Where should Zelda go next?

[archbrix]

happydolphin said:

archbrix said:

On the level of the gameplay itself, plain and simple.  It has nothing to do with the visuals having to assume realism; look at Wind Waker.  And again, Metroid Prime is an excellent example of how you can keep the formula as true as possible, so it's not specifically the twitch-style difficulty, theme or visuals that I'm referring to.

The simple fact remains that Metroid Prime still plays differently than Super Metroid.  You are no longer moving left and right, up and down anymore.  You're moving in and out of the screen in a full 360 degrees in order to progress.  And I'm not talking about simply adding depth into a 2D game, such as going from, say, Kung Fu and Bad Dudes to Final Fight and Streets of Rage.  I'm talking about the gameplay itself going from an x & y-axis to a z-axis.  The concept of depth perspective itself changes the possibilities of movement of the characters of the game.  You can imagine any 2D game you like in a 3D world, but I don't see anyway of retaining what made the gameplay strickly 2D, unless, as I said, you just add 3D elements to the x & y-axis gameplay.

See, you're limiting it again. Nothing says it needs to be a 1st person transition. That's how it was for metroid so certainly that'll change the way you control your character there is no doubt about that.

We're talking about the idea of remaining true to the original feel (visuals and play) while moving over to the next dimension. Assuming link doesn't jump (which he doesn't for all practical purposes in OoT), I don't see how, bar the Z-triggering system, how the character placement and movement for instance  so much from Zelda 1. Link moves in an x-y plane either way, so what is the big difference

No, I'm not limiting it at all.  You're confusing a 1st person perspective design choice with what I'm saying about z-axis gameplay.  Super Mario 64 is not 1st person, it's 3rd person.  But it doesn't change the fact that the way the player guides Mario through the game is now done differently because of the z-axis gameplay.

I've already addressed remaining true to the original.  Games like Prime, Ocarina and Mario maintain many of their gameplay staples in the transition from 2D to 3D, and they do so admirably.  But again, the inclusion of depth that the 3rd dimension brings changes the gameplay.  Link does not simply move according to an x & y-axis at all in Ocarina.  I really don't know how you can say that he does.  He moves in and out of the screen and the gameplay must be adapted to that.  In other words, gameplay is no longer limited to flat planes of movement anymore and therefore follows different principles. 

Unless you're just talking about polygonal characters on a 2D plane with a fixed camera, then I stand by my assessment.