I think Zelda is the one franchise where there really isn't room for a ton of fan criticism

practically every Zelda game has been absolutely fantastic and brought something new and great (maybe minus Skyward Sword) DUE to the extra time and thought put into it

The Legend of Zelda on the NES, Link to the Past on the SNES, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess - for me Zelda through the history of gaming is always at the forefront of adventure games

Nintendo has been kind of slow lately with putting out Zelda, sure, but an open world Zelda concept is pretty revolutionary when compared with the series in the past (it was like half-open at times although extremely linear)

from what Nintendo has been saying, they are pushing this to be a pretty huge Zelda compared to the past

is it tricky though? Nintendo has released hundreds of top tier games in the last decade and spent, relatively speaking, a lot of time on each of their games compared to other developers.

  I think Nintendo knows exactly what they need to do to make their software the best and complete enough to keep their fans stoked. I feel as if that's the tradeoff, wait a bit longer (maybe an extra year) and get the game you will exactly want. sure, Nintendo could release a 'pretty good' Zelda game in less time, but when considering the open world and HD elements certainly it makes sense that Nintendo is spending extra time to keep their legendary quality up

I was bummed when I originally heard about the delay too, but it happens

ehhhh I think you are missing the point, Zelda dungeons aren't necessarily the biggest around, but they are legendary in terms of clever design and puzzles. I think you are underestimating the difficulty in successfully pulling off a mix of puzzle/combat large dungeons in games. Its easy to do a game that is primarily combat sort of dungeon (think of the plethora of ones in a game like the Elder Scrolls), or to do a puzzle heavy type (think a Tomb Raider game), but the balance Zelda games have is something unique

bear in mind practically no other studio has been able to successfully pull off a similar type of game mechanic as consistently or very often

also its a regularly mentioned thing that Nintendo prefers using smaller teams that can work better together, cohesively, rather than giant teams just scraping through as much work as possible.

a company like Rockstar generally presents more QUANTITY over QUALITY. Nintendo and Rockstar are just about opposites and their development process is no exception to that, beyond the fact that both take a while to make big flagship games (again one taking a long time based on the sheer size of game, the other with perfecting the details)

you say that but wait until a Metroid the Other M situation occurs where a Zelda game gets shot out to the public too early with a stupid concept or mediocre gameplay.... you'll feel differently then!

first and foremost quality matters. people keep mentioning Ocarina of Time to Wind Waker as if that was some mega quick transition period, that was 4 years and recall that the new Zelda game was originally planned to come out in 2015 and unfortunately has been delayed, but it had stuck to plan then it would have been in line with practically every year separation between Zelda's Nintendo has had in the past

this, the reality is that one Zelda game to the next, the difference is far more stark than a GTA to a GTA (which generally are exactly the same in terms of game mechanics).

biggest issue GTA has to conern itself with is worldsize and graphics updates, not completely new game mechanics and world art/design, something Nintendo is constantly creatively considering

don't be too naive about it though, the reality is that a huge amount of what you are seeing in GTA V is blank space. its not as if you can enter a vast majority of buildings in the city

bear in mind that Rockstar is prioritizing SIZE/SCALE. that is the biggest thing the GTA games have going for them. but few 'activities' in the GTA games are done remotely as well as Nintendo's combat and puzzle mechanics

not dishing on the GTA games, it's just apples and oranges. drawing a perfect circle can easily take much longer than drawing 100 uneven squares, what I'm pointing out is that Nintendo with Zelda vs Rockstar with GTA is apples and oranges, both in goals of what their games are and what the developers time is focused on

the Zelda team undoubtedly spends a lot more time just 'thinking' because Zelda games are quite different from one another in terms of atmosphere and style. all of the GTA games have the exact same style and general character activities

again, not putting down GTA, but the reality is you can jump on a project much more quickly, big or small, if you already know exactly essentiall what you're going to do with it

if Nintendo simply wanted to create a new Ocarina of Time over and over with a bigger world, better graphics, and more activities then it would be a much more quick production cycle. but that's the opposite of what they do, they try to revolutionize their series

There's is nothing to learn from you, other than how to be obnoxious.  The Zelda team (and the GTA team) (and the Windows team!) have used the same basic framework for eons.  They build on it each generation.  A software "engine" is a framework used in game development that may include things like rendering engine, physics engine, sound, ai, etc.  Very little has changed in the core physics and gameplay of Zelda or GTA since the N64.  Elements have been added and improved gen on gen, but the foundation lies in those early 3D games.

The main point is, however, that people defend Zelda's long dev time by saying it is build from scratch with each title, which is silly.  The visuals are either new or improved, but the game mechanics have hardly changed at all. 

Nah, that's not true at all.  It has a 93 meta vs OoT's 99.  OoT also has sold over 10 million copies while SS struggled to sell just under 4.  Very few people would put SS at the top of the Zelda heap, but probably most would put OoT there.  Personally, the best ever for me is the original, but I digress.

The bottom line is SS, upon its release, did not see a single call for "best game ever" and didn't even get much consideration for game of the year.  Every Zelda in the past was a landmark, ground-breaking title.  SS was not.  It was "just" a real good game.  That's fine, but if you're Nintendo - the supposed finest game maker on the planet - and Zelda is your showcase series, that's not good enough.

If the games are simply going to be "good new entries in a beloved serires", and not an amazing new gameplay experience unlike anything before it, then the team should tighten up the dev schedule and stop fiddling around with pointless new game ideas for a few years before reworking everything.

SS should have been done quicker, and now Zelda U.  I have truly high hopes for Zelda U because I think they have learned from a number of mistakes with SS.  It looks very promising.  But at the same time, it has literally been a decade since a Zelda title was at the forefront of the gaming industry.  A decade!  That's a failure for the team.

Perfection takes time.