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End of an Era For Zelda
Twilight Princess will represent the end of an era for Zelda games, according to Shigeru Miyamoto.From the Eurogamer article: "'This will be, without a doubt, the last Zelda game as you know it in its present form,' Miyamoto is quoted as saying. He declined to reveal any more details as to how the series will be reborn, but did go on to assure fans that Twilight Princess will be absolutely aces: 'Our goal was to make the best Zelda game ever. The most rich, satisfying and [melancholic]. I worked on it personally, moreso than Wind Waker. I haven't invested as much into any game as I have this one,' Miyamoto said."
Zelda Baseball.
Zelda Konga.
Zelda Golf.
Zelda Party!
Zelda Soccer.
Zelda Tennis.
Zelda Kart.
Dr. Zelda.
. . .
No!!! I always had an odd affinity for Luigi. He just as skilled as Mario, but always gets shunted to the side. Like in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, it's kind of a joke that no one cares about Luigi. I'm gonna miss is little green overalls...
Miyamoto also revealed that Mario is getting a brand new sidekick, but kept firmly schtum on the details.
Now that Link is collecting welfare checks..
Zelda and Link will die.
It's the beginning of the Legend of Ganon.
Rather than just making a crap spinoff of such a great series, they should retire it with dignity.
In other news, DC Comics has decided to kill Superman. In a grand move by DC, they will a world faced with real loss and grief as their greatest hero falls.
"This isn't a ploy." He will be dead and buried, never to return. Superman has been with DC comics for decades, and his death will be a major turning point.
**Skip a month or 2 later**
Superman is back! Which one is he? Cyborg, young clone, black guy in a power suit, or energy-throwing guy with big glasses?
**Skip another month or 2 later **
FACE! The real superman has revealed himself. He never died, but was in stasis! Now he's fighting against the Cyborg to save the Earth.
I don't doubt that in a few years time we'll see another real Zelda game.
However, I don't think we'd outright see any games like that ever, even if there is a Mario Kart and Mario Golf. Instead I think there are a few different angles that Nintendo might be thinking of taking.
First up is the traditional RPG. Nintendo really hasn't had many of these on their console in the last few generations. The GameCube was an improvement over the N64, but considering the massive amounts of RPGs on the SNES and other current generation consoles like the PS2, Nintendo has fallen quite short of the mark in providing a plethora of worthwhile RPGs.
The Legend of Zelda universe would translate pretty well into an RPG. Turn based battles could be considered a real drag after the live action we're used to, but there are always the real time battles as found in the Star Ocean series and Tales of Symphonia. If anyone could make those feel perfect, I think it is Nintendo.
Another possibility is that the series really isn't undergoing a radical gameplay change or redesign but is instead changing other things around. The themes and characters may become more mature and feature voice acting that the other games in the series have lacked. I'm sure there are a lot of gamers out there who would appreciate a more mature based Legend of Zelda game with all the elements that other modern games have in them.
This could be conceived as radical and revolutionary because it's a complete departure from the "kiddy" style that Nintendo is often tagged with. Maybe it's just me but I don't think the main Zelda demographic is young children anymore. I think the game mechanics make it a little too complicated for anyone that young. The top down games of the past were pretty easy, but the 3D worlds of today require slightly more mastery.
Then again this could be a lot of talk to get the community stirred up about Nintendo and Zelda. Drop a line that a game a lot of people have grown up with and loved and the masses will go ballistic. This does seem a lot like a Nintendo PR grab. They tend to come out and talk about how they're going to revolutionize something or how radically different something is going to be instead of tossing out numbers on their console or how it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
There're a lot of other possibilities, but my money is that the games will take on a much more mature (or at least a lot less childish) nature, transition into more of an RPG, or that this is just a PR media attention grab from Nintendo while they work out the details of what they're going to do later.
He was really proud and happy about Wind Waker, and you people just couldn't take the style. "Oh, it's too kiddy". "Oh, Celda?". And Miyamoto says "FINE, I will make a realistic zelda, I will make the best Realistic Zelda ever, it will be an epic masterpiece of monumental stature and it will rock, and then I'M NEVER MAKING ANOTHER ONE YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARDS". Except all that's in Japanese, but you get the idea.
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I'm wondering if the big change he is referring to is an MMORPG version of Zelda. Let me be the first to say KICKASS, and I will probably live in there if they make it.
Somone already did something like this. Back around 1998, some guy made a multiplayer online version of Legend of Zelda-a Link to the Past by reusing all the SNES game sprites and tiles. It was pretty cool. After a while, Nintendo caught on and sent them a cease-and-desist, and they changed the name to GRAAL, and slowly changed all the graphics. I guess that people still play Graal to this day. It was a good idea. I hope Nintendo does this.
You guys are pathetic. I bet most of you read the title and assumed you knew what the article meant. He means Zelda is changing in the same way it changed between A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, and Mario is changing in same way it did between Super Mario World and Super Mario 64. As new features become available, games can take advantage of new gameplay possibilites not available before. The best example of this was the transition between 2D and 3D. Miyamoto is suggesting the Revolution is opening new doors to expand both the Mario and Zelda series. You guys should actually think about what you're saying.
No offense, but has it occurred to you that you might be just a bit too excitable about Zelda?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
At the end of this game, they're going to reveal that Zelda's really just a disguised hedgehog. Then he'll go on to battle Sonic in later games, at least until they both band together to defeat Master Chief and Crash Bandicoot in a cart race.
