I am an NES kid. Zelda 1 made me love video games. I was the age that can tell stories of playground help to guide you. Personally, Zelda 2 came out and my thought was “this is different”. Still loved it. Then came Link to the Past and again thought “this is different”. Then Ocarina came and while everyone else saw a game as a progression of Link to the Past, I thought “this is not different”. The entire time, I was OK with the series moving from Zelda 1 because it was always different. Ocarina of Time made me truly long for a game like Zelda 1. Because of this, an NES has been hooked to my TV since 1987 without a break. While I enjoyed where Zelda went, Zelda 1 felt completely different over time. When BOTW came, I did not need anyone to compare it to Zelda 1. Immediately I felt I wasn’t alone with my thought throughout my life. Zelda 1 was in fact different. It was not obtuse, it was not archaic, it was something we could learn from in modern game design. I loved BOTW almost as much as Zelda 1 but what do I love even more? The conversation that BOTW, Tunic and Dark Souls bring to the table. A fandom where people go back to Zelda 1 and still learn lessons from it nearly 40 years later. It is very rewarding to see a community grow from a thought you had and felt on an island about, to see new games where they attempt to build on those ideas. Is BOTW the new Zelda 1? I think you did a wonderful job offering an answer but it makes me far happier to know you played Zelda 1 in 2024 for the first time and was inspired as much as I was when I first got my sword because apparently it is dangerous to go alone.
"Breath of the Wild is less a reverential nod to the original and more of a reaction to the reception of Skyward Sword", THANK YOU!, I think this as well, so many times I feel like Nintendo thinks in absolutes and extremes, often times they are criticized by a game and then they decide to make the complete opposite to the previous game instead of finding a middle ground or analyze what worked and what didn't, take for example the Wind Waker/Twilight Princess art style situation.
@@LittleBeanGreen There's one thing to keep in mind here: it was not only a reaction to the reception of "Skyward Sword", but also a reaction to the entire anti-Japanese games movement that took place in the late 2000s and early 2010s (you know, Phil Fish, Keiji Mifune, Jonathan Blow, the way the term "JRPG" became derogatory during that time, etc.). We tend to forget this, but extreme linearity was not only one of the biggest criticisms to the Zelda series, but to Japanese video games as a whole. But Aonuma and the rest of the Zelda team didn't see the whole picture here.
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
My third and final comment. You did a fantastic job with this analysis!! Breath of the Wild is an ATTEMPT to capture the essence of Zelda, but it only focuses on one part (an open overworld). A true heir to Zelda 1 needs a maze overworld and more balance with dungeons.
I've grown so tired of everyone calling BotW/TotK "returning to the roots", glad to see videos like this appearing. Imo, the main problem is that not only the Wild games are different design philosophies from other Zeldas, they are different GENRES from them. All older Zelda games are action-adventure. BotW/TotK lean toward being sandboxes while keeping elements of action-adventure. Both genres investigate the concept of exploration in their own way. If one is a fan of both genres, they can believe that this exactly is the 'true essence' of Zelda and they can be understood. But otherwise, there are no ties between the OG and newer titles. Players miss dungeons, valuable rewards and the feeling of progression that older Zeldas, OG included, do convey, while the Wild games do not. They shouldn't, however, they are sandboxes playing by the rules of their genre. In this sense, the degree of 'openness' has little to do here. That's why, in my opinion, the divide between older and newer Zelda fans is so deep. Different genres imply different audiences that may barely overlap. P.S. Like you, I played the OG after BotW and loved it. Your analysis of LoZ 1 in your previous videos is great! Are you planning to play the second quest? I'd say it feels even more dungeon-oriented.
Certainly no Zelda has ever been a sandbox.... ...I think I may have to do the second quest only because a lot of people keep bringing it up and I didn't realize how different it actually is. Stay tuned!
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
I completely despise the whole debate about whether BotW is the "true successor" of the original. Always have. First and foremost because the whole debate rests on the idea that every single game released between 1986 and 2017 was a series of technological compromises at best, and a 30 year old mistake at worst. And sorry, not sorry, that's utter BS. But apart from that there is idea that I've seen a lot of people parroting constantly that complete flabbergasts me: the idea that free roaming exploration is the one and only true adventure, and that following a predetermined path is a fake adventure, or at the very least, a lesser one (the most extreme case I've seen is someone saying that's to take a theme park ride, instead of going in on an adventure. And I just can't fathom what kind of brain chemicals provoque people to utter such a thing, because it doesn't make any goddamn sense when you think about it for more than 2 seconds. Exploration is ONE TYPE of adventure, but not THE only type of adventure. If we were gonna follow that logic, then we would have to ditch like the vast majority adventure stories in other mediums. In "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" the characters had a very clear objective and a clearly define route to get there. They didn't leave the Shire and started to explore all Middle Earth until they found the way to get to Smaug's lair or Mount Doom. They were following a literal mark on a map. And even in LotR, when the Fellowship broke and Frodo and Sam had to find a new route again, they eventually had to use Gollum as their hand-holding companion. Are we gonna say that "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" aren't adventures now? That Bilbo Baggins was wrong for thinking that when he left the Shire? And that's only one example. I could say something similar about classic adventures stories like "Treasure Island", the "Indinana Jones" movies, "Tarzan", pretty much all of Jules Verne stories, etc. Again, I'm not contesting the idea that a story focused on exploration or roaming in a world can make for great adventures (from the top of my head "Gulliver's Travels") but this idea that that's the only type of adventure worth reproducing in a game, or at best the inherently superior one, I just can't get around that.
Funny I say almost the exact same thing. "Freedom" and "exploration" are not design choices. Exploration can change across games AND within them.... I make a similar point about the games between the original and botw being seemingly irrelevant to the conversation when those games deserve SO much credit for what botw eventually became.
I agree with you on it being a sort of fallacy to assume that exploration is the only (legitimate) form of adventure. However, I don't think that the claim of BotW being the "true successor" to Zelda 1 rests on the idea that the games in-between were somehow mistakes or technological compromises. Let's take a different game series as an extreme example: Dynasty Warriors. The very first game in that series was a fighting game like Tekken or Soul Calibur. Only with DW2 did it take on the form we associate with DW today. If a new DW came out tomorrow that decided it wants to be a fighting game and compete with Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8 and Guilty Gear Strive, wouldn't it be accurate to say that Dynasty Warriors came back to its roots? None of it implies that the games in between were mistakes or technological compromises. Even if you look at just the Zelda series, it's fairly obvious that Zelda 2 or Four Swords Adventures are quite different from the rest. Is that because they were mistakes? Or technological compromises? I wouldn't say that. They were simply going for something different. Something that the devs thought would be fun at the time. What the argument implies, in my view, is that there was something about Zelda 1 that subsequent games moved away from and which didn't really return until BotW. I disagree with this, but it's totally possible that this could be the case, so it's worth discussing. I don't think the argument implies what you think it does.
@@playtypus4592 I don't think they were mistakes or compromises and I don't mean to imply they are either - I simply mean the in between games seem like such logical steps from the original to botw in terms of what they added, that to skip over them is to miss all the evolution that happened in between.
“This new game is a return to [well received older game]” is a common trope when it comes to marketing a game. I watched IGN’s video review of Super Mario Galaxy from 2007 and the reviewer said “this feels like a spiritual successor to Super Mario 64”. That made me LOL.
After seeing the logo for that new Zelda game, there’s no question the wild era is the new standard in many ways. Hopefully they can learn to make better games and not just more open ones.
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
The hopium-huffing part of me tries to see the Wild era games as the partially inevitable growing pains on the way to a new and improved Zelda experience, or essence if you will, while veering off a bit too far into absolute openness on the way. Now that the new underlying physics and chemistry systems have been painstakingly created can the other core aspects be brought back in to create something new to capture the essence in a new, more holistic way. Echoes of Wisdom seems like it could reign in the openness while still allowing for creativity… but then Aonuma still keeps preaching about freedom and I‘m worried they‘re doubling down on doubling down lol.
I think you're right. I think Aonuma's behavior has been because they've more or less been making games with the same linearity for the past 30 years roughly and he's just excited at the new prospect.
From all the interviews I've read, it seems like it's difficult for Aonuma to escape the shadow of OoT. With the overwhelming popularity of BotW, that may have allowed Aonuma to step out of that shadow with the belief that something is finally better than that monkey on his back OoT....I think it some respects it is better and in some respects it's not. Let's just hope they don't quintuple down...
BOTW is more than just a reboot of Zelda 1. It has the 4-dungeon structure of MM, the durability and stamina from SS, the ability to use different weapons like Windwaker, and the environmental storytelling of OOT, TP, and to a lesser extend ALBW. It is more the sum of all that came before it, rather than just a reiteration of Zelda 1.
The idea of comparing Breath of the Wild to the original Zelda has been going on since Day 1 of the game’s release. What did remain a mystery for its time is whether or not it was a “soft reboot” for the series. Not just in terms of the lore (which by Tears of the Kingdom’s release, it remains debatable whether it is a reimagining or not; I still think it is…), but in terms of the gameplay. Supposedly, BOTW is the series “breath of fresh air”, but contrary to that, the game will treat you like you’ve played a Zelda game before. The enemies, the combat, the weapons, you name it. In addition to the series familiarity, it also introduces survival mechanics. Others games like Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater went far out from the usual sneaking into enemy bases approach, opted for a jungle environment teeming with wildlife. The environment is unpredictable. You won’t know if you’re stepping on mud, bottomless tar pits, or even a venomous snake… But what it does is you have to make use of your surroundings to progress through without a fuss. Hunting for animals, picking up fruit to either sustain your hunger or to use as medicine or wound treatment. MGS3 is the only game in its series that handles survival flawlessly while maintaining the series stealth action. BOTW has where it’s going for… except the survival mechanics make it so that everything is illogical. The weapon breaking, the weather hazards, some questionable food abilities… I’m fully aware that Zelda isn’t always known for logic… but BOTW takes the word logic and throws it completely out the window. Everything at your disposal is at the mercy of your own instincts. Whereas the original Zelda, sure you have to gather bombs and arrows to clear your path, you still have the sword to fight back. So comparing this to the original Zelda… I don’t always see the point doing so… But the freedom and exploration is where the basis came from… My biggest catch with the freedom approach is… Ok, you have the world, you have the characters, and you have built upon a series of potential quests and relationships with endless possibilities… BUT WHERE’S THE VALUE? Did all this sense of exploration and nostalgia pay off? That’s the biggest problem I always had with both BOTW and TOTK. Both games still left me more questions than answers. How do both games connect with past Zeldas when you have pretty much retconed the whole thing? If you wanted to reimagine the lore, fine. But enough with the nostalgia-bating. Nintendo said that they wanted the alter conventions of Zelda, stray away from the past… But they hesitated doing so. They even intentionally left more bits and pieces of lore in the utter dark and all the other places you explore… did the payoff end well? If you look at other open world games like (and I can’t believe the words coming from my mouth) Skyrim, everywhere you look has value, something to gaze upon, have something to intrigue you, even if it’s just a dusty old book, you find value in your exploration. The Era of the Wilds titles just don’t have that… I look at Breath of the Wild as a glorified testing ground, I look at Tears of the Kingdom as glorified testing ground 1.5. Why all the senseless mysteries when you won’t have any more to show? Furthermore, why the 6 years of the utter secrecy with TOTK’s gameplay and plot? Was it they were trying to hide the fact that they did copy and pasted everything BOTW did but in a divisive manner? I look at Twilight Princess as the return to form of Ocarina of Time fans wanted, I see Wind Waker as the inspiration for indie titles that uses its cartoony style like A Hat In Time, I see Skyward Sword as the answer of how Hyrule will eventually come to be as a kingdom. I see Majora’s Mask having the most fleshed out world in the entire series. The Era of the Wilds games hadn’t taught me anything… aside from the fact that Nintendo wanted to test first, then experiment to see if this is the future of Zelda. Hundreds of shrine trials and nostalgiabation with no significant value nor payoff…
> but contrary to that, the game will treat you like you’ve played a Zelda game before. Can you elaborate on this? It isn't a criticism I've seen before so I want to properly understand what you mean.
@TSPhoenix2 There’s this common statement regarding who’s the playing the game. Either you’re playing a Zelda game for the first time or a longtime veteran. For experienced players, BOTW is more or less a walk in the park… except when it’s not. Meaning you pretty much know what you’re getting yourself into, but you do have to know the movement of the enemies, and the condition of the surrounding environment. (It took me a while to know the movement patterns of a Lynel.) Newcomers to the series might as well stay away from direct fights if possible and spend more time gathering resources, but when you do end up in a fight, the first thing they’ll end up doing is attacking without knowing how to exploit the opponent’s abilities. It’s not so much criticism, I heard others say that it will treat the player as if you’ve played a Zelda game before, but the more I think about that, it contradicts the idea of “forgetting” everything from past titles and everything is based upon your instincts alone.
I mean it doesn't exactly treat like you ike you've played a Zelda game before, not with the Great Plateau ad all that it teaches. I don't see how the survival mechanics make things illogical you mind explaining that part? I mean....I don't see what is really illogical about any of that stuff really. Value? Well...depends on what you mean like that. Quality of the core gameplay? Plot and lore? Progression and rewards? What exactly? I mean they moved away from the past while also giving vague connections with it with BOTW's timeline placement. Literally bits and pieces of lore in the utter dark with the outfits in The Depths really. Eh....what makes everything in Skyrim have value but not in the era of the wild games? Like not all the lore? Havig mysteries isn't bad. We got items and puzzles and secrets to show. For Totk dev time? Changing the overworld carefully enough and working on the abilities which would take a long time to get right and covid delays and the last year of development just being polish can help explain that. I doubt that is what happened, there are genuine reasons why it would take so long. Eh does MM have the most fleshed out world? I dunno about that one. They have value and payoff with well...progression and lore.
I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently as well. Every Zelda game has its strengths and weaknesses, and people like each one for different reasons. Everyone has their own definitions of what Zelda is and I think that's why fans get so divided on which Zelda games actually have the essence of Zelda. Great video!
