I seem to have grown tired of Zelda over the past half a decade it seems. I think my Nintendo DS is to blame. On it I played A Link To The Past, Minish Cap & Phantom Hourglass and then there's the two N64 versions (Ocarina of Time & Majora's Mask) which I bought on my Wii.
Problem with all of them, is the repetitive and tedious way you have to rethread on old grounds whenever you get a new toy. It's dull, old fashioned and worst of all, terrible game design. I mean, the typical Zelda game works like this:
*Link enters dungeon*
*Link spends half an hour fighting his way through the dungeon*
*Link finds several passages he can't access because he lacks some tool*
*Link finds some item or some baddy which he defeats*
*Link suddenly finds that he can't do much more in the dungeon after wasting another half an hour making sure*
*several hours later, in a different part of the world, Link gets a new skill or weapon*
*Link enters dungeon again*
*Link spends another half an hour fighting his way through the SAME dungeon, doing the SAME lame challenges*
*Link finds a few passages he STILL can't access because he STILL lacks some tool*
*Link finds a few passages he CAN now finally access! Yay!*
*Link enters the new passages and after half an hour, finds he's done all he can again*
*Link goes out again, goes to find the next iteemmmmmmmzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Seriously, this is 2009, not 1989. Replaying huge chunks is dull and a very cheap way to add length to a game. Now if the combat was all that fun, I wouldn't complain, but it's been the same for the past 25 years ffs!
I like games that are not linear but Zelda has always been taking the piss. As a kid when I had more free time, I was more forgiving but as an adult who doesn't have that much free time left, it gets frustrating having to waste my time fighting my way through the same dungeon yet again to see if my new weapon or skill can open a new corridor.
aranoid:
