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Fun Club What’s the most pretentious first-party Nintendo game?

To answer the thread question: I don't really know what counts as a "pretentious" video game. I guess the best examples I can think of are non-Nintendo, e.g. the already mentioned Bioshock, or any of the shitty David Cage games. But most of the time, when I see people call games pretentious, it seems like they mean "did something I didn't like". Even a game like Other M, which by all accounts is pretty bad, doesn't seem pretentious to me, just misguided or poorly conceived.

I dunno, I guess in general I think pretentious is an unnecessarily unkind descriptor. It's often used in anti-intellectual or anti-cultural way (such as the bizarre discussion here about art museums), and I think is a bit insulting to the people who actually enjoyed the media you're describing. For example, if someone says that Dark Souls is pretentious because of its esoteric and non-standard storytelling, what does that say about people who really vibed with that aspect?
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
Sorry, I'm not a native English speaker and can't understand what this means.
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Ah sorry pal I was just making a silly joke, TP is often used as an acronym for toiler paper.

To give your question a serious answer, I actually think TP is very highly regarded, it's only when you look in certain internet bubbles that apparently it's considered "not good". Fandoms can be fickle. It seems the reasons why are varied but I believe at least part of it was the unskippable cutscenes and hand-holding (which obviously got much worse in Skyward Sword)
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
I'd like to know why the reviews of TP are generally not "very good".
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Probably has to do with one outlet giving the game an 8.8. It was an extremely infamous blow-up back in the day when people perceived the game as being "owed" 9s and 10s. 8.8 was so infamous it was the name of a TV Tropes article at one point.
 
hologram said:
Ah sorry pal I was just making a silly joke, TP is often used as an acronym for toiler paper.

To give your question a serious answer, I actually think TP is very highly regarded, it's only when you look in certain internet bubbles that apparently it's considered "not good". Fandoms can be fickle. It seems the reasons why are varied but I believe at least part of it was the unskippable cutscenes and hand-holding (which obviously got much worse in Skyward Sword)
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Mekanos said:
Probably has to do with one outlet giving the game an 8.8. It was an extremely infamous blow-up back in the day when people perceived the game as being "owed" 9s and 10s. 8.8 was so infamous it was the name of a TV Tropes article at one point.
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I see, I always thought that TP's reputation was mainly caused by the fact that it's essentially just OOT 2.0 without making any substantial innovations.

This is something I later learned after being introduced to TP's development began when The wind walker2, which had been in development for almost a year, was overthrown by Eiji Aonuma himself as he tried to satisfy North American gamers' demands for a realist Zelda.
 
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I looked up the ratings included in metacritic, and it turns out that the one who gave TP an 8.8 was Gamespot, who also gave Skyward Sword a 7 out of 10 rating.
 
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hologram said:
I think assuming a jab at Kojima (who is largely associated with PlayStation) on this forum is "casual bants" and "unserious" is extremely generous
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I often find myself right there alongside folks who groan at weird platform war posts when they pop up, but I didn't even consider Kojima's PlayStation association to be a factor, tbh. He's just a prolific, eccentric, highly regarded video game auteur, so folks tend to have some pretty varied opinions on him that run the whole spectrum. I personally think he's hilarious. His Twitter movie review philosophy is the purest epitome of "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all", and he's so committed to it that it's led to some truly incredible moments.

I also think he kinda does come off as a bit pretentious, though? I'm cool with some thinking I'm bonkers for it. Call it a vibes-based thing, but apparently others also share in that perception. If folks feel like digging deep into whether or not Kojima can truly, fairly, in good faith be called "pretentious", I'll Yeah! a couple of those posts too.

Or maybe this is actually really simple: Fami hates Kojima because he gave Mario a non-review. We'll never know!



 
OctoSplattack said:
What does Evanescence have to do with--

Nintendo_fusion_tour_2003.jpg
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Was worth it to make the thread just for this.

Still choking on my yoghurt.
 
