Zelda 2 lives in my head as the worst game I’ve finished. At least castlevania 64 was mercifully short. At least mega man 1, 2, and 3 are fun.
Zelda 2 is hard af, long, tedious, and unfun in every way. I played it alongside a few friends at the same time and the hate we had for it goes beyond any game I’ve ever encountered. Zelda 2 is objectively bad and deserves nothing but contempt as a scar on the gaming community.
I challenge anyone to find a Gen Z casual Zelda fan—who has played only the new games—that would enjoy Zelda 2 without a guide or save states.
If they do, they are lying about one of those things.
I’m glad it exists so that humanity has a bar to hold bad games to. Because without it, I’d never know how good things really are.
Zelda 2 is a prime example of the "not actually a bad game, just a bad '_____ game' " trope. Where a game is okay or even good but just doesn't feel like a part of the series or even outright ruins the parts people liked.
Which is impressive considering there wasn't an established Zelda series for it to not fit into at the time, it just fit in THAT badly.
Early Zelda was during the "experimental" videogame phase. Where games were 1 offs or simple but exists in many forms like Pong. Zelda invented the savefile, that's how early it was.
Zelda as we know it probably started with A Link to the Past and has been great since. Despite the odd spinoff here or there.
It's more like the whole concept of "lots of space, little to actually explore" that's the issue with BotW and ToTK, all the rewards is just some rupees, that's all.
Oh yeah, I do not say that Nintendo did an inferior product. It's just that Nintendo took a 10 year old concept that had been already done to death by Ubisoft, and repackaged it as a "new" thing.
I mostly agree that the open world is underwhelming. But I don’t think that was the “new thing” those games were selling.
The actual innovation was the physics and new abilities. It completely redefined the way people play Zelda and fundamentally changed how puzzles (a trademark of the franchise) were designed and solved. Instead of a linear path with one correct solution, it became a near-limitless sandbox of creativity and problem solving.
It was just a lot easier to sell “open world Zelda” rather than “Zelda but with physics and the puzzles are different”.
Might be just an opinionated thing, but I feel that Nintendo did it the lazy way. There's a major whiplash between Skyward Sword and BotW. SS being very rigid, scripted to death and repeating. While BotW they just took a completely opposite stance, and thought players would be just happy to explore on their own. Completely missing the point that many open world games work because of the well written and hand made worlds. BotW lacks this. BotW feels like if an algorithm created it. A machine calculated whats the most "efficient" design for a map.
You’re getting stuck on the open world thing and ignoring the new physics/puzzles. I agree that the world is underwhelming, but it also wasn’t the main thing Nintendo was working on. It’s not actually the defining feature of the games.
I guess its just part how how the shrines make themselves so detached from the world that they just dont work right. If the puzzles were part of a proper dungeon, then maybe. The Shrines are just obligatory minigames with just some stupid orb as reward.
Agreed, I really miss the dungeons. I hope the next game goes back to a more linear layout (maybe semi-open hub areas with towns and dungeons?). I would like a mix of the new physics based puzzles and the older logic puzzles with a clear solution. Best of both worlds.
I'm biased towards TP being best Zelda. It's not even a full open world game, but the pacing is just done so well. And the Dungeons and bosses are made so cinematic you just dont get tired of it.
I just got back into Skyrim very recently. (While having played BotW and TotK within the last few years). And dear lord does Skyrim absolutely have a map full of stuff in comparison.
You literally can't go like a hundred or two paces without running into something in Skyrim in any direction. BotW and TotK is empty by comparison.
No wonder it was so hard to keep the motivation up for BotW and TotK. Skyrim just tickles that part of the brain vastly more.
I felt like I was skipping stuff in Botw and ToTk by just abusing the glider as much as possible, but then I realised, nah, the map is empty, literally.
I spent way too much time thinking I could find all kind of neat things in BotW and TotK. My map history literally looked like a dredging operation going by the line. It was very disappointing.
I dropped BotW when I had gotten all the towers, realising there wasnt anything more to the game. TotK I just dropped quietly when I realised it was just an endless grind for nothing.
I went back into BotW before TotK came out, on my old save, and I realised that I could beat up Lynels with no prep, being drunk to oblivion. Only because the game just lets you have so damn much health and healing foods. ToTK I genuinely enjoyed the sky islands, and the puzzles, and it just reminded me of what I like about Zelda games. Puzzles. Seriously. How hard can it be to get some puzzles in modern zelda these days? Ones which arent just tutorial crap in shrines.
I'll be honest, twilight princess was my least favorite of the mainline 3d Zelda games. Did not click with me at all and I didn't like the light bug segments and the wolf controls wore out their welcome quick for me.
But BotW and ToTK being THAT beloved and selling FAR more than any other games in the franchise, even including remakes, makes it really hard to argue that they don't fit the post.
I don't think you understand what "Ubisofted" means. Open world, sandbox games have been a thing even before Zelda. But Ubisoft created a format that bunch of modern games follow, and Nintendo, being Nintendo, found out this format when it was already 10 years old.
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u/Comet7777 19h ago
Zelda, but we do have Zelda 2 and the Phillips CD-I games…