Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword v.s. Ocarina of Time

[Grodion]

eh, ocarina of time pissed you off many times. the water temple part 2 was just not worth it, at all. it didnt tell you where to go at all. when you got to zoras domain, you didnt know what to do at all. i mean, you go to jabu, and he tells you that princess ruto is missing. then what? it kinda pissed me off how navi was supposed to be all smart and she didnt even have a hint of what to do. the overworld wasnt as fleshed out as skyward sword. skyward sword may have been small, but it had a lot more content packed into one forest then ocarina of time had in hyrule field, kokiri forest, and the lost woods combined.

 

[Pink Reaper]

SS > MM > OoT >> WW >>> TP

imho

MM > SS > WW > OoT = TP

Considering TP was exactly the same game as OoT anyways.

I was always super in love with OoT since the first day I saw someone ELSE playing it as a kid right up until Majora's Mask came out. Then I was like "Why would I ever play OoT again when this game is just clearly better"

Seriously, OoT WAS an amazing game and still to this day is great, but there's a lot of flaws in it that people just ignore because to them it's the greatest game they've ever played and you're not allowed to say anything is wrong with it. Fi annoyed the living hell out of me at certain points but that was mostly because she reminded me so much of Navi(LISTEN: WHY DONT YOU CALL SARIA AND SEE HOW SHE'S DOING, SHE DOESNT HAVE MANY FRIENDS, I THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY NUMBER SHE HAS SAVED IN HER CELL PHONE SHE AND I KNOW SHE'D LOVE TO TALK TO YOU) The over world of Hyrule in OoT was barren except for some holes that generally werent worth exploring, hyrule castle town, kakariko village and lake hylia literally all only had 1 or 2 points of interest, the entirety of the child portion of the game was almost meaningless, the story was....eh.

But OoT still holds a place as one of the greatest of all time because the gameplay was just, leagues above everything else. The controls, the dungeon design the puzzles, it was amazing. But when you have other games doing the same and more, hell Majora's Mask did it directly after OoT, you have to move on. Being the first doesnt make you the best of all time, it just makes you the first.

Anyways im done with the opinion rant. I dont even know how i got here, im not good with computers.

 

[Tacket]

Nice post, Reaper.
That pretty much describes why I have the inability to ever let OoT go as the greatest game of all time.

HAcoreRD

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

First off, every game had an annoying character who really only bothered you when you actually pressed the button which called them. Navi would occasionally interrupt with forced text in certain areas such as dodongo's cavern when looking around corners. Fi would straight up get in the way everywhere. To me, Fi will be infinitely more annoying than Navi ever could. Twilight Princess was pretty good at actually giving your tag along partner an effective personality.

I have also read people complaining about OoT being too nostalgia driven or "its time has past". Well, responses like this seem bias anyway to me. It should still be considered what a game did for its time. I do not recall much from that time, but OoT did have a pretty big influence. The biggest thing is that it created a 3 dimensional zelda universe. Skyward Sword and Twilight princess have not done much to expand upon the series. It is likely no other zelda game will ever take such a huge leap. In this respect, OoT should gain massive points and that should not go away from criteria.

For their times, both games offered something new to the zeldaverse while failing to add other features common in other games. For example, both fail to offer the ability to skip scenes or fast forward through text driven areas when you have played a million times. Every game today offers that ability pretty much. To me, OoT will be the best game made for the zeldaverse because it changed so much and put a staple on what we have with majora's mask, skyward sword, and twilight princess.

Also, OoT offers one more thing: the game is broken. The amount of glitches found in this game is huge and offers quite a bit of replayability. If anyone ever got around to learning how to do the dozens and dozens of little tricks in this game you could spend hours with it. I do not want to restart a zelda game right after finishing it usually. With the glitches in OoT, I want to figure out a new route right after beating the game and go at it.

Not sure if the master quest should be included in this, but it too offers a twist on OoT giving it more replayability.

 

[GwJ]

Considering TP was exactly the same game as OoT anyways.