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Pretentious... Had to make sure I had the right term. I'm gonna say that for me, reinventing the wheel when it doesn't necessarily need to be reinvented is one annoyance I have with Nintendo, and it's often to try to push for creativity I feel isn't so... Desirable? In a word? Fucking over star fox's control scheme is a good example, Other M deciding to emphasize a plot that's written terribly to emphasize a character that has next to no originality in this iteration is another...
For me though, the biggest casualty is Zelda, and hearing Aonuma basically saying this is modern Zelda because the other systems are outdated hits me pretty hard. I go to Zelda for tight dungeon designs, getting a new gimmick, and using that new gimmick to unlock the rest of those dungeons. The reason it was formulaic, is because the formulas recurring variables are where game design can shine. What's the theme of the dungeon? Whats the item? What item synergies can be used in these rooms? What's the economy of the dungeon feeling like? (is there puzzle in managing the keys and similar progression based items, or is it mostly based in the platforming and physical threats?)
Creating bite sized versions with less inspired dungeon designs and getting front loaded with abilities is... Lame. For lack of a better word, a hundred mini dungeon trials all sharing strong visual similarities, all with similar minimalistic piano compositions...
I was waiting a long time for it and it feels like though I won't be arguing it's a step 'forward', the positive reception never penetrated my own opinions. I don't think Zelda needed a crafting system, I don't really care about the open world aspect of it, and though it can be as polished, interesting, and full of dynamic moment to moment gameplay as it wants to be, I don't come to Zelda to craft bullshit, and from Aonuma's own decree, looks like I'll be staying gone.
 
Megafan96 said:
Pretentious... Had to make sure I had the right term. I'm gonna say that for me, reinventing the wheel when it doesn't necessarily need to be reinvented is one annoyance I have with Nintendo, and it's often to try to push for creativity I feel isn't so... Desirable? In a word? Fucking over star fox's control scheme is a good example, Other M deciding to emphasize a plot that's written terribly to emphasize a character that has next to no originality in this iteration is another...
For me though, the biggest casualty is Zelda, and hearing Aonuma basically saying this is modern Zelda because the other systems are outdated hits me pretty hard. I go to Zelda for tight dungeon designs, getting a new gimmick, and using that new gimmick to unlock the rest of those dungeons. The reason it was formulaic, is because the formulas recurring variables are where game design can shine. What's the theme of the dungeon? Whats the item? What item synergies can be used in these rooms? What's the economy of the dungeon feeling like? (is there puzzle in managing the keys and similar progression based items, or is it mostly based in the platforming and physical threats?)
Creating bite sized versions with less inspired dungeon designs and getting front loaded with abilities is... Lame. For lack of a better word, a hundred mini dungeon trials all sharing strong visual similarities, all with similar minimalistic piano compositions...
I was waiting a long time for it and it feels like though I won't be arguing it's a step 'forward', the positive reception never penetrated my own opinions. I don't think Zelda needed a crafting system, I don't really care about the open world aspect of it, and though it can be as polished, interesting, and full of dynamic moment to moment gameplay as it wants to be, I don't come to Zelda to craft bullshit, and from Aonuma's own decree, looks like I'll be staying gone.
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The future of The Legend of Zelda belongs to a more free-form adventure experience, and traditional Zelda is completely dead because the current Zelda actually accomplishes the kind of "toy" experience that Shigeru Miyamoto envisioned in the 90s, and I definitely don't want to go back to the past, what I want is for them to do something more ground-breaking and sophisticated within the existing framework, likeI was blown away by the Skyward sword final maze in the old Zelda.

Addendum: I definitely don't believe in any end of history conclusions, and in the same way I don't believe that the future of the Legend of Zelda will always belong to open air, I believe that someday it will see its next complete metamorphosis, but at least we'll see another Legend of Zelda that is a free-adventure experience.(I'm thinking of this because Hidemaro Fujibayashi was already thinking about how the Legend of Zelda would have to evolve once again after open air after BOTW was released.)
 
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Aufhebung RPG said:
The future of The Legend of Zelda belongs to a more free-form adventure experience, and traditional Zelda is completely dead because the current Zelda actually accomplishes the kind of "toy" experience that Shigeru Miyamoto envisioned in the 90s, and I definitely don't want to go back to the past, what I want is for them to do something more ground-breaking and sophisticated within the existing framework, likeI was blown away by the Skyward sword final maze in the old Zelda.
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Not sure I agree ‘traditional Zelda is dead’. 2D Zelda is largely ‘traditional’ and I’m sure we’ll get another one eventually.
 
PixelKnight said:
Not sure I agree ‘traditional Zelda is dead’. 2D Zelda is largely ‘traditional’ and I’m sure we’ll get another one eventually.
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The answer is that I'm not sure if there's still a 2d Legend of Zelda in the works, but even if there is a 2d Legend of Zelda, we have to realize that 2013's The Link to the past2 was completely done with non-linear exploration and maze-raiding sequences, and that even though it's formally a traditional Zelda, it's still going to be tied to the "Freedom”, and assuming there is a new 2d Zelda, my expectation is that they'll have a design breakthrough like Phantom Hourglass.
 
hologram said:
To answer the thread question: I don't really know what counts as a "pretentious" video game. I guess the best examples I can think of are non-Nintendo, e.g. the already mentioned Bioshock, or any of the shitty David Cage games. But most of the time, when I see people call games pretentious, it seems like they mean "did something I didn't like". Even a game like Other M, which by all accounts is pretty bad, doesn't seem pretentious to me, just misguided or poorly conceived.

