I find old zelda puzzles too rigid. Yes, you used to get stuck in a great temple. But who has been stuck in a zelda dungeon since maybe MM, or maybe TP with the iceblock puzzle? We got stuck when 3d zelda was new.
I got stuck in the pirate ship in skyward sword. and in the lava dungeon, two places I remember despite not having played the game since it released. I'm stuck right now in my playthrough of oracle of ages! Just because Zelda was easy doesn't mean that there was no place for getting stuck in the design of it, really it's the least formulaic parts that are easiest to get stuck on.
Once you familiarize yourself with the formula it's just that - a formula. Hookshot on grass, hookshot on walls, bomb this wall, fire this arrow. Zzz basic zelda shit. Having puzzles with open ended solutions is actually refreshing and this ties into the "classic Zelda is flabby as fuck" argument.
I'm now like 40 hours into BOTW and I solve every puzzle with magnesis, stasis, arrows, and bombs. I solve them in the exact same ways because they all boil down to move metal block or burn these crates. How exactly is that different than old Zelda? Instead of checking a room for hookshot points I'm just flipping through my magic to see if anything glows or is magnetic, totally braindead. If there's wood you burn it. If you need to power a switch you just pull some lightning out of your bag of holding/ass and bypass the puzzle mechanism (Nothing more exciting than skipping content as a reward for mindless hoarding). Except, oh wait, old Zelda had
fun items like Hookshots and Cane of Bryna and Hammers and Whips and Lenses of Truth. Stasis and Magnesis are limp shit and they're fucking everywhere.
You wanna get stuck in Zelda puzzles? Play Master Quest. Stuck? In a modern Zelda game? What modern Zelda's have you been playing? When was the last time you got stuck in a Zelda game?
This made events like Eventide all the more refreshing.
Classic Zelda? Who the fuck wants it anymore? I sure don't. It's something I've mastered. How many bombs can I bomb and fire arrows can I fire till I get bored?
Classic Zelda is something I've mastered too - but at least it's something that
can be mastered. I haven't even been given the fucking the opportunity in BOTW! It seems like I accidentally mastered everything I could as soon as I figured out what the powers did (immediately) and after I see that everything revolves around temperature/fire/ice/electricity/physics (a few hours). Since then it's just been applying those same few lessons to move balls in holes. I get that there's opportunity to come up with a wacky and crazy solution to these puzzles myself but like...that isn't my job? It's certainly not why I'm playing a game with predesigned challenges and not just some theoretical Zelda Maker or whatever. Make the fucking puzzles fun and I won't feel the need to bypass them like apparently all the other players do. That's what I pay Nintendo money for. If I wanted to be creative myself I'd learn to paint, or just go play minecraft, and I sure as shit wouldn't call the end result a puzzle.
IDK. Obviously I'm in the superminority both commerically and critically but 3D Zelda took many years to grow stale for me and feel like I'm just going through the motions, but I hit that point pretty early on in BOTW and there's quite a bit of game left to go.
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