Aonuma fanletters

I am not sure what else I can say, but I'll just write a lot and maybe you find something interesting.

The basic premise of Zelda is that you fight a lot of monsters, so getting a better sword and new items like the boomerang (stuns enemies) and bow and arrow (kill enemies from a distance) is valuable. Likewise, increasing your maximum health and shield (to block stronger attacks) add to your defense. That's the core Zelda was built around. If you shift focus to puzzles and other non-combat activities, then this fundament begins to crumble.

Speaking in a more practical manner, if you play the original Zelda, you'll likely try to get the blue ring (doubles defense) and white sword (doubles attack) as soon as possible. You want those things, because the game gets rather tough from the fifth dungeon onwards. In fact, you'll likely traverse the land after the first dungeon already, in order to improve your gear and all. You don't do it just for completion's sake, rather you feel that that stuff is quite necessary to beat the game at all.

Compare that to The Wind Waker where you don't worry about getting stuff early. Or at all. The difficulty is just that low (because half of the dungeons consists of puzzles, plus most enemies don't hit hard) and things like the boomerang and bow aren't optional. There's no real incentive to go out of your way. If you find enough heart pieces to get a new heart container, it's pretty much meaningless. You don't need more health or better gear to solve puzzles.

The big shift to puzzles only happened because Zelda doesn't work the same in 3D. Combat was and is not easy to pull off because there will always be a good chance that you get blindsided in 3D due to the camera perspective. So instead of frustrating the player with room after room of so-so combat, the pace was broken up by puzzles. They gave the player something to do while not being a fight against your own death. Programming puzzles is also easier for developers. (Similar things held true when Mario made his first steps in 3D. Platforming didn't work anywhere near as smooth as in 2D, so the focus shifted to exploration. You have the same game in name, but it's really not the same anymore upon closer inspection.)

Puzzles and telling a story are the main reasons why modern Zelda feels formulaic, like a chore, not exciting. What are the worst parts of A Link Between Worlds? The story and puzzles (and by that I mean the caves that are nothing but an obstacle course for the painting mechanic). Every minute that is not spent on combat or finding enhancements for your gear/health feels like a wasted minute. Thankfully most of the dungeon "puzzles" can be done in passing, so they don't stick out too negatively. But it would still be better if dungeons were even more about combat and abandoned the modern Zelda architecture (where you are sent on a quite linear path through the dungeon despite a seemingly open layout), and adopted the classic maze style with several paths and dead ends. Plus the difficulty needs to be more challenging instead of something that even Aonuma could beat.

Difficulty and a lack of puzzles gives heart pieces and upgrades a purpose. If a game is able to convey that its optional enhancements have value, then those things have meaning. If Zelda is about puzzles (including boss fights that use a "use dungeon item, then sword; do this three times" formula), then there's no real point in exploring the world. If people quit a game because it's too hard, then that's not a bad thing as long as they still play the parts they can tackle; it's a sign of them liking the game. But if people quit a game out of boredom (as happens with modern Zelda), then that's a problem that is not solved by making the games easier. That was The Wind Waker's "fix" because people gave up on Ocarina of Time.

*smacks Veknoid*