I'm happy that they've said that they're working to break down the dungeon/overworld dichotomy. When you get right down to it, I think the Forsaken Fortress shows just how much of a sacred cow dungeons can be in a Zelda game. I had fun both times I went to the fortress, and I don't think that whether or not it is a dungeon is all that important.
I was always frustrated by the dungeons in OoT. They all looked very nice and had unique and interesting atmosphere, but that was all so very disconnected from the game. I had no idea why they existed or who made them, only that there's this weird abandoned European castle with vines over here and this cool spooky ghost torture chamber over there. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were a bit better at this, but it is still a little grating how some dungeons don't integrate well into the world around them.
So I've finally been playing through WW for the first time ever. Just got to the Tower of the Gods. Enjoying it all so far, but holy crap I can't get this music out of my head. It's been there for days!
I was always frustrated by the dungeons in OoT. They all looked very nice and had unique and interesting atmosphere, but that was all so very disconnected from the game. I had no idea why they existed or who made them, only that there's this weird abandoned European castle with vines over here and this cool spooky ghost torture chamber over there. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were a bit better at this, but it is still a little grating how some dungeons don't integrate well into the world around them.
Didn't most dungeons have pretty decent historical reasons for existing and connection to the main story?
The three childhood dungeons are obvious good examples, well connected with the story. As an adult, Ganon's castle makes sense, and the fire and water temples are clearly tied into their respective races' stories - in the Gorons' case you even rescue them from there. Desert Colossus fits right in with the locale and seems appropriate as a part of Gerudo history. That only leaves the two you mentioned as being mysterious...but isn't it nice to have a little mystery sometimes? I can accept that the world has its own history that isn't necessarily going to be explained to us every time.
I don't even love OoT all that much but this particular aspect of the game isn't one of its flaws in my opinion.
I was always frustrated by the dungeons in OoT. They all looked very nice and had unique and interesting atmosphere, but that was all so very disconnected from the game. I had no idea why they existed or who made them, only that there's this weird abandoned European castle with vines over here and this cool spooky ghost torture chamber over there. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were a bit better at this, but it is still a little grating how some dungeons don't integrate well into the world around them.
Didn't most dungeons have pretty decent historical reasons for existing and connection to the main story?
The three childhood dungeons are obvious good examples, well connected with the story. As an adult, Ganon's castle makes sense, and the fire and water temples are clearly tied into their respective races' stories - in the Gorons' case you even rescue them from there. Desert Colossus fits right in with the locale and seems appropriate as a part of Gerudo history. That only leaves the two you mentioned as being mysterious...but isn't it nice to have a little mystery sometimes? I can accept that the world has its own history that isn't necessarily going to be explained to us every time.
I don't even love OoT all that much but this particular aspect of the game isn't one of its flaws in my opinion.
Shadow and forest temple were indeed pretty mysterious, but they weren't without their hints. The forest temple is built like an abandoned mansion while in the shadow temple they constantly refer to "Hyrule's bloody history" and there are tons of rooms with torture devices, audience seats, and one room had crucifixion posts!
I particularly liked how the peaceful Kakariko Village had an underground well with the most horrifying abominations that later dwelled in the Shadow Temple.
I mean, if you're going to say OoT has awful worldbuilding, TP has a remote mansion reached by snowboarding on a frozen leaf wherein you must find soup ingredients for a yeti.
I particularly liked how the peaceful Kakariko Village had an underground well with the most horrifying abominations that later dwelled in the Shadow Temple.
I mean, if you're going to say OoT has awful worldbuilding, TP has a remote mansion reached by snowboarding on a frozen leaf wherein you must find soup ingredients for a yeti.
And yet there is no doubt whatsoever as to why that dungeon is there in the first place.
It is the Yeti house. For Yetis. Where else would Yetis live but the top of a snowy mountain?
And I'm sure they could have made traversing to a remote location a bit more engaging than a racing mini-game! Sliding down a mountain doesn't work if you want to get on top of it!
Not everything necessarily requires a long drawn out explanation. They are Yetis living in a snowy mansion and they went to the Zora Domain for food. The Zoras want the sitings investigated and so does that chick wearing the armor from the bar. Bam, done. Also, that snowboarding part was really fun!
I want the final dungeon in a Zelda game to be a near-impossible gauntlet.
