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Legend of Zelda The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - NO SPOILERS, USE THE SPOILER THREAD PLEASE

Ganonsburg

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Then I guess I'm glad it came out on N64 because limitations are what makes games (and other things) exceptional.
If by this you mean, "I think that game makers challenging themselves to exceed the limits of the system," then yeah, that would make a game exceptional. But that would also apply to current systems. Wouldn't you want the developers to always be testing the limits and stretching them such that they always make great games? Also, it's not the limits that make the games great, but the fact that the developers are/were so skilled as to exceed expectations and boundaries. Limits on their own don't make things great. For instance, no matter how hard you try the graphics on the NES will never be great compared to today's (ever growing) standards

Maybe you mean, "Necessity is the mother of invention." As in, the game makers want to/need to exceed the game's limits, so they come up with creative ways around those limits.

:034:
 

kupo15

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Oxymoron but its so true. Limitations force creativity that is unneeded in today's world. You don't need to worry about disc space compared to before so now you don't need to think of ways to save space and overcome that.

Today I feel as though pretty graphics are a way to mask laziness on the part of dev and that thre is more time spent on graphics since they have the space. This wasn't really the case back then.

Look at mario for example. He was created through hardware limitations.

Restrictions force creativity. Creativity yields better games.
If by this you mean, "I think that game makers challenging themselves to exceed the limits of the system,"
Yup. And the limitations were more of a concern every time they made new games so they had to be creative to get around shortcomings otherwise the game would be crap.
But that would also apply to current systems. Wouldn't you want the developers to always be testing the limits and stretching them such that they always make great games?
Yes and no. 5 gbs is some "limit" compared to 16 mbs (32 mb with expansion pack I think) wouldn't you say? haha ;)
Are you really going to fill 5gbs worth of gameplay or are most of that space going towards cutscenes and graphics?

If you look at the zelda games like TP and OOT. Personally, I don't feel that TP is considerably longer or more in depth than OOT. Yea Hyrule is much bigger but there to me it doesn't feel filled up and jam packed the way OOT way. What good did an extra gig do? It made the graphics nice.

This shows the high level of craft of OOT and MM compared to TP that they could make the same depth and length (?) of game given the limitations. For me I feel more immersed in OOT and MM.

There are only rare cases where limitations aren't good and one of those is MM. You couldn't make that game on the original hardware so they upgraded it. But what did they do with the extra space? They made the world incredibly alive, vast and complex and didn't upgrade the graphics at all except for adding blur effects and removing the background fog that was needed with the previous engine limitations. They took the extra space and filled it up with more gameplay.
Also, it's not the limits that make the games great, but the fact that the developers are/were so skilled as to exceed expectations and boundaries.
Its a little bit of both. If you didn't put in the effort to overcome those difficulties then the games were generally just terrible. Nowadays you could take the same game and throw pretty graphics in it and it hides a lot of the **** about it. You can do that in todays world.

Lastly, with all the free space, its easier to forget how to make a game because you have the self obligation to fill up that space. So you fill up the space with lots of unnecessary stuff like extra tuts and help and cutscenes and graphics ect. To me, games today feel more and more like interactive movies than game.
 

kupo15

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Wasn't the expansion pack just 4mb?
I honestly don't know
The emphasis on graphics and cutscenes is the worst thing about video games, I agree. However, I don't think this is happening because consoles are too powerful -_-
Maybe not but it certainly isn't helping matters either. If you think about it, what is stopping them from doing it?

Before it was spend too much time on graphics/things that don't make the game better and have an incomplete game or make your game come first then add the unnecessary stuff later.

Its amazing how ppl (even not related to VGs) can come up with better products when there is a heavy restriction compared to the free bird. I know I experienced this growing up with school projects. Sometimes too much freedom is a bad thing.

Another reason could prob be the cost of making things is much cheaper (I think) I mean, the N64 put some companies out of business because developing for it was soo expensive compared to the market and Nintendo's game took away their sales. So your game had to be good or else you will prob go bankrupt.
 

