Poll: The Legend of Zelda....Why do you love or hate it?

[chaosyoshimage]

I love the series, it and Pokemon (Which also doesn't change all to much) are the reasons I got into video games. I've beat them all except the Oracle games (Ages was the first one I bought, but it got stolen), A Link to the Past (Playing it now as part of my Zelda 25th playthrough), the first two (My NES cartridge lost all of its data on the first and the second never really engaged me), Majora's Mask (Got stuck in a dungeon like a noob, I love this one though so I'll finally finish it this year), and Spirit Tracks (I couldn't get into the last dungeon and the train part to get to it frustrated me into quitting).

The exploration, music, and simplicity of it all make each one a great game even the ones I don't care much for (Twilight Princess) are still engaging. Wind Waker is my personal favorite, the wide open ocean, the beautiful art style, and the wonderful celtic themed music all come together for one of favorite games of all time. Link's Awakening's my second, "It is the Wind Fish in name only for it is neither". Can't wait to download it when I get an eShop card for my 3DS.

 

[Recron]

It is ovvveerrr rated. Why are monsters randomly in these rooms? Why arn't they eating each other in starvation? How does Ganon come back every death? When will this cycle of death and re-birth effing end? why does Gannons plan never change?

1. Steal Zelda
2. GetTri-Force
3. wish for ultimate power
4. rule the world
5. Profit

whats 3? get ass kicked by link...again.

fixed it for ya.

The plan is almost always different its just that those steps and his end goal remain the same. Gannons goal never changes because he wants power enough to rule the world and what better way than than wishing it?

as for the monsters not eating each other, I dunno maybe they can survive solely off air maybe they cant eat each other due to certain monsters being possible poisonous food, I doubt they put too much thought into the biological needs of fantasy monsters in a fantasy videogame.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I've been fond of quite a few of them. Phourglass I got annoyed with, and Ages/Seasons were both tedious for me. The console ones I've been pretty fond of, though. The only one I've really not liked was the second one. TP, OoT, MM, WW, ALttP and the original all have a place in my heart, though.

Four swords was a fair waste of six hours, though. Not sure how a zelda game is that short and still considered part of the series.

 

[Madshadow]

My first introduction was Oot after i got an N64 and loved it also did Majora's Mask. Guess the most different version of them all.

Then came the Wind Waker, And Oot Master Quest and of Course Twilight Princess. These are the Zelda games i Like. Really not looking forward to the new Zelda seeing Game play wise it still will be the same as the previous installments.

To my regard isn't healthy for the franchise because and Wind Waker started to feel repetitive, Same goes for TP. Yes the new one will be with a WII controller but still game play will stay the same, and the subtle new touches they add will feel nothing more then gimmicky.

And still about unsure about it's future seeing they stick to the same formula on and on just to play it safe.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Because in the overmap, you had to figure out how to get past object X, or how to get to the next dungeon. And in the dungeon, you had to figure out how to get to the boss.

Though I can see this actually happening less in Zelda games.

Well what else would you do?
I mean... really I have no idea any suggestions?
I thought so none at all.

It is ovvveerrr rated. Why are monsters randomly in these rooms? Why arn't they eating each other in starvation? How does Ganon come back every death? When will this cycle of death and re-birth effing end? why does Gannons plan never change?

1. Steal Zelda
2. GetTri-Force
3. wish for ultimate power
4. rule the world
5. Profit

whats 3? get ass kicked by link...again.

fixed it for ya.

The plan is almost always different its just that those steps and his end goal remain the same. Gannons goal never changes because he wants power enough to rule the world and what better way than than wishing it?

as for the monsters not eating each other, I dunno maybe they can survive solely off air maybe they cant eat each other due to certain monsters being possible poisonous food, I doubt they put too much thought into the biological needs of fantasy monsters in a fantasy videogame.

Liek it matters what it eats when all it gets in it's diet is lots of sword.

some crazy alien force from somewhere

Majora's mask had REAL aliens....

 

[DarthFennec]

I FUCKING LOVE ZELDA.
I've beaten Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past about six hundred times each by now.
Majora's Mask is my absolute favorite of the series. Zelda 2 comes in close second.
Wind Waker is amazing. Link's Awakening is amazing. Twilight Princess is amazing. The original is amazing.
All the rest are pretty decent. Except the ones for the DS. And Mah Boi. Sorry I brought that up.

 

[squeekenator]

Hate it. The combat is bland and repetitive, the puzzles are stupid and arbitrary (kill the monsters in room X over and over until you happen to do it in the right order...), the characters are boring, the plot is so thin and generic that I found myself unable to remember it even while I was playing the game and the items you spend every game collecting are all so bleh. I have fond memories of a fully powered-up Samus speeding through every room in the game, obliterating enemies through walls and flying through lava. Fully powered Link is... a dude with a sword. And a stick that comes back when he throws it. I haven't played enough Zelda games to get irritated by the reptition, but if I was a fan I'd be rather pissed about being given the exact same game with the exact same combat and the exact same characters and the exact same plot and the exact same items every. freaking. game. The games are just so... uninspiring.