Is that necessarily a good idea? That sort of thing tends to lead to pre-end burnout. The advantage of a shorter dungeon is that people don't get scared off from it, go back to hunting down heart pieces, and never actually end up beating the game.
I believe Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door had a well-made compromise, in that regard:
Not everything necessarily requires a long drawn out explanation. They are Yetis living in a snowy mansion and they went to the Zora Domain for food. The Zoras want the sitings investigated and so does that chick wearing the armor from the bar. Bam, done. Also, that snowboarding part was really fun!
Coherent, believable and therefore more immersive world-building is always better. I'm not saying it is a priority, but it is by definition conducive to experience quality in games that feature fictional worlds. Nerdage, I call it.
Yeah and why do gorons exist and live where they live, they're just there for no reason, and how can they possibly eat and survive off of rocks when rocks offer no nutritional value, and how can the gerudo race exist with no males, no visible gerudos outside their small tribe, and no pregnant or young gerudos to be found anywhere, and how does it make any sense that rupees are in the grass everywhere, how can you base an economy on that, explain that one to me?
Wow, just when I thought this place couldn't possibly reach any lower...
I think UncleSporky meant that in an ironic way ;-)
Sure, it's always preferable if the world in a video game is believable and (somewhat) realistic, but honestly, things like that are by far not my #1 priority in a Zelda game.
I want the final dungeon in a Zelda game to be a near-impossible gauntlet.
Is that necessarily a good idea? That sort of thing tends to lead to pre-end burnout. The advantage of a shorter dungeon is that people don't get scared off from it, go back to hunting down heart pieces, and never actually end up beating the game.
Snowpeak Ruins is actually one of my favourite dungeons, but when someone says the dungeons in OoT have no cohesion with the history of the world and says TP did it better, I'm like: "ARGH have you played both games? Remember the seven sages? Remember the build-up to all the dungeons?" Shit, I can barely remember why you had to clear dungeons in random places in TP. Midna sort of tells you to and you're her loyal pup?
Snowpeak Ruins was just an obvious example; things like having Ganondorf appear as the endboss seems more like an afterthought. I don't expect a fifteen minute cutscene detailing his return to power - Nintendo is usually more of the subtle approach - but I expect better than having a deus ex machina shoved in my face. MM and WW in comparison presented a cohesive plot really well in my opinion, so it's not just OoT.
Games that have an impact are the ones that stay with you years after you've played them, whether it's the gameplay, the characters, the story etc. Some people find one facet more important than the other, that's fine, but there's no questioning people have high expectations because it's Zelda and her 25 years of history. Again, I don't expect a bombastic next-gen Zelda, but would it hurt to have some consistency in the world and the writing?
I love cohesive worlds, especially in story-centered games like Final Fantasy. That's actually probably my favorite thing *about* FF games—they create these beautiful, fully imagined, often radically creative fantasy worlds and the story serves as a vehicle to explore them.
But I have a hard time even judging the worldbuilding in Zelda because it always seems like such an afterthought. I don't think any of the games portray Hyrule as this coherent place with a well-thought out or interesting history. In OoT you have a description of a "war" with a bunch of flames in the background, and a legend about the goddesses ... that's about it. Majora's Mask was a trippy dream world. Wind Waker never explained why the king was a boat, what Ganon was doing, how people's lives were affected by the flood. TP had all the problems Chen listed and, I think, the game actually suffered because it *tried* to build a world and a plot and failed miserably.
Everyone involved has always said that Zelda games are about gameplay concepts first and they drape the story around afterwards, and I'm fine with that, and I think this formula works the best when Zelda worlds are whimsical and uncomplicated. Maybe Skyward Sword will succeed where the other games have failed, but I would rather they not try to do complex worldbuilding at all than do a half-assed job at it like usual.
WW explained exactly what Ganon was doing; looking for Zelda. The flood was also so long ago that the people who lived through it were all dead and buried and only the ancient spirity types remembered it.
He was looking for Zelda ... so that he could get her and Link together to do some Triforce magic ... for some purpose, possibly evil since he's Ganon but on the other hand WW's Ganon seemed like an alright dude so maybe not ... I mean, I *liked* Wind Waker Ganon, he's definitely my favorite Ganon, but there were way too many gaps in that game's backstory and world for it to even enter into my consciousness as a cohesive world, rather than a transparent overlay for a kinda cool gameplay concept.
