Topic: What are the Essential characteristics of a Zelda game?

The Quest Log!!!!👌👍

I failed to finish Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time because I took a break from the games, and forgot what I was supposed to be doing. And thus, never finished the games.

Botw's quest log was amazing!!! You can see all opened quests, and completed quests. And each quest had a good summary to refresh your memory, and pointed to a spot on the map to show you where that quest was given, or your intended destination. Every zelda should have a quest log like this!

Story in Zelda games, bar a few exceptions, is always more an excuse for adventure than actual plot. In ALL mainline episodes (except maybe the NES ones), you'll get some sort of introduction, but at some point you'll ALWAYS be asked to visit [insert number] dungeons to retrieve [insert number] [insert type of artefact] in order to save the world. What makes a Zelda game is to me :

Gameplay :

• A wholesome map with different biomes, always including — but not restricted to : a forest, a mountain and a body of water.
• Landmarks on the map such as at least one village, a temple/church, a cemetery. Hidden caves.
• Enemies whose characteristics are representative of the biome they usually spawn in. Also applies to non-hostile NPCs since OoT.
• Boss fights with a logical, but not obvious strategy to beat them, usually relying on a newly acquired item.
• The usual weapons/shields with occasional enhancements (multi-homing boomerang, mirror shield...).
• One unique weapon/accessory around which the whole gameplay/plot/puzzles of any given episode or dungeon evolves (ocarina, conductor's baton, hourglass...).
• Recovery items and maximum-HP/stamina extending items scattered around the map.
• Merchants.
• Fire/Ice mechanics.

Story :

• Spatial/Time/Dimension discontinuity in the plot.
• The game opens on ancient lore featuring a fallen/mysterious/unknown hero(ine), inspired by/originating from the Triforce (the latter being named or just hinted at).
• The introduction serves as a tutorial, or has only one way forward and introduces some of the game's mechanics and then the player is given more freedom to roam across a seemingly open map until a certain item (or lack thereof) prevents them from going further

Themes :

• Stolen/orphaned childhood
• Growing up too fast after facing loss/mourning
• Uprooting, forced displacement
• Being an outcast
• Greediness for power
• Helplessness and lost causes
• ...

@damien33ad the shrines aren't the feature that are essential to Zelda - just like dungeons aren't. What's essential is the puzzle solving and occasional combat elements. Those are present in both Shrines and Dungeons.

How many Zelda games do you have to have played to get a say in this? I've only beaten 3 and am part way through another 3 or 4 currently.

To me, a Zelda game needs:

• Link and Zelda, and a touching bond between them, portrayed with a minimalist style
• Sound design consistency (consistent sound design is almost as important in Zelda games as it is in Star Wars)
• 'Folk' culture, mythology and themes - woodland, water, music
• Sense of adventure
• Puzzles

And yes, @WoomyNNYes, a quest log should be retrofitted to all existing Zelda games that don't have one.

What I don't think the games need (necessarily):

• mini games - I really don't care for them in Zelda games and rarely put any time into them.

@gcunit Yeah, I'd really love to jump back into Ocarina of Time 3DS, but I've never play through the game before, and forgot what my objectives are.

Essential characteristics of a Zelda game? Well, it has to have Link in it, and of course Zelda, and a world for Link to explore and... well, that's pretty much it for the essentials.

Zelda isn't in Link's Awakening, Oracle of Seasons/Ages (whichever one you play first, that is), and only has a brief cameo in Majora's Mask.

They have to get you to commit to the ‘Zelda cycle’ (i.e the last one is the WORST GAME EVER, the one before is perfection that must be emulated exactly).

If you're currently playing through them for the first time, I'd say you have a fresh perspective on what makes a Zelda game.

Too many people's perspectives have been calcified and they can't see past replaying the same experiences over again.

You can list the characteristics of a Zelda game that are common to the series but you wouldn't be seeing the forest for the trees. You could say a Zelda game needs dungeons but then if you have a Zelda game without dungeons and it still feels like a Zelda game, we're missing something.

Probably depends on which ones you've played. It's pretty easy to bucket them into ones that are very similar...

