InferiorBeing
Knight
**WARNING! LONG POST AHEAD!**
From what I have experienced in gaming websites and magazines in the past, the Legend of Zelda -games are the pinnacle of adventure gaming. If you are to get one medieval-era action/adventure/platformer, it has no buissness being anything other than Zelda. The Zelda games are always awesome, always fantastic and do absolutely everything right, as far as anything from plot development to gameplay goes.
Why is it then, that the franchise has so far rather failed to appeal to me? I mean; from what I've played of it, it's not a bad game as far as I can tell. It's just that... well, it's not really all that super-awesome, either - at least not as awesome as what I'd assume from listening to my friend ranting about the glorious nature of Zelda series' characters, plot and gameplay.
As far as I can tell, judging by Zelda games for handheld systems and the newer console games, said gameplay basically goes like this: Travel from point A to point B in what is either a dungeon or a vast open plain. Kill roaming monsters, if any. Do the regular puzzles ranging from creative to generic, if any. Enter a town/city/market/camp/settlement. Purchase arrows, bombs and potions or whatever you require, for money you for reasons thus far unexplained earn by killing giant, semi-cartoony monsters. Repeat until you meat a boss. Kill said boss by learning its routine. Resume traveling. This is, in itself, not a bad thing, I'd say. Hell, I don't see any reason to fix something that already works. But, honestly, it doesn't exactly awe me. At least Super Mario Galaxy spiced the old formula up by adding you jumping from asteroid to asteroid in outer space with a tad quirky humour thrown in.
The combat in the Zelda series is okay. In the handheld versions, you mostly press A to attack and B to defend, which is getting old. As for the console versions, I mean to remember Ocarina of Time having a feature where you'd lock on to an enemy when in hand-to hand combat. I don't really know how creative this is, but it was the first time I had experienced it, anyways. it looked pretty good when you fought an equally armed humanoid, like an undead skeleton or one of those bulldog-like orc wannabees; but when you fought walking plants, big spiders and mutated ladybugs with cannons in the place of mouths, it ended up looking somewhat less swordfight -y.
Altso, the plot/atmosphere: The architecture, visual styles on the characters and environments are awesome, I'll admit it. Everything from the looks of the people's clothing and environments, the scenery and nature, to the music - it oozes of atmosphere. I once saw an in-game render of a bulky armoured knight with a sword that ended up in a kind of club-like contraction, and the design was brilliant. It must have been hard to come up with a design for an armoured knight wiith a sword and shield in a medieval fantasy game, and not make it look generic or clichèd, but unique. That guy was probably an enemy, seeing as you never once fight alongside any friendly characters as far as I can tell. But hey, more on that in a sec.
Now for the actual plot - or rather - the lack thereof. From what I can tell, it's usually something along the lines of: "The princess has been captured/An evil wizard, warlord or both is trying to take over THE WORLD! Only YOU - and by that we mean YOU, YOU and only YOU, all alone can stop him/her/it from succeding in his/her/its evil ways. Sure, the king and queen may have standing armies trained for just such an occation, but they'll all be suspiciously absent the second they're actually needed. No go forth, young warrior. A great prophecy has fortold that you blah blah blah blah." Remeber when I mensioned that the atmosphere was great? Well, that's no thanks to the plot, really. Considering we're talking about a war fought by one person only, I'd ask you to forgive me for snorting at the whole "awesome plot" -claim. That said, not every game in the Zelda series has had a problem that could be solved by millitary action, of course. In Link's Awakening for GameBoy Colour, for example, the game tells the story of how everyone's favourite tween elf wakes up on a strange island and must find his way home. No epic tales of evil world conquest there, and so the whole "I'm a complete loner" -gameplay makes sense, and is justified, for a change.
My point is: I personally think all the effort the game has put into creating an engrossing atmostphere goes straight down the drain every time inconsistencies like these show up. And when the game's gameplay is as relatively basic as it is, atmosphere ends up as 75% of the experience for me.
So what does these games do that make them so wonderfully glorious? What am I missing here? Although I stand by my opinions so far, there is one thing that I can't ignore: The series is one of the most succesful ever, and one of the flagships of the Nintendo -company. What is it that all these people see that I don't? Does the fanbase simply concist of half-blind, hardcore fanboys who has enough of a nerd-crush on Link to be writing all those 999 999 999 999 999 999 pieces of more often than not semi-erotic fanfiction scattered all over the internet, lapping up every Zelda game they can get while screaming "ZOMG ITS SO COOL SELDA RULZ!!1one" between mouthfulls? Or is there something so fantastic about these games - something so subtle, yet innescapably brilliant that I'm simply too stupid to get it? I mean; I'm not really into Counterstrike, but I see what people see in it, and I can understand why it's so popular. It's the same with Diablo, Devil May Cry and just about every famous driving game out there. But I just don't get this.
So, I'm asking you Zelda fans out there - and since just about everyone seems to love the crap out of those games, I'm assuming that's the overwhelming majority of you - what is it that is so attrative about it? What does it do to deserve all this incredible praise? This is your chance to recruit me, people. Why and how does it warrant so much widespread approval?
