Ronnie Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 As much as I would adore another cel-shaded Zelda, some of the clueless fanboys will be up in arms about a HD Zelda without realistic graphics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dcubed Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I know I'm a bit late in posting my impressions (I actually finished it a while ago) but here they are anyway! It's simply stunning. The game is so densely packed it is just astounding, the motion controls work perfectly and add so much more depth to the combat/traversal that it's really just incredible. There are so many ways to tackle various situations (every boss has multiple ways to kill them!) that it simply astounds me how they managed to come up with them. The way that each enemy encounter was unique, even if you've already fought them before was simply a design masterpiece. And the blending of dungeon and overworld really works spectacularly well, turning every little part of the game into a puzzle of its own is just wonderful! (with environments and game mechanics constantly re purposed to be used in completely different ways. There's no time where you're simply asked to repeat an action or traverse an environment in the same way twice) Reading through the responses on other sites is really funny. The reactions are so predictable that it just makes me laugh. As I played through the game, I noticed countless sections where I thought to myself "yep, internet folk are going to hate this part". The Silent Realm is really the ultimate culmination of this. A great big fat middle finger to everyone who hated Forsaken Fortress from Wind Waker, the Tears of Light from Twilight Princess and the Temple of the Ocean King from Phantom Hourglass; and I loved every minute of it! That's not to say that it's flawless. The pacing does slow down towards the end, the slow text speed and collectable reminders are annoying (but not that big of a deal really), the dungeons are a bit simple in comparison to the best of the series (suffering from 1 key syndrome again) and the final boss/last hour or so is really anti climactic (though mind you, it was really incredible to see how much better I had gotten at the game in the last Ghirahim battle. I used to die from a single Bokoblin at the start and by the end I found myself destroying hundreds of them with ease! Also, the bird flying feels like a missed opportunity, they could've done much more with that aspect of the game (relegating it mostly to simply being a fun means of transportation.) As for the story, there are some real revelations made here that I would've never expected them to ever do! WOW! @ Hylia! Never thought they'd ever go back to ALTTP again! It explains so much! Tatl mentioning the Goddess of Time, the difference between the Hylia and the Hyrulians etc. The main villain I'm kinda conflicted about though. While Demise being a setup for every villain in the series does go a long way towards explaining their appearance, it does kinda take a little bit away from Ganondorf's character. If it weren't for Wind Waker, his character would've been ruined forever! But really, it lives up to the hype. Well worth the 5 year wait, even if it's not my favourite in the series (that title still belongs to Majora's Mask). It's well up there though! And while it is most similar to Minish Cap in terms of game structure, it really does feel like a 25th anniversary game. It takes on something from every game in the series, despite feeling so different from past games. This is one of those games where you'll still be discovering new things about it even years from now! Just for the record Ancient Cistern is the best dungeon and also features the best boss! BTW: Did anyone else figure out that you can cheese the final boss? By putting your sword away (the one sword motion that he can't copy), he leaves himself wide open when he attacks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Falcon Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 As much as I would adore another cel-shaded Zelda, some of the clueless fanboys will be up in arms about a HD Zelda without realistic graphics. I think you need to make the distinction between cel-shading and the art direction. I have no problem with the former as long as the latter is ok. But for me, that just hasn't been the case in the games that have used it to any effect - WW, PH and ST. It doesn't help when the in game graphics look nothing like the art - and in a bad way which is something Wind Waker suffers from. Gone were the subtle colours and details. In were bright colours and empty textures. You can see how they have dropped those entirely from the art for the future games in that style. Why is Link's head round in the art yet oval in game? The other games feature fantasic 2D artwork of non realistic worlds that I could happily spend more time in. The art work for Majora's Mask is the best in the series and if they made a game that looked actually looked like that, I would be overjoyed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killer kirby Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 As much as I would adore another cel-shaded Zelda, some of the clueless fanboys will be up in arms about a HD Zelda without realistic graphics. I would be one of them as well if it looked like Wind Waker, but not for the reason you are saying. Now that Zelda is in HD, it should try and follow a new art direction again. A lot of art could now look like it's in-game. Like see this clip for a soon to be released movie. It's what Final Fantasy should look like, scrap the gay Nomura work and bring this to life. Like imagine Nintendo trying to being the old school art back to life. tl;dr Nintendo can make any art