Bucket 1: TLoZ, ALTTP, all of the handheld games (including Link's Awakening)
Bucket 2: Adventure of Link
Bucket 3: OOT, MM, WW, SS
Bucket 4: BOTW

I think you'd need one from each bucket - however, bucket 2 is easily the least important since it's one game from 30 years ago. Bucket 4 is also only one game, but it's also got a sequel coming, and could be the standard for Zelda going forward.

items are a phenomenal way of evoking a feeling of genuine progression. besides the lack of dungeons, the lack of items is the next biggest loss from botw. shrines dont cut it, not by a longshot. dungeons and items go hand in hand. im incredibly biased here of course, but i believe skyward sword proved that nintendo can write a pretty great story. characters like groose and that games portrayal of zelda are very memorable and some of the best characters in the series. botw had nothing of the sort, along with the almost cringeworthy voice acting. its not that i really want to rag on botw, i just think it had the most potential in the entire series to be something even greater, and they kinda blew it.

I wonder, since Adventure of Link is almost universally considered the odd one out, is it because it does not have the essential characteristics of a Zelda game? I think if we do think it has these characteristics then its status as an outlier would make it useful for determining what makes a Zelda game.

I'd assume some of them can't do that for the previous 3D Zelda, since they'd have to stop pretending motion controls are bad. :V

Zelda games have a lot in common with Metroidvanias.

Coining the new term Zeldoidvania.

I would just like to clarify something that I couldn't be bothered to articulate when I made my earlier post.

The points I've made are more what defines the Zelda games I've played. I'm fresh enough to the Zelda scene whereby I don't think I'd be insisting that a new Zelda game must have anything in particular. I like to be open-minded and am so glad I can just appreciate Breath of the Wild for what it is, rather than grumble about any features it may be lacking.

I think items and progression are very much a part of Breath of the Wild, they’re just presented differently from usual. There are gates, but this time you have many options for getting through (defeating the enemies for the magic key, picking the lock, brute forcing it open, climbing or paragliding over the fence, going the long way around, finding the secret passageway, among others). There are items and tools (the Sheikah Slate and its modules, which you unlock and upgrade gradually, the paraglider, single-shot bows, multi-shot bows, long-range bows, many types of armour each with useful properties, sledgehammers, torches, swords that can start fires easily, weapons for electrocuting or freezing enemies, elemental rods, elemental arrows, explosive arrows, axes, korok leaf, champion abilities, octoballoons, among others) that you gradually acquire over the course of the adventure to help solve puzzles, explore the world, and defeat enemies but there is always more than one way to accomplish the same goal.

For example Hyrule Castle is accessible early on, but you’ll need a way to get past all the guardians (which most people can’t do until mid-end game). Once inside you must get to the top. Revali’s gale, swimming up the waterfalls with the Zora armour, following the main path (featuring more guardians and a couple Lynels) and sneaking in through the docks are all viable means. Still some people find a rock they can cling to and launch it with Cinetis and a sledgehammer in a perfect trajectory that takes them directly to Ganon’s Lair a la Pinky and the Brain. Guardians will give you trouble early on, but you will gradually discover and exploit their weaknesses (guardian weapons, master sword, ancient arrow, and shield parries are all effective against them). Weapon durability is a subtle way to ensure that you can’t ravage a camp full of silver enemies right off the bat but as you go, you’ll get better and better weapons to destroy them easily. More interesting than just having a peg that you must pound with the hammer from level 5 in order to access the route to level 6.

The first Zelda was open-ended. I hesitate to use the term open world because people have jumped down my throat over semantics due to the screen transitions. It plunked you in the world and you went to it. No real direction or linearity. It's open enough to allow you to do almost the entire game without even using a sword.
Over the years, Zelda became more and more linear and dependent on excessive hand holding. Sure, worlds were open to explore some, but you have a very defined path of progression. And the hand holding....it alone is what keeps me from replaying some Zelda games. Everything stops for a full on needless tutorial. Many hours into a game, they'll still tell me how I need to use bombs. Or the "puzzles". Some Owl appears and tells you there's some secret here, then proceeds to explain it as the camera pans and zooms in on the specific spot where you solve the 'puzzle'. Or you leave a village and the Owl appears and tells you exactly where you need to be going, what you need to be doing and how to do it before you even get to look around. Like....just let me play the game.
For me, BotW did get back to one of the essentials missing from Zelda for a very long time - an open adventure that hasn't been done since the first (though ALBW was a lot better for this too). No excessive hand holding, no direct linearity telling you exactly where to go, no showing you how to solve puzzles before you even have a chance to try. It's a non-linear open world to explore. This is what Zelda was in the beginning, but we're long since past the point where we have an entire generation of gamers that don't know Zeldas origins and have never played it.
That's not saying other parts of Zelda aren't essential. Personally, I'd like to see them keep the open BotW format, but add other things back in. Full dungeons, but again, ones that can be done in a non-linear way, with multiple ways to solve them so you can do it with different items (or you need to find the item in the dungeon to be able to finish it using said item). Shrines would still be fine if left in as mini-dungeons. Fill in the world with more characters and some more varied enemies.