I think you're right - it's like a recipe that some people like more sweet in and some people like more salty, but whatever you cook ends up tasting pretty good.
It wouldve been the true successor if all they did was keep the classic linear story and linear classic dungeons. And you can add 3 or 4 hidden dungeons in the world that you can tackle in any order you want.
I think that's something the next Zelda should tackle: non-story specific, hidden dungeons, that you can miss if you don't look. But I also think Nintendo shouldn't tell anyone.
The og game wasn’t linear From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
Just goes to show that regardless of how you feel about the Wild era their marketing was on point lol. And interesting to see that the "this is the true essence of Zelda" promotional tactic has been used for a while now.
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
@@madnessarcade7447the essence is Minecraft, but without the charm of permanent crafting. In that regard, Minecraft is a superior game, with a new world opening to you and building on.
I think your series of videos has made me realize that Zelda as a series both means something to different people AND isn't something that can be measured by gameplay mechanics as a science. I disagree that BotW isn't a rightful heir but to explain myself would be to explain how each game's experience effected me and from your videos on Zelda 1 I can see that we had different experiences all around. Thank you for laying things out in your videos all the same. I don't think I'd have had this thought otherwise
I've definitely felt similarly about the series as I've started to dive more into its history. Thanks for watching and for pulling something reasonable out and sharing. Greatly appreciated.
i think the essence of zelda for what the "fans" want is a lot easier to describe then a lot of people think. at the core of pretty much every "official zelda game" is a dungeon puzzler, atleast until botw, which went the route of shrine mini dungeon puzzles instead of the winding amalgamations of dungeons in any other zelda game. at its core, the majority enjoy solving puzzles or having many puzzles they can only accomplish after they aquire 'x' item or power. something they might have to return to a favored spot, region, or dungeon to aquire when they have the tools necessary to progress. that their hearts and power were not intrinsically tied to experience or general progression within the game, but rather in their own ability to find and collect the heart pieces, or optional upgrades through the puzzles / minigames around the world. skyward sword had a lot of the game locked behind its progression, that just progressing in the game opened up new 'side quests' which often were not super puzzley or fun, for gratitude crystals, and often told you how to complete it, instead of giving the players a chance to figure it out for themsleves, coming across it more naturally.
I think that's a large portion of it and definitely what the series did better than any other but I think there might be more - I'd have to think about it deeper. Even though I did another video on it when I was a little...greener ha.
You totally get it. I discovered the Original Legend of Zelda in 1992. I saw a friends older brother playing it and was intrigued. Eventually we ended up playing it and I fell in love with the series. I had seen the game is store demos before, and it was always intriguing, but I never had the chance to explore and play it until that moment. Breath of the Wild's DNA is a mix of a lot of the games that came before it. To be a true follow up to the original, it would be missing many of the elements that it does have. It would also have to include real traditional dungeons which it does not. I do like Breath of the Wild, and I think it's the best Zelda game they have made in many years. To me, it has enough DNA that it does feel like a Zelda game, it has that essence. Tears of the Kingdom though, that's a different beast entirely. It's like Nintendo saw what players were doing to break Breath of the wild and built that as Tears of the Kingdom's main mechanic. Like the whole combining system feels way too foreign to me. It's almost like I'm playing Zelda meets minecraft, and that's not really an experience I'm interested in. Not to mention that tutorial island took way too long to get out of to actually start playing the game. After I finally got through the tutorial I pressed on for a bit further, but I felt no inclination to continue and I haven't picked it back up since. It's one of several of the later titles I haven't finished. I would like to eventually get through all of them, and maybe I will revist Tears of the Kingdom someday.
One of the biggest things that he said that blew my mind was that Mario and Luigi were twins and were supposed to be around 24(I think) years old. I was like "WHAT"? Neither of those things ever would have seemed as fact to me. Like I assumed the brothers were quite a bit older, and certainly not twins. Still don't believe it even though it came from the creators mouth.
Yer a legend. I feel like as soon as big posts/creators put forward a point like this, people are so quick to automatically align with it in its entirety without thinking about all the factors surrounding it. Someone put it really well in the comments, regarding response to SS which was obviously a massive factor, as opposed to just using a Zelda 1 BOTW demo to create an open and shut conversation starter/ender that just simplifies the factors leading to BOTW’s development into a misconstrued mess which neither treats TLOZ or BOTW for what they are.
and cast aside all the games in between. I just found the conversation incredibly interesting and didn't see it that way after playing through Zelda 1.
BOTW evoked feelings I've never experienced while playing a video game. As you went through the creators thoughts on what they wanted to accomplish with the first game, I personally saw the resemblance. but hey that's just me. I think that evolution is crucial to the series. Many of the zelda games have made the world rethink how games work. I just hope they continue to do that.
@@LittleBeanGreen oh for sure. I think you mentioned this in the video (or someone else in the comments section) that each game kinda focuses on a different aspect of the "zelda essence"
I like the new directions that Zelda is going in, but I would change a couple things about it. (This is BECAUSE Zelda has evolved, it wasn't broken before, just needed that open world sauce) 1: DONT make the dungeons all look and feel the same. (30 unique dungeons instead of 120 bite-sized shrines) 2: I think the problem with the item system was that even though there were many disposable items, they basically all did the same thing. Tears remedied this witg it's zonai devices and weirder items, AND it had the sage abilities, there was never any cool item to remember the dungeons by, and don't bullshit me and tell me that we can't have that with breakables, because tears DID dabble in these permanent items such as mineru, the auto-build, earthquake move, ect. Maybe DONT give me all the runes at once from the start; space them out in the dungeons! This would force players to ACTUALLY DO THE DUNGEONS DIFFERENTLY if they do them in a different order on sub-sequent playthroughs. 3: give ALL clothes and armors dyes, transmog, and make your very first transmog option the classic link outfit, hat n all! And with dyes and transmog I can make things like flamebreaker set and zora armor red and blue tunic respectively if I really wanted too! TL:DR; less dungeons (but A LOT MORE THAN 8) that are bigger and have visual and audible variety. More varied and "weird" Items or power ups that I can really remember the dungeons by, and more armor customization (AND LINK'S TYPICAL OUTFIT)
@@LittleBeanGreen I wouldn't say lock progress, dont lock progress, just make them A: give me shortcuts that if i didnt have them would make said dungeon harder, and whatever you find in the dungeon exploits a special weakness in the boss (however, still let me fight the boss however I want and give them other exploitable weaknesses that are a little harder to pull off but still can involve other "dungeon items"
@@LittleBeanGreen Gohma in Tears is a good example: Ideally i use the goron roll at the legs and explosive rocks but I CAN, VERY MUCH STILL, fight it without the Goron!
Bub, oh my glob, BotW was and is the first moment I felt that little bit. The time my dog died and as a child my response was to delve into Zelda 1. That little bit if freedom from my self and my situation. Every piece is there. Damn it! Now I'm cryin!
@@LittleBeanGreen Not at all, dear. You made your point quite clear. By the by, I do love your thoughts distilled into video essay. Please keep making content.
This was another interesting and well-done video. I'd heard a couple of those developer quotes but there were a lot that were new to me. I was especially surprised to learn that they have suggested some sort of return to form multiple times before. What's really interesting though is that this time people actually seemed to finally believe it, almost as if there was something to it this time. But as is probably abundantly clear to the people complaining about BotW (and also after the last two videos), BotW isn't actually like Zelda 1. So what's the reason people continue to believe it and parrot it? What's the secret? I think most people are really bad at expressing why they like certain things and why they don't. So when they say "It's just like Zelda 1", maybe this isn't to be taken in a way that draws direct mechanical comparisons (because then it turns out that it is in fact different), but is moreso to be understood in the sense of "It made me *feel* the same things that Zelda 1 did". But then again this has to have some basis in what the game does to elicit those feelings, right? The most direct comparison I can come up with is the Great Plateau. It hides the fact that it's really just a tutorial area pretty well. Just like the original Zelda, you wake up and you're free to simply play the game. Other Zeldas have increasingly front-loaded story and exposition. It takes some Zeldas up to an hour until you're finally free to explore the overworld. Although the Plateau isn't actually the "real" overworld, it sort of feels like it. Additionally, if you played many previous Zeldas, you'd probably have a pretty good idea how things would normally go. There was nothing surprising, nothing mysterious post-OoT. BotW on the other hand just gives you a bow in a random chest (an item that would've taken you at least until the second dungeon to obtain). And then after a while the bow just breaks. Someone playing Zelda 1 in 1986 for the first time would similarly have no idea of what to expect next. Everthing the game just threw at you was new and fresh and exciting. And BotW, by being so drastically different to what came before it would be similarly unpredictable and thus exciting. Maybe I'm off with my explanation, but personally, I thought that the opening hours were really the best part of BotW. As I played the game more and more, I realized that it itself was pretty formulaic - the mystery was gone. And even worse: many of its conceptual problems started to rear their ugly head (like the breaking weapons). What I don't get is what this new "open-air" direction actually brings to the table. None of what I mentioned above would be outside of the scope of a traditional, more linear Zelda experience. Picking which direction to go in isn't a meaningful choice since you make your choice kind of blindly and randomly (you might as well just roll some dice) and ultimately you're going to go visit all the important places anyway, right? It's not like in Pokémon, where once you picked Charmander you're stuck with the critter and you'll have to deal with the consequences of your choice and build your team around him. It's not even like going somewhere randomly and hitting a dead-end necessarily has to be a waste of time. If the place is gonna end up being important later, you could easily have a fast travel point there to unlock. That way your trek there doesn't have to be for naught since you'll save some time later. And as it stands right now, there are already plenty of pointless places in BotW and TotK.
maybe if they started a game like BotW, which upon completion led to a linear section, which then opened up into another plateau area (e.g., do these 3 dungeons in any order), which then opened the next tier of 3 or 6 dungeons...that might actually work.
Zelda 1 was my first Zelda. I played it in 89 when I was 10 and beat it. Then link to the past was my 2nd favorite. Then Oriana of time on 64. Didn't play anymore till botw in 2021 . Those 4 are my fav. Botw reminded me and felt just as awesome as Zelda 1 did .
Sprinted here Edit: excellent video. I have faith that with as loud as we have been that we will see a true merger of everything that makes zelda good. A mixture of freedom and linearity that will satisfy all. And most importantly i hope when we finish whatever that next zelda game is, its rewarding. Every bit of exploration served a purpose and we benefited from our willingness to explore( dont hit me with the shrines and seeds) the sky is the limit
Wholeheartedly agree! I‘m curious to see whether Echoes of Wisdom will be an indicator of the direction the next 3D game is headed, similarly to ALBW back then.
@@lmnt66 I think you're onto something I would definitely pay attention to what the games like when it comes out. We do know the zelda team love to test things out with the 2d zeldas before implementing it into 3d. Side note. I wish botw took even more inspiration from albw than it did. The dungeons in that game were the cream of the crop
well, i love the new games, but isnt just about freedom and creativity, its also about growth, and thats the part thats missing recently, a stronger sense of progression that the oldschool dungeons used to provide
I don’t think we have seen a return to Zelda NES 1 roots yet. BOTW plateau was so Zelda 1 but after the glider the whole game changed. If they kept that opening section design through the game it would have been perfect. They should do a Zelda 1 remake so they can give fans a taste before making a new game and really going back
I played through Zelda 1 and am currently playing through the second quest. It may be because I'm playing on NSO and the Switch controller is bad for it, but I think what became of Zelda is much better than what that first game was.
I first played Zelda NES in 2016 in preparation for BotW. I really didn't enjoy my time with it. I went back to it in 2019 after playing BotW and I appreciated it a lot more. I entered the series with Majora's Mask and didn't find myself enjoying OoT and LttP nearly as much. The things I value in Zelda most are probably not things most people would say are core to the series. More than anything, I felt Breath of the Wild was the first to build on Majora's Mask as BotW was the first Zelda since then interested in showing us a world that felt like it existed without the player's input. The free exploration echoed Zelda NES for sure, but it is present to a much larger degree in BotW and is more in service of making its world feel more real. SS and TotK make me think that Nintendo's concept of freedom doesn't really align with players. Their sense of freedom seems to be more mechanical, interactive, i.e. how you can use motion controls to interact with SS's world or ultra hand to build physics contraptions in TotK. It feels like exploration is more of a means to an end for Nintendo to encourage us to engage with those systems. I think the exploration aspects are more reactive to player feedback, like you said. BotW's openness is a capitulation to fans disappointed with Skyward Sword's claustrophobic progression. Similarly, TotK's robust quests to dungeons, more traditional dungeons, and multiple interwoven side quests are a capitulation to fans wanting a more traditional Zelda experience. I don't know when the community will realize it, but Tears of the Kingdom is the nebulous "future" game that combines Breath of the Wild's openness with the traditional linear design of older games. I personally just think that combination doesn't work. I would rather the series lean way more into freedom, at least for its exploration. Something else to keep in mind with all these staff quotes are the quotas the Zelda team had been under. I think they didn't want to make linear games, but with Iwata's blue ocean strategy they had to design the games for people who never played games before. I think the linearity was a compromise in order to make sure there were clear tutorials for everything. I think when this strategy was abandoned towards the end of the Wii's life cycle, they were probably happy to leave that particular mandate behind and get back to the core of Zelda series, i.e., targeting actual gamers who don't need to be convinced that video games are fun. I think if you read all these staff quotes from that lens, their references to the original are more understandable.
I think Aonuma has been trying to get out of the shadow of Ocarina for a long time now. I don't think the dungeons in TotK represent anything near like what the traditional dungeons were and finding them in the overworld is never really a reward for exploration as it seems you're strung along a narrative string that leads you to each one. The only one I found inadvertently was the Spirit Temple which I then had no ability to enter. Your last paragraph is interesting because it seems to me there is a dev quote about TotK (which I might be making up or may have to find) that the devs didn't want to alienate players if this was their first Zelda game, which is strange because EVERYONE played BotW. Majora's Mask was developed with the idea that people had played OoT and were ready for a greater challenge. TotK doesn't seem to have that same type of swagger.
