@damien33ad Interestingly enough, Miyazaki (Dark souls, not Ghibli) has stated that Link To The Past was for him a rulebook about action RPGs when he was young (and I think that amongst the 2D zeldas is the one aged better).
When i say that dark souls was the best Zelda i played in a while i meant in terms of enjoying to explore its world as a fantasy action RPG. You could say DS entire map is the biggest most well crafted dungeon ever. The best metroidvaniesque map ever imo.
And despite being brutal in its exp and combat system (that's where its linearity lies), it's pretty open about where you could go first when you start the game.
Of course it's very Dark, and it took me 20 hours before i became invested in the lore.
But in terms of defining a generation a action RPGs you can totally say Dark Souls (or Demon souls for that matter) is the legend of Zelda of 2010s.
And this comes from someone who's favourite Zelda from series still is Wind Waker.
@damien33ad So, just as a warning: you seem to like stories in your games, and Dark Souls is about as plotless as modern games get. To the point where BotW, with its minimalistic approach to storytelling and character development, still looks positively story-driven by comparison.
Souls games (including Bloodborne, although I haven't played Sekiro, so I can't speak for it) are largely plotless romps where you do almost nothing but run around killing enemies and stumble from area to area to progress the game, and the very few non-hostile NPCs you encounter will deliver very brief and cryptic snippets of dialogue.
Imagine most of your complaints about BotW (bad dungeons, no story, no interesting characters, sparse music, etc.) and then multiply all of those factors by ten.
Sekiro does have a story, @Ralizah .... A pretty basic one, if you were comparing it to something like Witcher 3 but there is some plot, characterization, etc! I generally like story driven games but for a break from those, I play other stuff that's more about the action
I liked wind waker alot but the boating sections and treasure hunting really put a damper on the whole experience for me. Loved everything else about the game though
@1UP_MARIO at one point i was kind of obsessed with it, from its details, like link's feet programmed to follow slopes and inclinations to give weight and presence to the character, to its art direction, and i found out that actually what we in the west considered divisive at the time, being its graphics, had beloved roots in japan.
Wind Waker is heavily inspired by important animes from the sixties, such as The Little Prince And The Eight-Headed Dragon and Gulliver's Travels Beyond The Moon. At the time disney was making films such as The Jungle Book or 101 Dalmations. Imagine if some west studio made an action RPG with an art direction inspired by that classic disney period, i don't think we would find it divisive. But i think ultimately wind waker was considered divisive because of that famous trailer from intendo space world 2000 (you can find it on youtube), where nintendo used a pumped up ocarina fight between link and ganondorf to tech demo the gamecube, so naturally being Ocarina so well received, everyone was expecting that as the next game. Actually it was a similar situation to that 2011 E3 demo of zelda on WiiU if you remember. It was just done to tech demo the console, but everyone thought we could expect that as the next game. And then after two HD remasters we got Breath of The Wild.
@NintendoByNature Yeah, I hated the sailing bits, it's really cool for a few mins but then just becomes so dull. Luckily the Wii U version cleaned up some of those issues but they are still there.
It seems odd some people are complaining about an empty world and repetitive tasks in BOTW and then hold up Wind Waker.
@Ralizah LMAO you're right. maybe that's the reason i don't find botw's story that huge of a deal. Dark Souls is not so much story driven as is Lore driven, kinda like BOTW.
@jump yea i 2nd all that. Dont get me wrong i really loved the art style, the dungeons, the npcs, the story etc. But The tricforce hunting when you felt like you were so close to the end, it was just like, jeez. I looked it at up at that point. I really didn't feel hunting it down normally.
I love everything about Botw personally. I never felt like anything was wasted, time wise, in that game.
Edit: having said all that about WW id buy day 1 on switch even though I have it on cube and wii u
@NintendoByNature I felt the same way. I feel the triforce shards was the only thing I disliked about the game. @jump the sailing was bad but the Wii u fixed everything. I can’t go back to playing the gamecube version.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
I would say in my experience the way Souls games handle story/lore is one of its appeals. You get little snippets and tidbits that you can piece together if you're so inclined, but a lot of it doesn't and probably won't really make sense. It doesn't state much outright but what it had adds to the atmosphere. The sense of mystery is core to driving the player forward.
The controls and stamina system kind of serve to highlight the more deliberate pace of the game and your player character's fragility.
How does this relate to Zelda? Well, I consider the Souls' lock-on to be a descendant of Z-targeting. Also, the scale of the bosses vs the character is very much inline with the scale of bosses in Ocarina (tiny human character vs huge abomination). It's not 1:1 the same, but I feel there are some definite design choices that are similar.