This is basically my stance. I never played OoT as a kid, so OoT3D was my first time completing the whole game. Story-wise, they're relatively the same. However, I like Link and Zelda more in TP. I like the dungeons in TP more. There are chickens things with boobs in TP. That alone makes it cooler.

 

[Jakor]

Before playing SS, my favorite 3D Zelda games were like this:
MM > WW > OOT > TP

And now, after going through SS two times, I'm still unsure as where to place it. All that I know for sure is that I enjoyed it a lot more than TP. In some ways, such as the combat systems, the dungeons, the story, the atmosphere and other things, I want to place it first. But then, SS had a more linear structure than most Zelda games, only one city, as well as other stuff that felt lacking or missing.

 

[Grodion]

First off, every game had an annoying character who really only bothered you when you actually pressed the button which called them. Navi would occasionally interrupt with forced text in certain areas such as dodongo's cavern when looking around corners. Fi would straight up get in the way everywhere. To me, Fi will be infinitely more annoying than Navi ever could. Twilight Princess was pretty good at actually giving your tag along partner an effective personality.

I have also read people complaining about OoT being too nostalgia driven or "its time has past". Well, responses like this seem bias anyway to me. It should still be considered what a game did for its time. I do not recall much from that time, but OoT did have a pretty big influence. The biggest thing is that it created a 3 dimensional zelda universe. Skyward Sword and Twilight princess have not done much to expand upon the series. It is likely no other zelda game will ever take such a huge leap. In this respect, OoT should gain massive points and that should not go away from criteria.

For their times, both games offered something new to the zeldaverse while failing to add other features common in other games. For example, both fail to offer the ability to skip scenes or fast forward through text driven areas when you have played a million times. Every game today offers that ability pretty much. To me, OoT will be the best game made for the zeldaverse because it changed so much and put a staple on what we have with majora's mask, skyward sword, and twilight princess.

Also, OoT offers one more thing: the game is broken. The amount of glitches found in this game is huge and offers quite a bit of replayability. If anyone ever got around to learning how to do the dozens and dozens of little tricks in this game you could spend hours with it. I do not want to restart a zelda game right after finishing it usually. With the glitches in OoT, I want to figure out a new route right after beating the game and go at it.

Not sure if the master quest should be included in this, but it too offers a twist on OoT giving it more replayability.

you say that ocarina of time had a large effect on the zelda franchise, and it did. but did you forget the whole new motion control thing for skyward sword? take twilight princess, and compare it to skyward sword. skyward sword had better graphics, a better story line, and better gameplay. in my opinion, ocarina of time and skyward sword both had a huge impact on the zelda franchise, and even though controls may not seem so much as what ocarina of time did, it certainly is more then what any other zelda game contributed to the franchise (excluding oot). because of this, i either say that these two games are at a tie, or one of them has the slight upper hand. in my opinion, i think skyward sword had the upper hand.

 

[GwJ]

I want to make a small correction. SS didn't necessarily have better graphics than TP. It just had different graphics.

 

[Tacket]

The graphics were more toony.

Brb, about to pull an OoT all nighter.

HAcoreRD

 

[GwJ]

Toony? Don't you mean impressionistic? If you want toony, look at Wind Waker. I don't think being vibrant qualifies being toony.

 

[Tacket]

When it's so vibrant that it starts to resemble a Kirby game, I'd personally call it toony.

HAcoreRD

 

[Pink Reaper]

Color = toony

Real = brown and gray. And brown

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I'll forever somewhat hate Wind Waker because Tingle has bull**** prices and sailing through the ocean getting triforce pieces was the worst part ever in any Zelda game. Which sucks too because other than that hellhole, Wind Waker seemed really fun and interesting to me. That really is the only fault to the game in my opinion, other than it is quite annoying to sail through the ocean in general, though it is indeed better than flying in Skyward despite Skyward Sword's area being significantly smaller.

Ocarina of Time really doesn't have much to it. Saying you should view it in general by viewing what it did to video games during its time doesn't really.. well, talk about the game in general. It had a sloppy design (to me, compared to the rest of the Zelda's onward) and had not too much to explore. Though, it doesn't have too many huge faults, admittedly.

