New Zelda will be more of the same |
|
| BY Dan Chant Jul. 2nd, 2009 | More on: |
Nintendo has always been accused of milking their franchises throughout their console life cycles, adding little more than a fresh lick of paint. Whether that’s true or not you can’t deny their conviction in sticking to the age-old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Nothing demonstrates this conviction more than a statement by his gaming godliness himself, Shigeru Miyamoto, during an interview with Nintendo Power. Gaming’s most beloved personality discussed development of the new Zelda title and revealed, “I don’t think it’s going to be that radically different.”
Zelda’s essentially been the same game since it debuted in 1986 but, in our opinion, that’s not a bad thing as each game bought with it a few new features and varying graphical interpretations. Of course we’d love to see a Zelda title try new and exciting ground but, having said that, we don’t want to see it be different just for the sake of being different. More to the point, Miyamoto created the Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pikmin and F-Zero franchises and games such as Nintendogs (and Wii Music but we’ll ignore that) so if he’s cool with it, we’ll trust him.
July 2nd, 2009
at 11:41 am
What was the question he was asked? Taken out of context it sounds really bad, but how do I know he wasn’t just asked about the graphics or something else I don’t care much about? I’m being hopeful here, man!
July 2nd, 2009
at 1:52 pm
Why would we expect something completely different?
You think the backlash was bad when Windwaker was announced… if Miyamoto went with something completely different, there would be hell on Earth methinks.
July 2nd, 2009
at 2:02 pm
It was backlash ill-founded. That was a fantastic game.
If any series needs a reboot, it’s this one. They’ve been following the same formula for a while now.
Metroid got one…
July 2nd, 2009
at 5:56 pm
Yea, I could live with a general redesign of the comabt and such, but not a redesign of the overall gameflow much like Mario gets almost every game and Metroid got with Prime.
July 3rd, 2009
at 12:46 am
I guess what I was getting at was that, the series is stagnant. TP was what everyone demanded when Windwaker was announced. We got it, and it just felt like more of the same. I was thinking about the history of the Zelda series just yesterday in fact. If you look at what they’ve done with the series as a whole, they’ve always introduced a slightly different world dynamic.
Light World/Dark World (LttP, TP), Past/Future (OoT, Ages), Seasons, Size (Minish), Water (WW, PH), Train (Spirit)
It seems to me that you guys are absolutely right. They need to introduce something new and they’ve left themselves with very little place to go. Of the places that have popped into my head, I wouldn’t mind seeing a Zelda set in modern times. Legend of Zelda: Modern Warfare. Not a shooter of course. Still swords and magic and dungeons, but with a modern spin.
My question to you guys is, how would you change the combat system? If they went 1st person, Spirit Trax is probably the last Zelda I’d buy. And, unless really really really well done I don’t see them doing 1:1 combat with the motion plus either. Maybe with the Wii2 we’ll see something like that, but not now.
July 3rd, 2009
at 9:38 am
eh, those new concepts are nice, but they just feel like Lethal Weapon sequels. Same scenario, different setting, different circumstances.
I’m not so sure combat needs much changing in my mind. I actually liked the special moves they added in Twilight and sure don’t want to see it become Ninja Gaiden or anything. I’m pretty sure I’m crap with a sword, so 1:1 just sounds embarrassing to me.
Hell I’m not sure what they need to do to really change it, honestly. I think things that would change what people expect would be cool. Try and take load times out of the game world (Part of what made wind waker so great), including entering dungeons. Maybe a dynamic story like Far Cry 2 to individualize the experience some. Immersion stuff, ya know? Maybe make players care about some characters more, make them able to die when they’re in bad situations thus affecting how your story unfolds. That won’t happen though… not in Nintendo’s MO. Maybe technology’s not even there. I’m just pulling this stuff out of my ass, but I like to think Miyamoto and co. have put more thought into it.