I would say that sense of mystery and exploration is similar to the NES games and their cryptic moments like "It's a secret to everybody" or "Jump in a hole in the palace if you go". Or...you know, anything anyone in Simon's Quest says. That's exactly how I think of Bloodborne: a mishmash of Castlevania 2 and 3 in 3D, and maybe the best and only successor to that series I'll ever see thanks to Konami going off the deep end. A little off topic there but...there you go.
"Imagine if some west studio made an action RPG with an art direction inspired by that classic disney period, i don't think we would find it divisive."
I'm sure someone would complain. It is the internet...I remember some people complained about the Bioshock games having stylized art (which makes them age much more gracefully than a hyper realitistic art style). I'd love an RPG that took design cues from Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, though. Beautifully defined worlds with a little darkness at the edges.
@damien33ad That's kind of part of the Souls mechanics. Every strike has a wind up and a follow through and a stamina cost. It's definitely not for everyone and takes some adjustment to. It actually kind of reminded me of Ocarina of Time and specifically fighting the Stalfos the first time I played Demons' Souls, since a lot of combat relies on baiting your opponent, wait for them to attack, then punish when they recover.
I feel like there would be crossover appeal for fans of the 3D Zelda games, at least combat wise but Souls games have a very different control feel to most action adventure or ARPGs due to the weight of attacks and the lack of canceling. It probably took an hour or two in Demons' Souls before I was really comfortable with the controls.
Anyway, I won't try to persuade you to like them, just explain a bit of where the Zelda comparisons come in. They're a very particular flavor of game not everyone is into.
@damien33ad I can understand that. the multiplayer system can mitigate some of that but they are very unforgiving. I think the furthest I've managed to get in one is about halfway through Bloodborne. Eventually it does kind of wear me down and I move onto something else.
That's one of the reasons I think I was gravitating back to Zelda- I feel most of them have a balanced, moderate and very fair level of challenge that feels rewarding and encouraging.
I ran across a Scott the Woz video on the original LoZ game last night though, that highlighted why one reason I've probably never finished one- if you put one down, come back a month later, you're totally lost, which has been my experience. It's like, finals come up, or you go on vacation, or get busy with something else and then..."aw man, where was I going?"
@damien33ad It depends on the game for me. A game I love like Arkham City I'll play several times over including on the hardest difficulty. On the other hand, my favorite Castlevania (Super Castlevania IV) is by far the easiest of the Classicvania type but it hits the perfect balance. Great control makes the challenge feel more fair than the NES or PC Engine titles.
Difficulty doesn't make a game great, and I prefer a fair challenge over a ridiculous one (I've got Ninja Gaiden or Ghouls and Ghosts in mind when I think of ridiculous). I think Souls are doable for most people...but only if they're very, very patient. Which I am not.
I had a very tough first 20 hours with dark souls, it took me two months just to get to sen's fortress and i wasn't very invested, but it was a gift from someone who's opinion on videogames i do consider, so i kept going. It clicked around Anor Londo, and since finishing it i have to admit it left me the itch to play DS3 or Sekiro.
It is a very rewarding experience i must admit, because the game doesn't give you any help whatsoever.
This is also the characteristic i found the best Zelda dungeons have. i played and enjoyed even the most kid friendly ones, but that eureka moment you get from a tough puzzle in a particularly hard dungeon is priceless.
I finished Link's Awakening this afternoon and really enjoyed it ( though I found the ending kind of depressing). I'm going to start A Link to the Past next. Not sure if I'll play it now or after I get moved, I kind of want to experience it again comfortably seated on a good sized screen.
So while I played some Gradius I thought about the thread topic. Something popped into my head- in the old Star Wars trilogy VHS release (the one I got as a kid, around 1992) the trailer for the whole saga describes A New Hope as "the story of a boy, a girl...and a galaxy." It's very broad strokes but the Zelda games I've played are all the story of a boy (Link) a girl (Zelda most of the time...Marin in LA though) and a fantasy kingdom/land. That could be any story, but I feel like part of the broad appeal is that Link's heroic quests are broad enough that they're pretty universal and reach across cultural barriers.
Anyway, I'll try not to be too long-winded. From LA and what I can remember of the others, at the typical Zelda game will have:
A heroic adventure story about a boy, a girl, and a fantasy world usually facing a dire threat.
Progression based on collecting special items and tools to reach new locations.
Dungeons centered on puzzle solving and learning to use your new tools.
Exploration off the beaten path rewarded by buffs that make the game easier (heart containers, etc).
Music as not just atmosphere but an integral part of the world, often possessing magic qualities properties in the story.
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Topic: What are the Essential characteristics of a Zelda game?
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