Is Zelda 1 REALLY Open World?
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- Опубліковано 26 лип 2024
- The Legend of Zelda is often cited is one of the very first open world games largely because of its many interconnected tiles. But what exactly is an open world and does the original fit the bill? Today we're going to look at just how much the original Legend of Zelda constrains the player and what lends itself to this open world feeling....if it exists at all and how does it compare to the other games in the series?
00:00 Intro
00:53 Open World
01:57 Overworld + Soft Locks
04:47 Dungeons + Hard Locks
05:36 ALttP
06:34 Combinations
Dungeon Combination Math
/ all_alternative_dungeo...
Music:
The Legend of Zelda Title Theme as composed by Koji Kondo
• Legend of Zelda (NES) ...
Intro to Finale and Closing composed by Bruce Faulconer
• Intro To Finale And Cl...
All rights belong to their respective owners - Ігри
Correction:
3:48
You need the stepladder from level 4 to get to that northwest portion of the map, not the raft!
Or lost woods.
@@dwlang001 He mentioned that.
@LittleBeanGreen
When you google a definition, make sure you do it in a private (incognito) browser so it doesn't let your prior searches influence your results. That is most likely why Zelda 3 showed up.
not to mention all the rearranging done in the 2nd mission...i often wound up doing the dungeons out of order to get a specific item, and coming back later to clear the boss, just to mix things up a bit for fun. (replay value is in finding other ways to go about it, like skipping the wooden sword at the beginning)
@@ymeynot0405 It was an incognito browser. and I just did it again to double check and it still shows up 🤷♂
I used to say that anyone who thinks Zelda 1 is "open world" because "you can do dungeons in any order" has never actually played it. It's arguably more open world than most Zelda games, but still possesses elements of region locking and guidance, pushing you toward the "correct" path. Something ONLY lacking from BOTW and TOTK.
now the record has been set!
One thing to keep mind when analyzing the OG Zelda is the cultural context of the game. When the first Zelda came out a more typical game would be like Mario: you start the level at the left side, end at its right, each level is a short corridor, do all the levels in order (maybe skip some with warps but still in order), try to make it to the very end, and restart the whole game over every time you turn it on.
The very first screen of Zelda gives you 4 options to choose from left, top, right, cave, a lot more than just head to the right, and you are free to explore in any order you want them. This structure extends to the whole game. The game will also save your progress so that you can keep exploring across multiple play sessions. We take this for granted these days but it was novel back then, and without it you could not have a world as large as that OG Zelda map because it's too big to be explored in one play session. That was very open compared to how closed the typical games was.
Similarly the world of BoTW is a lot more open than even traditional open world games like GTA or Assassin Creed etc. Once you are off the Great Plateau there are no walls, you can go in absolutely any direction and do things in any order, or even not do them at all if you don't want to, which is crazy because making games is expensive, and it's all viable. You are free to go wherever curiosity takes you. That level of openness was unheard of, and that's how it calls back to the OG Zelda. The game logic of both games is very different, lock and key versus multiplicative gameplay, but that spirit of being let loose in an open field is the same.
I somewhat agree with you in that both OG Zelda and BotW did to their particular genre what no other games had done...but my opinions on their relationship to each other will have to wait for another video ;)
This right here is extremely important. This is sort of one of those times where you need to look at it through the eyes of someone like myself who actually grew up with the original LoZ and the games of my generation (Atari/NES/Sega). LoZ was a complete departure from nearly everything else of that time. I say nearly because there were so many games across so many systems that it simply isn't possible to say all. I generally don't like to compare BoTW to LoZ but in this case the comparison is pretty accurate. I generally try to keep a distinction between the games because as someone who has played LoZ for 35+ years, I have some grievances with BoTW and ToTK (I loved them, but not in the same way as older titles).
_Adventure_ on the Atari 2600 was also open-world, but since it's not part of a series that lived through open-world becoming popular and then (its series) returning to those roots some 30 years later, no one remembers or speaks of _Adventure_ at least in this context.
That said, I thank you and agree that historical circumstance is key here. _The Legend of Zelda_ was so massive, it was the first cartridge (afaik) that saved with a battery (that the NES wasn't even equipped to handle and had to be worked around) instead of passwords (which were losable and, in some cases, easily crackable). You weren't held back from overly difficult enemies; if you wanted to fight Lyonels past the rock slides and waterfall before completing any dungeons, have at it! (Rubies were a cinch. Just eat Stalfos for breakfast in Eagle labyrinth.) After decades of highly linear _Zelda_ worlds and storylines - _Wind Waker_ somewhere in the middle - _BotW_ said, okay, you wake up, hear a voice, and walk out of a cave - what do *you* do next?
@@ParodyKnaveBob Go to the old man so he can tell you exactly what to do ha.
Thank goodness people are finally realizing that the OG game wasn't BotW-like in nature and vice versa. Sure BotW has certain elements and philosphies from TLoZ but they take them so far that they're not even in the same ballpark. You could just as easily make the arguement that SS is the "true essence of Zelda" simply with the focus of a different facette of the original.
Well - I'm not sure the OG game and BotW are THAT similar. That's coming up in a future video. You're point about SS is an astute one though.
@@LittleBeanGreen Oh yeah, that's what I meant. The Zelda team got everyone thinking they're the same when they're clearly not. Got my english phrases mixed up. Looking forward to that video too.
@@TheLegend27211 No problem! Yes - they clearly are not and I'm glad people are realizing it too.
I mean Nintendo themselves said they created BotW with the original LoZ in mind. And as far as I am concerned, being a big fan of LoZ I couldn't enjoy most of the series, couldn't get into OoT at all, couldn't care less about SS but BotW became one of my favorite game ever, those 2 games have clearly the same root philosophy.
@@mielthesquid6536 Having an inspiration doesn't mean it actually is a "true successor" to the design philosophy of the original. TLoZ put frequent and deliberate soft/ hard limits on your exploration/ progress, BotW beyond the the tutorial doesn't. There are different philosophies at work, because one of them puts freedom above everything else, while the other one is a slightly more curated experience.
Zelda 1 is kind of open world in the same way Super Metroid is. Where knowledge of techniques and item locations from previous playthroughs makes the world feel a lot more open on repeat playthroughs, but on the first playthrough there is a very obvious order of progression.
It is definitely more open the more you know.
Super Metroid is the OG speed runner game with certain exploits, but not really open world. It pretty much set the standard for the Metroidvania subgenre though.
When I was a kid, I played this game over and over again, until I got to the point that I could knock it out in an hour. One of the the things that helped with nonlinearity was knowing where all the secret money caves and item shops were. Being able to get that 250 rupee gift in the top-right corner of the map and then buy the blue ring massively helped with the doing higher difficulty dungeons early.
Which is a cool perk - that the knowledge transfers over to other playthroughs. What you know can literally change the game.
The Moblin in the building in the top right corner only gives you 100 rupees, not 250. There's a man in a tree trunk on the screen right below it who you can gamble with to go up to 255, but it's only a ⅓ chance of winning any given time.
Personally, I prefer save scumming the gambling man in the bombable cave just left of the start, just because he's right there, so if you win, you can save, and if you lose, you can retry.
I always get 6 hearts, the second sword, the bracelet, and arrows, before the first dungeon. Usually get the blue ring before the 3rd dungeon.
Same here Jason, same here *nods* =D . Played the game so many times, that I memorized every little thing of Quest 1 and Quest 2. And at a certain point, I'd go about exploring all of the Overworld to knock each screen down to 1 enemy per screen, get everything that I could, dip into Dungeon 8, all before even entering Dungeon 1 XD
Gonna make a prediction on the secret sauce: item progression. The original Zelda never gave you the middle finger with extrinsic rewards. You found something, it upgraded Link, and unlocked more of the world/ made the world easier to traverse. You never found something and went ‘ well, shit I already have a bow what do I need three more for.’
Biggest turnoff with Open Air Zeldas is the severe lack of item progression which added that secret sauce to freedom. Otherwise, you have freedom for freedom’s sake.
KIND OF. I definitely agree that the extrinsic rewards of the new games are...sorely lacking.
That's fair, but if the world is already open to be explored, then what's the use of item progression?
Sure you can get things to make it easier to explore, but nothing that lets you explore more than you can already.
@@julianemery718 Yeah things like Grip Gauntlets so you don’t slide down surfaces as much, flippers so swimming doesn’t suck, or any other upgrade would make things easier but you wouldn’t need anything to unlock an already unlocked world. Still, you’d have that excitement to find something.
This is just directly comparing the OG with what it has over the two latest Zeldas. Not meant to be an old vs. new and more of ‘ what can the future of the series still learn from the first Zelda?’
Reject the term "Open World"
Embrace "Maze World"
become Minotaur.
Tbh I think Aonuma’s whole “Zelda 1 is open world” is mostly an excuse to say “haha Zelda was always open world, all those somewhat linear 3D games weren’t real Zeldas, they’re obsolete”
which is both sad and disheartening.
You didn't mention Miyamoto's childhood. Zero points!
I gotta say I kinda prefer numbering the dungeons since as you say, it gives you an idea of what difficulty to expect, while still giving you the _freedom_ to try tackling dungeons in any order. ALBW and onward enforce non-linearity and make it a design goal, but seem afraid of difficulty spikes at all. The dungeons are MEANT to be done in any order, so it feels like ALBW has you do Level 1, then Level 1, then Level 1 and so on.
People defend BOTW and TOTK's non-linearity by saying that if something's too difficult, you can leave, but the issue I have with that unless it's a test of strength shrine (which does communicate the difficulty) there's no difficulty spike from shrine to shrine. It's more of a personal difficulty like not being able to figure out a shrine puzzle or not having the correct gear to progress.
I think I mention Miyamoto's childhood in another video and if I hear it again I'm gonna throw up hahaha.
I think you're right. The first game was courageous enough to let player's get their ass handed to them in later levels if they wanted to, but it never shied away from the fact that those later levels could do done. Now it's just as you say, every level is level 1.
I agree with you for the most part, but I've personally always found Level 6 to be harder than 7 or 8.
@@jruler93 Level 6 is pretty infamous, yea. Those wizzrobes.
@@thelastwindwaker7948 Bubbles, Like Likes and Wizzrobes are an awful combination.