 

[starwarsgeek]

I FUCKING LOVE ZELDA.
I've beaten Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past about six hundred times each by now.
Majora's Mask is my absolute favorite of the series. Zelda 2 comes in close second.
Wind Waker is amazing. Link's Awakening is amazing. Twilight Princess is amazing. The original is amazing.
All the rest are pretty decent. Except the ones for the DS. And Mah Boi. Sorry I brought that up.

The energy of your post goes great with your avatar

And your apology is accepted. The Unholy Triforce DOES NOT EXIST!
-back to denial-

 

[danqaz]

I do quite like zelda Favourite of the series is majora's mask, I don't know what it is about it, but every zelda game just keeps me interested, and I have fun playing it. It could be that I played it heaps as a child, probably is, but I just find it fun, and I always find myself coming back to it and always enjoying it.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Beautiful games, each taking the same core concept and extending it in different ways. People like to complain that it's all the same, but Zelda is a perfect example of an extremely well-designed game series. It doesn't try so hard to innovate that it abandons what defines it, but it stretches the boundaries and introduces something new with each incarnation.

The story is simple and understated, aiming more for the feel of a folktale (or a...legend...) than epic fantasy, the music is a wonderful balance between whimsy and drama, and the art direction is consistently innovative, unique, and perfectly matched to the tone of the games.

 

[Infernai]

ehhh...didn't really click with me. Don't get me wrong, if you like it that's fine i guess but it just never clicked. The main character seemed to be just annoyingly bland, and i seriously keep wandering how that fucker ganon keeps coming back (To be fair, i have a dislike of ALL big bads that just keep coming back, cause i seriously have to wander what kind of health cover they have...and it also kinda detracts when you know that the big bads just gonna keep coming back and makes you wander 'Whats the point of even killing you?'). I dunno, it just didn't seem interesting too me. Although, i suppose part of my problem was also all those fans who go on and on about how link is this super powerful demi-god who can kill anyone just by staring at them (Ok, maybe not in those words, but it turned me off really playing any of them due to the fans).

If you like the series, that's fine. I have no problem with it and i don't really mock it at all unlike some series i despise (Sonic, Naruto and Twilight for instance), i don't really view them as 'bad games'. But..i just don't like it, that simple. Although, that said, if anyone in this thread starts going on about how powerful Link is (SSB i'll give some leeway for though), I'm afraid i'll have to punch you..

 

[Nobby]

I'm not a fan. I grew up playing on a PC and never even had contact with a Zelda game until I was 15 or 16. I played half an hour then decided that, despite my mates constant gushing about how good it was, that it wasn't for me ( I think it Was Ocarina of Time or something like that).

That's not to say I hate them, they just don't interest me.

That said I do wonder why some people react with total disdain when I say that in my opinion X game is better than Zelda? In some circles I used to interact with I was considered a brain dead, mental incompetent for voicing the opinion that Zelda doesn't shit on other RPG/Adventure games.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

ehhh...didn't really click with me. Don't get me wrong, if you like it that's fine i guess but it just never clicked. The main character seemed to be just annoyingly bland, and i seriously keep wandering how that fucker ganon keeps coming back (To be fair, i have a dislike of ALL big bads that just keep coming back, cause i seriously have to wander what kind of health cover they have...and it also kinda detracts when you know that the big bads just gonna keep coming back and makes you wander 'Whats the point of even killing you?'). I dunno, it just didn't seem interesting too me. Although, i suppose part of my problem was also all those fans who go on and on about how link is this super powerful demi-god who can kill anyone just by staring at them (Ok, maybe not in those words, but it turned me off really playing any of them due to the fans).

If you like the series, that's fine. I have no problem with it and i don't really mock it at all unlike some series i despise (Sonic, Naruto and Twilight for instance). But..i just don't like it, that simple. Although, that said, if anyone in this thread starts going on about how powerful Link is (SSB i'll give some leeway for though), I'm afraid i'll have to punch you..

It's supposed to be a folktale. Think about folk-tale heroes and you realise that they tend to be silent protagonists that serve as little more than vehicles for the story. They do stuff and things happen to them, but there's rarely if ever dicussion of any internal motivation beyond perhaps a single defining feature (courage probably being the most common, and not-so-coincidentally the defining feature of Link).

Ganon keeps coming "back" in the same way that a lot of folk-tale villains show up in multiple stories. It's harder to see this in English-speaking countries since we've lost a lot of our folktales and most that are still known have been boiled down to a single accepted version (a reinforcing side effect of this being that people are less willing to accept multiple similar stories when they do exist and start arguing over which is the real or original story).

