PixlBit

In the land of Hyrule, there's a tale about a boy who became a hero...

Back then I talked about reposting some of my older blogs from 1up for a new audience and with E3 right around the corner, I thought this 1up Classic might be the best choice. Plus with the rumored Zelda Wii U title known as Shard of Nightmare to be shown, the timing felt perfect. It's the same blog I posted nearly 2 years ago but I touched it up a bit with some new things added. Here is the original. So let's go back to the past in our time traveling DeLorean...

Today I wanted to talk about Zelda, more especifically what I want to see in the next one. I liked Skyward Sword, it's a good Zelda game but not a great one and I don't think it was worthy of the hype it got. Yes I know it brought some new and interesting things to the mix like the 1:1 motion combat, upgradeable items and whatnot. But it just didn't have the quality I expect from a Zelda game. When I play a Nintendo game like Zelda, I expect it to have that quality, or polish I expect from Nintendo's games. So it was a good Zelda game, it just didn't have the quality to be a great Zelda game.

And no I'm not trolling the game, why would I be trolling the game? I'm probably 1up's/Pixlbit's biggest Nintendo fanboy here, why would I troll one of the game franchises I love? All I'm saying that it could of been better. And that it was more about fanservice like saying that it was the first game in the timeline and the references. I wont mention the story or when the game should take place because Nintendo makes the gameplay first then they decide on the story. Well here are the things I want to see in the next Zelda game:

 

An actual Overworld to Explore

 

One of the things that was missing in Skyward Sword was an overworld to explore. And before you tell me that below Skyloft was the overworld. That wasn't an overworld, those were just linear levels leading to the dungeons. And the Sky doesn't count. I loved the way the levels were linear and had enough secrets to justify that but it still wasn't an overworld. Isn't the point of Zelda games is you know, exploring a huge overworld other than exploring dungeons underground? Twilight Princess had a huge overworld, bigger than Ocarina of Time's overworld but there are 2 differences between them.

Twilight Princess may have had a huge overworld but it just didn't have enough secrets to find and places to explore to justify that. OoT on the otherhand was much smaller compared to TP but it was just the right size for the secrets and exploration you had, thus justifying it's size. Windwaker on the other hand had a much bigger overworld than Twilight Princess, but it had a ton of secrets for it's sheer size. Each Island had it's own secret or secrets to find and we're not counting Hyrule below the sea.

While I'll know that big budget Wii U Zelda game will have a huge overworld to explore, just please, make it interesting, with enough secrets to find and make the exploration fun. They could like do, let's say you could camp in the fields or such, but what if you camp in hostile enemy territory? If you do, you could find your equipment stolen. You'd could then get it back. It would be pretty interesting.

 

Sidequests inside and/or outside the Main Plot

 

The 3D Zelda game with the most sidequests in my opinion is Majora's Mask, the 2D one with the most is Minish Cap. Majora's Mask had alot of sidequests that revolved around the main plot of the game, Skull Kid causing alot of ruckus to the folks of Termina and ruining their lives. It was neat to learn the story behind each person you helped. Some of them revolved outside the main plot. And that's what I want in the next one, sidequest that pertain to the story, and some that pertain outside the story.

Also sidequests for when you beat the game, gives you a reason to come back to the game. If they're going to have a huge overworld to explore, why not give more side-quests a thought as well? It wouldn't feel so barren.

 

Clever Puzzles with more than one solution

     

The puzzles are what hold the dungeons together (more on that in a bit) besides exploring and beating up baddies. Each puzzle you encounter has you use either an item in your inventory, use the item pertaining to that dungeon, or push some blocks in a certain order. Or just beat up some baddies. While playing Zelda games for a long time, I have found that some puzzles do have more than one solution, it's just is a matter of experimenting.

Like in the Mansion in TP, you'd have to move the blocks in the ice in a certain order, but if you're patient enough you can do it your own way. I know, I've seen online and it only shows only one method of doing it. Then there's a cavern in the same game that has the same puzzle, and you can use a different trick than the one intended to solve one of them. Aka use the same trick from the mansion. In Windwaker's Earth Temple, you had to push some morrors to find the Big Key, you had to move every single one in position. Well I found out that you don't really need every single one.

It would be cool if the puzzles had more than one solution other than the obvious one. Make them clever and some that make you say, "I didn't know you could do that." A game that did this so well was Minish Cap with the Gust Jar. At first you'd think, "I'm never going to use this again" after you leave the dungeon you found it. But then you discover that it has so many uses in dungeons and outside. " You're like holy shit, I didin't know you could do that!" It's like the game was made around the Gust Jar. That's what I want the next Zelda to do. The dungeons would be alot more interesting which brings me up this next point...

 

Dungeons inside and outside the main quest that are interesting

 

          

Dungeons are what make half of the Zelda games, you know, Zelda. Every game you have to go and conquer a dungeon to obtain the special relic or whatnot to move your quest forward which usually involves 3 dungeons at first. And there are dungeons that seemed like they weren't intended to be part of the main quest. Arbiters Grounds is the best dungeon in Twilight Princess. And to me it felt like it wasn't supposed to be part of the main quest even though it was, and that's one of the things I want. Let's say you have the main dungeons pertaining to the story, and you beat them, and the game. But what if you had other dungeons that aren't part of the story at all? You'd have more stuff to do afterwards.

