- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #1
Hello fellow posters, I have started this thread to talk about game design and sales in the Legend of Zelda series.
Legend of Zelda game design and sales
- Thread starter Old sorta fan
- Replies 150
- Views 8,596
- Start date
- Community Discussion
There's plenty of room for improvement in BOTW's design, dungeons in particular. But that'll need to be integrated with the sort of emergent puzzle solving and combat strategy that BOTW follows. Hyrule Castle already shows how to go about this perfectly, they just need to expand and do that more with multiple dungeons.
I don't think Nintendo can go back, if you want the old item lock-and-key linear gated puzzles and progression, you'll either have to settle for remasters or get into Metroid.
I don't think Nintendo can go back, if you want the old item lock-and-key linear gated puzzles and progression, you'll either have to settle for remasters or get into Metroid.
Last edited by a moderator:
OP
OP
- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #3
@Spikeylord
How big was the console video game market in 1986 and 1988 compared to when OOT, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword were released? What proportion of the population was receptive to buying video games in 1988 vs. 1998 vs. 2006 vs. 2017? I also agree that a breath of the Wild’s sales should be looked at through this prism too.
It was harder to sell as many video games in the 1980’s as they were viewed as children’s toys that adults tolerated until their son/daughter would grow out of it. The NES and The Legend of Zelda had to sell to skeptical parents as well as kids. Few adults were buying video games for themselves in 1986. By 2002, I was able to use my own money from my own job to buy a Cube, Wind Waker, a Wii, a DS, Twilight a Princess etc. I wanted an NES but my parents wouldn’t let me even do side jobs to save up for one because they did not want video games in their house. Fortunately, all my friends has NES’s, Genesis and SNES! That means that you had kids and young adults with disposable income as potential customers. The parents were also
Also look at the costs of making Zelda 2 compared to the costs of Wind Waker or Twilight Princess? Why was Zelda 2 considered a business success while Wind Waker was such a business failure that Nintendo considered discontinuing the series? (Source at bottom of post)
Those are fair points. Any sales situation is always specific to when the software was released.
I disagree on this point. You cant choose to use the environment, stealth, multiple weapon styles, different armor, tactical retreats in the legacy 3D Zelda’s like in BOTW. You get to choose your initial approach, how you engage with monsters, where to light the grass on fire, roll a boulder on them, drive them off a cliff or into water, whether to climb a tree to snipe them, whether to wait until night to sneak into monster camps and off them in their sleep, whether to run over them on a horse, to knock down a bees nest to attack them, whether to disguise yourself and run right past them.
The player choice in BOTW was unparalleled even if the melee mechanics were iterated on predecessors.
again, a fair point. I reply that context matters. In Skyward Sword, you can only do those mechanics when the game tells you it’s time to do so. You can also only use them in the context the game lets you. It’s another lock and key. In contrast, you can use Revali’s Gale any time for any purpose, whether its to skip climbing, get somewhere you don’t have enough stamina to reach, use it to get up high so you can glide over a guardian you don’t want to engage and get to the destination, or get high to rain bomb arrows on a Lynel in a nasty fight.
The key is the player choice.
The unprecedented player choice is the key. That freedom to figure stuff out and solve problems how you want to solve them is the key to the game’s sales success.
Just like with the Legend of Zelda in the much smaller market of the 1980’s.
*source: https://www.gamedesigngazette.com/2018/05/that-time-legend-of-zelda-franchise.html?m=0
How big was the console video game market in 1986 and 1988 compared to when OOT, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword were released? What proportion of the population was receptive to buying video games in 1988 vs. 1998 vs. 2006 vs. 2017? I also agree that a breath of the Wild’s sales should be looked at through this prism too.
It was harder to sell as many video games in the 1980’s as they were viewed as children’s toys that adults tolerated until their son/daughter would grow out of it. The NES and The Legend of Zelda had to sell to skeptical parents as well as kids. Few adults were buying video games for themselves in 1986. By 2002, I was able to use my own money from my own job to buy a Cube, Wind Waker, a Wii, a DS, Twilight a Princess etc. I wanted an NES but my parents wouldn’t let me even do side jobs to save up for one because they did not want video games in their house. Fortunately, all my friends has NES’s, Genesis and SNES! That means that you had kids and young adults with disposable income as potential customers. The parents were also
Also look at the costs of making Zelda 2 compared to the costs of Wind Waker or Twilight Princess? Why was Zelda 2 considered a business success while Wind Waker was such a business failure that Nintendo considered discontinuing the series? (Source at bottom of post)
Those are fair points. Any sales situation is always specific to when the software was released.
I disagree on this point. You cant choose to use the environment, stealth, multiple weapon styles, different armor, tactical retreats in the legacy 3D Zelda’s like in BOTW. You get to choose your initial approach, how you engage with monsters, where to light the grass on fire, roll a boulder on them, drive them off a cliff or into water, whether to climb a tree to snipe them, whether to wait until night to sneak into monster camps and off them in their sleep, whether to run over them on a horse, to knock down a bees nest to attack them, whether to disguise yourself and run right past them.
The player choice in BOTW was unparalleled even if the melee mechanics were iterated on predecessors.
again, a fair point. I reply that context matters. In Skyward Sword, you can only do those mechanics when the game tells you it’s time to do so. You can also only use them in the context the game lets you. It’s another lock and key. In contrast, you can use Revali’s Gale any time for any purpose, whether its to skip climbing, get somewhere you don’t have enough stamina to reach, use it to get up high so you can glide over a guardian you don’t want to engage and get to the destination, or get high to rain bomb arrows on a Lynel in a nasty fight.
The key is the player choice.
The unprecedented player choice is the key. That freedom to figure stuff out and solve problems how you want to solve them is the key to the game’s sales success.
Just like with the Legend of Zelda in the much smaller market of the 1980’s.
*source: https://www.gamedesigngazette.com/2018/05/that-time-legend-of-zelda-franchise.html?m=0
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It is fallacious in the extreme to pretend that Old School Zelda Fans (TM) are a monolith that can be described according to extrapolations of anecdotal experience. My father was a video game head back in the early 80s, but I don't have the data to say if he was or wasn't the norm. I suspect that you don't either; using very broad strokes to describe the gaming landscape with total confidence is assuming a degree of expertise that none of us have established.
Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 are the only Zelda games I dislike. I've played and finished all Zelda games except for these two and Zelda 2 is the only Nintendo game I hate. BotW on the other hand is my favorite game ever.
To be fair though all the faults in these two games are due to archaic and outdated game design and like it seems to me the required use of a manual. Like how is anyone supposed to know where to bomb a wall? And the hitboxes in Zelda 1 are the worst I've ever seen. Either way they were the first games I didn't enjoy as a child and the only games I played in my childhood that I didn't finish (played on Gamecube btw).
The worst part in Zelda 2 was when I went through a dungeon and suddenly couldn't progress anymore, boom, over, no clue what to do. Turns out I needed an item that is hidden in the overworld without any visual indicator of anything being there and nothing in the game told me I need to find an item anywhere at all.
Bad and outdated game design.
Something similar was actually my only issue with ALttP where you need silver arrows to beat Ganon, but the game doesn't tell you anything about that for some inexplicable reason and just lets you enter the bossfight without a required item. Nowadays there would be something you need to shoot a silver arrow at to enter the bossfight. So I got stuck in the final phase of the fight with no clue what to do and needed Youtube to tell me that silver arrows exist.
Bad and outdated game design. Thankfully the only instance of this in ALttP. Overall that game aged gracefully.
A remake of Zelda 2 where it's possible to find out what the hell you're supposed to do and where you're not getting bombarded with annoying and not fun random enemy encounters every two seconds would be great. It does seem to me that under that slew of incompetence a good game lingers.
I am glad that the significantly better Link's Awakening on Switch, if it hasn't already is going to outsell Zelda 1.
The Link's Awakening remake didn't get any general design changes and still holds up in it's gameplay. That is great design.
Wow, I wrote a lot.
To be fair though all the faults in these two games are due to archaic and outdated game design and like it seems to me the required use of a manual. Like how is anyone supposed to know where to bomb a wall? And the hitboxes in Zelda 1 are the worst I've ever seen. Either way they were the first games I didn't enjoy as a child and the only games I played in my childhood that I didn't finish (played on Gamecube btw).
The worst part in Zelda 2 was when I went through a dungeon and suddenly couldn't progress anymore, boom, over, no clue what to do. Turns out I needed an item that is hidden in the overworld without any visual indicator of anything being there and nothing in the game told me I need to find an item anywhere at all.
