- Pronouns
- he/him
Ever since the release of Breath of the Wild, Zelda fans have fallen into two camps. One, which loves the game and sees it as a breath of fresh air - even if not everything about it is perfect and we can admit to it - and one, albeit much smaller, which thinks the game is too much of a departure from the series and wish for it to "return to form".
At the heart of this lies something frequently called "The Zelda Formula", which is probably best described as an informal structural rule of how Zelda games play out. Said rule, although it can be vague at times, is probably best summarised as follows:
Now, to me, that's not a bad rule for the backbone of a video game. So why is it that by Skyward Sword in 2011, so many players were clamouring that Zelda was "too formulaic", that the series needed changing and why is it that Breath of the Wild ended up being so celebrated? Many believe that it was because it played to "industry trends", but I'd argue that it was something else. And to explain what exactly that something is, I'm going to pose a question first:
And to do that, I'm going to take a peek into the past and explain how things had changed around the series over time. Now, I'll probably start with A Link to the Past, since it is generally seen as the starting point of the "Zelda formula", but it also allows me to highlight the first problem that begun to emerge with the Zelda series over time and that is the change in what I call the game's "macro structure", i.e. how it plays out when zoomed out and looked at from beginning to end.
Now, one of the things that I personally really like about A Link to the Past is that, for the most part, it is entirely "item gated", meaning that progress in the game is tied to the items you possess. The game gives you an order of the dungeons in the Dark World, but it's ultimately up to you how to go through this phase, as only a few of the dungeons do actually require you to have beaten the last numbered dungeon or gotten its item to continue onward. And moreover, not all items that help you gain access to the dungeons are found in the dungeons prior or even in dungeons at all. Take, for example, the Titan's Mitt, which is found in Thief's Town, the fourth dungeon. You don't actually need to beat the Swamp Palace or Skull Woods to go here, you can just... go and grab the Titan's Mitt as soon as you have the Hammer if you want to (if you're extreme, you can just leave Palace of Darkness after you got it), which opens up a significant portion of the game in this phase. I very much enjoy this - the game gives you a suggestion of where to go, but it's not necessary to follow it all the way.
Ocarina of Time works in a similar fashion - sure, you can follow the order of dungeons in the Adult part of the game to a T, but there's nothing stopping you from tackling the Water Temple first right after coming back from the Forest Temple. And if you have Epona, you can get into Gerudo Town early as well and beat it, if you're good at stealth. There's still a structure to things, such as the Shadow Temple being only unlocked after beating the Fire and Water Temples, but in general, the second portion of Ocarina lets you test the waters a bit and offers some more openness to the player.
Majora's Mask is a bit more linear, but given that its meatier part lies with the interactions with the people of Termina, it's not too bad - and hell, if you want to, you don't have to finish Great Bay before heading to Ikana Canyon, just grab the Ice Arrows and cross the river to climb up. But what Majora's Mask does most and this is probably the part I love about both it and its predecessors and is ultimately the thing I believe the Zelda series lost over time is the idea that going out of your way and exploring can give you something useful. It doesn't have to be something of major consequence, but finding the Stone Mask in the original Majora's Mask, for example - btw, this is my least favourite change with the 3D version by far - shows what this can do in the context of these games.
Wind Waker is an odd duck in this regard, but ultimately I like it a lot more than the games that came after - it still has a ton of exploration to do and while a particularly annoying trend begun to rear its ugly head in this game, it's nowhere near as bad as it gets - as it still has a ton to explore and even the new items are still fun to play with and have their uses beyond the initial dungeon they're tied to.
One thing of note here - I didn't talk about the GB(A) games a lot and I'm not going to - I think these issues are much more present in the 3D games, though the 2D/handheld games tend to lose a bit in that regard as well, and I'm not super particular about these outside of Link's Awakening, but if you want a brief breakdown, they're generally pretty great when it comes to adding exploration, though as time goes on, they also fall prey to the issues with the 3D games (especially when we get to the DS, but I'll talk about it when we get there), but not nearly to the same extent.
And now... to Twilight Princess. I'm going to say it straight away, this is by far the game in the Zelda series I probably liked the least for a period of time. I still don't like it and a lot of my issues have nothing to do with the whole "the intro is too long" stuff that gets thrown at it. I can deal with a long intro - heck, I'm on record here for defending the first twenty hours of Dragon Quest VII, that game's intro is about as long as it takes to beat TP - but that comes with the caveat that the rest of the game has to deliver and Twilight Princess just does not deliver for me. The idea I posed above about how going out of your way and exploring can net you something useful or at least let you test the waters to see how far you can go? Yeah this game doesn't have ANY of it. New areas are gated off by story content all throughout the game, the collection side quests feel exceptionally pointless because the only thing the game gives you for them is rupees in such an abandon that they're impossible to spend, especially once you're done with the store side quest, and the Hidden Skills feel useless for the most part, because the game can be quite easy. For all the complaining about the abundance of Korok Seeds and Shrines in BotW - doing them gives you things that actually change aspects of the game in a noticeable fashion, something that feels seriously absent from Twilight Princess. The items in the second half of the game are also just... not that interesting once you've finished getting to the next dungeon and maybe getting a Piece of Heart, which is another thing that feels so antithetical to what makes Zelda games great - like, the Leaf from The Wind Waker sees far more action than the Spinner does once you're done with Arbiter's Grounds. If the story was at least strong enough to carry it, but by god, it's just... not there? The intro feeling so long may have mostly to do with how much time you spend with it only for all the setup to then pay off in the weakest ways possible. If I had to sum up my feelings for it in a food metaphor - imagine going to a multi-course dinner where the courses are very spread out, there's maybe one or two dishes that are really good and all you get in between is room temperature tap water.