@@LittleBeanGreen I think TotK reveals what they think a "traditional" dungeon is. All the dungeons are very LttP-style, with the sages playing the role of the big key and the long lead ups acting as a sort of first half embedded in the environment. A dungeon isn't about a place for them, it seems to be a kind of mechanical progression. I have been fixated recently on this exact point, how new players engage with TotK. I don't think accommodating for new players worked, a lot don't seem to engage with most of the game's core mechanics. I'm not sure what was sacrificed for new players was worth it, even for them.
@@coolguychecker7329 I'm not sure - it seems like they heard 'we don't want all the dungeons to look the same' and then gave us the Divine Beasts in concept covered in unique facades.
@@LittleBeanGreen I don't really see much similarity with the Divine Beasts outside of the whole activate terminals thing. Activating terminals = small keys in a dungeon design with no walls. I'm not a fan of that design element being repeated so much, but I put up with small keys being reused for many games, so I'm not too upset with it. I wish they moved away from both "traditional" and these new "activate terminal" dungeons to the more mechanical dungeons of Majora's Mask, and Skyward Sword, where you actually unlock things by meaningfully rearranging parts of the environment. At least the Divine Beasts had a flavor of that with the controls, just wasn't that interesting controlling all that from the Sheikah Slate, would be better if it was embedded in the Divine Beasts themselves.
After Zelda games have been drifting further and further away from free exploration, a sudden return to free exploration certainly feels like a return to Zelda 1 which was a game with far more freedom than the sequels that followed it. Freedom is such a prominent feature of BotW that it is natural that people focus upon it, even though in other ways BotW is just as drastic a departure from Zelda 1 as Skyward Sword was. The way that BotW took away the dungeons that have been a staple of every Zelda game since Zelda 1 is a radical shift in gameplay. It seems like Nintendo cannot just create a modern version of Zelda 1, for whatever reason.
yeah, I keep telling people that the perfect zelda game is going to be when they can balance the open world elements WITH structured elements. Why can't we ACTUALLY do a Zelda 1 type game in 3D? A big overworld with clues about how to traverse it and find the key locations/dungeons hidden around. When I first played TOTK, at the beginning of the game I really felt that mystery, that "essence" when there were so many mysterious things going on, but the problem was that they all led to the same and very obvious conclusions, so after solving a few mysteries and learning the same answers, I got really really bored and my desire to explore hyrule again disappeared. The mechanical rewards and narrative rewards for actually exploring TOTK just weren't there for me. I could see in my head already what was behind every door, inside every chest, and hidden in every cave, so why even do anything? This open air thing ain't it chief. Not for me.
The exploration to me felt like Zelda 2, which should be the complete opposite of this game, and yet I found it closest. Wow nice going to this corner of the map full of curiosity, have a Bag of Videogame Points. Have a doll. Have a Potion. Breath of the Wild's exploration to me feels like that. All the weapons feel indistinguishable. All the consequences of exploration are meaningless. Have 54 Cool Ancient Swords for completign this Minigame. Turns out Iwata was right, getting score points is the essence of Zelda.
while BOTW/Tears fit the "idea" of what Zelda 1 was like in the 80's (honestly even LttP might have been considered open world back in the 90's since not only did you get one big world you got a second) *Tunic* fits the true Zelda 1 player experience from a different angle as someone in the mid 2000's how got a NES and Zelda 1 and the booklet from my uncle and used the booklet to help me through Zelda 1 Tunic does that exact method in very clever ways
@@LittleBeanGreen kinda understand if I had to say my only disappointment with Tunic was that it was more Dark Souls then Zelda like that I was hoping for but the Golden Path is still my fav puzzle in any game
@@TwilightYonder720 I actually liked the combat elements way more. It felt like a challenging ALttP...it was an action adventure game you had to uncover as you went but then it became a heavy obscure puzzler which just didn't interest me. I appreciate the golden path, but I don't like it in the context of the game I was playing up until that point.
@@LittleBeanGreen for me at least I loved the page booklets like the game would "give you a new ability" at the right time by giving you a page but it was something you could have been doing the whole game, and the Golden Path just felt like that prefect chevoks gun moment because I did notice some weird patterns throughout the pages before I did like the combat too but I was just little disappointed the game thats VERY trying to look like Zelda just became another Souls like, since Nintendo wasn't making 2D Zelda anymore back then (well Echoes got announced last month now) so I was hoping the game was gonna fill in the void like some other Indie games too GRANTED I didn't want Tunic to be derivative I'm very glad it became it's own unique game but I feel like the indie scene is a lot of Souls and Metroidvania likes (which I love) but they haven't been trying to recreate the 2D or even 3D Zelda market which technically are Metroidvanias but structured differently
"Zelda is about showing a large map to explore but it's locked off until the player completes a few quests first to show they can handle the mechanics and gameplay that will be vital for success as they proceed." -Nikola Tesla
Conclusion: The major figures in charge of Zelda will say whatever they’re currently working on captures the true essence of Zelda for financial reasons We may never know, our only real hope is to look through what miyamoto was saying about the game’s inspiration back in 1986. Anything he said about any other specific Zelda game including breath of the wild will probably be misleading to boost sales.
@@LittleBeanGreen these games all contradict each other, only one type of game can capture the “true essence of Zelda” Whichever game was their true intention to give the soul of Zelda the game it always needed to fully reach its potential, it can’t be all of them.
the chart at 13:26 is a good graph of how I have divided the Zelda series, one side is dungeon heavy and the other side content heavy like during all this BOTW discourse I keep hearing the phrase "Dungeons are what makes Zelda" but I came to think of it my fav Zelda Majora's Mask didn't have the best dungeons it's strengths came from else where with the puzzles being about helping people in a dire time as for my Dungeon/Side content statement think of it this way Dungeon heavy: Twilight Princess OoT SS LttP Side Content heavy: MM WW BOTW/TOTK MC Some fall inbetween like the Oracle games but you see what I mean, like WW has less dungeons but has strengths else where, a lot of WW is carried over into BOTW/Tears like the photo quests, shrines being mini dungeon puzzles like the islands, various side quests over the horizon and the minor item gathering
@@LittleBeanGreen finished it, mostly fine video but he was being very harsh on BOTW/TOTK in unfair ways (like complaining about fish weddings while OoT needed you to make a Goron dance, it's not too far off in silliness) while I have my own criticisms of BOTW/Tears those games are as Zelda as every other game, Zelda's "essence" everyone keeps claiming IS the puzzles and exploration and different ways to do them, in his video he was another saying dungeons make a Zelda but the dungeons are just a vessel for puzzles, like BOTW/Tears have weak dungeons like I said in my other comment games like MM and WW also have weak dungeons imo but the other puzzles are what people remember more of those games. I still argue WW is a prototype for how BOTW/Tears became, so this change isn't that sudden it's always been experimented
@@TwilightYonder720 I'd argue dungeons are a more interesting vessel for puzzles and a type of exploration than whatever BotW/TotK went for - but that's a matter of taste.
As for the other essence of Zelda besides puzzles it is the charm of the side characters and story which despite Tears having mostly the same cast they had enough fun characters returning and old to stand out from BOTW a lot of the Zelda discourse does make me annoyed as a Paper Mario fan since Zelda fans don’t know how good they have it when the series isn’t actually broken like PM was While I want BOTW/Tears to do more in the next game it’s nowhere near of how Nintendo adamantly gutted PM of it’s substance after Super
@@LittleBeanGreen well my top 2 Zelda’s are MM and TP, and I do like every Zelda game even the DS ones I think are underrated If anything brings BOTW/Tears down for me is Elden Ring since they imo did what those games mostly try to do but better
Pantera started as a glam rock band but nobody wants them to go back to that. People are not hankering for games in the style of Zelda 1 and 2 the way they want more Link to the Past/Ocarina of Time-style games. This shouldn't be so hard for Nintendo to comprehend.
I think Zelda 2 is next on the list of games to discuss. It's funny that Nintendo wanted Zelda 1 to have action RPG elements without it actually being an RPG and then Zelda 2 game along and was basically a full-fledged RPG. I still think the old and new can be combined into something great.
I've always been confused and annoyed at people insisting that BotW is just like Zelda 1 actually. Because gameplay wise and structurally they really aren't that similar. Things like LttP and LBW are more akin to it. And even on the "oh but how did it make you feel" sense that also just doesn't line up for me. When I think of playing Zelda 1 as a child my primary thoughts are of the dungeons. Or of seeing a little pier and wondering what's past said pier. It's of not being able to cross water inside a dungeon and not knowing why until I find the ladder. For me a fundamental essence of the experience was the locks and wondering what was beyond them. With BotW though there was no wonder. Because I could simply go anywhere I wanted and whenever I wanted. If I wanted I could just ignore the entire game and just fight Ganon. I had no wonder at what was in chests either because it was always a crafting item or another weapon that would just break and which would not open any locks for me. Shrines could also be completed whenever and were also too open and too easy to cheese. And knowing that I'm meant to play with them just isn't as satisfying as finding ways to break OoT's path. TotK has kind of mollified me. The sage abilities while not strictly required do scratch the dungeon item itch a bit. Seeing the bosses be something other than just Ganon over and over and require some degree of puzzle solving beyond "Hit it a lot" was nice. I appreciate the aesthetics of the new temples for the most part and I do like that more story bits were added. But I'm still left with a game that is far too open and with far too few valuable and unique rewards. It's a game that sometimes leaves me wondering "What's the point of exploring?" Some will say "The intrinsic fun of the gameplay" to which I will say "I can just play another game that provides me that but also actual rewards". I think, more than anything, Zelda needs locked doors and big chests again.
I think you may be right. Or they could think of items in dungeons that aren't necessary for unlocking things, but change the way you play the game. Maybe a dungeon item is magic heavy and ranged, maybe one is melee focused - something that makes interacting with those levels in different orders change how the player approaches the game.
@@LittleBeanGreen I am really hoping that your suggestion is where the series is headed. It kind of feels like it with how the Sage powers worked. They're not quite there yet but they feel like they can be evolved into that. There were some small hints of this in TotK's dungeons I feel. Like the heavy fan focus in the Wind Temple. But I feel the idea needs refinement.
Holy crap a reference to cinnamon noir lol I thought I was the only one who knew about him. He’s a great tuber for sure! U too little bean green ur a gangsta
Zelda 1 is my least favorite Zelda and BotW/TotK are both bottom five for me, but the idea that BotW is somehow Zelda 1's "successor" always bugged me after I finally played Zelda 1 myself. Basically the only reason I don't like Zelda 1 is the controls, if they were less frustrating to wrangle it would jump up at least a little on my preference list. The rest of it generally just feels like what I'd expect a proto-ALttP to feel like... which makes perfect sense, honestly. ALttP, overall, feels far more like an evolution of Zelda 1 than BotW/TotK ever did. It worked out all the awkward kinks that Zelda 1 had, like how some dungeons had a surplus of or not enough keys. It elaborated on the item based progression system. It, like Zelda 1, has an order while not necessarily holding you to that order. It added puzzle design beyond "push this seemingly random block." There was a reason ALttP defined the series so long. It was basically the first game but better in pretty much every way, it captured basically everything that made Zelda 1 good while fixing the parts that were frustrating. I do hope they find a better middle ground in the future. I love SS. It's a top five Zelda for me, and that's partially because I actually liked the "all dungeon, all the time" aspect of it. I find that a lot more engaging than BotW/TotK being large expanses with little in it. But my favorite Zeldas are actually TWW and ALBW, and that's partially because those games hit a reasonable balance, imo.
Still need to play ALBW, but I think you're spot on about ALttP. I also loved the dungeons of TP and SS - it felt like they were really hitting their stride. OoT and MM I also love but it feels like they were still trying to figure out puzzles in 3D.
Regarding the ongoing and often contentious task of defining the essence of Zelda: I have always felt it is a hard thing to define. Zelda isn’t one thing. Or perhaps it is whatever it needs to be at any given moment, and I think that’s what I love about it. It isn’t constrained by just being one thing. Zelda is malleable, and that’s a good thing. Really great work with this video LGB
The through-line mentioned between the Zelda games seems to be key elements of its gameplay and story which are reused and revamped over and over. As broken as the old timeline was, I loved the epic scale of the series taking place over centuries. Breath of the Wild is a great game that did a lot of things right but when Tears of the Kingdom came out, it became obvious what was merely hinted at in Breath of the Wild, that the old timeline and continuity had been jettisoned and that BotW represented a soft reboot of the series. That didn't sit well with me but I've come to understand I'm not the audience for the series any more. And that's okay.
As someone who's first game was Zelda 1, I don't connect the new games to the past titles. I thought BotW was great when it came out, but I couldn't help but audibly utter "this isn't Zelda" because of how different it was. The new format has lost it's luster for me. I hope the series regains its essence as these are not my type of games. I like limitations, and I don't enjoy interacting with obstacles disguised as puzzles.
I haven't played BotW since its release and I can't remember much about how I felt when playing it...probably a testament to how little it impacted me.
It’s not upto us to decide what is and isn’t Zelda that’s upto the creators it’s their creation their vision Zelda is whatever they said it is Don’t think so shortsightedly
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
the misconception that botw is like z1 reminds me of the claim how tp is like oot. mechanically it does borrow a few things from oot but its combat is closer to tww. apparently both games use the same engine to it makes sense. TP's structure is closer to link's awakening but more restrictive and more story focused. dungeon design does have a greater focus on the hub and spoke system while wolf link is a derivative of the mask system from MM. if anything oot is closer to z3 than it is to TP. yes epona exists but in oot she was completely optional and the combat was restricted to bows. tww and tp's mechanical advancements from oot and mm in terms of combat and physics is similar to how z3 took the leap from z1's combat and movement. botw, however, took its own identity despite borrowing some ideas from SS's stamina system and physics and albw's item progression.