Bad and outdated game design.
Something similar was actually my only issue with ALttP where you need silver arrows to beat Ganon, but the game doesn't tell you anything about that for some inexplicable reason and just lets you enter the bossfight without a required item. Nowadays there would be something you need to shoot a silver arrow at to enter the bossfight. So I got stuck in the final phase of the fight with no clue what to do and needed Youtube to tell me that silver arrows exist.
Bad and outdated game design. Thankfully the only instance of this in ALttP. Overall that game aged gracefully.
A remake of Zelda 2 where it's possible to find out what the hell you're supposed to do and where you're not getting bombarded with annoying and not fun random enemy encounters every two seconds would be great. It does seem to me that under that slew of incompetence a good game lingers.
I am glad that the significantly better Link's Awakening on Switch, if it hasn't already is going to outsell Zelda 1.
The Link's Awakening remake didn't get any general design changes and still holds up in it's gameplay. That is great design.
Wow, I wrote a lot.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Just dragged this out of the MC thread.
There’s assuredly a balance that can be reached. I agree in principle that the puzzle-box/“escape room” nature of dungeons in post-LttP games (which drew some light inspiration from a tiny handful of dungeons in LttP and dialled it up to 10) might not fit with the nature of what came before LttP and after SS, nor does the aggressive linearity of progression LttP incidentally introduced to the franchise (which, again, was a bit less aggressive but then dialled up in future entries). They’re not bad games, but they are different and make design choices that are incompatible with one another to a certain extent.
The original game gave you all the “necessary” tools to traverse each dungeon and defeat each boss on the world map (though even LoZ1 locked a few items necessary for progression in dungeons like the Flute and Silver Arrows, but that’s easy enough to fix). BotW shares this principle of not locking necessary equipment to traverse the game exclusively into dungeons (and expands it) and it was a good choice.
Likewise, the OG LoZ was not devoid of puzzles, BotW keeps those intact in how one unearths some of the shrines, though it (and some LoZ games in between) improves on this aspect of the OG game by not making these puzzles completely and utterly opaque to the player (@BTB123 has a valid criticism here). In this way, it borrows more from LttP, where it had puzzles that are not totally spelled out but at least were not so opaque that they could not be overcome (except the Silver Arrow issue, but BotW resolves that issue, too). Also a good choice.
Likewise, it borrows (and expands) on LttP’s (and MM’s) capacity to tell a richer narrative through exploration of the world map, rather than tying SO much of the story to “problem only entering a dungeon can solve” storytelling that leads to much of its linearity. Also a good choice.
But again, all of these things do not preclude “lock-and-key” dungeons per se, nor does it preclude some dungeon variation or more/more variation in large boss-ish battles.
I could say more on the subject, but I’ll leave it there for now and just say that there are still aspects of the past games that didn’t (but still could) be incorporated into these new BotW-style games without altering the fundamental positives in its design.
I’m just gonna say it… LoZ1 has locks and keys in it and I don’t think it betrays the sense of choice one got playing the original LoZ.
There’s assuredly a balance that can be reached. I agree in principle that the puzzle-box/“escape room” nature of dungeons in post-LttP games (which drew some light inspiration from a tiny handful of dungeons in LttP and dialled it up to 10) might not fit with the nature of what came before LttP and after SS, nor does the aggressive linearity of progression LttP incidentally introduced to the franchise (which, again, was a bit less aggressive but then dialled up in future entries). They’re not bad games, but they are different and make design choices that are incompatible with one another to a certain extent.
The original game gave you all the “necessary” tools to traverse each dungeon and defeat each boss on the world map (though even LoZ1 locked a few items necessary for progression in dungeons like the Flute and Silver Arrows, but that’s easy enough to fix). BotW shares this principle of not locking necessary equipment to traverse the game exclusively into dungeons (and expands it) and it was a good choice.
Likewise, the OG LoZ was not devoid of puzzles, BotW keeps those intact in how one unearths some of the shrines, though it (and some LoZ games in between) improves on this aspect of the OG game by not making these puzzles completely and utterly opaque to the player (@BTB123 has a valid criticism here). In this way, it borrows more from LttP, where it had puzzles that are not totally spelled out but at least were not so opaque that they could not be overcome (except the Silver Arrow issue, but BotW resolves that issue, too). Also a good choice.
Likewise, it borrows (and expands) on LttP’s (and MM’s) capacity to tell a richer narrative through exploration of the world map, rather than tying SO much of the story to “problem only entering a dungeon can solve” storytelling that leads to much of its linearity. Also a good choice.
But again, all of these things do not preclude “lock-and-key” dungeons per se, nor does it preclude some dungeon variation or more/more variation in large boss-ish battles.
I could say more on the subject, but I’ll leave it there for now and just say that there are still aspects of the past games that didn’t (but still could) be incorporated into these new BotW-style games without altering the fundamental positives in its design.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The size of the market is a difficult question to answer and to really formulate - individual games sales are (or at least were until the age of multiplatform) limited by how big the market share of the console they are on is; and the big note for console Zelda (and all Nintendo home console titles for that matter) is that from NES to GCN every Nintendo home console sold less than the predecessor console. NES/FCM did 61.91m, SNES/SFC 49.1m, N64 32.93m and GCN 21.74m - so in that sense, the home console market for Nintendo was far smaller in the 90's and 2000's than in the 80's; both in terms of sheer numbers, and especially in terms of market share.
An interesting metric this has made me think of though is to see the various Zelda attach rates for the consoles:
NES / Famicom (61.91m):
- The Legend of Zelda - 10.52% attach rate
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - 7.07% attach rate
- Cumulative: 17.59%
- A Link to the Past - 9.39% attach rate
- Ocarina of Time - 23.08% attach rate
- Majora's Mask - 10.20% attach rate
- Cumulative: 33.28%
- Wind Waker - 20.38% attach rate
- Four Swords Adventures - <4.6% attach rate
- Twilight Princess GCN - 6.58% attach rate
- Cumulative: >26.96%
- Twilight Princess Wii - 7.14% attach rate
- Skyward Sword - 3.61% attach rate
- Cumulative: 10.75%
- Wind Waker HD - 17.33% attach rate
- Twilight Princess HD - 8.48% attach rate
- Breath of the Wild Wii U - 12.54% attach rate
- Cumulative: 38.35%
- Breath of the Wild Switch - 22.68% attach rate
- Link's Awakening Remake - 4.96% attach rate
- Skyward Sword HD - 3.19% attach rate
- Cumulative: 30.83%
- Link's Awakening + DX - 5.10% attach rate
- Oracles of Seasons and Ages - 3.36% attach rate
- Cumulative: 8.46%
- A Link to the Past + Four Swords - 3.46% attach rate
- Minish Cap - 2.16% attach rate
- Cumulative: 5.62%
- Phantom Hourglass - 3.09% attach rate
- Spirit Tracks - 1.92% attach rate
- Cumulative: 5.01%
- Ocarina of Time 3D - 8.43% attach rate
- A Link Between Worlds - 5.58% attach rate
- Majora's Mask 3D - 4.52% attach rate
- Tri Force Heroes - 1.79% attach rate
- Cumulative: 20.32%
The asterisks indicate handheld platforms, which are going to have skewed attach rates due to the trend of having multiple handhelds per house, and mid-gen refreshes happening for every handheld (including the hybrid console, Switch). I've also included an extra "attach rate" that is just the combined attach rates of all non-spinoff Zeldas on a given console, mostly as just an extra little data point to look at.
OP
OP
- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #8
That is a good point and something that is worth looking into. There are other factors that contribute to a title‘s sales.
As flagship first party games are supposed to drive sales of the console, there is an amount of chicken and egg with respect to Legend of Zelda series sales. We can clearly say that The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess (Wii launch window in the west) and Breath of the Wild did their jobs as killer apps that drove hardware sales. We can also say that Wind Waker was a failure of a killer app that directly contributed to the failure of the GameCube.
The SNES sold less worldwide due to a shorter prime of life than the NES and stiff competition in the west in the Genesis. The N64 sold less due to software droughts caused by all the Japanese third parties choosing to only support PlayStation. I shudder to think what N64 sales would have looked like without Mario 64, OOT, Mario Kart, and Goldeneye. The Cube also had software droughts for the same reason AND failed killer apps (and bad marketing)
Twilight Princess was a killer app for the Wii in the launch period in the west. Many OOT fans were anticipating OOT but with a western oriented art style on more modern hardware. Being able to aim arrows with the WiiMote was a bonus. (I fit in that category. I bought a Wii January 2007 and bought Twilight Princess and Wario Ware Smooth Moves in that launch window.)