@@LittleBeanGreen The levels in BoTW (ToTK is similar) are the different environments. Harder ones are more harsh. The desert for example will punish you with heat, cold, slow movement, sandstorms, no places to hide or climb, little food, long steep climbs, and large groups of strong enemies, etc, if you decide to start the game in that direction instead of heading towards Necluda, the intended starter area. The game is also not afraid to let you bump into a Guardian or Lynel unprepared either, now that's a difficulty spike. Still not courageous enough? Head for the final boss with a stick.
Now, it's harder to compare the difficulty of shrines because most of them are puzzles and how hard a puzzle is is an harder thing to quantify. If you "get" the puzzle it'll be easy, if you don't you'll probably scratch your head for a while, it'll be a spike. What is obvious to some won't be to others. However some shrines are definitely easier to find/access and simpler than others. The easiest ones are outright tutorials that you can waltz into, the more complex ones are almost mini dungeons on their own (or multi stage challenges like Eventide). There's a similar progression in the Divine Beasts.
Everything can technically be done once you get off the Great Plateau but not everything is "level 1".
All of that said, it's very easy to circumvent/fly over or brute force your way through challenges in BoTW, that undermines the difficulty of the game. The old lock and key formula was a lot less permissive.
It is odd that when I was 12 when Zelda 1 was released and I remember seeing people playing it at a friend's home. I never myself played it until 2021 during COVID and didn't start playing Zelda games until 2012, Skyward Sword being my first. But in 1986, I somehow knew Zelda was a game that would be as well knows as Mario and wasn't just some random game.
You could feel how much of a pull it had on the world even then, huh. Pretty cool.
@@LittleBeanGreen Yeah, it was amazing at the time, and multiple I knew talked about it. I'll never forget first getting to see it.
@@LittleBeanGreen You really could. I was a wee little kid then who saw Zelda and Zelda II explained in a players guide of the era. I had never heard of either, but man they stood out in the book. I can't explain it. The other games just looked like blocky simulations. Zelda looked... alien, somehow. Incomprehensible. Like seeing an alien broadcast. But you could make out enough of it that you had to see more.
It's pseudo open world, which is the best kind of open world.
You must do A, B and C before you can do D, but you can do A, B and C in any order.
Final Fantasy 7 also had a pseudo open world and that's why it felt so big, while going through the linear story.
Open
I have similar feelings about the first Final Fantasy. As you play through that game, there are only a few new places to go at any given time, so it's pretty linear. However, the modes of travel, like getting a ship, opening up a canal to a new ocean, and finally the airship, allow you to quickly revisit places you've already been. It's like the stuff ahead of you is linear, but everywhere you've been before is open world.
That became less true in later games, except that many of them still had that feeling of getting the airship and suddenly being able to go anywhere.
@@Jason_Bryant Exactly. I didn't play FF1, so I wouldn't know, but if they did that, then it had good game design. It's not just the airships and whatnot though, it's what you can do within that point in which you're stuck in until you can progress. Having other things around to explore like a village, a cave, a farm etc, made that closed off area that you're in, feel that much bigger because there so much optional content to do.
Yeah I think this is the route Nintendo should consider for the 3D next game.
The World of Ruin section of Final Fantasy 6 - basically, the second half of the game - is almost entirely open world. The player starts out with just Celes. After that, the player will find Sabin, and then after that, the player will get Setzer (and his airship). From there, the player is encouraged to find all of the other characters in the first half of the game (which includes up to 11!) and finding these characters and their associated dungeons can be tackled in any order. However, ALL of that is optional, because as soon as Setzer and his airship are acquired, the player can go straight to the last dungeon and subsequently beat the game with just Celes, Sabin and Setzer. This is not something most players will do, since tackling the final dungeon and final boss battles with 3 characters is an *exceptionally* difficult task - though it certainly can be done, and some insane people have certainly have proven this to be true. In any case, although it only occurs in the game's second half, I would argue that that part of FF6 was the Final Fantasy series' first full-fledged foray in open gaming.
I don't see FF7 close to being open unless you are talking about side quests. You can't really do anything else than the next level. FF6 second world would be a better example of open world (J)RPG.
In the Wild era game you don't have to beat ANY or all dungeons, making the total number of combinations 326.
The Legend of Zelda is still an open world game. So are most of them. Having to unlock stuff does not preclude it from being open world. Let's not forget about the Great Plateau or the Great Sky Island.
Imo, an open world is one where you can explore the world whenever you want. That doesn't mean there can't be progression locks.
The reddit thread I pulled the calculations from included skipping dungeons, which only brought the total up to 34...but the larger point is the number of combinations in which you can do dungeons isn't really a good measure of openness given so many other factors.
So an open world is a world you can explore whenever you want, except for when you can't explore it through locks? Does that make all of the Zelda games open world then?
I can't be the only one who thinks Level 7 should have been Level 6 (no earlier because of Digdogger as a mini-boss) and Level 6 should have been Level 7, can I? Level 7 is such a steep drop in difficulty from Level 6, mostly because of those DAMN Wizzrobes!
i'd rather eat my own face than encounter another wizzrobe.
@@LittleBeanGreen Do they even appear in Level 8? Especially the blue ones. Those feel like they should have been Level 9-exclusive. It's bad enough when you have Red Wizzrobes, Bubbles, and Like-Likes in one room, I'm pretty sure there's at least one room in Level 6 with Blue Wizzrobes and Like-Likes, and probably Bubbles too. Like, c'mon! You just introduced the damn things! Wizzrobes and Like-Likes both!
Dark Souls 1 gives new players three paths to choose from ... two of which are incorrect choices.
I gotta play those games.
Don't you mean four since the actual correct way is to take the key, go through the valley and access Andre before doing anything else major, then go deal with Quelaag without having to deal with Blight town.
DS1 after the tutorial area you got the Undead Burg, the Catcombs, or the New Londo Ruins, if you chose the key as your item to start, you can also go to Blight Town. Only area you cannot actually sucessfully conquer is New Londo Ruins as you cannot survive the jump into the Abyss without a certain item locked away somewhere else.
I love Z1's version of "open world" there's a 'Real' reason to explore!
more than most games!
Amazing. People claiming Zelda (BotW) was getting back to the initial roots clearly never played Zelda 1.
Zelda 1 is a fantastic game but you need items found in other dungeons to progress, and not to mention. The game enumerates all dungeons so there is some sort of a path to be followed.
I've got something to come on the BotW/getting back to roots front
I think it's absolutely open world. You don't need to be able to do everything from the beginning. Take a game like Horizon. It has a completely linear story, and you can't skip sequences of it. But I don't think anyone is going to argue that the game isn't open world. Open world doesn't necessarily mean non-linear progression.
Totally agree.
For ALttP I always went 1, 2, 4, 3, 6, 5, 7 to get the tempered sword faster, and cheese the level 5 block puzzle with the Cane of Somaria.
I do the same thing 😂
@@jgshowtime9184 it's funny that Nintendo changed the level 5 puzzle in the GBA port specifically to discourage that.
Nailed it. Still do it this way when I play through this game every couple of years.
I do 1, 4, 3, 6, 5, 7. Once you have the hammer you can get to the thieves town via portal. The one behind the stone that requires the titans mitt can be accessed from the top through the lost woods. You can even get the invisibility cape before 4 and really cheese the game.
I haven't played this game in forever - will have to experiment!
The Original Zelda is An Open World game, in that it's got a maze like design, with multiple paths you can take at the same time.
It does not have true "Open World" design, which is that of an basically a giant fully open area with objectives sprinkled through.
This mazelike design is sorely needed more in Modern AAA games. The earlier ones were all linear, with just straight line between each object or set piece. Now they are mostly fully open world, which is basically, effectively a big open field (Be it wilderness, forest, a city, or actual field) with the objectives located throughout.
This mazelike design, in between the two, is what AAA gaming needs in its Action-adventure games right now.
It also seems like most games put dots on your map. 'Here's an entire world, but go here!'
@LittleBeanGreen OP makes a good point. In BotW and TotK, you are literally given all the tools you need to be able to, for the most part, make mostly linear paths to the places you want to go, and you're just given a list of objectives you can complete in any order you like. With the more "maze-like" design and limitations of the original, you are given some freedom in which paths you can take, but those paths are not spelled out for you. There is no hand holding on where to go. You have to discover your paths that are available to you via pure exploration. This exploration aspect without knowing what your paths are allows for a different kind of freedom to really explore without fear of missing some other objective along the path.
In the two newest titles, the common pattern is finding a lot of interesting distractions and new paths while following another.
I think that part of what makes the original feel even bigger and freer is how little the game holds your hand. The comparison of how A Link to the Past give you a numbered dungeon map vs. how the original only tells you the number of a dungeon when you enter it is very illustrative of how game design went over time, so it's no wonder that some of us got nostalgic for the days of staying up all night to figure out where to go next and bragging to your friends the next day that you'd found something they had not.
I think that's a great point. We should aim for less markers on maps!
@@LittleBeanGreen I greatly appreciated _Metroid Prime_ giving the option to turn off the map showing where to go next! Let me get lost for hours (until I break found and map it myself) like on the NES!
@@ParodyKnaveBob Maybe something a future Zelda title should consider...
Zelda 1 did give you a numbered map though, it was just a physical map that came with the game. It very clearly marked the location of the first several dungeons with numbers.
@@williamlancto3655 Yup - the first 4 I believe
For me, games like Zelda 1, Dark Souls 1, The Witness and Metroid Zero Mission are open world games, while BotW and TotK are much closer to sandbox games. I much prefer open world games with "soft linearity", with structure and an actual difficulty progression. The exploration in BotW became totally uninteresting to me once I realized that the most you will find is samey and unchallenging shrines. BotW also couldn't prevent the player from exploring pretty much any area with the paraglider and climbing. The overly lenient food, armor and saving options meant that exploration required no planning, preparation or skill of any kind really. It was such a disappointment to me once I had that realization.
I would have much preferred the game to be an actual modern interpretation of Zelda 1 with proper dungeons that you have to find yourself, with a real difficulty curve. The exploration should also have been actually challenging, where simply reaching new areas should feel like an accomplishment that required planning and many attempts. It's funny how many people say that BotW was a modern version of Zelda 1, since while it might have some surface level similarities, it failed pretty miserably in actually capturing the essence of that game.
That's coming in a later video ;)
"Metroid Zero Mission are open world games"
Did you even play the game ? They're telling you where to go every 5 minutes. Not an open world, dude.
@@_sparrowhawk Zero Mission is absolutely an open world game. The statues show you some spots where to go, but not how to get there. Many statues can also be skipped with bomb jumps.
