Actually you know what? If they give Link just *one* line in a game, and it's the voice actor from the cartoon saying "Well excuuuuuuse me, Princess" or maybe some kind of chauvinist one-liner, I will take back everything I said and be satisfied with caveman Link forever.
RE: We control games not vice versa. I'm not buying it.
Twilight Princess was a fantastic achievement. It was able to mask the limitations it had to live within to support both GCN and Wii and the artists selected a visual style where diminished graphical capabilities *made sense*. Nothing looked wrong or out of place save for the characters/monsters that were supposed to look off. The music was very good but not too memorable. I've only played two games that made me feel as lonely as TP: Super Metroid and Fallout 3. High marks all around.
Until I get to the exploration aspect, which I would argue is part of the bread and butter of a good Zelda game. The plot is linear as a ruler. Sure, there's some plot twists but I could see the ending coming and it's just not exciting to find out that the bad guy was Ganon all along anymore. That worked great in WW but pulling the same trick twice in a row is kind of lame. Anyway, Hyrule was huge in TP but I was usually constrained to such a small area that I didn't bother with exploration. It was fun in OoT to just go places you weren't supposed to be; there were few physical barriers save for the entry to the water temple or Gerudo Valley. Incidentally, Gerudo Valley is the part I spent the least time in because by the time you get there you're pumped because you know the final confrontation is coming. Same in MM; the areas I explored the least were the areas that were obstructed from me for the longest time. TP didn't even have the courtesy to make me wonder what item I'd need to get past an obstacle; I distinctly remember going on an expedition and discovering that my way forward was blocked by a boulder. This wasn't a boulder like in MM, where there's a narrative reason for it to be there and your participation in a quest is required to move it. No, it was just a boulder, indistinguishable from the rest of the mountains except the map showed me it wasn't always there. After I cleared some plot device, the boulder magically disappeared and I was able to go forward.
That's not art. I judge a game not just by its visual style, music, gameplay, and storytelling. I judge it by how well it fits its genre. Some games (Smash Bros., Mortal Kombat, DOOM) bend their genre so far they set a new bar for everyone to reach: this gets high marks. Rewards for exploration are something I expect out of both Zelda and Metroid games. Zelda's roots lie in huge, open overworlds that don't restrict your progress. Wind Waker overdid it and I feel like it had too many "come back later" puzzles. MM was a little linear for my tastes. Twilight Princess made you ask "Mother may I?" every time you saw something neat in the distance and took joy in telling you no. I can tell Nintendo's experimenting with the balance between maintaining a cohesive and complicated narrative and having a very large 3D overworld, but I'd kind of like to see them dial back the storytelling if it means I get more exploration.
I don't think there's ever been a truly non-linear Zelda game, but I feel like they used to do a better job of creating the illusion.
To reply briefly to Atma's post,
This is the reason that Super Metroid is my favorite game. The illusion of control is perhaps never higher, the game, despite a somewhat linear progression can be deconstructed into less linearity, and beaten with fewer items and abilities. Every time I play through it, it feels a little different.
Great art is about expansion and openness, something that can be possibly interpreted by the billions of people on earth. It cannot always be constricting nor forceful in its message, but rather must allow the viewer (or user in videogames' case) to achieve a message that is his or her's alone.
It is not what you are given, but what you take away. The more graphically and technologically advance videogames become, the more that the creator inputs and the less that the user extracts. Think about it this way: When you read a book, you as the reader create this world (albeit with descriptive language in the text) visually. If this book is created into a movie, your visual world can at times come crashing down into a pit of another's mind.
When you give voice or character to an old videogame character, one that you have "created for" and imagined further, you can upset a delicate balance. Far too often is this present in modern day videogames. Graphical style or design decisions also weigh in. Look at the recent Final Fantasies: They are a turn off to me because of ludicrous costumes, characters, and storylines.
Right now I am playing Metroid: The Other M. It will never compare to Super Metroid, not because of story or characters (it is a direct sequel) nor gameplay (despite different control and visual style it is the same basic gameplay). It will never compare to Super Metroid because of what is shoves into the game. It tells you everything, points you forward, offers an explanation for it all. In other words, unlike Super Metroid, it doesn't leave things out.
Perhaps the most painful example of this: Star Wars Episodes I-III.