Luigitoilet

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I can see your point, and I mostly agree, really. Games are WAY too cinematic and "visual" nowadays. That is why I'm mostly disinterested in this gen of gaming. I know I'm coming off as a cranky old man gamer or whatever, but ****!
 

kupo15

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I'm in the same boat with you LT. This gen is kinda pushing me out of gaming and all I think about is how terrible games are today compared to retro.
 

Kingdom Come

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Same. I always argue over my ******* friends about this. They say graphics make a game good even if it sucks. So in that case the Wii sucks. I have them play some of my Wii games and they say "oh this is fun but it still sucks" "it's fun but it sucks".

IDK man some people are just weird.....

Sometimes I feel like the last of a dying breed.
 

Spire

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The Wii sucks, though it has a handful of good games. The 3DS will further embellish the Wii's casual guise while contrastingly proving itself to be Nintendo's 'gamer' platform.
 

pickle962

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Same. I always argue over my ******* friends about this. They say graphics make a game good even if it sucks. So in that case the Wii sucks. I have them play some of my Wii games and they say "oh this is fun but it still sucks" "it's fun but it sucks".

IDK man some people are just weird.....

Sometimes I feel like the last of a dying breed.
Yeah..they may as well ***** and whine about say...zelda 1..Sure it's graphics are retro, but it's a blast to play even after over 20 years...
 

LLDL

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I'm pretty excited for this, I haven't had a good zelda adventure in a while. If this flops then I guess DKC returns will be one of my last wii games.
 

Ganonsburg

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I honestly don't know why people are all thinking they've been deceived, because the concept art we were shown really doesn't look that far off from the current style. What we have now just looks more finished (which is a good thing, I would think).

:034:
 

kupo15

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Concept art doesn't tell me if a game will flop, Nintendo's current history of disappointment after disappointment is whats doing it for me. To me, this whole generation has been built on deceit.
 

TheBuzzSaw

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Dang. I'm late on what appears to be a fantastic discussion.

I just wanted to add that there is a subtle divide in how people perceive the way video games "should" be. There are generally two camps. One group sees video games as a way to literally escape reality. In this sense, games "ought" to offer more and more realism through use of graphics, fancy hardware (VR glasses, body suits, etc.), and realistic props. Games are supposedly a path to bringing those fantasies to life. This is where I feel Shigeru resides with his presentation of finally using the Wii remote to wield Link's sword in a 1:1 system.

The other group (more where I reside) views games more strictly as an art. The game is meant to stimulate the mind and provide a challenge for the player to overcome. People in this group generally don't mind that controllers stay rudimentary (in fact, many often prefer it over the addition of things like motion control). A game has a beginning and an end, and there is a carefully laid series of steps in getting from one to the other.

Skyward Sword arguably lands in both areas, and that seems to be where many disagreements arise. For example, I am quite disgusted at the attempt to implement 1:1 sword control, while many others are really excited. I'm not a fan of the art style (though that does seem to comply with my "group") not because I insist on hardcore realism; I simply desire a dark gritty environment to tell the story in.

I agree with kupo15's assessment that hardware restrictions often result in more innovative titles. It's not some magic formula that always yields results (forcing hardware restrictions won't magically make all games innovative), but there is truth in that observation. Obviously, better hardware is a good thing, but the developers do need to spend more time packing in gameplay, not more art.

End brain dump.
 

Jam Stunna

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I can see where BuzzSaw is coming from, and I respect his opinion. Personally though, I've had it with "dark and mature." I feel like it's become a shortcut for lazy developers and gamers to achieve a visceral response simply by cramming in more blood, boobs and curse words (tangent: I'm taking a creative writing class now and I actually have a similar complaint about the stories we read. Does every short story have to be about some form of doom and gloom? It's just too hard to write a "good" story that's not about the hollowness of suburban living or whatever existential crisis is the soup du jour).

Also, I wish that people would stop taking the "dark" part of "dark and mature" literally. A little bit of color never hurt anyone. Ha, this post made more sense in my head.
 

kupo15

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Hell yes to everything Buzz said. Seems like we both think very similar. :D
Care to elaborate on this?
I'm part of the "hardcore" gamer crowd that Nintendo catered to back then and the Wii was hyped to be this fantastic machine that my crowd would like. It clearly isn't. Tons of games were also hyped to be better than earlier renditions which is not true either. Brawl is a prime example.