I'm not going to dwell too long on the DS games. They're by far my least favourite Zelda games, I've only finished Spirit Tracks once and found Phantom Hourglass so frustrating on repeated attempts to play it. Miss me with 'em.
I think to some degree Skyward Sword was a move in a solid direction - there's more substantial things to do outside of the main plot, although it is all fairly limited, but the upgrading system is at least more useful than TP’s torrent of Rupees. The items are also spaced out in a manner that gives each a bit more utility, unlike TP, where the most useful gear was handed out during the first half and the rest was stuff that lost its usefulness fast. That being said, I'm not a fan of the flying bits and bad traversal tends to sour me quite a bit on otherwise good games, which plays a role in my disliking of the DS games. Also, this game just feels padded out and it rehashes the worst instincts of TP, though I'll admit I like the trials a fair bit more than the light bug hunts.
A Link Between Worlds is another odd duck. The sentiment behind the game shows Nintendo understood that being too tied to a linear pathway through the game was something players were in many ways sick of, but the solution they applied here comes across as though they didn’t quite understand the issue at heart. The Item Rental system is the wrong solution to the series’s issue with having little in the way of rewarding exploration – though its main collect quest was, this time, more useful than those that came before it and it never got too intrusive over the course of the game.
Breath of the Wild, then, is often bemoaned for its lack of “full” dungeons, but overall, the decision to forgo them was, for the foreseeable future, a good choice. Focusing on progress through discovery made the game noticeably meatier and, for lack of better terms, gave the overworld back a sense of identity that hadn’t really been there for a while.
I’m not opposed to traditional Zelda dungeons coming back, but if it once again leads to the rigidity of the games that came after The Wind Waker, I’d rather not. Zelda, at its best, has delivered on both ends – strong dungeons (which, if I can be honest… we hadn’t really gotten at the time either) paired with an interesting world to explore, full of stuff that actually aids you on your quest and not just a few throwaways that don’t really play a role in the experience either.
At the heart of this lies something frequently called "The Zelda Formula", which is probably best described as an informal structural rule of how Zelda games play out. Said rule, although it can be vague at times, is probably best summarised as follows:
All Zelda games have dungeons, in which items can be found. These items are used as weapons, to solve puzzles and to progress further through the game.
Now, to me, that's not a bad rule for the backbone of a video game. So why is it that by Skyward Sword in 2011, so many players were clamouring that Zelda was "too formulaic", that the series needed changing and why is it that Breath of the Wild ended up being so celebrated? Many believe that it was because it played to "industry trends", but I'd argue that it was something else. And to explain what exactly that something is, I'm going to pose a question first:
What if there was a second aspect to Zelda games that had fallen by the wayside and ultimately led to dissatisfaction with "The Formula"?
And to do that, I'm going to take a peek into the past and explain how things had changed around the series over time. Now, I'll probably start with A Link to the Past, since it is generally seen as the starting point of the "Zelda formula", but it also allows me to highlight the first problem that begun to emerge with the Zelda series over time and that is the change in what I call the game's "macro structure", i.e. how it plays out when zoomed out and looked at from beginning to end.
Now, one of the things that I personally really like about A Link to the Past is that, for the most part, it is entirely "item gated", meaning that progress in the game is tied to the items you possess. The game gives you an order of the dungeons in the Dark World, but it's ultimately up to you how to go through this phase, as only a few of the dungeons do actually require you to have beaten the last numbered dungeon or gotten its item to continue onward. And moreover, not all items that help you gain access to the dungeons are found in the dungeons prior or even in dungeons at all. Take, for example, the Titan's Mitt, which is found in Thief's Town, the fourth dungeon. You don't actually need to beat the Swamp Palace or Skull Woods to go here, you can just... go and grab the Titan's Mitt as soon as you have the Hammer if you want to (if you're extreme, you can just leave Palace of Darkness after you got it), which opens up a significant portion of the game in this phase. I very much enjoy this - the game gives you a suggestion of where to go, but it's not necessary to follow it all the way.
Ocarina of Time works in a similar fashion - sure, you can follow the order of dungeons in the Adult part of the game to a T, but there's nothing stopping you from tackling the Water Temple first right after coming back from the Forest Temple. And if you have Epona, you can get into Gerudo Town early as well and beat it, if you're good at stealth. There's still a structure to things, such as the Shadow Temple being only unlocked after beating the Fire and Water Temples, but in general, the second portion of Ocarina lets you test the waters a bit and offers some more openness to the player.