But look at folk characters like Baba Yaga or Koschei. The stories aren't even consistent about whether the characters are necessarily villains or not and the two appear in countless stories, some connected, some not. It would be insane to argue over which is the real Baba Yaga story or which is the original story of Koschei.

The point of killing Ganon is that it's the end of the story. This is why the creators of Zelda don't make such a big deal out of the timeline or anything like that since, in the end, it's mostly a modern-day collection of folktales. Problems only arise when you start trying to treat these as a series of novels rather than as a loose grouping of stories that it is.

As for your fanhate, I'm not really sure what to tell you other than grow some thicker skin if that actually bothers you. You're missing out on a great series at least partially because you don't like some of the other people who like it. That's silly.

 

[Hexenwolf]

Hate it.

Zelda is for kids. People shouldn't be enjoying Zelda past about age 15. I was watching my sister play Twilight Princess recently, and I can find things that STILL HAVE NOT CHANGED SINCE 19 FUCKING 98. Or 1980 whatever the fuck it was when the NES version came out. It doesn't change. Kids don't like change. It's marketed to a young audience.

The last Zelda game I enjoyed was Majora's Mask. I was 11 at the time. I've played OoT again, Wind Waker, and watching my sister play Twilight Princess, I just see so little change. The setting might be different, but the feeling is the same. The weapons are the same. The process of acquiring the weapons is the same. There's just no change whatsoever. Even the fucking music is the same. I swear I heard the Great Fairy music from the Great Fairy grottos in OoT in Twilight Princess.

So I say... Zelda is for kids and manchildren. I outgrew it long ago and now despise it for not growing up with me.

Wait, what? You can not like. You can even dislike people that do like it. But hating it for continuing to do what it does? Why? That just seems like spite for the sake of spite.

As for me, I think it's very repetitive. But if you just take it as what it is, it's good at what it chooses to do. Which is be a simple adventure games with puzzles and a nice expansive environment. Which is actually my favorite part. I love exploring. That's the part that shows the most variance from game to game anyway. Of course, I haven't played more than a handful of them. Didn't play windwaker for example. So, you know, not a fan by any stretch.

 

[gutterball17]

Who doesn't love Zelda?

 

[Moromillas]

Because in the overmap, you had to figure out how to get past object X, or how to get to the next dungeon. And in the dungeon, you had to figure out how to get to the boss.

Though I can see this actually happening less in Zelda games.

Well what else would you do?
I mean... really I have no idea any suggestions?
I thought so none at all.

I donno, story/character dev? lol? Combat mechanics?

When you have something good going for a game, like the puzzle formula in LoZ, why on earth deviate? Improve upon, IMO.

Like Wind Waker for example: You finish the first (or maybe it was the second) dungeon, then you get access to the majority the game because your talking boat no longer disagrees when they go in that direction. And I can slowly see the newer dungeons becoming more and more ezmode.

 

[katsabas]

What kind of bothers me is that there actually IS a storyline for the series but it so hard to follow with these alternate realities that it actually ends up in the Super Mario bandwagon. I am more of a Metroid 'fan' (loosely cause I have never had an SNES). I prefer shooting aliens to slashing my way through dungeons for the umpteenth time.

I think Metroid has had a greater impact on me. I have played Super Metroid and A Link To The Past and preferred the first one by far. I liked the story, I liked the upgrades and I like the fact that it gave birth to MetroidVania. I see it as Metroid's legacy and I don't notice anything similar when it comes to Zelda.

Do I not like Zelda? Hell, no. It is very good. But if I were forced to choose, Samus all the way, man.

 

[PeacanPie]

It's one of those things that is never going to change until people stop buying it. Which they won't. I mean, Nintendo isn't even trying anymore. Forgetting making a new game with the same plot, they're making the same game for a different (and aggravatingly pointless) console.
Innovation please, and innovation that didn't come out of Nintendo's bank account for once would be amazing. But being realistic, that's not going to happen.

 

[Ipsen]

Legend of Zelda holds a dear spot in my heart. Main reasons I would say is the music. Music itself is a big factor in Zelda games. The scores are not just good as background, but as puzzle-solving tools, the music of the games becomes even more engrained into you. I'd have given Twilight Princess top marks if they incorporated this into the game more.

One more thing that I find in the atmosphere of Zelda games is that, comparing to other fantasy games these days, no one does child-oriented medieval fantasy better than the Legend of Zelda games. So many medieval games have the castles, the legends, the good vs. bad dichotomy, but few capture the strangeness that the existence of magic should bring to a medieval fantasy. I'd wager it's LoZ's very nature as a child-oriented game that causes it, and I'll even wager that it makes LoZ games the best medieval fantasy adventure games out there, whether for children or adults.

 

[BrownGaijin]

Loved it. It was a the sandbox game before we came up with term for it. It was the RPG game before it turned Squaresoft and company changed it around. And of course because it came in a cartridge made out of REAL GOLD!!!! (yeah I know, don't tell my inner child, it'll break his heart).