hemo memo
True Gamer
@There's almost no doubt that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will turn out to be yet another strong entry in Nintendo's Zelda franchise, a fitting and powerful final chapter in Wii's incredible success story. The thought of entering Hyrule once again to do battle with creatures and solve a myriad of puzzles is thrilling.
Yet nine days before Zelda arrives, the video game industry is going to be greeted by another juggernaut fantasy series - The Elder Scrolls. Anticipation is running high for the visual stunner, which seemingly takes everything that made its fourth Scrolls installment so great and improves upon it for the fifth, titled Skyrim.
In some ways these two franchises could not be more different. They serve different masters, different genres, different gameplay styles. And yet there's no doubt they could learn from each other. There's no doubt that Zelda, for all its remarkable accomplishments and perfected methods of design, could try some new things as it prepares to move into an HD era. Let's look at how Link's adventures might draw inspiration from The Elder Scrolls.
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Hyrule is a big, big place, packed with secrets and dark dungeons to explore. However, Nintendo often keeps each core Zelda adventure confined along a set path. Link sets out from his small village to find X magical items so he can track down the Master Sword. Once he has the all-powerful weapon, he must find a certain number more of a different item n order to be powerful enough to threaten the big bad guy - usually Ganon.
Dungeons have increasingly followed a similar pattern as well. While older Zelda games allowed players to use acquired weapons and tools throughout an adventure, modern iterations of the franchise increasingly confine those uses to a single dungeon with its particular enemies.
Removing this structure would allow for some significant improvements to the Zelda formula. Skyrim is based around this premise. Wander the lands, discover secrets and allow the style of the player to dictate the pace and form of the story. Allow actions to have an impact. Some Zelda games, like Majora's Mask, have worked with these ideas. Future Zelda games should embrace them.
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The Legend of Zelda is not an RPG. It shouldn't be an RPG. Yet RPG-like elements have made a significant number of other genres better. We've seen the idea of XP added to most multiplayer designs, including first-person shooting titles, which couldn't be further from RPGs.
Zelda doesn't necessarily need experience points, but it'd be great to see more customization. The justification behind not allowing Link to speak always focuses on the fact that the player should feel like they are the Hero of Time. Being allowed to customize Link and his weaponry could further contribute to that idea. As cool as it is to get new tunics, what if changing those colors, and perhaps all armor and accessories, was a routine part of the game? Maybe different outfits could alter some of Link's core attributes like health or speed?
At its core, Zelda is an adventure game. Spending hours tweaking settings wouldn't fit the series, but no doubt there's some room to expand these ideas. It'd be incredible to wander Hyrule in search of materials to upgrade weapons, or to use magic repeatedly to gain access to a more powerful version of that spell. There are ways to add more RPG elements without damaging the core essence of Zelda.
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If there's one area Zelda struggles, it's story. There's nothing wrong with a traditional rescue story. Some games only need a brief motivation and setting to get started, and the rest doesn't matter. Does anyone care how many times they need to save Princess Peach in a Mario game? Not really. Zelda, however, could use some creative expression.
The idea of Link setting out to discover his destiny and rescue the princess needs to change. Our hero's motivations and character arc need to change. Villains need to be more complicated. Let's see a Zelda game that weaves a narrative as epic as its environmental and creature designs.
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Nintendo spoiled the world with a glimpse of an HD Zelda at this year's E3. As stylish and truly well-designed as Skyward Sword has been so far, it's tough not to think of what comes next. That's sort of the next point. What we saw of HD Zelda, combined with some of the brilliance we've seen in Skyrim, has us eager to once again see a more realistic Zelda. That's not to say this thing has to look exactly like Skyrim, but that's the direction we want the visual design to go. The rationale behind Skyward Sword's aesthetic was to provide clear visual clues during combat. That should still be possible with a realistic style. Plus... gamers can figure it out. We'll be okay.
Packaged into this would be a world design that feels a little more open and fluid. Ocarina of Time's map looks cool as an illustration until you realize it's basically a giant circle. With any luck Skyward Sword will continue what Twilight Princess started and bring the Zelda series back to the era of A Link to the Past, where wandering Hyrule felt seamless and less like something designed by an engineer. Even Twilight had a strange, pod-like, claustrophobic nature to it, as it connected specific locations together through very guided, narrow pathways. Let's do away with all of that.
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Many of the above points come together under one concept, a concept that Skyrim truly embodies. The Legend of Zelda could and should be more cinematic. We've seen some of this develop throughout the last few console-based Zelda games. But when it comes to story, design, scope and overall design sensibility, Zelda could take advantage of many ideas. Voice acting, though not necessary, could be a great addition to Nintendo's plans if used properly. We don't even care if Link doesn't talk. Let everyone else chatter away.
Ocarina of Time captured a certain sense of grandeur for its time that was awe-inspiring. Seeing King Dodongo for the first time or staring down Twinrova was stunning. In some respects that game set a cinematic bar that the rest of the industry strove to reach. Yet over time, many rival fantasy games met that challenge, in some cases several times over.
What's curious is that modern Zelda games don't quite reach for those same goals. The Zelda franchise seems to have found an area of design and sophistication that it seems content to operate within. As a result a product like Skyward Sword doesn't seem quite as big and bold as Skyrim. Again, that's not necessarily bad, but we'd love to see the franchise return to some of its bigger and bolder roots.
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Time will tell whether The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is better than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The more we see of both games, though, the more apparent it becomes that Skyrim has some ideas that, with a little adjustment, would fit perfectly in the Zelda world. It's not that Zelda is broken or that it needs to become a full-fledged RPG, but there is much within the RPG genre that could inform and inspire future Zelda games, just as Zelda has no doubt inspired them over the years.
Ultimately the real question is - what would you like to see in future Zelda installments? How would you evolve the series? Are there some things you wouldn't want at all?
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