Majora's Mask I'd say is probably better, for collecting mask's and using them is a lot of fun, although most weren't practical in fights and some were only used in an instance or two in the game. The dungeons were fun and more orderly and it's ending didn't begin to slip in quality like in most Zelda games (again, in my opinion), for Ocarina became super short and easy at the end as did Twilight Princess (which lacked end game usage for rupees, like Skyward Sword, although with Skyward is the worst with this because the sole purpose of the sidequests with the crystals shoves gobs of rupees in your pocket that are essentially useless). At the very least the boss fight in Twilight Princess at the end was quite memorable, even compared to all of them. The fact that the end tapered off more so than any other game though left somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth (the last few dungeons meshing together, then the last two seeming like they were tacked on last minute and made the easiest and shortest of all).

Skyward Sword disappointed in that area in some ways but also did better in ways. The last dungeon, albeit short, was unique and fun, but most of all the final scenes and the atmosphere of the final 20 minutes or so were breathtaking, but the boss fight did what almost no Zelda final boss fight does: end in one sequence. In this sense, it let down, but it wasn't enough for me to feel disappointed when I set down he controller.

The games like I said in my first post all go over the place in strengths, it isn't very consistent. But what I said after the Ghirahim gif holds some weight, because if I had to pick one that reigns above the others, I would have to pick the one that had the most unique and inspiring strengths, and that would be the lovable characters of Skyward such as Zelda, Groose, Ghirahim, the "Old Lady", and even Demise's brief appearance. I can't say the others left a mark in that sense, for they were more traditional in those areas.

 

[Tacket]

Color = toony

Real = brown and gray. And brown

There is a difference between color and very poppy, vibrant color. I just felt it was toonish. Kind of like a hybrid between real and toony to be honest, but that's just my opinion.

:/

HAcoreRD

 

[Luigitoilet]

cmon guys, admit it, the character models are toony as **** in Skyward Sword. The game really only resembled Impressionistic art when there weren't any characters in view or they occupied a miniscule part of the frame composition. You can't look at Groose, or that fortune teller dude, or Ghirahim and tell me they don't look like cartoon/anime characters.

 

[theeboredone]

Can't you have the "impressionist" art style, and still draw cartoony characters? If an art style...like say, MadWorld or Sin City had portrayals of some cartoony characters...would it make the art style irrelevant? I mean at worse, it's a hybrid.

 

[Tacket]

Skyward Sword looks like one big Disney movie.

HAcoreRD

 

[tm]

Came to this thread, pretty disappoint.

Graphics are nearly pointless to argue,
in general, increase in time = increase in graphics. NONE of the zeldas were mind-blowing with the graphics (plus, graphics are totally irrelevant next to gameplay)

Plot of all zelda games are pretty much not much better or worse than each other. MM was probably the most interesting/ original (and the gameplay style change mirrored that difference).

To me, gameplay is pretty much what it's all about. My favorite COMBAT system (just plain swordfighting) was WW, I felt that it flowed well, and while being a bit easy, was fun. Ocarina and MM were both great, no complaints. When the Wii came out, and then TP, the gameplay was just slightly ruined for me. Instead of inputting commands, I was now simply waving the wiimote back and forth arbitrarily in order to fight. (note: I also played TP on gamecube, the combat was much better, but it also suffered from losing an item slot [why not assign midna to the d-pad???]) Now, SS comes out. Now I feel that this thread has way more appreciation for SS than it should, which puts me in a bad place, but honestly I feel that SS just took a big **** on the combat system. Every goddamn enemy is built around the one fact that they made the sword direction sensitive. It's like nintendo was just trying to justify buying the wii-motion plus. MAYBE if the controls were about three times more accurate, would I not have a problem with this extremely gimmicky design. On top of that, there is literally NOTHING challeging about SS except for the fact that you'll get punished by making the wrong sword swipe (which, most of the time was NOT the way I swiped it). My god, the gossip stone if a freaking guidebook. The poor controls are the only reason this game is even remotely difficult, which in my opinion, it still isn't. Sure water temple on Oot was hard as hell, but it was also satisfying as hell and worked your brain. In OoT and MM, there were always more ways to optimize what you were doing, plenty of side bonuses, and always something new to do. Combine this with all of the glitches and you essentially have a game with everlasting replay value.

