What should Zelda change?

[MaxiP62]

I genuinely do love the Legend Of Zelda, before anyone starts calling me a troll, I really am a long time fan and own every single game in the series, so I do know what I'm talking about in most cases when it comes to the Zelda Franchise.

Anyhoo, it's clear that The Legend Of Zelda is falling behind in terms of modern gaming. This could be due to the long development cycles (For example Skyward Sword was in development for around 5 to 6 years) or that Nintendo are generally reluctant to change their formulas. However Skyward Sword, as great as it was. Did feel a little bit outdated in certain aspects. For example, the slightly stiff climbing or 'Parkour' mechanics did their job reasonably well, however could have been built upon much more, and the series' lack of voice acting is becoming more and more apparent.

However I'm not dissing the game, it really showed that motion controls could be the way forward, and had the best graphics on the Wii. As well as having the best story and narrative of any of the Zelda games so far. However some changes probably need to be made.

So what do you guys think should be changed in the next CONSOLE Zelda game? (Obviously the 3DS Zelda is in development, however it will be a different story seeing how that will turn out)

My suggestions are:
- Building upon the free running ideas, building puzzles upon that idea, having to run across a wall and then use the hookshot, or extra platforming sections.
- Voice acting. After seeing Kid Icarus: Uprising, Nintendo clearly has the resources to create great voice acting, even in English. Kid Icarus' writing was top notch and made me enjoy the game even more than I already was, if they added that humour to Zelda, which is generally an already funny game, it could really improve the game. However I am against the idea of Link having a voice.
- Less filler, more side quests! Skyward Sword was padded slightly in certain sections, it's hard not to notice that, however adding extra side quests to the game and exploring some other character's stories a bit more could add a lot to the story.
- Continue to make subtle references to past Zelda games, for example in Wind Waker with the links to Ocarina of Time, I thought this was a great idea and in general and made me enjoy the series much more.
- Have loads of secrets/easter eggs. Wind Waker's sea was full of secrets and extra areas, having these and maybe even some fun easter eggs will surely make the game much more interesting, Skyward Sword had some fun little secrets in it, they should carry on with that!

I know that's quite the essay I've written there, but I do love the Zelda series and I would like to see what other people think, some people may disagree with some of the stuff I've said, and that's fine, I'd like to hear what everyone thinks!

 

[Epona]

- Get rid of the long intro's, take a look at A Link to the Past. People are really losing patience with having to sit through an hour (or 3) of hand holding and exposition before they finally get control.

- We don't need to know what a Red Rupee is worth every time we reload a save. Tell us once, set a flag and never tell us again. This also applies to other things like certain items that give you a description every time you pick them up. Think Joy Pendants in Wind Waker.

- Text speed needs to be adjustable, instant should be an option.

 

[MaxiP62]

- Get rid of the long intro's, take a look at A Link to the Past. People are really losing patience with having to sit through an hour (or 3) of hand holding and exposition before they finally get control.

- We don't need to know what a Red Rupee is worth every time we reload a save. Tell us once, set a flag and never tell us again. This also applies to other things like certain items that give you a description every time you pick them up. Think Joy Pendants in Wind Waker.

- Text speed needs to be adjustable, instant should be an option.

Agreed. Skyward Sword and Ocarina Of Time take a bit too long to get into. Wind Waker and Link To The Past are good examples on how to do it.

I know exactly what you mean on that second point, I'm currently replaying both Skyward Sword and Wind Waker right now and that problem is very common in both.

Also agreed, this was very annoying in Skyward Sword, Wind Waker handles this much better but Ocarina of Time probably does it the best with it being instant when you press B.

 

[Auron225]

Have more than 3 areas? That was the biggest disappointment for me in Skyward Sword. I thought the world would be huge when I heard you fly around on a massive bird! The Wind Waker felt much bigger and Twilight Princess felt huge in comparison (there were about 6 areas in it weren't there?).

Aside from that, I like your building upon free-running suggestion as well as the voice-acting one. Honestly though, so long as it was done right (which I know would be damn hard for them to do), I wouldn't mind Link talking - I'm starting to get a little irritated by silent protagonists who have no opinion on anything they're doing. It feels very outdated now - its not "classic" anymore. And yeah, side-quests that are at least a little related to the story instead of completely unrelated would be nice.

Oh, and some new ideas for items!! Not crap like the Gale Bellows - something that has more than one purpose. Whoever thought of the Hookshot was a genious but they can't keep using it over and over again, they need to be a bit more creative.