I just feel that everything that is announced for the hardcore crowd at E3 and stuff just turns out to be disappointments and family friendly casual games. I can't think of a single game this generation that challenged me as a gamer the way Nintendo says it will. I think the only thing that actually felt like a game to me is Excitetrucks. lol. For the handheld I think the last game that challenged me was "Super Princess Peach." What an amazing game.

Even when the GC was starting to cater towards the broader audiences I felt like it had more satisfying and better quality titles. Luigi's Mansion wasn't that bad and it was very innovative. Melee and TS2 were two of the best sequels of the generation. (I know TS isn't a sequel to Goldeneye but the box said it was "An heir to Goldeneye" and indeed it was) Second Sight was an amazing 3rd person shooter game ect. Everything that looked and that was hyped to be good was good. I hardly ever felt that I bought games that didn't meet the expectation that was presented.

Not so much anymore. This gen. has been nothing but a slap in the face each time and has met below my expectation in relation to the PR. This is why I'm even skeptical that DKC and Goldeneye will be anywhere close to as good as all the positive feedback and hype that has been delivered.
 

Luigitoilet

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I dunno what to say. The Wii's marketing has never been focused on the hardcore gaming community. They have been about family focused entertainment since day one. Wii Sports is a party game, not a serious sports simulator. I can understand being disappointed with the Wii, but to say the marketing has been aimed for the hardcore gaming community in any sense is incorrect. The Wii is seen as a cheap alternative to the more traditional gameplay of 360 and PS3, and as having a more broad appeal so to draw in non-gamers. There's nothing "wrong" with this, honestly, but you have a right to feel betrayed I suppose.
 

LAW2222

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I wish the wii had more hardcore games
every now and then a gem drops on the wii but aside from that most games are dumb
 

Kingdom Come

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The Mario Sports games are awesome. Mario Party, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime, Other M, Smash Bros, Resident Evil 4 port, Galaxy, Galaxy 2, Conduit, No More Heroes. Just to name a few.
 

kupo15

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I dunno what to say. The Wii's marketing has never been focused on the hardcore gaming community. They have been about family focused entertainment since day one. Wii Sports is a party game, not a serious sports simulator. I can understand being disappointed with the Wii, but to say the marketing has been aimed for the hardcore gaming community in any sense is incorrect. The Wii is seen as a cheap alternative to the more traditional gameplay of 360 and PS3, and as having a more broad appeal so to draw in non-gamers. There's nothing "wrong" with this, honestly, but you have a right to feel betrayed I suppose.
Well did you know that the wii was casual based before it came out? I remember everyone was thinking it was going to be amazing in the hardcore way not the way it turned out. But eventually we understood that it was targeted at a broader audience with the amount of family trash titles that came out. I just never thought that all of our treasured titles would be transformed to this as well. Don't you remember Nintendo's E3 conference specifically stating something along the lines of "are we just focusing on the new gamers? No, because in the third quarter, Mario is here for the core crowd."

Something like this. I remember that the press conference specifically noted that some games are geared towards the hardcore crowd but in the end they aren't.

The Mario Sports games are awesome. Mario Party, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime, Other M, Smash Bros, Resident Evil 4 port, Galaxy, Galaxy 2, Conduit, No More Heroes. Just to name a few.
Mario party back in the day was amazing. TP is "ok." My friend said I'll like the game more if I play it for the GC so sometime soon I'll do that and I'm sure I'll like it more than the wii version. But I mean, the game didn't really feel like it offered that much in the sidequests compared to WW and especially MM. I don't see how anything can really live up to MM.

Your not really that rewarded for exploration in TP because most of the chests are money. And its also interesting to note how it feels as though the number of collectable items have decreased since Lttp. In both Lttp and OOT there were much more "useless" items which even though not crucial to the game, it adds to the depth.

I've already mentioned the disappointing direction the 3D Mario games and how it just gets easier.
 