style for the new game and it will work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamishmash Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I always thought a great way to make a direct Super Mario 64 sequel, would be that every painting you entered would have a different art style. Bob-omb Battlefield might look like a comic-book Roy Lichtenstein painting, there could be a cornfield level based on Van Gogh, or a Monet world, etc. Maybe not to that extreme, but maybe a mixture of styles could be a way to blow people away. It's funny though. Many game companies don't think about "art style". They just try and make it look as realistic as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Falcon Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 It's funny though. Many game companies don't think about "art style". They just try and make it look as realistic as possible. I think you might be generalizing a touch there. Good art style is inherently linked to the game itself but how do you define realistic in a game about magic, faries, talking... everything, etc? Often times, it's not that it is realistic, - it's just most akin to how it's been represented in media up until that point but with a finer layer of detail. For real world settings, future or past, again, there are a bunch of "standards" that we can say are accurate for the past, but completely made up for the future so how can anyone possibly call them "realistic"? I think a lot of modern set games define their style mostly by their lighting as it is one way to show something in a completely unique way yet still have the object be as true to the human eye as possible. Also, don't forget that publishers will often stick their beak in and have developers soften art styles in order to appeal to a wider audiences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamishmash Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I think I mean more that sort of... look of the game, rather than the design. Colour and lighting. What I mean more is that so many games are just brown and grey and bleak. Here we are discussing what the "art style" will be of the next Zelda game, and I doubt people on Fallout or Skyrim forums are doing that. It's not a criticism of those types of games per say, but I just like how Nintendo don't stick to what was popular, or play it safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksnowman Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I've skimmed the past couple of pages and agree with most, if not all of the negative feedback thats been posted. (And all the positive opinions too.) This was like Zelda meets Okami meets Shadow of the Colossus. Without reading up on it at all, I took for granted that it would be my favourite Zelda ever and thus be in the running for being my favourite game ever... It didn't achieve either status. I appreciate everything they did with the game - making dungeons out of areas outside the dungeons, making each area to be revisited at various stages later in the game, etc, but I personally enjoyed the ride better in other Zelda games and can't see myself replaying SS ever... or atleast not for a very long time anyway. Twilight Princess had me thinking what a great console the GameCube was - look what it could do even though the masses scoffed at the little purple box of joy! Skyward Sword, a game created specifically for the Wii would really show me how it could be done, it would really engage me by shaking up the Zelda formula and correcting the few missteps TP made. Know what? I can't put my finger on what it is, but something just seemed missing from SS the more I played it. I found myself playing it for ages at a time because it seemed to take so long to get stuff done in the game. There were save points peppered everywhere but I'm not the type of person to quit half way on the approach to a dungeon, or in a dungeon, unless I really have to. Speaking of save points, it would have been so much handier if you could simply warp from save point to save point without having to return to the sky continually. And with the lead up to dungeons being so long, then with (albeit smaller than usual) dungeons to do after that, I found myself forcibly searching out sidequests at every return to Skyloft as I was burnt out on puzzling through the below the clouds areas. Good job speech bubbles appeared over NPCs heads to make it easy to see who had something new to say! (Despite my whinging, SS is a great great game.) I thought my Zelda knowledge was pretty good, but I see everyone debating the Master Swords position in the Temple of Time. At the end of SS when you see the Master Sword being placed on its pedestal, with the forest background, I was like "aah so this leads into A Link to the Past!" Nice touch! The scene the game shows you matches that massive piece of LTTP art. Someone get their Zelda timeline out and explain to me how it matters what side of the door the Master Sword is on. I'm off to watch the GT review of SS now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beverage Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 (edited) I know I'm a bit late in posting my impressions (I actually finished it a while ago) but here they are anyway! It's simply stunning. The game is so densely packed it is just astounding, the motion controls work perfectly and add so much more depth to the combat/traversal that it's really just incredible. There are so many ways to tackle various situations (every boss has multiple ways to kill them!) that it simply astounds me how they managed to come up with them. The way that each enemy encounter was unique, even if you've already fought them before was simply a design masterpiece. And the blending of dungeon and overworld really