Where should Zelda go next?

[happydolphin]

Okay bro. Before we put this aside, I wanted to say:

Mario is not a good example in helping in what I'm trying to convey, and I understand that the Mario 2D to 3D translation is quite different than the Zelda 1 to 3D translation. For Mario, 3D truly alters the gameplay movement incredibly. With the idea of Zelda 1 I was proposing as an example, the same plane is being used.

As for auto-aim, I wasn't suggesting that in the example. More like shoot where you're facing (like in the NES version), but maybe with a fun twist where you can depress the shoot button and it allows you to swing left or right to a degree without altering character position (where he's facing). Aiming up or down would only affect how far the arrow went and the arc of the shot. It wouldn't be intended to shoot enemies that are on a higher plane.

And Metroid to 3D vs Zelda 1 to 3D is too a very different comparison. Zelda 1's ground movement was alreay on a plane whereas in metroid it's on a line. The translations would be gravely affected by that minor detail.

Also, the jumping in Zelda top-down was there in Link's Awakening, so I wasn't all that far off in that fabulation either.

I'm trying to lay the groundwork to something, but I'm totally failing. What I wanted to say then is if gameplay mechanics can be kept true to the original in a 3D space, via physical and design restrictions, that what would be left to give it that Zelda feel is the sounds, the music, the silence, the odd size proportions, the challenge, the lack of direction and all other things that were, coincidentally, also lost with the transition to 3D.

What I was trying to say is that pointing the finger to 3D is blaming the usual suspect, when there is much more going on than just 3D. Alot of it going on in the developer's mind, great and wonderful things, but in the end things that made the world lose track of what, at its roots, made Zelda Zelda...