curl-6 said:
I don't play Zelda games for the story, so I'm not bothered by the lack of a deeper narrative in OoT. It has an epic high fantasy vibe and some amusing characters, that's about all I ask for in a game of this type. Hyrule Field may have been quite empty due to hardware limitations, but seeing it sprawl out before me for the first time was a breathtaking moment, and it still had a couple of hidden caves and baddies throughout, and at night the skeletons came out to play. As for the art style, while again hardware limits need to be taken into account, I still feel that Ocarina and Twilight Princess have the ideal look for the series; colourful enough to be lively and charming, but "dark" enough to be epic and dramatic. |
Oh I know story isn't as important in Zelda as in other games. But it IS a part and deserves scrutiny. Twilight Princess has great gameplay, excellent dungeon design, and so many other exceptional gameplay elements but has a story that engaged me, a villain that was interesting and intimidating and had what I think was a fascinating deconstruction, a companion who is an excellent character not just for a Zelda game but for any game. So yeah, I can understand it not being crucial but it is there and can and has been better than OoT.
That's where I differ I think. For me, it wasn't breathtaking cause I've played numerous big open world games including Wind Waker and the pseudo-open Twilight Princess. In fact, I was kinda stunned how close some things were at times :P. So for me, there was no wow facto except when consider it was a 3DS game.
Art style isn't bad mind you, I just don't see as much distinct flavor as pretty much all the others. I actually think I prefer the Skyward Sword style, despite the hardware clearly limiting how far they could push it. But the BotW art style is the best so far I think. Has a distinct flavor, bold use of color, highly expressive, yet still has plenty of potential to be serious.
But all this goes back to what I said earlierl: I don't think OoT stands up in a straight comparison of the games as they sit right now, but I do think that of all the 3D Zeldas OoT is the most prominent when compared to the peers of its day.