Topic: Which Zelda game has the best (x)?

Well there's still resolution restrictions and bit-depth on colour and sound. That's hardware.

@Dezzy Yeah, but my phone can run SNES games, and it's clearly smaller than the NES. So the NES can do the same if Nintendo put enough effort into it

@Haru17 Zelda is the only thing keeping Hyrule from utter annihilation for over 100 years. She also engineered things so that Link would be able to return and defeat Ganon. That is NOT an "infantilized" or "damseled" character. While she doesn't really play an active role in the story, she does passively play a huge role.

Moreover, she's a far more interesting and developed character here than in most previous games. This is one of the few times Zelda has felt less like an archetype and more like a person: brave, but flawed, and struggling to live up to the enormous task she was destined to carry out.

It's like we didn't even play the same game.

Link is pretty much the only character that plays an active role in BotW. So I dunno in what sense you can say Zelda is a damsel in distress. Pretty much every character is. Besides the few characters of the other races who help you board to divine beasts. That's about it.

Sounds a bit like when I was young and I was convinced the price of things was a measure of how heavy they are.

I also thought when I was a kid that 32-bit or 64-bit meant that a computer was made up of 32 or 64 different parts.

@Ralizah Wii U Zelda's character arc is her not being able to do something, finally being able to do something when she realizes she loves Link but not enough of a thing to do the thing she actually wanted to do, getting captured by Ganon because, waiting for Link to do something, waiting, waiting, waiting, Link not her doing something, Zelda defeating Ganon after Link already defeated Ganon so really just Link defeated Ganon.

It doesn't feel like we played different games, it feels like this is the first Zelda game you've ever played and you have to make all these increasingly far-fetched excuses for it for whatever reason.

That doesn't make it okay, that makes it Xenoblade, that makes it an MMO.

What on earth are you saying? Those 2 terms have literally nothing to do with my comment

@Haru17 Not sure how Zelda trapping Ganon in the castle is the equivalent of getting "kidnapped by Ganon."

The plot is fine. It's a neat twist on the same basic story that has been rehashed over and over through the years. Zelda is an actual person who has an interesting character arc, unlike in most games in this series. If you don't agree, then that's fine, that's opinion, but if you see sexism in Zelda's portrayal in this game, it's because you primed yourself to see sexism where it doesn't exist. Nothing more.

And no, BotW isn't an MMO. At all. In any way, shape, or form. It's like you hate the game so much that you can't even think or talk clearly about it, and instead lob increasingly insane jabs at it.

Everyone really needs to get together and decide what terms we're using to distinguish between 1) the actual set of events that compose a game's story and 2) how those events are conveyed to the player.

I've been using 1) "plot" 2) "storytelling".

Breath of the Wild has a great plot but so little storytelling that I feel like it made a limited impact.
By comparison, I'd say Twilight Princess has a pretty boring plot but is told quite well.

@Ralizah He literally ate her.

MMOs are lousy with rhetoric like 'only YOU can do this / save the world' that try to emphasize the individual player's specialness (because they want them to keep paying month on month). This applies to singleplayer MMOs that aren't online only or subscription based like Xenoblade too, where Shulk is the only character that actually gets to do anything in the plot. I made a metaphor to Breath of the Wild because it follows the same braindead narrative conventions even though it is not literally a MMO or a singleplayer MMO. Just listen to the Destiny 2 expansion trailer and you'll hear what I mean.

@subpopz No one should actually try playing an MMO, but I played WoW for like 4 years for what it's worth.

On having a poor understanding of things though, you should probably realize that genres are not defined by what the words actually mean but by how the influential works within them choose to implement them.

MMO means massively multiplayer online, but what MMO actually means is an online game that uses auto attacking, 'action bars,' fetch quests, and "YOU are special." If it didn't people would refer to Destiny as an MMO, which it technically is but people think of it differently because it's actually fun to play in part.

And no, Zelda stories aren't all as bad as Breath of the Wild and Shulk Chronicles. In Twilight Princess Midna actually does things unlike Princess Zelda and is an actor in the plot, in Majora's Mask people have lives that go on regardless of whether Link is there or not, and in The Wind Waker Tetra and the King have their own agendas and act on them alone and by helping the player. There's a difference between 'other characters do literally nothing' and 'it's a game with one playable character who does all the gameplay.' You'll find it if you look for it.

