Legend of Zelda: Is it really THAT good?

[KasaiDraco]

I don't like Mario OR Zelda. Zelda has a very mediocre story: rescue a princess. Mario, I just don't like it. I'm just not a big Nintendo fan.

[Ender]

LoZelda = The Princess Bride of games.

LoZelda is a young boy's fairytale world where you get to control the character. Anyone looking for something deeper than that is fanwanking. The games are generally not thoughtful nor thought provoking, they don't examine morality or the nature of society, and they don't resort to generating story with earth-shattering plot twists or non-sensical back history. Link is pretty much nobody...a puppet that enables you to interact with the game world. Zelda is little more than the reason for you to engage on your quest. Ganon is not much deeper than the villain you have to stop. The quests boil down to exploring deserted ancient temples, palaces, castles, and caves to retrieve a part of the "key" that will unlock the final dungeon.

And yet, they are really easy to love, probably because of the simplicity. You get to swing a sword, fire a bow, throw a boomerang, solve puzzles, explore some interesting settings, and save the princess. Simple stuff that Nintendo has implemented well in most of the Zelda incarnations. It boils down to the archetypal one-person adventure that just sort of touches that basic part in the imaginations of many people.

I love the Zelda games, I believe I listed two in my Top 10 games on another thread hereabouts. But what does bother me is the amount of gushing over them. Calling Ocarina of Time the best game ever, well, it's just silly that most of the free world believes that IMO. Even if you grant that they are "the funnest" games out there (I certainly believe that there is a good argument for that), they are not very "mature" in their development and usually fail to blow away in other elements of game design (objectively speaking, graphically, musically, plotwise...these games are nice, even sometimes revolutionary, but rarely excell in any of those areas by today's standards even when the tech-level of their respective systems is taken into account). Anyway, it blows my mind that they, and OoT in particular, are considered the best" games out there to so many people.

[NINJA_Ryu]

When i examine my "best game eva!" I usually look for a few things.

1.How long it kept me
2. Was i enjoying it?
3. Was i provoked/moved/showed emotion about the ingame charachters?
4. The other things like gameplay, difficulty, plot, etc.

and for me, OOT has to be up there, its not the hooly grail, but you cant dismiss it.

I too dislike gushers

[VengefulRonin]

Zelda is good. Damn good. But that doesnt make it the god of RPGs, just like Halo is good but it isnt the god of FPS games.

I've owned all the Zelda games save for Wind Waker, TP, and the uber hard-to-find ones on that weird Phillips CD-i system. And out of all the ones i've played...i would have to say my favorites are actually the Oracle games on the GBA. So its really all up to personal taste, and hype can be left to rot in the garbage, it doesnt mean a damn thing.

I think the reasons Twilight Princess is getting so much hype are:
1. its a new experience playing a Zelda with the Wii controller
2. Nintendo has no other launches worthy of hyping up

What really annoys me about the hype though, are two things (i like lists):
1. seems to be that since its a new Zelda, it automatically becomes a god worthy of the highest praise
2. people commenting on how the graphics are so lovely

We all know the Wii's graphics are inferior to the PS3 and 360, and it irks me that reviewers become so excited by a new Zelda that they make the graphics sound better than it is. I was in EB Games the other day and they had a PS3 and Wii set up by each other. The PS3 was running a demo of that onimusha ripoff Genji 2 and the Wii was running a demo of Twilight Princess. Guess what? Genji looked great, and Twilight Princess looked pretty damned ugly sitting next to it.

In short, hype annoys me. The new Zelda may be uber great, but its not the god of RPGs. Its like FF12, reviewers orgasm over it but players have widely varied opinions of it.

[ljkkjlcm9]

sigh, it's prolly the best looking zelda, and a lot of people hated the graphics of wind waker so these graphics are "amazing" comparably. Also, as I have said before... Twilight Princess has GAMECUBE GRAPHICS. It's not the max graphics Wii is capable of.

THE JACKEL

[Roto13]

The graphics are really good if you remember that it's a GCN game.

Zelda will never be the god of RPGs because of one tiny problem. It's not a frigging RPG. It's an adventure game.

[NINJA_Ryu]

The graphics are really good if you remember that it's a GCN game.

Zelda will never be the god of RPGs because of one tiny problem. It's not a frigging RPG. It's an adventure game.

QFT

[JKTrix]

I think it's always best to go into situations with low expectations, because then it's harder to be disappointed.

Twilight Princess wasn't a mind blowing game for me (one who has never played Zelda on a console), but it was darn good. It was good enough for me to not even touch my 360 or PS2--with Gears of War and FF12 respectively freshly purchased for each--until I finished it.

Folks who are into no-gameplay-all-story RPGs, I can understand them not liking something like Zelda or Mario. They can't enjoy a game unless there is some sweeping, epic story with emotional character development and such, something Mario and Zelda aren't so popular for.

Link could still beat the crap out of Cloud anyway.

[Cruise Control]

If you made this thread to be an entire Nintendo flame and Sony boost, then not many are going to agree with you.

Quick! Get dreddz!

[KentaRawr!]

Why get Dreddz specifically? None can obliterate a common opinion, whether this opinion is cultivated from wisdom or fanboyism. Only the mass which believes in it can stop the common opinion, but only through spreading a more positive thing to be percieved as truth.

[Shoeberto]

Folks who are into no-gameplay-all-story RPGs, I can understand them not liking something like Zelda or Mario. They can't enjoy a game unless there is some sweeping, epic story with emotional character development and such, something Mario and Zelda aren't so popular for.

It seemed like with Ocarina of Time and onward, they really tried to implement more story development, especially Wind Waker, which did a lot to tie the overall mythos together.

I think people might be jaded towards the series if they came into it a bit late, riding on the hype. I first started playing Zelda when I had no clue at all what it was and became immediately sucked in. A Link to the Past was like 16-bit Morrowind to me back in the day. It was definitely the most unique game I'd ever played, and even today, there are few games that can rival it in their gameplay style.

[Verdi666]

Nintendo never have and never will be about graphics, the whole point of the Wii is uniqueness and it is fun as hell. I waited Nine and a half hours in the queue to get Zelda TP and I have played it and throughly loved it. I find that games that start slow build up pace and end wonderfully (i.e Zelda) and games that start fast end fast, but it doesn't seem fast. If that makes much sense. I am a die-hard Ninty fan though... I would like to point out that their are some games that start fast and seem fast at the end, Resident Evil, Metriod Prime for example.