Is it just me or is Zelda just "meh" now?

I haven't gotten jazzed about it since OOT

3/7/2011 4:44:37 PM

I get excited every time a new one comes out, but yes, most everything after OOT has been turrible. I'll still buy the new one though

3/7/2011 4:55:28 PM

Terrible? Really? Yeah most Zelda games don't live up to Ocarina of Time but I wouldn't call any of them terrible. OoT was one of the best video games ever so that's a lot to live up to. I've loved every Zelda game.

3/7/2011 4:57:21 PM

I just wish they would make them difficult. The last ones have been soooooooo easy.

3/7/2011 4:58:25 PM

by terrible I mean super easy and way too linear (except for WindWaker, but fuck that sailing bullshit)

[Edited on March 7, 2011 at 5:10 PM. Reason : basically, I can't think of a Zelda game that came out after OOT that I want to play again]

[Edited on March 7, 2011 at 5:10 PM. Reason : maybe Majora's Mask]

3/7/2011 5:08:15 PM

Easy and the formula is getting very tired. Collect three things. After you get those three things you can switch between two alternate realities. Solve puzzles that span the two realities to collect a few more things that let you in the final castle.

light/dark
past/future
boy/wolf

IIRC Wind Waker kinda departed from that a bit, I don't remember the alternate realities occupying the same space theme, but they completely ruined it with 20+ hours of nothing more than staring at an empty ocean and 10+ hours of constantly changing the wind direction. I didn't have that much of a problem with Twilight Princess, but I will never NEVER play Wind Waker again.

And since no one reads the 49th post: How is Sin and Punishment 2? It's like $16 so I was thinking of an impulse buy.

[Edited on March 7, 2011 at 5:39 PM. Reason : -]

3/7/2011 5:35:34 PM

I liked it, the cinematics and voice acting are terrible though. It's also a little hard to tell when stuff will hit you and when it won't. But if you like shooters with a lot of shit flying at you, it's the one to get.

The Zelda formula is getting stale. They need to redo the fighting engine. I'm not sure the new motion controls will be enough to keep the next game interesting. Twilight Princess didn't do anything wrong, but it just wasn't as fun. The parts where you had to be a wolf were kind of boring. Needless to say, I'll still be picking this up on day one.

[Edited on March 7, 2011 at 7:00 PM. Reason : .]

3/7/2011 6:52:20 PM

I read an article a few years ago that brought up the idea of the Zelda franchise making a complete jump like Final Fantasy VII did and have it set in a more futuristic/industrialized world. I'd like to see that but it would probably piss off way too many fanboys for Nintendo to consider it.

3/8/2011 5:34:03 PM

I would LOVE for them to do a Legend of Zelda (the original NES version) Remake in OoT/Twilight Princess style.

that would be EPIC.

3/8/2011 5:36:20 PM

I would love to not see that. I've had enough of remakes, give me some fresh, new shit.

3/8/2011 7:48:08 PM

i'm talking about for the special 25th anniversary thing they have up their sleeve

3/9/2011 5:47:48 AM

the skyward sword trailer interested me very little

looks like twilight princess...meh

3/9/2011 8:08:30 AM

Majora's Mask was amazing. Despite only having four main dungeons

3/9/2011 8:17:50 AM

Sorry to derail the Zelda discussion, but it Goldeneye worth picking it up?

IGN gave it a decent review, but a lot of posts here reflected the opposite point of view.

3/9/2011 4:13:54 PM

I don't know, but Nintendo needs to do something fast b/c a lot of Wii folks are jumping ship. I haven't played a wii game since super mario galaxy 2 came out. I'm holding out for Zelda b/c i love those games, but that's about it.
I have a bunch of buddies who haven't turned on their wii in nearly a year. They are bored with it, it lots its novelty, and the selection of games is meh.

I know nintendo has the 3ds coming out, but i'm not a handheld person and neither are the people I referred to earlier.
I guess nintendo has put the wii on the backburner for now...

or else they are going to give details about a new console at e3.

3/9/2011 4:16:37 PM

mario kart is the only reason I haven't gotten rid of the wii.

and that i only play once a month. maybe.

