One of the biggest challenges Zelda timeline theorists have faced is how best to include all the stories in the bigger picture of the Hyrule universe without contradictions. Perhaps the answer has been painfully obvious all along. The series is called "The 'Legend' of Zelda" - might they be simply that, not necessarily a literal account of Hyrule's history?
In sharp contrast to the usual "literal legend" theory, which has each of the games in the Zelda series as "retellings" of the same core hero story, Zelda Informer suggests that the series be examined as a mythic epic, with many authors adding their own spin to the story, much like the stories of ancient real-world cultures.
Screen Rant, "The return of one controversial character could have an incredible effect on The Legend of Zelda, prompting the introduction of new features."
Honestly I really changed my mind on Fi with the remaster because they didn't make her interrupt your gameplay every 5 seconds, that drastically changed my views on her
Technically she's in ToTK but obviously can't take any other form than the sword she was made into. Also the companion feature has been done plenty of times in Zelda, I don't think it'll add anything new. If anything should be brought back it should be the Minish.
Matt from We Game Daily writes "The Legend of Zelda series has gone in a different direction. One which, try as I have, I just can’t get on board with. Here is why I think Zelda should return to its 3D roots."
Amen! A good, tight, Zelda game with a focus on dungeons and puzzles. Let people have the new style Zelda if you gotta, but let us have the OoT style games too. That's not without precedent either, the handheld 2D Zelda's in the style of A Link to the Past etc have coexisted alongside the 3D Zelda's before
As much as I like BoTW, TotK, I need my traditional Zelda games as well, I could not endlessly play the open world Zelda games, plus it's harder to keep those fresher than the traditional games.
BotW was just as fresh to the franchise as OoT was. TokT was great but the next LoZ would have to move from that formula to be fresh again. There's only so much they can do with the hardware. I think they focused too much on making the world big instead impactful. I felt the world was sort of empty and repetitive in TotK, sure there was a lot to do but no more difference a Ubisoft game..
Wind Waker had a perfect balance of open world and a cool, well hand-crafted design. Maybe try to keep the open world but put in effort to make more memorable story driven quests and locations.
During The Game Awards 2023, we had a chance to talk to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom developers Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi, who reflected on the classic formula versus the new, Zelda's role in the series, and why they don't put much stock in the timeline.
I don't want them to go back the old formula, I just want them to rethink things like the shrines and how free you are to climb and glide everywhere. The big open world where you can tackle the dungeons in any order is cool, but I'd like some heart pieces to be tied to side quests rather than "Rauru's blessing" shrines, and they've made the game so open ended it's nearly impossible to create a good smart puzzle.
There are excellent puzzles in BotW and TotK. Both adventures have wonderful design.
Haters gonna hate.
I love BOTW and have 120 hours in TOTK and had a good time the whole time. When you have a grasp on what you can do with ultrahand, recall and ascend the games puzzles are extremely easy, and moving forwards I would like them to rethink some of their design philosophy to make the overall experience better. I guess I'm a hater though
You're definitely not a hater. There's a lot of things they need to rethink, like heart pieces and inventory upgrades. The shrines were even worse in ToTK with the inclusion of tutorial shrines being scattered around for the most basic of mechanics. I wouldn't even call half of the "puzzles" puzzles, and they're definitely not all built around the idea of freedom which is why shrines limit the freedom. And the "puzzles" that happen outside of shrines are made to make Links abilities useless.
"Well, I do think we as people have a tendency to want the thing that we don't currently have, and there's a bit of a grass is greener mentality"
I think Eiji Aonuma is on point here, which there is nothing wrong with it at all, it's natural to not want something to disappear, you want to make sure you will be getting it once again, and a lot of other factors!