Yes, 'most' of each zelda game is generally similar, but they've hit a wall when I can predict the exact order of plot and how they will implement each new dungeon item, as well as instantly solve any puzzle. The only thing SS implemented that was actually innovative for the series was
-the rpg style upgrades (which, let's face it, is not actually innovative at all [but they get points for effort, it wasn't awful])
-certain technical aspects (skyward strike, moving time crystals, etc., but even these are just extensions of used ideas)
-the characters

I have replayed Oot, MM, and WW probably 3 times each, and they're still fun. I've replayed TP once, and it was meh. Favorite part about that was sword techniques and new items (and only on the GC). SS I will probably replay someday, but it's just so cookie-cutter instructional (and again, based entirely off of inaccurate controls) that I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the others.

And in case you were wondering,
Oot=MM > WW > TP > SS

All of them are good.

But let's face it, if zelda didn't exist until TP/SS, it would never have such critical acclaim.

 

[Luigitoilet]

Can't you have the "impressionist" art style, and still draw cartoony characters? If an art style...like say, MadWorld or Sin City had portrayals of some cartoony characters...would it make the art style irrelevant? I mean at worse, it's a hybrid.

I didn't make a judgment of quality. I was just referring to people claiming in a roundabout way that the game didn't look toony. "Cartoon" is not a pejorative.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Oh please, a Zelda game with ever lasting gameplay? Every single one I played through and beat shortly, and only picked it up again much MUCH later to beat it again, maybe. At least Skyward had it so you can start a new game with double the difficulty.

 

[Tacket]

Oh please, a Zelda game with ever lasting gameplay? Every single one I played through and beat shortly, and only picked it up again much MUCH later to beat it again, maybe. At least Skyward had it so you can start a new game with double the difficulty.

It takes me like a month or two to beat one. Then I can beat it in like a week or two.

HAcoreRD

 

[CT Chia]

I'm willing to put SS purely for the character development. Some of the best in any game.

 

[theeboredone]

SS probably has better character development than the other games (you might make a case for MM), but I question...is it that much of an impact to top it over OoT in this case? Is the character development so mind blowing...like something you would see in Mass Effect or Uncharted that makes you go, "Man...that was something."?

If you're looking at it through the "Zelda" standard, then sure, it's beastly...but from a general video game perspective, it sort of flounders. Yeah it was nice to see guys like Groose and Zelda evolve...but I'm having a hard time pointing a finger at anyone else. I know not everyone was, but I became annoyed when Fi out of no where decided to express some emotions at the end. It came completely out of left field, and was not even warranted it, given there was no evidence to suggest she was feeling that way throughout the entire game.

I will say in general, Zelda games tend to focus character development more on the side chars. In MM, I am reminded of the Skull kid and the couple you have to help. In OoT, Ruto comes to mind.

Of course, this goes back to my whole theory of whether or not Zelda and Mario games truly deserve the high praise they receive, because it always seems like they are being critiqued in a different lens...often a softer one than others. Then again, I'm just harsh about everything.

 

[Tacket]

I'm willing to put SS purely for the character development. Some of the best in any game.

Impa and Zelda had some pretty stellar character development in OoT.

HAcoreRD

 

[Pink Reaper]

No they didn't lol

 

[Tacket]

Impa at first was just a baby sitter that turned out to be the Sage of Shadow.

Zelda went from young princess to a freaking man.

Can't say that's not good development.

HAcoreRD

 

[Pink Reaper]

Character development is just that, a character developing. Impa, just like the other sages literally just went from "I am a person" to "I am a sage." There was no character development whatsoever.

 

[theeboredone]

Yeah, if I could expand one aspect of OoT, it would be getting to know the sages better.

 

[ZIO]

Skyward Sword is the better game (experience) no doubt about it.

