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the_dengle on 01 October 2013
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TheLastStarFighter said:
the_dengle said:
F0X said:


Or each dungeon will be of varying difficulty so that there's a preferred route for new players, but plenty of flexibility for repeated playthroughs.

If the recommended order is telegraphed well enough and the 'flexibility' is only really for the sake of repeat playthroughs, it doesn't bother me as much. But I also don't see what's so great about sequence-breaking, and I don't know why Iwata and Aonuma are focusing so much on talking about that.

I think part of your perspective may be from your age.  I'm assuming you didn't grow up on Zelda 1?  As someone a good decade older, I grew up on the original NES Zeldas and then Zelda 3 on SNES.  Especially with the first two the role of items were much different than in the modern 3D Zeldas.  In those games you didn't necessarily NEED an item to finish or enter a dungeon.  And the location of a dungeon wasn't obvious either.  You would wander the country side, find an old tree or a cave or something and check it out.  You might find that it was too tough, or that something would make it easier, but that was part of the excitement of exploration in Hyrule.  It wasn't on a linear structure.  And each level wasn't necessarily designed around an item like they have been lately.  You might find that the dungeon had enemies that were easier to kill with a boomerang or that you could get through a dark room much easier with a candle, but you could try without it.  There were exceptions, such as the dungeon that needed the raft to access or ladder to enter, but the world was for the most part open for you to explore and challenge as you saw fit.

Your assuming that with this new model that game design would be sacrificed, but I see it as the opposite. Instead of an obvious dungeon where you go in get a bow and arrow and then have to figure out a puzzle using it (hmm... a locked door...what should I do? Oh wait, I know, shoot an arrow at something!) perhaps they will create multiple ways to solve it.  Maybe some items make it easier, some tougher but in the end the choice is with the player to try and figure out for themselves.  That's what sandbox games should be about, and Zelda is the original sandbox game.

I've played Zelda 1. I didn't use any guides or save states. It's not as good as everyone says it is. I thought Zelda 2 has aged much better, and I'm well aware of the role items play in every Zelda game. I also understand the difference between a puzzle game and an adventure game, unlike many people who feel that Aonuma has ruined Zelda.