My next point would be the dungeon design or how it's structured. Lanayru Mine in Skyward Sword is one of the best, or the best dungeons in that game. See that game has it's good points. Everything about it was great, except the boss, it was easy and it wasn't even a boss since it shows up as a mini boss later on. The Ancient Cistern and the Boat were my other favorites and those were pretty interesting and they had some of the best boss battles in reccent memory. Plus the way you battled them was pretty damn good but more on that in a bit. But the one that was pretty or almost mind blowing was the dungeon that had you collect the Triforce. You could switch the rooms in the dungeon, that was pretty cool.

What I want them to do is a think outside the box for this. Something interesting both in design and puzzles. But don't make the dungeons so good that the end is dumb, aka the boss battles, like that scorpion thing. Speaking of bosses...

 

Better Boss Battles

              

One of the main staples of the dungeons is that you'll have to eventually face the dungeon master of the boss at the deepest part of the dungeon. Koloktos and Tentelus were amazing fights in Skyward Sword, each of those had you espose their weakspot, aka look for an opening. You know, other than have the dodge, dodge, attack, repeat process of the other games. And then you'd have to use the dungeon item to attack it, only to find out that it was useless afterwards (looking at you Spinner). I want the boss fights to be like those 2 from Skyward Sword, and maybe if they could, use a different way of taking them down. You know instead of using the dungeon item.

In Windwaker, I'm sure alot of you know this one, that bird from the Forsaken Fortress had a metal mask, I think it was called the Helmaroc King. You had to expose it's face with the Skull Hammer to attack it. Afterwards you could damage it with your sword, but you'd have to wait for it to come down. Well you could use your bow to shoot it's face in the air and you could defeat it that way other than stabbing it with your sword. Also the bottle technique from the Ganondorf fights. See this is what I want, awesome boss fights with techniques from Skyward Sword to different methods of taking them down.

 

No useless items and interesting item use

 

Useless items have plagued Zelda games for a while or ever. Like TP's Spinner. They have you use it in the best dungeon in the game, in the best boss fight, only to be worthless once you leave Arbiter's Grounds. Atleast the Dominion Rod had a purpose outside the Temple of Time. I don't want clutter in the inventory. In Windwaker no item became useless, except the Tingle Tuner and Minish Cap had so many uses for the Gust Jar. This is what I want for the items, please don't make them obsolete after the dungeon and have interesting uses for them.

Also the item level up system from SS was pretty neat, you could make some equipment better. Like the shield and the Beetle. In Twilight Princess you could combine the bow with the mask for a sniper scope and bomb arrow. I want to see more item leveling up and weapon combinations.

 

 Improve the Swordplay

 

The swordplay has come along way since the simple swipes of the first Zelda game to the more complex ones of the 3D Zelda games. OoT brought the 3D swordfights but Windwaker improved it, like alot, it made it much more smooth and better to control. Twilight Princess improved that just a bit further and gave us special moves, which were awesome. Skyward Sword threw out everything from the traditional button based gameplay and made it motion based. Not saying it sucked, it was cool and Nintendo has proven that Motion Based swordfight and gameplay is possible in Zelda, but that is not the future of the series.

Think about it for a moment, how many of you were able to play more after 2 hours of Skyward Sword? Heck how about for an hour? I can assume not many. I didn't have a problem with it and kept going but that's just me and we aren't all the same. And isn't the point of Zelda hours of exploring the big overworld and dungeons? Well turn that into an hour of exploration or less if the next Zelda is motion based. I'm not saying it was bad, but some of the motions didn't register well, plus who thought it was a good idea to swim with the Wiimote when the A button worked just fine? I play Zelda to have fun and sink hours into exploration, not to be sore from my arms later on, thus eliminating the fun. What Nintendo doesn't notice is that you can indeed improve the traaditional button based combat. How?

Take a cue from the Batman Arkham games. You know how in the Batman games you could switch items with the d-pad? You could do that in Zelda for it's items. Plus you could make the combat like it. Let's say you're fighting a swarm of enemies, then one comes and tries to beat you up from behind, you could either block with your shield, dodge, or counter. Plus what if you could incorporate weapons into swordfights like you could use gadgets in fights in the Batman games? Like let's say Link is fighting some baddies then you could use the hookshot to bring an enemy to you and whatnot. It can work, but then again this is just me and some might think this is a bad idea. But like I said, you could improve the combat. And I guess Nintendo saw this and now we have Hyrule Warriors, nice.

 

No handholding or annoying side characters

The big one, Zelda has always had side characters that help you on your quest. OoT had Navi, MM had Talt, WW had Tetra and the King of Red Lions depending on how far you were in the game, and Twilight Princess had Midna which I think was the best side character to date. On Skyward Sword we got Fi. To this day I still don't know how to say that name, is Fi like WiFi, or Fi as in fee? I know she was important to the story, I get that but she was way way more annoying than Navi. I don't care how close I'm at to the objective, I don't care if my batteries are running low, and I don't care for her to interupt my game every 5 minutes. I don't want to be told what do do every so often. I know what I'm doing, I've been playing these games for more than a decade and I've managed just fine. So no annoying side characters or handholding.

 

So those are the things I want in the next Zelda game. What do you want to see in the next Zelda game? Thanks for reading and later.