I think each game is a more careful iteration of what came before it than each game gets credit for. Like you mentioned TP's combat and TWW, OoT and ALttP. There is so much of Link's movement in BotW that is clearly from SS....and they all start with returning to the 'essence' of the franchise.
@@LittleBeanGreen LA did carry over z3's 8 directional movement and sword swings while oracles rebalanced the physics (believe it or not those 2 entries are a different engine from LA). in general though one thing with TP was that mechanically it was like adding new dimensions to oot but structurally felt very safe which is ironic given how oot has more intrusions from navi compared to midna but fewer restrictions in terms of progression. in fact, TP's programming does not like it when players sequence break because it can lead to the game locking up such as unlocking a door from the opposite side into a different room in snowpeak ruins. the lock faces one side so the cutscene freezes due to a logic error. in oot, however, unlocking a door from the opposite side does not have this issue which is surprising given the programming is much older. the water temple's central room has a one sided locked door but it still remains locked on both sides and no complications occur either. TP does not have this issue if the lock leads into the same room like the cannonball door in snowpeak's courtyard. now oot does have a sequence break (which is glitchless) in death mountain crater where the goron tunic can be missable and you can skip bolero of fire. surprisingly you can still get the song after the light arrows and no problems occur despite the contradicting narrative.
@@LittleBeanGreen well what i mean in general is those were more to do with how unintended sequence breaks in earlier games ironically were less problematic compared to later games. apparently in skyward sword, you cannot carry multiple small keys on the screen which is why the strict one key principle applies. but anyway, when it comes to more freedom it is more of given an expected order but also discovering what can be deviated. for example, in z3, you are given the assigned order of crystals however if you know the layout you can mix it up. compared to the wind waker where the game gives you the false impression of tackling earth or wind in either order when in reality this is not possible because makar does not spawn until after earth is completed. the songs however can be obtained in other order.
@@HeatherSulu I generally don't do that - it was just a long time writing this script and adding all those things to the description so I just kept them open.
The fixation on "changing conventions" is being taken overboard imo. Not that they shouldn't be changed when it supports the game, but making the entire _point_ changing conventions is hollow. A bit of a gimmick, honestly. That's not "focusing on the gameplay," so much as focusing on the marketing.
Idk if you have played Dark Souls 1 or not, but I've always seen that game as more of a true successor to Zelda 1 than BotW. If you want to turn this to a video idea go ahead. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this :P
I feel people take interview commentaries too much at face value. If I'm honest I just took the BotW grandiose quotes as, misguided. Like to me the words just don't actually describe... anything. "Return to roots" was a phrase so overused in interviews for upcoming games where it basically just means "we looked at a single thing from the first game and also are backtracking on things from our previous games". A lot of developers and games were saying it at the time, and for the end result it very rarely felt genuine.
botw did bring the series back to more freedom however it went in the opposite direction of what twilight princess and skyward did by being too extreme. the secrets and discovery are similar to the first entry but it is far more overworld centric. dungeons don't have any sort of cohesion or how progression is handled and the overworld itself is not labyrinthian.
I'd argue that the secrets and discovery are worse because in BotW it's basically a weapon, a korok seed, or a shrine. In the original everything really changed the game and you could never be sure what you were going to come across.
@@LittleBeanGreen that is a good point. koroks are also too excessive. the shrines sadly could have been hidden dungeons. in totk, misko's treasure though does have the riddles for some which are cryptic without the information. also verticality does play a role but it is not handled the best. the depths are labyrinthian but lack substance and the sky is very fragmented with a lot of copy paste design. while z1 did have some troll moments like the door repair men, finding the secrets are actually well hidden. mark brown in his video mentions this when he defends the overworld. his dungeon video though he was very negative. z1 is not perfect but it had a good foundation that i wish the series followed its example with that balance it had.
@@scorpionsapprentice3248 the dungeons got a lot better as the series progressed and I think making an overworld like BotW but filling it with things that are meaningful like the first zelda.
@@LittleBeanGreen this might be a hot take but i argue the dungeons peaked between majora's mask and the oracles. the former solved the red herring problem because of stray fairies while treating the dungeon as an interconnected whole. oracle of ages also had the interconnected whole layout. many of the 3d dungeons come off as disjointed like spliced shrines. sky keep however gets my vote for best final dungeon.
I feel the current development cycle Nintendo is utilizing for Zelda is affecting the franchise negatively. By either going all in on dungeons or all in on the overworld, but not both, like how it should be. This is something absolutely fundamental for the series, and because they choose not to spend the money and time You now literally can't play Breath of the Wild without diminishing the experience of Tears of the Kingdom and vice versa. I understand the physics and open world is a big deal for these games too, but you need a complete package for the casual player to get the most out of it. My feelings on these two games can be summed up as : The Beta version and the DLC pack. The attempt to return to the first game in this case is more of an excuse for them to drop the more expensive aspects of development, to drop the heavier narrative elements in exchange for freedom. And the overall quality of the games have suffered for it imo. I don't think we need to have a new Zelda game every other year because the experience was usually worth the wait. But we've only been getting a halfs or quarters of zelda games lately. Now they're recycling the overworld from a Link to the Past again for Echoes of Wisdom. They should know and be concerned that copy and pasting overworlds from past games is going to affect the experience of those who played the original ALttP or ALBW? Once was enough, changing the player character isn't going to make walking through the same areas not dull. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I'm not exactly excited on where they could be going next.
Nah that seems to be a common complaint - not to mention, the inventory management of the old games was always pretty terrible and it's somehow become worse...and Echoes of Wisdom don't look much better.
BOW is the closest to a true successor in my opinion, but it also only understands the original in part. In ways, it disrespects and blasphemes the original, but in others it reveres it. It captures the freedom, but misses the soul and integrity of the original. You shouldn't be able to rush to Ganon. Then, TOK is the complete antithesis to a Zelda game and its complete disrespect for the series is a blemish on the series
I'm not sure you can be the closest if you both revere and blaspheme it haha - ALttP seems like exactly what the next iteration of the original should have been.
@@LittleBeanGreen It sounds weird, but it makes sense to me in practice. It nails what it does right and you can just not engage with the things that feel antithetical to Zelda. ALTP would be one of the next closest to a successor IMO though. Maybe MM or WW.
@@LittleBeanGreensearching up the green knight I see the inspiration I just assumed Macbeth because the video was about the heir to Zelda 1 and Macbeth has the false heir dethroned as a part of its story
1:30 He said the line! I'm unsubscribing! I still don't even get the whole "open air" distinction tbh. It just sounds like they want this to sound more special. The "We're not like other girls" of open world games. It's especially lost meaning now with how many modern games are copying it, like Elden Ring and Ubisoft's Greek Gods of the Wild. At least for Sonic Frontiers, "Open Zone" makes sense since Zones are that series's video game levels, and this is just bigger, open-ended versions of those.
Yeah 'open air' isn't a real thing as far as I'm concerned. It was just something imagined by the devs to make it seem distinct from every other quote unquote open world game. It's a marketing gimmick.
16:29 Good point I'd like to counter-argument: Yes, Great Plateau oldman (then Impa) gives you yellow dots to guide you around. Thing is, you can actually turn them off, and the game works out perfectly without them, even the minimap with "Pro HUD". Its like saying Zelda 1 manual damages the game's purpose (despite revealing the hell out of it, is a remarkable and cute manual) Personally, I consider both Demon and Dark Souls great spiritual successors of Zelda 1. Both carry its essence: Adventure (And combat). Aside from that, neat video and I appreciate your thoughts
Fair enough - although at some point the original's manual basically sets you off on your own (after level 4 I think?). The waypoints you can turn off sure but they're still always there. I've heard a lot about the Souls games but have never had the opportunity to play one. With what I hear about Elden Ring, I get the comparison.
@@LittleBeanGreen Truly recommend you Demon & Dark, they deserve their legacy and yep, it inherits some aspects of Zelda 1 and 2 (forgot to mention). Elden Ring eh, nice, but too derivative. Back to waypoints, I see it like the Minimap: Unnecesary add-ons for casuals, but eh, you're not wrong. At least is not the "Dowsing" of Zelda SS
Outside of nostalgia and memes strangely no one talks about classic Zelda the same way they do botw or ocarina of time or any 3d games Wonder why Was it not as memorable as people remembered ? Idk
@@LittleBeanGreen TOTK of course, thanks to that game botw has gained a huge ton of haters and its popularity is divided when before totk It used to be considered one of the best games of history
@@ricky.t.1658 except this idea about BotW being a return to form existed before TotK was even a glimmer in Nintendo's eye...and I don't think this is 'hating' on BotW, just pointing out that many of the old titles were marketed with the same idea of 'capturing the essence' of the series just like BotW while BotW is also WAY different than anything that came before it.
@@LittleBeanGreen but botw was actually the only that succeded and break free from the model that reigned over the series for decades while also capturing the very essense of what Zelda is, getting away from the formula
That botw is zelda 1 thing is babies first propaganda. Bit extreme with what the term propaganda represents but it's textbook propaganda done masterfully.
there are 3 kinds of Zelda games, Traditional, Multiplayer, and Open every Zelda game except FS, FSA, TFH, BotW, & TotK follows the formula of explore → find dungeon → get item that lets you explore more of the world → repeat like a Metroidvania Multiplayer is the focus of FS, FSA, and TFH so they're a disconnected selection of individual levels BotW & TotK are big open playgrounds
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
The devs go over it in that GDC presentation. The pixel art style is definitely OF the original but the engine hardly is. Everything in that prototype is actually 3D - they show it in that presentation.
So many whiners falling behind in times, being stuck in the past. Boohoo. I like the newer Zelda games and I’ve been playing since nes. Get over it. Time to move forward
wait. the whole point of this video is to show that NINTENDO thinks BotW was a return to the past, when it was really a culmination of everything that came before it + the modern gaming landscape.
![I Solved the Map of EVERY Zelda Game! [Legend of Zelda Theory]](/img/n.gif)
I am an NES kid. Zelda 1 made me love video games. I was the age that can tell stories of playground help to guide you. Personally, Zelda 2 came out and my thought was “this is different”. Still loved it. Then came Link to the Past and again thought “this is different”. Then Ocarina came and while everyone else saw a game as a progression of Link to the Past, I thought “this is not different”. The entire time, I was OK with the series moving from Zelda 1 because it was always different. Ocarina of Time made me truly long for a game like Zelda 1. Because of this, an NES has been hooked to my TV since 1987 without a break. While I enjoyed where Zelda went, Zelda 1 felt completely different over time. When BOTW came, I did not need anyone to compare it to Zelda 1. Immediately I felt I wasn’t alone with my thought throughout my life. Zelda 1 was in fact different. It was not obtuse, it was not archaic, it was something we could learn from in modern game design. I loved BOTW almost as much as Zelda 1 but what do I love even more? The conversation that BOTW, Tunic and Dark Souls bring to the table. A fandom where people go back to Zelda 1 and still learn lessons from it nearly 40 years later. It is very rewarding to see a community grow from a thought you had and felt on an island about, to see new games where they attempt to build on those ideas. Is BOTW the new Zelda 1? I think you did a wonderful job offering an answer but it makes me far happier to know you played Zelda 1 in 2024 for the first time and was inspired as much as I was when I first got my sword because apparently it is dangerous to go alone.
Great comment. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
"Breath of the Wild is less a reverential nod to the original and more of a reaction to the reception of Skyward Sword", THANK YOU!, I think this as well, so many times I feel like Nintendo thinks in absolutes and extremes, often times they are criticized by a game and then they decide to make the complete opposite to the previous game instead of finding a middle ground or analyze what worked and what didn't, take for example the Wind Waker/Twilight Princess art style situation.
I make that same art style comparison ha. It must be true!
@@LittleBeanGreen There's one thing to keep in mind here: it was not only a reaction to the reception of "Skyward Sword", but also a reaction to the entire anti-Japanese games movement that took place in the late 2000s and early 2010s (you know, Phil Fish, Keiji Mifune, Jonathan Blow, the way the term "JRPG" became derogatory during that time, etc.). We tend to forget this, but extreme linearity was not only one of the biggest criticisms to the Zelda series, but to Japanese video games as a whole.
But Aonuma and the rest of the Zelda team didn't see the whole picture here.
@@XanderVJ Interesting addition - thanks for sharing!
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
Rather than spoonfeed or hold your hand the devs for new games have left the essence upto player imagination
Basically it’s whatever we want it to be
My third and final comment.
You did a fantastic job with this analysis!! Breath of the Wild is an ATTEMPT to capture the essence of Zelda, but it only focuses on one part (an open overworld).
A true heir to Zelda 1 needs a maze overworld and more balance with dungeons.
bingo - and thanks for watching 😉
Exactly and besides, Zelda 1 was not as open as people often say it is.
I've grown so tired of everyone calling BotW/TotK "returning to the roots", glad to see videos like this appearing. Imo, the main problem is that not only the Wild games are different design philosophies from other Zeldas, they are different GENRES from them. All older Zelda games are action-adventure. BotW/TotK lean toward being sandboxes while keeping elements of action-adventure. Both genres investigate the concept of exploration in their own way. If one is a fan of both genres, they can believe that this exactly is the 'true essence' of Zelda and they can be understood. But otherwise, there are no ties between the OG and newer titles. Players miss dungeons, valuable rewards and the feeling of progression that older Zeldas, OG included, do convey, while the Wild games do not. They shouldn't, however, they are sandboxes playing by the rules of their genre. In this sense, the degree of 'openness' has little to do here.
That's why, in my opinion, the divide between older and newer Zelda fans is so deep. Different genres imply different audiences that may barely overlap.
P.S. Like you, I played the OG after BotW and loved it. Your analysis of LoZ 1 in your previous videos is great! Are you planning to play the second quest? I'd say it feels even more dungeon-oriented.
Certainly no Zelda has ever been a sandbox....
...I think I may have to do the second quest only because a lot of people keep bringing it up and I didn't realize how different it actually is. Stay tuned!
