Trying Wind Waker again.

[Metal Man]

Yes. Yes you are.

*Quit the game over that quest*

[Metal Mario]

^^Yeah.

[CuccoLady]

So no one else here LIKES exploring islands and solving random puzzles and doing little mini-dungeons? Isn't that the whole point of Zelda games? :{P

[X-3]

I don't think that's the problem with the Triforce quest.

[CuccoLady]

I mean, I get the Tingle hate and maybe to some extent getting sick of the fishing for treasure, but the main point of it was to explore the islands to find treasure maps.

I thought that was fun. Solving puzzles on random islands to get treasure maps, then exploring the world to find where the treasure was buried.

[Valigarmander]

I don't see what the big deal was about the Triforce hunting. It's like everyone but me and CL wet their pants over it.

[Robotazy]

I liked the quest, and by the time I went to Tingle for deciphering, I had enough rupees.

Also, I didn't mind the boating because there's something called Ballad of the Gales, I'm sure some of you got it. It allows you to skip to an important island and not do so much sailing. You should try that sometime.

[Cosmonautical]

Point was it was a lame substitute for actual dungeons that, previously in the series, you would have battled through to obtain such precious items. That and it actually necessitated contact with Tingle.

Originally Posted by CuccoLady

So no one else here LIKES exploring islands and solving random puzzles and doing little mini-dungeons? Isn't that the whole point of Zelda games? :{P

The whole island thing came off as a huge cop-out to me. If they want to make a huge, time-consuming game, they should've made more game - not just some intermediary traveling. That might fly on a memory-crippled, cartridge-based system like the N64. Nobody's that thrilled by Hyrule field, though, and making it bigger didn't improve on the game.

Bee tee dubs I don't really like the whole mini-dungeon thing nearly so much as I like actually traversing complex cave systems and forests to get to a final destination. Mini once-offs are another copout on challenging gameplay that accomodates the newbs who aren't ready to take on the full game.

That reminds me of another thing I take issue with, on the subject of most of the islands, and most modern Zelda games: single point of entry. Most areas in the earlier Zelda games were sprawling with quite a few possible paths around. Ocarina set the limited standard for these new games. In a game like WW, it's pretty absurd to say that every single island is made of unscalable cliffs and there's only one place to land your dinghy.

Heck, for that matter, why can't Link scale cliffs? It'd be nice to do something epic for once. I though we'd be able to improve on the limited model that the first LoZ set in place, by now, not make it more linear and more restrictive.

[Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds]

Tingle's involvement was ultimately irrelevant. You fished for the Triforce. The goddamn Triforce. FISHING! It had rings of glowing light around it, and possibly even had bells chiming when you were nearby. You think Gannondorf, in all that time, couldn't fish up the Triforce pieces himself? It was ridiculous.

It failed to take the Triforce seriously at all. No, I don't like "mini-dungeons", and I definitely don't like exploring their ****ty tiny excuse for "islands" either, when in any decent title they would have had the Triforce pieces locked away in a challenging dungeon, hidden behind a challenging labyrinth of enemies and puzzles, and guarded by a challenging boss who you had to figure out for yourself how to own its ass (ie, the item you got in this place doesn't automatically injure it in the place you automatically z-target, or whatever the crap, there might actually be some level of skill involved in not dying).

The sad attempt at "exploring" might have been fulfilling if it weren't for the fact that they were so poorly limited by their island obsession. They were all too small. They had nothing worthwhile in exploring. Oooh. A cave. Big surprise there. You had just taken some twenty minutes to find the stupid place, only to be handed a reward without any effort whatsoever. I guess that was their idea, though, since you had just suffered through sailing to arrive at your goal.

Mini-dungeons, so you get a map, is like the worst idea in the world. I want a full sized dungeon where I can get a significant item. Like, I don't know, the Triforce. Maybe I mentioned this before, though.

But seriously. Have you played Link's Awakening? That's got an island theme. A good one.

