Email: Aonuma Style

Saw this and thought you might enjoy it :D

I’m not sure what Aonuma’s involvement has been with the later Zeldas, but the video sums up why so many former Zelda fans think Zelda is ‘gay’ (meaning lame in how the slang used to be). Zelda is a CREEPY game… and not in the good way.

Zelda series has so much baggage in it. It has the atrocious timeline which was more fun before the ‘official’ timeline came out. There are no surprises in the game because we all know what is going to happen further down in the timeline. We know Ganon is defeated, that Zelda is saved, and that Link is victorious. Yawn.

I’d like to see a new IP that tries to be like Classic Zelda and just shed off the baggage of the modern Zelda series. Any form of Classic Zelda that would be made today would be placed in a content ‘firewall’ where it would be seen as ‘non-important’ as if it was some bizarre spin-off. Classic Zelda games were so much fun in large part because they also established the Zelda universe. We don’t want NSMB redux. A new series could be BOLD and ambitious with its content.

One big, BIG change of Modern Nintendo versus Classic Nintendo is the cost of games. During the NES glory days, Nintendo became famous as the company having the strongest profit to employee ratio ever. As games have become more production focused, the number of employees to make a game has increased and the time to make it has increased. The profitability has gone down. The Legend of Zelda was incredibly profitable while the later Zelda games are doing their best to break even or be slightly profitable.

I think profitability should be kept in mind. Start this new IP on, say, the handheld (where Kirby started of course). This would keep the costs down. Any money should be spent on the audio production (sound and music) and on the multiplayer/online. Voice acting? Waste of money. Graphics? You don’t need blazing Unreal Engine for this.

I think DLC is inappropriate for Super Mario Brothers. However, DLC would be welcome in a Classic Zelda type game. Imagine additional dungeons or new areas of the Overworld to explore (or new enemies!).

There is so much Nintendo can do with so little. I look at Animal Crossing and think the clock adjusting the gameplay is a cool idea. It’s a shame it is being wasted on a mortgage simulator that pre-teen girls like. Imagine if that was put into Zelda… at least in some form. Imagine a night and day cycle with actual seasons.

This new IP needs to become a RPG like Classic Zelda was. Modern Zelda plays more like an adventure game than a RPG. The reason why we loved Zelda back in the day was that it was THE Nintendo RPG. It was an action RPG.

“We have tons of those today,” says the reader. Games like Diablo are focused on numbers, stats, loot, and grinding repeatedly. That’s not fun. Classic Zelda was never about numbers, stats, or loot (there was no loot ever except rupees). Classic Zelda was about exploration and getting stronger to go into scary areas. There’s really no other game like it on the market.

Such a game would need to be co-op. “This would be hard to make.” No, it wouldn’t. If you keep the basic game simple, like Classic Zelda, you can focus on the other things. Zelda needs to be fun not when you gain all the items but when you first start off with the sword.

One huge difference between Modern Nintendo and Classic Nintendo is that everyone asks “Where are the RPGs?” for Modern Nintendo consoles. I find that strange since Zelda was always meant to be Nintendo’s RPG. We bought the game console for Mario (2d Mario) while we waited for Zelda to be finished (because RPGs take a while to complete).

Since Aonuma Zelda is nothing like a RPG, it feels like there are no RPGs on the game console. Since RPG gamers aren’t buying the Nintendo console to get to Zelda, the Nintendo console loses the third party RPG games as there is no install base for RPGs.

If Nintendo consoles have a 2d Mario and a RPGish Zelda on each of them, they would be so much fun to buy. Then add in a ‘real’ Metroid and usual suspects, and the value of the console grows and grows.