I dunno, I guess in general I think pretentious is an unnecessarily unkind descriptor. It's often used in anti-intellectual or anti-cultural way (such as the bizarre discussion here about art museums), and I think is a bit insulting to the people who actually enjoyed the media you're describing. For example, if someone says that Dark Souls is pretentious because of its esoteric and non-standard storytelling, what does that say about people who really vibed with that aspect?
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I think it’s often down to both a subjective view of how well it was handled, vs how well it was actually handled.

At the time, Heavy Rain and Bioshock Infinite got rave reviews from the critics, but history hasn’t been kind to them. As the craft of the former is all in a good first impression to ape film noir tropes of the dogged detective, the crime scene and the unreliable narrator, until the wheels come off with the story flow chart and QTEs. And the ‘both sides bad’ philosophy underpinning the latter aged like milk.

Both games tried to do something different, and reviewers bought into it. I don’t think they are pretentious for experimenting with storytelling or narrative structure. That’s a laudable goal in a medium that serves fans of what feels like strict genres at times. I just don’t think they do it very well, which leaves them wide open to being accused of being pretentious, when their flaws are way deeper than that.

On the other hand, I’m no great fan of Naughty Dog’s games, but the level of craft in the storytelling and leaning on cinematics and character on top of rounded game design means that pretentiousness isn’t something that can be thrown at the games. It’s much more subjective. To throw ‘pretentious’ at them is a non-argument as, as you say, it’s an insult to fans who are just as capable of critiquing a game as the accuser, and it’s way too vague when the games are incredibly well made. ‘What exactly do you mean, be more specific’ is the obvious response. And people don’t like doing that when what they want to do is take a quick performative swipe at something popular.

‘Pretentiousness’ is often an argument thrown at a game to accuse it of reaching for something. When really people mean ‘it reached for something and failed in my opinion’. As if it had succeeded, they’d have to be a lot more specific in exactly what they think it got wrong. However, even when criticising the many, many flaws in Cage games and Bioshock Infinite, it’s a lot more interesting to be specific and dig into criticism of the narrative and gameplay structure of the former and grim philosophy of the latter than just to use a vague ‘pretentiousness’ and walk away. Which I think is often cover for the anti-intellectual or anti-cultural stance you mention.
 
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Aufhebung RPG said:
The answer is that I'm not sure if there's still a 2d Legend of Zelda in the works, but even if there is a 2d Legend of Zelda, we have to realize that 2013's The Link to the past2 was completely done with non-linear exploration and maze-raiding sequences, and that even though it's formally a traditional Zelda, it's still going to be tied to the "Freedom”, and assuming there is a new 2d Zelda, my expectation is that they'll have a design breakthrough like Phantom Hourglass.
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Non-linear exploration feels pretty traditional for Zelda to me though, as both LoZ and LTTP had you able to tackle areas and dungeons in all kinds of different orders. The origin of the ‘Zelda randomiser’ in in that there’s dozens of combinations of orders to tackle the key challenges of the latter. Even OOT gives you a choice in the second half, it’s only with LA and TP respectively that you start getting locked into a specific order
 
Yeah, when I hear pretentious I think of a negative connotation where something tries to be deeper and more resonant but doesn’t stick the landing.

With that in mind I can see why some examples in this thread are being brought up. Mario Galaxy punching above a Mario story’s weight with more drama and sad music. Xenoblade with its philosophical musings . Majora’s Mask being more dark and “deep” than other Zeldas. But honestly… all of those stick the landing for me and I feel like I came away feeling what they wanted me to. so it’s hard for me to call them pretentious.

So I’m gonna have to go with the boring, most common answer - Other M. You can tell the internal monologues, shoehorned plot twists and mother/baby symbolism that they really shot for a “prestigious video game story” but yeah, it all landed like a wet fart.
 
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PixelKnight said:
Non-linear exploration feels pretty traditional for Zelda to me though, as both LoZ and LTTP had you able to tackle areas and dungeons in all kinds of different orders. The origin of the ‘Zelda randomiser’ in in that there’s dozens of combinations of orders to tackle the key challenges of the latter. Even OOT gives you a choice in the second half, it’s only with LA and TP respectively that you start getting locked into a specific order
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I've got a foggy memory, is The wind waker non-linear?
 
Prophet64 said:
Not necessarily the worst thing in the world. I just felt the quirky stuff in it doesn't come from a very sincere or inspired place. Just felt there to differentiate itself from the rest of the series but I didn't find that interesting personally.