[CuccoLady]

I also don't get what everyone's beef with the sailing is but that's another argument.

I'm the kind of person that when I feel like putting off a dungeon (which is a common occurrence) I go and explore the overworld. So, I really enjoyed sailing around to random islands, filling out my overworld map, maybe trying to solve random puzzles on the islands and just having fun with that kind of thing. I really loved the few true temples that WERE involved in the game and I felt they were very well-done, but I also liked this different approach that encouraged just wandering around and sailing the seas.

So, I liked just going to miscellaneous islands and trying to solve their little puzzles with what I had, and sailing around. I suppose it tells you how much I minded fishing for the triforce in that I would just sail around the ocean at night looking for random shiny treasures to dig up. That was always fun-- OOH SHINY LETS GO GET IT.

No, they weren't supar intenz dunjunz. But I really enjoyed the exploration aspect, because I'm not too much of an OMG DUNGEON fan anyway x{D

[Cravdraa]

I hated sailing too, so that doesn't help, but my biggest problem with the triforce hunt was that I'm actually just like you. I love exploring things in Zelda games. So much so, that by the time I got to the trifroce hunt I'd already explored everything I could up until that point on the entire map. All the triforce hunt did was force me to do it again. Honestly, the WW world isn't that interesting. It's so empty, once you get down to it, except for a few main islands. And again, I don't like sailing, so the the whole thing was just one big terrible, boring fetchquest for me.

Also, they made the crane fishing thing pretty annoying. The glowing spot disappears once you get close, so you have to remember/guess exactly where it is. The ringing to use as a hint goes by camera position instead of Link's, which was just a poor design choice. You have to lower the crane down, and hope you get just the right place or you have to reel it back in, akwardly steer the boat over to the direction that you think you were off by and try again. Not so bad if you get it on the second or even the third try, but it getting old fast if you keep missing. Then you have to open your sail and move far enough away to make the glowing spot reappear, probably change the wind so you can get back to it and start the whole process over again.

Don't get me wrong, I liked WW quite a bit, but ugh... The triforce hunt was one of the worse parts of any Zelda game.

[Kargath]

^^ The sailing was annoying because it was basically content-less filler. A device to artificially inflate gameplay length - a kind of videogame gruel.
Exploring can be fun, but WW just stretched things.


It's like playing MMOs. Who cares if you advertise "unlimited gameplay" if 80% of that is killing ten rats, and then grinding some more for XP?

[Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds]

Originally Posted by CuccoLady

But I really enjoyed the exploration aspect, because I'm not too much of an OMG DUNGEON fan anyway x{D

By "exploration", you mean docking your boat at the single point-of-entry to the island, investigating until you find the obligatory building/cave/entryway, solving their bit puzzle, and having zero other things to do on said island. C'mon, Lady, there was hardly any exploration aspect to the islands. You couldn't get lost on any of them. There weren't a large variety of ways to enter the island, nor multiple doors to the cave, no secret passages, no hidden bays leading to an otherwise unaccessable area, there weren't any huge, sprawling forests or enormous crumbling ruins. When you say "exploring", I imagine actual places to go and find hidden nooks and crannies, with a variety of abandoned buildings, full cave systems that possibly even lead to adjacent islands, an island that you might not even otherwise be able to access if you didn't find the secret cave tunnels! Truely hidden areas to discover. An island that's guaranteed to have something "important" to do is not discovering something to explore; it's seeing the next place you have to fumble around for ten minutes until you've exhausted the handful of rooms they left you. It's like eating scraps when you were promised a Thanksgiving feast.

Also, like Crav, I had already seen most of those places way back when. They were not thrilling the second time around, and I was not interested in "exploring" their lone cave once more.

And that totally doesn't address the continued disrespect they showed the most powerful holy relic in the entire world. You fished it out of the ocean. Ganondorf should have had every opportunity to do exactly that. There was, literally, nothing stopping him from fishing up the Triforce pieces. It was a terrible plot flaw, and one I can't help but hate.

