A friend of mine came over when I decided to go through the original Legend of Zelda on the NES. I went through the first dungeon, making my adjustments back to the strict 4-dimensional ways of gaming, when the topic of A Link to the Past came up. The response? He had never played it. The only stories he could relate about Zelda were his Ocarina days.
A lot of people throw Ocarina in as one of the best games to ever grace a console, and they would be right, if it wasn't for the fact that it isn't even the best Zelda game. It's close, I'll give it that, but it comes out a clear second every time to a game without a 3rd dimension. A Link to the Past, in my eyes, was hands down better than Ocarina could ever hope to be. There's a few reasons why I believe that, but I'll just start out by saying that every standard in the Zelda series beyond the absolute basics began with this game and did it all right.
Later games, post-Ocarina, come off as a bit gimmicky. I know that the gimmicks began with LttP to begin with, but it never felt like you were being asked to do something stupid just to get through the story. As good of a game Wind Waker may be, the fact that you spend half of it sailing takes away from the core experience. That doesn't mean it's a bad mechanic, but it dilutes the purity of Zelda.
When the original first hit the NES, gamers were dropped into a world with a basic idea of what they were doing and a manual to go with it. I still vividly remember the little books that came with it. It took everything boring about the PC RPG and put it on a console with a controller, letting you manipulate everything and rely on skill and reflexes rather than aimless grinding. You earn your stripes in Zelda, having goals to pursue and tools necessary to make the adventure possible. The secrets in this game were many, and gamers were mostly left blind to figure out what to do, which made the satisfaction of beating the game monumental. It was a completely different experience from today's Zelda games, but it's understandable considering that a game like the original Zelda is a hard think to duplicate in today's gaming climate. Yet, the basics were there, and A Link to the Past hit the ground running to create the modern Zelda when it came out on the SNES.
Nintendo knew what made the original game classic, but it also had the task of creating a game that didn't just duplicate, but evolve the series out of blind adventuring. The Super Nintendo was, at the time, a beast of a machine, and to just copy the original Zelda would have been extremely bland and counter-productive. Hyrule became a lush world of bright colors in its "light" form and dreary, decrepit, and twisted in its "dark" form. NPC's roamed the land and a new form of interactivity with the world was invented that would become the Zelda norm.
To begin the game, Link wakes up and immediately starts his quest with an unseen cry for help. The first thing you do is storm a castle to rescue Zelda, with a simple dungeon serving as a tutorial or "warm-up" without actually being on. This idea is lost on later games, and although the complexity has risen since then, it's tough to beat that feeling of "getting on with it" rather than spending a half an hour talking to everyone and their mystical tree just to get your sword and shield. That, and speed is paramount in LttP. I appreciate the 3-D worlds given to us by Nintendo, but they tend to slow gameplay down at times. In Zelda, if you need to get somewhere, you haul ass across an action packed landscape to get to where you need to go, hardly ever needing to slow the pace down to introduce the new creatures you meet to the business end of your sword.
That doesn't mean that brains aren't a factor here, but you'll spend less time looking at an entire room top to bottom in an effort to craft solutions to problems and more time meeting your goals and getting some good loot out of it. The game has just as much equipment as any other Zelda game after it, but it is much less of a headache on the gamer to get them. This particular Hyrule is easy to learn by heart, and the in-game map it comes with it probably the easiest world map to use in any Zelda game ever.
As I mentioned before, the original Zelda left you blind through most of your quest, but the SNES version is very different. Because of the introduction of an in-game plot, you get more clues about where you need to go, giving you the simplest form of direction. Instead of Navi or Midna being at your side constantly to be your portable hint system, you are still left to determine the "how", but thankfully the "where" is pretty easy to figure out. Should you forget, there are places you can go to drop that reminder. Now, I realize that half of the Zelda formula is the dungeons with the other half being Hyrule itself, but this is the one game that really strikes that perfect balance between leaving you alone to figure things out and making it as painless as possible to do so. When people get stuck in a 3-D game, it's 10 times more difficult to figure out what you need to be doing to get past a certain point. With this game, you simply don't get that frustrated, as the answer is always right around the corner and easy to find.
By easy, of course, I mean quick and painless to find out. You still have to know what you're doing, and you certainly need brains and skill at all times. LttP is challenging, and is no walk in the park to figure out if you've never played it before. You need reflexes and effective use of your tools, but thankfully this is the best controlled Zelda game to ever exist. Yes, it's easier to perfect a 2-D system, but that doesn't mean that the game should receive less credit for achieving that. Gameplay ultimately makes or breaks a game, and that's probably why I consider this game to be the best.
