| Sorcery said: Wind Waker isn't innovative, and it began a trend that continues with Twilight Princess. They're more of the same, and in many aspects both games have bad gameplay mechanics that make them worse than their N64 predecessors.
I agree with the OP. At one time I adored Zelda, hell I lived and breathed it. I bought an SNES, Game Boy, N64, and a Gamecube for Zelda. All my school folders had Zelda drawings all over the front and back, my graphing calculator had monochrome artwork painstakingly created during boring Calculus lectures, I was known as Zelda-boy throughout high school (yes, seriously). However, I don't like Zelda anymore, in fact I think it's a joke that people still fawn over it. Maybe to a newcomer it's fun, but to someone who played since the beginning and still considers the first game the best game, the series is plain lame.
It's just weird to me that I'm still a Nintendo fan, but I now despise Zelda. I sold Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, I'm looking to trade away Twilight Princess, and Spirit Tracks will be the first Zelda game that I won't buy. Zelda, in my opinion, is either mediocre or just plain BAD now. I tried replaying Twilight Princess and the beginning of the game is so utterly terrible, the character design so bad, that I couldn't get more than 5 hours into it. I've tried replaying TWW 4 times now with the hopes of liking it, but I just can't (note: I loved the first 10 or so hours that I played TWW, then I realized how repetitive and mundane the world was, I hate it now).
I just feel like the series has been surpassed by many other games. The sense of exploration and discovery of Zelda has been utterly demolished by just about every other AAA game out there, combat has hardly evolved at all (TP showed some improvement, but not enough), gameplay mechanics haven't evolved, story presentation hasn't evolved (all text is okay though); the series as a whole has stagnated, which is just plain depressing.
With all that said, I still watch Zelda and I'm anticipating the Zelda Wii unveiling, hoping against hope that it will redefine the series the way LoZ, LttP, OoT, and MM redefined the series. |
Wind Waker had unique style, items, setting, minigames and is the only game I know that takes place on the ocean like it does. So, how do you define innovating? I know it isn't breathtakingly innovative, but much more than what we usually get nowadays.
