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[NeoIkaruGAF]

The PS2 GTA trilogy is possibly what comes closest to OOT+MM in terms of scope and variety.

FF probably had a different engine each time, so it’s not directly comparable. Crash Bandicoot and similar series hardly did anything new with the same (?) tech with each iteration. Sure, the games’ overall design improved, but they were mere iterations of the base formula with prettier graphics.

Basic gameplay aside, MM is a deeply different game from OOT. This is what makes it not a mere sequel.

Maybe it’s stupid to be nostalgic when new tech has made so much possible in gaming, but the point is, tech making almost anything possible made devs less clever, and games less focused. When you can put so much into a single game, you’ll be tempted to do so, regardless of focus and file size. This is what led the industry to bloated games full of filler that occupy tens of gigabytes of disc space. The biggest N64 cart was 64MB. I wish I could download a game in a minute these days. Also, the tricks devs had to come up with to save space are so interesting to find out about today. With theoretically unlimited space at your disposal, you want a different model or texture, you make it. There’s none of the clever recycling devs resorted to at the time, when every precious KB counted.

Oh, and btw: Twilight Princess is a good game, but its design is all over the place. Almost-realistic characters mixed with plain caricatures, bloom that clearly wants to ape Team Ico’s games while clashing with TP’s overall style, dull colors, uninspired monster design... it’s a visual mess.

 

[MMaRsu]

Uh-oh. You made yourself look completely braindead this time!

That first image is the game’s rating now. As in...that’s what people recently have rated the game.

And by “rerelease” you mean ports? As in...very poor ports? Which those other games didn’t have, hence why they weren’t as criticised?

Nice try, though. You kinda stumbled and fell flat on your face, but the tap dancing was very entertaining while it lasted.



I mean, true. Sonic Adventure is by far the best game out of that list, you are indeed correct about that.

 

[StateofMajora]

Oh, and btw: Twilight Princess is a good game, but its design is all over the place. Almost-realistic characters mixed with plain caricatures, bloom that clearly wants to ape Team Ico’s games while clashing with TP’s overall style, dull colors, uninspired monster design... it’s a visual mess.

You make a good point about developer's limitations and that sometimes being a benefit back then.

But huh? Nothing in TP is almost realistic lol, but sure some characters are more ill proportioned in a cartoon like manner than say Link and Zelda.

But that can be applied to skyward sword and breath of the wild, pretty much any Zelda game to a degree. Take the rightly proportioned Link and Zelda in Skyward sword, then place them next to Groose and his gangly... gang. Or Impa, or that bug eyed fortune teller, or yeah you get the picture lol.

The bloom fits wonderfully in the shadow bathed world, esp. in the Twilight sections. As for its muted colors, funny you mention ICO games as they have even less color yet you don't hear as much bashing of their visuals, and they're not as detailed as TP by nature of being on Ps2.

 

[Null Persp]

Monkey Island 1990
Monkey Island 2 1991
Ultima Underworld II was made in nine months.

There are a lot of examples, most of classic game sequels were made with short development time, now it's impossible for AAA games.

 

[cireza]

Shining Force II took around a year and a half to make. Both games are phenomenal.

 

[lostinblue]

FF probably had a different engine each time, so it’s not directly comparable.

FFVII and FFVIII use the same engine/tech.

FFIX granted, might not. Different team, as they didn't share a lot those days.

Oh, and btw: Twilight Princess is a good game, but its design is all over the place. Almost-realistic characters mixed with plain caricatures, bloom that clearly wants to ape Team Ico’s games while clashing with TP’s overall style, dull colors, uninspired monster design... it’s a visual mess.

Twilight Princess has an overly compressed "jpeg" quality to it.

That's because of both extreme S3TC compression late in development (to fit into a gamecube disc and to get rid of loadings - which were so big for Nintendo standards that they actually feared they had to get a loading screen).

Also the more sepia change in colour palette - late into development made them batch convert everything.

Here's an example of how textures with the original gamma probably looked:

To illustrate the compression, here's the Zelda model map:

It's easy to see the massive color banding and macroblock going on. No way it was painted like that and loss of gamut is usually more evident if done on already compressed assets. Here are Zelda's Super Smash Bros Melee textures for comparison, of how colors usually look.

We've got to remember Twilight Princess started of as a completly different game than the one we got. Originally it was meant as a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time/Majora Mask (specifically, it was supposed to take place during the imprisioning war), palette was supposed to be more colourful, less sepia - no twilight world, no Midna.