It's not the longest game that Nintendo has produced for the series, but it is still huge, nonetheless. It offers up a very good challenge for gamers to this day, and even if you've played it before, it's hard to not come back to this game and have new kids of fun with it. When I played it again, I found myself sequence breaking everything I possibly could by sheer accident, and it added a welcome challenge. For those who never did play it, I urge you to give it a shot. The basics are all there; sound, graphics, and gameplay are excellent. It is the Zelda equivalent to Super Metroid in its perfection, and that's one of the highest praises anyone can give to a game. Lastly, if you're an Ocarina child, you're bound to love this game. It's much easier to pick up and enjoy while still retaining that Zelda-punch that the N64 provided. Don't expect anything archaic here. This game has stood up on its own for almost two decades now as a true classic, and don't expect it to go anywhere in the near future. This is THE Zelda game for now.
100%
Now, I am a devoted Zelda fan. Not to the point where I will gobble up anything Zelda related, but I love my Zelda. I admit that I wish some of this more recent stuff would just go away, as I think that I could not only do without the gimmicks, but also because I sort of liked the vagueness of Link as a hero. Growing up, Link was just a cool looking hero that was the exact opposite you could expect from a sword-swinger on a quest to save a princess. The greatest thing was that the plot-lines were so thin and so little history was given to Link that he sort of had this mystique about him. The Triforce was equally awesome, as only someone who played and loved the game would recognize it, and they would always love the reference. Now, it's everywhere. Link has partners, girls get Triforce tattoos all the time, and the games sort of take away the mystique a little bit. That's just my view, but don't think that I'm bashing the franchise. I'm not, and I know that I'm sort of nostalgic rather than realistic about those views.
That said, the series needs a kick in the balls.
For all of the reasons stated above, Zelda needs to return to its roots. This game, ideally, should start by dumping you into the game world immediately, no apologies. If there's a forced tutorial, then it cannot possibly take itself seriously. I don't even care if the game has an "attract mode" introduction to the story in full cut-scene splendor, but even then, the basics of what's going on will be fine. Besides, it's only going to be "This is Hyrule and Zelda's kidnapped.", so the cut-scene can't possibly be intrusive.
The game should look epic, like a good fantasy movie without the frills. I'm talking gritty 80's here. I don't care what it takes, but the next "true" Zelda game needs to make graphics a priority, because this game needs to have a bite to it. This game should have a threatening vibe without getting too creepy, more in tune with the NES games. NPC's can be in the game, provided that they don't look like cartoon versions of a douchebag like they have been lately. Impa should be in the game, and the old man should come back for fun with some moblins, too.
As far as sound goes, bring back some of the old tunes for authenticities sake. I'm tired of barely hearing the familiar fanfares of games past. While we're at it, a full orchestra is in order. No fake orchestra, no electronic synthesizers...only an orchestra will suffice. As far as sound effects go, I want that shooting sword back with its original sound effect.
In the end, this game would need to be fantastically grounded. I think that the series could benefit from some of its own nostalgia by trying to achieve the results found in pre-CG fantasy effects with movies as a style point. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the tangible nature of those films gave the sense that the fantasy was being lived rather than just existing as eye candy. In modern Zelda games, there's a whole lot of additions that make a "look at my game world" vibe come off a series that never needed to define its own make-up. The funny looking NPC's I run into seem pretentious, but a more realistic game could borrow some of that Jim Henson magic.
Just one game needs to happen that's a zero BS, sword-swinging, pure adventure without the frills and gimmicks. If every Zelda game after that has something to do with a different element, time travel, more masks, or even colors of the rainbow, I could care less and will even applaud them for it as long as they keep doing their series right. It's just that the purest of adventure and fantasy somehow got lost along the way. Drop the player into a gameworld with minimal narrative and let the fantasy do the rest. Don't explain anything. Don't help the player out minus minor cues about where to go. Don't litter the world with useless NPC's. Don't have tutorials. Don't let the player have a companion. Don't include cats. Don't get cute. Don't gimmick the game up with music and masks as a theme. Just get back to the basics for one game and give the gamers one hell of a ride for it.
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You said it, buddy. Kudos.
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