The amount of things you can do out of order in Zero Mission is staggering. You can use hidden paths to go beat Ridley before Kraid. You can beat Kraid before getting the Power Grip if you’re skilled with infinite and diagonal bomb jumps. This way you can use the speed booster to get super missiles very early, if you’re good at wall jumps and shinesparks. You can beat the whole game with just 9% of the total items, many of which you would think are absolutely necessary. Zero Mission is one of the most non-linear games I know of, if you’re skilled enough at the game.
@@_sparrowhawk BotW also tells you where to go. Is it not open world?
Dark Souls 1 is closer to a 3D Metroidvania than a true open world game. If you choose the key when you do the character creation to start the game, yeah, a lot of the game is unlocked, but not anything up to Sens Fortress which is locked off until you ring two bells.
Keep in mind, I haven't watched the video but:
If you can go-to the last level with Only finding bombs than Yes it is.
Case in point Skyrim. You can go to the place right before Solvenguard (where the last fight is at) and people call it open world.
You can GO to the last level but you can't do anything in it without completeing the previous 8 dungeons.
You can only enter the last dungeon after beating all 8 previous dungeons. There is no skipping the whole game like in BotW/TotK. Several dungeons also require items from earlier ones to beat or even enter them.
@@LittleBeanGreen yep, just like Skyrim.
@@blumpus8150 yep just like Skyrim. You did read All of my text right?
That's sort of an arbitrary measurement though. You could make a game where you can go to the final boss area at any point in the game and still have the game be linear otherwise
6:42
Wow, that's my GameFAQs post! Never expected to see it in a youtube video, cool.
Gratz!
REALLY!? ha man I was looking through sooooooooooo many forums while making this video - it was amazing how the conversation surrounding Zelda has hardly changed in years....
People can talk about the design of each game in depth and whether they prefer one approach in gameplay to another, but the one thing I cannot stand is when people claim "it's not a Zelda game" because they just don't like the game. Zelda games have had a lot of variety over decades between the top down titles, 3D titles and the occasional left-right scrolling in some titles like Zelda II and parts of Link's Awakening etc. I always find the argument that "this" is Zelda to be disengenuous because the series is no stranger to shaking things up.
I enjoyed BotW and TotK and I enjoyed past titles like Majora, Ocarina and Link's Awakening etc, although I also really really enjoyed Spirit Tracks despite that game being largely on rails. The variety in the series is what brings me back every time. I don't want the exact same experience with different window dressing each time because I like trying new things and wondering what the next title will be like.
This is why I'm very excited for Echoes of Wisdom which will be the first game where you don't use a sword at all unlike Zelda 1 where you could just not pick up the sword but the vast majority do unless they're playing a challenge run or like Wind Waker and Link's Awakening where there are short segments without the sword. I'm very interested in the future of the series because there's more opportunities for experimentation within the world of the Legend of Zelda.
I agree with you, but that comment about Spirit Tracks being "largely on rails" made me laugh so much I needed to stop reading for a minute.
I think it's true that Zelda's longevity in part is because of its ability to make so many kinds of games while still feeling like Zelda. It's just that the franchise has so many traits, whichever one the developers choose to amplify in a particular game can make it feel completely different. The Era of the Wild games change the focus heavily scrapped a lot of traditional ideas (some for the better, some for the worst) and I think that disoriented a lot of people, myself included.
I think you're being too literal with the phrase "not a Zelda game". At least, when I have used the phrase, it's to convey "it carries the name, but it's not what you'd expect from the gameplay of a game in that series." Just like you wouldn't expect a game called "Super Mario World 7" to be a third person shooter.
And sure, over time, that statement will stop working. If 12 out of 33 games in the Super Mario franchise, in 2041, are third person shooters, then "a Mario game" is either a third person shooter, or a 2d/3d platform game.
And if Zelda games stops being about steady progression that unlocks more and more abilities, and instead becomes a long running series of open world sandbox physics engine games, then that's what a Zelda game "is" in the future.
It's not about ignoring a game in the franchise for doing something different. It's a critique of the newest games deviating too much to be recognized as "proper" sequels that meet expectations.
It's not even a statement of quality. (I think both BotW and TotK are good games. I just think the might as well have been a new reskinned into a new IP rather than Zelda games.)
the devs are basically saying that about any 3d Zelda prior to BOTW so screw them lmao
@@tokeivoThe issue a lot of older fans of the series have, myself included, is that we like the more linear, dungeon-focused style of games like OoT and TP, and while BotW and TotK may be enjoyable in their own right, given how commercially successful they have been, and how big of a departure they are from the OoT-style games, they really pose an existential threat to us ever getting more games that follow the classic formula. It shouldn’t be all that surprising then when we claim that BotW and TotK don’t feel like LoZ games, because in many ways, they killed off the series we loved and replaced it with something that feels more like a cross between Elder Scrolls and Fortnite.
Speaking as someone whose favorite Zelda games are the first one and the two recent ones; yes, they’re plenty different but to me what is similar is the exploration and finding little secrets and stuff everywhere. I’m not saying they’re the same but I find that they managed to recreate a feeling I only ever got in the first one. (I love the other games too but they’re not my favorites).
Burn ALL the bushes!
Did you play Zelda 1 before the two newest?
The second halves of A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time are much more similar to the original than they get credit for. All three are designed with a linear order in mind and have some soft and hard locks that encourage the intended order, but only strictly enforce that order some of the time while otherwise allowing players to do things out of order.
On another note, unless I am missing something then the Fire Temple is also required to complete the Spirit Temple because there is a rusty switch that opens are barred door that you need the hammer for. That would reduce the possible dungeon orders to 6. However, if we include the two mini dungeons the number of possible orders is 50. If anyone is sure about whether or not the Spirit Temple requires the hammer let me know.
I think I linked to a page that lists all the orders - someone in there figured it out, not me. I trust that their math is correct and may hold some answers to your questions.
I think there's an important difference between requiring an _item_ from one dungeon to beat another, versus requiring you to _beat_ one dungeon in order to beat or even get to another. You may have to start Fire Temple before you can start Spirit Temple, because of the hammer; but if you can still beat Spirit Temple before you beat Fire Temple, by getting the hammer and then leaving Fire Temple before you beat it, I think more people count that as an element of non-linearity.
@@Cherodar It would be a hassle to leave the dungeon halfway through, especially since there's no harm in completing it (unlike say Angler's Tunnel in Link's Awakening, where leaving it unfinished for a while lets you skip the ghost.) So yes while it would technically count as an element of non-linearity, it's entirely unpractical one.
@@Trianull There's no harm in completing it, but sometimes it's just too hard and you want to try something else for a while. That was actually exactly how my first ever playthrough of Oracle of Seasons went--I'd gotten through most of Dancing Dragon Dungeon and had the Slingshot, but just couldn't handle Gohma. And, tired of trying the fight over and over, I ended up leaving the dungeon (which isn't a hassle at all, because when you reload a save, you start the game back at the beginning of the dungeon) to just take a breather outside and do other stuff. Without even knowing it would be possible, I ended up finding my way into Unicorn's Cave and beating the entire thing, including its boss, before heading back to finish off Gohma. Whether my ability to do so then was because of the extra Heart Container, because I was a little more seasoned in the game by that point, or just because I'd been able to break up the monotony and do something else for a while, being able to leave a dungeon with its item in hand but its boss unbeaten was an entirely practical boon that made the game much more approachable and fun--and not because I was specifically looking to sequence-break or whatever, but rather just because one boss was bothering me, and I eventually found a way to beat it.
@Cherodar In this case leaving the dungeon is definitely reasonable. I don't think the same would really apply to the Fire Temple in Ocarina though, Volvagia should be an easy enough boss for that point of the game. And applying the original point, I wouldn't say that counts as Oracle of Seasons having non-linearity, as you still have to enter the dungeons in the intended order and at least halfway-complete them.
The knowledge-based progression through the Lost Woods/Hills makes me wonder if Zelda 1 might be the first Metroidbrainia…
Also AlttP‘s freedom in its dungeon order reaffirms my belief that it‘s the original Zelda formula perfected, and you just reminded me how wild it is how it’s mostly ignored in the whole BotW/"back to the roots" debate.
Also I‘m very hyped for and crave the secret sauce.
the thing about the first legend of zelda is it seems to defy categorization...and the secret sauce script is currently being worked on. There may be a third video (probably will be) that also gets to your BotW/"roots" point and I think there's some stuff there you'll find VERY interesting.
@@LittleBeanGreen That‘s what makes playing the game so fascinating to me, first-hand experiencing how it is its own thing, how it is free from any pre-established notions of genre or series conventions.
Really excited for your follow-up videos, experiencing the game myself alongside them is so cool haha
@@lmnt66 Glad it has worked out this way!
Speaking of open world, non linear Zelda games that get overlooked, A Link Between Worlds comes to mind.
Given that tunic and such were inspired by zelda id say yes.
The overworld "lost woods" tile is a puzzle that leads to a dungeon. It doesn't block off part of the world. So the game is still open world: you can find the clues to that puzzle and start solving it at any point, right from the start, and it doesn't lead to anything required in other puzzles.
It does block off part of the world - because if you can't solve the puzzle, you can't get to that section unless you come at it from the other direction once you have the stepladder.
@@LittleBeanGreen Sounds like rpg_haven is saying, "skill issue," lol. $;^ D
Non-linearity and optional side quests are underrated, games dont need to be open world to give freedom to players. Zelda can go back to old formula while still preserving the positive aspects of BOTW.
Especially when the sidequests are just meant to pad the experience and don't actually add to the game meaningfully.
Majora's Mask was like 30% main game and 70% side quests and it's one of the most popular Zelda games in the franchise.
@@jruler93 Yea they should make something like Majora's Mask where you can get so lost just doing side quests.
I find it very funny that A Link Between Worlds has the most combinations of any other Zelda game out there, even the two newer ones. Making it what I like to call an "Open Sequence" game. Yet, the game sold poorly due to everyone complaining about how it's "just a remake of A Link to the Past" or it's a "cash grab" or "nostalgia cow" for looking too much like ALttP. While other complained that it was "too easy" or "too short". Not realizing that ALBW was basically an experiment for what is possible for Zelda going forward and not a 100% definitive answer. Sure it had it has it's flaws. But so does every other game. Nothing is ever perfect. There's always gonna be flaws! That's why we learn from our mistakes.