Luigitoilet

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Well, personally I think Mario Galaxy (2 in particular) is the most "core" gaming game of this generation because it focuses 100% on gameplay just like it used to be. It doesn't have to be balls-breaking difficult to be fantastically designed and a joy to play. I can see you didn't like the Galaxy games, and any reason you can give me won't make sense because I think Galaxy 2 is the pinnacle of platform gaming.

Twilight Princess is a Gamecube game. There hasn't been a real wii Zelda game yet, not until SS comes out.

My main problem with the wii? They over-exaggerated the motion controls. What we got in the Wii Motion Plus 2 years later was what the system should have been to begin with. And still, there are hardly any games that use MotionPlus.
 

kupo15

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It may be the most "core" game around but the biggest problem I have with it is the direction it goes in. Why do you think Galaxy 2 is the pinnacle? I think SM64 is. I'm not saying it has to be the hardest thing ever to be good. Heck, I like Sunshine a ton and that game is just a joy to play but its not hard. The jetpack even goes against what makes platforming difficult in the first play but its still a fantastic fun game. (moreso than galaxy) I feel like its everyone is proving my ideas wrong. I want to start proving your ideas wrong lol :laugh:

TP is a GC game your right which is partly why I haven't really made Zelda a strong reason in my argument for this gen. I'm skeptical because of the motion controls but I'm excited to see how it is and I'll prob buy it anyway. Even a mediocre Zelda (read: TP) is still worth buying.

I agree with the waggle stuff.

I'm not trying to be a retro elitist. Its just you can't give someone Filet Minon and then only serve flat iron steak and expect me to be happy. Idk how you can play a sequel and NOT compare it to the originals
 

Luigitoilet

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It may be the most "core" game around but the biggest problem I have with it is the direction it goes in. Why do you think Galaxy 2 is the pinnacle? I think SM64 is. I'm not saying it has to be the hardest thing ever to be good. Heck, I like Sunshine a ton and that game is just a joy to play but its not hard. The jetpack even goes against what makes platforming difficult in the first play but its still a fantastic fun game. (moreso than galaxy) I feel like its everyone is proving my ideas wrong. I want to start proving your ideas wrong lol :laugh:

TP is a GC game your right which is partly why I haven't really made Zelda a strong reason in my argument for this gen. I'm skeptical because of the motion controls but I'm excited to see how it is and I'll prob buy it anyway. Even a mediocre Zelda (read: TP) is still worth buying.

I agree with the waggle stuff.

I'm not trying to be a retro elitist. Its just you can't give someone Filet Minon and then only serve flat iron steak and expect me to be happy
SM64 is too much of a collectathon, too much of the time is spent walking around the same areas and exploring. I don't really consider it a very good platformer at all. It's a great adventure/collectathon game but it really isn't true to Mario's roots-platforming- at all. I feel Sunshine is the weakest 3D Mario because it tried to expand on the ideas of Mario 64 and as a result got even FURTHER away from what Mario is about. Galaxy (2) went back to the fundamentals and modernized and streamlized the gameplay. It's a matter of taste on whether you prefer SM64 style or Galaaxy style, but I do feel like Galaxy is a better representative of the classic golden era of gaming. It finally feels like a worthy 3D evolution of the NES-SNES games, and that's why I feel it is for the hardcore gamers who have been playing since the NES days and grew up on platformers.
 

kupo15

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SM64 is too much of a collectathon, too much of the time is spent walking around the same areas and exploring. I don't really consider it a very good platformer at all. It's a great adventure/collectathon game but it really isn't true to Mario's roots-platforming- at all. I feel Sunshine is the weakest 3D Mario because it tried to expand on the ideas of Mario 64 and as a result got even FURTHER away from what Mario is about. Galaxy (2) went back to the fundamentals and modernized and streamlized the gameplay. It's a matter of taste on whether you prefer SM64 style or Galaaxy style, but I do feel like Galaxy is a better representative of the classic golden era of gaming. It finally feels like a worthy 3D evolution of the NES-SNES games, and that's why I feel it is for the hardcore gamers who have been playing since the NES days and grew up on platformers.
So it IS a LoZ vs Z2 argument. lol.

