The Legend Of Zelda - General Thread

Hell, just make it like Mass Effect where you can do the first set of dungeons in any order you want with some mild changed depending upon the order chosen, have a major story event, then let you do the next set in whatever order you want. Throw in some Metroidvania elements (namely areas that cannot be accessed without certain dungeon items) and you're golden.

I wouldn't mind it if they played with that formula, but it's not something I consider series-ruining.

edited 27th Jul '14 4:46:53 PM by Elbruno

Making the first few dungeons in a fixed order is probably for the best, in order to introduce new gameplay elements and dungeon items as it goes. The second set of dungeons could probably stand to be open-ended, as by then you've got a decent roster of items to focus puzzles around.

If you let the player do dungeons in ANY order, then the only puzzles the dungeons can contain are ones native to said dungeon. Which is bad.

Wasn't it kinda like that in Ocarina? As I recall, you could do most of the adult dungeons out of order.

Only via sequence breaking, I think.

Are you sure? I think all you need is the bow, and you can complete most of the dungeons.

You have to do the Water Temple before the Shadow Temple.

But it involves stopping a current dungeon and heading off for the next in order without finishing it. That's like saying Helmasaur King is the last dungeon boss of ALttP just because it's common to go through his dungeon just long enough to grab the Magic Mallet and then save him for when you've got more hearts- There's definitely an intended order, even if the rails are flimsy.

In all but the 3DS rerelease, you can actually complete the Water Temple without the bow if you're very careful about your key use and preform a minor glitch of sorts.

You can also do Jabu Jabu's Belly before even setting foot in Kakariko Village but that requires you to preform a glitch to get the Golden Scale as a child (although I'm slightly hesitant to call that a glitch due to how weird it is).

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that there's nothing stopping you from doing the Fire Temple before the Forest Temple and the Spirit and Shadow Temples can be done in any order.

edited 27th Jul '14 5:33:15 PM by Zelenal

The game still clearly pushes you towards the Forest -> Fire -> Water -> Shadow -> Spirit order, though. Again, just because the rails are flimsy doesn't mean the devs didn't have a specific order in mind.

No one said that they didn't. My initial statement was just that you can do them out of order.

I'm really not a fan of too little direction in the order of the dungeons. I mean having only one item needed makes them seem a little boring. I much prefer having lots of variety in my dungeons.

edited 27th Jul '14 5:46:55 PM by 32ndfreeze

I am a big fan of how ALBW did it, and hope they at least use it again, if they don't use it for every game from now on.

I'd like to see it come back, but with a few more buffers between dungeon sets, so that the later dungeons can build more off the early ones.

Not a big fan of little direction in games, either. It shouldn't be railroading you to the point of "you go there do thing now then go there do other thing", but wandering about too much with no direction can get very tiring. Link to the Past was kind of like that, wasn't it? I never beat that game. Always end up quitting in the second half. Not like "man this game sucks", I just always ended up kind of not playing anymore at some point.

As for puzzles, I was confused for a moment about people loving the puzzles until I took a moment to remember that more engaging ones than "shoot the eye" exist. And are, in fact, the majority, now that I think about it. I do know that one of the things I really admired about Ocarina of Time as a kid was that it played a special track when an enemy is near. Because, you know, if the game was all about just fighting, there'd be no need for a separate fighting track. Turning encounters into a special event like that really emphasizes how much the core of the series lies in... well, not the fighting.

Yeah, if the Zelda games had no puzzles at all, I'd probably end up dropping the series for Dynasty Warriors, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and their ilk.

I even prefer the fighting if there's a bit of a puzzle in how to effectively defeat the enemies.

The only full constraints are Water—->Shadow and Forest—->Spirit (the latter I didn't notice until someone here pointed it out. )

You can glitch your way into the Shadow Temple in every version but the 3DS one (presumably) so the only true restrictions without resorting to cartage tilting is doing Inside the Great Deku Tree first and doing the Forest Temple before the adult half of the Spirit Temple (since you can glitch your way past the door to the Master Sword).

In fact, may I present to you the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Uber Challenge.

edited 27th Jul '14 7:56:32 PM by Zelenal

It's hammer time.

hell yeah

...Instant main right here.

Well, maybe not instant. I'll probably end up playing everybody.

Love the Link to the Past Death Mountain remix there.

What's the music there? I think I detect the opening riff of the Dark World Death Mountain theme, but only that opening bit...

It's mostly just that riff. The rest sounds original (and vaguely Middle Eastern-ish?).

For a second Darunia looked like a Dodongo.

Well his hammer's definitely got a lot of reach. That's a plus. But I'll have to play with everybody to see who I like best.

I still believe that there are (at least) three warriors left...

He looks like he's having the time of his life.