In my personal opinion, A Link Between Worlds is the true peak for Zelda. At least, for 2D Zelda that is. It proved that even small budget 2D adventure games can still have the potential to be a great masterpiece even in today's time. But everyone sadly saw it as a lazy ALttP knock off. Maybe if it had a more original/unique Hyrule Overworld to explore, people might've actually been able to see the masterpiece that it actually was.
It's sad that we may not get to see another Zelda game like ALBW ever again due to it's unreasonable negative feedback. It's like what happened with WW but without the eventual praise and appreciation later on. Too many people accused the game of solely being an ALttP clone for a more casual gamer audience, when it was not. And what's funny is that both WW and ALBW are absolute masterpieces! Maybe not in sales (mostly because of haters) but for their fun gameplay experiences and beautiful artstyles. Hopefully one day Nintendo realizes this and decides to give these type of Zelda games another chance to try to correct the mistakes made with them in the past and prove to haters and doubters just how wrong they all are. WW and ALBW are true masterpieces that sadly underestimated by many and that is a fact!
I've heard nothing but good things about ALBW but have never had the chance to play it. The gimmick seems interesting (wall merging) but I don't like the idea of every dungeon being the same difficulty...
Zelda 1 is... sort of like Super Metroid in terms of Open Worldness.
The world is open if you have the skills. However, some paths *will* be barred unless you have the right item to allow you to pass, and even if you get past it early somehow, you'll find enemies which are beyond the scope of what you're meant to face. You are intended to grow in power, get stronger, upgrade your equipment, upgrade your weapons, increase your health, and even increase your item capacity so that the later areas full of tough enemies don't feel quite as scary. It also helps in your exploration as well.
However, you're not barred from exploring those areas. If you know what you're doing, know a few tricks from prior playthroughs, then you can find a lot more than you would have otherwise, if you have the skill to traverse it.
Totally agree.
I sometimes like to draw the distinction between "open world" and "open _map"_ (Monster Hunter World, Pokemon: Legends Arceus, etc.). A genuine argument could be made that "no loading screens" means _zero gameplay pauses_ to load more map (Pokemon:Scarlet/Violet other than certain locales like Mesagoza & Area Zero), and this means that even a screen transition (as in Zelda 1) counts as a "loading screen", and thus it should not be counted as "open map". Of course, this definition is still finicky because loading screens are identified by the player _perceiving_ them for what they really are: the game taking time to load more data before the player can continue. Under which the screen-by-screen scrolling in Zelda 1 is perceived as a camera pan, thus making it an "open map".
Also, while "hard lock" and "soft lock" make a nice pair of contrasting terms, the term "softlock" also gets used in game/level design to indicate a situation with no meaningful available acrions or forward progress, with no recourse other than reverting to a previous save file, such as Sierra's point-and-click adventure games where failure to pick up specific items before proceeding through certain one-way sequences could leave you in a (sometimes literal) trap.
Huh - I was unawares of this second point.
@@LittleBeanGreen Yeah, "softlock" as a term for a one-way dead-end is more common in level-design communities like for Super Mario Maker.
For "soft lock" as used in this video, I haven't heard many names for it but one of them is a "(player) knowledge unlock".
There's also a subtle distinction between "puzzles" and "problems", with a "puzzle" tending to have only a single solution that must be found, whereas a "problem" is an objective/goal that can be satisfied in multiple ways, with little regard for how the player actually uses the tools they are given.
The NW portion of the map is NOT locked behind the ladder. You can access it anytime via the lost woods.
The video makes it very clear that section is soft locked behind a "knowledge key". Not sure where you got the ladder thing from.
It is locked either behind the ladder OR the lost woods. But you can't just enter the lost woods and get there. You have to know the route.
@@Dark_Jaguar "Not sure where you got the ladder thing from."
If you just a bit north of Level-1, there's a one tile wide stream of water that feeds into the big lake. You can cross it with the ladder and get into that NW corner of the map. You must either go through that path or the Lost Woods for your first time entering that part of the map. The video showed the screen in red, but I don't think it said anything.
I think a being intuitively "open world" doesn't mean that dungeons don't require an order, but that you can access most of the overworld with no or few obstacles from arbitrary directions.
In Ocarina of Time, for example, you can't just walk in the direction of some location and end up in the appropriate spot, because the world is divided into separate areas which can only be entered and exited at a few very specific spots. So a forest in OoT is mostly a wall you can't penetrate, while in BotW you can simply walk through the forest (between the trees) as if it was a real forest.
In this sense, Zelda 1 is more open than AlttP, which is more open than Link's Awakening. Link's Awakening has a continuous world (unlike OoT, which is divided into areas), but it isn't very open, since many areas a blocked off, especially in the beginning.
Link's Awakening is much more Metroidvania in design.
What about Ocarina of Time? Also Metroidvania in design?
@@cube2fox Yeah I'd say so - the oracle games especially as well.
I'm working on a romhack that will make A Link to the Past more non-linear, allowing you to complete the Light World Dungeons in any order, and Dark World 1-4 in any order. Dark World 5-7 can be done out of order after beating other Dark World dungeons. I finished version 1 of this romhack a couple of years ago, but never released it. Now I have to rebuild it from scratch. I was trying too hard to fit it into the Zelda ALttP Redux project, of which I was a major contributor, but ShadowOne kept leaving me in the dust with how fast he worked.
Can I ask what sort of motivation prompts this type of project?
I remember a fun thing I did as a kid was get the white sword before the wooden sword. I thought I recall it had the same strength as the wooden until you have both (suggesting they stack) but I’m not sure anymore without testing.
I would absolutely say The Legend of Zelda is an open world. You can explore almost anywhere at any time, especially the over world. You can go back to anywhere. The wonder is being able to just explore.
I find it is irrelevant that a few things are gated by objectives. That is necessary to keep the game interesting. And not everything is gated, so you do have multiple solutions to parts depending on how you approach it and how good you are.
You actually can complete the first 8 dungeons in any order because you don’t need to complete them to move on excepting the 9th dungeon. Is a dungeon too hard, you can always skip it until either you are more powerful or complete other objectives, including other dungeons. Often all you need is the dungeon treasure, sometimes not even that. The triforce pieces and bosses can always be done later.
I have enjoyed watching The Legend of Zelda Randomizer competitions. It randomizes where ALL items are in the game and where ALL over world passages go. It brings some of the wonder of exploration back. A game can be quick or long. The only requirements are a sword, silver arrows, and a bow to beat Gannon, and all 8 triforce pieces to unlock the locked 9th dungeon to reach him. Everything else depends where things are. And I came to love watching Crystal Saver play. They are really good.
Gamer lingo is unnecessarily problematic in so many ways:
What's open world? A world that lets you do anything and go anywhere...
What's an RPG? A game where you play as a character that grows...
What's Metroidvania? A game that combines Metroid exploration and Castlevania level up mechanics... What does it have to do with Castlevania? Almost nothing. Even Koji Igarashi thinks of Symphony of the Night as more of a "Zeldavania."
When it comes to Zelda 1, is it open world? Sure. You can go almost anywhere and do almost anything. But as stated in the video, progress is still stagnated and dungeon order is implied. I end up doing almost nothing out of order when I play aside from doing dungeon 6 after 7. The most open world game I've ever played is Skyrim and even that, I'm sure, stagnates progression at points. The whole concept feels like a false promise and the Breath of the Wild comparisons feel incredibly reductive.
But is the problem resolved??? Methinks not! Thus, I eagerly await the resolution to this epic quandary on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z G T Super ex machina!!!
False promise is a good way to put it.
I prefer some soft locks and a few hard locks over: here is a map where I puked content all over the place without structure.
Absolutely agree.
The metroidvania elements, along with the way modern (post OOT) Zelda games handle communities and npcs are what make Zelda what it is for me. You take out the metroidvania DNA, and i feel like you throw out way too much of the series' core identity.
I think that's definitely true - and I also think there can be a balance between a mostly open world AND metroidvania elements AND dungeons.
Many presenters who comment on what "open world" means start with one common mistake, they intentionally or not represent common features as definition, either based on poor presentation or personal preferences passed off otherwise. This leads to needless confusion and contention. A Link to the Past is open world because you can go to many key places in different sequences, some with and some without recourse. Just because you cant walk into the final boss fight and no-hit win the game with starting equipment doesnt negate the game from the genre. I hate to say it like this, but open world is a spectrum, no game is 100% open because otherwise there would be a huge disconnect in features and gameplay. Even in minecraft there is a barrier to the underworld, and exploring the surface often requires a boat unless you want to build insane land bridges everywhere.
That is my consensus as well. The interested thing about OG Zelda is that the scale of openness can change on subsequent playthroughs.
I would argue that the hardened soft locks that you're describing are no different than real world scenarios. There are plenty of locks in our real world open world scenarios that if you don't have a key for you're not getting past. I think it's indicative of the progression of life in general. Things are relatively easy at a certain stage in life and then as you go along it gets more difficult. This requires you to get more tools and skills so that you can continue to progress.
This is why I'm going to argue that the botw series is lacking and not as good as the more "linear" style Zelda games. The botw style just lends itself to a lot of aimless roaming around and wasting time, that's something that we already do in life enough as it is, and it's not satisfying in the end. A true game needs to have rules, a level of difficulty, and an ultimate end goal with a reward at the end of it all. Unfortunately I think this is where the game developers of botw really got lost for the sake trying to add content by volume.
I really hope that the series can get back on track to its former glory
Well said.
Yes it is, and I wanted to express how good that thumbnail is. 10/10
Thanks!
Seems rude to directly numerically compare Breath of the Wild when the total number of dungeons is so much lower. You have complete freedom to do them in any order, but there's less of them, so there's less mathematical combinations. That's... not really a good point to make. If it had 8 dungeons with the same freedom it would have over 40000 combinations.
Might make more sense to do a percentage scale to compare the whole list of combinations versus the actual possible combinations you can do without glitches.
That was my point - the dungeon combinations aren't something that come from me, they are something that a lot of Zelda fans have been arguing over as a way to define a game's non-linearity. Even I said no one in their right mind would think ALttP is more open than BotW or TotK merely because the dungeons have more combinations...and it's exactly as you said: because those games have less dungeons.
I think dungeon order is certainly one metric to describe a game's non-linearity but it's not the be-all-end-all and it certainly isn't the ONLY metric that should be considered.