Skyward Sword came out after the Wii software had dried up (Nintendo had to make 3DS and WiiU software and didn’t have the capacity to support all three at once) and it had gone cold due to the drought.
- Pronouns
- he/they
More copies of N64 Zelda games were sold than NES Zelda games. I’d say Zelda only really had two notable “decline” periods, Wind Waker with its rushed release and divisive set style, and Skyward Sword with its… everything. And even Wind Waker, for its “failure,” still outsold Zelda 2 on a much smaller ecosystem, with a whopping 20% attach rate - that’s 1 in 5 GameCubes with a Wind Waker title.
LTTP, OOT and TP were all big hits and MM sold about what you could expect a weird and experimental late N64 sequel to OOT could.
Obviously the BOTW style is more popular and more approachable. But the Zelda series has a rich history full of successful games and it’s reductive to say the least to boil it down simply to the NES games.
LTTP, OOT and TP were all big hits and MM sold about what you could expect a weird and experimental late N64 sequel to OOT could.
Obviously the BOTW style is more popular and more approachable. But the Zelda series has a rich history full of successful games and it’s reductive to say the least to boil it down simply to the NES games.
Something I wanted to add to some previous comments who complained about BotW's "lack of progression" and "unsatisfying dungeon rewards": Imo, the best reward for clearing dungeons would be if they gave you optional items that significantly expand your abilities, but aren't necessary for beating the game, thus keeping the non-linearity alive. What kind of items I mean that are both optional BUT meaningful? Well, in Link's Awakening, the boomering was 100% optional. You had to trade another item to even get it (most people chose to give away the shovel). Then I can also imagine something like the Invisibility Cloak from Alttp being optional that let's you sneak by any enemy or cause chaos, also escape from dire situations. Or a Climbing Claw that let's you climb faster and during rain. These would be all super fun items to play around with and thus satisfying rewards, yet they wouldn't negatively impact the game's core.
More of this
Less of this
And also important: These dungeons shouldn't be part of some same-y brand like in BotW1. Rather, they should be more like the separate main quests in Skyrim. This is one of the best parts of Skyrim: Yes, there's one MAIN quest about the dragonborne. But there's several other main quests that are about equal in length and depth and tell totally different stories. So for Zelda, instead of visiting "the 4 Ganon-dungeons", it should be "Visist the Lonely King's Castle atop the Eagle Rock Mountain" and "Find out what's going on in Mrs. Wright's cellar and the Endless Well" and "Accept the Zora King's invitation to join Lord Jabu-Jabu's funeral at the Whale Cemetry near the unknown Marin Trench". Basically, be creative and tell us more stories than just bundling up everything to be about THE CHOSEN ONE, yawn. BotW was very, very uncreative when it comes to this. Presentation and circumstances matter for creating an immersive adventure experience. It's not enough to put some clever puzzles, enemies and loot somewhere and call it a day.
More of this
Less of this
And also important: These dungeons shouldn't be part of some same-y brand like in BotW1. Rather, they should be more like the separate main quests in Skyrim. This is one of the best parts of Skyrim: Yes, there's one MAIN quest about the dragonborne. But there's several other main quests that are about equal in length and depth and tell totally different stories. So for Zelda, instead of visiting "the 4 Ganon-dungeons", it should be "Visist the Lonely King's Castle atop the Eagle Rock Mountain" and "Find out what's going on in Mrs. Wright's cellar and the Endless Well" and "Accept the Zora King's invitation to join Lord Jabu-Jabu's funeral at the Whale Cemetry near the unknown Marin Trench". Basically, be creative and tell us more stories than just bundling up everything to be about THE CHOSEN ONE, yawn. BotW was very, very uncreative when it comes to this. Presentation and circumstances matter for creating an immersive adventure experience. It's not enough to put some clever puzzles, enemies and loot somewhere and call it a day.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I don't think we can say this though - attach rate wise, it is among the highest among all the Zelda games (Twilight Princess could've been higher attach rate on GCN if it wasn't cross-gen with Wii); and let's not forget that Wind Waker was still the 4th best selling Gamecube game.
That's another metric we can compare Zelda games on, where they ranked compared to other titles on their console:
NES / Famicom
- Zelda 1: 5th/6th (behind SMB1/USA/3 and Duck Hunt, and maybe Tetris)
- Zelda 2: 8th (behind the above including Tetris, and Dr. Mario)
- ALTTP: 7th (behind SMW, Kart, Mario All-Stars, DKC1/2 and Street Fighter 2)
- Link's Awakening + DX: 6th (behind PkMn RGBY, GSC, Mario Land 1/2 and Tetris)
- Oracles (combined): 12th
- Ocarina: 4th (behind Mario 64, Kart 64 and Goldeneye)
- Majora: 12th
- LTTP + Four Swords: 11th
- Minish Cap: 19th
- Wind Waker: 4th (behind only SSBM, Sunshine and Double Dash!!)
- Twilight GCN: 20th
- Four Swords Adventures: unknown
- Twilight Wii: 13th (behind Wii Sports/Resort/Fit/Fit Plus/Play/Party, NSMBW, SSBB, Just Dance 3, Mario Party 8, Mario Kart Wii and Mario Galaxy)
- Link's Crossbow Training: 18th
- Skyward: 24th
- Phantom Hourglass: 17th
- Spirit Tracks: 33rd
- Ocarina 3D: 13th
- ALBW: 16th
- Majora 3D: 21st
- Tri Force Heroes: 44th
- Hyrule Warriors Legends: unknown
- Wind Waker HD: 9th
- BOTW Wii U: 13th
- Twilight HD: 19th
- Hyrule Warriors: 20th
- BOTW NSW: 4th (behind only MK8DX, Smash Ultimate and New Horizons)
- Link's Awakening NSW: around 24th
- Age of Calamity: around 28th
- Skyward HD: around 30th
- Cadence of Hyrule and Hyrule Warriors 1: unknown
With this list, we can see that the highest position that any Zelda game has achieved (so far) is 4th best selling game on their console. To me that indicates that, on those consoles, Zelda was definitely a system seller (even if the system didn't end up selling a huge amount overall). And, the 3 games that have that ranking are Ocarina of Time, Breath of the Wild... and Wind Waker.
Open world sandboxes have been popular in Japan for the last 2 gens. GTAV, The Witcher 3, BotW and Elden Ring over the last 10 years shows that king of investments.
Rise of the Ronin could join the group too if properly marketed and if it reviews well. Ghost of Tsushima moving 400k+ and probably nearing 1 million players with used and digital it shows even new I.P.s can benefit.
Clones tend to pop up whenever something strikes gold but the price of even cloning something like GTA or BotW is prohibitive for most developers.
Plenty of other series that can benefit from such a design imo.
Rise of the Ronin could join the group too if properly marketed and if it reviews well. Ghost of Tsushima moving 400k+ and probably nearing 1 million players with used and digital it shows even new I.P.s can benefit.
Clones tend to pop up whenever something strikes gold but the price of even cloning something like GTA or BotW is prohibitive for most developers.
Plenty of other series that can benefit from such a design imo.
Wind Waker is a bit of an outlier compared to that other data I feel given the Gamecube's incredibly poor overall sales.
I wouldn’t be surprised with a successful Zelda game like Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time reaching 20M in a system like Switch. Those games always sold some percentage less than 3d Mario and I don’t see why it would be different this time.
Though BOTW brought at least 10M+ new Zelda players due to having a more popular gameplay and I wonder how many Nintendo will be able to retain next time. I don’t believe on a expansion with Totk though.
Though BOTW brought at least 10M+ new Zelda players due to having a more popular gameplay and I wonder how many Nintendo will be able to retain next time. I don’t believe on a expansion with Totk though.
the obvious path forward is Zelda Maker
- Pronouns
- He/him
I don't even really ride for Zelda the way I did as a teen but man, just that clip from Record of Lodoss War brings me back to my misspent youth.Something I wanted to add to some previous comments who complained about BotW's "lack of progression" and "unsatisfying dungeon rewards": Imo, the best reward for clearing dungeons would be if they gave you optional items that significantly expand your abilities, but aren't necessary for beating the game, thus keeping the non-linearity alive. What kind of items I mean that are both optional BUT meaningful? Well, in Link's Awakening, the boomering was 100% optional. You had to trade another item to even get it (most people chose to give away the shovel). Then I can also imagine something like the Invisibility Cloak from Alttp being optional that let's you sneak by any enemy or cause chaos, also escape from dire situations. Or a Climbing Claw that let's you climb faster and during rain. These would be all super fun items to play around with and thus satisfying rewards, yet they wouldn't negatively impact the game's core.