 

[ToughestSoul]

I dunno, From Software is on a good run.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Twilight Princess has an overly compressed "jpeg" quality to it.

That's because of both extreme S3TC compression late in development (to fit into a gamecube disc and to get rid of loadings - which were so big for Nintendo standards that they actually feared they had to get a loading screen).

Also the more sepia change in colour palette - late into development made them batch convert everything.

It's easy to see the massive color banding and macroblock going on. No way it was painted like that and loss of gamut is usually more evident if done on already compressed assets. Here are Zelda's Super Smash Bros Melee textures for comparison, of how colors usually look.

We've got to remember Twilight Princess started of as a completly different game than the one we got. Originally it was meant as a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time/Majora Mask (specifically, it was supposed to take place during the imprisioning war), palette was supposed to be more colourful, less sepia - no twilight world, no Midna.

More than the subdued palette, I was referring to the inconsistent artstyle.
You have models that seem to strive for a certain degree of realism that’s extremely uncanny (Princess Zelda, Link himself, that genuinely unsettling bar lady) side by side with characters that look more like caricatures (Hylia’s father, those goddamn kids, the Indian-like chief).

I think that TP would have been better if the “light world” was more colorful, like the N64 games. It would give a better contrast with the Twilight Realm, and most characters would fit better in it, considering the design of most of them looks like Ocarina models with more polygons. The overall sombre tone of TP never made the game any favors.

 

[BootsLoader]

Both games are great. Of course OOT is better but MM is great game on its own. I think that they could make MM faster because all the assets were there already so the groundwork was already done.

 

[StormCell]

It says a lot for the honeymoon period of gaming, I think. You didn't need fantastic resolution or even a decent framerate - you didn't even need brand new assets. You just took what worked and build something new.

A huge amount of what makes Majora's Mask special is its scenario, its world and its side quests.

Here's a scenario: take a random AAA game from the last few years. Lower the resolution and framerate, because optimization takes time (not exactly realistic, but necessary for the comparison). Give the developers a year. They make a new game using exactly the same assets and then charge $70 for it.

How do you think that'd go down?

People moan about Call of Duty as a yearly release, and that has a three year development period.

Here's a thought: Nintendo is already behind the ball on churning out a new BotW-like Zelda. They could re-use the game world and all of its assets. Everything they do could be additive, really. It could be a sequel story or a gaiden like Majora's Mask. I'm not really sure why they weren't prepared or necessarily thinking about a follow-up to such a predictably good game. Instead, all we ever hear when we bring this topic up is that this game takes 4 years to develop, and that doesn't sound very efficient, either.

That's just my 2-cents though. They continued to patch BotW for the next year while working on the DLC pass content (I don't feel like I got any content out of that season pass), and then they announced work on a sequel after like two years....

 

[Mmnow]

Here's a thought: Nintendo is already behind the ball on churning out a new BotW-like Zelda. They could re-use the game world and all of its assets. Everything they do could be additive, really. It could be a sequel story or a gaiden like Majora's Mask. I'm not really sure why they weren't prepared or necessarily thinking about a follow-up to such a predictably good game. Instead, all we ever hear when we bring this topic up is that this game takes 4 years to develop, and that doesn't sound very efficient, either.

That's just my 2-cents though. They continued to patch BotW for the next year while working on the DLC pass content (I don't feel like I got any content out of that season pass), and then they announced work on a sequel after like two years....

What's really mad to me is that Ubi have come along and provided an arguably tighter BotW with Immortals, across multiple platforms (and with higher definition and framerate) as almost a throwaway launch window title, and we still haven't seen a single thing from Nintendo on the sequel to one of their flagships.

I suspect it ties into the new Switch, and they'll reveal it all together, but it's not a great look.

It's probably just down to priorities. There was always going to be a new Zelda after BotW. I wonder when they decided it should be a direct sequel?

 

[Kokoloko85]

I loved Zelda. Theres a good few who released back to back games in similar fashion. Maybe not a year apart but These games had alot more differences between them then OOT and MM had assets wise.

Kojima:
MGS: 1998
MGS 2: 2001
MGS 3: 2004

Square released:
FF7 1997
FF8 1999
FF9 2000
FFX 2001

Naughty dog released: And this in modern AAA studio times
Uncharted 1 2007
Uncharted 2 2009
Uncharted 3 2011
The Last of US 2013


About Zelda and OOT. Both classics, both awesome.
OOT Wowed everyone and was the game that changed the industry. A true masterpeice. Epic.
MM had a more cool and unique atmosphere and I love it but the cycle and save system was kinda a let down after such a huge well balanced game like OOT..

