May 29 2007
Has the Zelda franchise reached its twilight?
AMN’s Lucas DeWoody has a two page article up on the seeming demise of the Zelda series. It’s no secret that sales of Zelda games have been dropping over the years, despite the quality of the games remaining arguably at the high level they’ve always been at. DeWoody first looks at how Nintendo’s handling of Twilight Princess seems to have done more damage to the franchise than good, before going on to talk about the similarities between Zelda’s current state and the already-seen demises of such franchises like Kirby, F-Zero, and Star Fox.
What’s disturbing is that all of those franchises were huge in their days, but a simple loss of faith from Shigeru Miyamoto signaled the turning point for all of them. The Zelda received this comment from Shiggy following the poor sales of Twilight Princess, despite his acknowledging of the game’s quality. Will we have to turn our heads away as the Zelda series dies a slow and embarrassing death? Or can something be done to revive and save it?
5 Responses to “Has the Zelda franchise reached its twilight?”
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While I agree with F-Zero I disagree with Star Fox and Kirby. Both of these games have recently been seen on the Nintendo DS.
And since there is already another Wii Zelda being made I’m sure that the franchise is far from its demise. The new Wii Zelda will be made from the ground up for the Wii, so if that meets Shiggy’s criteria then the franchise will be set for awhile.
I’ve sensed this for a while now. I feel the same way as DeWoody. TP was a pretty big disappointment for me. For all the time they worked on it they failed to deliver the epic goodness they said they would, and it seemed like they were just aiming to please casual fans and boost Wii sales. The glory that usually accompanies a new Zelda game was not there and now the whole series seems to have lost its lore. Very sad indeed. I really believe things would be different if they stuck with the original GameCube Zelda before they decided to go with Wind Waker.
i think they just didn’t work on it long enough with the sidequests. i don’t want to collect tears as a sidequest, i want to trade masks or items, or go on random sub quests. seems like it was WAY too linear. once you got to Ganon you’d pretty much done everything you could do besides possibly collect hearts or get a bigger wallet. yeah the game looked pretty (though not what it should’ve been for a Wii game), but graphics aren’t everything. there weren’t enough secrets to find. 10 years ago Ocarina had more to do.
*SPOILERS*
Personally, I loved Twilight Princess up until Zant turned out to be an emo, crybaby wimp. In the beginning, Zant had all the makings of a new rival. He was harsh, ruthless and all powerful.
In my opinion, it would have been a much better game if Ganondorf was left completely out of it. It seemed like they added Ganondorf in there simply because he was Ganondorf. If you had not already played a Zelda game, you would be saying to yourself “wtf? who is this guy?”
Also, there was no emotional attachment to Zelda. In Link to the Past, she calls for your aid in your dreams. In Ocarina, you meet her as a child and she aids you as Shiek. In TP, she rides on the back of your horse shooting a bow.
Nintendo had all the makings of a great Zelda game but they made a few wrong moves that severely hurt the memory of the game.
Oh, by the way, the next Zelda game won’t be anything like this. Nintendo confirmed a long time ago that TP will be the last “traditional” Zelda game.