More of this
Less of this
And also important: These dungeons shouldn't be part of some same-y brand like in BotW1. Rather, they should be more like the separate main quests in Skyrim. This is one of the best parts of Skyrim: Yes, there's one MAIN quest about the dragonborne. But there's several other main quests that are about equal in length and depth and tell totally different stories. So for Zelda, instead of visiting "the 4 Ganon-dungeons", it should be "Visist the Lonely King's Castle atop the Eagle Rock Mountain" and "Find out what's going on in Mrs. Wright's cellar and the Endless Well" and "Accept the Zora King's invitation to join Lord Jabu-Jabu's funeral at the Whale Cemetry near the unknown Marin Trench". Basically, be creative and tell us more stories than just bundling up everything to be about THE CHOSEN ONE, yawn. BotW was very, very uncreative when it comes to this. Presentation and circumstances matter for creating an immersive adventure experience. It's not enough to put some clever puzzles, enemies and loot somewhere and call it a day.
If TOTK evoked that kind of wonder, I'd be back like an old prom date at the ten year reunion.
Don't forget the biggest one of all: Minecraft.
That's right actually. Also if Nintendo ever decide to take the gloves off and combine the multiplayer fun of something like Tri Force Heroes with the production values of Breath of the Wild the results would be rude.
Last edited:
I don't have a lot to add to the Zelda discussion that hasn't already been covered in one form or another, but I'd like to point out a few things that may help inform people's opinions going forward.
BOTW's structure and sense of freedom:
When Hidemaro Fujibayashi pitched BOTW internally, he pitched it as a game where one could go anywhere and "do everything". The final game doesn't quite give you that level of freedom, but it comes close enough that it creates the illusion of limitless freedom. I would imagine that their goal for TOTK is to push that idea even further and attempt a game that is actually "infinitely replayable" in some sense. That's where their efforts are going to be focused and everything else will revolve around this sense of player agency and constant discovery and replayability.
Traditional dungeons were a chore to design:
One of the reasons BOTW is designed the way it is (with everything revolving around the physics/chemistry systems, and a near-complete lack of "traditional" dungeons with custom puzzles) is because the team felt that traditional dungeons were too much of a chore to design, with relatively little payoff. They've talked about how they'd spend a great deal of time designing dungeons with custom puzzles for prior 3D Zeldas but eventually concluded it wasn't efficient to do so, because once the player was done with a dungeon, that was it. Those puzzles couldn't be re-used in other dungeons, and you had essentially spent months of development on an experience that lasted a couple of hours. To top it off, players would often simply look solutions up online, which defeated the purpose of these puzzles entirely. And finally, dungeons had also gotten progressively longer with each game, and consumer feedback indicated that players weren't as keen on them anymore. The Shrines and Divine Beasts were specifically designed to address all these issues.
Elden Ring dungeons:
Elden Ring's dungeons are largely combat focused and there are very few actual puzzles involved, if any. The challenge of an Elden Ring dungeon comes from figuring out how the dungeon is pieced together, fighting strong enemies, and dodging booby traps. Once you've had your fill of combat and exploration, you can run through a typical Elden Ring dungeon in about five minutes. Breath of the Wild already has one such dungeon in the form of Hyrule Castle, and given how much people enjoyed that I can only imagine there will be more such areas in TOTK. But again, BOTW's Hyrule Castle isn't what you would call a "traditional" Zelda dungeon.
"Active" vs. "Passive" gameplay:
Finally, the greatest difference between BOTW and prior 3D Zeldas according to Fujibayashi is that BOTW is designed to be an "active game" (where the player has a large number of options available to them and is encouraged to take initiative and experiment) rather than a "passive game" (where the player simply reacts to the world/puzzles they encounter and plays within the confines of pre-scripted mechanics). So again, that isn't necessarily something that "traditional" Zelda dungeons lend themselves to. The Divine Beasts are basically Zelda dungeons reimagined around this "active game" concept.
BOTW's structure and sense of freedom:
When Hidemaro Fujibayashi pitched BOTW internally, he pitched it as a game where one could go anywhere and "do everything". The final game doesn't quite give you that level of freedom, but it comes close enough that it creates the illusion of limitless freedom. I would imagine that their goal for TOTK is to push that idea even further and attempt a game that is actually "infinitely replayable" in some sense. That's where their efforts are going to be focused and everything else will revolve around this sense of player agency and constant discovery and replayability.
Traditional dungeons were a chore to design:
One of the reasons BOTW is designed the way it is (with everything revolving around the physics/chemistry systems, and a near-complete lack of "traditional" dungeons with custom puzzles) is because the team felt that traditional dungeons were too much of a chore to design, with relatively little payoff. They've talked about how they'd spend a great deal of time designing dungeons with custom puzzles for prior 3D Zeldas but eventually concluded it wasn't efficient to do so, because once the player was done with a dungeon, that was it. Those puzzles couldn't be re-used in other dungeons, and you had essentially spent months of development on an experience that lasted a couple of hours. To top it off, players would often simply look solutions up online, which defeated the purpose of these puzzles entirely. And finally, dungeons had also gotten progressively longer with each game, and consumer feedback indicated that players weren't as keen on them anymore. The Shrines and Divine Beasts were specifically designed to address all these issues.
Elden Ring dungeons:
Elden Ring's dungeons are largely combat focused and there are very few actual puzzles involved, if any. The challenge of an Elden Ring dungeon comes from figuring out how the dungeon is pieced together, fighting strong enemies, and dodging booby traps. Once you've had your fill of combat and exploration, you can run through a typical Elden Ring dungeon in about five minutes. Breath of the Wild already has one such dungeon in the form of Hyrule Castle, and given how much people enjoyed that I can only imagine there will be more such areas in TOTK. But again, BOTW's Hyrule Castle isn't what you would call a "traditional" Zelda dungeon.
"Active" vs. "Passive" gameplay:
Finally, the greatest difference between BOTW and prior 3D Zeldas according to Fujibayashi is that BOTW is designed to be an "active game" (where the player has a large number of options available to them and is encouraged to take initiative and experiment) rather than a "passive game" (where the player simply reacts to the world/puzzles they encounter and plays within the confines of pre-scripted mechanics). So again, that isn't necessarily something that "traditional" Zelda dungeons lend themselves to. The Divine Beasts are basically Zelda dungeons reimagined around this "active game" concept.
Last edited:
I don't know why we need to be shackled to the past games in any particular aspect. Series change over time, and if the Zelda team wants to shift focus to player choice, even at the expense of dungeons and whatnot, they should. I don't really get the comparisons to the original Zelda and I think Nintendo's choice of marketing the game that way was misguided.
BOTW wasn't a huge success because it was a "true" sequel to Zelda 1 or any BS like that (It actually shares very little in common beyond the surface level detail of letting the player start out by going in any direction and the visuals evoking the original game's artwork).
No. BOTW was a huge success because it is a technically impressive contemporary open world game that steals the most popular aspects of modern open world titles (Ubisoft Towers, Skyrim world design, Minecraft mechanics etc), that released on the perfect platform at the perfect time; with a genuniely groundbreaking Chemistry System that made for perfect viral marketing material. It was what the general public wanted in 2017, damn the existing Zelda fanbase.
This is absolutely true. Half the reason why Zelda was turned into an open world series was because traditional world and dungeon design would simply be too difficult and too expensive to make in HD. Nintendo themselves admit this in their 2017 GDC BOTW post-mortem presentation...
Despite the technical challenges and Gee Wiz factor, open world games are much easier to design and make than traditional action adventure games with handcrafted level design; because designers don't need to carefully craft and model environments, or fine-tune specific level mechanics and setpieces; the landscaping tools will just auto-populate your broad brushstrokes with fine detail, like enemy campment and tree placement. You want to see what happens when you try to make a traditional Zelda game in HD? (Bare in mind that Skyward Sword already had a 5 year development cycle on the thoroughly standard definition Wii), look no further than The Last Guardian; a game that took basically 10 years to make and release!
You will never see a traditional 3D Zelda game with traditional dungeon and level design ever again. It's just too expensive and too time consuming. And the market has already rejected handcrafted level design in favour of "impressive" Gee Golly open worlds anyway, so there's no business incentive to go back now.