Compare WW's backstory to something like Final Fantasy 6, where the bad guy is also trying to resurrect an ancient power to rule/destroy the world. Or even something like SoTC or Ico, which took the opposite route—the world is all there and realistic and the game is full of all these hints at a coherent history behind it all. But I think Zelda basically treats its world like Mario treats the Mushroom Kingdom. It's not the focus of the game, and when the game tries to focus on it briefly it generally doesn't work very well at all.
At the end of WW, we're up on the beach or something, Link and Zelda standing there next to the boat, and Zelda says "The King of Red Lions...he's just an ordinary boat now."
I mean throw me a bone. I can assume as much but I'd rather get the occasional closure.
Was the king of Hyrule Zelda's father? Who were her parents? There were paintings of the whole crew of the ship as Zelda's attendants, what do they all know about this? Did they all just materialize on a ship one day with false memories implanted in their heads, meant to find Link?
One of my friends famously argued that Twilight Palace wasn't a dungeon because it didn't feel like one and because it didn't have a magical doohickey that you pick up for the plot.
your friend sounds like a smart dude, you should listen to him more.
also i could be remembering WW wrong.. i only played it the once at release, got up to the bit where you have to go searching for the pieces of you know what and thought, fuck this, this is some bullshit in an already poor zelda game, and then i left it for like, 3 years before finally going back and finishing it off.
could of been the burn out though from playing OoT disc that came with the game before i started WW though.
I remember Twilight Palace feeling like the ice cave in OoT or Ice/Volcano islands in WW. A short area that you visit for a specific purpose.
But I also think arguing over how many dungeons a game has is kind of dumb. For all the flack WW gets about having fewer dungeons, it sure has just about as much good solid content as any other Zelda.
@UncleSporky, I just played through TP again ... Twilight Palace wasn't short. It was pretty straightforward, and it didn't take as long as the Sky City. But it was definitely dungeon-lengthed. I think it might seem shorter because of dungeon fatigue or something—because you can do it right after the Sky City ... and then you can do Hyrule Castle right after Twilight Palace.
I just finished TP this weekend. Twilight Palace has two minibosses, a map, a compass, a heart container, two heart pieces like every other dungeon in the game, a boss key, and a final boss that drops a heart container. It has two wings of three rooms each and a different puzzle depending on whether you are coming or going, and that's just the first floor.
It's easily the shortest dungeon in the game if you don't count the castle, but its a dungeon all right.
I found the ominous floating hand of doom far more easy to deal with here than it has been in other games. Here you could stun if for a significant amount of time with arrows or the clawshot and then concentrate on where you needed to go.
Coherent, believable and therefore more immersive world-building is always better. I'm not saying it is a priority, but it is by definition conducive to experience quality in games that feature fictional worlds. Nerdage, I call it.
True, but I think its only important to a point with something like Zelda. The look and flow of the world is something I tend to appreciate far more than the reason a certain place is there and the history behind it. That stuff is cool and all, but its more of an added bonus than a necessity for me. I also forgot to mention that Zoras Domain just having been thawed out from being frozen over is reason enough to go to Snowpeak to see if the cause of said freezing over came from there. Also mentionings of blizzards.
Snowpeak Ruins is actually one of my favourite dungeons, but when someone says the dungeons in OoT have no cohesion with the history of the world and says TP did it better, I'm like: "ARGH have you played both games? Remember the seven sages? Remember the build-up to all the dungeons?" Shit, I can barely remember why you had to clear dungeons in random places in TP. Midna sort of tells you to and you're her loyal pup?
Snowpeak Ruins was just an obvious example; things like having Ganondorf appear as the endboss seems more like an afterthought. I don't expect a fifteen minute cutscene detailing his return to power - Nintendo is usually more of the subtle approach - but I expect better than having a deus ex machina shoved in my face. MM and WW in comparison presented a cohesive plot really well in my opinion, so it's not just OoT.
You were sent to Snowpeak by the Sages. Who also coincidentally sent you to the Temple of Time and the City in the Sky.
