Addendum to "Future Proofing" from Grab-back Post #3
Innovation is good, in general. It's what lets companies and technology make a leap forward. But sometimes innovation is too far out from the norm and 3rd party developers won’t bend their will to Nintendo’s gimmick unless they are forced to (like with the popularity of the Wii or the Switch). It’s a matter of human/industry momentum where it’s easier to just keep making things for standard controls/standard specs than having to make multiple versions that work with each console. PC, XBox and PlayStation are all similar that it’s easier to port games around, but sometimes porting it to a Nintendo system might be more hassle than its worth in the eyes of developers. It leads Nintendo to make their games revolve around the gimmick instead of the other way around - like Star Fox Zero needing to use the WiiU gamepad in a very specific way in an attempt to teach other developers how to integrate it into the gameplay.
- How much is the gimmick informing gameplay, and how much is the gameplay informing the gimmick?
- Do we sometimes purposely make sub-par games just to justify the gimmick?
- Perhaps the game might be better with traditional standard controls
Some interesting Zelda Stats I Compiled
Game Wait Time for New Games
Longest time between games: 2,261 days (from Breath of the Wild to Tears of the Kingdom)
Shortest time between new games, not counting simultaneous releases: 112 days (from Four Swords to Wind Waker)
Game Wait Time (remakes included)
Longest time between games: 1935 days (from Link's Awakening to Ocarina of Time)
Shortest time between games: 22 days (from Ocarina of Time to Link's Awakening DX)
Mean and Median time between new games: 445 and 441 days, respectively.
Game Wait Time (spin-offs included)
Longest time between games, not counting simultaneous releases: 943 days (from Link: Faces of Evil to Zelda's Adventure)
Shortest time between games: 6 days (from Hyrule Warriors Legends to My Nintendo Picross: Twilight Princess)
Mean and Median time between new games: 310 and 252 days, respectively.
System that can play the most Games: Switch2 (20)
The Perfect Zelda Score / Soundtrack
I like a little nostalgia in my games and movies, but sometimes they lay it on too densely or handle it too lazily. An example of 'lazy' is the Superman II soundtrack. The original director was famously fired after making a masterpiece in the original movie, and several actors / crew members didn't want to work with the new director. John Williams was one of those, and so the task fell upon Ken Thorne to handle the music. He was a much more inferior composer, and what he ended up doing is basically just repurposing every track John Williams made for the first one.
However, there are two examples of what I would call a perfect soundtrack in the Zelda series, and they are Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. In both cases, there was a new, excellent main theme (Hyrule Field and the Great Sea), as well as several other new songs that were totally original (Midna's theme, Dragoon Roost Island, for example). But they also sprinkled in themes from past games sparingly, and at the appropriate points. Hearing a remixed 'Serenade of Water' used as Queen Rutela's theme or the Lost Woods music (both from OoT) was on point, as is the instrument choices for Zora's Domain and Death Mountain making them feel like the music from OoT, even if the notes actually played were a little different.
There were also some more subtle references, like the Windfall Island music being a heavily remixed Kakariko Village theme, or how Saria's Song is snuck into the Forest Haven music briefly at about a minute into it, or how the metallic beat from the Goron Mines is the same notes as the Goron Lullaby from Majora's Mask.
Basically, both soundtracks do an excellent job of balancing new music with subtle and not-so-subtle references to past music.
The Master Quest of Ocarina of Time is in kind of a weird spot as far as classification goes. It's not exactly a remake (since the graphics/sound are exactly the same) and it's not exactly a sequel (since it's the same story), but it's not exactly a spin-off either.
