RolStoppable said:
I wouldn't say that the older Zelda games had a lot less content. The newer ones are indeed bloated. The very first games didn't have long descriptive texts, this only started with OoT which also had the nerve to not put the full text right into the box, but instead had it slowly appear line by line. TWW pushed it further by explaining really every item you took out of treasure chests. As if it wouldn't be selfexplanatory what a colored rupee is and how much it's worth, you just have to look at the rupee counter. The number of dungeons in each game is similar when you compare to the old games to the new ones, at times the newer games even feature less. The newer games mainly take longer for completion, because there was so much bloat added. Using a flute and warping to another point of the world was a matter of seconds in the old games, in OoT, MM and TWW it took about a minute because you had to press some buttons everytime and then watch a sequence of the whole song playing. Things like this add up over the course of the game and can amount to up to an hour of time lost. The number of longwinded conversations with NPCs also increased with each new game and so did the number of forced minigames (meaning you absolutely have to do them to progress). The newer games also feature elaborate cutscenes, including showcases of the bosses you are about to fight. In the end, it takes about three times longer to finish a modern Zelda game. Not because the newer games have so much more content, but because of bloat that wasn't in the old games. The structure of the dungeons changing is another major factor. The old games feature more maze-like layouts and a lot of rooms don't have to be necessarily visited. Additionally, the individual rooms are most of the time about fighting monsters instead of solving puzzles. Since a lot of times you can try to just run past enemies, the older games are further sped up. The newer games are dominated by a room-after-room structure with an increasing focus of puzzle solving. |
Link's Awakening at least is loaded with aggravating descriptive text. For a while it seemed like every time i brushed up against a pot and didn't have that power-ring equipped, the game would spout a few blocks of text about how heavy this is and how i can't lift it as is
The problem with comparing old bosses to new is that the new bosses wouldn't feel anywhere near as cathartic if they were as fast-paced. I mean, i knocked over one miniboss in LA before i even really knew what i was doing (the ogre in the Bottle Grotto), just trapped him in a corner and he was dead like that. The actual boss of the Bottle Grotto did feel more evenly paced, but it would feel weird just dropping in on, say, Volvagia with no name or explanation and just have him start whaling on you
The only thing i really don't like about modern Zelda bosses is that too often they are immobile (like Gohma in Wind Waker, or Stallord, or any of the Spirit Tracks bosses except Byrne/Stevan), and are too pattern-y. I'd like the fights to feel more organic, like monsters in Monster Hunter, which were still set to patterns, but didn't feel like they were
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