 

[Kokoloko85]

Super Mario 1985
Super Mario 3 1988.

3 absolutely doing everything better and adding tons of new mechanics and ideas.

And Super Mario world came out 2 years after Mario 3. Good times

 

[Kokoloko85]

Mario 64
Sonic Adventure
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Final Fantasy VII

One of these absolutely does not belong in that list

It might be the bolded one

Dont diss Sonic Adventure bub. I love that game

 

[KungFucius]

MM took less time and less people because it reused all the work put into TOoT. It is more like an expansion than a different game. Expansions or direct sequels with very little change are more than possible in such a quick time.

Personally, I didn't like MM too much. The repeating stuff drove me nuts and some of the minigame challenges were pretty awful. I wonder if a remaster based on the 3DS port would change my mind.

 

[StormCell]

While we're talking about awesome games followed up by awesome sequels in relatively short order...

Nov 21, 1994 Donkey Kong Country
Nov 21, 1995 Donkey Kong Country 2

Proof that stellar sequels don't require a total re-invention of the game to be new, fresh, and an advancement.

There's just something about striking while the iron is red hot with a concept. It's almost as if... BotW was so good they could have made a series of games re-using the original's content and assets in the time that we've been waiting for this sequel.

 

[SleepySlippy]

While we're talking about awesome games followed up by awesome sequels in relatively short order...

Nov 21, 1994 Donkey Kong Country
Nov 21, 1995 Donkey Kong Country 2

Well, Nov 22, 1996 Donkey Kong Country 3 ;-)

 

[Mediocre Arachno-Lad]

1998 - Thief
1999 - Thief 2
1999 - System Shock 2
2000 - Deus Ex (after closing shop and creating a new studio)

FFVII - January 31, 1997
FFVIII - February 11, 1999
FFIX - July 7, 2000
FFX - July 19, 2001

All that in 4.5 years is ridiculous, especially considering everything else Square released during that time.

All that plus FF Tactics in 98.

1990 - FF3
1991 - FF4
1992 - FF5
1993 - Secret Of Mana
1994 - FF6
1995 - Chrono Trigger
1995 - Trials Of Mana
1995 - Secret Of Evermore
1996 - Super Mario RPG
1997 - FF7
1997 - Bushido Blade
1997 - FF Tactics
1997 - Front Mission 2
1997 - Xenogears
1998 - Bushido Blade 2
1998 - Parasite Eve
1999 - FF8
1999 - Front Mission 3
1999 - Chrono Cross
2000 - Vagrant Story
2000 - FF9
2001 - FF10
2002 - Kingdom Hearts

Square was stupid OP.

 

[DGrayson]

1990 - FF3
1991 - FF4
1992 - FF5
1993 - Secret Of Mana
1994 - FF6
1995 - Chrono Trigger
1995 - Trials Of Mana
1995 - Secret Of Evermore
1996 - Super Mario RPG
1997 - FF7
1997 - Bushido Blade
1997 - FF Tactics
1997 - Front Mission 2
1997 - Xenogears
1998 - Bushido Blade 2
1998 - Parasite Eve
1999 - FF8
1999 - Front Mission 3
1999 - Chrono Cross
2000 - Vagrant Story
2000 - FF9
2001 - FF10
2002 - Kingdom Hearts

Square was stupid OP.

What a run.

 

[StormCell]

This is why I frequently wonder if gaming has really improved. They're taking a lot longer to release games. The games are often built off of a template (Ubisoft). So much of the emphasis now is nailing the graphics, but if you spend 1 hour with Tony Hawk remastered you can plainly see that something is missing in today's market.

I can't imagine why Retro Studios hasn't had the time to release a follow up to Tropical Freeze AND now work on MP4. Instead, we just keep on waiting.

 

[lostinblue]

I dunno, From Software is on a good run.

Platinum Games too.

This is why I frequently wonder if gaming has really improved. They're taking a lot longer to release games. The games are often built off of a template (Ubisoft). So much of the emphasis now is nailing the graphics, but if you spend 1 hour with Tony Hawk remastered you can plainly see that something is missing in today's market.

"Normalization" is happening everywhere, TV shows, cartoons and series, films, and so on.

Gaming used to be more often than not a breath of fresh air, as there's was a lot of experimentalism and differentiation, often times they wouldn't nail it but you could still enjoy what they tried to do. But you're seeing it less and less as budgets ballooned and risk taking was taken out of the equation.

Me myself tend to enjoy a coherent template at first, but not once it becomes lazy.