3/9/2011 4:45:22 PM

I played the shit out of DKCR.

3/9/2011 4:47:06 PM

I just got one with a lot of games this past Christmas. I'm not terribly disappointed - but I'm trying to pick up a large backlog of games all at once as opposed to getting one at a time, playing it to death, and waiting around for forever for a new game to come out.

^I played that one a lot the first few weeks, then had an extended rage quit after finally beating 1-K, then trying to beat the world 7 boss. I died about 4 or 5 times on the boss and said, you know what? Forget this, I'm playing Galaxy 2.

4-5 deaths is nothing in DKCR, I guess my patience had just worn thin after 1-K. I've been meaning to go back to beat the game, but free time is sparse and I'm juggling about 8 games. I got Muramasa for like $10 new, and I'm trying to muscle through that one before moving on to a different game.

3/10/2011 8:24:39 AM

dkcr is a great game. It's a perfect balance of difficult vs. fun. The game can be much easier if you're not trying to get everything, but really challenging when it comes to getting the extras.

3/10/2011 9:53:49 AM

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/12/chrono-trigger-travels-to-virtual-console-next-monday/

Chrono Trigger on VC on Monday

5/12/2011 5:25:51 PM

^^ If you dont have the metroid prime trilogy, get it.

5/12/2011 5:27:54 PM

Is Chrono Trigger worth getting if you've never played it?

5/12/2011 7:53:51 PM

I definitely think so. It's hard to guage the quality of a 15 year old game that I played through about 15 times in retrospect.

Good character design (OK they're basically DBZ characters, but still)
Fun time travel concept
Some decent plot twists
Great graphics and animation for the time
Excellent soundtrack (Frog's theme for the win)
Magus

AND it was rickrolling motherfuckers in 1995:

5/12/2011 10:47:10 PM

those were the peak years for squaresoft. chrono trigger is def one of the top 5 alltime SNES games

5/12/2011 11:40:30 PM

[Edited on June 9, 2011 at 4:27 PM. Reason : ]

6/9/2011 4:27:17 PM

I have often wondered how Zelda would play in a futuristic timeline. Every single time they make a Zelda game it ends up being a prequel. How about a sequel? Or rather, THE sequel? They should make a Zelda game set in the very, very far off future where Link has finally had enough of Ganon's shit and kills him once and for all. Okay, all of that is beside the point, but a futuristic Zelda could easily work; the potential for complicated temples/dungeons would be huge not to mention the tools you stand to acquire. The Zelda formula is getting stale. Whoever said it nailed it; collect 3 things, big story event, collect 5/6/7 more things, fight Ganon/final boss. Majora's Mask did a lot to mix it up (probably a big factor as to why I love that game so much), and I actually enjoyed Wind Waker's sailing mechanic. The fact that you could travel to all these other islands and collect secrets from them really made it feel like an older Zelda game in my opinion. TP is by far the worst in the series to me; it tried WAY to hard to ride OOT's coattails and felt sooooo rushed at the end. But anyway....the basic format hasn't changed since OOT. Most annoying is the combat; it's way too fucking easy. I never died once in Wind Waker or Twilight Princess. If they're going to make the game easy, they should at least have the common fucking courtesy to add different difficulties. I know they're trying to appeal to a "broad audience", but come on! How hard would it be to make a few other choices for difficulty as opposed to "five year old". I would even stand to argue that increased difficulty settings actually would serve their desire to appeal to a broader audience better than their current "one size fits all" difficulty. Okay, enough of that tangent. They're actually taking their time with this one. It might be good. It's been 5 years since TP.

6/12/2011 4:47:36 PM

Zelda is my favorite series of all time and I agree with you on most points.
I loved wind waker, but my only gripe was the limited number of dungeons. I was also STOKED about TP...to the point that I waited in line at Best Buy the day the wii came out just to get TP. I really enjoyed it, but the more I look back at it, it was almost too similar to OoT. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I agree that it felt rushed.

Skyward Sword is supposedly the "prequel" and I think it heard it is the first game in the timeline...or at least an origin story for the master sword.
From what I've seen, it looks like it will have the same basic formula. I don't know the number of dungeons or anything but it does look like they are trying to shake things up a bit.

