mr.Dippy]

I still to this day haven't beaten one Zelda game but I do agree that all of them encompass what a great game should be. Yes, I know, my skills are lame. I remember playing Zelda for the SNES and for the first time being engrossed into a video game plot/story. If Nintendo was smart they would bundle the new Zelda with the Game Cube. I'm sure a lot of people would by the System.

Re:Zelda is the best game of all time!

[mr_jrt]

Not to mention The Adveneture of Link. Thats one damn hard game. Even gettign to the last palace from where you start is a mini quest in itself thanks to the lava plains and caves. ...and once you're there...unless yo u knwo the trick the grand palace IS, not in actuality, but in perception due to the brilliant design.

One day I might even be bothered to dust off my NES and visit the bird knights and giant bobs again :)

Re:Zelda is the best game of all time!

[Dot.Com.CEO]

I have been playing games for about twentyfive years. I have played thousands of games on many platforms. Most of them I don't even remember, some of them I played a lot, and a few I have finished. Having that in mind, finishing Ocarina of Time was the most memorable experience I've ever had playing a game. Actually, I only remember playing that game on my N64 (I somehow missed Goldeneye and I only remember frustrating attempts to jump on a snow stage on Mario 64)...

One of those days I'll boot up Ocarina on Time on my Gamecube and I'll go through the experience again...

Re:Zelda is the best game of all time!

[CodeMonkey4Hire]

I think that one of the successes of the Zelda dynasty is that you can kind of identify with the characters and say, "I would like to have this adventure." How many people ever wanted to be a fat plumber battling mushrooms and turtles (by jumping on them no less)? Give me a sword.

Zelda seems to have the same staying power as Final Fantasy, except they appeal to different types of fans (with significant overlap mind you). The FF fans are probably the ones that are more likely to play PnP and they probably immerse themselves in many other CRPGs. The Zelda fans (from the NES days) are probably the ones who preferred games like Contra, TMNT, XMen, etc. but were actually interested in a more involving plot mixed in with their action.

Now that I've said all that, I realize how much some people are going to disagree with what distinguishes Zelda from other games. Personally, I liked the fact that even though you had to go through a certain list of tasks, you could, to a degree, do them out-of-order, and sometimes this made the game a lot more interesting. (It can be especially tricky/frustrating in games where you have to go back and search a low-level dungeon because you couldn't get to a certain room before.)

Brilliant

[Funk_dat69]

I thought it was great how he described that he liked text quests the best - so that you can interact and affect the story, then realized that the same feeling can be infused into an action game.

I think that elusive little attention to detail is one of the reasons Zelda is so great. You can cut down a bush or throw a rock and feel like thats actually part of the story. Traveling in that boat in that last game( even though it admitily got a little too time consuming) actually felt like a significant journey. A story in itself.

Brilliant.

N64

[bckrispi]

"been doing work related to a game known as Zelda... for roughly eight years", from the N64 through the current GameCube iterations.

Wow!! Does anyone else feel old when they read this?? It hadn't hit me that N64 was released almost 8 years ago. My experience with Zelda is limited to the Original (1987?) and Adventure of Link (1989). I'd solved both numerous times and kept coming back to them. Even after knowing all the secrets, the replay value was still there. To this day, I can still hear the theme music playing...

Re:N64

[roesti]

Try playing through the games in chronological order of when they were released. You'll be able to see then how the series has evolved.

To this end, I can wholeheartedly recommend buying a Game Boy Advance - for A Link To The Past, Link's Awakening DX (hard to find, but definitely worth it), and two parallel Oracle games. Similarly, if you get a Gamecube, hunt down the TLOZ Collector's Edition, which has Ocarina Of Time and Majora's Mask, as well as the two NES games.

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, but the classic Zelda gameplay spans generations. I still can't think of anything better in video games than playing a Legend Of Zelda game, and I don't care which one.