Some games (and other entertainment vehicles I mentioned) these days feel like they were done by a neural network, they're not horrible but something is off, they're playing it incredibly safe, are never a challenge to get through and end up not having a soul. A jack of all trades kind of situation

 

[Gifmaker]

Twilight Princess is in fact the worst 3D Zelda and you all know it.

Fixed

 

[Cutty Flam]

Fixed

Something like this

OOT ≥ MM >> BOTW > WW >>>>TP

And TP >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> SS

Some think SS is the greatest 3D Zelda and while I disagree, I can see how any one of these games would end up being someone’s favorite

 

[TIGERCOOL]

TP is basically OoT on steroids and MM’s Termina is Hyrule field with a better atmosphere so you can thank these two for those masterpieces

I have respect for Aonuma, but Koizumi was responsible for most of what I loved about that era of Zelda, and I think the series dipped in quality when he was assigned to Mario full time. I remember in an Iwata asks segment Koizumi kind of sheepishly mentioning to Aonuma that they should switch games for the next installment in each respective series (Aonuma does Mario/Koizuma does Zelda) and Aonuma shut him down without much humour. That moment was kind of telling. I think Koizumi would make an incredible modern Zelda game (though I really enjoyed BotW - mostly).

For reference, Koizumi was reponsible for basically the entire triforce mythology dating back to LttP, the narrative of Link's Awakening (dream island concept and entire story was his), goddess/triforce/sages in OoT, Z-targetting, navi, Link's N64 design, Epona, the falling moon concept, the 3-day cycle, all the time-based side quests and basically everything related to clock town was written and directed by him.

I suspect the entire time travel concept in OoT was probably his brain child based on his output. In the Iwata asks segment he was respectful to Aonuma and tries to defer a lot of credit, but it became clear throughout the interview that most of the innovation was driven by Koizumi at that time. Aonuma seemed increasingly annoyed as this came to light.

The guy is pure soul and to this day it baffles me that the one of the most inspired narrative-conceptual minds in the entire videogame industry was tethered to a franchise that is actively discouraged by the higher-ups from having any narrative at all (Mario). It felt almost like a slight, as he said he often felt he was sneaking in high concept and dramatic narrative elements to the games he was working on under Miyamoto's nose. He's done a fantastic fucking job with Mario, but I honestly hope Aonuma takes a well deserved break from Zelda and they give Koizumi another crack at it while some fresh young mind takes on Mario (Yusuke Amano comes to mind).

 

[lostinblue]

Koizumi always wants to sneak in some story/background, it's safe to say that if it wasn't for him Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora Mask and Wind Waker would be worse, or in some cases wouldn't exist at all. His influence is sorely missed on Twilight Princess - it's part of why it feels unfinished, everything NPC/lifelihood of cities is missing, and it's because they were afterthoughts. They released screenshots of hyrule castle town one year prior the release and it was nothing like the final one, plus, looked hideous. It's clearly something that is not forefront of design for Aonuma, world feeling inclusive is more like an afterthought for him.

Aonuma only cares about things like story and the Zelda timeline because he learned to accept that people want it in the first place. He started out as a dungeon designer, if I recall correctly. IMO, apart from Wind Waker, he still is nothing more than a structural engineer for Zelda games, it's not like he's incompetent, but he is boring and a bit of a control freak. The more detached he is (less of a director, more of a producer) the better Zelda's will get, depending on who's helming them.

Majora Mask is Koizumi's brainchild, the core concept behind it was a detective story spanning within 7 days that Koizumi was working on. And he should have been more involved in the enhanced 3DS version than he was as he would certainly prevent some changes ordered around by Aonuma. There's definitely too much Aonuma on the 3DS version, and Aonuma just doesn't get it.

For instance with Ocarina of Time, Koji Kondo involvement was mostly in the lines of keeping changes from being made to his magnum opus apart from enhancing the sample quality. Here's a man that understand what he did, and wants nothing of it changed just because. Aonuma on the other hand has the tendency to be a revisionist.


That said, if Koizumi had full control over the Zelda franchise, Zelda and these games in particular also wouldn't be the same thing. There would be more story for sure, but we have to take into account that all the subtext happened because they wouldn't let him do what he planned on doing - Zelda at it's peak was the king of subtext, and in a game subtext is better than a 30 minute wall of text. There's certainly a yin yang to it. I don't think Aonuma will ever allow him to get back while he has a degree of influence on the Zelda franchise though, precisely because he has a inferiority/competitve complex of sorts. It's a pity because it clearly challenged him to do better.