The only thing I'd say OoT has over SS is the way the world flowed (hidden grottos, short cuts a plenty, and the traveling). SS is rather bad at it. There's a hub world of uninteresting clouds with rather very little to do, then you have three areas split by this hub world. I was under the impression we'd have those areas seamlessly strung together. Those ground areas were also certainly underwhelming in the DISCOVER aspect (no secrets) and whatever treasures you can find are kind of pointed out to you. The game was pretty linear in that regard, whereas OoT is like "****, you just cleared the Great Deku Tree. You can go here, but **** it, I'mma drop you into this world. Have at it."


Other than that aspect, SS trumps everything OoT does. Hands down.

 

[Tacket]

Can we even truly compare the two games? OoT was made in 1998; SS was made in 2011. Over a decade time difference. Deep down I know that SS was better, but OoT had a greater effect on me overall, so I'll always say it's the better game.

Character development is just that, a character developing. Impa, just like the other sages literally just went from "I am a person" to "I am a sage." There was no character development whatsoever.

It was kinda impossible for there to be real progressive character development since there was a 7 year time skip in the story. It would hit you and you'd have to go with it. Like Ingo before and after in OoT.

HAcoreRD

 

[GwJ]

Can we even truly compare the two games?

Yes.

Deep down I know that SS was better

There you have it.

/thread

 

[Tacket]

I still think OoT is a better game though.

HAcoreRD

 

[ZIO]

OoT has had an effect on all of us. As children, we are pure. We take a magical delight to what we are first experiencing and innocent curiosity in what we don't understand.

OoT was a new experience for many of us (even for those in the PC world). And because it was new, we had nothing to base it on. It forged our opinions and tastes for games like it for the future.

OoT is a case of nostalgia, honestly. I have replayed tons of times, I won't argue that I don't get enjoyment out of it. Quite the contrary. But that can be due to it being the first of its kind for me to experience. It will always hold that gleam of magic.

But I can also stand back and look at it objectively. There's many games from that time period and before that have stood the test of time. SMB3, for example. OoT had introduced many concepts, but many games have improved on it, including games from the same franchise.

 

[GwJ]

I still think OoT is a better game though.

HAcoreRD

No you don't. You said it yourself.

 

[etecoon]

So basically, gameplay can be unthoughtful and badly constructed but if it has a good story and succeeds on other superficial levels, you still have a great video game

I don't get you people

 

[Tacket]

OoT has had an effect on all of us. As children, we are pure. We take a magical delight to what we are first experiencing and innocent curiosity in what we don't understand.

OoT was a new experience for many of us (even for those in the PC world). And because it was new, we had nothing to base it on. It forged our opinions and tastes for games like it for the future.

OoT is a case of nostalgia, honestly. I have replayed tons of times, I won't argue that I don't get enjoyment out of it. Quite the contrary. But that can be due to it being the first of its kind for me to experience. It will always hold that gleam of magic.

But I can also stand back and look at it objectively. There's many games from that time period and before that have stood the test of time. SMB3, for example. OoT had introduced many concepts, but many games have improved on it, including games from the same franchise.

That nostalgic factor that OoT has is what makes it so that I can never let go of it as the best Zelda game. I'm fully aware that over time many of its flaws and mechanics have evolved and improved, but that doesn't really matter to me. If OoT and SS were made in the same era, I would definitely go with SS as the superior; however, that is not the case, so count me on team OoT.

Completely agree with you on the emotional effects OoT had and still has, ZIO.

HAcoreRD

 

[GwJ]

Tacket, you're going in circles. I told you to take off the nostalgia glasses and you still said it was better. Now when you say SS is better, you take it back and say OoT is better because of nostalgia.

 

[Tacket]

Well, to clarify...

SS is a better game, but I prefer OoT due to its effect on me nostalgia wise.

Quote me on that. Sorry for any confusion.

HAcoreRD

 

[ZIO]

Well hey, that fits the requirements set out in the OP; He told us what game he THOUGHT was better.

 

[Tacket]

Yeah, OP just asked which one we thought was better.
I think OoT is better based on pathos not logos.
If I base my decision on logos, I'd choose SS.

HAcoreRD