I did enjoy my play through of the remake though even if I didn't care for the Gameboy version.

As far as another game goes, even if it goes a little outside Nintendo created would be everything original in Super Mario RPG. I just imagine Nintendo laughing behind Square's back at what Square thinks fits into the Mario universe. Awful character designs.
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I don’t think ‘chose a differentiating factor in some character designs I don’t like’ is really pretentiousness. It’s just ‘took a creative decision I didn’t like’.

There’s loads of Zelda characters I’m not a fan of across the series (Tingle, and Oocca’s straight up disturbing design in TP spring to mind), but I wouldn’t say any of that is pretentious either. It’s just creative decisions that miss what I (subjectively) think Zelda is, in a series where part of its charm is dropping in quirky characters and scenes and quests all the time. They aren’t all gonna be hits with everyone across millions of players, and there’s gonna be loads of players who think it’s perfectly OK.
 
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Aufhebung RPG said:
I've got a foggy memory, is The wind waker non-linear?
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It's not except for the Triforce Quest. Only a few islands require the items from the Earth and Wind Temples to explore though, so apart from the last three dungeons you can pretty much go wherever you please after getting the Master Sword.
 
Pokemon Sword and Pokémon Shield is the most pretentious Nintendo game because it's sold as some enjoyable fun for all ages, but there's a low poly tree in it so it's actually depressing trash for no one.

I'm so lost with this thread.
 
I feel like this thread could have taken a more fun direction, but people can't resist using topics like this as an opportunity to just shit on stuff they think is overrated.

Anyway, the most pretentious Nintendo game is Nintendo Labo. They made it seem like I would learn how to build a giant mech robot, but all I got for my efforts was a storage box full of cardboard. And the DMV wouldn't accept my 100% save file on vehicle kit as proof I knew how to drive.... (I actually did really enjoy the vehicle kit tho)
 
Megafan96 said:
Pretentious... Had to make sure I had the right term. I'm gonna say that for me, reinventing the wheel when it doesn't necessarily need to be reinvented is one annoyance I have with Nintendo, and it's often to try to push for creativity I feel isn't so... Desirable? In a word? Fucking over star fox's control scheme is a good example, Other M deciding to emphasize a plot that's written terribly to emphasize a character that has next to no originality in this iteration is another...
For me though, the biggest casualty is Zelda, and hearing Aonuma basically saying this is modern Zelda because the other systems are outdated hits me pretty hard. I go to Zelda for tight dungeon designs, getting a new gimmick, and using that new gimmick to unlock the rest of those dungeons. The reason it was formulaic, is because the formulas recurring variables are where game design can shine. What's the theme of the dungeon? Whats the item? What item synergies can be used in these rooms? What's the economy of the dungeon feeling like? (is there puzzle in managing the keys and similar progression based items, or is it mostly based in the platforming and physical threats?)
Creating bite sized versions with less inspired dungeon designs and getting front loaded with abilities is... Lame. For lack of a better word, a hundred mini dungeon trials all sharing strong visual similarities, all with similar minimalistic piano compositions...
I was waiting a long time for it and it feels like though I won't be arguing it's a step 'forward', the positive reception never penetrated my own opinions. I don't think Zelda needed a crafting system, I don't really care about the open world aspect of it, and though it can be as polished, interesting, and full of dynamic moment to moment gameplay as it wants to be, I don't come to Zelda to craft bullshit, and from Aonuma's own decree, looks like I'll be staying gone.
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That's not really being pretentious in the first place, but it seems silly to suggest a creator can't feel exhausted with a style of game they've made for years and express how rejuvenated they feel when they pursue a new direction that finds success.
 
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There is nothing in BotW/TotK that doesn't have its roots in an early Zelda game, it takes those nascent game mechanics to an extreme. Ultrahand is the 'spatial manipulation item/song' of classic games turned into a traversal mechanic and puzzle solving tool. Fusing items together has been in Zelda as early as Link's Awakening with Bomb Arrows, and that was originally an idea intended for Link to the Past. It returned in Twilight Princess and took full form in TotK. The caves and wells in the overworld are reminiscent of the original Zelda, LttP, and TP. And so on. I could write an essay about how TotK felt very classic Zelda, as someone who has played all of them since I was 9 years old.

I understand the preference for older Zelda games, I really do. But there is a pervasive feeling that the latest games are treated more like sandbox toys with zero level design instead of the carefully designed open-world experiences with narrative setpieces they are. I've played so many open-world games, and many games with 'crafting systems', and none of them scratch the Zelda itch like BotW / TotK.

