Board 8 > So why is the Zelda franchise so consistently, great?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Skyward Sword not making the cut for own contests really proves that Zelda is not immune. Resident Evil would be perfect if not for 6 too.

Thinking on it just counting the main console games I could say GoW is consistently good. 1-3, 2018 and Ragnarok are all good stuff.

General population wise Pokemon is pretty much immune to stuff too and most people probably consider the series consistently good. Hell S/V has tons of fans even though the game runs like dog shit and is an embarrassment to modern gaming standards

I mean, Skyward Sword is better than 0,3, and 5. I feel if Skyward Sword qualified it would probably be ALBW level. I mean, Super Mario 3D World also didnt make it and that game is terrific. I think pushes to not have too many Nintendo games disqualify that argument.

As for more consistent series I dont think there is one. I feel there was a time you could argue Fallout, then 76 came out. Even GTA has had lesser entries.

Mario is the only series that can rival in that high consistency I think. It's impressive because they have existed for so long.

_Blur_ posted...

Wind Waker absolutely crushed all other Zelda games in the exploration department until BotW

That's not true at all tbh even though I love WW. The grid system was clear right off the bat, and the limited types of islands made the world feel smaller than it really was. But there were enough awesome fully fledged islands with lots of Zelda secrets that it was still great overall to visit every island. It just didn't have as much mystery as MM or even OoT.

Final Fantasy has pretty high consistency as well. XII, XIII and XV aren't my cup of tea, but you'll still find people who love those games. And even II and III have their fans. Zelda's quality overall is probably higher, but Final Fantasy is pretty consistently great as well.

These series have high quality because they get good budgets because the teams that make them know they'll make money off of them. Takes a lot of the pressure off. They've built it into a brand, and they don't want to ruin the brand by releasing something below standard. People don't have to ask: Do I want to play the new Zelda? They just get the new Zelda most likely. Even if they have to buy a new system for it. (It does help that Nintendo is a console maker.)

I feel XIII, XIV 1.0, the XIII sequels, and the state XV launched in kind of scupper FF here. If you want to talk dark periods for a series the entire 2010s were rough for FF. I think we are past that tough, XVI looks genuinely fantastic.

Yeah, I think a lot of people would consider the post-FFX era a low point until Realm Reborn. All the games have their fans, but they aren't as widely acclaimed as your average Zelda or Mario game.

I'd be willing to throw MGS into the ring since we can throw out a mediocre game or two like Portable Ops.

MacArrowny posted...

Tadtones is the worst thing in any 3D Zelda

Literally the first thing you do in TP is goat herding, which was infinitely worse. The rest of the game didn't really get better. Tadtones are mediocre, but it was a cool setting and didn't take very long. Absolutely nothing wrong with it.

masterplum posted...

Did TP also have ridiculous padding like making you reclimb the mountain just because?

You mean when they turned Zelda into a literal Metroid game, letting you play around with your tools in a different order than typical acquisition, solving puzzles and making you feel like a speedrunner? One of the best sequences in any Zelda game ever? TP has nothing close to that. A full extra dungeon's worth of unique gameplay "just because".

But around 2/3rds of your time in TP is indeed wasted. It's not climbing mountains, but just riding your horse around empty fields. Fortunately you do get fast travel to skip it eventually, but it's still a huge drag outside of the dungeons.

And I dunno if you've played BOTW, but you spend half the game holding the stick up to climb mountains, over and over. They all look the same but I guess they a different korok at the top of each, and seeing your counter go from 227 to 228 activates your pavlovian response just enough to make you forget you haven't experienced any real gameplay in hours.

Maybe if SS copy/pasted that mountain 400 more times, it could be 10/10 and not 3/10.

Climbing mountains for 80% of the game > sailing for 80% of the game

(also you don't spend that much time climbing mountains unless you're a crazy korok hunter)

I do remember TP wasting my time quite a bit; it also has a weird aesthetic that I don't particularly like. The people in that game are grotesque.

I'm convinced BotW haters are just completionists who don't have the self control to just not go after korok seeds or shrines

The game is obviously not made to expect you to get all of them. If you are not having fun doing it because you are compulsed to do so that's a you problem.

SS required the boring shit just to progress in the main story which is wildly different. BotW you can stop and go beat the game at literally any moment after the tutorial if you get bored

Also climbing mountains is fun! I also enjoyed sailing though it went on a bit too long sometimes, as a result of the technical constraints they were dealing with.

It should be noted of course that TPHD significantly shortens the early game. A lot of these issues are dealt with by that version. I dont think SSHD does the same because so much of it is narrative.

masterplum posted...

I'm convinced BotW haters are just completionists who don't have the self control to just not go after korok seeds or shrines

The game is obviously not made to expect you to get all of them. If you are not having fun doing it because you are compulsed to do so that's a you problem.

SS required the boring shit just to progress in the main story which is wildly different. BotW you can stop and go beat the game at literally any moment after the tutorial if you get bored

I probably didnt even go out of my way to find 30 Koroks or Shrines, but Id have to check my save file. I skipped like 95% of that crap for sure though. Its not hard to hate it even if you dont feel compelled to do everything

masterplum posted...

I'm convinced BotW haters are just completionists who don't have the self control to just not go after korok seeds or shrines

No, I did play enough of BotW to get burned out on it but it wasn't out of any completionist urge. It was because I was looking for something interesting to do in that big ass map! And it's just that points that are of interest to me are very few and far between. I got maybe 100 koroks or so before I was satisfied with my inventory and ignored them and by the end I was ignoring shrines except as fast travel points too.

But the novelty of climbing mountains for its own sake wore off relatively quickly, and hostile terrain like the volcano or trudging through the snow are not mechanically interesting in their own right (unlike the Depths which are great hostile environment design).

LightningStrikes posted...

It should be noted of course that TPHD significantly shortens the early game.

uhhh what? I played both and noted very little difference

masterplum posted...

BotW you can stop and go beat the game at literally any moment after the tutorial if you get bored

That's what I did. I played 18ish hours total. I did some really fun parts, which were the couple towns in the east, and Hyrule castle. But the tedium in between all that, especially when doing the main Zora story, killed any motivation to see the other 80% of the map.

I just think it's ok to criticize a game for being so boring that it encourages you to skip 80% of the map. You seem to think that's genius game design. I'm not saying it's an invalid opinion, just a bad one.

masterplum posted...

The game is obviously not made to expect you to get all of them.

Oh yeah I keep forgetting that BOTW defenders say this when it's literally the 1 thing the game DEMANDS you to do to expand your inventory and make playing the rest of the game somewhat bearable

I found enough Koroks organically without having to go out of my way to have enough inventory slots to never worry about getting depleted.

pjbasis posted...

uhhh what? I played both and noted very little difference

Theres some really big differences, especially early on. Stuff that needs to be done twice like the fishing in the original only needs to be done once. Long animations like the cat getting the fish are shortened. The tears of light are reduced from 16 to 12. There are also general changes that speed it up most notably streamlining the wolf transformations, increasing climbing and swimming speed, and so on. Howlongtobeat has the game a whole seven and a half hours shorter.

Oh snap