works spectacularly well, turning every little part of the game into a puzzle of its own is just wonderful! (with environments and game mechanics constantly re purposed to be used in completely different ways. There's no time where you're simply asked to repeat an action or traverse an environment in the same way twice) Reading through the responses on other sites is really funny. The reactions are so predictable that it just makes me laugh. As I played through the game, I noticed countless sections where I thought to myself "yep, internet folk are going to hate this part". The Silent Realm is really the ultimate culmination of this. A great big fat middle finger to everyone who hated Forsaken Fortress from Wind Waker, the Tears of Light from Twilight Princess and the Temple of the Ocean King from Phantom Hourglass; and I loved every minute of it! That's not to say that it's flawless. The pacing does slow down towards the end, the slow text speed and collectable reminders are annoying (but not that big of a deal really), the dungeons are a bit simple in comparison to the best of the series (suffering from 1 key syndrome again) and the final boss/last hour or so is really anti climactic (though mind you, it was really incredible to see how much better I had gotten at the game in the last Ghirahim battle. I used to die from a single Bokoblin at the start and by the end I found myself destroying hundreds of them with ease! Also, the bird flying feels like a missed opportunity, they could've done much more with that aspect of the game (relegating it mostly to simply being a fun means of transportation.) As for the story, there are some real revelations made here that I would've never expected them to ever do! WOW! @ Hylia! Never thought they'd ever go back to ALTTP again! It explains so much! Tatl mentioning the Goddess of Time, the difference between the Hylia and the Hyrulians etc. The main villain I'm kinda conflicted about though. While Demise being a setup for every villain in the series does go a long way towards explaining their appearance, it does kinda take a little bit away from Ganondorf's character. If it weren't for Wind Waker, his character would've been ruined forever! But really, it lives up to the hype. Well worth the 5 year wait, even if it's not my favourite in the series (that title still belongs to Majora's Mask). It's well up there though! And while it is most similar to Minish Cap in terms of game structure, it really does feel like a 25th anniversary game. It takes on something from every game in the series, despite feeling so different from past games. This is one of those games where you'll still be discovering new things about it even years from now! Just for the record Ancient Cistern is the best dungeon and also features the best boss! BTW: Did anyone else figure out that you can cheese the final boss? By putting your sword away (the one sword motion that he can't copy), he leaves himself wide open when he attacks! Yeah I appreciate most of those uppers that you mentioned. But I can't for the life of me add up while peeps dislike the flying so much? It's quite cool to me! When you think of it, birds fly by 'flapping' their wings and so you mimick the way how you ride your Loftwing with that similar 'flap' motion. Unless you wanna look like a total goon by having both your arms out flapping your chuck and mote lol. I like how you flap the mote quite subtley, straight after controlling your mote to neutral position to keep your Loftwing 'in the zone' (mind you, it takes a little skill/steady hand to enjoy riding a Legendary Loftwing ). Things that weren't impressive were other ways how they lacked innovative motion gesturing. Birds, simple enough - just flap. But the legendary harp (a freaking musical element of the series!) and each and every song is the same motion swing. I'd 've preferred if the tech understood when your gesturing holding a real harp, and you played different rhythms for each song (maybe even making YOU use STRATEGY and figuring out you must play a song for whatever the situation [trials etc] and also using logic to figure out WHICH song/rhythm to play). This would've been more engaging. More strategic/puzzle-like. More immersive. Sword duels were good, could've been better (enemies also doing an offensive rhythm for you to block with your shield 1:1 motion tracking... not being SO obvious with their goofy attacks for you to spot an easy opening etc...). Controlling the beatle was good. Use of the bombs were cool. Using your bow&arrow could've been tweaked a bit and I was hoping for some Loftwing battles (using arrows on the 'wing - when you use your bow then the Loftwing continues in current direction, so the player chooses wise timing to use bow, also having to be quick sharp & precise to fire...). I think the shield, harp & swimming could've been overhauled. The flying/flapping seemed fine for me. @darksnowman I basically second your post. Edited January 4, 2012 by Beverage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronnie Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Yeah I appreciate most of those uppers that you mentioned. But I can't for the life of me add up while peeps dislike the flying so much? It's quite cool to me! When you think of it, birds fly by 'flapping' their wings and so you mimick the way how you ride your Loftwing with that similar 'flap' motion. Unless you wanna look like a total goon by having both your arms out flapping your chuck and mote lol. I like how you flap the mote quite subtley, straight after controlling your mote to neutral position to keep your Loftwing 'in the zone' (mind you, it takes a little skill/steady hand to enjoy riding a Legendary Loftwing ). I think people have a problem with the flying gameplay AS A WHOLE rather than the gestures! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grazza Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 The Silent Realm is really the ultimate culmination of this. A great big fat middle finger to everyone who hated Forsaken Fortress from Wind Waker, the Tears of Light from Twilight Princess and the Temple of the Ocean King from Phantom Hourglass; and I loved every minute of it! Surely the Forsaken Fortress in Wind Waker is just a continuation of the stealth gameplay seen in OOT (sneaking into the castle) and MM (sneaking into the Deku city)? Twilight Princess introduced the "collecting" gameplay, and also established these parts as separate game modes. Phantom Hourglass introduced the Phantoms, and yes, the Trials in Skyward Sword are hybrids of TP and PH, but I wouldn't say WW. I think you need to make the distinction between cel-shading and the art direction. I have no problem with the former as long as the latter is ok. But for me, that just hasn't been the case in the games that have used it to any effect - WW, PH and ST. It doesn't help when the in game graphics look nothing like the art - and in a bad way which is something Wind Waker suffers from. Gone were the subtle colours and details. In were bright colours and empty textures. You can see how they have dropped those entirely from the art for the future games in that style. Why is Link's head round in the art yet oval in game? Is that the case for Wind Waker? I'm not disputing it, I've just never noticed. He does have an oval head in PH and ST, but so many other things about that style are not quite right, which I attribute to the low power of the DS. Anyway, good post, @darksnowman, I agree with that. It's odd, I don't even feel very negative about Skyward Sword, in a "They let us down!" way. I just know I don't want to play it again, which is weird. I'd sell it straight away if it didn't have the orchestral CD. As for the graphics of Zelda Wii U, whichever style they go with, I hope they're excellent. To me, Skyward Sword's visual style was just "good". It wasn't as exceptional as the full "realistic" style I've seen or the Wind Waker style. Part of me thinks they should just stick with the style seen in the Zelda Wii U demo. After all, why throw away something that's not only excellent but already made? On the other hand, I think they could make a better style - really cartoony, layers and layers of cel-shading - but only if they're really confident about it. Faint heart never won fair maiden. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Falcon Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Is that the case for Wind Waker? I'm not disputing it, I've just never noticed. He does have an oval head in PH and ST, but so many other things about that style are not quite right, which I attribute to the low power of the DS. Here is the artwork... And here is the game (emulated too for extra crispiness) Gone is the parchment style effect to the characters, the subtler colours and the little lines here and there which brought far more, well, character, to the visuals. And where are all the sharp lines? Everything is round. Perhaps Link's head wasn't as far off as I remember but it still looks wider... although the ears aren't helping since they stick out a bit. As for PH, I was refering more to the artwork such as this where Link and his world is suddenly looking a lot more generic than it once did. I know the DS had cel-shading built into the hardware, as appose to the GC which did it through software, but even so, it still felt unpowered for what they were attempting in game but they needed full 3D graphics in order to have stylus control or it would have looked rather strange done with sprites unless they stored an image for every potential angle in which Link could walk. So they had already shot themselves in the foot by refusing to have it on buttons and consequently, we got a game which was no where near as pretty as all the reviews made out thanks to everything being at 45 degree angles. The only things that genuinely looked good were the bosses. Admittedly, the artwork now looks a lot more like in game Wind Waker, but unfortunately, the system didn't have the clout to back it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronnie Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 And I thought I nitpicked. Captain Falcon you take it to another level! So what if the in game visuals don't replicate the artwork? They weren't making Super Paper Zelda, it still had to have depth to it. I've never known anyone to complain the Wind Waker graphics don't look exactly like that particular artwork above. I'll take what we got personally, gorgeous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Falcon Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 The scene the game shows you matches that massive piece of LTTP art. Someone get their Zelda timeline out and explain to me how it matters what side of the door the Master Sword is on. It doesn't matter with regards to ALTTP since it doesn't follow on from this, OoT does with regards to Mastersword usage and in that, it is inside the chamber at the back of the temple, just like in TP, in the pedestal of time which is situated on a slightly raised section of the floor. That raised section being the octagonal block you see in the ALTTP screen shot. Going from OoT to ALTTP/TP is easy since you can say the rest of the building collapsed. Going from SS to OoT implies the entire thing was shifted around the sword. It's perfectly possible but it seems just caught me as strange. In terms of the timeline, I guess it does make a difference because if it was in front of the rear chamber, and thus infront of the door of time, Link would never have