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

[teebeeohh]

nostalgia
is all that makes me play zelda games, i learned to read for my very first zelda game but since then they have never been as good.

 

[Kieran Shuttleworth]

I seriously wanted to enjoy the Zelda games. But I normally just stopped playing after maybe 30 minutes because, well, I just got bored.

And of course if I got bored with Ocarina of Time, the claimed magnum opus of human creation, there is nothing I can gain from playing the others

But what really puts me off the Legend of Zelda series and pretty much most Nintendo games in general is the annoying repetition. People enjoyed Zelda games as children and feed off nostalgia the rest of their lives.

So essentially, I do not like the Zelda series because of its lack of evolution.

 

[Bakuryukun]

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.

Your argument doesn't make sense. If the series were solely targeted towards a younger audience like you claim, then there would be no need to keep the series roughly congruent with each other since the 80's, kids have grown up since then, you said it yourself. Why then, would the Zelda series be using musical cues, references and gameplay mechanics from the earlier games that were in most instances released before most kids these days were even born. If the series were really targeted towards kids and kids only then I think it would make MORE attempts to change rather than less, because despite what you saying the contrary, I have found in my experience that kids get easily bored with things if they are too similar and that it is the older gaming audience that encourages game series' to stay within certain bounds.(all you need to do is look at the endless stream of rated T and M sequels for proof of that.

I think the truth of the matter is that Zelda is made with both old-school fans and newcomers to the series in mind as it's audience and I don't think it has much to do with age brackets.

As for me, I like the series...not as much as a lot of other people I know but I have found most Zelda games to be decent and fun, my favorites being Wind Waker and Majora's Mask.

 

[EvilMaggot]

gray area... i dont really care about it it never GOT to me..

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Snip

To be fair, there have been several other villains in the games, though many of them have ended up backed by Ganon (it's hard to say who the big bad of the Oracles games is for instance since you only see Ganon if you play through one and do the New Game Plus thing on the other). A few simply have no mention of Ganon whatsoever.

That said, I don't think I was clear before. My point was that the issue with Ganon being defeated and returning is only a problem if you insist on imposing a continuity on the series. By virtually all accounts, that was not the intention - it's supposed to be a collection of folktales linked by common themes rather than by a common chronology (excluding the stories that are explicitly sequels). The developers never even talked about a continuity before the players started arguing about it on the internet and sort of laughed the idea off until very recently. More recently, it seems like the attitude has shifted to "it might be fun to make one since everyone seems to want one", but it's still clear that they don't take continuity seriously at all.

In this sense, Ganon isn't being resurrected each time (well, aside perhaps from the games where he is explicitly resurrected/freed from some Zero Dimension thing), they're just separate, similar stories. Even in the explicit cases of Ganon's return, he only really returns once in each case.

As for the fan-hate, I was more taking issue with your admitting that it was one of the things preventing you from enjoying the game. It's one thing to dislike the fans of something, but it's another to judge the thing itself by the fans. (Incidentally, Naruto fans are some of the most obnoxious on the planet and I avoided the show for years because of it. Having gotten over my hangups, it's actually surprisingly entertaining! (Twilight, on the other hand, is quite possibly worse than its fans.))

Also, I highly recommend giving Twilight Princess a try over Ocarina of Time which, while still good, hasn't held up as well over the years for people who didn't play it when it came out. Failing that, I think it may very well be impossible not to like A Link to the Past, which is a very, very different game if you've only ever played the 3D Zelda games.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah I love Legend of Zelda since it's a classic tale of a chosen hero to save the day/ Princess. Sure this had been used over and over but it should be a reminder to the new generation (like how some classic Disney films is a must watch).
The game give you a sense of freedom by letting you roan about and dealing the side quest. Also the puzzle in the dungeon are great to tackle and the boss take some thinking on how to defeat as oppose to keep bashing it on the head.

 

[Chocolate Mousse]

I must be the only Nintendo fan to dislike the Zelda games. I dunno. I tried playing them, but they never really clicked with me. Mario, Kirby and Donkey Kong still have a soft spot in my heart 10 years after I've played any of their games. Link? uh... not so much.

 

[Jakub324]

They suck. Between Metroid, Mario and Zelda, Nintendo fanboys have turned Nintendo into the laziest software company out there. Well done.

