The problem of Zelda in Japan

[Mr Khan]

Khuutra said:

Mr Khan said:

Khuutra said:

thelifatree said:

wait Khuutra. Was this why you made the thread about "What do you think about the possibility of Retro Making A New Zelda". Or was that just more of a curiousity or both... though, my guess would be that, having retro do it wouldn't help Japan. Though I could be wrong. And am now confused

Separate line of thought. Unrelated to this thread. Retro-made Zelda would probably bomb horrendously in Japan unless it was made to be extremely non-western.

Not necessarily, given that the best-selling Japanese zeldas had more elements similar to the original Metroid, elements that Retro has proven more than capable of dealing with.

Plus we'll soon have evidence as to how much pull Retro can have in Japan with a franchise that's more popular there.

As thelifatree posted, their faithful interpretation of Metroid crashed and burned horrendously in Japan.

But that was Metroid itself, which has just been on terminal decline in that region for a while (pending Other M results anyway, fingers crossed). I'm saying that they are good at making Metroid-esque games, which is established, i am also saying that the top-selling Zelda titles in Japan (the NES games) had many Metroidy elements to them (not much of a stretch), and the extrapolation is if Retro made a Metroidy Zelda, it would do better, given that Japan is reasonably more receptive to the Zelda franchise itself than to Metroid

 

Metroid Prime being a Metroid game was the turnoff, not necessarily Retro's interpretation of it