No. BOTW was a huge success because it is a technically impressive contemporary open world game that steals the most popular aspects of modern open world titles (Ubisoft Towers, Skyrim world design, Minecraft mechanics etc), that released on the perfect platform at the perfect time; with a genuniely groundbreaking Chemistry System that made for perfect viral marketing material. It was what the general public wanted in 2017, damn the existing Zelda fanbase.
This is absolutely true. Half the reason why Zelda was turned into an open world series was because traditional world and dungeon design would simply be too difficult and too expensive to make in HD. Nintendo themselves admit this in their 2017 GDC BOTW post-mortem presentation...
Despite the technical challenges and Gee Wiz factor, open world games are much easier to design and make than traditional action adventure games with handcrafted level design; because designers don't need to carefully craft and model environments, or fine-tune specific level mechanics and setpieces; the landscaping tools will just auto-populate your broad brushstrokes with fine detail, like enemy campment and tree placement. You want to see what happens when you try to make a traditional Zelda game in HD? (Bare in mind that Skyward Sword already had a 5 year development cycle on the thoroughly standard definition Wii), look no further than The Last Guardian; a game that took basically 10 years to make and release!
You will never see a traditional 3D Zelda game with traditional dungeon and level design ever again. It's just too expensive and too time consuming. And the market has already rejected handcrafted level design in favour of "impressive" Gee Golly open worlds anyway, so there's no business incentive to go back now.
Last edited:
Agree and have some clones, likewise Immortals Fenyx Rising and Genshin. Games that have been inspired by BotW, one example was Ghost of Tsushima.
OP
OP
- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #23
That is incorrect. They marketed it as the successor to The Legend of Zelda because it happens to be true as well as a good marketing slogan.
The thing in common is the fundamental player choice to do anything, go anywhere, and figure it out on your own. That is the point and why BOTW has sold so well.
Some of us in the “existing Zelda fanbase” were ready for something new and less linear after Twilight Princess. Skyward Sword sold the way it did because the “existing Zelda fanbase” wasn’t interested in the linear gameplay any more.
This is absolutely true. Half the reason why Zelda was turned into an open world series was because traditional world and dungeon design would simply be too difficult and too expensive to make in HD. Nintendo themselves admit this in their 2017 GDC BOTW post-mortem presentation...
Despite the technical challenges and Gee Wiz factor, open world games are much easier to design and make than traditional action adventure games with handcrafted level design; because designers don't need to carefully craft and model environments, or fine-tune specific level mechanics and setpieces; the landscaping tools will just auto-populate your broad brushstrokes with fine detail, like enemy campment and tree placement. You want to see what happens when you try to make a traditional Zelda game in HD? (Bare in mind that Skyward Sword already had a 5 year development cycle on the thoroughly standard definition Wii), look no further than The Last Guardian; a game that took basically 10 years to make and release!
You will never see a traditional 3D Zelda game with traditional dungeon and level design ever again. It's just too expensive and too time consuming. And the market has already rejected handcrafted level design in favour of "impressive" Gee Golly open worlds anyway, so there's no business incentive to go back now.
There is some truth in what you say about linear action adventures being costly to make in the HD era. Breath of the Wild was also costly as it was hard to get all the physics and chemistry systems to work. It is not an Ubisoft map that is just a placeholder for a checklist. There is carefully developed gameplay there. That new gameplay was a big part of the sales.
I disagree about original Zelda. Original Zelda required some order for dungeons, introduced the lock and key design, map and compass chest. Also introduced the idea of needing a dungeon item to explore more the overworld. It let you explore most of the overworld but wasn’t worried if you have all tools you need for this. Though I agree it’s a good marketing slogan.
A lot o fans wanted something as open as ALBW but I believe most didn’t like sacrificing dungeons for this.
Absolutely. Zelda 1 was never an open world game. It had a deliberately designed difficulty curve (I mean, the dungeons are even numbered by difficulty order for Hylia's sake!), and much of the map was blocked off until you got the required item. The map was carefully crafted to naturally lead you to discovering levels in the intended order (even though it did allow you to do some dungeons out of order... something that's far from unique to Zelda 1 BTW, even OoT lets you do this!). That's why each of the items you'd acquire would lead you to discovering new places and hints as to where to go.
And yes, Zelda 1 wasn't all combat focused either, it too was designed to be a mixture of combat and puzzle solving (however rudimentary that may be here). The entire premise behind Zelda 1 was to offer the gameplay of a point n' click adventure game in the context of an real-time action game, hence the genre name "Action Adventure".
It's a conciet to attempt to state that BOTW is somehow a "pure" take on what the "true essence of Zelda" is, because it's completely removed from the core concepts and execution of Zelda 1 anyway. Not to mention that "the essence of Zelda" is far more than just one single game anyway. The series was founded on the concept of being a real-time point n' click adventure, where you interacted within the world using the gameplay of an action game, rather than being menu driven. Lock n' key design is fundamental to the Adventure game experience; and that's something that BOTW completely eschews. It's not as simple as "Linear VS Non-Linear".
It's ok to like BOTW and what it has turned the series into, but to call it somehow more representitive of the original core concept behind the series than any other game released after Zelda 1 is outright insulting.
A Zelda 1 minimum run can be done with only 10 items (out of 27) and there's a ton of flexibility with the dungeon order with only 2 real gates (3 including Death Mountain). It's very open compared to later games and even compared to ALBW really (which really just opens up dungeon and item order), though I'd agree it's not "open world" in the same way as BOTW or other games we think of today.
So folks talk about the combat and the flexibility that’s there. Do 99% of the people actually use them? Does it actually result in a much more interesting experience? At least to me not at all. Ultimately every encounter just led to dodge an attack last minute to get the slow Mo, hit the enemy a lot, and repeat. Maybe use an element if you’re clever. More importantly though, why do you even want to fight anything? You don’t get anything all that useful from them. Even more breakable weapons that half the time are worse than what you used? Plus every enemy is an hp sponge for no reason and most of them are the same things over and over again. Like you should have to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.
Breath of the wild took Zelda, threw everything about it out the window, made an open world game, and added some Zelda theming like characters imo. I agree the series needed to spice things up, but it threw out everything I liked about Zelda with it…
Also folks actually like the physics based gameplay? I found it SUPER clunky. Every little thing was so slow going now and imprecise. Even the intro rock you’re supposed to push at a bokoblin missed for me. Stasis requires you to whack objects for like a minute. Magnesis is basically useless. The ball rolling puzzles have been seen in plenty of games and thanks to motion controls, control terribly and don’t even work portably. Rag doll physics just drag out battles as Link flops around for so long.
To me the best Zelda games did both interesting world exploration and fun, well-crafted puzzles. Like in a link to the past you got fun items like the cane of byrna and invisibility cloak in mini puzzles.
As to dungeons, why can’t they have any enemies? I admit I had my issues with combat, but like were the shrines devoid of anything but mini guardian scouts? Separately I think the pattern of skull woods in a Link to the Past was awesome. Like you had to find the hidden entrances and kind of piece the first half of the dungeon together. That could totally be done in BoTW type games and would be far more fun than “hit 5 switches”. More importantly dungeons used to teach you concepts and then play around with the concept. Shrines are just random one of things that have very little cohesion.
As to why it sold well, to me it’s because it was a great showcase of the Switch, had an interesting open air traversal mechanic on top of an open world, and had a good first 10 hours or so. I haven’t quite figured out what people enjoyed much after that, because the game was so repetitive. I like exploration to be fair. But there’s got to be something fun on the way. Xenoblade had gorgeous vistas. Other games have a good plot to unlock. Some have interesting combat scenarios with very unique enemies. Others have different difficulty challenges past some medium size challenges. BoTW had very little of this…
Breath of the wild took Zelda, threw everything about it out the window, made an open world game, and added some Zelda theming like characters imo. I agree the series needed to spice things up, but it threw out everything I liked about Zelda with it…
Also folks actually like the physics based gameplay? I found it SUPER clunky. Every little thing was so slow going now and imprecise. Even the intro rock you’re supposed to push at a bokoblin missed for me. Stasis requires you to whack objects for like a minute. Magnesis is basically useless. The ball rolling puzzles have been seen in plenty of games and thanks to motion controls, control terribly and don’t even work portably. Rag doll physics just drag out battles as Link flops around for so long.
To me the best Zelda games did both interesting world exploration and fun, well-crafted puzzles. Like in a link to the past you got fun items like the cane of byrna and invisibility cloak in mini puzzles.
