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Monday, March 30, 2009

Clarifying My Comments On Zelda

So, a few posters saw my Zelda comments, and one astute poster, bearing nothing but Nerd Rage and a Caps Lock key, declared the following:
WAT? IM GUESSING YOU NEVER PLAYED GAMECUBE OR WII ZELDAS THAT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU COULD SAY SOMETHING LIKE THIS!!!!
Thank you, Anonymous. There is only one response when someone posts such a thought-provoking, deep comment:
WAT? YES I HAVE PLAYED GAMECUBE ZELDAS THAT IS WHY I SAY THIS!!111!! HOWEVER I HAVE NOT PLAYED TWILIGHT PRINCESS AND EVERYONE IS HOLDING THAT UP AS A GOOD EXAMPLE SO MAYBE IF I CONTINUE ENJOYING OCARINA I WILL PLAY IT!!!eleven!!
Maybe I need a little less punctuation, but I hope I get the point across. To me, Zelda is running into the same territory that Mario is entering: Where do we go from here? We've sent Mario into space. Where do we go next?

I have the solution to shake up Zelda, while still maintaining fidelity and continuity in the game world. I'll sum it up in one word: Steampunk.

OK, so it needs more clarification. Here's the layout of my multiple-pronged plan: Continue making games along the Twilight Princess timeline. Those will still be traditional Zelda games, with Link, the Triforce and Ganondorf doing whatever he does. However, it's leading somewhere this time around.

The next prong is a different timeline that we'll call "The Chronicles of Hyrule." It takes place in a place much like Victorian England with a new protagonist. Let's say he's a gentleman of society, an amateur adventurer. He reads about some interesting temple off somewhere, and decides to go investigate. It turns out that his land is on top of or parallel to the old land of Hyrule, and Ganondorf had been sealed away by Link. Ganondorf is using all of his strength to manipulate world events so that he gets freed.

The kicker? In the original timeline games, you play Link, and do the events that lead to Ganondorf being sealed away.

There are a couple reasons that this works. One, some of Zelda's gadgets already have a steampunk feel to them, like the hookshot. Two, this would provide the shakeup that Zelda needs while not throwing away all the history of the game world. Three, this creates a new franchise of sorts while still building on top of the old one and maintaining a link (no pun intended) to Nintendo's most popular franchise.

I love this idea, frankly. What do you guys think?

5 comments:

  1. So long as there continues to be traditional Zelda games I would be intrigued. If they ever scrapped the Fantasy theme altogether I would be irate. Although I kind of feel like it would be a wasted chance for Nintendo to introduce an original IP. Why even use the Zelda paint job? Why not just run with a whole new story?

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  2. Because it's really hard to launch a new IP. They've tried several times in the last gen with Eternal Darkness and Pikmin, and EA is showing now that it's hard to do. They've committed to quality over repeated sequels, and they're getting hammered over it.

    Nintendo has in the past launched new characters over the top of existing ones, like Wario and Mario, so it's not out of character.

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  3. sounds like a good idea, although i might not have a right to speak here: i'm even more zelda allergic then the author of this blog

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  4. True enough, but Eternal Darkness got next to no marketing, and wasn't on shelves very long. Besides that, it was more of a Action/RPG, but the press wrote it up like it was a take on Resident Evil, So the masses didn't know about it, the survival horrer people were dissapointed, and sales lagged. As far as Pikmin goes it was a huge success.
    The big problem with EA's new IPs' is that they launched them against big name sequals from other companys. So they were overlooked in favor of something more familier. One of the EA bigwigs recently said they would learn from those mistakes and consider launching new IP more in the spring, or summer. Sadly it's not enough to make a great new game, marketing it has become half the battle.

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  5. steampunk totally works. honestly, are we supposed to believe that hyrule undergoes no technological advancement over the hundreds of years between sequels? steampunk it up! but then.... no one wants to play the eventual lazerzelda do they?

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