Nintendo
Zelda’s Future Deserves Better
Zelda’s Future Deserves Better
#Zeldas #Future #Deserves
“Arlo”
I’m sure whatever comes after Tears of the Kingdom will be great, but Aonuma’s stance on the future of the Zelda series is disappointing.
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Terrible video Arlo, farming clickbait engagement from a blurb. I expect way better from you.
Do you know how I know what euji aunuma says is crap. My first true Zelda experience was Breath of the Wild, which is one of my favourite nintendo games and pales in comparison to Majora's Mask, which I beat last year and is my favourite game of all time. You'd think i'd like the older games less, but no, I honestly might prefer the older formula. He can't use nostalgia as an excuse because my first true experience was the newer Zelda formula. So now you can see how easy this argument crumbles apart.
Funnily I think, despite its reputation, Skyward Sword has the best dungeon design in the series. I think a lot of the issue is the mechanic change to the item system makes it difficult/impossible to design the dungeons in interesting ways. You cannot know what items people have so you cannot design around them so the solutions are pretty obvious because there is less to consider and you can almost always solve the puzzles upon finding them.
I actually had the same issue with a Link Between Worlds. I know a lot of people love that game, but always bringing in the items you need really made the dungeon design lacking in my opinion. It was better due to the return of a small key based dungeon model and more unique dungeon mechanics, but you never went into a room and had to think I cannot do anything in this room right now.
Ive been tired of the BoTW formula since the second year of the game being out tbh, im just waiting for a different iteration on the formula. Wasnt a fan of the story much either. Neither were for me, but they were for some people and thats cool. I just dont like the ripple of open world hype that happened after.
The open world formula with real temples and dungeons would be the perfect combination. That's what Tears should have been. Instead it was just a bit of a disappointment.
"Look at these numbers!" Nailed it there man. I think Nintendo believe they've cracked the code to sell 10x more Zeldas as they used to, thanks to the open-world formula and assume that the linear structure is what was keeping the series from reaching a much wider audience. I believe Aonuma thinks the two different formulas don't mix, or at least that the much larger '"open world" audience they brought to the series actively dislikes the linear progression formula and that bringing that back into the series could scare off that new, larger audience.
And well… I'm not sure he would be entirely wrong about that. I can only speak from my personal experience, but I've seen a lot of people around me and in the larger video games discourse (as in not the Nintendo hardcore fanbase) that knew about the Zelda series but had just zero interest in it before BotW. They saw Zelda as some sort of samey, childish puzzle game for 10 years old. I don't think bringing back a linear progression and more puzzley dungeons would drive away that audience from the series, but it would probably not make the game any better for them. So why would Nintendo take that risk or invest the time and resources to do that, when the major part of the audience just doesn't care about it in their eyes?
My wishes are a 100% percent aligned with Arlo's and what I assume is the majority of the long-time Zelda fanbase but I really don't have much of an idea where the series is headed to next. But a return to the OoT formula is certainly not what I'm expecting. Aonuma is done with that, and that's what remasters are for anyway 😀
I never played much Zelda growing up, the only one I played was Phantom Hourglass as a kid. I also read some of the mangas soI had a mild understanding and appreciation for the lore.
Like a lot of people new to the franchise I played and adored BOTW, and later TOTK, but for me the exploration, the role-playing, and the story are everything in these games. The more linear dungeons are my least favorite part of them, for me they felt like a chore i had to do to get the rewards and progress the story. I would personally love if future games continued like this, valuing exploration above all, but if they go back to more puzzle-like formulas, I probably won't buy them.
I am not a conservative politically. But Zelda rests on conservative principles. Keeping the identity, using the unique aesthetic, Link with a green hat and tunic. Zelda in the castle. Ganondorf being cunning and all. Those 5 million fans who bought Link's Awakening and Skyward Sword HD. That's the core fanbase pushing the entire success of the franchise. I literally have a Link's Awakening on my shelf, unopened because I collect Zelda stuff. It's a sin to speak ill of the Zelda Canon, yet disregard it. In terms of that I am angry at Aonuma and would like Miyamoto to educatively spank him shouting this blasphemy. Sometimes old school is gold school, so maybe they should retire Aonuma altogether and give chance to the guy who made Super Mario Wonder. I mean that's how an IP is loved and gets a family game of the year reward. Zelda is also about family, and bringing old players and new together. Making parents play woth their kids. As a future parent why would I want to buy woke Link wearing a hoodie to my Gen Alpha kid. Could give him Minecraft if I wanted him to "feel the openworld".