It is and isn't. It doesn't hold your hand and you can do a lot from the start. However the sub items or lack of having them can block your path. Sure I can go straight to the third dungeon for the raft, but without the stepladder that blocks certain paths in certain dungeons. It really depends on how finely we want to split the hair on what open world means.
That's why I think it's ultimately hopeless to try and fit it into a nice box, especially when its openness varies with how well you know the world.
just found this vid in my home page as a zelda fan, your content is super high quality and entertaining dude, you definitely deserve more subs 👍 keep going
Appreciate ya!
I've been going on for *A While* about how OOT isn't nearly as linear/guided an experience as people like to pretend it is... Heck, in my past couple playthroughs of it I didn't even need to try that hard to complete dungeons in different orders completely glitch-free! But also, yes, my go-to example of "open world Zelda pre-BotW" isn't Zelda 1, it's A Link Between Worlds...
OoT can be just as cryptic as the OG hahaha
if I remember correctly, Sheik kind of steered you to each temple as adult Link in order.
@@hepwo91222 Yeah, but you don't actually have to follow what they say
@@Michirin9801 yeah, the game def steers you though, between Navi, Sheik, and the map flashing dots.
@@hepwo91222 I mean almost every game open world or not has moments like that. BOTW steers you towards certain locales too. This is a weak ground to walk on as an argument.
I think LttP is a bit more open with dungeon order, but there are a bunch of constraints. The Light World's Eastern Palace dungeon has to be done first or you can't get the Pegasus Boots, which you need to get the item to unlock the other two dungeons. In the Dark World, you need the Mallet from the Dark Palace to gain access to the south part of the map. You need the Hookshot from the Swamp Palace to reach Skeleton Forest and the Village of Outcasts. And you need the Titan Mitts from the Bandit's Den to access the Misery Mire or Skeleton Forest dungeons.
I am less familiar with a Link to the Past but I think there is a work around for one of the dungeons that you can bypass if you don't have the hookshot.
The light world is on rails, you have to do them in order: Tower of Hera is locked behind gloves from Desert Palace, Desert Palace is locked behind boots from Eastern Palace.
The Darkworld opens after you got the Hammer from Dark Palace. You can always mirror to the Light World, take the portal in Kakariko and clear Thieves' Town, Skull Woods, and Swamp Palace in any order.
The Mitts from Thieves' Town unlock access to Ice Palace and Misery Mire. Somaria from Mire unlocks Turtle Rock.
You could Swamp Palace last if you consider Boots bonking over the gap in Mire "legal". (I do, because there is a secret room in Ganon's Tower that can only be accessed by bonking. It's a game mechanic by design.)
(I'm not sure now if Ice Palace hard requires the Hook Shot. But you can beat Turtle Rock before either of them)
@@LittleBeanGreen I think there's a glitch you can do in Death Mountain in the Dark World to sequence break down to the northern part of the Dark World, but I've never tried since Death Mountain in the Dark World doesn't have any official ways out and I don't know if it even works on the GBA version, the only version I own.
As for going to the Thieves' Town portal in Kakarikio, I believe you need the Titan Mitts to access that. The only portal in Kakariko I can think of it out the middle north path and that has a large black boulder that requires the Titan Mitts to lift blocking the normal rock that hides the portal.
Phantom hourglass is another game where you can done last three dungeon in any order.
Also you can sequence break and complete the entire temple of the ocean king after ghost ship.
One of the few Zelda games I've yet to play!
People look at me funny when I tell them Zelda 1 is my favorite Zelda game.
Oh, nice video, btw.
Not my favorite - but I definitely get it.
Thanks!
well, it is an NES/famicom game. even if were to consider the concept of the first LoZ to be the best, i wouldn't consider it the best game.
The thing that sticks out to me when comparing the original to botw/totk is that the dungeons are just there, waiting to be walked into. Of course some need the raft or flute to enter but they're just there, where in OoT and especially botw/totk you need to do several things and have several cutscenes before you're allowed entry. It'd be cool to see big dungeons or hidden caves that lead to dungeons in the newer format
Finding dungeons was actually the coolest part of Zelda 1. It made all your exploring that much more worthwhile.
I think it is open world. I think the limitations of the NES vs our modern concept of an open world may clash, leading to the debate.
Ultimately its difficult to compare a NES game to a Switch one but I do have almost identical memories from both games where I wandered into an area of the map out of curiosity and got my ass kicked by a new enemy and did not return for some time. It makes me feel like the creative spirit behind the games was in a closer position compared to the more tightly scripted games. I like the feeling that I could beat something tough if I have the courage or skill. That there are tough creatures out there at the beginning of the journey makes the world feel more organic and gives context to my growth in power during the game. I love OoT and windwaker but those games dont really leave that kind of judgement to challenge something unknown in your hands. If you are fighting an enemy, its probably the right time to fight it. Hell, you probably got the item that hard counters it 2 rooms back .
Fair enough - I played BotW before Zelda 1 so I never had the feeling.
Everyone seems to be taking for granted that nonlinearity is better, but... why is that? When did it become a bad thing to have an order of levels? I love Ocarina of Time for the story, not the freedom to do levels in any order. It's fun to explore the overworld, but I like that you can't get to certain places until later in the game. That way, as you complete more of the game, you have more to explore. And the cut scenes that further the plot have to happen in a certain order to tell the story properly.
As this video points out, the dungeons in the first game get harder and harder as you play (assuming you play them in order), and that effectively limits you to playing them in order because you won't have enough hearts at the start to tackle the harder levels. But doesn't that make sense? Shouldn't the early dungeons be easier than the later ones? The only way to truly make the dungeons playable in any order is to make them all the same difficulty, but then you'd never be challenged. And think about items. In most games, you need the item from a dungeon in order to progress to the next dungeon on the overworld. In Link's Awakening, the power bracelet from Bottle Grotto is needed to get to the region where Key Cavern is, and the flippers from Angler's Tunnel are needed to swim to Catfish's Maw. Wouldn't it be boring if the items you got in the dungeons were never needed in the overworld? If everything is accessible at the start, then what's the point of gaining new items?
Wholeheartedly agree. I don't know when 'non-linearity is better' gospel was written but I also don't agree with it.
The end of your second paragraph seems to be describing two recent games in the franchise...
Zelda 1 is open world. But BotW isn't the second coming of Zelda 1 like some would have you believe.
BotW doesn't have Zelda 1's special sauce: Metroidvania elements. It's not a true return to form without those aspects.
I think it's actually more than that - something I'll be getting into in the next video.
@@LittleBeanGreen Looking forward to it. There are definitely other things to mention, like the focus on dungeons in Zelda 1.
The divine beasts felt like an afterthought. As if they were made unintrusive enough that people who didn't like any previous Zelda games wouldn't be bothered by their inclusion.
@@athorem The Divine Beasts felt like they wanted to make Shadow of the Colossus but didn't do as good of a job.
zelda 1 had restricions
there's a good video called something like "zelda 1 is still my favourite zelda" i watched recently, and there's a chapter in the video (i think it's chapter 6 or something ?) that talks about freedom and structure, which i think gets at the core of this concept pretty neatly
In a strict sense, no. But I'd say most of the map is accessible from the beginning. The only parts that are truly locked off to you without items are two islands. That's it. You can conceivably access the rest of the map without items.
That's true - I was analyzing it as a first playthrough without any prior knowledge. It becomes MORE open immediately the more you know about it.
First dungeon I beat playing LoZ the first time in 1990 was Dungeon 3. It was the first I found ironically.
I must have spent countless summer hours on that overworld map. The game originally came with a map of the overworld where I wrote down where all the secrets I found were located. My mother's husband used to do the dungeons on graph paper to mark which rooms had keys, old men selling the ability to carry more bombs, magical items, etc.
I never thought I would feel the wonder I did as a kid with the original LoZ ever again. It rewarded exploration at every turn. I felt like I was blind to what was just the next screen over...
...I felt that way again with BoTW. What was that tower in the distance? What was on the other side of that mountain? OH HELL, A DRAGON IS FLYING ON THE HORIZON!
I'm amazed to hear that BotW brought that feeling back to you. What you are describing seem like completely different things haha
Zelda 1 was as close to open world as existed back then, but then again, they were limited by their imagination as much as the hardware. I wonder what a Breath of the Wild NES demake would be like.
Not only that, most games didn't function like Zelda 1. They were meant to be replayed over and over in an arcade where the goal was to rack up the high score.
I think one key distinction that people might be missing is the difference between open world and sandbox. Zelda 1 is open world (especially for its time). BotW and TotK are sandboxes.
If you want another NES "open world" game to compare it to, check out Taito's Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements (no, not Dungeons and Dragons).
I think you're exactly right - the sandbox rabbit hole is a completely different can of worms...one I'll happily avoid thank you haha
This is generally where my opinion lies on this game. I played it way back in the day, and while I consider it an open world game, I knew from the start that Link Between World's "just pick up all the items right here and do the dungeons in almost any order you like" was a more open experience. Fun note, on my first playthrough of the game, I often left dungeons unfinished if I got stuck and went to another one. That sometimes meant I had the item from the unfinished dungeon already and had already unlocked deeper access to other dungeons. It was a long-way-around method to finishing the game, I admit, but I enjoyed the experience and the ability to put things off for later if I was getting frustrated. The last handful of dungeons though, I took in the intended order by that point, and of course the very final dungeon must be done only after completing every previous dungeon, and in that sense Breath of the Wild is the more open game.
Zelda II has a more prescriptive path, but still allowed me to dip out and take on others within the limited scope of the world I'd unlocked up until that point. The search for the hammer was the biggest roadblock to progression there, because it's an early "gauntlet" of a challenge that's also a maze. It was downright unfair to lock progression behind that Death Mountain region so very early in the journey, I think, even today when I'm actually pretty good at the game.
Link to the Past really is far more open than people give it credit for, though of course the dark world is entirely locked off until fully completing every dungeon in the light world. It's certainly far more open than Link's Awakening, and heck, I LOVE Link's Awakening even if large sections of the overworld are gated behind steady item progression.
What elements do I think make a good Zelda game? I have three. First is the sense of going on a vast adventure. If I feel like I'm exploring the ever changing land of Hyrule and that there's amazing things to discover around every corner, even in the more linear games (Skyward Sword in particular), I still get that fundamental "Zelda" feel. "Wow I didn't expect to find a pirate ship in the DESERT, or that it would be a time travelling dungeon with past and present mingling simultaneously!" Namely, the whole thing feeling interconnected yet changing things up in unique ways, that's Zelda to me.
