All right gamrConnect, we're going to play Zelda games together!

[Kenology]

Mr Khan said:

Kenology said:
Ok, so I have another Zelda rant.

Currently I'm in the Snowpeak Ruins in Twilight Princess, but I'm also playing Ocarina of Time on the 3DS and some things are irking me about it.

The game had potential to be more challenging than it was had Navi not held your hand throughout the entire quest and pretty much gave you solutions to puzzles. But then, what also annoys me is how some puzzles would be pretty decent but then an item creates a scapegoat for it. For example: The very last room you visit in the Forest Temple's second floor - it has the pillar in the middle of a moat with a torch on it with the four rotating pillars around it and the frozen switch that untwists the second corridor. Most people probably didn't even have to figure out the puzzle at all and just got bailed out by using Din's Fire. There shouldn't be easy ways out of stuff like this, I don't think.

I would disagree. The ability to approach a problem in different ways is what makes the games better. I find it more irksome when there's only one solution and they go out of their way to make other solutions impossible, and prefer to experiment with all sorts of ways of fighting different enemies or engaging certain challenges

I'd agree with you if the alternative was just as challenging and not so much a shortcut.  If allowing for different approaches totally takes the challenge out of the game, then it's a bad design move.  The particular example I gave is tantamount to this.  If there was a shortcut solution to every well designed puzzle in the game, it would pretty much kill the experience for veteran players.

Also, we never had an easy way out in 2D Zelda titles...  I really wonder how someone whose first Zelda was Ocarina of Time would fare going back and playing Link's Awakening or A Link to the Past.  I'd reckon they'd have a pretty tough time of it.  I wouldn't even punish them with Zelda 1 and 2.