Link.
No, I belive that honor goes to Water Closet. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, lucky you.
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He didn't create all of those.
Metroid was Gunpei Yoko, and Earthbound was Shigesato Itoi. But hey, easy mistake. All Japanese people look the same.
I'm going to present a few speculative ideas as to where the series could go after Twilight Princess, but before that, here are the main Zelda games to date, sorted by type and numbered according to release order:
The Legend of Zelda (#1)
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (#2)
A Link to the Past (#3)
Link's Awakening (#4)
Oracle of Ages (#6A)
Oracle of Seasons (#6B)
Ocarina of Time (#5)
Majora's Mask (#7)
Wind Waker (#8)
Twilight Princess (forthcoming)
I don't count Four Swords Adventures in here (which would be #9) as it was more of a multiplayer action game with levels with a Zelda theme than a "real" Zelda.
Notice, the later eight games don't actually have that much in common with the first two. The three primary developments in the series were, undoubtably, the original NES Zelda, Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time.
But it's kind of amazing, really, how much the series changed between the original NES game (#1) and LttP (#3). In contrast, the differences between LttP and Ocarina had less to do with gameplay and more to do with control and perspective. Those eight games are what Zelda has come to mean to players: a primary exploration gimmick, sequential dungeons with bosses that usually require the dungeon item to beat and caught up a Heart Container and a McGuffin when defeated, the hunt for hidden Pieces of Heart and minor McGuffins, get-this-to-go-there Metroid-style game progression, and a fairly leisurely game world when it comes to monsters and difficulty.
It's easy to forget, however, that much was changed between The Legend of Zelda to Link to the Past, things that cannot be explained away just by moving to the SNES, or the intervening (and even more different) Zelda II.
The biggest of these are:
1. The game was actually hard. The first Zelda is a good workout, and it gets much tougher (some may say too hard) in the Second Quest. Pieces of Heart are almost meaningless in later Zeldas; I eventually completed all of Ocarina of Time quite easily with only the three hearts I began with, and only had trouble during the fight with Ganon (and Nayru's Love took the edge entirely off of that). But in the original Zelda, the first thing you do is get *all* the Hearts you can easily get before even stepping foot into Level One.
A new Zelda could mark a return to the difficulty the series began with, and was also seen in Zelda II and Link's Awakening. (One problem with that, however, is that the current head of the Zelda series has said he doesn't like the original game's difficulty.)
2. The original Zelda had meaningful choices, something not seen a lot of in adventure games these days. Not that anyone really chose the Red Potion over the Heart Container, of course, or ever picked to lose a HC instead of 50 rupees if they could afford it in one of the Second Quest's infamous Money-Or-Life rooms. But the point is, that adventure games with meaningful failure states are quite rare.
My own personal favorite idea for how this could be made done (something I spent a fair bit of time playing around in Zelda Classic trying to figure out) is a system where each dungeon has *two*, mutually-exclusive, items, which allow the player to reach different areas in each game depending on the choices he's made.
3. As said before, starting with Link to the Past, the design began to resemble Metroid in progression. You get an item (usually in Level One) that lets you reach Level Two, the item in Level Two lets you reach Level Three, and so on. There are places where this skips, but most of the items work like this.
In the original game, however, you could explore, if I count right, 126 of the game's 128 overworld screens before going into even the first dungeon. And there's something to be said for this degree of player freedom, even if it's unfashionable in the game industry these days. The thing I loved best about the original game, that's never been duplicated in any of the later installments in the
Boy, I steered clear of Wind Waker because of all the bad things I heard about it. However, I hit a bit of a slow period and a friend of mine loaned it to me. I really regret my decision to pass it up. It's seriously one of the best games I've ever played.
In fact, I think if it hadn't been a Zelda game, the industry would be raving about its innovative gameplay and terrific graphics. Unfortunately it seems like the community really wanted OoT on steroids. Well, that's what it's getting with Twilight Princess. I'm sorry to read that Miyamoto wasn't happy with WW, but I certainly got a lot of fun out of it.
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Who considers Ocarina to be one of the worst games of all time?
Me. It ruined Zelda. The effect was twofold:
First, it gave Zelda this fancy 3D crap that wowed everyone for a minute or two. That part, I can forgive. I was wowed along with everyone else. That said, the controls sucked large portions of ass, and that's mostly why I hated the change. Console Controllers Aren't Made For 3D Games(tm).
Second, it brought n00bs into the fanbase. Not just regular newbs that can be taught to be decent people, but n00b fanboys that love their Playstations and don't subscribe to the One True Nintendo Way. Even that I could forgive if it wasn't for the other half of this n00b problem: they're usually ungrateful and arrogant, and outspokenly so. They refuse to play the older Zelda games because "they're old and crusty and who cares?" and they firmly and stubbornly believe that "3D is better than 2D because it has more D's!!111one!!!2twoone!" It's a childish and contemptible mindset that leaves anyone who enjoys the older games with the taste of vomit in their mouth. The types of n00bs I'm speaking of here are the ones that griped about Wind Waker's graphics and used non-words like "Celda" and didn't punctuate their "sentences" properly. I honestly hope Nintendo goes back to 2D Zeldas just to piss these assholes off and to chase them back to their stupid Playstations.
I'd love to be the first one to say: NO "D" FOR YOU!