Second, tangibility. This is what I call the way Nintendo games manage to make you feel like you're directly doing every action you decide to do. In many RPGs, for example, you'll "press A" at some prescribed point and the character will just automatically do the thing, or you'll select to do it from a list as in those CRPGs. Zelda more often than not gives you a functioning interface for doing just about every act, from pushing or dragging a block around to stepping on a switch to even using an item like a bottle or a bug catching net by swinging them around, every "act" has a weight and reality to it, and THAT factor has a solid through-line in every single Zelda game. They clearly put a lot of testing and iterations into making every act "feel" just right. Heck Skyward Sword's focus on motion controls was clearly meant to enhance that tangibility factor. This is also true of modern Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. In Tears in particular, you don't have that standard "here's a transparent click point for putting up a wall", you have to actually attach that thing to that thing yourself. Sadly, cooking and eating aren't as tangible as they could be in those games, being menu-driven in their entirety, but at least they animate the actions to some degree. The CDi games don't "feel" right because many actions don't have that tangibility at all, and those that ARE weren't tested and iterated on so they just "feel" off.
I save "openness" for third because if a Zelda game manages the first two, it doesn't need the third for me to consider it a good Zelda game. That said, if it DOES have the third element, the first two can combine with it to make a truly compelling experience. I threw 200 hours into Breath of the Wild for a reason, and it was because I simply couldn't stop playing. Link Between Worlds, similar experience. Now, how "open" a Zelda game should be requires some thought to balancing. I think when every dungeon is built towards openness, it introduces a new problem starting with Link Between Worlds, in that all of them are put at the very bottom of the difficulty curve because ANY of them might be the first dungeon. "Suggested order" was a half-measure, admittedly, but it meant they could make dungeons and both their combat and puzzles more challenging in a steady progression. If there's one big thing people rightfully complain about in the newest Zelda games, it's how the big main dungeons aren't very big nor are any of them challenging. In the case of Link Between Worlds, they're far better designed than what's in the newest ones, but they still give the player a big whiplash going from all these "tutorial" level dungeons to the final dungeon's difficulty the way the game does. I'm not sure what a solution would be outside of adding in a "suggested order" again to allow their designs to get more challenging, but it'd probably involve designing multiple iterations of every dungeon, so that depending on the order tackled, each dungeon has an "easy, medium, and hard" level of challenge. Not only does that drastically lengthen development time though, it also means that someone is going to naturally lock themselves out of hard mode versions of many dungeons, so a toggle after finishing the last one should allow someone to play the dungeons they did earlier on different difficulty settings.
(Anyone telling me that revealing there's a dark world is a "spoiler", calm down. The game's advertising and the literal map of the dark world included with every copy of the game already "spoiled" that when the game launched! Anyone who claims they were "surprised" by the dark world and that it was a "stunning reveal" is... lying. The same thing with FF6's "world of ruin", again, the map that came with the game revealed this to anyone who owned it, and the advertising in Nintendo Power already revealed that to subscribers. Not to mention, by the point FF6 (as 3) came out, AOL had made internet access far more widespread and most people either had internet access or knew someone who did.)
I think this is pretty good criteria...might add a few things. Your 'tangibility' point is well taken and something the devs made a design choice on as early as this first game.
I actually was surprised by the stunning reveal of the dark world in ALttP, but that's because I came to it more than twenty years late, on my own away from nearly all discourse about it. Same thing with FF6's world of ruin, in fact! I agree with you that these don't have to be hidden behind spoiler tags, but just wanted to say that being surrpised by those things is still possible--perhaps now more than it used to be!
@@LittleBeanGreen Thank you! I've also been thinking about how important "emergent gameplay" is to me enjoying a wide open world game like Breath of the Wild. I think that realization started with Metal Gear's "Phantom Pain". Being able to approach every situation in numerous novel ways and simply creating a number of interlocking gameplay mechanics to allow the player to come up with things even the developers didn't anticipate takes "open world" and applies it to the player as well. As much as I enjoy Elden Ring, I can't claim that one has a heavy focus on "emergent gameplay" design. It's more of an expansion of heavily bespoke map design so that every area isn't just another bandit camp. Sorry, I got on yet another tangent there. It's just that I'm surprised I forgot to mention that. Zelda 1 and 2 had a few small elements of "emergent" design (like turning into a fairy to fly through a door's keyhole), but it wasn't until LTTP that they gave the player enough interesting tools to really explore unique gameplay mechanics that interact in novel ways. From finding out that a bug catching net can also reflect spells to "taming" bees to use to assist... it's interesting. Link's Awakening took it further by allowing multiple items to be used at once, allowing things like long jumping, charging with a shield out, duel wielding fire and sword beams, and of course the bomb arrows, which I'm STILL unsure if they were quite intentional or not.
Then Breath of the Wild cooked that design in right at it's very core in a way Zelda 1 couldn't even dream of.
@@Cherodar I hadn't even considered certain things like how most people interfacing with either game (as a ROM) today don't have access to the physical maps that originally came with both games. Come to think of it, it also goes a long way towards explaining why anyone thinks the ending of Super Mario Bros 2 is some kind of "twist ending" when the manual for the game explains from the start that Mario and his friends were put under a curse by Wart and can't wake up until they free Subcon from his nightmarish clutches. If someone hasn't read the manual, all they get is the truncated summary in the game itself, which doesn't mention Subcon being the land of dreams at all.
Sometimes the additional material really does make a difference, so thank you for sharing your unique perspective.
@@Dark_Jaguar You're welcome, yeah, it really is an interestingly different way to experience a game, which the creators surely didn't intend and almost surely weren't thinking of at all!
Zelda 1 isn't really "open." It more just gives you a lot of leeway. But its not "open world" the way BOTW or Skyrim is.
Completely agree.
I need that sauce man, that green bean sauce
order up!
I'm not so sure about green bean sauce, but I could go for some green bean casserole. The one with the cream of mushroom soup and crispy, cheesey, french fried onions.
why do people think that being open world automatically makes a game good
Not sure - hopefully you didn't get that from my video ha
@@LittleBeanGreen i was completely wasted when i wrote that i have no idea what your video was about sorry
You do not need to COMPLETE any dungeon to go to the next, just find the secret. You can do that, muscle up, then go back and crush the bosses. Same for Zelda 2 TAL.
But to me that is such a weird strategy. Although you do need to complete all 8 before heading to the final one.
That goes for pretty much every Zelda game up until Wind Waker.
I've never heard of aLttP's dungeon order being "definitive". I personally almost always collect crystal 1 then go directly to crystal 4 in Thieves Town because the boss Blind always takes 9 hits regardless of weapon, and the Mitts you get from there allow you to get the Tempered Sword which helps a great deal in Dungeon 2. Likewise the Cane from Dungeon 6 helps a heck of a lot in Dungeons 3 and 5. Therefore I tend to do them 1, 4, 2, 6, 3, 5, 7. The Light World Dungeons can't be meaningfully done in a different order, however.
I was unaware ALttP's dungeons could be done in different orders (and many for that matter) until recently. From forums and things I've come across, it seems to leave a bad taste in people's mouths that the dungeons are marked on the map and numbered.
Good video! I wish it was a little longer and had avoided a "cliffhanger" in terms of truly wrapping up your thoughts on the topic, but I get it 😉 I personally consider Zelda 1 an open world game, but at the end of the day, categorization is a largely subjective affair (albeit a very human one).
Yeah I feel ya - I'm trying to get this stuff out in a reasonable amount of time...the next video is already shaping up to be about the same length, which is about as much as I can manage in a week's time. This may end up being three separate videos...perhaps I'll combine them into a super cut.
Haven't watched the video, but yes, yes it is, mostly. From the very beginning of the game, you can go literally anywhere in the world, and you can go to most of the dungeons.
It is mostly open but you cannot go literally anywhere.
"Open World" wasn't even a term back until like GTA III (2001) was out.
But I think the principles still stand.
very true, but when people starting saying things like GTA3 invented the open world or "sandbox" genre, I would point to the first LOZ as the true OG.
Looking forward to the dungeon video.
me too ha ;)
BOTW actually has 65 different orders you can do the divine beasts and hyrule castle if you consider hyrule castle ending the game (which it does). Yes you have the 24 possibilities if you do all of the divine beasts but you can also ignore 1-4 of them and go straight to hyrule castle
Still less than ALttP but my point is that's not really a good measure of openness.
Personally, Breath of the Wild reminded me of Skyrim more than the first Zelda game.
I never played Skyrim but BotW feels very different than Zelda 1
@@LittleBeanGreen agreed. I mostly say it reminds me of Skyrim because like Skyrim, you could just ignore the main story and just go practically anywhere. I've played Zelda 1 myself and I can safely say that it is NOT as open as these people are saying.
@@chainmengaming mostly because all there is is the main story haha
Having beaten the first 8 dungeons before getting the sword, I'd say it's pretty open world
or open weapon ha
My preferred dungeon order for the original NES Zelda is 1, 3, 4, 2, 6, 5, 7, 8 (and then of course 9).
7 seems like the universally hated dungeon - do you find that to be too easy when it's at the end of your list?
Yes it is. Just like GTA III is open world. Just because it has some areas locked at the start doesn't mean it's not open world
See end of video.
Have you heard of the Swordless Quest? You skip picking up the sword when you start the game (because nothing forces you to get it), and you can get all the way to the final dungeon without it. IIRC you have to get items from some of the dungeons without completing them to do it.
Yes I have heard of this but it feels like a self-imposed challenged rather than how you're supposed to play.
@@LittleBeanGreen Oh sure it is. I just meant it in the sense that the game doesn't even require you to get the main weapon immediately if you choose not to, and proceeding with the choice really forces a non-linear approach to the game (at least, non-linear from the view of the intended game play).
@@gryphonavocatio totally understood!
The distinction between hard and soft locks in a game might not be particularly significant since a player's initial playthrough is what truly shapes their impression of the game. Most players are unlikely to replay the game, so their first experience is crucial. While some experienced players can bypass many of Ocarina of Time's hard locks through glitches, this doesn't significantly impact the game's overall linearity.
I believe Nintendo should revisit the original The Legend of Zelda before developing the next game. The freedom in Zelda 1 wasn't dogmatic; it provided a strong sense of progression. Additionally, Zelda 1's design choice of not giving players all items from the start kept them engaged in a loop of discovery and satisfaction. Each new item transformed how players interacted with the world, creating a consistently rewarding experience.
tldr: Give me a modern Zelda 1. Basically Elden Ring with town and items.
