I say new to exclude the remakes, because those do kick ass.
The three new Zelda games on switch are Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and Echoes of Wisdom.
BotW and TotK should have been a new franchise. They’re way too different mechanically from everything in the series beforehand. Innovating on the gameplay makes sense, but this was doable within the established formula (see Link between Worlds for how to do this well.)
Now for quality. BotW is a fantastic game in most facets, and most of my complaints I can recognize as me problems (I dont love the fact that just getting to a shrine makes it teleportable, it feels too easy to just cut the exploration by running to all the shrines in an area. However, this is a preference, not an objective flaw.) I think it would have done very well on its own, and didn’t need an existing IP to support it.
TotK is where my complaints overlap. It should’ve been in the separate franchise, and I think it’s a TERRIBLE sequel, and far more mediocre game. The tutorial is worse and way too long, they didn’t add enough to the world to justify reusing the entire map, the underground area is largely barren, the zonai shrines existing at all is contrived bs, and the zonai building mechanic, while cool, feels incredibly unbalanced and strange. Its like it just got bolted on without any of the other devs being told.
Echoes of Wisdom is a crying shame. After two complete deviations from the games the Zelda series had become known for, I was excited by the trailer! But then the echoes system poked it’s ugly head in. I hate, with a burning passion, games where puzzles have “free form solutions.” The old zeldas were full of tightly crafted puzzles, and they’re by far my favorite part (and, notably, the meat of the games.) So being handed a world where the main mechanic is “use these basic tools however you want!” by another game is just infuriating. I love immersive sims, but these are not a replacement for actual puzzle design (this sentiment also applies to the zonai building in TotK)
TL;DR: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom should’ve been an original franchise, and TotK and Echoes of Wisdom have lazy game design unbefitting of the Zelda series.
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I enjoy botw/totk for what they are, but agree they are not “proper” zelda games.
Echos of wisdom, however, feels to me like a solid spin off from the links awakening remake. Proper dungeons with plenty of puzzles. It has rough edges (too many echos, too easy to “cheese” some challenges, accessories, outfits, smoothies, and automatons feel tacked on… ), but i think it could be a good foundation for a spinoff series.
As a lifelong Zelda fan for the last 3 decades, I felt totally alone in how I felt about BoTW and ToTK. The shrines lost all the character of the original dungeons, and I hated the weapon durability and the introduction of the shiekah tablet and later the ultra hand or whatever. I was annoyed that YET AGAIN, my favorite game became an open world crafter, just like ALL THE OTHER OPEN WORLD CRAFTERS.
It was also released well after “open world” games were dying off. The first dungeon was so boring I sold the game back. I think I got like 6 hours into the game.
Yea. It feels like every game wants to follow the current gaming trend rather than stay in their existing game design.
It’s been very weird seeing every game turn into open worlds, with story changing dialogue options.
With Genshin being as popular as it is, expect the next Zelda to become a Gacha-fueled live service game, with drip-fed narrative and piecemeal dungeons.
As long as that doesn’t happen, I’d say we’re still okay.
Ocarina of Time should have been a different franchise because its mechanically too different from the top down 2D games before it
I think OoT is closer to the 2d games then BotW or TotK, as it still has a heavy emphasis on puzzles. Same reason I wouldn’t disqualify Wind Waker, its a new format, but still a puzzle game at the core. BotW and TotK just… aren’t.
These Zelda games were the moment I realized most clearly that I am no longer Nintendo’s target demographic.
Consider your points in that context and they are that much more obvious.
Why would a kid today care about the consistency of design for a game from many decades ago? They only want new thing, famous container
Why would a kid today care about a game featuring characters he knows nothing about?
Because he knows it’s one on Nintendo’s flagships. They only have like 3
I dunno, just putting the first three Zelda games on the NES against Ocarina of Time is already a pretty broad spectrum of games.
What was the third NES Zelda game?
Might have been on the SNES, dunno.
