Koh -Vs- Ocarina of Time

[PrettyNier]

Honest question Nier, what games do you actually like? Just curious, I sometimes get confused.

A decent amount. I'll just list some favorites.

Demon's Souls / Dark Souls
Super Metroid / Super Metroid: Eris
Shadow of the Colossus
Ico

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night / Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Castlevania / Super Castlevania IV
Metroid Fusion
Devil May Cry / Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Breath of Fire IV
Demon's Crest

Mega Man Zero 1-4
Mega Man X / Mega Man X4

these two are tremendously flawed but simultaneously compelling.
NieR
Deadly Premonition

the following interest me greatly but i only have a limited experience playing them:
Secret of Evermore
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Vagrant Story


there's a lot more but i don't really feel like listing them right now. i also have a lot of different reasons for each of these games. you can ask me about particular games if you want either from this list or not and i can give a brief blurb for what i think about them/whether i like them or not.

I was going to respond section by section, but then I realised something.
You're not finding 3 or 4 faults. You're finding ONE and trying to describe it as more, because you can't quite see the root fault you're trying to bring up.

Every supporting evidence you're bring up supports finding the same darn fault, Zelda is too split up in overall level design as a game. Each area is actually isolated rather than a part of the whole. More a group of individual themed dungeons than a whole cohesive game.
I'd guess you'd like a small indie game that was secretly just ONE Zelda dungeon and thats all. Just one game that follows the pattern of a single Zelda dungeon. Enter Dungeon, find Dungeon item. Solve all the puzzles using said item, defeat boss using said item. Like, say... Portal.
But while Portal focuses on the one item entirely... Zelda goes on the next item and rises and repeats the pattern, without expanding on the previous mechanics, leaving each section isolated.

And hey. I can agree with you on that. I just think the individual dungeons were fun and designed well enough to make their item of the day work well in context.

...I appreciate the attempt at psychoanalysis, I do, but isn't that a bit presumptuous? I usually find games like that to be unsatisfying. Commendable, of course, but there generally isn't enough to hold my interest. I want more than just a singular refined mechanical system from an experience. I'm a bit perplexed that you came to that conclusion given that the only other game I've mentioned (which has been in a positive light) has been Super Metroid, which is... not that sort of game at all.

I've mentioned before, the criticism isn't that there is too much; its that what's there doesn't work as well as it should. What's there is misguided. Simply, it isn't the presence of alternative options or different areas and dungeons and levels, it is the soulless implementation of those two things. the level

I want the level design to differ, I don't want every dungeon to come packaged with the same formulaic expectations; maybe don't have an item in some of the dungeons. maybe this one dungeon that gives you an item crafts itself in a way so that you become "trapped" and getting that item is the way you get out, sort of a microcosm of a level within the macrocosm. I want the mechanics and items to be interesting and engaging, with reduced overlap; I want the level design to be smartly designed and undeceptive. you know, all things that zelda isnt

Honestly, just, destroy the "formula".