Nintendo Not Satisfied Until It Tops Ocarina Of Time
Well, I can't actually speak for all of Nintendo, but Zelda series director Eiji Aonuma at least isn't satisfied to rest on his laurels. To celebrate the tenth anniversary since Ocarina of Time's release, Nintendo Power did an interview with Aonuma looking back at the classic and also looking forward at the future of the series and the not-so-secret Zelda game currently in development.
I'm happy that a title I worked on some time ago remains highly praised to this day, but that also shows how none of the subsequent games in the series have surpassed it. As someone who is still working on the series, I have mixed feelings about that. Because I haven't yet surpassed it, I can't quit. Surprisingly, that simply motivation may be the reason I continue to work on the Zelda series.
Do I sense a bit of a rivalry going on over at Nintendo? After all, Shigeru Miyamoto was the director for Ocarina of Time with Aonuma taking over directing duties starting with Majora's Mask. Sounds like a classic case of the disciple wanting to surpass their master to me. And I hope he pulls it off, because a Zelda game that can beat Ocarina of Time would be an amazing game.
As a quick aside, has it really been ten years already since Ocarina of Time released? I realize it is now two console generations later, but it still doesn't seem like it's been that long. Maybe it's because we haven't seen the same monumental shift in games since then like we did with the shift from 2D to 3D. There have been subtle shifts, like online gaming and HD graphics, but nothing that fundametally changes the way games are designed like the 3D shift did.
As for Zelda, though my opinion may be a little controversial, I have a suggestion for Aonuma on how to make a Zelda game to beat Ocarina of Time. He simply needs to play two games: Beyond Good & Evil and Okami. Those are the two games, in my opinion, that have managed to out-Zelda Zelda (yes, I used Zelda as a verb there). They capture the immersion in the world, puzzles, and dungeons that the Zelda series is known for, and then ups the ante. Beyond Good & Evil did so by crafting a story that was both epic and driven by character emotion rather than simply a need to save the world. Okami did so by seamlessly merging dungeons, towns, and the overworld so that the overall pace and flow of the game was more natural than a sequential town-dungeon-overworld rinse and repeat formula. If Aonuma can combine Beyond Good & Evil's personality and storytelling with Okami's pace and then bring it all into the masterful world of Hyrule with the characters and locations we all know and love, it will surely be a game to top Ocarina of Time.
Test of Time [Nintendo Power]
[via Kotaku]
NaviFairy
Posted to Video Games on 26 November 2008
· Comments (7)
Other stuff like this: Eiji Aonuma, Nintendo, ocarina of time, Zelda
Unfortunately Link is a silent hero, so having the great storytelling of Beyond Good and Evil sounds like a difficult if not impossible task.
I think they need to reinvent the series. It is pretty much the height of what they can ever achieve for what it is now. But, when is a Zelda game not a Zelda game? Is Fallout 3 still a Fallout game? or a game in a fallout universe?
I wasn't that impress with Beyond Good and Evil, but you are right in that it had great storytelling interweaved into the game. Are we playing a character called Link? or are we Link?
I realize that Link can't and shouldn't talk, but you can still have a great emotional story with a silent protagonist. Half-Life 2? Bioshock? Ok, those are first-person games so it's a little different, but there are others. Okami I mentioned for the pacing, but it also had a great story, and the wolf never said a word. I think a great emotional story can still be put in without Link needing to talk.