That’s a fair point! I think for me, it’s also the method of delivery for puzzles. Shrines are fine, but the games sorely lack the interconnected dungeons. TotK does a little better with this, but its still kinda meh.
(Also, do comments follow the same rules of opposite voting?)
I disliked the new Zelda games. Didn’t like the mechanics, gameplay, and especially hated the durability of weapons. The weapons thing was Super annoying and was the reason I didn’t play anything after the first one whatever it was called.
So you haven’t played the original NES game? Because that’s what BOTW and TOTK harken to. Not the 3D ones.
Yeah. I opened up this thread to say this. Breath of the Wild is a huge return to the roots of the franchise.
Ive played the OG (switch emulator version, still counts), Link to the Past, Majoras Mask, Spirit Tracks, Link between Worlds, and Link’s Awakening (Switch remake). To my taste, BotW and TotK dont feel very much like the OG.
Edit: Forgot Wind Waker lol
If, from your perspective, a Zelda game distinguishes itself primarily by how good of a puzzle delivery platform it is, then sure, larger scale puzzles beyond the scope of a single shrine are sort of absent from the “of the Wild” era games. I suspect this was a conscious design decision, because once a player has to hold significant state in their head, any interruption (this is a mobile console after all) will lead to a number of players being stumped and not completing the game. The same idea applies to tasks with multiple solutions, funneling players by only allowing one solution, one path through the game will mostly just lead to gatekeeping and exclusion. You can see that kind of thinking exemplified in the design of the TotK dungeons, each of which are basically half a dozen independent puzzles leading up to some unrelated boss fight.
Personally, to me puzzles are a fun diversion and not very important at all. What the original Zelda was amazing for was its hardcore exploration. After being more and more limited and railroaded in LttP, then LA, OoT went too far for me. It never clicked for me, even after trying several times, and I left the franchise basically until BotW, with exploration once again being front and center of the Zelda experience.
I agree that everything after LA and before BotW could have been its own franchise. But BotW is more “Zelda” than basically every other Zelda before it, and I’m happy it has returned the franchise to its original, “proper” form.
I’m not sure I agree, but that’s a real interesting take: Zelda 1, 2, BotW (and TotK) being one series, and all the others being something different? I can definitely see the argument.
OP, have you played the original two? They’re far more similar to BotW than most of the others.
The development process for BotW supposedly started with people playing around with the original Zelda gameplay implemented in a modern codebase. They experimented with what sorts of emergent gameplay they could make by adding new features that could all interact with each other.
Echoes feels the most like a classic Zelda game to me, and is the first Zelda game to hook me since the Gameboy. So… I want more of that.
Disagree. They capture the essence of the Zelda franchise perfectly with masterful innovation and flawless engineering and you don’t have to like it.
I disagree about TotK being a bad sequel, but I 100% agree that it should have been a new franchise. TotK returned to the same map, but with a twist and a whole new set of tools to explore with, plus 2 new massive areas.
You’re spot on with Echoes of Wisdom though. It’s hard to avoid using beds and water blocks as the solution to every movement puzzle and it’s hard to avoid just using whatever Lv3 mob you have as a solution to all the combat.
Kind of like the Scribblenauts sequels. A lot of puzzles trivialized with adjectives like invincible and flying.
I really like the new Zelda games, but I agree that I miss the “tight” puzzles. Some of the solutions to puzzles were too easy if you got certain items before encountering the puzzle. I didn’t always realize until I was done with the puzzle and I was left thinking “oh… That was it?”
I’d rather excise games based on setting, rather than mechanics nuances or narrative structure. Zelda games are about the story of Hyrule. We don’t be needing none of them New Hyrule, Termina, or Koholint Island stories in the franchise. They can be something else.
I agree with the 2 Switch games, absolutely. Loved BOTW. Did not love TOTK. The joy of exploration was why I loved it. They took that away by keeping the same territory. Felt like a big big DLC… not a stand-alone game. Sky & underground are so barren. Barely anything to call new to really adequately call it “new content”.