Majora's Mask is a bit more linear, but given that its meatier part lies with the interactions with the people of Termina, it's not too bad - and hell, if you want to, you don't have to finish Great Bay before heading to Ikana Canyon, just grab the Ice Arrows and cross the river to climb up. But what Majora's Mask does most and this is probably the part I love about both it and its predecessors and is ultimately the thing I believe the Zelda series lost over time is the idea that going out of your way and exploring can give you something useful. It doesn't have to be something of major consequence, but finding the Stone Mask in the original Majora's Mask, for example - btw, this is my least favourite change with the 3D version by far - shows what this can do in the context of these games.
Wind Waker is an odd duck in this regard, but ultimately I like it a lot more than the games that came after - it still has a ton of exploration to do and while a particularly annoying trend begun to rear its ugly head in this game, it's nowhere near as bad as it gets - as it still has a ton to explore and even the new items are still fun to play with and have their uses beyond the initial dungeon they're tied to.
One thing of note here - I didn't talk about the GB(A) games a lot and I'm not going to - I think these issues are much more present in the 3D games, though the 2D/handheld games tend to lose a bit in that regard as well, and I'm not super particular about these outside of Link's Awakening, but if you want a brief breakdown, they're generally pretty great when it comes to adding exploration, though as time goes on, they also fall prey to the issues with the 3D games (especially when we get to the DS, but I'll talk about it when we get there), but not nearly to the same extent.
And now... to Twilight Princess. I'm going to say it straight away, this is by far the game in the Zelda series I probably liked the least for a period of time. I still don't like it and a lot of my issues have nothing to do with the whole "the intro is too long" stuff that gets thrown at it. I can deal with a long intro - heck, I'm on record here for defending the first twenty hours of Dragon Quest VII, that game's intro is about as long as it takes to beat TP - but that comes with the caveat that the rest of the game has to deliver and Twilight Princess just does not deliver for me. The idea I posed above about how going out of your way and exploring can net you something useful or at least let you test the waters to see how far you can go? Yeah this game doesn't have ANY of it. New areas are gated off by story content all throughout the game, the collection side quests feel exceptionally pointless because the only thing the game gives you for them is rupees in such an abandon that they're impossible to spend, especially once you're done with the store side quest, and the Hidden Skills feel useless for the most part, because the game can be quite easy. For all the complaining about the abundance of Korok Seeds and Shrines in BotW - doing them gives you things that actually change aspects of the game in a noticeable fashion, something that feels seriously absent from Twilight Princess. The items in the second half of the game are also just... not that interesting once you've finished getting to the next dungeon and maybe getting a Piece of Heart, which is another thing that feels so antithetical to what makes Zelda games great - like, the Leaf from The Wind Waker sees far more action than the Spinner does once you're done with Arbiter's Grounds. If the story was at least strong enough to carry it, but by god, it's just... not there? The intro feeling so long may have mostly to do with how much time you spend with it only for all the setup to then pay off in the weakest ways possible. If I had to sum up my feelings for it in a food metaphor - imagine going to a multi-course dinner where the courses are very spread out, there's maybe one or two dishes that are really good and all you get in between is room temperature tap water.
I'm not going to dwell too long on the DS games. They're by far my least favourite Zelda games, I've only finished Spirit Tracks once and found Phantom Hourglass so frustrating on repeated attempts to play it. Miss me with 'em.
I think to some degree Skyward Sword was a move in a solid direction - there's more substantial things to do outside of the main plot, although it is all fairly limited, but the upgrading system is at least more useful than TP’s torrent of Rupees. The items are also spaced out in a manner that gives each a bit more utility, unlike TP, where the most useful gear was handed out during the first half and the rest was stuff that lost its usefulness fast. That being said, I'm not a fan of the flying bits and bad traversal tends to sour me quite a bit on otherwise good games, which plays a role in my disliking of the DS games. Also, this game just feels padded out and it rehashes the worst instincts of TP, though I'll admit I like the trials a fair bit more than the light bug hunts.
A Link Between Worlds is another odd duck. The sentiment behind the game shows Nintendo understood that being too tied to a linear pathway through the game was something players were in many ways sick of, but the solution they applied here comes across as though they didn’t quite understand the issue at heart. The Item Rental system is the wrong solution to the series’s issue with having little in the way of rewarding exploration – though its main collect quest was, this time, more useful than those that came before it and it never got too intrusive over the course of the game.
Breath of the Wild, then, is often bemoaned for its lack of “full” dungeons, but overall, the decision to forgo them was, for the foreseeable future, a good choice. Focusing on progress through discovery made the game noticeably meatier and, for lack of better terms, gave the overworld back a sense of identity that hadn’t really been there for a while.
I’m not opposed to traditional Zelda dungeons coming back, but if it once again leads to the rigidity of the games that came after The Wind Waker, I’d rather not. Zelda, at its best, has delivered on both ends – strong dungeons (which, if I can be honest… we hadn’t really gotten at the time either) paired with an interesting world to explore, full of stuff that actually aids you on your quest and not just a few throwaways that don’t really play a role in the experience either.