Add all that to how incredibly ripped-off I felt at the whole ending. You go underwater and see the monochrome Hyrule, there's land stretching into the distance and a majestic castle looming ahead. It looks incredible. My first thought was OH MY GOD THIS IS SO AWESOME THE REAL GAME IS GOING TO START. I genuinely believed we had reached the midpoint of the game. That's how badly they did this. I thought there would be, oh, I don't know, an entire other world to explore at the bottom of the sea. There was none. It was an empty castle at the end of the game, still managing to be one of the best parts of the gameplay overall. I can't express how disappointed I was at the moment I realised I wouldn't be set loose in that delightful monochrome world to, yes, explore a vast, exciting land.

I'm the same as you: time for dungeoning? Not likely. I have more important things to do. Wind Waker did not provide me with any of the things I love about the earlier Zelda titles, Wind Waker did not give me anything compelling to explore, Wind Waker did not have more important things to do than their dungeons. If I wanted to go fishing, I'll play Link's Awakening again and head to the fishing hole. And dig every single square on every screen. And find the hidden caves. And collect the seashells. And get lost in the mountains. And run up to the Windfish way before I should. And do the hilarious trading quest. SALE YOU ARE MY FAVOURITE I LOVE YOU HERE HAVE THIS AWESOME CANNED DOG FOOD IT'S JUST FOR YOU~ I will not, however, replay Wind Waker and fish up the Triforce good god.

[Joker]

I spent most of my idle time hacking at pigs and running for my life. I found that to some what dull out the drollery of sailing. The only bad point being that you couldn't take the pigs on the boat with you.....

[Valigarmander]

All this griping makes me want to replay WW.

If only I hadn't sold my copy.

[Antisocial]

Originally Posted by Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds

OH MY GOD THIS IS SO AWESOME THE REAL GAME IS GOING TO START.

That's some optimism you have there.

After sailing the Great Sea and exploring its many tiny isles, I already had a resigned feeling by that point, seeing Hyrule underwater was just purely fanservice.

I gathered the Great Sea was the entire game and I was correct. Yes, it was disappointing.

Originally Posted by Joker

I spent most of my idle time hacking at pigs and running for my life. I found that to some what dull out the drollery of sailing. The only bad point being that you couldn't take the pigs on the boat with you.....

Screwing with the pigs was awesome. The intensity of it was heightened by the fact the pigs were one of the most dangerous enemies in the game (the giant pig costs you three whole hearts when it rams into you).

[Erdawn Il Deus]

My stance on this has never changed - if you want an adventure game to be more of an adventure, ditch the linearity and don't tell the player where to go outside vague hints and clues. Case in point, the first and only Zelda game to follow that rule, for the Nintendo. Not once has this system ever been repeated, and the series hurts for it.

[Metal Mario]

Originally Posted by Erdawn Il Deus

My stance on this has never changed - if you want an adventure game to be more of an adventure, ditch the linearity and don't tell the player where to go outside vague hints and clues. Case in point, the first and only Zelda game to follow that rule, for the Nintendo. Not once has this system ever been repeated, and the series hurts for it.

The original Zelda for NES was like that. If you didn't have a map or a guide, you had no idea where to go or what to do. And getting through the Lost Woods? Yeah, good luck with that.

[Cosmonautical]

Yeah, playing through that game in entirety actually felt like an accomplishment for it, too.

^ I think Erdawn was specifically saying that his description is characteristic of the NES games. I used to refer to the NES as "the Nintendo" like that, as well.

Bee tee dubs, having friends was good for the lost woods. I learnt the pattern for it by word of mouth.

[Daos]

I'm with the majority of the people here. I felt like sailing and looking for the Triforce pieces was more a chore then anything else and a cheap way to prolong the game. I would much rather have been doing something else. Exploration done right can be fun (i.e Death Mountains in LttP) done wrong it's a down right bore.