The Zelda Series’ Next Revolution

[Mensrea]

I'v thought long and hard about this. Zelda is important to the industry, or at least was important. Let's look at the series.

The Legend of Zelda: Completely revolutionary game. Really defined games in it's day. Play other NES games that came out around this time, and you will see how ridiculously far ahead of the curve this was.

Zelda 2: Tried something new, not really an evolution, but built up a pretty decent following, more interesting story I would say.

A Link to The past: Absolutely blew the first two out of the water. Defined and exploration/adventure game. Truly a marvel for it's time.

Ocarina of time: Took what was good about Link to the Past, and made and turned it into 3D. The first 3D action game that defined and shaped the genre. It's influence is still seen throughout the industry today.

Majora's Mask: Much like Zelda 2, it tried some new gameplay mechanics that wouldn't appear again in the series. Did gain a big cult following, and is one of the more unique Zelda games.

Wind Waker: I would argue that this is the last Zelda game that added anything significant to the franchise. Huge open world that bests anything else in the series. Then it had relaxing amazing sailing, the best music in the franchise, a very good story, parry system, the art style, and the amazing city of Windfall island bursting with interesting side quests. Wind Waker was the culmination of the Zelda's that preceded it, and it did have an impact on the medium

Twilight Princess: This is where things get tricky. TP was the most anticipated Zelda game of all time, and it really excited people. When it came out though, after the initial hype wore away, you were left with a Zelda game that added literally nothing interesting. Sure the style was darker, and people liked that, but it was essentially a OOT look alike, that did nothing to differentiate itself from the rest of the franchise. I don't hate TP, it had a few good things going for it, but it did nothing to differentiate, and IMO ended up being a weak entry in the franchise.

Skyward Sword: Skyward Sword wanted to be the innovative Zelda. 1:1 swordplay, a blurred line between dungeon and overworld, a whole new style, flying through the sky, weapon forging, motion controlled everything, and a heavier focus on story. On paper, it sounds pretty amazing doesn't it? SS was hyped to stratospheric levels before launch, people who were turned off by TP (me) were very excited. The problem is, they botched the execution in almost every way. Motion controls were shoehorned into things that didn't need it, there is a 3 hour long tutorial, you have to fight the same boss over and over, and you have to backtrack to the same, fairly bland, areas over and over. Couple that with Nonexistant exploration, no interesting side quests, a ton of fetch quests/ filler (even more than the TP) , and poor music for the series standars, and you have a game that was a huge disappointment. Sure it did new things, but most of those new things were botched in execution.


The Zelda team needs to wash their hands of SS and TP, and go back to the sensibilities that made WW so good. That's a good enough start. Then they need to overhaul many aspects of the series. Combat is getting really stale, and needs to be changed. Overworlds need to be full of interesting stuff again, just like WW was. The game needs to go back to its nonlinear roots. There needs to be meaningful side quests, and a more meaningful story.


TL;DR : Read it lazy, i thought about it.