AtmaWeapon wrote:I don't think there's ever been a truly non-linear Zelda game, but I feel like they used to do a better job of creating the illusion.
The original Legend of Zelda is the closest one to being truly non-linear, and that's one of the reasons why it's my favorite.
(it is intended for you to go through the dungeons in order, but you can get to nearly every screen on the overworld before stepping foot into a dungeon, and even if you go into a dungeon, you don't have to finish it before trying another)
mattwdr wrote:To reply briefly to Atma's post,
This is the reason that Super Metroid is my favorite game. The illusion of control is perhaps never higher, the game, despite a somewhat linear progression can be deconstructed into less linearity, and beaten with fewer items and abilities. Every time I play through it, it feels a little different.Great art is about expansion and openness, something that can be possibly interpreted by the billions of people on earth. It cannot always be constricting nor forceful in its message, but rather must allow the viewer (or user in videogames' case) to achieve a message that is his or her's alone.
It is not what you are given, but what you take away. The more graphically and technologically advance videogames become, the more that the creator inputs and the less that the user extracts. Think about it this way: When you read a book, you as the reader create this world (albeit with descriptive language in the text) visually. If this book is created into a movie, your visual world can at times come crashing down into a pit of another's mind.
When you give voice or character to an old videogame character, one that you have "created for" and imagined further, you can upset a delicate balance. Far too often is this present in modern day videogames. Graphical style or design decisions also weigh in. Look at the recent Final Fantasies: They are a turn off to me because of ludicrous costumes, characters, and storylines.
Right now I am playing Metroid: The Other M. It will never compare to Super Metroid, not because of story or characters (it is a direct sequel) nor gameplay (despite different control and visual style it is the same basic gameplay). It will never compare to Super Metroid because of what is shoves into the game. It tells you everything, points you forward, offers an explanation for it all. In other words, unlike Super Metroid, it doesn't leave things out.
Perhaps the most painful example of this: Star Wars Episodes I-III.
Thank you matt. This is what I've been trying to say, but was too socially stupid to put it into words. 😊
I like mattwdr's post. I can sort of agree with his evaluation with why Link shouldn't have voiced dialog now, but it's not a victory for the series. The only reason it might be dangerous for Link to have dialog is Nintendo has gone so long without giving him dialog. People have built an image of Link's character on their own because we never really demanded that his character be fleshed out. It's not a mark of good art on the part of the Zelda franchise, it's a mark of the paralyzing fear that they might make the game "inaccessible" to someone if the character isn't some kind of shell that has to be filled out. Why they don't have these fears for Mario, Samus, DK, Fox McCloud, or Kirby I'll never know.
Another thing I don't get; I sat down and did some hard thinking and discussed my view of Link's character in another thread. I've written more words in this thread than I did in that one. 0 replies. Why is it more controversial and worthy of debate that I suggest Link should have a voice than it is for me to suggest he's either not real, a narcissistic bastard, or a cursed soul who destroys himself?
I still say that by the bar of modern games, if the NPCs don't have voice dialog in Skyward Sword Nintendo will continue to be lagging. It's a crying shame that the cashgrab sequel to Tales of Symphonia had hours of voice acting and one of the most meticulously produced titles intended to be the cream of its crop uses caveman grunts. I will not budge on this. TP can slide by because Okami did fine without voices; I have an argument for why Okami can get away with it but it boils down to this: Okami didn't have two decades of fandom guaranteeing its purchase, and its style was very Japanese. If it had voices at all I'd want them in Japanese, and it'd have been money wasted. Another point: it never bothered me that WW had no voices. Perhaps I only get offended by lack of voice acting when the game attempts to be realistic? It does kind of ruin any immersion I have when I walk up to someone and all they say is "HooooooooiiiiIIIIII!"
AtmaWeapon wrote:
Another thing I don't get; I sat down and did some hard thinking and discussed my view of Link's character in another thread. I've written more words in this thread than I did in that one. 0 replies.
Analyzing Link's character is like analyzing the psychology of wallpaper. Maybe that's why you got 0 replies.
Link is a meaningless empty vessel whose functions I co-opt in order to acquire rupees and save a cartoony world.
This discussion has gotten pretty deep.