Open world can also be boring world. Movies are fun and movies are linear. Also linear games are fun, Look at FF7, FF9, Dragon Quest Chrono Trigger, Crash Bandicoot, Metal Gear Solid 1. all linear all fun! Gimme some of that level of greatness.
Aonuma get woke go broke. ❤
The combat mechanic can be improved by giving bosses mmore defense and focusing od them having less weak points. Which will force the player to learn some fight mechanics. Chanbara 2024 is the way to go. That's what ultimately makes the Adventure of Link > Ocarina of Time passing of the torch. The nostgia is the strongest point in Zelda. That's what made loyal fans stick to the franchise with years. I've been playin Zelda since 1999, age 8. Give me back that kind of Zelda. I don't like Minecraft.
I think Aonuma is thinking with his producer brain and is seeing the sales numbers of BotW/TotK compared to the older games.
Just look at Youtube Zelda content. You will find top 10 for dungeons, items, bosses and musics. You will find dungeon analysis like Boss Key. This is what fans identifiy as the Zelda DNA.
BotW and TotK have none of it:
The dungeons are these short 30 minutes shrines with 5 disconnected puzzles.
The items have been replaced by a magic swiss knife that you get at the beginning and by disposable consumables.
The bosses used to challenge you to use your new item in new ways. But without items, they feel hollow.
The music has gone from memorable epics that I can sing from memory to environmental sounds that are a blurr in my head.
The world that was once "small" but full to brim with content is now "huge and open" with plenty of empty space. Their solution to add content in this huge world? Koroks! Koroks everywhere! I hate those guys!
I have religiously bought every single Zelda game day one… Except from TotK. I am not playing Zelda until it brings back what I, and many others, cherished about it.
I always felt like botw was an experiment, that the series would go on with a more typical zelda formula afterwards, but borrow some inspirations or cues from botw to make even more amazing zelda games. kind of strange to consider the idea that that's a formula that Aonuma isn't even interested in going forward. But I also think everyone is reading too far into this one quote. there's several factors at play inhibiting us from understanding it completely, but it just doesn't tell us that much. I have no idea what to expect from the next zelda, so I feel like we can only imagine what they might be planning. yeah, I don't see any sense in stressing about what they might be making from only a single interview snippet.
11:24 Skyward Sword is not a lesson on “what not to do”. It leaned a bit too far in hand-holding and linearity, but it had an excellent story and fun combat. I just wished they had fleshed it out a bit more. But you are correct that its poor reception led to them changing things up.
8:35 I think some nuance is being lost in translation here. I don’t think he’s using nostalgia as a negative here. Also, your argument against puzzles with multiple solutions is VERY subjective. Playing liner puzzle solving RPGs I find myself frustrated all the time because the single “real” answer is some contrived nonsense and several logical solutions don’t work because the game didn't account for it. So your argument completely discounts this. Feel bad about cheesing puzzles? Don’t. It’s like people playing competitive games using subpar characters, cards, etc. You don’t have to use the most efficient tactics. I have seen dozens of speed runs on games I’ve played and can even perform a few. But I don’t have to use them.
Why is Aonuma the one being blamed for Zelda being openworld lol ?
Everytime i see confusion about how to do it both ways…
Elden Ring. Like, almost 1:1, at least from a navigation side. It did both open world and legacy dungeons. Even when certain parts of the map were closed off, there were shortcuts. You could reach Liurnia without killing Godrick because theres a gap underneath the castle that you can jump over. Hell, I think obscuring sequence breaks makes the discovery better. TotK has some of it with the secret fifth "dungeon," but if you make it really obscur.
As for the castle proper, its map design is identical in philosophy of previous souls games. Fans who missed those treacherous snaking corridors with really obscur shortcuts still got some of it.
From Soft figured out a way to do both, and knowing they did it makes me a little bummed Nintendo hasn't quite yet.
Imagine a Zelda, essentially ocarina of time or twilight princess’ story, with the dungeons and all, plopped into a world like BoTW. Climbing and gliding can still happen just gate off some areas. Bombing around this Hyrule as wolf link? Incorporating the bowling somehow? Yes please
The way I see it, there's essentially three Zelda formulas: Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Breath of the Wild. There's no reason we can't continue to have games in each of those three styles. I'd kill for an Ocarina of Time remake.
The funny thing about the "New Zelda sold better" idea is that, since there was no new classic style Zelda, there's no way to compare. The Switch was a runaway hit and has a stupidly large install base. Who knows how a new Wind Waker art style, top down Zelda would have done at this point. Now we'll never know.
I love that this is being talked about, but sadly, Arlo's points aren't as obvious as you'd expect. Many (I'd argue most) fans believe that adding a c-stick automatically makes a game better, and because of that, many game designers will never go back to linear gameplay and will stick to an open world formula as the only way to play.