As to dungeons, why can’t they have any enemies? I admit I had my issues with combat, but like were the shrines devoid of anything but mini guardian scouts? Separately I think the pattern of skull woods in a Link to the Past was awesome. Like you had to find the hidden entrances and kind of piece the first half of the dungeon together. That could totally be done in BoTW type games and would be far more fun than “hit 5 switches”. More importantly dungeons used to teach you concepts and then play around with the concept. Shrines are just random one of things that have very little cohesion.
As to why it sold well, to me it’s because it was a great showcase of the Switch, had an interesting open air traversal mechanic on top of an open world, and had a good first 10 hours or so. I haven’t quite figured out what people enjoyed much after that, because the game was so repetitive. I like exploration to be fair. But there’s got to be something fun on the way. Xenoblade had gorgeous vistas. Other games have a good plot to unlock. Some have interesting combat scenarios with very unique enemies. Others have different difficulty challenges past some medium size challenges. BoTW had very little of this…
Last edited:
OP
OP
- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #28
yes. I played very differently on my three playthroughs. First time I was just trying to survive until I got the master sword. Then I started hunting guardians! I have never felt in a video game such an incredible level up in badass where I went from the hunted to the hunter. I saved up for the ancient armor and then hunted guardians so I could level it up. I liked being an anti guardian tank by the end.
Second time, I figured out that you engage with monsters for a reason of your choice,
, not because the game says it’s time to do so. You either want loot or you want to try new strategies or new weapon types. The monsters are never in your way as you can always go around if you so choose. You can choose to use a melee weapon or try finding high ground to snipe them. You can throw bombs at them to distract them. The point is that you aren’t supposed to go running into a 1 on 5 fight without thinking it through first.
Third time I started thinking about monsters as resources.
Go on YouTube and see all the different ways to fight a lynel!
Incorrect. The dungeons can be done in any order except Ganon’s lair. The only keys are the whistle to drain the pond and the silver arrows to slay Ganon. Everything else is optiona.
If you went by video game message boards you’d think Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask were the best and Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda were bombs. You‘d think kids of the late 1980’s rejected Zelda 2 rather than it being everywhere in elementary and middle school kid world back then.
Last edited by a moderator:
I agree with this. Elden ring also feels very crafted and thought out. Claiming all open world games are slapped together is not true. And a mix of both linier design and open world is not impossible as FROM SOFT proved with Elden ring and as can be seen in some areas of BOTW. BOTW has whole open areas which are essentially designed as linier pieces.
Other than whistle you need candle to access level 8 and raft to access level 4, items that you find inside dungeons. OG introduced this idea of revisiting old places to explore further after getting an item.
You have a lot of possibilities but they are not out of order. And you couldn’t finish the game without collecting the triforce of wisdom pieces, as the old man on level 9 wouldn’t allow you to pass.
The items you need to complete Zelda 1 are:
Wooden Sword (overworld item)
Bow (dungeon item)
Arrow (shop item)
Bombs (shop item or random drop)
Raft (dungeon item)
Stepladder (dungeon item)
Recorder (dungeon item)
Bait (shop item)
Blue Candle (shop item)
Silver Arrow (dungeon item)
In the Second Quest replace Bait with the Power Bracelet (overworld item).
edit:
Dungeon based dungeon item requirements (excluding Dungeon 9):
Bow: received Dungeon 1 / complete Dungeon 6 (Gohma)
Raft: received Dungeon 3 / access Dungeon 4
Stepladder: received Dungeon 4 / complete Dungeons 4, 5, 6 & 7
Recorder: received Dungeon 5 / complete Dungeons 5 & 7 (Digdogger), access Dungeon 7
Wooden Sword (overworld item)
Bow (dungeon item)
Arrow (shop item)
Bombs (shop item or random drop)
Raft (dungeon item)
Stepladder (dungeon item)
Recorder (dungeon item)
Bait (shop item)
Blue Candle (shop item)
Silver Arrow (dungeon item)
In the Second Quest replace Bait with the Power Bracelet (overworld item).
edit:
Dungeon based dungeon item requirements (excluding Dungeon 9):
Bow: received Dungeon 1 / complete Dungeon 6 (Gohma)
Raft: received Dungeon 3 / access Dungeon 4
Stepladder: received Dungeon 4 / complete Dungeons 4, 5, 6 & 7
Recorder: received Dungeon 5 / complete Dungeons 5 & 7 (Digdogger), access Dungeon 7
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@fiendcode helped me out, been a dog's age since I finished the OG LoZ but knew something was amiss.
But ultimately, these handful of dungeon-locked items seem like the only mandatory ones to finish the game, and this is an easily solved problem by placing them in the world map instead, suggesting ALL tools to traverse the game should be fully accessible on the world map or in smaller locales like the Shrines were.
And I think there's still room to draw from prior Zelda games (and other franchises and genres) to make BotW style Zelda games even better (because BotW is great but is not perfect, it can be positively iterated upon, even using more ideas from past titles).
If dungeons are to return (which I think they should but not in the OoT/MM/TP/SS context), I would suggest not making them in the puzzle-box variety, nor like "escape rooms" as some of them became following OoT where you could not leave after a specific point inside them unless you finished them. I'd treat them... well, more like they are within the inspirations of most tabletop and adventure games: "monster hives" filled with lost treasures (think "Rupee mill" and other nifty goodies), occasionally on abandoned or over-run civilization settlements, but also in caves, isolated islands, etc. And yes, that might mean there's some locks that need keys, maybe. To this point, I invoke games like Diablo and the original PSO, where you had areas that changed and got more sinister the further into them you got (in particular, the Mine and lower in PSO got more noticeably atmospherically-oppressive the further in you went). It's why, when discussing this in the past, I bring up "spelunking" dungeons, because in both the other games I mentioned, the progressing is most commonly down further and further underground, but it may not need to be limited to that. And, best part, you could theoretically design them as entirely optional destinations (but with a reward that makes it enticing to traverse). But the key here is that, if the player wants to leave, let them leave. At few to no points in earlier Zelda games were you ever denied the option to (at least temporarily) "nope" out of a dungeon, including whatever room/space where a boss might be. Shrines offered a similar courtesy, so may as well keep that consistent.
Likewise, boss-level monster variety would be a welcome return, but... maybe this is just me, but I've had a problem even going back to LttP with the idea that the item you need to kill the boss just so happened to be in the same location as the boss? It always felt a bit contrived, even as a grade-schooler, and it began to feel increasingly trite as time went on. It also felt highly central to the puzzle-box format of dungeons past, where the puzzles prior to the boss were practically a necessary use tutorial for that fight. For inspiration here on a different way to do it, I look to Mega Man: let every boss be beatable with a standard set of equipment, but have certain optional items be more effective (like the boss weapons in MM, but without the boss offering the item that works well against another boss). Rare items and/or extra Heart Containers should be all the motivation necessary (along with the lead-up to that boss fight being a Rupee mill if you put them at the centre of said monster hive) and, by making them killable in multiple ways, gives options AND replay value.
I find both of these possible additions to be more than compatible with BotW's style of design and play (even from a financial perspective, as people have been bringing that to the conversation), albeit with some necessary tweaks drawing broader inspiration in service of each past idea that I do not believe would diminish anything.
But ultimately, these handful of dungeon-locked items seem like the only mandatory ones to finish the game, and this is an easily solved problem by placing them in the world map instead, suggesting ALL tools to traverse the game should be fully accessible on the world map or in smaller locales like the Shrines were.
And I think there's still room to draw from prior Zelda games (and other franchises and genres) to make BotW style Zelda games even better (because BotW is great but is not perfect, it can be positively iterated upon, even using more ideas from past titles).
If dungeons are to return (which I think they should but not in the OoT/MM/TP/SS context), I would suggest not making them in the puzzle-box variety, nor like "escape rooms" as some of them became following OoT where you could not leave after a specific point inside them unless you finished them. I'd treat them... well, more like they are within the inspirations of most tabletop and adventure games: "monster hives" filled with lost treasures (think "Rupee mill" and other nifty goodies), occasionally on abandoned or over-run civilization settlements, but also in caves, isolated islands, etc. And yes, that might mean there's some locks that need keys, maybe. To this point, I invoke games like Diablo and the original PSO, where you had areas that changed and got more sinister the further into them you got (in particular, the Mine and lower in PSO got more noticeably atmospherically-oppressive the further in you went). It's why, when discussing this in the past, I bring up "spelunking" dungeons, because in both the other games I mentioned, the progressing is most commonly down further and further underground, but it may not need to be limited to that. And, best part, you could theoretically design them as entirely optional destinations (but with a reward that makes it enticing to traverse). But the key here is that, if the player wants to leave, let them leave. At few to no points in earlier Zelda games were you ever denied the option to (at least temporarily) "nope" out of a dungeon, including whatever room/space where a boss might be. Shrines offered a similar courtesy, so may as well keep that consistent.