I personally don't really care if Link has a voice. Actually, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the game play (which is why I buy a Zelda game) then I don't care if they all have super hill-billy accents, and the story is about Link and Zelda having an orgy with three Moblins, and Twinrova, while Lakitu films it, and posts it to red-tube, causing Ganon to get angry, and put all the Hylians in concentrations camps.
My point is, the narrative in Zelda, or in any game, has always been extra to me. I like hearing about Hyrule's inconsistent, disjointed history, in each game, because it is a nice touch for that title, and it does help you identify with the land, it's people, and why you are doing things. AlttP, MM, and TP have some of the best lines, and stories in terms of characters, and how they are written.
When I play a Zelda game, it is an independent experience linked to the series by its recurring characters, and themes, and game play that have established it. I don't take the stores seriously, and just play the games to have fun. Whether or not Link remains silent, or constantly tells us how humble, and stoic he is really makes no difference to me as long as I can push blocks and bomb walls, and get some lady. I mean ask yourself: do you really need to see/ hear Link say "Yes, I will enter, and slay the evil within..." or "No, Princess Ruto, I don't really... like... girls"?
Let's quit talking about Link. I've made my points, no one agrees with them, there's no reason for me to continue to make them. I'll accept that my view isn't universal. What about NPCs? What reason is there to leave them voiceless other than thrift? Princess Zelda and Ganon are as crucial to the games as Link, and they tend to get large amounts of dialog in each game. How would it ruin a player's delicately-constructed concepts of their personalities for them to speak the lines?
I just thought of perhaps the only reason to avoid voice dialog I might accept: timing. When you get a slice of plot that's not part of a cutscene* the dialog tends to be long, descriptive, and more like what you'd read from a book. I'm imagining the pacing for having some of that dialog spoken, and I suppose the dialog scenes would start to feel a bit long if they were voiced. I'd rather see long narrative with hooks into lore than shorter dialog to keep pacing, so perhaps it's just not a good fit. I do wish they'd try it just once.
* By "cutscene" here I mean scenes where the dialog is timed to match action you are viewing, like the Hyrule creation myth in OoT. Technically most dialog scenes in the games could be called cutscenes but in these the player controls the dialog and typically there aren't any attempts to synchronize text with action.
The timing thing is a very good point. You can skip through a lot of the game's text, and get to the game, and this may be for the sake of brevity, and voiced cut scenes might just take too long. As I've said, I'm not against voice acting, for NPC's, or Link, I just don't really care either way. It would be nice to see maybe once, but really, it's more of a novelty than anything.
Actually, if I think about games (like the Tales games for example) they do voice a lot of the regular dialogue, and honestly, I find myself just reading the subtitles, and skipping most of the voice work. Maybe this is cause I'm used to Zelda, but it's just what I do. Now, usually if it is my first play through, I listen, or if I just don't feel like reading. Generally though, I skip it, and just get to the game.
I can interpret text faster then I can listen to someone talk with emotion, more efficient to ignore vocals in a game.
AtmaWeapon wrote:Another thing I don't get; I sat down and did some hard thinking and discussed my view of Link's character in another thread. I've written more words in this thread than I did in that one. 0 replies. Why is it more controversial and worthy of debate that I suggest Link should have a voice than it is for me to suggest he's either not real, a narcissistic bastard, or a cursed soul who destroys himself?
I typed out a response to that thread shortly after you posted it but lost the post due to a wonky mouse. It peeved me too much to want to retype it, sorry. Your post made me think about the expression of heroes in art. There is a lot to be said about the strong silent type but of course you won't hear it from them.
-m.
I'm kinda old school on this one but I like the 8-bit NES LoZ game to be my favorite.
very first game for the 8bit NES game console with the battery backup option of saving your games at that time.
1.) Wind Waker
2.) Majoras Mask
3.) Twilight Princess
4.) Minish Cap
5.) Ocarina of Time
6.) Oracle of Ages/Seasons
7.) Links Awakening
8.) Spirit Tracks
9.) Phantom Hourglass
10.) A Link to the Past
11.) The Adventure of Link
12.) The Legend of Zelda
13.) Tingles Rosy Rupeeland
14.) Four Swords
15.) Four Swords Adventures
16.) Links Crossbow Training