You messed up in the first sentence. Totk is not part of the return to form, and I can conclude your opinion meaningless
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
@@madnessarcade7447 watch his last two videos instead of spamming comments that are irrelevant at this point
They should have just made Breath of the Wild into a new IP. This would have avoided the entire schism in the Zelda fan base.
I completely despise the whole debate about whether BotW is the "true successor" of the original. Always have. First and foremost because the whole debate rests on the idea that every single game released between 1986 and 2017 was a series of technological compromises at best, and a 30 year old mistake at worst. And sorry, not sorry, that's utter BS.
But apart from that there is idea that I've seen a lot of people parroting constantly that complete flabbergasts me: the idea that free roaming exploration is the one and only true adventure, and that following a predetermined path is a fake adventure, or at the very least, a lesser one (the most extreme case I've seen is someone saying that's to take a theme park ride, instead of going in on an adventure.
And I just can't fathom what kind of brain chemicals provoque people to utter such a thing, because it doesn't make any goddamn sense when you think about it for more than 2 seconds.
Exploration is ONE TYPE of adventure, but not THE only type of adventure. If we were gonna follow that logic, then we would have to ditch like the vast majority adventure stories in other mediums. In "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" the characters had a very clear objective and a clearly define route to get there. They didn't leave the Shire and started to explore all Middle Earth until they found the way to get to Smaug's lair or Mount Doom. They were following a literal mark on a map. And even in LotR, when the Fellowship broke and Frodo and Sam had to find a new route again, they eventually had to use Gollum as their hand-holding companion. Are we gonna say that "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" aren't adventures now? That Bilbo Baggins was wrong for thinking that when he left the Shire?
And that's only one example. I could say something similar about classic adventures stories like "Treasure Island", the "Indinana Jones" movies, "Tarzan", pretty much all of Jules Verne stories, etc.
Again, I'm not contesting the idea that a story focused on exploration or roaming in a world can make for great adventures (from the top of my head "Gulliver's Travels") but this idea that that's the only type of adventure worth reproducing in a game, or at best the inherently superior one, I just can't get around that.
Funny I say almost the exact same thing. "Freedom" and "exploration" are not design choices. Exploration can change across games AND within them....
I make a similar point about the games between the original and botw being seemingly irrelevant to the conversation when those games deserve SO much credit for what botw eventually became.
I agree with you on it being a sort of fallacy to assume that exploration is the only (legitimate) form of adventure.
However, I don't think that the claim of BotW being the "true successor" to Zelda 1 rests on the idea that the games in-between were somehow mistakes or technological compromises.
Let's take a different game series as an extreme example: Dynasty Warriors. The very first game in that series was a fighting game like Tekken or Soul Calibur.
Only with DW2 did it take on the form we associate with DW today. If a new DW came out tomorrow that decided it wants to be a fighting game and compete with Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8 and Guilty Gear Strive, wouldn't it be accurate to say that Dynasty Warriors came back to its roots? None of it implies that the games in between were mistakes or technological compromises.
Even if you look at just the Zelda series, it's fairly obvious that Zelda 2 or Four Swords Adventures are quite different from the rest. Is that because they were mistakes? Or technological compromises? I wouldn't say that. They were simply going for something different. Something that the devs thought would be fun at the time.
What the argument implies, in my view, is that there was something about Zelda 1 that subsequent games moved away from and which didn't really return until BotW. I disagree with this, but it's totally possible that this could be the case, so it's worth discussing. I don't think the argument implies what you think it does.
@@playtypus4592 I don't think they were mistakes or compromises and I don't mean to imply they are either - I simply mean the in between games seem like such logical steps from the original to botw in terms of what they added, that to skip over them is to miss all the evolution that happened in between.
“This new game is a return to [well received older game]” is a common trope when it comes to marketing a game. I watched IGN’s video review of Super Mario Galaxy from 2007 and the reviewer said “this feels like a spiritual successor to Super Mario 64”. That made me LOL.
There ya have it.
After seeing the logo for that new Zelda game, there’s no question the wild era is the new standard in many ways. Hopefully they can learn to make better games and not just more open ones.
Fingers crossed.
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
Rather than spoonfeed or hold your hand the devs for new games have left the essence upto player imagination
Basically it’s whatever we want it to be
@@madnessarcade7447 So instead of them making better stories, better dungeons and better progression, I have to imagine those and pay $70 then? Right
The hopium-huffing part of me tries to see the Wild era games as the partially inevitable growing pains on the way to a new and improved Zelda experience, or essence if you will, while veering off a bit too far into absolute openness on the way. Now that the new underlying physics and chemistry systems have been painstakingly created can the other core aspects be brought back in to create something new to capture the essence in a new, more holistic way.
Echoes of Wisdom seems like it could reign in the openness while still allowing for creativity… but then Aonuma still keeps preaching about freedom and I‘m worried they‘re doubling down on doubling down lol.
I think you're right. I think Aonuma's behavior has been because they've more or less been making games with the same linearity for the past 30 years roughly and he's just excited at the new prospect.
From all the interviews I've read, it seems like it's difficult for Aonuma to escape the shadow of OoT. With the overwhelming popularity of BotW, that may have allowed Aonuma to step out of that shadow with the belief that something is finally better than that monkey on his back OoT....I think it some respects it is better and in some respects it's not. Let's just hope they don't quintuple down...
18:10
HECK YEAH! THE BEST ZELDA GAME! LET'S GO!!!!
I read that line from Iwata and about fell out of my chair.
3:32
[The Bread Pirate liked that]
Bread's back on the menu, boys!
BOTW is more than just a reboot of Zelda 1. It has the 4-dungeon structure of MM, the durability and stamina from SS, the ability to use different weapons like Windwaker, and the environmental storytelling of OOT, TP, and to a lesser extend ALBW. It is more the sum of all that came before it, rather than just a reiteration of Zelda 1.
Similar to what I said - although just because it and MM have 4 dungeons doesn't mean those two are really similar.
honestly, skyward sword was better, botw only succeeded in 1 thing and failed in all other aspects
There is actually a lot of BotW in SS - mostly around what Link can do. It's just the overworld that suffers pretty heavily in SS.
The idea of comparing Breath of the Wild to the original Zelda has been going on since Day 1 of the game’s release. What did remain a mystery for its time is whether or not it was a “soft reboot” for the series. Not just in terms of the lore (which by Tears of the Kingdom’s release, it remains debatable whether it is a reimagining or not; I still think it is…), but in terms of the gameplay. Supposedly, BOTW is the series “breath of fresh air”, but contrary to that, the game will treat you like you’ve played a Zelda game before. The enemies, the combat, the weapons, you name it. In addition to the series familiarity, it also introduces survival mechanics. Others games like Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater went far out from the usual sneaking into enemy bases approach, opted for a jungle environment teeming with wildlife. The environment is unpredictable. You won’t know if you’re stepping on mud, bottomless tar pits, or even a venomous snake… But what it does is you have to make use of your surroundings to progress through without a fuss. Hunting for animals, picking up fruit to either sustain your hunger or to use as medicine or wound treatment. MGS3 is the only game in its series that handles survival flawlessly while maintaining the series stealth action. BOTW has where it’s going for… except the survival mechanics make it so that everything is illogical. The weapon breaking, the weather hazards, some questionable food abilities… I’m fully aware that Zelda isn’t always known for logic… but BOTW takes the word logic and throws it completely out the window. Everything at your disposal is at the mercy of your own instincts. Whereas the original Zelda, sure you have to gather bombs and arrows to clear your path, you still have the sword to fight back.
So comparing this to the original Zelda…
I don’t always see the point doing so…
But the freedom and exploration is where the basis came from…
My biggest catch with the freedom approach is… Ok, you have the world, you have the characters, and you have built upon a series of potential quests and relationships with endless possibilities… BUT WHERE’S THE VALUE?
Did all this sense of exploration and nostalgia pay off? That’s the biggest problem I always had with both BOTW and TOTK. Both games still left me more questions than answers. How do both games connect with past Zeldas when you have pretty much retconed the whole thing? If you wanted to reimagine the lore, fine. But enough with the nostalgia-bating. Nintendo said that they wanted the alter conventions of Zelda, stray away from the past… But they hesitated doing so. They even intentionally left more bits and pieces of lore in the utter dark and all the other places you explore… did the payoff end well? If you look at other open world games like (and I can’t believe the words coming from my mouth) Skyrim, everywhere you look has value, something to gaze upon, have something to intrigue you, even if it’s just a dusty old book, you find value in your exploration. The Era of the Wilds titles just don’t have that… I look at Breath of the Wild as a glorified testing ground, I look at Tears of the Kingdom as glorified testing ground 1.5. Why all the senseless mysteries when you won’t have any more to show? Furthermore, why the 6 years of the utter secrecy with TOTK’s gameplay and plot? Was it they were trying to hide the fact that they did copy and pasted everything BOTW did but in a divisive manner?
I look at Twilight Princess as the return to form of Ocarina of Time fans wanted, I see Wind Waker as the inspiration for indie titles that uses its cartoony style like A Hat In Time, I see Skyward Sword as the answer of how Hyrule will eventually come to be as a kingdom. I see Majora’s Mask having the most fleshed out world in the entire series. The Era of the Wilds games hadn’t taught me anything… aside from the fact that Nintendo wanted to test first, then experiment to see if this is the future of Zelda. Hundreds of shrine trials and nostalgiabation with no significant value nor payoff…
That's definitely something glaring to me about the new games - the rewards are so lackluster. What am I exploring for?
> but contrary to that, the game will treat you like you’ve played a Zelda game before.
Can you elaborate on this? It isn't a criticism I've seen before so I want to properly understand what you mean.
@TSPhoenix2
There’s this common statement regarding who’s the playing the game. Either you’re playing a Zelda game for the first time or a longtime veteran. For experienced players, BOTW is more or less a walk in the park… except when it’s not. Meaning you pretty much know what you’re getting yourself into, but you do have to know the movement of the enemies, and the condition of the surrounding environment. (It took me a while to know the movement patterns of a Lynel.) Newcomers to the series might as well stay away from direct fights if possible and spend more time gathering resources, but when you do end up in a fight, the first thing they’ll end up doing is attacking without knowing how to exploit the opponent’s abilities.
It’s not so much criticism, I heard others say that it will treat the player as if you’ve played a Zelda game before, but the more I think about that, it contradicts the idea of “forgetting” everything from past titles and everything is based upon your instincts alone.
I mean it doesn't exactly treat like you ike you've played a Zelda game before, not with the Great Plateau ad all that it teaches. I don't see how the survival mechanics make things illogical you mind explaining that part? I mean....I don't see what is really illogical about any of that stuff really.
Value? Well...depends on what you mean like that. Quality of the core gameplay? Plot and lore? Progression and rewards? What exactly?
I mean they moved away from the past while also giving vague connections with it with BOTW's timeline placement. Literally bits and pieces of lore in the utter dark with the outfits in The Depths really. Eh....what makes everything in Skyrim have value but not in the era of the wild games? Like not all the lore? Havig mysteries isn't bad. We got items and puzzles and secrets to show. For Totk dev time? Changing the overworld carefully enough and working on the abilities which would take a long time to get right and covid delays and the last year of development just being polish can help explain that. I doubt that is what happened, there are genuine reasons why it would take so long.
Eh does MM have the most fleshed out world? I dunno about that one. They have value and payoff with well...progression and lore.
I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently as well. Every Zelda game has its strengths and weaknesses, and people like each one for different reasons. Everyone has their own definitions of what Zelda is and I think that's why fans get so divided on which Zelda games actually have the essence of Zelda. Great video!
I think you're right - it's like a recipe that some people like more sweet in and some people like more salty, but whatever you cook ends up tasting pretty good.
It wouldve been the true successor if all they did was keep the classic linear story and linear classic dungeons. And you can add 3 or 4 hidden dungeons in the world that you can tackle in any order you want.
I think that's something the next Zelda should tackle: non-story specific, hidden dungeons, that you can miss if you don't look. But I also think Nintendo shouldn't tell anyone.
The og game wasn’t linear
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
Rather than spoonfeed or hold your hand the devs for new games have left the essence upto player imagination
Basically it’s whatever we want it to be
Just goes to show that regardless of how you feel about the Wild era their marketing was on point lol. And interesting to see that the "this is the true essence of Zelda" promotional tactic has been used for a while now.
That is for true - it's just funny when you dig into it and realize no one really agrees on what that essence is ha
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
Rather than spoonfeed or hold your hand the devs for new games have left the essence upto player imagination
Basically it’s whatever we want it to be
@@madnessarcade7447 "Basically it's whatever we want it to be"
Except what it once was unfortunately
@@madnessarcade7447the essence is Minecraft, but without the charm of permanent crafting.
In that regard, Minecraft is a superior game, with a new world opening to you and building on.
I think your series of videos has made me realize that Zelda as a series both means something to different people AND isn't something that can be measured by gameplay mechanics as a science.
I disagree that BotW isn't a rightful heir but to explain myself would be to explain how each game's experience effected me and from your videos on Zelda 1 I can see that we had different experiences all around.
Thank you for laying things out in your videos all the same. I don't think I'd have had this thought otherwise
I've definitely felt similarly about the series as I've started to dive more into its history.
Thanks for watching and for pulling something reasonable out and sharing. Greatly appreciated.
i think the essence of zelda for what the "fans" want is a lot easier to describe then a lot of people think.
at the core of pretty much every "official zelda game" is a dungeon puzzler, atleast until botw, which went the route of shrine mini dungeon puzzles instead of the winding amalgamations of dungeons in any other zelda game.
at its core, the majority enjoy solving puzzles or having many puzzles they can only accomplish after they aquire 'x' item or power. something they might have to return to a favored spot, region, or dungeon to aquire when they have the tools necessary to progress. that their hearts and power were not intrinsically tied to experience or general progression within the game, but rather in their own ability to find and collect the heart pieces, or optional upgrades through the puzzles / minigames around the world.
skyward sword had a lot of the game locked behind its progression, that just progressing in the game opened up new 'side quests' which often were not super puzzley or fun, for gratitude crystals, and often told you how to complete it, instead of giving the players a chance to figure it out for themsleves, coming across it more naturally.