The classic vs. modern (which is a fairly dubious split to begin with, considering how varied the classic games are, and how even between BotW / TotK there are numerous structural differences) Zelda 'debate' is already exhausting without needing to bring any idea of 'pretentiousness' to it. There is an undercurrent of 'Zelda is dead' and 'true Zelda fans prefer the pre-BotW games' which is annoying to read and listen to especially when you've been playing Zelda for nearly two decades and love pretty much all of them.
 
Is Mother 3 a candidate since not only does it try to teach life lessons, but it also has the gall to not have endless sequels? Not to mention being “too good” for outside of Japan. Itoi and Kojima seem to be on a similar level, they both like I Spy.
 
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Stilt Village said:
Oh yeah, it's got to be Other M. So much poorly-executed symbolism and cinematic ambition.

Super Mario Galaxy, the first one, is probably also up there? The contrast between it having functionally the exact same plot as every other Mario game but being presented with such incredible pomp and circumstance is amazing. It's simultaneously a Mario game and not actually trying very hard to be anything else, and also after the final boss fight there's an elaborate 5 minute sequence in which Bowser stumbles to his knees and mourns his fallen empire from a dying star, and Mario witnesses the death and rebirth of the universe as explained to him by a giant woman while the sounds of babies crying echoes through the void.
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Given the qualification that something pretentious must:

affect greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed

I'd argue Galaxy is fine. It absolutely has the culture, importance and talent that it shows. Overmodesty is itself immodest, something I didn't like about Galaxy 2. :^)
 
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Aufhebung RPG said:
The future of The Legend of Zelda belongs to a more free-form adventure experience, and traditional Zelda is completely dead because the current Zelda actually accomplishes the kind of "toy" experience that Shigeru Miyamoto envisioned in the 90s, and I definitely don't want to go back to the past, what I want is for them to do something more ground-breaking and sophisticated within the existing framework, likeI was blown away by the Skyward sword final maze in the old Zelda.

Addendum: I definitely don't believe in any end of history conclusions, and in the same way I don't believe that the future of the Legend of Zelda will always belong to open air, I believe that someday it will see its next complete metamorphosis, but at least we'll see another Legend of Zelda that is a free-adventure experience.(I'm thinking of this because Hidemaro Fujibayashi was already thinking about how the Legend of Zelda would have to evolve once again after open air after BOTW was released.)
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I don't believe in any End-Of-History conclusions either- However, as I've said- For as long as this specific style stays, I don't really care for it. I hope it evolves in a way that prioritizes tighter design again, as the direction we moved towards in ToTK at least had dungeons I could get excited about facing.
Hailinel said:
That's not really being pretentious in the first place, but it seems silly to suggest a creator can't feel exhausted with a style of game they've made for years and express how rejuvenated they feel when they pursue a new direction that finds success.
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Direct quote from Aonuma:
"Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you're more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?"
I do not disagree with your sentiment-It WOULD be silly to suggest Aonuma can't feel exhausted with a style of game he's made for years and I'm happy he found rejuvenation towards a different way to represent it. I can take issue with how he portrayed those ideas- I can criticize him making choices that shake up the formula just for the interest of shaking up the formula. Evolution for 'Evolution's Sake' is the cornerstone of pretentiousness as far as I'm concerned- Things chosen because they'd evoke something much more grand than what they're serving you. This itself is going to be a point of contention- I'm not going to tell you or anyone else who care for BoTW that the fun they derive is lesser, or that it isn't 'Zelda' or 'What Zelda Can Be'. But it is not why I come to the console to play Zelda. The very things Aonuma dismissively referred to as 'Restricting' or 'Limiting', evoke a grander sense of purpose and adventure that I've associated with Zelda. I view every choice as more deliberate than being left to my own devices through the nature of Adventure Game VS Open World Adventure Game.
You can agree with the quote. I view it as pretentious since it's essentially trying to place so much emphasis on nostalgia, dismissing any reverence someone has for the legacy of the series. It's what adds to the pretentious air about the newer Zelda titles.
This is even something Aonuma himself struggles with in the same interview, admitting the reception towards the previous dungeons impacted the more deliberate design of the ToTK dungeons. He, himself, heard this criticism and realized in his pursuits to avoid the established pretenses of what a Dungeon in Zelda is, he's created something lesser. He tried to think outside the box, and the result was something he went back on.
To be clear, I'm not saying 'Don't think outside the box, it's bad for you' I'm saying "Keep in mind what it is people liked about your series, that other game series have had to rip off over time".
Serif said:
There is nothing in BotW/TotK that doesn't have its roots in an early Zelda game, it takes those nascent game mechanics to an extreme. Ultrahand is the 'spatial manipulation item/song' of classic games turned into a traversal mechanic and puzzle solving tool. Fusing items together has been in Zelda as early as Link's Awakening with Bomb Arrows, and that was originally an idea intended for Link to the Past. It returned in Twilight Princess and took full form in TotK. The caves and wells in the overworld are reminiscent of the original Zelda, LttP, and TP. And so on. I could write an essay about how TotK felt very classic Zelda, as someone who has played all of them since I was 9 years old.