 

[elcamino41383]

I'm a "meh" person when it comes to Zelda. I've played a little Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, and I played all of Twilight Princess. Though I enjoyed Twilight Princess, the franchise still doesn't really impress me. Always the same story and same idea, which can be good that its not really changing that much but its also fairly boring too. Whenever a new one comes out and people are fussing over it, I just shrug my shoulders and stop paying attention.

 

[MazdaXR]

I love Zelda, mostly nostalgia reasons, hence why i only pick up the console ones and not the handheld ones, because i only ever used to play it on consoles. Zelda has that friendly familiarity that makes it good to play.

Plus it is one of those games now that doesn't dwell in the shades of greay that mos games do. In Zelda the good guys are good, bad guys are bad, good guy beats the bad guy. It is also one of the adventure games that doesn't have a leveling up system, you get better because of the things you have at your disposal not because you killed X number of bad guys.

OoT and MM are still by far my fav, with being able to roll around as a Goron as one of the best moves the Zelda series has made.

 

[aarontg]

I can definitely say I have fond memories of the series. When I was 10-12 me and a group of friends all got a link to the past for GBA so we would always trade strategies during recess. Also I had my first summer to myself without a babysitter and I happened to have gotten twilight princess once it began so I had complete focus for a game that I thought was completely amazing.

 

[Detective Prince]

I love the Zelda games. They are something I carried with me through childhood. As a 7 year old playing Ocarina of Time all the way to now. I almost feel as though I've grown up and so has Link. There is nothing like being hit with Writer's Block at a terrible moment (mid-chapter usually) and just getting up and playing Zelda for a while to help me focus and calm down.

The formula hasn't changed because it hasn't needed to. You know what you're getting with Zelda, brilliant dungeons, a beautiful storyline, an awesome soundtrack and that feeling as though you ARE a legend. XD

Okiie...I'm going to stop now before I waffle anymore. Zelda is my favourite game series, that's all you need to know. XD

 

[Cridhe]

It's a very fun game with a hero that's pretty much integrated in all our gaming hearts since childhood. Plus it provides just the right amount of a false sense of accomplishment (solving a puzzle, acquiring a new item) we as gamers all seek.

 

[Drakmorg]

Meh, the series never really grabbed me. I'm pretty much wholly indifferent to it.
Only game in the series I can remember owning was twilight princess and I gave up out of shear boredom and indifference half-way through the third dungeon.

 

[DoctorPhil]

I like it. I don't love it only because it's so damn easy. It never really occured to me before to play the games with 3 hearts. That raises another problem however, I'll have to keep resetting the game when I happen to get a piece of heart. I wish Nintendo would allow us to not get the hearts if we want.... or give us a hard mode.

 

[samuraiweasel]

Not a nintendo person...or someone who likes grind.....so meh

 

[Sudenak]

So you agree with me then? They are for kids.

How many times can you honestly sit there and play the same boomerang-throwing Aryan...and honestly call it fun?

This, seriously.

Okay, this bothers me. I seriously think this mindset came out when Xbawks realized it could make a lot of money by perpetuating the myth that games for kids are worthless and terrible because they are for kids.

Seriously? All that you ever play is "games for grown-ups"? If it doesn't say M for Mature, you won't even touch it because it's too childish for your mature tastes? What about Pokemon? That's a kids game. Pikmin? Kids game. Luigi's Mansion? Kids game.

And while it's true that you play the same character with similar items, the gameplay mechanics change for every game. If you could seriously look at Majora's Mask and Wind Waker and scream "Exact same kiddie game shit!" at the top of your lungs, then you'd just be a raging idiot.

I bet you hate the Halo series too, right? COD series? Brothers in Arms? MGS? Those are just the same game. Twisted Metal? Same game.

Dismissing new versions because you play the same guy in each one is just as retarded as dismissing it for being a kid's game. I'm sorry, I didn't realize we needed tits and gore in a game in order for it to be fun.

(Yes, I am a fangirl, but I accept people who dislike games I like. I can't accept people who hate them for retarded reasons. Hate it for boring gameplay, or repetition. Don't hate it for having the same protagonist and being "for kids".)

EDIT: Yes, I know you don't play the same guy in each sequel of those other games. The game itself doesn't alter too much from one to the next. I know that we don't like sequels and want nothing but innovation, but I also know that there's no way in hell you are a purist who avoids sequel games. I get the feeling you only agreed with it because your retarded reason for hating the game series needed something less retarded to support it.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I love Wind Waker, but I am indifferent to pretty much every other game in the series. I played Twilight Princess and while I enjoyed it, I just liked the exploration and sailing in Wind Waker more.