I've been parsing a lot about what they should do to help inject new life into the Zelda franchise. The problem Nintendo has is that the Zelda format, polished to an even finer grain with each iteration, is, I think, the best in all of gaming. "If it 'aint broke...," right? Problem is, with Ocarina, Nintendo nailed it and the Zelda formula reached it apotheosis. Majora's Mask was an interesting departure but left many, including myself to a certain extent, cold. Twilight Princess (and to a lesser degree The Wind Waker) was an incredible game but one that essentially copied the Ocarina formula but with a plot more unwieldy than Ocarina's concise and definitive one. Nintendo hasn't been able to eclipse Ocarina because the delight of playing a superbly nuanced, narratively compelling, and graphically thrilling 3-D Zelda game for the first time can not be duplicated. So what can they do? Perhaps nothing short of a technological revolution can truly re-energize the series but here are a few ideas:
1. Take a cue from the very first Zelda game and loosen up the sequence of events in the main quest. One could play certain levels of out of "order" in the original Zelda but, as the games have gotten more advanced the order of events is all but predetermined. Unless one diverts themselves with side quests, there has only been one way to play and win a Zelda game from N64 on. This also means loosening up on the barriers to exploration before you have achieved certain "markers" in the story. While all the Zelda games stop you from reaching certain areas before you have accomplished certain tasks or gained needed items, the original Zelda had the vast majority of the overworld available to the player from the outset, with little in-game explication telling you where to go. Hours spent canvassing Hyrule trying to find the next dungeon was partially what was so engrossing about the original experience. So many of the secrets in that original game were truly hidden from view, discoverable only by tirelessly bombing every rock or burning every bush.
2. Use the WiiMote to it's maximum advantage, taking full-use of it's new plug-in, available with Wii Sports2. The increased sensitivity and functionality should make swordplay in the new game a skill to be mastered. Hacking away with the WiiMote in Twilight Princess was delightful, learning how to use it with nuance and skill in the next Zelda should be even more rewarding.
3. Though Link can stay mute, opening up the dialogue to actual spoken words is an obvious next step. But even more important than that...
4. Orchestral Music! The Zelda series has always had the best music in Video Games and it's due time that Zelda get the orchestra it deserves. The days of Midi are over.
5. Surprise us with how the plot and gameplay work together. Zelda games will always be re-makes of themselves to a certain extent but, ever since the leviathan plot of Ocarina had the last word in Zelda stories the newer games feel somehow less epic. The way to fix this is to be less concerned with what happens (though that is always important) but rather HOW it happens. The suggestion by "Test of Time" in his post to blur the line between dungeon and overworld is a good one. The "discover needed talisman (or trifore piece or whatever)" formula has gotten, if not exactly stale, predictable. Suprise us.
6. Make Zelda hard again. Replay the original two in the series and be astounded by their difficultly. This has become a problem with video games in general and Zelda is not immune. It should require real skill to vanquish a room full of enemies in the upper levels of the game. Perhaps that is why the bonus "cave of ordeals" in Twilight Princess was one of my favorite parts of the game. It actually tested one's skill and stamina. I pine for the days when the Wizzrobes would swarm around me and kick my ass...over and over again.
7. Have link come out of the closet...okay, in my dreams.
Perhaps Aonuma is on a fool's errand in his quest to surpass Ocarina but some of the changes I mentioned above, or even more radical departures, would have to be considered if he wants to even stand a chance. Sorry this went on for so long; Zelda makes me a little hot and bothered.
Ugh. Beyond Good and Evil is so incredibly overrated. I mean it's decent, but "out-Zeldas Zelda"? Come on.
Okami comes close but totally falls apart at the end, which is anticlimactic and redundant. And there's no perfect version, the Wii nails the painting part, but using motion control for attacks gets tedious.
Here's an idea for Zelda: a 2D game!! Like Zelda II, which as we all know was the best title in the series!
Actually I don't mind Zelda II, and while I love Ocarina, I think if people go back and play it today, they might realize it's great but not vastly superior to Twilight Princess.
Nostalgia fogs the mind. It makes games like Ocarina seem insurmountably perfect and sacred, rather than just really great, and decent games like Zelda II are unfairly demonized.
It will always seem like Ocarina is the best game ever despite better games that come out after it, so beating it's timeless popularity is pretty much a pointless goal.
If you ask me, they topped Ocarina with Wind Waker AND Twilight Princess, not to mention with Link to the Past.
I find OoT to be one of, if not *the* most overrated games in history, and it's the only one of the "main" Zelda games I never finished because it simply failed to keep me enthralled like Wind Waker and Twilight princess (Gamecube version) did.
Whatever they do (& I've been a Zelda fan from the beginning) I just hope they lose the "Explain every time you get an item even though you've gotten it a thousand times before in the same game". Like every time you get a fairy it tells you how to use the damn thing, EVERY TIME! That has always annoyed me to no end.