From what I have experienced in gaming websites and magazines in the past, the Legend of Zelda -games are the pinnacle of adventure gaming. If you are to get one medieval-era action/adventure/platformer, it has no buissness being anything other than Zelda. The Zelda games are always awesome, always fantastic and do absolutely everything right, as far as anything from plot development to gameplay goes.
Why is it then, that the franchise has so far rather failed to appeal to me? I mean; from what I've played of it, it's not a bad game as far as I can tell. It's just that... well, it's not really all that super-awesome, either - at least not as awesome as what I'd assume from listening to my friend ranting about the glorious nature of Zelda series' characters, plot and gameplay.
As far as I can tell, judging by Zelda games for handheld systems and the newer console games, said gameplay basically goes like this: Travel from point A to point B in what is either a dungeon or a vast open plain. Kill roaming monsters, if any. Do the regular puzzles ranging from creative to generic, if any. Enter a town/city/market/camp/settlement. Purchase arrows, bombs and potions or whatever you require, for money you for reasons thus far unexplained earn by killing giant, semi-cartoony monsters. Repeat until you meat a boss. Kill said boss by learning its routine. Resume traveling. This is, in itself, not a bad thing, I'd say. Hell, I don't see any reason to fix something that already works. But, honestly, it doesn't exactly awe me. At least Super Mario Galaxy spiced the old formula up by adding you jumping from asteroid to asteroid in outer space with a tad quirky humour thrown in.
The combat in the Zelda series is okay. In the handheld versions, you mostly press A to attack and B to defend, which is getting old. As for the console versions, I mean to remember Ocarina of Time having a feature where you'd lock on to an enemy when in hand-to hand combat. I don't really know how creative this is, but it was the first time I had experienced it, anyways. it looked pretty good when you fought an equally armed humanoid, like an undead skeleton or one of those bulldog-like orc wannabees; but when you fought walking plants, big spiders and mutated ladybugs with cannons in the place of mouths, it ended up looking somewhat less swordfight -y.
Altso, the plot/atmosphere: The architecture, visual styles on the characters and environments are awesome, I'll admit it. Everything from the looks of the people's clothing and environments, the scenery and nature, to the music - it oozes of atmosphere. I once saw an in-game render of a bulky armoured knight with a sword that ended up in a kind of club-like contraction, and the design was brilliant. It must have been hard to come up with a design for an armoured knight wiith a sword and shield in a medieval fantasy game, and not make it look generic or clichèd, but unique. That guy was probably an enemy, seeing as you never once fight alongside any friendly characters as far as I can tell.
But hey, more on that in a sec.Now for the actual plot - or rather - the lack thereof. From what I can tell, it's usually something along the lines of: "The princess has been captured/An evil wizard, warlord or both is trying to take over THE WORLD! Only YOU - and by that we mean YOU, YOU and only YOU, all alone can stop him/her/it from succeding in his/her/its evil ways. Sure, the king and queen may have standing armies trained for just such an occation, but they'll all be suspiciously absent the second they're actually needed. No go forth, young warrior. A great prophecy has fortold that you blah blah blah blah." Remeber when I mensioned that the atmosphere was great? Well, that's no thanks to the plot, really. Considering we're talking about a war fought by one person only, I'd ask you to forgive me for snorting at the whole "awesome plot" -claim. That said, not every game in the Zelda series has had a problem that could be solved by millitary action, of course. In Link's Awakening for GameBoy Colour, for example, the game tells the story of how everyone's favourite tween elf wakes up on a strange island and must find his way home. No epic tales of evil world conquest there, and so the whole "I'm a complete loner" -gameplay makes sense, and is justified, for a change.
My point is: I personally think all the effort the game has put into creating an engrossing atmostphere goes straight down the drain every time inconsistencies like these show up. And when the game's gameplay is as relatively basic as it is, atmosphere ends up as 75% of the experience for me.
So what does these games do that make them so wonderfully glorious? What am I missing here? Although I stand by my opinions so far, there is one thing that I can't ignore: The series is one of the most succesful ever, and one of the flagships of the Nintendo -company. What is it that all these people see that I don't? Does the fanbase simply concist of half-blind, hardcore fanboys who has enough of a nerd-crush on Link to be writing all those 999 999 999 999 999 999 pieces of more often than not semi-erotic fanfiction scattered all over the internet, lapping up every Zelda game they can get while screaming "ZOMG ITS SO COOL SELDA RULZ!!1one" between mouthfulls? Or is there something so fantastic about these games - something so subtle, yet innescapably brilliant that I'm simply too stupid to get it? I mean; I'm not really into Counterstrike, but I see what people see in it, and I can understand why it's so popular. It's the same with Diablo, Devil May Cry and just about every famous driving game out there. But I just don't get this.
So, I'm asking you Zelda fans out there - and since just about everyone seems to love the crap out of those games, I'm assuming that's the overwhelming majority of you - what is it that is so attrative about it? What does it do to deserve all this incredible praise? This is your chance to recruit me, people. Why and how does it warrant so much widespread approval?
