General Category > General Discussion
Wii U Price cut/Zelda
AxelSteelBMX:
I think Blumpkin played it at PAX Prime, which just happened this past weekend.
JDavis:
--- Quote from: AxelSteelBMX on August 30, 2013, 01:00:53 PM ---I was going to write an item-by-item rebuttal in The Wind Waker's defense, but couldn't really word it without unintentionally sounding overly sanctimonious. So I'm electing not to post it.
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Never one to fear making an ass out of myself, I will go ahead and do just that.
As Megatron did, I will offer first some points on my own history with the Zelda series. First his, for reference.
--- Quote from: Megatron on August 29, 2013, 10:22:37 PM ----I was born in 1982, and have played every major Zelda game released in the U.S when it came out. I grew up with this franchise.
-When Windwaker came out I was in my early 20s, and the previous console game was Majora's Mask, so I was really expecting greatness.
-Because I was 20, there is little nostalgic value here (Unlike early games in the series which aren’t great, but I enjoyed them in my youth)
I haven’t played the game in a few years, but these are some of my major grievances with Windwaker (not in any particular order)
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-I was born in 1986 (the tail end of it). I did not grow up playing the Zelda games when they came out. In fact, my early gaming history is embarrassingly made up of only Nintendo first-party platformers, GB puzzle games, fighting games (no one could escape them in the 90's) and licensed stuff until 1998. Two game changed my entire outlook on the hobby that year. One was The Legend of Zelda.... A Link to the Past. Not the one you'd expect that year :P I love the hell out of A Link to the Past, and always will. The other game was Pokemon, and I basically stopped caring about that franchise after the first generation.
-Obviously, I got my hands on Ocarina not long afterwards, and found it.... Pretty damn samey. I like Ocarina, but I don't worship it like a lot of Zelda fans do. Majora's Mask is great, though.
-When Wind Waker came out I was 16. I had had my gaming "awakening" 5 years prior, and was at a point in my life where I had the most free time to devote to gaming.
-Some nostalgia surely applies here, but not like I have for A Link to the Past.
Finally: I have played the game a few times since when it first came out.
Continuing to the points...
--- Quote from: Megatron on August 29, 2013, 10:22:37 PM ---1. The graphics. Petty, I know, but first impressions are important. I was expecting Twilight Princess and we got Animal Crossings. I have cooled on this over the years, but I was pretty pissed a decade ago
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Wind Waker's graphics are easily its most polarizing feature. There were basically two reactions at the time:
"WTF IS THIS!? THIS ISN'T OCARINA OF TIME/SPACE WORLD DEMO!! ZELDA ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE CARTOONY! RASAFRAKDKALSDM!"
~or~
"This game is freakin' beautiful!"
For my part, I was in the latter camp.
And frankly, I don't understand the former reaction. The number of Zelda games with realistic graphics prior to Twilight Princess was exactly zero. (Even calling TP "realistic" is a stretch, but they were at least aiming for it that time)
Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask feature some nicely detailed, realistic textures, but the models were extremely cartoony. I mean, just look at a Wolfos.
That is one cartoony wolf.
It's not like the N64 wasn't capable of a more realistic look, either. Just take Perfect Dark, the Tony Hawk games, the Star Wars games, Turok games, etc. The cartoony models in OoT & MM were a choice.
And hell, A Link to the Past featured a Link with neon pink hair, so dark gritty realism was hardly a series staple.
"But they showed that tech demo at Spaceworld that was so cool looking and realistic, like an HD Ocarina of Time!" I know, I know, and they should have made it more clear that that was just a tech demo and not footage of a Zelda game in progress.... But speaking of that tech demo, have you watched it lately?
It's aged poorly. All 10 seconds of it.
.....
Quite secondarily from all this, I think they're actually ruining the graphics in the HD remake by redoing the lighting system and removing the cel-shading.
--- Quote from: Megatron on August 29, 2013, 10:22:37 PM ---2. THE SAILING. I will never be convinced that sailing around a bland ocean is anywhere NEAR the exploration thrill of Hyrule field. In a field you can do anything. In a boat you can…sail. And fire a canon. Boring.
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As a 16 year old with nothing but time on his hands, the sailing sections didn't bother me in the slightest. As an adult, more limited in my free time, they are a mild annoyance. However, I think your point here is a bit flawed. By making most of the area a simple ocean, they were able to focus their attention on the islands and make each one of them legitimately interesting.
Hyrule field is a big empty, mostly boring field that you run (or roll) through as quickly as possible to get from point to point. You don't care about the field, you care about the woods, the castle, the town, the mountain, the graveyard, the lake, the desert, the farm, the witch's house, etc. At most you stop for a second to fight some monsters, blow up a suspicious rock, explore a cave, etc.
The field is mostly an empty space around which the big points of interest are littered. And so is the ocean.