 

[MaxiP62]

Have more than 3 areas? That was the biggest disappointment for me in Skyward Sword. I thought the world would be huge when I heard you fly around on a massive bird! The Wind Waker felt much bigger and Twilight Princess felt huge in comparison (there were about 6 areas in it weren't there?).

Aside from that, I like your building upon free-running suggestion as well as the voice-acting one. Honestly though, so long as it was done right (which I know would be damn hard for them to do), I wouldn't mind Link talking - I'm starting to get a little irritated by silent protagonists who have no opinion on anything they're doing. It feels very outdated now - its not "classic" anymore. And yeah, side-quests that are at least a little related to the story instead of completely unrelated would be nice.

Oh, and some new ideas for items!! Not crap like the Gale Bellows - something that has more than one purpose. Whoever thought of the Hookshot was a genious but they can't keep using it over and over again, they need to be a bit more creative.

Yes! The 3 areas in Skyward Sword was a great disappointment! Even seeing new areas in them seemed very dull, but I think they will probably fix this in the next game.


Link talking would be interesting, it would depend on how much he talked and his personality.

And new items should be standard really, I think they only ever seem to add one per game really, the digging claws (Can't remember their name) in Skyward Sword was quite a good addition however.

 

[roushutsu]

Oh, and some new ideas for items!! Not crap like the Gale Bellows - something that has more than one purpose. Whoever thought of the Hookshot was a genious but they can't keep using it over and over again, they need to be a bit more creative.

THIS! I'm all for new items or finding new unique ways to use the classic ones. Or better yet, cut down on the dungeon-specific items. Twilight Princess was extremely guilty of this. There were some unique items that I thought were cool, but once you're past the dungeon where you got it, it pretty much just sits in your inventory taking up space. Either cut them entirely or simply just drop that item once you leave the dungeon and spare me the trouble.

I also like the idea of Link talking, probably just during the important conversational scenes. I remember coming across a podcast where a bunch of people just talked about their experiences with Skyward Sword for over an hour, and at one point near the end one of them brought up a neat idea that I would have loved to have seen. At the end of the game, when Demise is going on about how he will always hunt Link and Zelda down, Link should have fired back with a simple sentence, maybe something along the lines of "I'll be there to stop you every time." That would have been an awesome mindfuck.

 

[him over there]

A jump button. give us a fraking jump button, I could probably think of more things but right now the most glaring for me is a jump button.

 

[MaxiP62]

A jump button. give us a fraking jump button, I could probably think of more things but right now the most glaring for me is a jump button.

Why would you need a jump button though?

 

[MaxiP62]

I just finished Link's Awakening and I say they should do more of whatever it had.

Fucking amazing game.

True that, was pretty good! Not my favourite but it did a lot of things right!

Also, did that guy reply from that Sequels thread last night?

 

[him over there]

A jump button. give us a fraking jump button, I could probably think of more things but right now the most glaring for me is a jump button.

Why would you need a jump button though?

To be honest it doesn't really, just compared to most of Nintendo's other franchises it feels counter-intuitive and not like I have full control of the character. I know that's kind of petty but honestly I'm not in the mood to type a 15 paragraph response about what should be changed. I will say though that one thing they could do is make the game start very fast, I should be in a dungeon in the first ten minutes.

 

[MaxiP62]

I just finished Link's Awakening and I say they should do more of whatever it had.

Fucking amazing game.

True that, was pretty good! Not my favourite but it did a lot of things right!

Also, did that guy reply from that Sequels thread last night?

No, it ended with my triumphant display of victory. Good times...

Goooooooood, Very gooooooooood

A jump button. give us a fraking jump button, I could probably think of more things but right now the most glaring for me is a jump button.

Why would you need a jump button though?

To be honest it doesn't really, just compared to most of Nintendo's other franchises it feels counter-intuitive and not like I have full control of the character. I know that's kind of petty but honestly I'm not in the mood to type a 15 paragraph response about what should be changed. I will say though that one thing they could do is make the game start very fast, I should be in a dungeon in the first ten minutes.

I suppose I get what you mean, but then again the game is designed with the automatic jumping in mind.

Although to your point about being in a dungeon in the first 10 minutes, how about the place you start in being a dungeon? As like a little introduction section. I think that would be a good way to start out the game!