I've never played Elden Ring, but it seems like the natural heir to Zelda.
@@LittleBeanGreen It feels like Zelda 1 in a sense that you're thrown in this big open world with no settlements the story is told mostly by NPCs dialog instead of cutscenes, some dungeons in the world are locked by artifacts you need to find and some others you can enter straight away and skill is the only thing that matters for doing them out of order.
@@yazeldafan Hm - maybe they'll port it to Switch 2 and I can play it ha
Examples of a pure open world game are the first two Grand Theft Auto games. In the first game there are six levels, two per city. Your objective is to get a certain amount of money. The easiest and fastest way to do so is by doing missions, but you don’t have to do any. You can do missions in any order you like in three levels. In another you have to do one mission first and then you can do the rest in order. The last two levels aren’t as open world, as you have to get past (pass or fail) half the missions before you can do the other half.
GTA 2 is similar. There are three areas. You can do any of the missions in an area in any order except for the last mission. Again you just need enough money. You don’t need to beat every mission unless you want the good ending. These are the games that come to mind when I think of a pure open world game, with Zelda 1 coming after those.
Never played any GTA but I feel like those games definitely brought that type of gameplay into the forefront.
I would agree with you since you obviously need the Bow from Level 1 before you can complete Level 6 but that's the thing. You don't need to COMPLETE Level 1, you can get the Bow, leave, then complete Level 6 if you really wanted to. Most people wouldn't do that but it is an option. Still, interesting video.
I get what you're saying. I just don't like that tactic. It seems like a mostly sequence breaking tactic and not something someone actually playing through a level would do. You can do that in most all Zelda games and it opens things up even more, but once I'm in a dungeon, I finish it.
@@LittleBeanGreen For sure, probably only 2% of Zelda players would actually bother. Either way, I subscribed and look forward to more videos.
@@Shadowzero4 Appreciate ya!
The only reason people dismiss some of these games as open worlds is merely because they're 2d, when some of these are far more open than some 3d modern "open world" games.
There's also the people who mistakenly argue against it by comparing them to the wild games, but those are pretty much the epitome of freedom in open worlds, arguing that the original Zelda is not open world feels to me like arguing Elden Ring is not an open world.
Kudos for mentioning Alttp and Oot's non-linearity, people tend to put them in the same box as the other 3d games when that couldn't be further from the truth, the first time I played Oot I literally did some dungeons out of order without knowing it, so no people, it's not as linear as TP.
There are certainly MORE linear Zelda games. I'm not convinced that the number of orders you can do dungeons in REALLY matters all that much, but it seems to be a real sticking point with some people.
@@LittleBeanGreen Well of course it matters. If the dungeons are put in order for a good reason like steadily increasing the complexity of the puzzles I think it's fine, but if there's no good reason to lock them away I get the feeling the game thinks I'm stupid and not good enough to go to the dungeon. I never has a problem with the order in MM but I got pretty annoyed when WW didn't let me do the wind temple before the earth temple for no reason.
I'd also argue the non linearity makes the adventure feel more like your own, instead of just doing what the game wants you to do. TP was just a ride through a predetermined adventure while finding out I naturally completed the final dungeon of Oot before I was supposed to was pretty memorable
Yes I would say Zelda 1 is open world.
I would just tack on an asterisk and include "in so much as the NESs limitations would allow".
Such is the nature of the time.
Very interesting video. Gave it a like.
Thanks for watching
I don't think I've seen anyone beat Zelda 3's dungeons out of order without using bugs and glitches to bypass hard locks. Zelda 1 might require knowledge to sequence break, but it's also intended with that knowledge alone. Tunic is in a similar boat. When starting the first time you're following a fairly linear path because you don't know everything you can do, but restarting from the beginning with later knowledge, even without the intended "cheats" still allows you to sequence break fairly easily. Zelda 2 and later do not have that.
As for A Link Between Worlds, it's the rentable items that killed that game for me. I think I only died once, and just reloaded my game to get the items back, so the rentable items might have sounded like a good idea, but they just made the game way too easy. I don't think I needed a single dungeon item outside of the dungeon it was found in. Also there is still a slight linearity, you have to do all Hyrule dungeons before you get to Lorule, and IIRC, when you first get to Lorule it's by dungeon 2, so if dungeon 2 isn't your first dungeon in Lorule every playthrough you might have screwed something up. But, I only played through it once, so I could be wrong.
Ittle Dew 2 was another interesting case study for me. It's designed to be non-linear, so can be beaten entirely with the stick (except the last dungeon, since that one knows you have all the items), but I did start noticing passages in later dungeons that required items from other dungeons to access, so there was a kind of reward for doing the dungeons out of order. They weren't necessary, but became a nice little easter egg.
So, in a way, knowledge, skill, and item check softlocks are kinda required. Knowledge and skill might guide you down a linear path for at least a while before you get the skills and knowledge to start sequence breaking, but also increase playability by altering how you can conquer the rest of the game. Item softlocks might be harder to bypass, but imagine ALBW but instead of renting the items you had to explore and find them. Sure, you could just run around and pick them all up, but if each item is a key to a softlock in a different direction, then dungeons could be designed around sequence breaking. Sure, there's a path you can always take, that requires only the key to the area softlock and the dungeon item, but could also be alternate paths that require a key for a different area, and a dungeon item from a third area. Sure, the item from dungeon 1 is all you need to kill the boss in dungeon 1, but maybe the dungeon item from level 6 could kill it faster, or the key for area 4 could let you bypass that boss entirely and fight a completely different boss. I'd love to see a Zelda or Zelda-like incorporate sequence breaking in this way.
Hm exploring to find items as keys to dungeons sounds like it could be interesting...
8:21 "Find out on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z."
How did you know I was watching it,,,
(Piccolo has just arrived on Namek where I'm at)
been working on my Super Bean Cannon
At the very beginning of my 2nd playthrough, I went directly to the last dungeon (on twins mountains) asking myself if the game would let me. Dungeon order aside.
Could I beat the dungeon? No. Could I successfully get there? Yes.
So. Yes, it is. 3D Zelda lost something in favor of Narrative (imo ALTTP soft handholding planted the seeds)
I guess it depends on the player. Be able to go to the final dungeon from the outset without being to actually do anything in it doesn't really spark much interest in me.
@@LittleBeanGreen True, it depends on. At least for me, it does contribute to the sense discovery: been able to casually go there (Obviously, through lost wood, but the game lets you find the clues that allows you beat it from the outset), get in, and it literally tells you "hehe nope yet, beat the 7 dungeons first" feels great.
It's an upside when your game doesn't hinger on plot, narrative (Story itself is other thing). When it does, sacrifices must be made
@@religion15 and in some cases those sacrifices make the game better.
3:48 You mean the ladder, right? Or is there some other way to get there that I don't remember?
Oops - yes you're right. Saw water, thought raft. Yes, you need the ladder from dungeon 4 to get there. Thanks for the correction!
You can visit all but 2 screens in Zelda 1 without ever entering a dungeon (the remaining two require the raft), so while "open world" might be a debatable term, I'm fairly confident Zelda 1 falls within the definition.
Zelda 2 has a semi-open world thanks to gatekeeping constantly requiring you get items from temples before being allowed to visit a new area, but there is at least a little to explore in each area when you do get there.
While you technically don't need to actually beat any dungeon/temple you enter in either game, you can grab the item and leave, it still makes sense, since you're already there, to go ahead and beat it anyways, so in that regard Zelda 2 is linear, while Zelda 1 is semi-linear.
With the exception of the flute from dungeon 5, there really is no reason enter a dungeon for it's item, then leave that dungeon without beating it. So with that in mind, you need the bow from 1 to beat 6, so 1 > 6, and you need the raft from 3 to enter 4, and the ladder from 4 to beat 5, and the flute from 5 to beat 7, and you need a candle to beat 8 and just so happen to get a free one in 7, so potentially 3 > 4 > 5 > 7 > 8. That just leaves level 2 to be done at your leisure, I just recommend doing it before 8 since it's in the same area and will give you an extra heart container, though I have actually done it after 8 as well.
That said, my usual run is to get the two bombable heart containers to get the white sword, grab the flute from level 5 while I'm up there, then start a loop more in line with 1>3>4>7>2>8>>seaside heart containers>5>6>magic sword>9.
Edit: 46 years and I'm just now learning you can bypass Gleeok in dungeon 6! Also, forgot you needed the ladder there, and also you need the ladder to beat level 7, which is an important detail, because as mentioned above, you don't need the ladder to get the flute.
How powerful you can become before entering the first dungeon is crazy.
"ability to choose order of content consumed" disqualifies almost every open world game to ever exist from the definition. even games like world of warcraft would no longer be considered open world
certainly there are games that allow for greater freedom of choice - perhaps the original poster was confusing open world with sandbox.
Well... no.
"Open world" is really just a term to describe games that aren't played level-by-level without an overworld to explore. So, games like COD, or Hitman, where you don't have exploration.
Open world ≠ nonlinear. Open world is just the freedom of movement.
"Sandbox" is more of what you're defining. A sandbox allows freedom within the limitations of your character's ability. Kinda of like a build your own adventure. Perfect example, of this would be Minecraft. As you're able to go directly to the end if you see fit. Elder Scrolls, and Fallout as well. As you have the ability define your role within those worlds, and for the most part you have 99% freedom and can start which ever questline in whatever order and even accidentally grab a quest item before ever receiving the quest. While there might be a main story, it's an afterthought.
So really, all Zeldas are open world, but not all Zeldas are Sandboxes.
IDK - part of the sandbox thing is that you can veer from the main quest...except everything in Zelda 1 is the main quest. And Zelda 1 and Minecraft feel MUCH different.
@@LittleBeanGreen
You could say the same about Minecraft. There is only one known "quest", and that's killing the ender dragon. A boss that can only be found after you've collected enough Ender eyes to make a portal. Other than that, you're just surviving in the overworld. But the reason we give it the name of sandbox is because of the different options of play.
To be clear, I'm not trying to argue that Zelda 1 is a sandbox. It's definitely an open world.
But, I could argue that the different options you have for killing some bosses gives it a sandbox feel because you're deciding how you want to play. And the fact that you can do them in mostly any order is also sandbox-ish for the same reason.