There will be a "fatigue" meter in this one... Also, your shield will have a "meter" and can actually break.. Sounds like they are trying to add a little bit of complexity to it.
Also, I read an interview a while back that said Miyamoto debated about putting different "difficulty" settings into the game, but decided against it. I don't have a source but remember reading it on IGN last year.

6/12/2011 7:38:19 PM

Final Fantasy III/VI on VC today.

6/30/2011 10:45:44 AM

Whats the best place to get Wii torrents? lol

7/3/2011 10:38:23 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMkvcKhVCEk

new trailer for skyward sword

i'm not sold on the graphical style of the game yet..it looks a little "kiddy" and i have a feeling the difficulty will be easy, much like the last couple of zelda games..

with that said, i'll still buy it and play it. first wii game i've bought in over a year and probably the last...

my ps3 sees a lot more action these days

7/21/2011 8:50:12 PM

Wii, just like the Gamecube, had some amazing games. They were just too few and far between to warrant ownership.

Resident Evil 4 is STILL phenomenal, Zelda(s) is quality, just not as amazing as it should be, and the Mario series obviously is still churning out solid gold bricks.

I just wish they'd make a 3D sidescroller for Metroid that takes us back to the Super Metroid days. Y'know, how they redid Donkey Kong and Super Mario and it worked? Instead of this "Other M" b/s.

7/21/2011 9:03:08 PM

New Zelda looks gorgeous. The world looks vibrant and the characters seem expressive. Not digging Zelda's new look though.

7/21/2011 10:30:00 PM

Just bought a Wii to play Mario Kart with the wifey and I just found out about homebrew, any suggestions for apps/games for that or any tips on using it? I installed the channel on my Wii but not real sure where to go from here to take advantage of it.

8/14/2011 6:13:51 PM

Just bought MadWorld for the Wii pre-owned for 7 bucks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2MYPmbgrI0

Will report back.

8/27/2011 7:59:42 PM

^^ NeoGamma FTW.

8/27/2011 8:42:15 PM

I forgot I had Madworld, might have to fire it up.

8/27/2011 9:19:12 PM

I was overcome with an overwhelming, sadistic, disgusted feeling as soon I began to play.

A+

Would recommend.

Also, the sensitivity of the motion-sensor attacks is high enough that I accidentally attacked some people without trying - another plus, but I just got into it.

8/27/2011 9:37:39 PM

Quote :

"You'll need a MotionPlus or Wii Remote Plus to play The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. If you don't already have one, don't worry: Nintendo will offer the game in a $69.99 bundle, which includes the limited-edition gold Wii Remote Plus first seen at E3. If you don't want the fancy (and exclusive) Wiimote, the game will still be available as a standalone, for $49.99. The initial print run of both versions, out November 20, will include a CD of performances from the upcoming Zelda 25th anniversary concert. So don't make too much noise when you go to that concert, or you'll ruin our CD. Thanks! "

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/29/zelda-skyward-sword-bundle/#continued

That's a hell of a cover image.

8/29/2011 4:33:16 PM

mad world is amazing until you hit 75% completion then you run outta steam from the repetitiveness. fantastic game overall though

8/29/2011 5:02:08 PM

Mad World was fun as a novelty game. The aesthetic was cool as well as the cool ways you could kill a bitch, but that was really all it had going for it.

As far as the new Zelda is concerned, I really hope they didn't fuck this one up. Twilight Princess was a massive disappointment for me for several reasons. The difficulty was somewhere between "2 year old" and "zygote", and made all the sword techniques you learn ultimately useless since you were just fine most of the time with hacking and slashing the enemy. The sword mechanic where you swing the remote felt overwhelmingly tracked on with not much thought given to it at all (although it did make spin attacks easy to pull off). The soundtrack was nowhere NEAR as good as what has been done in the past. The overworld was huge, yes, but it was mostly empty. This was probably the most disappointing thing about the game, because in all of the other Zelda games you could always find some really cool item, minigame, or miniquest by doing a little bit of exploring. Twilight Princess almost always rewarded you with Rupees from exploring the terrain, and as far as sidequests go the game had poe hunting and bug hunting, both of which were lame and ripoffs of the Skulltula quest from OOT. The fishing minigame wasn't bad. Other than that, there was that short minigame where you fly through the cave by the lake, and that stupid Rollgoal bullshit.

