Generator said:
But, isn't that sort of what happens with almost every item you get in nearly every Zelda game?
Well, taking ocarina, you got your hookshot, which was for getting around the dungeon, but that could be used in combat to stun enemies, and there was plenty of secret areas to find outside of dungeons to use it on; It added a great increase in mobility. Arrows the same, they allowed a way to attack at range, and you can set stuff on fire, freeze it, hit hidden switches etc. The boomerang also stunned enemies, and brought items towards you, giving it lots of use too. Bombs are used to find hidden areas, and there's no shortage of stuff to blow up. Most items are generally multi purpose, but the dominion rod just stood out as disarmingly specific. Ditto the double clawshot, it was just built for a few hanging moments, and was totally unneccesary. Hell, even the bottle could reflect energy attacks!
It is indeed a general problem in all games that items become more and more niche as it goes on. Ocarina had hover boots and silver gauntlets, which sucked, majora's had the light arrow, which was again puzzle specific. Wind waker is the only one that breaks the trend really, you only get the light arrows to defeat gannon, but use it on any regular enemies after and it completely obliterates them, which I thought finally did it justice.
Heh, Zelda rants are fun...