Do You Have Any Unpopular Gaming Opinions?

[Exhuminator]

windwaker

[Tanooki]

Well the windwaker talk continues because how wrong a few people are in taking so many shots at their last well made 3D Zelda title so it's understandable. And yes while it was brought up, I think there's more enough fair share of shade being thrown at twlight princess which I think was a good point that it may be the games greatest problem was how long it was in production. At a point when it goes too long, things degrade, ideas get sacrificed or halfassed, and things just don't feel fluid. A game I was on at Midway Legion went through 3 1/2 years of development hell, a few re-writes, and half the intended levels were scrapped which were some excellent things that shouldn't have been but thanks to the bungling of the developer there was no choice other than to slap an ok game together albeit kind of halfassed, or losing even more cash and scrapping it.

Anyway rumors are crap 99% of the time, but it's spooky how often Geno hits it dead on, or at least closely worded enough it still fits comfortably in the realm of reality once the info squeaks out. He's probably some insider, much like when you see the press interview another countries un-named military leader on how they feel about something they don't dare put their name on because of the blow back. He definitely works in the industry, probably fairly high in the food chain, at least at producer level, where you'd be privy to all sorts of classified information and equipment. By the way things get discussed and worded, it still comes off as hazy but still reality, but not enough to hit it home that guy is the leak. If whoever Geno is got caught he'd be blackballed in the industry for talking way too much, sued too, probably by current and former employers for NDA breaking as well.

[LensOfTruth]

The triforce hunt in WW always felt like an attempt to make up for a game that pretty clearly seemed cut short.

Eiji Aonuma has admitted in multiple interviews that the game was rushed. The concept of the game could have opened up a lot more mysteries for the Zelda universe as well as make tons of subtle throwback references. I know I've said this before, but it's the lack of content and poor design choices in Wind Waker that break my heart; I firmly believe the game could have been a lot stronger.

[marlowe221]

I found this pretty on-the-nose. Twilight Princess in particular has a lot of these issues:

Fetch Quests - Nintendo wasn't above making the Triforce Pieces mistake again.
Bloated Upgrade System - I truly wish there were reasons to learn those Hidden Skills. It would have been a great idea in a game with more depth in its combat and enemy variety/intensity. Zelda's not really that kind of game. Maybe a Zelda game designed like Ninja Gaiden Black?
Lame Secondary Items - TP does severely underuse its Dungeon Items. Even the Megaton Hammer had some fun uses in Ocarina of Time. For the perfectionists bit, I have to throw in that awful Rupee-Eating Armor in TP.
Long, Boring Areas - TP's Hyrule Field qualifies, but people comment that Ocarina of Time's field was just as boring as Wind Waker's water traversal. It kind of all ends up being a wash.

I'm not trying to be cruel, but Twilight Princess does have some of Wind Waker's design deficiencies. For me, its these bad and sideways decisions that have made the Zelda Block shine that much brighter.

I bolded the part I am particularly responding to...

That's one of the reasons I love ALttP - the overworld was wonderful in that game. I'm not sure that it's ever been better actually.

[MrEco]

Ooh, people complaining about the Zelda overworlds reminds me of another opinion I have which is certainly unpopular.

I actually really like "big empty spaces" in open world games, or for the overworld in a game like Zelda or Final Fantasy.

To be frank, it add's a bit of realism. In real life the Earth is quite large and has a lot of empty space. The further back in time you go, the less developed human civilization is, and therefor the more empty space you find. So if I'm playing a game set in an old timey medieval fantasy world (or any setting really), there damn well better be some empty space. I've talked about this before when I mentioned how I've had a hard time getting into Bioware RPG's compared to Bethesda ones. When a world is as precisely built as the one which appears in, for example, Dragon Age: Origins then it no longer feels like an actual world to me. It feels like a "game space" that's all carefully crafted for the player to have a streamlined path from A to B, with square rooms, rectangular buildings, and perfectly circular cities that are all easy to traverse around with no fuss. No worry of getting lost in a big empty world, no worry about "getting bored" because you haven't killed something or talked to someone in the last five minutes. There's always something to do because the devloper made sure that the world was built around the player, to be a game.

In short, big open world with empty space adds realism. More realism equals more immersion. More immersion means I care about the world, the people in it, the story, and the consequences of my own characters actions much more. All around a much more enjoyable experience.

[Sarge]

Huh. I skew the opposite direction, especially after coming off of Inquisition. I don't mind open-space, but there's no question that it negatively impacted the pacing of that game. I much preferred Origins' approach, in which I could quite easily complete all the quest lines without going absolutely bonkers.

Or maybe it's just the busywork that I'm opposed to. Either way, I don't mind tightly-constrained, designed spaces. Most of the time, when I play a game, I know I'm playing a game, and want to do so. That it feels too "gamey" is not usually a complaint I have.

That said, I know we all play for different reasons, so... I can see the appeal.

[MrEco]

I think it's important to point out, I don't feel that way about every game, necessarily. If i'm playing a fast paced action game like an FPS, or a Devil May Cry type game then I don't care much at all about immersion. And, in some way, I think having an unnecessarily big world that takes a long time to move across would be quite annoying. It's for the slower paced more "cerebral" type of games, like an adventure game or an RPG, that immersion is really important to me in.

[Sarge]

Gotcha. Nothing wrong with that, either! Some of us like the more linear, gamey experiences, others like the open-world Bethesda-style stuff. All good here.

(And sometimes, even I can enjoy something open-world. Shocking, I know!)

[Xeogred]

If the sunken Hyrule in Wind Waker was to be the second playable half of the game, or eventually emerge from the ocean and suddenly there's a massive legit country to explore then Wind Waker may have very well been the best.

But then again it still had Tingle, so probably would have been bad.

[LensOfTruth]

It's a good discussion point, really. What makes a better "gamey" game, and what makes a more immersive, "realistic" game? I think the type of game dictates what's right. Zelda benefits heavily from being more "gamey," I feel.

Take the original Assassin's Creed: At one point, Altair drops in on a shop owner. The player has to stand there, walking in a small square space, while a long {long} dialog sequence plays out. Immersive, sure, but I was literally dozing off.

That's how much fun your modern games are, Ubishaft. (Unpopular Opinion?)

I think A Link to the Past resonates because there's not a lot of "realistic" empty space. Every area has some curiosity, whether it's the lumberjack guys, the village itself, that water-draining station, Zora's waterfall, the Ocarina Boy, etc. etc. It's not all super close, but it's not so spaced out to feel tedious. Great balance, there. Maybe Ocarina of Time's field just needed a dense layer of curiosities/polish?

If the sunken Hyrule in Wind Waker was to be the second playable half of the game, or eventually emerge from the ocean and suddenly there's a massive legit country to explore then Wind Waker may have very well been the best.

That, and the design potential it would have opened, would have propelled Wind Waker to earned greatness.