I'm a huge Zelda fan and I cannot explain why I'm not offended by the attack on Zelda fans in this video, like so many posters in the first three pages were. I don't know, I guess maybe I just don't self identify with the image of gobbling up anything Zelda related and calling it perfect- this being who I perceived Yahztee to be attacking. I also don't really get the impression Yahztee himself has any genuine fevered distaste for Zelda fans: it is in his interest to stir up some controversy and generate discussion after all. The "insult" in question just feels routine. It's his internet persona, it works, and it's his job to be that internet persona. *shrugs*.
I think the biggest part though, is that while I continue to love Zelda, I do so while ignoring several aspects of the plot I find stupid, and I find myself at odds with other fans of Zelda who have eaten up the Hyrule Historia as gospel truth. It's an afterthought; a retcon. It unifies plots that were not intended nor written to be chronologically linked (a passing reference/homage to previous works is not an anchor from which you can link two stories), and trying to do so is to disrespect the previous works, imo. The Hyrule Historia was an interesting read but it really bothers me that they retconned a bunch of details in and now every Zelda thereafter goes out if its way to reinforce the retcon. Spelling out the whole reincarnation thing is a particularly lazy approach, too. I always enjoyed the concept of the Zeldas as an evolving *Legend*: one story branching into many different variations with each retelling- one single event has been told and retold so many times over the ages that many variations evolved in parallel and have grown to reference each other. I like to imagine that, as I play each Zelda, the "Legend of Zelda" is a bona fide legend within the context of the world you're in and you discover that there is some truth to the legend, but you never find anything as droll as the specific number of times the legend repeated itself and the exact order everything happened in so that any shred of mystery is smothered to death. The end of Skyward Sword really hammered home that every single story is linked by reincarnation and that these exact events are doomed to repeat themselves forever.. I just found this to be really fan servicey and it completely undermined any mysterious "Legend"-ary feel Zelda once had. No actual Legend (Zelda included) holds up to undue scrutiny and it's far better enjoyed without connecting every single dot. I've been told that I'm not a "real Zelda fan" because of this statement before. So yeah, I agree with Yahztee; screw Zelda fans!
/rant
I played a Dynasty Warriors once, 10 years ago, for 30 minutes. I really enjoyed it. Never got into it again because quite frankly I was overwhelmed with the number of released games in the series and didn't want to buy 6 different copies until I found the one that suited me best.
Then along came Hyrule Warriors: problem solved. It's... entertaining enough to play to completion. I find the combos to be incredibly dull: you press B a few times, then you press Y a few times (in the layout I settled on). In that exact order. Every time. Can you press B, then Y? Yes? You now know every combo for every character in Hyrule Warriors. I've never appreciated before how much work must go into varying the combos for other games so they *don't* get boring. Sure, you unlock extra attacks that happen when you press B*(x), then Y*(z), but the system is so fantastically simple and there's NO specific timing to any of the presses you have to master, which means by the end of the first level you're a master of the combat system and the gameplay hardly evolves.
In say, lollipop chainsaw, you have enough combos that involve many different sequences of THREE buttons (gasp!), a few of which require specific timing to complete. That's an entire game's worth of learning: by the end of the game you could still be finding new things out about the combat system or perfecting your execution of a few moves.
To be fair though, Lollipop Chainsaw has one character with one weapon: so I guess it makes sense that with the many different characters each with at least two weapon types each in Hyrule Warriors, they've probably got their job cut out for them in choreographing all the move sets and balancing them too. Also, there are *some* subtle things to learn as you play Hyrule Warriors: Lana jumping on one of the pillars she made causes it to explode, something I can't figure out causes Zelda to nock an arrow as a part of a combo (and Zelda's arrow system in general takes some learning), etc.
While I do criticize the combos as being boring, they have the strange property of not getting so boring that I wanted to stop playing. I was definitely not having as much fun as I could have been having with a more involved combat system, but as I said earlier I easily played it all the way through. It's just easy entertainment I guess- you keep playing because you get a specific amount of satisfaction from it, small but reliably constant, and never frustration. It's like if you had the choice to watch a show you've never seen before, or watch a rerun of something you find mildly entertaining. I'll waste a half hour watching a rerun, with characters I know, over a show I've never heard of before. Hyrule Warriors is that rerun. You know the characters, you know the basic plot, if you've got time with nothing else to do it's there as a cheap source of entertainment. And you know what? That's not a bad thing to be. I know I don't have the emotional capacity to play groundbreaking, award winning epic masterpieces 24/7. Sometimes I just need to zone out.
The plot is hilariously bad as Yahztee mentioned, and I feel he rather understated how (unintentionally?) silly it is. I mean, instead of fending off the evil army, apparently all Hyrulian forces were trying to find Zelda (who, as it turns out, disappeared for absolutely no reason). Then Sheik shows up and accompanies you as you continue to take the entire army across the country to look for Zelda........ I'm sorry but perhaps the army should be doing other things, like reclaiming strategic positions, and a small task force could be looking for Zelda. Diverting your entire army AND THEN CONTINUING TO ALLOW, NAY, ENCOURAGING THIS INCREDIBLE WASTE OF.... heh, I'll spare you another rant.