I've been chasing the windwaker bug ever since.
Y’all criticised Skyward Sword so much that they decided to shake things up for a fresh take and surprise surprise, y’all are shitting on it again. Basically, gamers are entitled pretentious idiots who have not one clue what they want. Developers should just keep doing what they prefer, it would be extremely stupid to pander to an idiotic vocal minority.
Maybe a little hyperbolic on my part, but "Why do you want to go back to old Zelda?" Is really giving "Don't you all have phones?" vibes. The inability to read the room is almost impressive
I have played both BotW and ToK, for hundred of hours. But i never finished them. They doesnt feel like zelda anymore. I collected everthing but stopped right before the Last Boss and before the credits roll. I never did that to any game i played and i literally played every rpg out there, including all zelda entries since the beginning and These even multiple Times.
I have no Desire to ever return to the world of BotW and ToK. They have Zero replay value for me.
ToTK was almost perfect, what I expected to find in the dark gloom beneath hyrule was procedurally generated dungeons for infinite replayability. I also thought it would allow online players to join as your guardians, I was wrong about that too. I think a coop zelda experience with a procedural dungeon system is the way to go. VR too please.
You should attach his other arm to the desk using velcro or tape or something. Would look better.
I notice Arlo has a tendency to conflate a game's entire design and production with one person, kind of the "Great Man Theory" but for games. It happens with a lot of media and I take issue with it 99% of the time. Most bigger pieces of media are huge works of collaboration, even from the initial design documents.
All that being said, if he's going to point a singular finger, why choose Aonuma? He's the producer. It'd be like blaming Miyamoto for the design of Wind Waker. The director has much more influence over the design goals, and Hidemaro Fujibayashi has directed 3D Zelda games since Skyward Sword. Really, really weird that his name didn't even crop up once in this video. That's another problem with the "Great Man Theory"– whoever the biggest celebrity designer/artist is gets credit for things they may not have even been too involved with. I suppose it's the same reason why Aonuma is interviewed and not Fujibayashi. But again, this is like taking the word of an executive (through an interpreter, I might add) as the design goals for an entire team– pretty fruitless and reactionary in my opinion.
Linearcels at it again
Bring back Mysterious Murasame Castle and/or StarTropics more in line with the linear dungeon based Zelda. MMC can be the more action focused of the two, while ST can lean into mystery and puzzles.
One reason I was turned off by BOTW and TOTK was the open world.
Imo it’s just damage control. Of course he’s going to defend his new game and say it’s better than the old ones. For me personally the old Zelda’s were better. I don’t care about exploring if the rewards and puzzles are all crap. I’d rather have REAL items, heart pieces, weapons that DONT BREAK, and dungeons that actually take effort to finish. I always had these opinions but in the past if you bashed botw people would say you’re a troll or stupid. And now people are waking up.
I don't know if the question was phrased well or translated well to Mr. Aonuma. I don't want to go back to the purest most linear form of Zelda ever (and I say that as a person who enjoyed Skyward Sword). What I'd like to see are some of the most enjoyable elements present in some of the past entries in the series return or somehow be re-imagined. By all means give me an OPEN OVERWORLD like Botw/TotK/Zelda1.
Give me overworld navigation puzzles that can be approached and solved many ways. Feel free to sprinkle in some divine beast type things too but I want like 6-8 old school thematic dungeons too and a few more "linear" present-day story beats. Just take Tears of the Kingdom exactly as it is, and amongst that giant Hyrule sized "Depths" map, drop in some "legacy" dungeons for my "nostalgic" enjoyment.
I haven't played Elden Ring but I heard good things about its legacy dungeons. I'm thinking something like that. I'm not even saying dungeons should be completely linear, just… very rich and detailed. I know this sounds hard, but I'm asking this from literally the best game designers in the industry with decades of experience. Open overworld with more restricted pockets where restrictions allow for more fun. I know they understand that some restrictions are good because in TotK you can't use your own Zonai parts inventory to solve puzzles in shrines. You can't climb all the walls. In BotW champion abilities didn't work in shrines. They take away all your equipment on Eventide and in the trial of the Sword–I know the Zelda team understands this.
I would rather they fall on their own sword than pander to fans tbh. Like, if that's the kinda game they want to make? Who are we to argue? It's their game series to make. We just have to make the decision as consumers to move on to things we do like.
I really hope they make another linear Zelda game, we haven't had one since 2011 🙁
Open world is refreshing, and cool. But somehow, it doesn't feel as memorable. The music also, its no doubt beautiful in the open world games, but that's just because its built on the ones from the linear games.
I do prefer linear style games more.