Some of the items you got were cool, but there were so many of them that were completely useless outside of the particular dungeon (Dominion Rod and the Spinner are the two that stick out the most). And I'm not even getting into how HARD this game tried to ride Ocarina's coattails, even going so far as to remake the frozen Zora's Domain, have the first three temples have the same theme as Ocarina, rehash music and characters (although I can't necessary blame the music since there are so many good themes to choose from, but it seemed like the game barely had any original contributions of its own other than the unfulfilling "mood music" in all of the temples), and have Hyrule have the EXACT same layout from OOT (note that this was different on the Wii version, where east and west were flipped). The one thing the game managed to get right was dungeon design (for most of the game anyway). All of the dungeons were very well done with plenty of cool puzzles and neat stuff hidden throughout (although EVERY boss was WAY TOO EASY but some of the fights were still pretty fun and epic, notably the skeleton boss at the end of the desert temple and the dragon you fight in the thunderstorm). My personal three favorites were the desert temple, the snow mansion, and the temple of time. However, the sky temple, the twilight temple, and hyrule castle were all extremely short and easy in my opinion. Even Ganon himself was a joke of a fight. The end of the game felt extremely rushed because of this, which isn't surprising at all given that the game had to come out as a launch title.

I am partially worried about this game because of how Other M turned out (which in my opinion was a deplorable game and a huge black mark on the Metroid franchise since the entire game completely went against everything that was Metroid). If Nintendo let one of their best franchises turn into a pile of shit, then isn't it possible for Zelda? In my opinion not likely since Zelda has always been a much bigger franchise than Metroid, not to mention the last two Mario Galaxy games were fucking awesome and Brawl wasn't bad either. Those three games are the counterpoints, and it has been 5 years since Twilight Princess came out. Generally it has been 2 to 3 years between the 3D Zelda games; 2 years between OOT and MM, 3 years between MM and WW, and 3 years between WW and TP. The last time there was this long of a gap between Zelda games was between LTTP and OOT (which was also 5 years, but the team also had new hardware and the 3D aspect to become familiar with), so obviously Nintendo is putting a LOT of time into this one. I can only hope it pays off, but I'm not holding my breath just yet.

[Edited on August 31, 2011 at 12:33 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on August 31, 2011 at 12:36 AM. Reason : .]

8/31/2011 12:33:20 AM

whoa

8/31/2011 1:49:57 AM

I guess I forgot the TLDR version. Here it is:

I thought Twilight Princess mostly sucked, so I'm really hoping Nintendo doesn't fuck up Skyward Sword. I have my reservations since I hated Other M, and I hope Nintendo doesn't ruin another franchise (and yes, I know OM wasn't actually developed BY Nintendo, but they still allowed it to be published). However, I do not think they will because Zelda is one of their biggest and most important series. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and Brawl were all great games. Besides, Nintendo has spent 5 years making this Zelda. The last time they spent this much time on a Zelda was for OOT. They are clearly putting a lot of time into this one, and I hope it pays off although I still have reservations.

8/31/2011 3:24:12 AM

Without getting into as much detail... Twilight Princess did come across as being a bit rushed. I really can't blame them for trying to mimic OoT as much as possible, especially considering it is one of the best games ever.

I HOPE that skyward sword is good, challenging, and just enough variety to keep the franchise going but I have my reservations. After seeing the trailers and reading about it, I am finding it hard to see anything different about it. On a good note, they have been pretty tight-lipped with a lot of the details. I hope it turns out alright, since it will probably be the last Wii game I buy. The last game I bought was Other M, and I agree that it was absolutely horrible.

8/31/2011 5:40:24 AM

I thought Twilight Princess was great, but lacked the extra "something" that made OoT and (despite all the sailing) Wind Waker special. The dungeons were great IMO and none of them felt rushed at all. Compare Hyrule Castle in TP to the final dungeon in OoT. I agree that it was way too easy, the overworld was sparse (also true for OoT), and the music wasn't memorable. And the boss fights had this annoying thing where the music would change when you manage to open up the bosses weak spot and land a few hits. Overall, I like it, but doubt I'll play through it again.