I understand the preference for older Zelda games, I really do. But there is a pervasive feeling that the latest games are treated more like sandbox toys with zero level design instead of the carefully designed open-world experiences with narrative setpieces they are. I've played so many open-world games, and many games with 'crafting systems', and none of them scratch the Zelda itch like BotW / TotK.

The classic vs. modern (which is a fairly dubious split to begin with, considering how varied the classic games are, and how even between BotW / TotK there are numerous structural differences) Zelda 'debate' is already exhausting without needing to bring any idea of 'pretentiousness' to it. There is an undercurrent of 'Zelda is dead' and 'true Zelda fans prefer the pre-BotW games' which is annoying to read and listen to especially when you've been playing Zelda for nearly two decades and love pretty much all of them.
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This is a statement I had to read, like, 7 times?
Yes, there is a difference though, there are a lot of systematic changes that completely rework how you have to approach things. You can insist there's 'Nascent Mechanics' but if they involve something as simple as bomb arrows in comparison to a full on crafting mechanic that requires you to forage for items, I can't jump that gap. That's like saying that there's hints of Minecraft in the original Resident Evil titles.
There's tiny little challenges, as there have been, sure. That is one thing I'll certainly say I undercut in the interest of staying concise in my post. Those opportunities often provided the exact same style of benefit, similar notes of challenge, and you certainly didn't need anywhere close to all of them in order to get things resolved. I see you. My issue with these, is that within BoTW especially, the dungeons felt trimmed for parts to fuel these comparatively uninteresting, less thematically purposeful trials.
Here's where I take issue, big time.
I am not trying to insist these are sandbox toys with zero level design. I am not trying to downplay the narrative setpieces [Though, I will say I'll always take a story I can involve myself with directly over narrative set pieces, but strong narrative direction is also not what I come to Zelda for] There is only so much careful design you can put into an open world, where you let your player make their own fun. That is not what I, myself, come to Zelda for. I have also played many Open-World Games, and games with 'Crafting Systems', and while we're at the table, I've been playing Zelda since I saw MM in a Funcoland circa 2000. I have no issues with the crafting elements present in BoTW/ToTK. I wish it wasn't there, but it behaves as it should, and has creative elements I really enjoy. I think being able to make food to survive extreme temperatures is inherently cool as hell. I don't even think they should NEVER be in a Zelda Game. I can see this mechanic definitely working, as Zelda has placed emphasis on consumables for literal years. I just don't come to Zelda for it as a core mechanic, tied together with a weapon system I dislike, combat that doesn't really mesh with me, and with a developer who only thinks the reason I'm taking issue with these directions is because I'm nostalgic. I think it suffers from a 'Too Much Too Soon' element. I think that trying to place a greater emphasis on side quests, or helping slowly put Hyrule back together similar to games like Terranigma, or Drawn to Life, could have had a lot of really grand opportunities. But, instead, what we got felt underbaked to me.

Also, Side note, funny thing that no one has said much on the minimistic music design. This post is long enough as is, but the usual instrumentation and bombastic, sweeping melodies being swapped for piano and strings... That absolutely reads to me as a pretentious move, which I'm also extremely thankful was walked back in the sequel.

I feel you tried to play my own narrative into a larger Zelda war I guarantee you I have absolutely no dog in. I think ToTK was a better step towards something I like, and I think BoTW was 3 steps removed from an experience I'd rather have. This is literally, the first time I've shared my opinions about this game outside of my circles of friends, and I'd really rather have this be the end of it. 'Not being for me' and 'The Developer choosing to evolve the game in a way I don't personally like', or 'evokes what I came to the series for' are sentiments quite different from "Zelda is Dead" and "True Fans prefer Older Games".

If you're annoyed by the opinions I hold, you're more than welcome to engage with them as little as you please.
 
If Dennis Dyack was still at a Nintendo subsidiary, this thread would have had pages of the same answers…

Does XboxERA have a thread like this but with a post-Bullfrog Peter Molyneux as every post?
 
Megafan96 said:
I don't believe in any End-Of-History conclusions either- However, as I've said- For as long as this specific style stays, I don't really care for it. I hope it evolves in a way that prioritizes tighter design again, as the direction we moved towards in ToTK at least had dungeons I could get excited about facing.