I think that's a large portion of it and definitely what the series did better than any other but I think there might be more - I'd have to think about it deeper. Even though I did another video on it when I was a little...greener ha.
You totally get it. I discovered the Original Legend of Zelda in 1992. I saw a friends older brother playing it and was intrigued. Eventually we ended up playing it and I fell in love with the series. I had seen the game is store demos before, and it was always intriguing, but I never had the chance to explore and play it until that moment. Breath of the Wild's DNA is a mix of a lot of the games that came before it. To be a true follow up to the original, it would be missing many of the elements that it does have. It would also have to include real traditional dungeons which it does not. I do like Breath of the Wild, and I think it's the best Zelda game they have made in many years. To me, it has enough DNA that it does feel like a Zelda game, it has that essence. Tears of the Kingdom though, that's a different beast entirely. It's like Nintendo saw what players were doing to break Breath of the wild and built that as Tears of the Kingdom's main mechanic. Like the whole combining system feels way too foreign to me. It's almost like I'm playing Zelda meets minecraft, and that's not really an experience I'm interested in. Not to mention that tutorial island took way too long to get out of to actually start playing the game. After I finally got through the tutorial I pressed on for a bit further, but I felt no inclination to continue and I haven't picked it back up since. It's one of several of the later titles I haven't finished. I would like to eventually get through all of them, and maybe I will revist Tears of the Kingdom someday.
TotK mechanics were not what I wanted out of a Zelda game and while technically impressive, I'd be happy to be done with them.
What Ive learned over the years is that Miyamoto just says shit.
That's our Miyamoto
One of the biggest things that he said that blew my mind was that Mario and Luigi were twins and were supposed to be around 24(I think) years old. I was like "WHAT"? Neither of those things ever would have seemed as fact to me. Like I assumed the brothers were quite a bit older, and certainly not twins. Still don't believe it even though it came from the creators mouth.
Yer a legend. I feel like as soon as big posts/creators put forward a point like this, people are so quick to automatically align with it in its entirety without thinking about all the factors surrounding it. Someone put it really well in the comments, regarding response to SS which was obviously a massive factor, as opposed to just using a Zelda 1 BOTW demo to create an open and shut conversation starter/ender that just simplifies the factors leading to BOTW’s development into a misconstrued mess which neither treats TLOZ or BOTW for what they are.
and cast aside all the games in between.
I just found the conversation incredibly interesting and didn't see it that way after playing through Zelda 1.
BOTW evoked feelings I've never experienced while playing a video game. As you went through the creators thoughts on what they wanted to accomplish with the first game, I personally saw the resemblance. but hey that's just me. I think that evolution is crucial to the series. Many of the zelda games have made the world rethink how games work. I just hope they continue to do that.
I think it's there, but I think it's there when they wanted to make all those other games too.
@@LittleBeanGreen oh for sure. I think you mentioned this in the video (or someone else in the comments section) that each game kinda focuses on a different aspect of the "zelda essence"
@@illuminate4 Yup that was me. It's like every game is a music chord and each game accentuates a different note of that chord.
I like the new directions that Zelda is going in, but I would change a couple things about it. (This is BECAUSE Zelda has evolved, it wasn't broken before, just needed that open world sauce)
1: DONT make the dungeons all look and feel the same. (30 unique dungeons instead of 120 bite-sized shrines)
2: I think the problem with the item system was that even though there were many disposable items, they basically all did the same thing. Tears remedied this witg it's zonai devices and weirder items, AND it had the sage abilities, there was never any cool item to remember the dungeons by, and don't bullshit me and tell me that we can't have that with breakables, because tears DID dabble in these permanent items such as mineru, the auto-build, earthquake move, ect. Maybe DONT give me all the runes at once from the start; space them out in the dungeons! This would force players to ACTUALLY DO THE DUNGEONS DIFFERENTLY if they do them in a different order on sub-sequent playthroughs.
3: give ALL clothes and armors dyes, transmog, and make your very first transmog option the classic link outfit, hat n all! And with dyes and transmog I can make things like flamebreaker set and zora armor red and blue tunic respectively if I really wanted too!
TL:DR; less dungeons (but A LOT MORE THAN 8) that are bigger and have visual and audible variety. More varied and "weird" Items or power ups that I can really remember the dungeons by, and more armor customization (AND LINK'S TYPICAL OUTFIT)
You don't even need to have items that lock progress, just make it so that when I get them, they change how I play the game.
@@LittleBeanGreen I wouldn't say lock progress, dont lock progress, just make them A: give me shortcuts that if i didnt have them would make said dungeon harder, and whatever you find in the dungeon exploits a special weakness in the boss (however, still let me fight the boss however I want and give them other exploitable weaknesses that are a little harder to pull off but still can involve other "dungeon items"
@@LittleBeanGreen Gohma in Tears is a good example: Ideally i use the goron roll at the legs and explosive rocks but I CAN, VERY MUCH STILL, fight it without the Goron!
@@bensweeney5878 great, let's make it!
@@LittleBeanGreen I concur! if Nintendo is reading this, then PLEASE, pay attention to this!
Bub, oh my glob, BotW was and is the first moment I felt that little bit. The time my dog died and as a child my response was to delve into Zelda 1. That little bit if freedom from my self and my situation. Every piece is there.
Damn it! Now I'm cryin!
I chimed in with this at minute 17, just before you shift hard to the left, that's alright. We see what we want to see.
Was I unclear that I didn't think the two games deserved the comparison from the beginning?
@@LittleBeanGreen Not at all, dear. You made your point quite clear. By the by, I do love your thoughts distilled into video essay. Please keep making content.
@@LittleBeanGreen Also...like, that little bit was just my feelings expressed hastilly in a comment.
@@netic8erthe3rd11 Good - just wanted to make sure I was obscuring my point. Appreciate the feedback! Will do :)
This was another interesting and well-done video. I'd heard a couple of those developer quotes but there were a lot that were new to me. I was especially surprised to learn that they have suggested some sort of return to form multiple times before. What's really interesting though is that this time people actually seemed to finally believe it, almost as if there was something to it this time.
But as is probably abundantly clear to the people complaining about BotW (and also after the last two videos), BotW isn't actually like Zelda 1. So what's the reason people continue to believe it and parrot it? What's the secret?
I think most people are really bad at expressing why they like certain things and why they don't. So when they say "It's just like Zelda 1", maybe this isn't to be taken in a way that draws direct mechanical comparisons (because then it turns out that it is in fact different), but is moreso to be understood in the sense of "It made me *feel* the same things that Zelda 1 did".
But then again this has to have some basis in what the game does to elicit those feelings, right?
The most direct comparison I can come up with is the Great Plateau. It hides the fact that it's really just a tutorial area pretty well. Just like the original Zelda, you wake up and you're free to simply play the game. Other Zeldas have increasingly front-loaded story and exposition. It takes some Zeldas up to an hour until you're finally free to explore the overworld.
Although the Plateau isn't actually the "real" overworld, it sort of feels like it. Additionally, if you played many previous Zeldas, you'd probably have a pretty good idea how things would normally go. There was nothing surprising, nothing mysterious post-OoT.
BotW on the other hand just gives you a bow in a random chest (an item that would've taken you at least until the second dungeon to obtain). And then after a while the bow just breaks. Someone playing Zelda 1 in 1986 for the first time would similarly have no idea of what to expect next. Everthing the game just threw at you was new and fresh and exciting. And BotW, by being so drastically different to what came before it would be similarly unpredictable and thus exciting.
Maybe I'm off with my explanation, but personally, I thought that the opening hours were really the best part of BotW. As I played the game more and more, I realized that it itself was pretty formulaic - the mystery was gone. And even worse: many of its conceptual problems started to rear their ugly head (like the breaking weapons).
What I don't get is what this new "open-air" direction actually brings to the table. None of what I mentioned above would be outside of the scope of a traditional, more linear Zelda experience. Picking which direction to go in isn't a meaningful choice since you make your choice kind of blindly and randomly (you might as well just roll some dice) and ultimately you're going to go visit all the important places anyway, right? It's not like in Pokémon, where once you picked Charmander you're stuck with the critter and you'll have to deal with the consequences of your choice and build your team around him. It's not even like going somewhere randomly and hitting a dead-end necessarily has to be a waste of time. If the place is gonna end up being important later, you could easily have a fast travel point there to unlock. That way your trek there doesn't have to be for naught since you'll save some time later. And as it stands right now, there are already plenty of pointless places in BotW and TotK.
maybe if they started a game like BotW, which upon completion led to a linear section, which then opened up into another plateau area (e.g., do these 3 dungeons in any order), which then opened the next tier of 3 or 6 dungeons...that might actually work.
Zelda 1 was my first Zelda. I played it in 89 when I was 10 and beat it. Then link to the past was my 2nd favorite. Then Oriana of time on 64. Didn't play anymore till botw in 2021 . Those 4 are my fav. Botw reminded me and felt just as awesome as Zelda 1 did .
I played links awaking on switch after botw. It was pretty good. Looking forward to playing echoes of wisdom day 1
I played Link's Awakening on the GameBoy YEARS ago. Looking forward to eventually playing the Switch version in preparation for Echoes of Wisdom.
Sprinted here
Edit: excellent video. I have faith that with as loud as we have been that we will see a true merger of everything that makes zelda good. A mixture of freedom and linearity that will satisfy all. And most importantly i hope when we finish whatever that next zelda game is, its rewarding. Every bit of exploration served a purpose and we benefited from our willingness to explore( dont hit me with the shrines and seeds) the sky is the limit
Thanks for checking it out! I think you're right...I HOPE you are...
Wholeheartedly agree!
I‘m curious to see whether Echoes of Wisdom will be an indicator of the direction the next 3D game is headed, similarly to ALBW back then.
@@lmnt66 I think you're onto something I would definitely pay attention to what the games like when it comes out. We do know the zelda team love to test things out with the 2d zeldas before implementing it into 3d. Side note. I wish botw took even more inspiration from albw than it did. The dungeons in that game were the cream of the crop
well, i love the new games, but isnt just about freedom and creativity, its also about growth, and thats the part thats missing recently, a stronger sense of progression that the oldschool dungeons used to provide
Certainly true - and I'm sure, as a developer, it's a hard balance to get right. We'll see if they try.
I don’t think we have seen a return to Zelda NES 1 roots yet. BOTW plateau was so Zelda 1 but after the glider the whole game changed. If they kept that opening section design through the game it would have been perfect.
They should do a Zelda 1 remake so they can give fans a taste before making a new game and really going back
I played through Zelda 1 and am currently playing through the second quest. It may be because I'm playing on NSO and the Switch controller is bad for it, but I think what became of Zelda is much better than what that first game was.
I first played Zelda NES in 2016 in preparation for BotW. I really didn't enjoy my time with it. I went back to it in 2019 after playing BotW and I appreciated it a lot more. I entered the series with Majora's Mask and didn't find myself enjoying OoT and LttP nearly as much. The things I value in Zelda most are probably not things most people would say are core to the series. More than anything, I felt Breath of the Wild was the first to build on Majora's Mask as BotW was the first Zelda since then interested in showing us a world that felt like it existed without the player's input. The free exploration echoed Zelda NES for sure, but it is present to a much larger degree in BotW and is more in service of making its world feel more real.
SS and TotK make me think that Nintendo's concept of freedom doesn't really align with players. Their sense of freedom seems to be more mechanical, interactive, i.e. how you can use motion controls to interact with SS's world or ultra hand to build physics contraptions in TotK. It feels like exploration is more of a means to an end for Nintendo to encourage us to engage with those systems. I think the exploration aspects are more reactive to player feedback, like you said. BotW's openness is a capitulation to fans disappointed with Skyward Sword's claustrophobic progression. Similarly, TotK's robust quests to dungeons, more traditional dungeons, and multiple interwoven side quests are a capitulation to fans wanting a more traditional Zelda experience. I don't know when the community will realize it, but Tears of the Kingdom is the nebulous "future" game that combines Breath of the Wild's openness with the traditional linear design of older games. I personally just think that combination doesn't work. I would rather the series lean way more into freedom, at least for its exploration.
Something else to keep in mind with all these staff quotes are the quotas the Zelda team had been under. I think they didn't want to make linear games, but with Iwata's blue ocean strategy they had to design the games for people who never played games before. I think the linearity was a compromise in order to make sure there were clear tutorials for everything. I think when this strategy was abandoned towards the end of the Wii's life cycle, they were probably happy to leave that particular mandate behind and get back to the core of Zelda series, i.e., targeting actual gamers who don't need to be convinced that video games are fun. I think if you read all these staff quotes from that lens, their references to the original are more understandable.
I think Aonuma has been trying to get out of the shadow of Ocarina for a long time now.
I don't think the dungeons in TotK represent anything near like what the traditional dungeons were and finding them in the overworld is never really a reward for exploration as it seems you're strung along a narrative string that leads you to each one. The only one I found inadvertently was the Spirit Temple which I then had no ability to enter.
Your last paragraph is interesting because it seems to me there is a dev quote about TotK (which I might be making up or may have to find) that the devs didn't want to alienate players if this was their first Zelda game, which is strange because EVERYONE played BotW. Majora's Mask was developed with the idea that people had played OoT and were ready for a greater challenge. TotK doesn't seem to have that same type of swagger.
@@LittleBeanGreen I think TotK reveals what they think a "traditional" dungeon is. All the dungeons are very LttP-style, with the sages playing the role of the big key and the long lead ups acting as a sort of first half embedded in the environment. A dungeon isn't about a place for them, it seems to be a kind of mechanical progression.
I have been fixated recently on this exact point, how new players engage with TotK. I don't think accommodating for new players worked, a lot don't seem to engage with most of the game's core mechanics. I'm not sure what was sacrificed for new players was worth it, even for them.
@@coolguychecker7329 I'm not sure - it seems like they heard 'we don't want all the dungeons to look the same' and then gave us the Divine Beasts in concept covered in unique facades.