had to play the Song of Time and open it allowing Ganondorf to pass through. He could have touched the Mastersword right in front and been sealed away for 7 years whilst Ganondorf was stuck scratching his head since Link had the Ocarina. OoT would have been over before it began. I'm feeling the love already Ronnie or is it just a laser sight making me slightly warm? :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronnie Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 I'm feeling the love already Ronnie or is it just a laser sight making me slightly warm? :p Some days it's and other days it's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dcubed Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Here is the artwork... And here is the game (emulated too for extra crispiness) Gone is the parchment style effect to the characters, the subtler colours and the little lines here and there which brought far more, well, character, to the visuals. And where are all the sharp lines? Everything is round. Perhaps Link's head wasn't as far off as I remember but it still looks wider... although the ears aren't helping since they stick out a bit. As for PH, I was refering more to the artwork such as this where Link and his world is suddenly looking a lot more generic than it once did. I know the DS had cel-shading built into the hardware, as appose to the GC which did it through software, but even so, it still felt unpowered for what they were attempting in game but they needed full 3D graphics in order to have stylus control or it would have looked rather strange done with sprites unless they stored an image for every potential angle in which Link could walk. So they had already shot themselves in the foot by refusing to have it on buttons and consequently, we got a game which was no where near as pretty as all the reviews made out thanks to everything being at 45 degree angles. The only things that genuinely looked good were the bosses. Admittedly, the artwork now looks a lot more like in game Wind Waker, but unfortunately, the system didn't have the clout to back it up. It's funny because Okami's ingame graphics are actually closer to Wind Waker's artwork than Wind Waker itself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grazza Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Thanks for explaining all that, @Captain Falcon. I now see what you mean about Wind Waker. Personally, I think the in-game graphics are better than the artwork, although the characters in the sky are nice. I totally agree with you about Phantom Hourglass, but it's long been one of my pet nags that everything on DS would have looked better with sprites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 (edited) Hyrule Historia concepts: The gorons designs are really creepy looking. Edited January 6, 2012 by Dante Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksnowman Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Creepy question marks indeed, @Dante. @Captain Falcon punch, I've since had a look at the timeline from Hyrule Historia and see that OoT is after SS, then LttP is after one of the OoT timeline splits. I should have remembered that as OoT was always known to be a prequel to LttP. I still had my nostalgia tickled more by the way the resting place of the Master Sword in SS is shown to look so much like LttP than noticing where the door stands. How well does it match up with the Temple of Time in Twilight Princess? Another question I have is, how is it proposed that this Goddess Hylia fits in with the legend of the Goddesses Din, Farore and Nayru? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hero-of-Time Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 I've skimmed the past couple of pages and agree with most, if not all of the negative feedback thats been posted. (And all the positive opinions too.) This was like Zelda meets Okami meets Shadow of the Colossus. Without reading up on it at all, I took for granted that it would be my favourite Zelda ever and thus be in the running for being my favourite game ever... It didn't achieve either status. I appreciate everything they did with the game - making dungeons out of areas outside the dungeons, making each area to be revisited at various stages later in the game, etc, but I personally enjoyed the ride better in other Zelda games and can't see myself replaying SS ever... or atleast not for a very long time anyway. Twilight Princess had me thinking what a great console the GameCube was - look what it could do even though the masses scoffed at the little purple box of joy! Skyward Sword, a game created specifically for the Wii would really show me how it could be done, it would really engage me by shaking up the Zelda formula and correcting the few missteps TP made. Know what? I can't put my finger on what it is, but something just seemed missing from SS the more I played it. I found myself playing it for ages at a time because it seemed to take so long to get stuff done in the game. There were save points peppered everywhere but I'm not the type of person to quit half way on the approach to a dungeon, or in a dungeon, unless I really have to. Speaking of save points, it would have been so much handier if you could simply warp from save point to save point without having to return to the sky continually. And with the lead up to dungeons being so long, then with (albeit smaller than usual) dungeons to do after that, I found myself forcibly searching out sidequests at every return to Skyloft as I was burnt out on puzzling through the below the clouds areas. Good job speech bubbles appeared over NPCs heads to make it easy to see who had something new to say! Well said and I agree with you 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted January 7, 2012 Author Share Posted January 7, 2012 Creepy question marks indeed, @Dante. Gorons re-disigns at 12:48. Another question I have is, how is it proposed that this Goddess Hylia fits in with the legend of the Goddesses Din, Farore and Nayru? Goddess Hylia is a deity which is less powerful beings than to the goddess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Falcon Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) @Captain Falcon punch, I've since had a look at the timeline from Hyrule Historia and see that OoT is after SS, then LttP is after one of the OoT timeline splits. I should have remembered that as OoT was always known to be a prequel to LttP. I still had my nostalgia tickled more by the way the resting place of the Master Sword in SS is shown to look so much like LttP than noticing where the door stands. How well does it match up with the Temple of Time in Twilight Princess? For me, as shown in them pictures, TP did a better job of conveying that image from ALTTP than SS did. And the sword's placement matches the theoretical location in the slightly redesigned temple as it was left in OoT. That said, the location of the temple is different since it's now in the woods, like in SS, and the sword's location in ALTTP whereas in OoT, in was in the Hyrule Town. The way I see it is that the Legend of Zelda stories are just that, legends passed down through time. Therefore certain information is conveyed differently from each story owing to how people remember things differently. The design of the temple being such that. One may remember a shape as octaganal and someone else my describe it as hexagonal. That, doesn't make a difference to the story and so you let it slide when reconciling the tales. What you can't mix up are the facts that define the story, in this case, the location of the sword or you are not telling it correctly. When you think about it, the location of the temple itself is almost irrelevent as long as it's access isn't restricted because of it - in OoT, the temple could have been in Kakariko Village and Ganondorf could have still just walked in there but not pass through the door until Link opened it. It doesn't really affect the story. But the location of the sword within said temple does. I hope this is making sense to someone other than me here :p But, there may yet be another legend to be told that explains how it moved. If there is, let us pray it's better than the story of it's creation. On a different note, maybe this has come up in the hyrule historia thread, but I'm curious as to how the sages fit into this all now. Did they exist prior to this game? There is no mention of them. The intro that tells of the people coming together to help Hylia seal Demise shows the outline of the different races and perhaps the leaders of the different creatures were the first sages. I don't recall it being touched upon in game but if it was, would someone care to tell me. We already have the the reincarnation of Hylia in Zelda and the deal surrounding Link. Plus Fi and the Dragons. Adding sages to the mix feels like mystical overkill to me to the point I want this to be before the sages came into being so I can at least part explain how a world with so many good and powerful magical beings keeps getting shafted by some red haired goon. Edited January 10, 2012 by Captain Falcon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burny Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) The way I see it is that the Legend of Zelda stories are just that, legends passed down through time. Or to put it another way: The stories are means to an end, simply concocted around whatever new mechanic Nintendo wants to implement. Time travel? Let's make up something about a powerful instrument/song/whatever with that power - preferably granted by the gods. Parallel dimensions? Let's make up some. The gods will have something to do with it, naturally. Sailing? Let's make up a story about the gods flooding the land. Riding trains? Let's make up a story about train tracks serving as chains for some evil - created by the gods of course. Flying around between floating islands? The gods have send them into the sky of course. :p It's pretty clear that the principle behind this is that of building the story around the game, not the other way round. They'll invent as many species, sages or gods as they need, while centering everything around an incarnation of Link as a player character, an antagonist, a land with a specific twist and some incarnation of Zelda or other characters in distress. Edited January 10, 2012 by Burny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksnowman Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I see what you mean with that relating to TP, @Captain Falcon. Good memory! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jav_NE Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 It's pretty clear that the principle behind this is that of building the story around the game, not the other way round. My thoughts exactly. The only reason SS's story is about the creation of the Master Sword was because of the focus on the new sword control gameplay. It will always be that way with Nintendo - new gameplay ideas will determine the type of style and location setting which in turn then determines the story. They just slot it in as best they can to the 'timeline' at that point! Thats what it seems like to me anyway. Doesn't make much difference to me, i see each game as a new endeavour regardless, so the story could be completely unlinked and unrelated to everything that has ever happened and i'd still be happy so long as it was an awesome game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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