The Reinvention of Zelda

Gamespot reports on a lecture at GDC on Thursday, with commentary from Nintendo's manager of software development Eiji Aonuma. Aonuma went through the very long process involved in bringing Twilight Princess to the American audience. Realistic graphics were chosen for the US playerbase, but many other decisions came about via unorthodox thinking and the intervention of a higher power. "It was around this stage that Aonuma was talking to Nintendo senior managing director Shigeru Miyamoto, who told him something along the lines of, 'It's as though the Revolution (later renamed the Wii) was designed just for Zelda! Why don't you try making a Zelda for the Revolution?' In the end, believes Aonuma, the kind of direct control offered by the Wii Remote was exactly what was needed to breathe life into the game."

I might give it a try...

[xtracto]

MMmmmhhh, I might give it a try to this game, after all I bought it after getting the Wii (because my girlfriend likes playing Zelda games) but after watching her playing a bit, it seemed a bit boring. Catch some fish in order to attract the cat in order to take the cat to the grandma in order to get a token you take to grandpa in order to get some info on how to get the sword. And of course you can not do anything else unless you have done that...

Dont get me wrong, I loved the LOZ- A Link to the Past (SNES) and LOZ- Link's Awakening (GB) when I was a kid. And currently I love games like Morrowind and NeverWinter Nights but this Zelda games (the two or three I have seen in the last consoles) suffer from the problem of being linear. They are supposed to be a bit "role playing" but are very linear. Maybe it is because they are "Adventure" genre and they do not have the elements of Role playing (develop your character).

But well.. there are not too many games for Wii and somehow this game has one of the best ratings everywhere =o)

Owners of the game: can a left-hander play it?

[mccalli]

I'm left-handed, and I already notice that I have to play Rayman Raving Rabids differently to the way they show you on the screen. I was wondering about Zelda, which I understand has Link being right-handed in this instalment.

Now, this isn't a fanboy "Link should be left-handed!" rant, it's a question about whether a left-handed person can play it at all. Are there any settings for left-handers?

Cheers,
Ian

Re:I might give it a try...

[Fiztaru]

I see your point about it being linear, but that's not really any big surprise; none of the games in the Zelda series could seriously be considered true RPGs (adventure with a few basic RPG elements mixed in).

Look at A Link to the Past-you can't just go fight Agahnim; you've got to find your uncle in the castle sewers, rescue Zelda, take her to the church, travel to three dungeons to get all three Pendants to get the Master Sword, etc. So there hasn't been much of a change in that regard.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Zelda games (even Zelda II), and sometimes certain things you're doing in any one of them can get repetitive, to be sure-but one has to be careful not to expect them to be something they're not.

It's fun for gamecube, too

[Metasquares]

I bought the Gamecube version of the game and can attest that the game still has plenty of "life" without the Wiimote. This would make sense, considering that the game was originally designed for the Gamecube.

Re:I might give it a try...

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Well, in Zelda, Link's Awakening, and Link to the Past, you weren't forced to go through Dungeon 1 before moving on to 2, for instance. In the original, you had access to pretty much the entire map (all 256 "rooms" of it) right from the beginning - and could do a lot of adventuring before even entering the first dungeon.

It's become less and less so as more games have been released. And now in TP, it just feels like you're trapped in room X until you're done there, and can move on to room X+1.