Grab-bag Post #6

Grab-bag Post #1

Grab-bag Post #2

Grab-bag Post #3

Grab-bag Post #4 

Grab-bag Post #5

 

 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. 

A few things that should be asked / considered by developers might include things like: 

• 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

Adding in a feature like HD rumble or an IR camera is nice, but if 3rd party developers don’t use it properly then it just makes the Joy-Con needlessly more expensive outside of tech demos like 1-2-Switch and Switch 2 Welcome Tour. Getting them to try and integrate the usual “PS4/XBone” style controls to also use a touch screen just adds extra development time/effort unless they’re making the game from scratch with those features in mind. But most often, porting something to a "weird" console just means there is a half-assed effort for a particular feature. For example, if a company were porting a game to both the 3DS and the PSP Vita, the second screen of the 3DS might just be used for a constant mapping feature rather than do something clever with it. 

Some interesting Zelda Stats I Compiled

All of these apply only to North American games/releases/prices/etc.

 

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)

Mean and Median time between new games: 677 and 535 days, respectively. 

 

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)

System that can play the fewest Games: Virtual Boy (0)

System that can play the fewest Games (excluding VB): SNES (1)  

 

Longest Localization Time: 687 days (Adventure of Link) 

 

Games NA got before Japan: 8 (FS, TP, LXBT, ST, SS, BQ, TPHD, ALBW) 

 

Cheapest game at launch: LA, OoA/OoS, MC - $29.99

 

Most Expensive game at launch: Switch2 versions of BotW/TotK - $79.99

 

Most Expensive game adjusting for inflation: LoZ and AoL - $145 (in 2026 dollars)

 

 

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. 

   

Classification of Master Quest / Mode

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.  

My understanding is that originally a two different expansions for OoT were in development for the N64-DD: a game code-named "Ura-Zelda" and a game code-named "Zelda Gaiden" ("ura" means 'hidden,' or 'underside,' while "gaiden" means 'side-story' in Japanese). When it became clear that the DD wasn't going to be the hit console add-on they had intended, some of Zelda Gaiden's ideas eventually were used in Majora's Mask. The fact that the game was centered around a 3-day cycle and the DD would be the first Nintendo console to actually keep date and time is probably no coincidence. The other parts of it, namely the remixed and more difficult dungeons, were eventually made inserted into the OoT overworld and released as the Master Quest for the GameCube along with the regular version of OoT (but updated with GC controls). 

So what it is actually more similar to is an alternate-universe version or 'hard mode' of OoT, similar to the Master Mode on BotW, except that it just wasn't included as DLC to the original game (but was included with the 3DS remake).