Direct quote from Aonuma:
"Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you're more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?"
I do not disagree with your sentiment-It WOULD be silly to suggest Aonuma can't feel exhausted with a style of game he's made for years and I'm happy he found rejuvenation towards a different way to represent it. I can take issue with how he portrayed those ideas- I can criticize him making choices that shake up the formula just for the interest of shaking up the formula. Evolution for 'Evolution's Sake' is the cornerstone of pretentiousness as far as I'm concerned- Things chosen because they'd evoke something much more grand than what they're serving you. This itself is going to be a point of contention- I'm not going to tell you or anyone else who care for BoTW that the fun they derive is lesser, or that it isn't 'Zelda' or 'What Zelda Can Be'. But it is not why I come to the console to play Zelda. The very things Aonuma dismissively referred to as 'Restricting' or 'Limiting', evoke a grander sense of purpose and adventure that I've associated with Zelda. I view every choice as more deliberate than being left to my own devices through the nature of Adventure Game VS Open World Adventure Game.
You can agree with the quote. I view it as pretentious since it's essentially trying to place so much emphasis on nostalgia, dismissing any reverence someone has for the legacy of the series. It's what adds to the pretentious air about the newer Zelda titles.
This is even something Aonuma himself struggles with in the same interview, admitting the reception towards the previous dungeons impacted the more deliberate design of the ToTK dungeons. He, himself, heard this criticism and realized in his pursuits to avoid the established pretenses of what a Dungeon in Zelda is, he's created something lesser. He tried to think outside the box, and the result was something he went back on.
To be clear, I'm not saying 'Don't think outside the box, it's bad for you' I'm saying "Keep in mind what it is people liked about your series, that other game series have had to rip off over time".

This is a statement I had to read, like, 7 times?
Yes, there is a difference though, there are a lot of systematic changes that completely rework how you have to approach things. You can insist there's 'Nascent Mechanics' but if they involve something as simple as bomb arrows in comparison to a full on crafting mechanic that requires you to forage for items, I can't jump that gap. That's like saying that there's hints of Minecraft in the original Resident Evil titles.
There's tiny little challenges, as there have been, sure. That is one thing I'll certainly say I undercut in the interest of staying concise in my post. Those opportunities often provided the exact same style of benefit, similar notes of challenge, and you certainly didn't need anywhere close to all of them in order to get things resolved. I see you. My issue with these, is that within BoTW especially, the dungeons felt trimmed for parts to fuel these comparatively uninteresting, less thematically purposeful trials.
Here's where I take issue, big time.
I am not trying to insist these are sandbox toys with zero level design. I am not trying to downplay the narrative setpieces [Though, I will say I'll always take a story I can involve myself with directly over narrative set pieces, but strong narrative direction is also not what I come to Zelda for] There is only so much careful design you can put into an open world, where you let your player make their own fun. That is not what I, myself, come to Zelda for. I have also played many Open-World Games, and games with 'Crafting Systems', and while we're at the table, I've been playing Zelda since I saw MM in a Funcoland circa 2000. I have no issues with the crafting elements present in BoTW/ToTK. I wish it wasn't there, but it behaves as it should, and has creative elements I really enjoy. I think being able to make food to survive extreme temperatures is inherently cool as hell. I don't even think they should NEVER be in a Zelda Game. I can see this mechanic definitely working, as Zelda has placed emphasis on consumables for literal years. I just don't come to Zelda for it as a core mechanic, tied together with a weapon system I dislike, combat that doesn't really mesh with me, and with a developer who only thinks the reason I'm taking issue with these directions is because I'm nostalgic. I think it suffers from a 'Too Much Too Soon' element. I think that trying to place a greater emphasis on side quests, or helping slowly put Hyrule back together similar to games like Terranigma, or Drawn to Life, could have had a lot of really grand opportunities. But, instead, what we got felt underbaked to me.

Also, Side note, funny thing that no one has said much on the minimistic music design. This post is long enough as is, but the usual instrumentation and bombastic, sweeping melodies being swapped for piano and strings... That absolutely reads to me as a pretentious move, which I'm also extremely thankful was walked back in the sequel.

I feel you tried to play my own narrative into a larger Zelda war I guarantee you I have absolutely no dog in. I think ToTK was a better step towards something I like, and I think BoTW was 3 steps removed from an experience I'd rather have. This is literally, the first time I've shared my opinions about this game outside of my circles of friends, and I'd really rather have this be the end of it. 'Not being for me' and 'The Developer choosing to evolve the game in a way I don't personally like', or 'evokes what I came to the series for' are sentiments quite different from "Zelda is Dead" and "True Fans prefer Older Games".