Which is about as much justification as you had for the three Spiritual Stones in OoT. Moreso, in fact, because in OoT you're told to do so by some little girl. Who happens to be a princess, admittedly, but little girls, princesses included, are generally widely held to be not that smart, most like all people who are about 12.
In fact the guard at the Kakariko Gate literally laughs in your face.
I do agree with you on Ganon, would have liked some more buildup on that front, but overall why you were sent to the various dungeons works FAIRLY WELL.
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Zelda's been a little backwards in its world building...
First, we had The Legend of Zelda, with a nice chunk of Hyrule to explore.
Then, we get Zelda II, which took that nice chunk, and showed us it was only a teeny, tiny fraction of the greater land of Hyrule.
After that... we go back a hundred years or so, and get a weird sort of land that's pre-Zelda I, only with a castle instead of a dead tree and a village where the graveyard would be... and another graveyard elsewhere... and a few other things shifted.
Then they just keep on changing it, all within that little Death Mountain area, for the most part, and we never see the rest of the world again.
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It just wasn't a very good one.
I loved super shiny master sword.
I was always frustrated by the dungeons in OoT. They all looked very nice and had unique and interesting atmosphere, but that was all so very disconnected from the game. I had no idea why they existed or who made them, only that there's this weird abandoned European castle with vines over here and this cool spooky ghost torture chamber over there. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were a bit better at this, but it is still a little grating how some dungeons don't integrate well into the world around them.
The three childhood dungeons are obvious good examples, well connected with the story. As an adult, Ganon's castle makes sense, and the fire and water temples are clearly tied into their respective races' stories - in the Gorons' case you even rescue them from there. Desert Colossus fits right in with the locale and seems appropriate as a part of Gerudo history. That only leaves the two you mentioned as being mysterious...but isn't it nice to have a little mystery sometimes? I can accept that the world has its own history that isn't necessarily going to be explained to us every time.
I don't even love OoT all that much but this particular aspect of the game isn't one of its flaws in my opinion.
Shadow and forest temple were indeed pretty mysterious, but they weren't without their hints. The forest temple is built like an abandoned mansion while in the shadow temple they constantly refer to "Hyrule's bloody history" and there are tons of rooms with torture devices, audience seats, and one room had crucifixion posts!
I mean, if you're going to say OoT has awful worldbuilding, TP has a remote mansion reached by snowboarding on a frozen leaf wherein you must find soup ingredients for a yeti.
Yeah, it's easily one of the more unique dungeons in the series.
And yet there is no doubt whatsoever as to why that dungeon is there in the first place.
It is the Yeti house. For Yetis. Where else would Yetis live but the top of a snowy mountain?
And I'm sure they could have made traversing to a remote location a bit more engaging than a racing mini-game! Sliding down a mountain doesn't work if you want to get on top of it!
Who cares?
Not everything necessarily requires a long drawn out explanation. They are Yetis living in a snowy mansion and they went to the Zora Domain for food. The Zoras want the sitings investigated and so does that chick wearing the armor from the bar. Bam, done. Also, that snowboarding part was really fun!
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I believe Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door had a well-made compromise, in that regard:
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
Coherent, believable and therefore more immersive world-building is always better. I'm not saying it is a priority, but it is by definition conducive to experience quality in games that feature fictional worlds. Nerdage, I call it.
Zelda, worst world building ever.
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I think UncleSporky meant that in an ironic way ;-)
Sure, it's always preferable if the world in a video game is believable and (somewhat) realistic, but honestly, things like that are by far not my #1 priority in a Zelda game.
FF14: ARR
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Or, you could have Demon's Souls Zelda.
Snowpeak Ruins was just an obvious example; things like having Ganondorf appear as the endboss seems more like an afterthought. I don't expect a fifteen minute cutscene detailing his return to power - Nintendo is usually more of the subtle approach - but I expect better than having a deus ex machina shoved in my face. MM and WW in comparison presented a cohesive plot really well in my opinion, so it's not just OoT.
Games that have an impact are the ones that stay with you years after you've played them, whether it's the gameplay, the characters, the story etc. Some people find one facet more important than the other, that's fine, but there's no questioning people have high expectations because it's Zelda and her 25 years of history. Again, I don't expect a bombastic next-gen Zelda, but would it hurt to have some consistency in the world and the writing?