@@LittleBeanGreen I don't really see much similarity with the Divine Beasts outside of the whole activate terminals thing. Activating terminals = small keys in a dungeon design with no walls. I'm not a fan of that design element being repeated so much, but I put up with small keys being reused for many games, so I'm not too upset with it. I wish they moved away from both "traditional" and these new "activate terminal" dungeons to the more mechanical dungeons of Majora's Mask, and Skyward Sword, where you actually unlock things by meaningfully rearranging parts of the environment. At least the Divine Beasts had a flavor of that with the controls, just wasn't that interesting controlling all that from the Sheikah Slate, would be better if it was embedded in the Divine Beasts themselves.
@@coolguychecker7329 That I can get behind.
After Zelda games have been drifting further and further away from free exploration, a sudden return to free exploration certainly feels like a return to Zelda 1 which was a game with far more freedom than the sequels that followed it. Freedom is such a prominent feature of BotW that it is natural that people focus upon it, even though in other ways BotW is just as drastic a departure from Zelda 1 as Skyward Sword was. The way that BotW took away the dungeons that have been a staple of every Zelda game since Zelda 1 is a radical shift in gameplay. It seems like Nintendo cannot just create a modern version of Zelda 1, for whatever reason.
The more fitting comparison should be ALBW which is closer I think to the original than BotW
Explorations in Zelda NES is rewarding.
The reward of exploring in BoTW/ToTK is Koroks' sh*t.
Some might be fine with it, but I wasn't
yeah, I keep telling people that the perfect zelda game is going to be when they can balance the open world elements WITH structured elements. Why can't we ACTUALLY do a Zelda 1 type game in 3D? A big overworld with clues about how to traverse it and find the key locations/dungeons hidden around.
When I first played TOTK, at the beginning of the game I really felt that mystery, that "essence" when there were so many mysterious things going on, but the problem was that they all led to the same and very obvious conclusions, so after solving a few mysteries and learning the same answers, I got really really bored and my desire to explore hyrule again disappeared. The mechanical rewards and narrative rewards for actually exploring TOTK just weren't there for me. I could see in my head already what was behind every door, inside every chest, and hidden in every cave, so why even do anything?
This open air thing ain't it chief. Not for me.
the rewards need to be MUCH better and Nintendo actually has to let us get lost in their game.
The exploration to me felt like Zelda 2, which should be the complete opposite of this game, and yet I found it closest. Wow nice going to this corner of the map full of curiosity, have a Bag of Videogame Points. Have a doll. Have a Potion.
Breath of the Wild's exploration to me feels like that. All the weapons feel indistinguishable. All the consequences of exploration are meaningless. Have 54 Cool Ancient Swords for completign this Minigame.
Turns out Iwata was right, getting score points is the essence of Zelda.
while BOTW/Tears fit the "idea" of what Zelda 1 was like in the 80's (honestly even LttP might have been considered open world back in the 90's since not only did you get one big world you got a second) *Tunic* fits the true Zelda 1 player experience from a different angle
as someone in the mid 2000's how got a NES and Zelda 1 and the booklet from my uncle and used the booklet to help me through Zelda 1 Tunic does that exact method in very clever ways
I loved the first 70% of Tunic and then it turned into something else.
@@LittleBeanGreen kinda understand if I had to say my only disappointment with Tunic was that it was more Dark Souls then Zelda like that I was hoping for
but the Golden Path is still my fav puzzle in any game
@@TwilightYonder720 I actually liked the combat elements way more. It felt like a challenging ALttP...it was an action adventure game you had to uncover as you went but then it became a heavy obscure puzzler which just didn't interest me. I appreciate the golden path, but I don't like it in the context of the game I was playing up until that point.
@@LittleBeanGreen for me at least I loved the page booklets like the game would "give you a new ability" at the right time by giving you a page but it was something you could have been doing the whole game, and the Golden Path just felt like that prefect chevoks gun moment because I did notice some weird patterns throughout the pages before
I did like the combat too but I was just little disappointed the game thats VERY trying to look like Zelda just became another Souls like, since Nintendo wasn't making 2D Zelda anymore back then (well Echoes got announced last month now) so I was hoping the game was gonna fill in the void like some other Indie games too
GRANTED I didn't want Tunic to be derivative I'm very glad it became it's own unique game but I feel like the indie scene is a lot of Souls and Metroidvania likes (which I love) but they haven't been trying to recreate the 2D or even 3D Zelda market which technically are Metroidvanias but structured differently
"Zelda is about showing a large map to explore but it's locked off until the player completes a few quests first to show they can handle the mechanics and gameplay that will be vital for success as they proceed." -Nikola Tesla
That was the guy that was in love with that pigeon, right?
I want to play that 2D prototype so badly…
You will - Echoes of Wisdom is on its way!
Conclusion: The major figures in charge of Zelda will say whatever they’re currently working on captures the true essence of Zelda for financial reasons
We may never know, our only real hope is to look through what miyamoto was saying about the game’s inspiration back in 1986. Anything he said about any other specific Zelda game including breath of the wild will probably be misleading to boost sales.
Or because that was their actual intention.
@@LittleBeanGreen these games all contradict each other, only one type of game can capture the “true essence of Zelda”
Whichever game was their true intention to give the soul of Zelda the game it always needed to fully reach its potential, it can’t be all of them.
the chart at 13:26 is a good graph of how I have divided the Zelda series, one side is dungeon heavy and the other side content heavy
like during all this BOTW discourse I keep hearing the phrase "Dungeons are what makes Zelda" but I came to think of it my fav Zelda Majora's Mask didn't have the best dungeons it's strengths came from else where with the puzzles being about helping people in a dire time
as for my Dungeon/Side content statement think of it this way
Dungeon heavy: Twilight Princess OoT SS LttP
Side Content heavy: MM WW BOTW/TOTK MC
Some fall inbetween like the Oracle games but you see what I mean, like WW has less dungeons but has strengths else where, a lot of WW is carried over into BOTW/Tears like the photo quests, shrines being mini dungeon puzzles like the islands, various side quests over the horizon and the minor item gathering
Check out the Cinnamon Noir video. That's his graph and I think he does an interesting job breaking it down.
@@LittleBeanGreen finished it, mostly fine video but he was being very harsh on BOTW/TOTK in unfair ways (like complaining about fish weddings while OoT needed you to make a Goron dance, it's not too far off in silliness)
while I have my own criticisms of BOTW/Tears those games are as Zelda as every other game, Zelda's "essence" everyone keeps claiming IS the puzzles and exploration and different ways to do them, in his video he was another saying dungeons make a Zelda but the dungeons are just a vessel for puzzles, like BOTW/Tears have weak dungeons like I said in my other comment games like MM and WW also have weak dungeons imo but the other puzzles are what people remember more of those games. I still argue WW is a prototype for how BOTW/Tears became, so this change isn't that sudden it's always been experimented
@@TwilightYonder720 I'd argue dungeons are a more interesting vessel for puzzles and a type of exploration than whatever BotW/TotK went for - but that's a matter of taste.
As for the other essence of Zelda besides puzzles it is the charm of the side characters and story which despite Tears having mostly the same cast they had enough fun characters returning and old to stand out from BOTW
a lot of the Zelda discourse does make me annoyed as a Paper Mario fan since Zelda fans don’t know how good they have it when the series isn’t actually broken like PM was
While I want BOTW/Tears to do more in the next game it’s nowhere near of how Nintendo adamantly gutted PM of it’s substance after Super
@@LittleBeanGreen well my top 2 Zelda’s are MM and TP, and I do like every Zelda game even the DS ones I think are underrated
If anything brings BOTW/Tears down for me is Elden Ring since they imo did what those games mostly try to do but better
Pantera started as a glam rock band but nobody wants them to go back to that. People are not hankering for games in the style of Zelda 1 and 2 the way they want more Link to the Past/Ocarina of Time-style games. This shouldn't be so hard for Nintendo to comprehend.
I think Zelda 2 is next on the list of games to discuss. It's funny that Nintendo wanted Zelda 1 to have action RPG elements without it actually being an RPG and then Zelda 2 game along and was basically a full-fledged RPG. I still think the old and new can be combined into something great.
I've always been confused and annoyed at people insisting that BotW is just like Zelda 1 actually. Because gameplay wise and structurally they really aren't that similar. Things like LttP and LBW are more akin to it. And even on the "oh but how did it make you feel" sense that also just doesn't line up for me. When I think of playing Zelda 1 as a child my primary thoughts are of the dungeons. Or of seeing a little pier and wondering what's past said pier. It's of not being able to cross water inside a dungeon and not knowing why until I find the ladder. For me a fundamental essence of the experience was the locks and wondering what was beyond them.
With BotW though there was no wonder. Because I could simply go anywhere I wanted and whenever I wanted. If I wanted I could just ignore the entire game and just fight Ganon. I had no wonder at what was in chests either because it was always a crafting item or another weapon that would just break and which would not open any locks for me. Shrines could also be completed whenever and were also too open and too easy to cheese. And knowing that I'm meant to play with them just isn't as satisfying as finding ways to break OoT's path.
TotK has kind of mollified me. The sage abilities while not strictly required do scratch the dungeon item itch a bit. Seeing the bosses be something other than just Ganon over and over and require some degree of puzzle solving beyond "Hit it a lot" was nice. I appreciate the aesthetics of the new temples for the most part and I do like that more story bits were added. But I'm still left with a game that is far too open and with far too few valuable and unique rewards. It's a game that sometimes leaves me wondering "What's the point of exploring?" Some will say "The intrinsic fun of the gameplay" to which I will say "I can just play another game that provides me that but also actual rewards". I think, more than anything, Zelda needs locked doors and big chests again.
I think you may be right. Or they could think of items in dungeons that aren't necessary for unlocking things, but change the way you play the game. Maybe a dungeon item is magic heavy and ranged, maybe one is melee focused - something that makes interacting with those levels in different orders change how the player approaches the game.
@@LittleBeanGreen I am really hoping that your suggestion is where the series is headed. It kind of feels like it with how the Sage powers worked. They're not quite there yet but they feel like they can be evolved into that. There were some small hints of this in TotK's dungeons I feel. Like the heavy fan focus in the Wind Temple. But I feel the idea needs refinement.
@@Aondeug and they need to make a series of puzzles that feel connected, not 5 separate puzzles that happen to be on the same floating island.
Holy crap a reference to cinnamon noir lol I thought I was the only one who knew about him. He’s a great tuber for sure! U too little bean green ur a gangsta
ur the #1gangsta, bub
Zelda 1 is my least favorite Zelda and BotW/TotK are both bottom five for me, but the idea that BotW is somehow Zelda 1's "successor" always bugged me after I finally played Zelda 1 myself. Basically the only reason I don't like Zelda 1 is the controls, if they were less frustrating to wrangle it would jump up at least a little on my preference list. The rest of it generally just feels like what I'd expect a proto-ALttP to feel like... which makes perfect sense, honestly. ALttP, overall, feels far more like an evolution of Zelda 1 than BotW/TotK ever did. It worked out all the awkward kinks that Zelda 1 had, like how some dungeons had a surplus of or not enough keys. It elaborated on the item based progression system. It, like Zelda 1, has an order while not necessarily holding you to that order. It added puzzle design beyond "push this seemingly random block."
There was a reason ALttP defined the series so long. It was basically the first game but better in pretty much every way, it captured basically everything that made Zelda 1 good while fixing the parts that were frustrating.
I do hope they find a better middle ground in the future. I love SS. It's a top five Zelda for me, and that's partially because I actually liked the "all dungeon, all the time" aspect of it. I find that a lot more engaging than BotW/TotK being large expanses with little in it. But my favorite Zeldas are actually TWW and ALBW, and that's partially because those games hit a reasonable balance, imo.
Still need to play ALBW, but I think you're spot on about ALttP. I also loved the dungeons of TP and SS - it felt like they were really hitting their stride. OoT and MM I also love but it feels like they were still trying to figure out puzzles in 3D.
Regarding the ongoing and often contentious task of defining the essence of Zelda: I have always felt it is a hard thing to define. Zelda isn’t one thing. Or perhaps it is whatever it needs to be at any given moment, and I think that’s what I love about it. It isn’t constrained by just being one thing. Zelda is malleable, and that’s a good thing.
Really great work with this video LGB
There's something kind of romantic about the series having to become whatever it needs to be. It's like Batman ha. I think that's a good thing too.
The through-line mentioned between the Zelda games seems to be key elements of its gameplay and story which are reused and revamped over and over. As broken as the old timeline was, I loved the epic scale of the series taking place over centuries. Breath of the Wild is a great game that did a lot of things right but when Tears of the Kingdom came out, it became obvious what was merely hinted at in Breath of the Wild, that the old timeline and continuity had been jettisoned and that BotW represented a soft reboot of the series. That didn't sit well with me but I've come to understand I'm not the audience for the series any more. And that's okay.
I just wish Nintendo would admit it ha
As someone who's first game was Zelda 1, I don't connect the new games to the past titles. I thought BotW was great when it came out, but I couldn't help but audibly utter "this isn't Zelda" because of how different it was. The new format has lost it's luster for me. I hope the series regains its essence as these are not my type of games. I like limitations, and I don't enjoy interacting with obstacles disguised as puzzles.
I haven't played BotW since its release and I can't remember much about how I felt when playing it...probably a testament to how little it impacted me.
It’s not upto us to decide what is and isn’t Zelda that’s upto the creators it’s their creation their vision Zelda is whatever they said it is
Don’t think so shortsightedly
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
Rather than spoonfeed or hold your hand the devs for new games have left the essence upto player imagination
Basically it’s whatever we want it to be
@@madnessarcade7447 jesus. I waffle but you waffle more than anyone I've ever seen.
the misconception that botw is like z1 reminds me of the claim how tp is like oot. mechanically it does borrow a few things from oot but its combat is closer to tww. apparently both games use the same engine to it makes sense. TP's structure is closer to link's awakening but more restrictive and more story focused. dungeon design does have a greater focus on the hub and spoke system while wolf link is a derivative of the mask system from MM. if anything oot is closer to z3 than it is to TP. yes epona exists but in oot she was completely optional and the combat was restricted to bows. tww and tp's mechanical advancements from oot and mm in terms of combat and physics is similar to how z3 took the leap from z1's combat and movement. botw, however, took its own identity despite borrowing some ideas from SS's stamina system and physics and albw's item progression.