For me, there is and should be a very different style of gameplay between the 2D Marios and the 3D Marios. I feel that 3D Mario is the most fun and enjoyable when it is in the sandbox nature of SM64 not in its 2D incarnation in a 3d world like Galaxy is. I actually feel that SM64 acts like a 2D/3D Mario in the fact that even though the goal is different, certain stages are built with a 2D linear structure such as the Bowser stages. In fact, these levels especially function much better if you use a side scrolling camera view and treat it like 2D Mario instead of treating it like 3D Mario. There are also other levels that I believe have the same concept.

That's interesting how you think Sunshine tried to expand on 64 because I believe Sunshine started to go AWAY from 64 and more towards Galaxy's style of play. 64 started a new style of Mario with an open world sandbox platforming game and it morphed into this restrictive linear style of gameplay much like the earlier retro games except its in 3D. I don't see the need for a 2D and 3D Mario that plays so similarly where the star in 3D games replaces the end flag in the 2D games. That just isn't what 3D Mario is about IMO. 3D Mario should be about exploration and platforming and freedom like what SM64 did IMO.

Its kinda like what Metroid did. The 3D versions are much different than the 2D versions but people enjoy both equally. There is nothing wrong with the slightly different direction of SM64 and its one of the greatest games of all time. There is no need to fix SM64 because its an amazing 3D adaptation to the 2D games. I think expanding on SM64 is progressing Mario in the 3D world but taking it away and going back to the original direction which is simplifying SM64 is taking a step backwards.

Personally I feel that the platforming in 64 is much harder and more representative of Mario's roots than that of Galaxy actually. Its just that the style of gameplay in Galaxy is more representative of NES/SNES Mario which is what NSMB is supposed to be.
 

Kingdom Come

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Personally I feel that the platforming in 64 is much harder and more representative of Mario's roots than that of Galaxy actually. Its just that the style of gameplay in Galaxy is more representative of NES/SNES Mario which is what NSMB is supposed to be.
Did you just contradict yourself?
 

kupo15

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No I don't think so. I said that Galaxy's style is more like its roots (go here instead of find the star yourself) but SM64's platforming and challenge is more representative of its roots.
 

GwJ

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What makes sunshine so weak? Keep 'straying away from what mario should be' out of the arguement too.
 

Spire

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What makes sunshine so weak? Keep 'straying away from what mario should be' out of the arguement too.
It's not weak compared to other series, it's weak compared to the aforementioned 3D Mario games, thus it is the weakest 3D Mario.
 

Luigitoilet

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So it IS a LoZ vs Z2 argument. lol.

For me, there is and should be a very different style of gameplay between the 2D Marios and the 3D Marios. I feel that 3D Mario is the most fun and enjoyable when it is in the sandbox nature of SM64 not in its 2D incarnation in a 3d world like Galaxy is. I actually feel that SM64 acts like a 2D/3D Mario in the fact that even though the goal is different, certain stages are built with a 2D linear structure such as the Bowser stages. In fact, these levels especially function much better if you use a side scrolling camera view and treat it like 2D Mario instead of treating it like 3D Mario. There are also other levels that I believe have the same concept.

That's interesting how you think Sunshine tried to expand on 64 because I believe Sunshine started to go AWAY from 64 and more towards Galaxy's style of play. 64 started a new style of Mario with an open world sandbox platforming game and it morphed into this restrictive linear style of gameplay much like the earlier retro games except its in 3D. I don't see the need for a 2D and 3D Mario that plays so similarly where the star in 3D games replaces the end flag in the 2D games. That just isn't what 3D Mario is about IMO. 3D Mario should be about exploration and platforming and freedom like what SM64 did IMO.


Personally I feel that the platforming in 64 is much harder and more representative of Mario's roots than that of Galaxy actually. Its just that the style of gameplay in Galaxy is more representative of NES/SNES Mario which is what NSMB is supposed to be.
Galaxy is designed in the same way as the Bowser levels of SM64. How you can bring those specific levels up and not the similarities to Galaxy is beyond me. Galaxy is basically an entire game of SM64 Bowser levels.
 
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