The author of the article seem to imply that the current zelda is not zelda enough. He keeps complaining about wanting an open overworld yet on the same time he praises Zelda 2, which is as linear as a train track. :/

I can understand some of the things he is trying to say, and I sure as hell would want an open overworld where you can go and explore and do things in your order. In fact, that was one of my major selling point with my own ROM hack. (Which was not a Zelda hack.)

But I digress though, the difficulty in zelda 1 and zelda 2 are terrible, at best. Sure, alttp seem terrible easy compared to the first two, but you also have to understand that there was nothing about the set up in the first two games that where good. I have played and beaten both of them, as well as almost all of the second quest in zelda 1, and I can honestly tell several design faults in both.

In the article he proclaims that having to bomb walls without any hints on them was the way to go, in which I can honestly say he have no idea what designing a good game means. Zelda 1 was simple, the only wall sections in the dungeons you could bomb where always in the very center of the wall, making it very easy (costing at max 3 bombs) to check if a room had any secret bomb able walls. Zelda 3 uses a lot more advanced level data in chunk form. Since the screen is auto scrolling and rooms are not the exact same size you no longer had any way to simply check walls without wasting large number of bombs. The developers knew this and where smart, they made some walls show that they where bomb able, other walls where trickier and you had to make use of your sword to check if there was a passage behind the wall. Furthermore, there where cracks in some walls that where not bomb able as well, so it was never a given that a crack in the wall would hold a hidden passage.

Granted though, Zelda 3 is an example where they pulled it of really well; And I have certainly seen worse (AKA way to obvious) things in newer Zelda games. But having to "bomb every tile" as we say in the metroid community (and ironical enough, it make sense in this context as well.) to find the way forward is not a good secret, it's terrible design; You need to have some sort of hint. I can agree with him that their current set up is not good, it's way too obvious, but praising Zelda 1 as the best shit ever does not solve the problem, it just makes you look like a nostalgia freak.

However, the article does make some very good points, many which I have had similar views of myself. The series needs to renew itself and give in to new play mechanics as well as more creative item set up. The hookshot was revolutionary in alttp due to what you could do. But I digress, the items full potential was not reached until OoT where you could use the item in 3D. However, regardless of how much I like the item, seeing it in (mostly) every Zelda game since (in some form or another) have just made it stale.

Regardless of what items I get (or if they are new or not) whenever I enter a puzzle in new zelda games I just look at it and know exactly what to do. SS was just me chugging forward and solving things rather then actually trying to think. Those puzzles I could not find the obvious solution for I solved with some creative thinking instead. For example, in Skyward Sword there is a section where you need to grab a bomb with your flying thingy and drop down on a switch to move forward. The problem was that there where no bombs around. I had gone through the whole area without noticing that there where bombs growing on top of the cacti. I did not notice this until I reached the next puzzle which also needed that mechanic. The first puzzle, however, I got past by using the slingshot and gravity to make the shell fall down the hole instead of a bomb. It was rather tricky, yes, but it was certainly a very interesting experience for me.

I never get dumbfounded like that for puzzles in Zelda games these days, since I know the solution is always very obvious. The think is, regardless what Zelda game you play first, that one will always be great; But the rest will be a lot less interesting. They recycle the concept of puzzles and logic rather then the puzzles and area design themselves. This makes it so that if you have beaten a Zelda game before, you will have very little issues going through the next.

So, while I don't think Zelda games have been declining in quality terribly much (Though I do think Skyward Sword is a big offender in quality going down, but that's for another thread.) it is more an issue of the series not progressing. The statment "don't fix what's not broken" certainly seem to be what they live for, (not that I blame them; it sells games) innovation and creative gameplay is long since dead for this series if you ask me.

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