But I have a hard time even judging the worldbuilding in Zelda because it always seems like such an afterthought. I don't think any of the games portray Hyrule as this coherent place with a well-thought out or interesting history. In OoT you have a description of a "war" with a bunch of flames in the background, and a legend about the goddesses ... that's about it. Majora's Mask was a trippy dream world. Wind Waker never explained why the king was a boat, what Ganon was doing, how people's lives were affected by the flood. TP had all the problems Chen listed and, I think, the game actually suffered because it *tried* to build a world and a plot and failed miserably.
Everyone involved has always said that Zelda games are about gameplay concepts first and they drape the story around afterwards, and I'm fine with that, and I think this formula works the best when Zelda worlds are whimsical and uncomplicated. Maybe Skyward Sword will succeed where the other games have failed, but I would rather they not try to do complex worldbuilding at all than do a half-assed job at it like usual.
As for why the king is a boat... I have no idea.
Compare WW's backstory to something like Final Fantasy 6, where the bad guy is also trying to resurrect an ancient power to rule/destroy the world. Or even something like SoTC or Ico, which took the opposite route—the world is all there and realistic and the game is full of all these hints at a coherent history behind it all. But I think Zelda basically treats its world like Mario treats the Mushroom Kingdom. It's not the focus of the game, and when the game tries to focus on it briefly it generally doesn't work very well at all.
At the end of WW, we're up on the beach or something, Link and Zelda standing there next to the boat, and Zelda says "The King of Red Lions...he's just an ordinary boat now."
I mean throw me a bone. I can assume as much but I'd rather get the occasional closure.
Was the king of Hyrule Zelda's father? Who were her parents? There were paintings of the whole crew of the ship as Zelda's attendants, what do they all know about this? Did they all just materialize on a ship one day with false memories implanted in their heads, meant to find Link?
your friend sounds like a smart dude, you should listen to him more.
also i could be remembering WW wrong.. i only played it the once at release, got up to the bit where you have to go searching for the pieces of you know what and thought, fuck this, this is some bullshit in an already poor zelda game, and then i left it for like, 3 years before finally going back and finishing it off.
could of been the burn out though from playing OoT disc that came with the game before i started WW though.
But I also think arguing over how many dungeons a game has is kind of dumb. For all the flack WW gets about having fewer dungeons, it sure has just about as much good solid content as any other Zelda.
It's easily the shortest dungeon in the game if you don't count the castle, but its a dungeon all right.
These creepy hands were also nasty of course:
True, but I think its only important to a point with something like Zelda. The look and flow of the world is something I tend to appreciate far more than the reason a certain place is there and the history behind it. That stuff is cool and all, but its more of an added bonus than a necessity for me. I also forgot to mention that Zoras Domain just having been thawed out from being frozen over is reason enough to go to Snowpeak to see if the cause of said freezing over came from there. Also mentionings of blizzards.
You were sent to Snowpeak by the Sages. Who also coincidentally sent you to the Temple of Time and the City in the Sky.
Which is about as much justification as you had for the three Spiritual Stones in OoT. Moreso, in fact, because in OoT you're told to do so by some little girl. Who happens to be a princess, admittedly, but little girls, princesses included, are generally widely held to be not that smart, most like all people who are about 12.
In fact the guard at the Kakariko Gate literally laughs in your face.
I do agree with you on Ganon, would have liked some more buildup on that front, but overall why you were sent to the various dungeons works FAIRLY WELL.
They've got such an awesome site with Reorchestrated Zelda music: http://www.zreomusic.com/music
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"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
First, we had The Legend of Zelda, with a nice chunk of Hyrule to explore.
Then, we get Zelda II, which took that nice chunk, and showed us it was only a teeny, tiny fraction of the greater land of Hyrule.
After that... we go back a hundred years or so, and get a weird sort of land that's pre-Zelda I, only with a castle instead of a dead tree and a village where the graveyard would be... and another graveyard elsewhere... and a few other things shifted.
Then they just keep on changing it, all within that little Death Mountain area, for the most part, and we never see the rest of the world again.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
Oh noes, my immersions.
(No, really, apparently there are a lot of people bothered by this.)
t lefties: ha ha. /Nelson Muntz
I wouldn't say "bothered," but I did say "aw..." That's just an "it would've been cool" feature.
-Z