Yes, these three men above me, foont, oyvoyvoyv, and BrainBoxLtd, have basically summed it up.

Any plot can be reduced to something as simple as Zelda's. Even something really up its own ass like FF7 can be boiled down to "save the world from the big bad who would destroy it".

The story is different. Twilight Princess is about more than stopping Zant - I think more of the story would be in how the Zora queen dies, and how this affects the people around her (especially her son), and various other touches that you carry with you.

The storytelling in the zelda games I have played would not win any awards. Luckily they are games, and not movies. The stories are just enough to put you in the mood for some exploring, puzzle solving and swordplay. Most often, that's enough.

People, stop getting confused. Plot has an actual definition. It is the SEQUENCE in which the events of a story are presented. Here, even Wikipedia says so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_(narrative)

That does not change the difference between "plot" and "story".

Zelda storys are a yawn, but game play is more the focus.

It does mean that Majora's Mask's plot structure is extremely innovative.

Plot is an element of a story. "Saving a princess" can be a character motivation, a summary of the ending, or the summary of a storyline, but it is definitely not a story. The convergence of all the elements presented to the player/viewer/reader is the "story".

This is important because a Zelda game can excel at certain elements of storytelling and completely neglect others. Regardless, what is important is that the final product you experience is the story. This means that it's probably a bad idea to just bunch an entire series of stories and declare them "good" or "bad" and basing it on specific elements like characterization, dialogue, atmosphere, or "saving the princess".

I was just trying to stop people from separating story and plot. Everything you experience is part of the story. Actually, the thread title should not ask about "bad" and "cliched" in the same sentence, since those are two entirely different subjects (the former is far more subjective than the latter).

Then we are in agreement. Forgive me, I thought that your post was directed at the half dozen or so of us who were differentiating Zelda's story from its plot.

Sorry about that, I just saw a few people trying so hard to define what a plot is ("skeleton" might work for simpler plot structures, but it doesn't fully grasp the concept of a plot or what constitutes a complex plot), when there's a very precise definition. Actually, plot is one of those elements that is almost completely incapable of sustaining a story on its own, and great stories sometimes have relatively linear plots as well.

A "skeleton" is not a simple structure in and of itself, either: the only implication in referring to the plot as the skeleton of a story is that it dictates the shape of it, but neither the form, nor the subtance, nor the color of it. Final Fantasy XII has a very intricate plot, but it is still only the skeleton of the game's story, which is more intricate still.

majoras mask had a simple story, but if you were willing to do the a little bit more research through termina, you would get yourself a chunk of compelling information thats bound to satisfy anyone. the wind waker also had a good story and my favorite dailogue in the series