teisjm said:
Cause it's now on the wii, the wii is only for casual players soccer moms, therefor everything on it must be shunned and hated.
(wii owner and zelda fan btw)
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I find that most of the hatred for the Zelda series is just another example of blind hatred for anything Nintendo.
In fact, I'd like to use this topic to dissect the major complaints against the Zelda games general, and offer a rational explanation to them.
The story is always the same! I'm tired of saving the princess and fighting Ganondorf! - I'll start off with this complaint, as I feel this one is the most unjustified of the bunch. In many aspects, the story in most Zelda games remain unchanged: Link is a regular everyday person who becomes a hero and saves his land from an evil malevolent being bent on world-domination. However, this is where the similarities end. The finer points of the stories in every Zelda game have always been different, and have always succeeded in giving each game a different feel. And besides, good storytelling is more about how you tell the story rather than what story you tell, and this is where the stories in the Zelda games truly shine. Practically every game in the series has been able to draw most people into the story and make them feel like they are a part of the narrative and not just an observer. Twilight Princess's storytelling in particular had me on the verge of tears by the time I reached the end of my second playthrough. The stories in Zelda have always thrived off concepts that are simple enough to understand, but with a rich narrative underlining it that always offer an engaging experience, and this isn't changing anytime soon (I hope).
It's never been dark or mature enough for my tastes! Link is too boring and cliched! - This is also another one of the more misguided complaints. Whenever Nintendo creates a Zelda game, no matter how realistic or dark the setting/story is, it must obey the golden rule: The Zelda games must always appeal to everyone. Every Zelda game since the original has always been safe enough for kids to play, and this is never going to change. Even Majora's Mask, which arguably has the darkest undertones of any Zelda game, was given an ESRB rating of E for Everyone (for the N64; not sure what the Virtual Console port is rated). This also applies to Link himself. From the beginning, Link was always intended to be a character that the player "becomes", which is why he never speaks, or is not dark or brooding in the slightest. Hell, that's why he was named Link to begin with: To create a link between the player and the character they control. Personally, I like Link just the way he is, and I always feel like I am Link whenever I play a Zelda game.
Nintendo just rehashes the same game over and over! Nothing ever changes! - This complaint's been around for a while, but I feel that Yahtzee's antics really exacerbated this. Yes, the core mechanics of the Zelda games haven't deviated too much from Ocarina of Time or Link to the Past. Every game has dungeons to explore, heart pieces to find, boomerangs to throw, and cracks in the walls to blow up. However, these elements are what make Zelda, well, Zelda. They're what separate the games from most other action-adventure games out there, and the fact that they continue to be just as fun now as they were 10 years ago shows how well everything works. Like Flying_Emu said earlier, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." In fact, the fact that Miyamoto says the upcoming Wii Zelda won't be too radically different from previous installments has me more reassured than concerned. Changing the core mechanics for the sake of change is never a good idea, and Nintendo would undoubtedly get panned by just about everyone if they made such a radical departure from what defines a Zelda game. I'll love the series no matter what direction it takes, but I hope Nintendo never forgets what makes Zelda such a great series to begin with.