But the ocean is a 7x7 grid of islands (49 islands), and you're encouraged to explore them all, even the unimportant ones. And since most of the world map was taken up by simple ocean, they were able to concentrate more creative energy on making some of those incidental islands genuinely interesting.
But, yes, they've made sailing faster/easier in the remake, so there's less time wasting.
--- Quote from: Megatron on August 29, 2013, 10:22:37 PM ---3. Speaking of sailing…FINDING THE TRIFORCE. What the hell was this? Only a handful of dungeons and then the last third of the game is sailing around the ocean looking for pieces of the triforce. I know they amended this for the remake, but still haunts me
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I'm the first to admit, the Triforce piece hunt was completely flow-breaking. It was sort of intended as a throw back to the original game, but it was probably put in mostly to make the game longer because there weren't many dungeons. :-\ I have no counter-point on this one.
--- Quote from: Megatron on August 29, 2013, 10:22:37 PM ---4. Hyrule is submerged, and for whatever reason they kept it this way. While I know they established new Hyrule, and the split timeline and everything…this still felt like a kick in the balls to me. Not only is it submerged, but the king even wishes it to STAY submerged at the end.
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Adding in your later statement here, because I didn't understand what you were getting at at all until I read this...
--- Quote from: Megatron on August 30, 2013, 01:58:16 PM ---I would argue, according to the narration, that it IS Ocarina 2. At least story wise. Gameplay it is a far different beast, and I freely admit that I'm just not in to the style. But story, this is a direct sequel to Ocarina, be it centuries later. It's one of the few direct sequels this series has. That's why the flooding of Hyrule hits so strong with me...I saved this land. Many times. And for what? So they would flood it anyway? Did any of it matter?
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It did matter. It wasn't about the land. It wasn't about the kingdom. It was about the people. The citizens. You saved Hyrule. Not its fields, mountains, forests, lakes, and deserts; but its Hylians, Gerudo, Gorons, Zoras, Humans, sentient plants, fairies, and animals.
These (mostly) escaped the flood and are now living happily on the islands that were once Hyrule's peaks.
The land of Hyrule remained submerged to give the people a fresh start instead of hanging the legacy of Hyrule over their heads.... And considering how often that legacy has come back to haunt everyone in the other timelines, with Ganon(dorf)'s constant resurrections and such, it was probably the right choice :P
--- Quote from: Megatron on August 29, 2013, 10:22:37 PM ---5. Ganondorf is fat.
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Ganondorf is old. I would estimate Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time to be at most in his 30's. Hundreds of years have passed since then, and while the Triforce of Power (possibly in tandem with his other magics) may have granted him near-immortality, he has aged. He's also been fairly inactive since Hyrule flooded and grown quite a bit more introspective. His monologue at the beginning of the battle with him, one of the most emotionally stirring parts of the game, is proof enough of this. He's no longer the muscular young warrior thief at the height of his reign; he's a stocky, stoic deposed king who has lived well beyond his years and lost much in the process.
Megatron:
You make interesting arguments, however some of your views are just as one sided and personal as mine.
On the graphics, I will just say this: I don't like that style. For pretty much anything. Another game I can't stand because of this? Final Fantasy IX. personal preference, nothing more. I would have preferred an older, more human looking Link...but ultimately I didn't HATE it. What I do hate is how Link looks. he looks 6. And some people find this art style charming. I don't. Not a big deal. Didn't stop me from buying . Won't stop me now. It isn't that other games didn;t have childish graphics, but this was just too much.
As for the Ocean, I do not like sailing a boat. No free range, you have to stop, change the wind, adjust sails and go. i did not search the islands. i couldn't care less about the islands that had nothing for me. They weren't worth my time. Some people enjoyed modding their maps and mrking where they have been. I prefer to recognize an area rather than be a cartographer. LttP is my favorite Zelda game as well, and the landscape was beautiful and brilliant. In almost every Zelda game I love exploring. This game I just wanted to get to the next dungeon.
You will never be able to convince me that flooding Hyrule and keeping it that way was a logical choice. At least not in one of the few DIRECT SEQUELS this series has. Had this been a stand alone Zelda title like Twilight I doubt I'd care as much. But given the game we got, this was a deal breaker for me and tainted the game from the start. An otherwise enjoyable game ruined by one detail that I (personally) feel could have been done in better ways. Think of a favorite movie or game series...then they change something big, like kill a character off first thing. It changes the experience for the rest of the game.
Some people deal with this better than others. Some didn't mind Mass Effect 3's ending. Some people couldn't get over that you play as Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 instead of Snake.
This is one of those games for me and I have stated why. That said, I still have both the Wii U bundle and the special edition of the game w/ Ganondorf figure preordered. And I eagerly await the next official title in the Zelda franchise.
Megatron:
OK, I can confirm that the Windwaker download is a CODE, not preinstalled on the system. So anyone who wanted to sell the code, it looks possible.