8/31/2011 9:41:38 AM

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. There were a few things that dragged for me in Twilight Princess.

1. The biggest was the boss fights. They all required you to find the gimmick then you win. There really weren't any where it was rough and exciting the whole fight through. I am particularly reminded of the underwater boss with tentacles that was a pretty big ripoff of the same boss from OoT. In OoT, it was always striking and if you messed up it would wreck you. In TP, you could just swim away from it mid-fight (it was locked to the ground) and grab a bajillion hearts from the outer walls where it could not reach you.

I'm also reminded of the Gannon fights which were hit 3 times, cut-scene for boss change, hit 3 times, cut-scene, etc, etc. Very boring and repetitive and broke the immersion of an amazing fight that should just evolve with you as boss fights have since 1995.

2. There _really_ needed to be a quick change button to switch from Link to Wolf and back again. Unnecessary dialogs are unnecessary and bothersome. And as mentioned before, it was a nice kick to the jewels to repeatedly do this when most of the secrets were just rupees.

3. I don't really remember feeling emotionally attached to many of the characters in TP. I remember in OoT watching each Dungeon Guardian get chosen at the end of a dungeon and that feeling of awe. The only new character I can remember from TP was that creepy girl who runs the shop near the end of the game. (I found this very amusing).

8/31/2011 10:29:34 AM

what a douchebag move by nintendo to not release xenoblade in the US when it's supposedly the best JRPG of this generation, and it's the sites that have been bashing nintendo games and jrpgs that are saying this, I'm sure the the game would sell enough to at least cover translation cost, and then here comes the usual nintendo cycle now saying they are really going to go for the hardcore audience with the next system

8/31/2011 3:21:12 PM

Yeah, I agree with you there. Saying they are going to cater to the hardcore but ignoring bringing hardcore games to the US for the EOL for the Wii is a bad move.

Granted, most of the hardcore Wii games haven't exactly sold well, so I half understand their position. Then again, I want to play these games and they have not sold me for the next generation. I'd probably be less ticked if they hadn't balked on releasing both Fatal Frame (albeit with WTF controls) and Tales of Graces in the US. Very little hope remains for those.

8/31/2011 4:42:17 PM

new skyward sword info

Lots of new developments came out today and yesterday.

The item upgrade system looks interesting and different than other zelda games... this time, you can collect items and "ornaments" and use them to trade for upgrades at store...for example you can upgrade the wooden shield to a "banded wooden" shield that is stronger..

the game will also have a second quest and a boss mode...they say between 50-100 hours of play time.

There will be parts of the game where Link thrusts the skyward sword into the ground and enters the "silent realm". This is an area where he is stripped of most of his items and has to stealthily defeat some type of guardians by collecting tears..

looks like they are really trying to introduce new concepts and things into this game and make it more like an rpg.
http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/09/13/the-legend-of-zelda-skyward-sword-upgrade-system-trailer

9/13/2011 5:57:57 PM

Looks like a lot of the old formula is back, of course you could argue that changing it too much would make the game something other than Zelda.

I'll add one of the things that always annoyed me to the list of unnecessary annoyances. The lack of a button to simply change between wolf and boy was brought up. Wind Waker could have seriously benefited from some kind of command to instantly change the wind direction without having to fumble through the inventory for the wand, play a song, switch the wind, then fumble through the inventory again to reequip whatever item you were using before - make a jump or two then repeat it all again.

The new video reminded me of a long standing unnecessary annoyance that's in nearly every Zelda. The popup dialog that tells you something meaningless about the item you just picked up and having that dialog pop up each and every time you pick up an item. For some items there's a popup each time, for others you only get it the first time you pick up an item but the counter resets every time you load the game, so you get to be informed that you picked up 5 rupees instead of 1 after every boot.


[Edited on September 14, 2011 at 7:56 AM. Reason : -]

9/14/2011 7:54:58 AM

Ha, yeah, those dialogs for items are nuisances. At least it never was as bad as it was in Star Fox Adventures.

9/14/2011 10:56:09 AM