I wonder, is that why they made the next entries more linear? Well Zelda II wasn't too linear, but much more so than the original one. I would love to see a 3d Zelda with the amount of exploration and drive of Zelda 1 and a story that you find akin to that of Metroid Prime. It would work great.

BIG games most of the time had opposition.

FF7 had lots of opposition + aeriths death was a last minute addition

Wii Sports being bundled in American wii's wasn't finalized until the 11th hour, it was to be WIi play

@sc

you could argue that Zelda WW kind of had a open world element, in the sense you could sail the seas & chart your route

He's said that before. And considering that back when he made Zelda, the only kind of 'adventure' games were text based RPGs and Ultima/Wizardry, its understandable that execs were hesitant to this brand new (revolutionary) title. They had never seen anything like it. Heck, all other RPGs came with tons of maps and even guides to get you through the game, because they were so confusing. It took games like Zelda and Dragon Quest to simplify the navigation of games and make them more 'user friendly'.

So, the idea of a plumber eating mushrooms, fighting mushrooms and turtles, while throwing fireballs, all set in a magical kingdom was a no-brainer?

*imagines a world without Zelda*

It seems men don't have penises there.

There are stories likethis about EVERY game, greatness usually happens unexpectadly.

Technical limitations is what made old Zelda so complicated, though. It would have been much harder for them to build it like it was, but with elements to guide you through it. That problem has faded away with time (except in WindWaker & Phantom Hourglass, where you had similar openness)

Its kind of interesting how the industry's views of many elements in videogames that were once seen as being so risky have now become the norm, and people see the opposite values that these replaced as risky for some reason ...

For the most part, videogames on systems before the SNES was released were primarily focused on being simple straight-forward games with simple graphics that were easy to pick-up and play yet highly addictive; and about the time the Wii was released the notion that there was a large demand for games that were not increasingly complex games, taking place in open worlds, with epic storylines and advanced realistic graphics was a laughable concept in many companies.

Yeah, I already knew about this. I can imagine how they'd think so, too. I mean, it was back in the early 80's.

Understandable. Lucky for us they went ahead anyways.