Topic: Zelda General Discussion

Favorite: Majora's Mask. The ironically colorful atmosphere and the deceptively simple story made this game worth playing every time. I do hope I can play it on the go

Least favorite: Phantom Hourglass. I really found this game very underwhelming and I consider its controls worse than Skyward Sword's

Alright so let's get a list going of the running totals. It's surprisingly divisive, which I guess is a compliment for the series.

Favourite Zelda game:
2 votes: Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Majora's Mask
1 vote: ALTTP, OoT, Wind Waker

Least favourite Zelda game:
2 votes: Spirit Tracks, Phantom Hourglass
1 vote: Skyward Sword, Link's Awakening, Zelda II, Oracle of Ages, Twilight Princess

Okay, I'll chip in.
Favourite Zelda game: Twilight Princess – This was the first Zelda game I truly and properly played. Sure, I'd mangled with the collector's edition disk on Gamecube and played through PH on DS; but Twilight Princess was the one that hooked me on the series. It seemed epic: the music, the settings, the story: everything was so grand. I blasted through it in little over a week and I, too, was blown away in the blast. The grandness and sense of adventure was quite unlike anything I had played to that point.
It lost a bit of that shine on the second playthrough but remains as my #1 TLoZ game.

Least favourite: This is a hard one. I suppose it would be one of the early games, although I'm not sure that would be fair, since I haven't finished a single one that was released before OoT. Hmh... okay let's choose Zelda 2. It didn't evolve the series enough and was kinda hard to approach.

So I've been thinking, and I kind of realized that, from a certain perspective, Pandora's Tower is Skyward Sword done right. At the very least, it uses a lot of similar ideas, but incorporates them much better.

-Both have combat systems built around motion control
-Both revisit dungeon themings twice in the game
-Both have a very limited overworld, instead transporting you straight to dungeon-like areas
-Both require backtracking
-Both revolve around your relationship with a certain character you must save
-Both have spoils systems used for upgrades

I think the main difference though is that PT actually builds it's entire gameplay around these ideas, while Skyward Sword tries to impose them upon the pre-established Zelda formula. A challenging spoils/crafting system, retreading areas/dungeons, a relationship system aren't really part of Zelda's style.

What do you think of this? Maybe it's time to start breaking away from the Zelda formula if they want to include these different ideas.

I'm not all the way through Skyward Sword yet, but so far I've been fairly happy with the spoils system.

It's not necessarily a bad system persay, just poorly balanced into the mechanics of the game. Only a handful of upgrades are actually worthwhile given the game's low difficulty, and you generally get enough spoils later in the game such that it's no longer a challenge later on.

PT's one of greatest challenges is that you are extremely strapped for cash and resources through the entire game, but outside of Leveling up, crafting is the only way to improve your strength. As a result it turns out to be really well balanced into the gameplay.

I have a question if anyone can help me. I'm working through 100 percenting all the Zeldas in order, and I'm about to start Ocarina of Time. It has been awhile since I've played it, but I know there is some item you get that rumbles when you get near secrets. My problem is that the only ways I have to play the game are the 2 collector's discs on Gamecube with a Wavebird, which I'm pretty sure doesn't rumble. Is there any way for me to find these items without having to resort to cheating and looking up online where they are? And is there anything that I would need like heart pieces, or is it only rupees anyways so I don't need to worry about it?

Well, IIRC, No. I don't think there's any other way that these places become known without the Rumble.
You can go around bombing, or Megaton smashing every inch of the map, but otherwise you won't know about them.

Aa for rewards, I haven't been on OoT recently, but I think it's only really rupees that you get (I.e. no heart pieces).

Ok, I looked it up. If you want to know the answer as to whether or not any are 'hidden' heart pieces, press:

IKR?
The only time the controls were off, was when I equipped an item whilst aiming at the floor/roof etc. I.e. something I caused.

It bugs me when people say that about a lot of Wii games. Yeah, SS's controls worked pretty well from the software perspective. People just need to realize that the Wii Remote/Wii Motion+ was cheap technology. It's not super robust, and can be really sensitive to the conditions you are in. If your house is on a hill, and you are playing in heavy light, you may see different results than if you are playing on a flat area in the dark with one of the controllers with motion + built in.

But for the record I'm not a fan of SS's combat either. The swordplay itself was fine until you started fighting enemies, when it was much less an action combat system, and much more a rapid-fire jigsaw puzzle system. Combat should involve a lot of timing and dodging, but SS uses very little of that. It's almost entirely about directionality, and that's my main problem with it.

I love his mocking tone when he introduces each point. XD

I can hardly wait for the Zelda takes on Dynasty Warriors game. My desires...

My Favorite Zelda game is by far Twilight Princess. It wasn't my first game in the series as I had played alot of the gameboy entries and my first console Zelda was the collection disk that came with my gamecube. However Twilight Princess came out around the time I was heavy into being a mostly nintendo gamer reading Nintendo Power every month, and spending alot of my internet time on the Nsider forums. The game hit all the rights notes for me and ws sort of what I wanted from a Zelda game which was something more in the vein of Fable and Morriwind that I had played on the xbox recently and had a much more epic feel to it. The music and Visuals told the story and moreso than any other Zelda game since the first had I felt like Link was just some guy who fell into saving the kingdom. Plus I liked how even though the kingdom had been taken over it was post apocalyptic and life sort of kept going for the common person despite it sucking.

Look how awesome the promo art for this game was.

The closet thing I have too a least favorite is Zelda 2 which I find to be hot garbage most of the time. I'm hoping the next Zelda is a cross between Twilight Princess, Link's Awakening, and ALBW in terms of style, story , and gameplay.

"Hot garbage..." That made me chuckle. Although, I also dislike Link 2, I understand that it was a milestone for the better games. So I am obligated to respect it.

It came with the issue of Twilight princess was first shown in.

Man this takes me back, Twilight Princess was my game of the year and I owned or played all the games mentioned on the cover.

I love TP's Wii controls. Simple, but they get the job done immersing you into the game.

I feel like SS has a very different combat system from TP, so switching between the two isn't that big an issue. TP's combat is much more action oriented, while SS's is mostly directionally oriented.

I just hope the next Zelda has a motion option. I tried playing WW after mostly going between TP and SS, and I almost fell asleep with the button combat. That's not to say buttons are always bad, but in a game with combat as simplistic as Zelda's, they aren't very engaging.

I remembered that I had the original Legend of Zelda on 3DS Virtual Console that I got for free from Club Nintendo, so I am playing it today! ...I would be hopeless without a map of some sort though, so with the help of modern technology I am taking it on with this map here as my guide:

...otherwise I wouldn't have made it past the first dungeon! D: ...and this will be all I use; I won't use any walkthroughs or anything. It's as close as I can get to having a map screen for this game! ^.^;

Fun tidbit, but when I was little I played the first Legend of Zelda so much that the overworld is pretty much engraved in my brain, even to this day.

@Dreamz ah, so you have the map screen just in your head! xD
But really, I'd have no idea what I was doing without a map, so I am very thankful... o.o ...but the dungeons are really fun, and I would never use a map or anything for those.