If you're annoyed by the opinions I hold, you're more than welcome to engage with them as little as you please.
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I'm a lot more radical than you, I'm not happy with totk's puzzle design not because I want to go back to traditional zelda dungeons, on the contrary I think they didn't do a thorough job on both "free adventure" and "thinking outside the box", they should have tried to build a whole series of puzzles that fit both ideas and were more interesting. Given that open air is the main form of Zelda nowadays, what I'd like to see is that they should do away with the shrines and create an invisible "network of relationships" out of small scattered puzzles, where it's up to the player to decide how to shape the relationship network.That's what I want them to do, I don't want to go back to the more traditional dungeon mode, where the first and second playthroughs are fresh, and the third playthroughs have a distinctly repetitive and process-oriented feel to them.Shigeru Miyamoto's vision of Zelda "toys" in the 90's I don't think in any way points to the previous 3d Zelda's of botw, they were a product of a compromised era.
 
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Other M would have been fine if it was fun. The story was dumb but so was Metroid Fusion, but it didn’t matter because Fusion was fun.

So I’ll say Other M and Fusion. Both had try-hard stories that were completely unnecessary.
 
Justin_Bailey said:
Other M would have been fine if it was fun. The story was dumb but so was Metroid Fusion, but it didn’t matter because Fusion was fun.

So I’ll say Other M and Fusion. Both had try-hard stories that were completely unnecessary.
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Fusion's story rules
 
It is the Last Story.

2410925-thelaststorycoverartclean.jpg


The cover has it all all.

TITLE IS SYNONYM WITH FINAL FANTASY

GAME MADE BY THE CREATOR OF FINAL FANTASY

MUSIC MADE BY THE COMPOSER OF FINAL FANTASY

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BUY NOT-FINAL FANTASY

But seriously, the game was very decent and had interesting gameplay ideas, but I would be lying if I said the whole selling point wasn't "This is made by the important FF people, so it must be as good as FF".
 
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Megafan96 said:
Direct quote from Aonuma:
"Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you're more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?"
I do not disagree with your sentiment-It WOULD be silly to suggest Aonuma can't feel exhausted with a style of game he's made for years and I'm happy he found rejuvenation towards a different way to represent it. I can take issue with how he portrayed those ideas- I can criticize him making choices that shake up the formula just for the interest of shaking up the formula. Evolution for 'Evolution's Sake' is the cornerstone of pretentiousness as far as I'm concerned- Things chosen because they'd evoke something much more grand than what they're serving you. This itself is going to be a point of contention- I'm not going to tell you or anyone else who care for BoTW that the fun they derive is lesser, or that it isn't 'Zelda' or 'What Zelda Can Be'. But it is not why I come to the console to play Zelda. The very things Aonuma dismissively referred to as 'Restricting' or 'Limiting', evoke a grander sense of purpose and adventure that I've associated with Zelda. I view every choice as more deliberate than being left to my own devices through the nature of Adventure Game VS Open World Adventure Game.
You can agree with the quote. I view it as pretentious since it's essentially trying to place so much emphasis on nostalgia, dismissing any reverence someone has for the legacy of the series. It's what adds to the pretentious air about the newer Zelda titles.
This is even something Aonuma himself struggles with in the same interview, admitting the reception towards the previous dungeons impacted the more deliberate design of the ToTK dungeons. He, himself, heard this criticism and realized in his pursuits to avoid the established pretenses of what a Dungeon in Zelda is, he's created something lesser. He tried to think outside the box, and the result was something he went back on.
To be clear, I'm not saying 'Don't think outside the box, it's bad for you' I'm saying "Keep in mind what it is people liked about your series, that other game series have had to rip off over time".
Click to expand...
I'm not going to respond to every single point in that Russian novel of a post, but it's important to understand that is not Aonuma's actual quote. That is a translation of his quote, and to take the words at face value as spoken with the tone of an English-speaker is the sort of thing that often leads to miscommunication and misunderstandings, especially in a case like this where the translation may not (and I'd say likely doesn't) carry the tone and intent of Aonuma's actual statement. He is not saying "nostalgia is bad" or that "the older games are bad".

And he's not struggling in the interview. They included dungeons in Tears of the Kingdom in part because of feedback on Breath of the Wild. Also, the TotK dungeons don't clash with the open air design of the game. They're not the old 'lock and key" dungeons that demand you find whatever subweapon is in the dungeons big chest to solve the dungeons specific puzzles and defeat that dungeons specific boss.

Aonuma is perfectly cognizant about what people like about Zelda. But he's not bound to some mandate that he serve fans games that follow some strict design template that just happens to check those boxes.
 
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