I think each game is a more careful iteration of what came before it than each game gets credit for. Like you mentioned TP's combat and TWW, OoT and ALttP. There is so much of Link's movement in BotW that is clearly from SS....and they all start with returning to the 'essence' of the franchise.
@@LittleBeanGreen LA did carry over z3's 8 directional movement and sword swings while oracles rebalanced the physics (believe it or not those 2 entries are a different engine from LA). in general though one thing with TP was that mechanically it was like adding new dimensions to oot but structurally felt very safe which is ironic given how oot has more intrusions from navi compared to midna but fewer restrictions in terms of progression. in fact, TP's programming does not like it when players sequence break because it can lead to the game locking up such as unlocking a door from the opposite side into a different room in snowpeak ruins. the lock faces one side so the cutscene freezes due to a logic error. in oot, however, unlocking a door from the opposite side does not have this issue which is surprising given the programming is much older. the water temple's central room has a one sided locked door but it still remains locked on both sides and no complications occur either. TP does not have this issue if the lock leads into the same room like the cannonball door in snowpeak's courtyard. now oot does have a sequence break (which is glitchless) in death mountain crater where the goron tunic can be missable and you can skip bolero of fire. surprisingly you can still get the song after the light arrows and no problems occur despite the contradicting narrative.
@@chaosprime1629 those seem like very particular instances and are not quite what people mean when they want more freedom 😅
@@LittleBeanGreen well what i mean in general is those were more to do with how unintended sequence breaks in earlier games ironically were less problematic compared to later games. apparently in skyward sword, you cannot carry multiple small keys on the screen which is why the strict one key principle applies. but anyway, when it comes to more freedom it is more of given an expected order but also discovering what can be deviated. for example, in z3, you are given the assigned order of crystals however if you know the layout you can mix it up. compared to the wind waker where the game gives you the false impression of tackling earth or wind in either order when in reality this is not possible because makar does not spawn until after earth is completed. the songs however can be obtained in other order.
@@chaosprime1629 I think instead of extreme freedom, Nintendo should focus on tiering a subset of dungeons that can be done in any order.
I also like having hundreds of tabs open
Try using vertical tabs, it's perfect for users that tend to have many tabs
Helps find the right tab because the title can be read, you can have it auto hide if you like the screen space
@@HeatherSulu I generally don't do that - it was just a long time writing this script and adding all those things to the description so I just kept them open.
The fixation on "changing conventions" is being taken overboard imo. Not that they shouldn't be changed when it supports the game, but making the entire _point_ changing conventions is hollow. A bit of a gimmick, honestly. That's not "focusing on the gameplay," so much as focusing on the marketing.
Funnily enough, the devs say something about how Zelda is "not about gimmicks." And yet, your stance ha.
Idk if you have played Dark Souls 1 or not, but I've always seen that game as more of a true successor to Zelda 1 than BotW. If you want to turn this to a video idea go ahead. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this :P
I haven't played it but I think I'd like to.
In a word .... YES !!!
It sure as well wasn't Link's Adventure !!! .. or as I call it, Zelda II: The Wrath of Dark Link.
@@scarmucci1918 To each their own - I certainly never felt that way about BotW. And Nintendo has certainly never felt that way ONLY about BotW.
perfect end
it's true. all of it.
I don't care what Nintendo says BotW/TotK are a spin-off series to me.
It might as well have and could have been a completely new IP.
I think they should take the mechanics from TotK and turn that into a real sandbox IP
I feel people take interview commentaries too much at face value.
If I'm honest I just took the BotW grandiose quotes as, misguided. Like to me the words just don't actually describe... anything.
"Return to roots" was a phrase so overused in interviews for upcoming games where it basically just means "we looked at a single thing from the first game and also are backtracking on things from our previous games". A lot of developers and games were saying it at the time, and for the end result it very rarely felt genuine.
I read through a lot of interviews for this and they just say so many things over the years that it's hard to know what to believe.
botw did bring the series back to more freedom however it went in the opposite direction of what twilight princess and skyward did by being too extreme. the secrets and discovery are similar to the first entry but it is far more overworld centric. dungeons don't have any sort of cohesion or how progression is handled and the overworld itself is not labyrinthian.
I'd argue that the secrets and discovery are worse because in BotW it's basically a weapon, a korok seed, or a shrine. In the original everything really changed the game and you could never be sure what you were going to come across.
@@LittleBeanGreen that is a good point. koroks are also too excessive. the shrines sadly could have been hidden dungeons. in totk, misko's treasure though does have the riddles for some which are cryptic without the information. also verticality does play a role but it is not handled the best. the depths are labyrinthian but lack substance and the sky is very fragmented with a lot of copy paste design. while z1 did have some troll moments like the door repair men, finding the secrets are actually well hidden. mark brown in his video mentions this when he defends the overworld. his dungeon video though he was very negative. z1 is not perfect but it had a good foundation that i wish the series followed its example with that balance it had.
@@scorpionsapprentice3248 the dungeons got a lot better as the series progressed and I think making an overworld like BotW but filling it with things that are meaningful like the first zelda.
@@LittleBeanGreen this might be a hot take but i argue the dungeons peaked between majora's mask and the oracles. the former solved the red herring problem because of stray fairies while treating the dungeon as an interconnected whole. oracle of ages also had the interconnected whole layout. many of the 3d dungeons come off as disjointed like spliced shrines. sky keep however gets my vote for best final dungeon.
@@scorpionsapprentice3248 I love the oracle dungeons. although I think TP and SS were still pretty good in their own right too.
I feel the current development cycle Nintendo is utilizing for Zelda is affecting the franchise negatively. By either going all in on dungeons or all in on the overworld, but not both, like how it should be. This is something absolutely fundamental for the series, and because they choose not to spend the money and time You now literally can't play Breath of the Wild without diminishing the experience of Tears of the Kingdom and vice versa. I understand the physics and open world is a big deal for these games too, but you need a complete package for the casual player to get the most out of it. My feelings on these two games can be summed up as : The Beta version and the DLC pack.
The attempt to return to the first game in this case is more of an excuse for them to drop the more expensive aspects of development, to drop the heavier narrative elements in exchange for freedom. And the overall quality of the games have suffered for it imo. I don't think we need to have a new Zelda game every other year because the experience was usually worth the wait. But we've only been getting a halfs or quarters of zelda games lately.
Now they're recycling the overworld from a Link to the Past again for Echoes of Wisdom. They should know and be concerned that copy and pasting overworlds from past games is going to affect the experience of those who played the original ALttP or ALBW? Once was enough, changing the player character isn't going to make walking through the same areas not dull.
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I'm not exactly excited on where they could be going next.
Nah that seems to be a common complaint - not to mention, the inventory management of the old games was always pretty terrible and it's somehow become worse...and Echoes of Wisdom don't look much better.
BOW is the closest to a true successor in my opinion, but it also only understands the original in part. In ways, it disrespects and blasphemes the original, but in others it reveres it.
It captures the freedom, but misses the soul and integrity of the original. You shouldn't be able to rush to Ganon.
Then, TOK is the complete antithesis to a Zelda game and its complete disrespect for the series is a blemish on the series
I'm not sure you can be the closest if you both revere and blaspheme it haha - ALttP seems like exactly what the next iteration of the original should have been.
@@LittleBeanGreen It sounds weird, but it makes sense to me in practice. It nails what it does right and you can just not engage with the things that feel antithetical to Zelda.
ALTP would be one of the next closest to a successor IMO though. Maybe MM or WW.
@@AdamTheGameBoy In their own ways they all follow that spirit of the original.
Nice Macbeth’s homage in the thumbnail
A bit of Macbeth, a bit of The Green Knight.
@@LittleBeanGreensearching up the green knight I see the inspiration I just assumed Macbeth because the video was about the heir to Zelda 1 and Macbeth has the false heir dethroned as a part of its story
@@FSR-1345 a happy little accident
2:22 is that the onion from pikmin
That's a peahat!
zelda 1 had more thought-through puzzles than botw 😂
I don't know how many of the original's qualify as 'puzzles' haha
Investing my sub in your channel
Expecting quickly improving videos in return
1:30 He said the line! I'm unsubscribing!
I still don't even get the whole "open air" distinction tbh. It just sounds like they want this to sound more special. The "We're not like other girls" of open world games. It's especially lost meaning now with how many modern games are copying it, like Elden Ring and Ubisoft's Greek Gods of the Wild.
At least for Sonic Frontiers, "Open Zone" makes sense since Zones are that series's video game levels, and this is just bigger, open-ended versions of those.
Yeah 'open air' isn't a real thing as far as I'm concerned. It was just something imagined by the devs to make it seem distinct from every other quote unquote open world game. It's a marketing gimmick.
Well the first Zelda was actually fun to play, so I'd say no.
HA
Interactable is not a word my dude interactive would’ve fit perfect lol
Aw man if only language weren't dynamic and you couldn't figure out what word to replace it with if you didn't know what I meant darn.
@@LittleBeanGreen truly a tragedy
16:29 Good point I'd like to counter-argument: Yes, Great Plateau oldman (then Impa) gives you yellow dots to guide you around. Thing is, you can actually turn them off, and the game works out perfectly without them, even the minimap with "Pro HUD". Its like saying Zelda 1 manual damages the game's purpose (despite revealing the hell out of it, is a remarkable and cute manual)
Personally, I consider both Demon and Dark Souls great spiritual successors of Zelda 1. Both carry its essence: Adventure (And combat). Aside from that, neat video and I appreciate your thoughts
Fair enough - although at some point the original's manual basically sets you off on your own (after level 4 I think?). The waypoints you can turn off sure but they're still always there.
I've heard a lot about the Souls games but have never had the opportunity to play one. With what I hear about Elden Ring, I get the comparison.
@@LittleBeanGreen Truly recommend you Demon & Dark, they deserve their legacy and yep, it inherits some aspects of Zelda 1 and 2 (forgot to mention). Elden Ring eh, nice, but too derivative.
Back to waypoints, I see it like the Minimap: Unnecesary add-ons for casuals, but eh, you're not wrong. At least is not the "Dowsing" of Zelda SS
Outside of nostalgia and memes strangely no one talks about classic Zelda the same way they do botw or ocarina of time or any 3d games
Wonder why
Was it not as memorable as people remembered ?
Idk
I imagine it's because not as many people have played it...and it's more a relic of its time.
Boost
wut
hype
This video is the living proof of how much damage a bad sequel can do to a masterpiece
Which sequel? In what regard?
@@LittleBeanGreen TOTK of course, thanks to that game botw has gained a huge ton of haters and its popularity is divided when before totk It used to be considered one of the best games of history
@@ricky.t.1658 except this idea about BotW being a return to form existed before TotK was even a glimmer in Nintendo's eye...and I don't think this is 'hating' on BotW, just pointing out that many of the old titles were marketed with the same idea of 'capturing the essence' of the series just like BotW while BotW is also WAY different than anything that came before it.
@@LittleBeanGreen but botw was actually the only that succeded and break free from the model that reigned over the series for decades while also capturing the very essense of what Zelda is, getting away from the formula
@@ricky.t.1658 I don't see how breaking free from what was the series standard captures the essence of what Zelda is...
That botw is zelda 1 thing is babies first propaganda. Bit extreme with what the term propaganda represents but it's textbook propaganda done masterfully.
Just look out for when they release the next 3D game and say the same thing.
Link is a girl in the 2014 wii U E3 trailer
Zelda is the green guy you play as.
16:28 yeah objectives you can do or ignore you can even go tackle Ganon head on so this is a horrible take. Quit complaining and enjoy the games
of which no such similar choices, let alone markers, exist in the original
No it’s not.
Well argued.
@@LittleBeanGreen I know right?
They basically ignored everything that came before and just focused on making a good game. And that's fine, the game is great. But it's barely Zelda.
That's a sentiment I heard a lot: "it's a great game, but a bad Zelda game."
there are 3 kinds of Zelda games, Traditional, Multiplayer, and Open
every Zelda game except FS, FSA, TFH, BotW, & TotK follows the formula of explore → find dungeon → get item that lets you explore more of the world → repeat like a Metroidvania
Multiplayer is the focus of FS, FSA, and TFH so they're a disconnected selection of individual levels
BotW & TotK are big open playgrounds
'playground' doesn't lend itself well to a heroic adventure haha
Outside of nostalgia and memes strangely no one talks about classic Zelda the same way they do botw or ocarina of time or any 3d games
see other comment.
Rather than spoonfeed or hold your hand the devs for new games have left the essence upto player imagination
Basically it’s whatever we want it to be
But they do spoonfeed you. They put a mark on your map. It's just a matter of whether or not you want to follow it or go off and do something else.
totk > botw
can't have the latter without the former.
From what I read the Zelda team actually used the classic engine and art style from the og Zelda and everything in order to test out the mechanics for the open games
The devs go over it in that GDC presentation. The pixel art style is definitely OF the original but the engine hardly is. Everything in that prototype is actually 3D - they show it in that presentation.
So many whiners falling behind in times, being stuck in the past. Boohoo. I like the newer Zelda games and I’ve been playing since nes. Get over it. Time to move forward
wait. the whole point of this video is to show that NINTENDO thinks BotW was a return to the past, when it was really a culmination of everything that came before it + the modern gaming landscape.
18 minute cope from a guy who didnt even play the first game and doesnt understand the comparison....for the third time.
aw don't be a daniel!
The will they/won’t they between Daniel and LBG gives this channel that extra bit of magic ❤
Never change daniel. Never change. You keep me in check and make me feel good about myself.
@@Goosewitdajuice317 you're a good lad, goose.
@@ethankolderman6641 he is the Opie to my Anthony.
But like more towards the end there.