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"Why ‘The Legend of Zelda’ is the greatest video game series of all time" says The Voice
A show of hands: Do you think this guy is right, or do you think his opinion doesn't hold water?
I am a fan of a Zelda, and they have had a pretty good track record with me, but no series truly is the greatest, really.
Comments
> story
no
> characters
no
> I’m sorry to break it to you, but “Skyrim” sucks.
no
nonono
Yeah, I was gonna mention that he won't really endear to Skyrim fans for that little remark...
I somewhat agree with the story argument. It manages to revisit an old formula and approach it in new intersting ways.
However, his argument for Zelda's gameplay being the best thing ever is fucking retarded. Basically, just because it uses things that are not common these days (And even then, that's arguable in and of itself) it doesn't mean that it's good.
I also think that he's somewhat right in thinking that while Skyrim's sucessfuly, it won't exactly beat the test of time.
Why does this article seem like an extended Kanye West joke?
He's missing the point.
The graphics don't make Zelda. Frankly, apart from Skyward Sword, the graphics in the Zelda games are kind of unmemorable.
The story doesn't make Zelda. Nonono. That doesn't even make sense. The storylines in most Zelda games aren't really good at all. I mean, it's certainly a good spin on it, but memorable? Not really.
The music is good, but it's far far far from the best thing about Zelda.
Who the hell pays more attention to the graphics in Zelda than the gameplay? The gameplay is half of what makes Zelda so fantastic.
He attempts to make Zelda look good not by holding up all the things Zelda actually does good, like the gameplay or the feel of stepping into Link's shoes, but by saying "AHAHAHA THESE GAMES ALL SUCK AND ZELDA IS BETTER LULZ". And it's really annoying.
IJBM: Praising the story of games rather than the complete narrative.
Zelda games are fairly unremarkable storywise, but brilliant in narrative.
No love for Wind Waker?
They do what they intend to do. That's what a good story's supposed to do. And I'd say that they're memorable, insofar as that while they're not particularly unique, they have characters and plot points that really hit home to the player. Like, say, coming out of the Temple of Time and seeing the world burned to the ground and populated by zombies was a pretty shocking twist.
The plots are minimalistic, yes. But that doesn't make them any less "memorable", really. And the fact that most people do remember what's going on in said games after more than ten years speaks volumes.
I'm not saying that the guy isn't an idiot, and he has some idea of what makes Zelda good. The problem is that the guy can't accert the claim of why it's better than any other game ever and relies on shitty logic in order to do so.
That was a pretty good story moment, but I think it was better altogether as a narrative moment. What hit harder than anything was the presentation of that change rather than the change itself. The lack of music, the ramshackle buildings, the browns and greys and all. But it also kept the camera perspectives of old Hyrule Town, so there was that element of familiarity. It was kind of like the narrative game equivalent of Uncanny Valley.
> wake up as a kid
> there's a giant tree
> you have to go into dungeons with the forest people and the water people and the fire people
> then you are old because of a magic sword
> then you have to go into lots of dungeons
> then there is a guy who is a girl and she throws exploding nuts
> then the boss is a giant monkey guy
> the end
I can get behind what Alex said- it's the narrative, not the story, that is memorable. But the story itself is unimpressive.
assert* sorry sorry nitpick .-.
I think treating them as separate is silly. The presentation services and feed the story as much as the story is dependant on the presentation in order to know where it's going.
Not really
A story is just what happens, the sequence of events within a narrative
They're quite separate in terms of video games. A game with almost no story might have impeccable narrative. Demon's Souls is an example of this, as it feeds you the world without providing any story but for the very beginning and the very end. Everything is told is various methods of subtle narration, be that through snippets of text, the music, the visuals or even the challenges you face.
On the other hand, a story-heavy game might have really bad narrative. Think about all those times when you wish dialogue or cutscenes would end. That's bad narrative, because it conveys information through long-winded, spoon-fed periods of non-interactive media consumption rather than using the medium to speak for itself. You know how shounen anime have a tendency for an onlooker to describe fights? That's what overly long dialogue and cutscenes (and other things) are for vidya.
But a story is not formed entirely on its own. In theory, yes, you come up with the story before you sit down and decide how you're going to narrate it, but in practice, as you're narrating the story and see where the narration is going, you switch elements from the story in order to better fit the narrative you're building, and you change your approach to the narration as you come up with the story and see what fits the story you're trying to convey.
Why does this article seem like an extended Kanye West joke?
Jesus Christ the dude says one fucking thing
That's one approach of many. Some storytellers let their stories tell themselves with narration first in mind, as you said. Others plot first and build narration around that. Video games, due to their production cycles, pretty much have to fall into the latter. They're labour intensive and costly, so it's unrealistic for a game development studio to be developing alongside the story writing. And if they are, the story's going to suck because the technical development is paced differently to the writing, so the two elements won't sync.
It's very important for a story-heavy game to have that story neatly plotted out beforehand, and ideally, the major narrative elements as well. Video games can be extremely fragile in production and require the utmost care so everything lines up correctly, and one of the most important things is to ensure the gameplay mechanics reflect the narrative, which in turn reflects the story.
If the creative cycle begins with narrative or gameplay mechanics before the story, then it'll need a longer preproduction cycle to compensate. This is why a lot of niche games are the brainchild of one creative mind, or very few. Personal, emotional investment can carry an idea where the economic restrictions of a regular game production cycle cannot. In these cases, the preproduction is probably completed by one or very few people before the game enters true production.
Luckily, Nintendo has the freedom to do what they want at their own pace. This is probably a large contributor to the excellent narrative of Zelda games. While the stories are generally rudimentary, I think they're that way by design. Even someone who's never played a Zelda game knows all the elements via osmotic exposure to mythology, legend and folklore. There's familiarity in the elements that make up Zelda games, and I believe that's a large contributor to their continued popularity and capacity to pick up new fans.
Much like how game design is "how" to game idea's "what, narrative is "how" to story's "what". And the former is far more important, I believe.
The one thing that sticks out to me about this article that hasn't already been mentioned is that he seems to think you save Zelda in Majora's Mask.
Well, I actually do think the Zelda series is the greatest of all time but this guy doesn't exactly make a compelling case.
I think the stories are pretty simple in a good way. They're told in an incredibly compelling and evocative way. The characters are definitely a part of that. They're not Shakespeare characters but they're simple and memorable and fun to be around.
Also I've made my statement clear that treating Skyward Sword and Skyrim as rivals makes no sense to me. Granted, I prefer Zelda's streamlined elegance to Skyrim's absolute unfocused openness, but while I don't think it's the messianic game everyone else does I don't think it sucks.