 

[Ordinaryundone]

-Speed up the game. Everything about it. Travel Time, dialogue, cutscenes, even little things like finding items and such needs to have the fat trimmed.

-In regards to travel, better area design. You can have an open and "real" feeling world without making be backtrack across the same areas over and over again. Dark Souls did a fantastic job of this, by being broken into "levels" that flowed naturally into one another rather than Zelda's "zone connected to hub area" design. Or make traveling more fun and dynamic. In Zelda, when traveling it is nearly always a beeline from point a to b, whether its on foot, horse, boat, flying, whatever. Okami, a Zelda game in all but name, made traveling very interesting by including a lot of stuff to do an explore on the way. Digging up clovers and treasure, feeding animals, and random battles went a long way towards making each walk profitable and interesting in itself.

-Make combat more interesting. Zelda always bugged me about this; you have all these cool weapons and items that seem to encourage getting creative with the enemies, but for the most part the go-to strategy is nearly always "hit it with your sword". Let us use our tools dynamically in combat, similar to the Arkham Batman games. I want to run a moblin through with my sword, then attach a bomb to him and kick him at a friend to take them both out. Or bash with my shield then follow up with a hard hitting Megaton hammer for a ground finish. Even if it's not that varied, at least let Link equip different weapons than his standard sword for simple variety, Okami-style.

-Embrace the "adventure" aspect of the games. I'd like to see a Zelda game where Link actually spends a minimum amount of time interacting with NPCs, similar to the very first game. Don't even necessarily need a main villain, just let the guy go on this huge quest that spans the continent, like something out of Man Vs. Wild: Hyrule edition. Link doesn't need to always be fighting evil; my favorite games (Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask) actually put relatively little focus on their "villains", instead providing a scenario Link is trying to overcome or escape in their stead.

-Give Link more personality. I'm not saying make him talk, that would actually be a bad move in my opinion. But make him more responsive, and more emotive. Okami, once again, did a great job of this. You get a pretty good idea of Amaterasu's personality despite her, being a dog and all, never actually saying a word. Link, on the other hand, just feels like mannequin. Wind Waker actually took a few steps in this direction thanks to it's expressive art style (DEM HUGE EYES), and in my opinion it was the most likable iteration of Link yet.

 

[him over there]

snap

That might work pretty well, I think the best way to do it would be to have dungeons be more dungeon-y too, if that makes sense. Give the series a more scary atmosphere. I know that some parts are scary in previous games but I think that the dungeons should feel like dungeons. But if you placed the player in the dungeon first thing it would have to be more streamlined/self explanatory than usual, a small taste for what is to come.

Also I think the trend of having really big overworlds is pretty great and I would like to see things more like wind waker. Skyward sword took what wind waker had and shrunk it down into nothing and that disappointed me. I would really like it to have a lot more depth, do away with most things on the map so you had to navigate yourself based on things like landmarks and things, make you feel like a real explorer.

 

[LilithSlave]

I admit I wouldn't mind some voice acting, even though it's a controversial opinion.

I think that many Zelda fans have been so traumatized by "Gee, it sure is boring around here" and "Excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, princess" that they don't ever want to hear Link utter a word out of his sarcastic little mouth ever again.

 

[krazykidd]

Try something new . Let's play as zelda for once , hell even peach got her own damn game ( and it wasn't a bad game either).

Try something old , let's try a new top-down zelda , a la 3d dot game heroes ( and i'm not talking about on a handheld system).

Give us some difficulty settings . Seriously , the hardcore crowd would eat that shit up.

Stop being so goddamn presictable .Periode.

 

[scorptatious]

Give us some difficulty settings . Seriously , the hardcore crowd would eat that shit up.

Not sure if it counts but there's a "Hero Mode" in Skyward Sword, which makes it so that enemies do twice as much damage.

Also, in OOT 3D, the Master Quest version can be unlocked after beating the main game.

Of course, having those kinds of things available at the start wouldn't be such a bad idea either. As I'm sure not everyone would want to go through the default game first just to play through the harder version.

As for what I would change or add: I guess voice acting wouldn't be such a bad idea. But I'd still keep Link silent for the most part.

More playable characters? Perhaps there could be segments in the game having you play as someone else in order to get a different perspective of what's going on in the game?

An option to play with or without motion controls. I'm not saying I hate motion controls, hell, thanks to Skyward Sword I do believe they could have a future. But it's obvious not everyone is into motion controls, and giving people the choice to play with or without them could bring in more people to play.