Likewise, boss-level monster variety would be a welcome return, but... maybe this is just me, but I've had a problem even going back to LttP with the idea that the item you need to kill the boss just so happened to be in the same location as the boss? It always felt a bit contrived, even as a grade-schooler, and it began to feel increasingly trite as time went on. It also felt highly central to the puzzle-box format of dungeons past, where the puzzles prior to the boss were practically a necessary use tutorial for that fight. For inspiration here on a different way to do it, I look to Mega Man: let every boss be beatable with a standard set of equipment, but have certain optional items be more effective (like the boss weapons in MM, but without the boss offering the item that works well against another boss). Rare items and/or extra Heart Containers should be all the motivation necessary (along with the lead-up to that boss fight being a Rupee mill if you put them at the centre of said monster hive) and, by making them killable in multiple ways, gives options AND replay value.
I find both of these possible additions to be more than compatible with BotW's style of design and play (even from a financial perspective, as people have been bringing that to the conversation), albeit with some necessary tweaks drawing broader inspiration in service of each past idea that I do not believe would diminish anything.
Good news: They never went away!
(You really need to word yourself differently here. Just because you didn't like them doesn't mean BotW didn't have dungeons. Imo it has the best dungeons in the series gameplay-wise.)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, the Divine Beast sections have some of the hallmarks of dungeons, so I don't consider it to be out of line for people to call them as such even if I don't, but if I'm honest, I spent more time in some of the Shrines than I did in those sections. And that's not saying much, the Shrines were incredibly breezy themselves.
I make the distinction because with Shrines, there was not much to explore. Plenty to DO, when looking at them in aggregate, especially if you like physics puzzles/challenges, but not much to explore. And with the Divine Beasts, they were quite brief.
BotW seems to take a somewhat segmented design approach. Exploration is almost strictly for the world map and Hyrule Castle, physics puzzles largely stay with the Shrines and Divine Beasts (with some sprinkling of them in the world map), story/narrative is locked to Divine Beasts, highly isolated spots on the world map and Hyrule Castle. Rarely is there an intersection of all 3. And the combat, well... to put it mildly, I was often out of practice with combat for most of my playthrough because outside of the Blights and Ganon himself, you could legitimately make a decent effort at a pacifist run of the game, cuz I kinda started that way by accident (mostly saying "is this encounter really worth the broken weapon?" and usually deciding no, was a psychological impediment on my part).
In past Zelda games, dungeons were kind of a full synthesis of exploration, puzzle-solving (some far more aggressive on this angle than others) and narrative (usually at the beginning and end, sometimes in the middle), with a much more emphasized and necessary combat focus in those sections for good measure. So when I use the phrase "dungeon", I'm referring to a larger semi-enclosed area that achieves that synthesis. Shrines do not achieve that and, while I mentioned the Divine Beasts had some hallmarks of a dungeon, those sections were both quite short and did not achieve this measure of full synthesis I relate to the term.
I never thought of it that way, but you're right. Breath of the Wild segmented off the puzzle, exploration, and combat aspect to the point that you can ignore any of them in a play through. While what made Zelda unique to me was how all those systems you mentioned was woven in previous games with Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword being particular highlights. Or look at Majora's Mask where part of its charm is how it told its side-stories and being connected to problem solving and puzzles. Which is probably why I never endear myself to the NPCs in Breath of the Wild and find them weaker than the cast of Ocarina of Time.
And you're right in that Breath of the Wild's dungeon were in retrospect not really dungeons. Just longer Shines that you needed to do if you wanted to do the story and get the Champions' power and so unmemorable that they all shared the same gimmick and don't even look that unique from one another.
One of the best parts of BotW. No focus on fighting, instead leaving it to the player whether to engage in battle or not, based on fun and risk/reward. If only sneaking didn't suck, it'd have been even more fun.
The best games don't need combat to fluff out game time, it's extremely hard to pull off, just think about the number of 'serious' games that let you avoid confrontation. Deus Ex springs to mind and it's great because of that, too. BotW manages to offer so much gameplay other than combat and still is fun to play. And when you do enter combat, it feels fresh, too, thanks to all the physics and variety in weapons.
Just pointing out why looooong dungeons aren't missed by many ;o
Considering how many people who love Breath of the Wild point out how weak the dungeons were should tell you that many do in fact missed the long dungeons. Just not enough to knock points off and Breath of the Wild being the first of its kind for Zelda. Why do you think so many people hope that Tears of the Kingdom will fixed this and have more expansive dungeons.
Breath of the Wild's shallow combat system was also points people disliked about the game.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So... do what the rest of BotW does and make them optional. Problem solved, everyone gets what they want.
Who is "so many"?
And those people are wrong. One of the most complex combat systems in gaming history.
Breath of the Wild's combat system is nowhere close to complex. You can ignore almost all of it and beat the entire game at 100% by pressing A. It isn't a Soul game where you have to learn the combat to succeed. And saying 'those people are wrong' isn't an argument and makes you come off as if your opinion is right.
As for the 'many', most review pointed out how weak the dungeons were along with several game outlets like GameXplain, Good Vibe Gaming, and several podcast. The Sacred Beast dungeons were repeatedly stated to be the worst part of the game and the hope is Tears of the Kingdom will fixed this along with having a better story, bosses, and side-quests. Most are not asking for Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword level of dungeon design, but few people think the Sacred Beasts were good outside of the map gimmick.
All this thread has managed to do in make me want to go replay the first The Legend of Zelda.
I'll echo a lot of the sentiments about having optional dungeons/spelunking, maybe even a prison that retains literal locks and keys, that reward the player with unique items that allow them to complete tasks more efficiently even if they aren't required. Same with increased enemy variety for both common and boss encounters. Properly implemented, both of these would go a long way in making the world feel more organic.
This is a very half-baked idea, but I also think the discovery of unique items could be implemented in a more personal way to help everyone feel like they're going on their own adventure. In the same way L4D had the AI Director, maybe the Zelda game could analyze the player's tendencies and reward them or give a gentle nudge in another direction. If the player spends a lot of time near the coastline, maybe when they stumble on the prison they get a pirate's sail for increased raft speed whereas a player who spent time in the mountains would find a thief's pickaxe that makes getting through certain rock formations underground quicker. I don't think a full randomizer is appropriate for something the scale of BotW, but having everything set in the same place each time would quickly get dull.
I'll echo a lot of the sentiments about having optional dungeons/spelunking, maybe even a prison that retains literal locks and keys, that reward the player with unique items that allow them to complete tasks more efficiently even if they aren't required. Same with increased enemy variety for both common and boss encounters. Properly implemented, both of these would go a long way in making the world feel more organic.
This is a very half-baked idea, but I also think the discovery of unique items could be implemented in a more personal way to help everyone feel like they're going on their own adventure. In the same way L4D had the AI Director, maybe the Zelda game could analyze the player's tendencies and reward them or give a gentle nudge in another direction. If the player spends a lot of time near the coastline, maybe when they stumble on the prison they get a pirate's sail for increased raft speed whereas a player who spent time in the mountains would find a thief's pickaxe that makes getting through certain rock formations underground quicker. I don't think a full randomizer is appropriate for something the scale of BotW, but having everything set in the same place each time would quickly get dull.
OP
OP
- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #42
A flagship first party game like a AAA Legend of Zelda is supposed to drive sales of the console. A big reason the Cube failed is because Wind Waker was so poorly received. The attach rate means nothing if the intended killer app failed to grow the install base. Wind Waker was such a failure that Nintendo considered discontinuing the Zelda series (source: http://www.gamedesigngazette.com/2018/05/that-time-legend-of-zelda-franchise.html?m=1)
Per the late Mr. Yamauchi, "The Famicom is just a box people buy to get to Mario." He was pointing out that the Famicom is worthless without a killer app and that Mario sold the Famicom/NES and not the other way around. Wind Waker failed to sell GameCubes. I played it after the Cube was dropped to $99 and Wind Waker was $20. I got my money's worth as I enjoyed Wind Waker!
Breath of the Wild was such a killer app, having an attach rate of over 1 during the launch period. People were buying Breath of the Wild before they could find a Switch at a retailer because they anticipated it so much.