Anyway, excessive hand-holding and guiding linearity became an essential part of Zelda and I, for one, am glad to see that dropped and hope it doesn't come back.

@damien33ad

That's a good point about ingenuity and what you said above about trying something new. Not just for Nintendo but for the players.

At least that's my impression of a Zelda game. You wander around the world, you explore and try things. A lot of games have that so that isn't just what a Zelda game is, but for me that is essential.

I've never played a Game Cube or Wii Zelda game (really hoping Nintendo ports them to Switch.) So maybe there's something those games have that I'm missing. But I can see a clear connection between what I like about the games I've played and BotW. And I feel that BotW does a Zelda game perfectly by freeing up the Metroivania-like restrictions and leaving the world as a sandbox.

@damien33ad I don't think we should mimic the first Zelda, as it is heavily flawed by todays standards, but rather the idea behind it - an open world to explore. It was made as an open world concept, as Miyamoto has said Zeldas inspiration came from exploring hillsides, forests, and caves surrounding his childhood home. This is the idea that birthed Zelda, which I think makes it essential.
The exploration and discovery is the big takeaway from Zelda 1, which BotW really got back to (and ultimately was the entire focus, leaving out other key essentials). Breaking down the main points of the first Zelda - large, open world to explore; no direction and you're free to go wherever; many large and hidden dungeons; light linearity (dungeons numbered and increasing difficulty, but you can do many in whatever order you want); secrets to find; many different and useful items.
Zelda doesn't have to be open world now, but it did start out that way and slowly got away from it. BotW is just coming full circle back to what the first game did with modern tech (but admittedly also leaving out other essential traits). Not even fully open world, but the freedom to explore and discover on your own, without some Owl or whoever telling you exactly what to do and where to go and how to do it.
Even taking ALttP. They'd mark something on your map as your next objective, but on the way you could roam and find caves, items, whatever along the way. You can traverse almost the entirety of the map on the way if you wanted, with a few areas blocked off. Fast forward a bit and you get to OoT. Same thing happens, someone tells you somewhere you should go and you head off. Only this time before you can even explore, the Owl appears and tells you again where you need to go. Areas are blocked off to you, funneling you to where you need to be. You can only explore the predetermined route. I found Zelda to become more and more restrictive to staying on the predetermined path as the games went on (probably with a couple exceptions).
BotW was a breath of fresh air for me. Freedom to actually explore without being interrupted or pushed into a narrow path for the narrative. That doesn't mean I don't want those other essentials people are also wanting, dungeons, unique items, and so on.
ALttP is also one of my favourite Zelda games. It covers the bases of most essentials for me, as I said above. OoT is also up there, but I my interest started to wane after that due to the hand-holding and excessive guiding you on the set path. It felt more and more that they assumed players were morons that couldn't figure anything out on their own (like why do I need a pop up guide for an item the 500th time I pick it up? First time is good enough).
I guess it's less "open world" I feel is essential, but the freedom to explore and figure out that world, without hand holding, Owls, or a narrow path of point A to point B.

@damien33ad Yeah, I think we pretty much agree here. Going forward my ultimate combination of those essentials would be something like...
The open world of BotW. Shrines cut down, only puzzle ones left, no freebies or just battles. The Zelda trope of needing x amount of story items (pendants, crystals, whatever) that are in, say, 8 dungeons. Dungeons are spread out in the world and all you have to go by is 'one is in the desert', 'one is in Death Mountain', etc and these are classic, extensive dungeons. Going a step further, within the dungeon there is an item you need to complete the puzzles. So you do like 20% of the dungeon sans item until you find it and then complete with the mechanics of the item. This allows dungeons to be done nonlinear, whichever one you find, you can attempt to do. Maybe even have shortcuts or alternate puzzle solutions if you do indeed have items from other dungeons, but not required.
A mainline story that continues when you choose it to be. mark it on the map and thats it. Player chooses to either go straight for it or explore around first. Story advancement needn't be dependent on specific dungeons, finish one and story continues.
I kind of got off the point of this thread a bit with that...