Zelda Dungeon Talks: What Is The Best Way For A Zelda Game To Develop Its Story?
Posted on September 08 2015 by Josh Tasaico
Hello everybody and welcome to this week’s edition of Zelda Dungeon Talks! This time around the topic is “What Is The Best Way For A Zelda Game To Develop Its Story?”. Many Zelda games released, many stories to be told. How these stories are told is definitely important. We have seen Nintendo unfold the story of a Zelda game in many different ways throughout the years. We had the original The Legend Of Zelda which had practically no story development at all. In fact we didn’t get any story development until A Link To The Past; and how was the story presented to us in that game? It gave away small parts of the story as we made our way throughout Hyrule and eventually the Dark World. We could also go ahead quite a few years to 2011 with the release of Skyward Sword. This game had an extremely linear world and we really didn’t get to explore quite as freely or as much as we wanted to. However, Skyward Sword was a very story oriented game as well, leaving us with the story constantly playing out in front of us as if it was a movie. We were always in the know of what was going on and what we had to do and that appealed to more people than it did to others but that was fine. Now that I’ve left you with two examples of how the story in a Zelda game can be developed, what do you guys think is the best way? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
In this week’s edition of Zelda Dungeon Talks, various staff members will give us their opinion on what is the best way a Zelda story can be developed and why.
Jon Lett – View Profile
One thing that many people appreciated about A Link Between Worlds was its simplistic, open-ended depth, not only in its gameplay but also its story. While I really liked its story, I did not love the fact that it sort of wrapped up everything very quickly at the very end. I like how games like Twilight Princess progress their story in short but meaningful bursts throughout the game, letting you have some freedom to do things your way in between story-relevant moments. Sure, there is something to be said about a Zelda’s stories sometimes outright leading you around, Skyward Sword’s hand-holding habits being the prime example, but when we are not being treated like children, things turn out rather impressively. As for what the series has not done before, maybe Zelda Wii U could take influence from, say, Majora’s Mask. That game had you being lead around, to an extent, but you were also able to meander around the world and go your own way for awhile between each necessary dungeon and story point. In essence, I would like a game where, rather than the developers giving you each piece of the puzzle individually and having you fill in the picture their way, instead, give us a puzzle piece, or even multiple pieces, every now and then, and while we are going about finding how to use them, we can seek out new pieces on our own, finding our own way through the story, and figuring out what is going on through our own brainpower.
Alexis Anderson – View Profile
I am wholeheartedly against a Zelda game that just plops Link down in some wooded area and makes the players figure everything out for themselves and piece together a story that way. No, I feel like The Wind Waker would be the structure to follow. It opens with a brief explanation of Hyrule’s history, then Aryll tells the player all about Link’s age and home and family. You’re clued in right away, just enough to keep you invested in saving Aryll before the story gets to the meatier prophecy related stuff. And even then, you’re rewarded with plot twists and historical gems throughout the journey. As simple as that game was in terms of gameplay, its story immerses the player more than anything else and solidifies it as a classic Zelda title. I must say I like the way Twilight Princess did it too, where the hero’s responsibilities unfolded at your feet. So once you thought you knew everything and were done with the dirty work, it just kept getting dirtier until you ended up in a completely different dimension still fully invested in the plot that wasn’t quite done throwing new things at you.
Kevin O’Rourke – View Profile
I feel that the most enjoyable Legend of Zelda stories are the ones that take the ‘less is more’ approach to storytelling. It’s more fun to discover the land that you are dropped into when there is less structure and you can travel in any way you choose to find your objective. In this sense, Link to the Past is the best example of how you can balance out structured paths to take, followed by a less structured path that allows the player to travel wherever they choose to with the tools they’ve been given in the beginning of the game. When the game gets bogged down by the story like in Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword you end up along a guided path of dungeon after dungeon which can be done well, but isn’t the ‘best’ way to develop a story from my perspective. A Link to the Past gives you three palaces to play through first which help familiarize the player with the game. Then once they make their way to the Dark World they already have the skills needed to make their way through the game to other palaces in whichever order they choose. A Link Between Worlds takes a similar approach, allowing Link to acquire items before going into the dungeon with the story structure being centered more around the sages and Yuga with Princess Hilda being one of the main focal points. This story isn’t drawn out with extensive cutscenes and long dialogue. These kinds of Zelda games are more enjoyable for me because the story is easy to understand and doesn’t make the game feel like it is dragging along.
Thomas Jacobs – View Profile
The biggest issue with the story in a Zelda game is how much freedom you allow the player. When you have a really structured story you know what players have completed at a certain point in the game. This of course comes at the cost of taking away the players’ freedom to experience the story in whatever order they wish. Of course the dungeons have been designed to be played in a certain order, but many games in the series allow the player to play the dungeons in whatever order they want. Another issue is how the dungeons are linked. In almost all of the series the order of events is that Link rides into town, solves a problem, clears a dungeon and everything’s fine, so Link leaves for the next town. This gives the feeling that the actions you undertake are a very disjointed bunch, making it feel more like a bunch of small stories instead of one big story. Some games link this though, like Ocarina of Time’s first three Adult Link dungeons take place in areas you visited before as Young Link. And two of the dungeons (Dragon Roost Cavern and Forbidden Woods) are linked to two later dungeons (the Earth Temple and the Wind Temple) by the Sages you meet early in the game. Something like this, combined with the overarching story would be best: having a small number of different plot lines that converge near the end of the game, just before the final battle could be very good.