The Legend of Zelda was a killer app. It wasn't a launch game and we don't have week by week sales data from 1986 so the data does not exist to prove what I said. I just remember that it was everywhere as a kid in the United States. It was pretty much a straight line of Mario then Zelda then Mario 2 then Zelda 2 just being everywhere for kids in the second half of the 1980's. Cartoons, merch, clothes, guidebooks, kids comparing maps at school. Remember that this was also a time before adults would have bought video games for themselves. Video games were for kids and only a tiny fraction of the nerdiest adult males who were viewed to have no chance of dating played some PC games.
Twilight Princess was a killer app for Wii in the west. It had an almost 1:1 attach rate for the Wii in the west for the first three months. People who were fans of OOT and skipped Wind Waker and Cube in general bought it in droves. It scratched that itch of being OOT with an adult Link and a western art style. Well played by Mr. Aonuma, who went through NOA to survey western fans about what they wanted out of a new 3D Zelda at the time and used that data to convince Mr. Miyamoto to convince him to make Twilight Princess rather than Wind Waker 2.
This is a worthless list. It means as much as this one:
The games were released in different contexts, with different budgets, with different business purposes. Some were supposed to be launch window killer apps and some were meant to be smaller budget titles that filled out the software release lineup.
The high profile games that were supposed to drive sales of systems were:
The Legend of Zelda
Zelda 2
Link to the Past
OOT
Wind Waker
Twilight Princess (for Wii, for Cube it was a gift to long suffering fans like BOTW on WiiU)
Skyward Sword
Breath of the Wild
The NES titles succeeded as did LttP. OOT did too, despite not being able to fully turn around the dramatic headwinds due to the software droughts on the N64 that drove customers away. Problem was that the game sold on presentation and people got bored of the linear gameplay. The Wind Waker was a colossal failure. Twilight Princess was a success in the west as it scratched that OOT with a mature art style itch. It didn't have any legs because again, people got bored of the linear gameplay. Skyward Sword was a failure that led to a complete rethinking of everything that led to Breath of the Wild.
Last edited:
You seriously need to stop making up shit.
OP
OP
- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #44
Then why did Wind Waker bomb in Japan? It was meant to stay as close to OOT's gameplay as possible. It wasn't the art style like in the west.
Why did Twilight Princess bomb in Japan? If has that same linear gameplay as OOT. It sold in the west because there was a large OOT fanbase who wanted OOT with better western styled graphics. Still, why did its sales in the west fall off a cliff so soon when the Wii sold well for years after launch?
Why did Skyward Sword bomb?
I give Majora's Mask a pass because it was a rom hack/project management demo for Mr. Miyamoto that was released at the end of the N64's life.
Please don't think that I hate the linear 3D Zelda's. I actually have played them all and liked them all. I happen to like The Legend of Zelda and Breath of the Wild even more.
Regardless, there has to be a reason for why Wind Waker bombed (in Japan since there wasn't an issue with the art style there), Twilight Princess bombed in Japan, Skyward Sword bombed while Breath of the Wild has sold 30 million, of which at least 2/3rd are new fans.
Just because you dismiss the gameplay doesn't mean that the market doesn't see it and respond to it.
Last edited by a moderator:
Saying that Breath of the Wild's battle system is far from complex on top of being able to beat the entire game at 100% by pressing one button isn't being 'dismissive'. It's factual that Breath of the Wild's battle system while very flexible isn't complex and you hardly need to engage in it outside of boss battles.
Those games didn't 'bomb'. They may not have sold as well as Nintendo would have liked, but they hardly bomb. They didn't sell Metroid or Wonderful 101's numbers, so please stop being dishonest in this regard.
OP
OP
- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #46
No, you'd ruin a successful formula to appease a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a vocal minority that only exists on video game forums.
Breath of the Wild's gameplay is a carefully balanced system. A perfect example is weapon degradation. If you got rid of it, players would just keep one weapon and there wouldn't be any real sense of survival or preserving and consuming resources. Weapons are meant to be transient resources like food or ammo that and are to be managed as such.
If you put in locks and keys, those keys would not be able to degrade and be consumed. They'd become a plot MacGuffin and detract from the player making his or her own adventure. They'd become things you need to get rather than a resource you manage to tame a hostile world.
You can't go back. If you go back a little bit, you make the game linear. If you make it linear, you burn the 20+ million new fans (and old fans like me where were sick of the linearity) you made with the open air gameplay.
BOTW has emergent combat strategies aided by the chemistry system, stealthing /misdirecting the AI system, disposable weaponry and taking full advantage of the environment. This is really well illustrated in the "reset" scenarios like the Master Sword DLC or Eventide Island, which strip you of all gear and force you into exploiting any and all alternative approaches outside "press B" repeatedly.
BOTW isn't generally difficult and paradoxically tends to be less difficult the further you progress (though the hidden XP system does counter/slow that incrementally) but the emergent combat still keeps things engaging over a longer window imo and definitely moreso than older games in the series (which are also dead easy post-NES). BOTW very easily has the best combat in the entire franchise.
BOTW isn't generally difficult and paradoxically tends to be less difficult the further you progress (though the hidden XP system does counter/slow that incrementally) but the emergent combat still keeps things engaging over a longer window imo and definitely moreso than older games in the series (which are also dead easy post-NES). BOTW very easily has the best combat in the entire franchise.
Last edited:
OP
OP
- Pronouns
- He
- Thread starter
- #48
The fact you can do that shows how open ended Breath of the Wild is. If the player wants to take your strategy, they can. If they want to use some of the gameplay systems, they can too.
You are confusing choice for barrenness. That is a common linear Zelda fan on a video game forum rhetorical tactic. Just because you do not choose to explore and investigate everything in Hyrule does not mean it isn't there and doesn't mean they aren't selling points.
Then why did Nintendo consider canceling the Zelda series after the Wind Waker? If it's not a bomb by your definition, what terminology would you prefer?
I am not being dishonest. I am going by Nintendo's public comments about the sales of the games from the N64 through to Breath of the Wild.
1). Mr. Miyamoto being liking the sales of OOT but being unhappy with the time and cost it took to make it is public knowledge.
2) Majora's Mask being a test to see if Mr. Aonuma could make a 3D Zelda title for the N64 in a year is public knowledge.
3). Mr. Miyamoto trying to figure out how to prevent so many copies of Wind Waker ending up in the used game stores like when players quit OOT at the Water Temple, thus making Wind Waker easy is public knowledge.
4). I already provided the source for Nintendo almost canceling the Zelda series after the Wind Waker.
5). Mr. Aonuma asking western fans what they would like in a 3D Zelda is public knowledge.
6). Nintendo being disappointed in Twilight Princess's sales in Japan is public knowledge.
7). Nintendo tweaking Skyward Sword to try to appeal to Japanese fans (high school anime elements, Zelda being "cuter" rather than the stoic TP Zelda, Nintendo though JP customers wanted more linear gameplay) as well as Mr. Miyamoto wanted to prove that you didn't need to spend so much resources designing a massive 3D world and being upset that it failed is public knowledge.
8) Finally, Nintendo themselves saying they looked to The Legend of Zelda as well as Skyrim for inspiration to design Breath of the Wild is again public knowledge.
Nah, can't agree. Skyward Sword's combat system was far more advance and interesting since you actually had to pay attention to the enemy and just press one button. Eventide Island can be beating without really engaging in combat. Like I beat it just by using bombs since they give you an unlimited supple. The only thing difficult is that base Link has no defense and dies to a breeze.
Being open and flexible doesn't mean it is complex. Xenoblade Chronicles 3's battle system isn't very open outside of the classes and it is easily one of the most complex battle systems you will find in gaming. Same with SMT5 or even SMT3. A complex battle system on an open world is closer to Elden Ring than anything from Breath of the Wild.
Also, never once said Breath of the Wild was barren, so stop right there.
Funny because you used a strawman which is very common.
Cancel? Wind Waker came out in 2003, its direction sequel came out in 2008, odd that a game that 'bomb' got a follow-up, and Twilight Princes came out in 2006 which is fast turn-around for a Zelda game. You also have Minish Cap that came out just a year later in 2004. So where did you get this idea for cancelling Zelda when after the 'bomb' known as Wind Wake they released three brand-new Zelda games in a span of five years. That is more than what we got between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom which only gave us updated ports of older Zelda games and a spin-off.
A bomb by definition is a game that loses a company money like F-Zero GX which did eventually kill off that series. So to compare Zelda to that is indeed dishonest.
Last edited:
None of these games bombed and Majora's Mask isn't just a rom hack just because it reused a bunch of NPC models from OoT. And Wind Waker wasn't a "colossal failure". Ridiculous hyperbole like that doesn't help your point.
Once again, you need to stop making up shit.