The only real difference between Open world and Sand box is one has to do with movement through the world and the other has to do with the limitation (or lack thereof) of game mechanics.
@@yakwii800 I get it but I think the difference is in Minecraft you can do almost literally anything else. In LOZ there is nothing else to do.
i can tell u what an open world is . A game with no level select screen and non corridor style like ff13. U must be also able to travel to most places from the beginning of the game if u have all items unlocked somehow.
That's awfully broad.
I've always considered Zelda to be some degree of open world. To me open world is set on a scale. Sure Zelda isn't The Elder Scrolls but if it has inderlocking open areas you can freely explore (even if many of those areas require keys to get into) I still consider it part of the scale.
So is Zelda A Link to the Past open world? Yes. Ocarina of Time? Yes. Zelda 1? Absolutely.
They arent as open as Breath of the Wild or Elder Scrolls, but they're on the scale.
I was starting to think this way when making this video too - thinking about open worlds in terms of degrees: to what degree is it open. And Zelda 1 was original at its time (I think) for allow the world to be MORE open on subsequent playthroughs based on the knowledge you gain. So the scale of Zelda 1's openness actually changes based on how much you know the game, which is pretty interesting.
Open world implies more freedom given the player at the outset including exploring the map at your own pace. Most Zelda games are designed to steadily open the map up and make the game more open ended but the world is still confined to the constants of pathways and progression by items usually confined to dungeons that move you from one areto the next until you've found every location. It ties things together but doesn't connect in a more organic way that a fully open world game presents.
Most games called open world have a combination of soft and hard locks that have some degree of linearity. The mech suit of TotK can't be unlocked without going through most of the rest of the game first. GTAV has a definite linear progression in its story missions. Metroidvanias invariably lock you out of areas until you get certain items.
I think you can actually brute force your way through the thunderhead island and do the spirit temple first....and I don't think I would ever consider metroidvanias open world but maybe they are - certainly not on a first playthrough.
@@LittleBeanGreen I did stumble on the spirt temple before unlocking it. Things aren't turned on to let you complete it. Maybe there's a workaround, but it's definitely not the intended path.
What game would you consider to be a "true open world" that doesn't have hard or soft locks?
@@timmmurray8110 I stumbled upon the spirit temple before unlocking. I went through the thunderhead without clearing the storm. The fact that TotK let's you do that is a point in its open world favor (although it wouldn't let me enter the final ring in Kakariko because I hadn't gone back to Hyrule Castle...)
I don't think it's that cut and dry - I think open worlds exist on a scale and many games can slide on that scale based on how familiar you are with them (like OG Zelda). Something like Minecraft, where you can just do whatever you want whenever you want for however long you want is probably the closest to that - although it's a game I played once for an hour 10 years ago so I can't really give it its fair shake. Do you consider anything to be 'true open world?'
@@LittleBeanGreen Minecraft does lock away some things. Nether region needs obsidian blocks, which need to be built with lava, though you can potentially find that fairly quickly. The End is done by getting Ender Pearls and finding a temple with a portal, which takes a while unless you're using speedrunning farming techniques. So roughly 2/3rds of the game is locked away at the start.
Which I think is fine. Going anywhere and doing anything is a bit aimless; the player sits at the start saying "now what do I do?" Giving some clear goals that open up more of the game gives the player a sense of accomplishment.
@@timmmurray8110 True - but it seems the point of open world games is meant to be knowing those goals and choosing whether or not you actually want to do them or go eff off and do something else.
This is the first time I've watched a Zelda Video Essay that sounds like a guy spitting rap bars
Is that good? hahahaha
@@LittleBeanGreen Absolutely. You talk with a natural rhythm and you keep dropping rhymes from time to time.
I'd listen to a 30 min video about said topic.
Though interestingly enough, another analysis take on comparing the games would still put the Switch duo in the complete opposite corner of Zelda I by virtue of the games putting such an emphasis on their overworld, while Zelda I's point is still the focus on the dungeons themselves. So you can move the series around a whole bunch depending on what metrics you're focusing on.
Oh that's angle is in the works.
There's also the whole "freedom of engagement" issue.
In the Switch games, you can use the physics (climbing included) to navigate around obstacles in 500 different ways.
In the NES game, you can walk in very limited ways.
And while not strictly an "open world game" criteria, it helps sell the newer games as "open", and in contrast makes the old games "limited".
(But it also makes for good, deliberate dungeons in the first game, and bad, "undesignable" dungeons in the new games. For certain values of good and bad)
@@tokeivo this starts to delve into 'open world' v. 'sand box' territory and all that makes my head hurt. It definitely hurts not only the dungeon design but the dungeon difficulty in the new games.
@@LittleBeanGreen Yeah - I think, that if you make a sandbox v. open world distinction, this very clearly lands in the "sand box" part of it.
Where "open world", at least to me, infers freedom of travel, loading screens and completion order, it does not infer freedom of movement, tools, rules or consequences.
Whereas "sand box" is clearly a matter of "freedom to apply your will upon the world". Zelda 1 clearly is not a sandbox game under this view. You're very limited in how to interact with the game.
This entire industry got messed up because people wanted more games like this, and then modern open world games went so far towards openness that people started to criticize non-linearity. Doing things non-linearly is something that games can uniquely do, choosing to make a linear experience should be akin to making a black and white film - a deliberate artistic choice, a cost-cutting measure for a smaller dev... not just a lack of ambition.
Unfortunately it seems to sell...
Zelda 1 is a lot more open world than Golden Axe Warrior on Sega Master System...uhg, that world map was restraining as heck early on.
Never heard of it ha
@@LittleBeanGreen i played it on uhh, Sonic's ultimate Sega collection for PS3, which has a bunch of old Sega Genesis and Master System games, Golden Axe Warrior seems like a Zelda clone, has a few interesting things about it, i managed to get to the 4th or 5th boss, but the stupid map...which looks like it should be open world, is anything but. consider yourself lucky for never having played it. 🤣
Using a metric, that increases factorially eith the number of dungeons is a really flawed way to measure nonlinearity.
That was my point, but also a large talking point I saw when looking into what people thought made Zelda 'non-linear.' I think there are actually WAY more factors.
Im so in LOVE with how concise your videos are excellent script writing my man
Appreciate you!
Yes! THANK YOU! Every time people say "but you can go anywhere you want and do dungeons in any order". It's like those people have never played the original zelda.
And it's easy to pick them out haha
you can though, but with a caveat. You can grab the raft and never beat the dungeon and actually explore the entire overworld map. You can grab the ladder an explore certain dungeons without beating them too. ALso you can even buy keys in hidden shops instead having to find them in dungeons.
@@hepwo91222 You can do this in OOT and any other zelda as well though. Once you get the bow in MM you can pretty much beat any dungeon outside stone tower temple the final dungeon. In OOT once you get the bow every temple is beatable yes even spirit temple. Only exceptions are like maybe the DS games, Windwaker and TP oh and SS.
Possible dungeon orderings is a really interesting metric to measure nonlinearity. I think it's a bit reductive though, for example breath of the wild comes out with quite a small number but this is just because there are only a small number of divine beasts, while the overworld is also very broad and nonlinear. Additionally this metric increases factorially as the number of dungeons increases so that makes it look very big very quickly
I don't think it's the be-all-end-all of determining non-linearity and even I agree with you in the video that it's reductive. Perhaps I'll try to put something together that defines more specifically the 'essence of Zelda,' but that seems really hard hahahaha
@@LittleBeanGreen oh yeah sorry it was a really cool video I enjoyed it!
I had a think, this is how I would improve on your metric;
*) call it the 'dungeon order nonlinearity metric', and then it's clear that you're only measuring nonlinearity in one part of the game and not trying to represent the whole game based on this one measure
*) for each dungeon order in a given game, assign a difficulty value between 0 and 1. 1 is like, the intended order or something just as straightforward, and smaller numbers close to zero are like really obscure or difficult dungeon orders that people are unlikely to come across. Then if you sum over all of the difficulty values for each order, this would give you a measure for the number of dungeon orders weighted by how likely it is that people will actually come across them. (Not sure how you would calculate or assign the difficulty value for each ordering in practise)
*) develop some other metrics for overworld nonlinearity and intradungeon nonlinearity and maybe sidequest linearity, and then take the average of all of the metrics to give an overall nonlinearity metric for the game
Anyway I'm sure doing those things would be a lot of work 🤣 but just some ideas I came up with
this is my favorite game of all time and i pretty much know this game back and forth i think. in Jan. 89 my mom bought this used from a friend of my brother's for $50.00 for the NES we had just gotten the NES for xmas just the month before and this game is The game that made me a gamer. as for the level's some levels it doesn't matter the order i always do level 1 first but you also can do level 2 first if you choose to but it also helps if you know where to look for the extra hearts that you can get for free so going to level 1 for Bombs does help but you can also get bombs in level 2 as well. you also can play and beat level 3 before Level 2 but again you need bombs for the boss for both bosses of level 2 and 3. for level 8 however for example all you need is a candle. this is world 1
for world 2 it's been awhile so i can't remember. i consider this open world but getting extra hearts to go into the harder parts is a must if you know where to look and getting the white sword is a must as well i think you need 6 hearts i believe and 12 i think? for the master sword.
going around in the open world in world 1 with the wooden sword is really hard to do because it's so weak. getting a shield does help but the wood sword can only do so much. world 2 is harder some of those levels are hard to find if you've never played the game before. but i love everything about this game i consider it the best game ever fucking made but i'm sure there's going to be some that don't agree and i'm fine with that. that's my own opinion. but level 9 though on both worlds you need to have beaten all the levels before you can even enter get further once you go inside. level 9 can be really hard to find in world 2 because you need to bomb to even find it.
Have you played Breath of the Wild?
There are only two overworld squares not available at the very beginning of the game, since they both require the Raft to access.
But if you don't know the path through the forest, until you have the stepladder, that path is also barred.
@@LittleBeanGreen LOZ in '87, figured out the Lost Woods without guides, internet, tip lines, or even magazines, it was trial and error as kids had less games then and would focus on a handful of of games. Then we would share tips at school with other kids. Different time, but if you didn't get the clue, you could still figure it out through trial and error, sort of like how Dark Souls would have hidden rooms behind walls by trial and error.
@@hepwo91222 Yes, the schoolyard rumour-sharing can't be discounted as an integral part of these games' culture! That's also how we all learnt about the truck that ended up not having Mew under it, for instance...