@Dezzy That's definitely a fair criticism. I personally thought the non-linear flashback delivery method for the back story fit well with the game's structure and tone in general, but I could see it disappointing someone who wanted a big, well-paced and linear narrative like one usually gets with Zelda games. And while I appreciated the way the story was structured here, I wouldn't necessarily want to see it become the series standard.

@subpopz You're the one hurling insults at me here and making this thread about individuals, not games. And it's great you think I'm a hypocrite and all, but I do not remember the exchange you're talking about. Link it if you care to hear what I have to say. Or you could just keep up with the insults thing.

I don't see what's so out there about my point about genres. What people make in that genre define a genre. What is, is. It's a pretty broad and flexible point.

And again, because there seems to be confusion, I have not called Zelda Wii U an MMO in sincerity. I even think it's a good game, just not a good Zelda game.

I don't mind the style of storytelling they went with. There just needed to be a lot more of it. The memories were too short and at least half were meaningless fluff.
As I suggested in the main Zelda thread, they should've had much longer memories and then tied them into the shrine completion so that every 10 shrines you do, another big memory is unlocked somewhere on the map. That would've made more story and also meant there was more reward for completionists.

@Dezzy I don't think making memories longer would have been a good idea. As they are, memories were rewarding little tidbits that helped you understand certain characters and their relationships. Turning them into long cutscenes would have made them a bit of a nuisance to collect.

I also don't see the point in tying memory availability to how many shrines you've completed. Shrines are already rewarding to finish.

Considering it's not a narrative-driven game, I think the amount of plot material was sufficient.

@Haru17 So a bit unrelated to what's being discussed here, but I absolutely love Twilight Princess now that I'm 15 hours in (at the very beginning of Arbiter's Grounds). I love the OoT and MM references, love the epic scope of the game, love the epic boss fights, love the intervening overworld sequences like defending the carriage, love the humor sprinkled here and there, love the cast of characters, and love Midna as a character. Speaking of which, the section in which Midna's Lament plays is now one of my favorite Zelda moments ever. It's such a powerful sequence. It would have been perfect if the generic enemy music did not interrupt Midna's Lament, but I ran so fast past each enemy that it barely affected my experience anyway.

One thing that did make me laugh a bit was finding Rusl at Telma's Bar. The same guy who looks for his son, gets badly injured, goes looking for the children again ... is now just chilling at a bar in Castle Town? Not to mention he sounded like he had never been to Castle Town earlier in the game. It just seems a bit out of character for Rusl. But other than that I love the characters, I think they must be the second best supporting cast of characters in any Zelda game (behind MM).

@shadow-wolf That's great, which dungeon are you on now? Upon replays I really dug how Link just crumbles to his knees after the vision about the interlopers, like the 'light' spirit's power was so incomprehensible that it just overloaded his mind. Very LotR-like.

I really like the supporting cast too. The annoying kids that Link plays big brother to, the prince and his mother, Telma's cat XD. They're really important because without them, without little old Ordon, the epic adventure has no scale, no contrast is drawn that puts it in perspective.

I like that the game cares enough about its NPCs that you have to go back and tell Ordon that the children are safe in Kakariko. Because that's what Link would do, that's what any human would do. It is a little weird though that Link doesn't take the kids back to Ordon like he took Ralis to Kakariko in the carriage. I guess Malo wouldn't have been able to run Malo Mart if she went back home? I don't know, but I don't really feel strongly about the Resistance either way. Ashei's design is so cool though. The detail in the interiors which carries over to assets like NPC clothing is one of my favorite things about Twilight Princess.

@Haru17 I'm at the very beginning of Arbiter's Grounds.

Speaking of the prince, I'm surprised that plot point was left dangling. I was so caught up in saving Midna and getting the Master Sword and reaching the desert that I forgot to check on Ralis and see if his condition improved and if Zora's Domain gets him as a king, or if he remains in Kakariko for the duration of the game. I'm surprised the plot didn't include that in the same way saving Colin or getting Ilia and Ralis to Kakariko or even letting the parents in Ordon know their kids were safe were integrated into the plot. I also agree about it's unfortunate you don't see the kids back in Kakariko but oh well.

You're right about Ordon. It really gives weight to this game's plot when you see not just Link but his fellow villagers thrust into the huge world outside of their little village and being disoriented by the scope of the world and its activities.

Also, I see what you mean about Ganondorf not being shoehorned in. In the Zant scene after the Lakebed Temple he mentions the magic he obtained from his "god" as more powerful than Twili magic. And explicitly mentions he serves a higher-up. It makes sense how Ganondorf with his Triforce of Power was able to give Zant the power to rule the Twili.