Koh -Vs- Ocarina of Time

[Koh]

Also, OoT's AI was actually pretty impressive for the time (I've played quite a few more recent games where the AI was worse, in fact) but if you think you can do something better, why not mod the game yourself? Then the enemy AI can be more to your liking.

Why mod an existing copyrighted game when I can make my own? Exactly what I'm doing. Now, it's not going to be 3D, but I can live with that. I plan on making a non-linear explorable world with plenty of sidestories alongside the main story as well as characters to get attached to. It IS hard work, but it's also worthwhile work.

[PrettyNier]

Ocarina of time is pretty mediocre ((to be frank, there aren't many zelda games that aren't)) but i don't think the points listed above are that well articulated or explained. it could be stated much more cogently to frame a better interconnected picture; dividing a game up into segmented parts or specific faults and then not relaying them back into the product as a whole isn't a good way of going about things because. well, buddy. thats what a game is. a coherent whole defined by the interaction of all of its elements.

excessively referring to OPINIONS, MAN, SUBJECTIVITY is the hallmark of a community or populace either unable or unwilling to engage in actual discussion about subjects.

basically this, the fucking game came out in 1998

that doesn't matter. the "tools" were perfectly competent; the issue is not what those tools were, but how the artist chose to utilize them and what they chose to create. super metroid came out 8 years prior and very clearly understood everything it was doing. it is the fault of the creators that they weren't able to design a quality game that worked around the utilized technology.

further, what is the point in saying "DUDE IT CAME OUT IN 1998"? that's nothing but misguided apologetics. it doesn't accomplish anything. its an admittance of poor quality trying to simultaneously pass itself off as a defense of said quality? seriously guys

[Sevenstitch]

"excessively referring to OPINIONS, MAN, SUBJECTIVITY is the hallmark of a community or populace either unable or unwilling to engage in actual discussion about subjects."

"further, what is the point in saying "DUDE IT CAME OUT IN 1998"? that's nothing but misguided apologetics. it doesn't accomplish anything. its an admittance of poor quality trying to simultaneously pass itself off as a defense of said quality? seriously guys"

You got me, I agree with pretty much everything in that post

and I'll admit, I posted with no real interest in the topic

carry on

[DioShiba]

the "tools" were perfectly competent; the issue is not what those tools were, but how the artist chose to utilize them and what they chose to create. super metroid came out 8 years prior and very clearly understood everything it was doing. it is the fault of the creators that they weren't able to design a quality game that worked around the utilized technology.

While that's true, but lets not forget even back in 1998 that 3D games were still fairly new.

Sure, even if the release date of the game doesn't matter we have to remember that not many developers really understood what they could do with 3D at the time, and those who did would have to figure out what would work and what wouldn't work. And to be honest comparing the development of a 3D game to a 2D game's development feels kind of unfair because the reason why games like Super Metriod were good because developers figured out how to make good 2D games.

Even if Ocarina of Time was mediocre, I kind of have to say that given what they could do at the time and with what they understood from the tools that were used, it's still a pretty good game for it's time.

[PrettyNier]

there is no such thing as "good game for its time": that is nothing but a misguided notion. the fundamental principles related to quality, that is, things that are good or bad, are universal in the sense that they're not contingent upon genre, mode, or dimension. the only thing affected by the aforementioned factors are the specific execution of those principles... that time or era can be regarded as a factor on that level (execution) means more that the designers did not take into account their own limitations or understanding of the hardware* than anything about Good Games For The Time suddenly becoming Bad Games Overall (because thats a really silly idea: quality is constant, it is merely the perception of quality that varies).

the issue with ocarina of time is that it violates those principles, not just in execution, but in principle itself;
hyrule field is meandering filler, the duck roll serves little function other than to prevent walking from becoming monotonous (this is deceptively shallow game design), a good portion of the items serve as nothing more than keys and provide little use outside of their specific intended "locks", much of the game is essentially just a series of elongated fetch-quests... its faults are numerous and they're not contingent upon it being "early 3D" because they were misguided to begin with.


*this is assuming, of course, that with better hardware ocarina of time would have magically fixed some of its problems. i find that idea incredibly suspect, given that these issues have only become exacerbated over time, culminating in monstrosities like twilight princess.

[Zero Kirby]

there is no such thing as "good game for its time": that is nothing but a misguided notion. the fundamental principles related to quality, that is, things that are good or bad, are universal in the sense that they're not contingent upon genre, mode, or dimension. the only thing affected by the aforementioned factors are the specific execution of those principles... that time or era can be regarded as a factor on that level (execution) means more that the designers did not take into account their own limitations or understanding of the hardware* than anything about Good Games For The Time suddenly becoming Bad Games Overall (because thats a really silly idea: quality is constant, it is merely the perception of quality that varies).

the issue with ocarina of time is that it violates those principles, not just in execution, but in principle itself;
hyrule field is meandering filler, the duck roll serves little function other than to prevent walking from becoming monotonous (this is deceptively shallow game design), a good portion of the items serve as nothing more than keys and provide little use outside of their specific intended "locks", much of the game is essentially just a series of elongated fetch-quests... its faults are numerous and they're not contingent upon it being "early 3D" because they were misguided to begin with.


*this is assuming, of course, that with better hardware ocarina of time would have magically fixed some of its problems. i find that idea incredibly suspect, given that these issues have only become exacerbated over time, culminating in monstrosities like twilight princess.

Funnily enough I agree almost completely with this. Zelda games that weren't afraid to play with what OoT built, such as Majora's Mask and Wind Waker, are vastly superior to those that tried their hardest to be the same, like Twilight Princess.

I disagree on the "no such thing as good for its time" aspect, but that seems primarily philosophical and is well-argued, so I shan't pursue it.

[Koh]

You know, now that I've thought more on it, I pretty much agree with PrettyNier on everything, even regarding games of their time. If the developers actually took more time to get to know the system before trying to just pop something out, they would've realized the full potential (or at least close to it) before they even started development on the game. Let's use the NES as an example. The first Legend of Zelda, since this is a Zelda-based thread. It's plain for the most part; the only areas of interest really are the labyrinths, but even those are pretty bland. This time, I AM referring to the quality of the graphics. If you look at a game that came out a few years later on the same system, such as Crystalis (known as GodSlayer in Japan) or Batman, you can clearly see the NES was capable of making the worlds more colorful and detailed back then. If they had taken the time to actually experiment with the limits of the system, the first Zelda could have been just as beautiful as those games....but it's not, because there's hardly any ground detail. Hyrule looks like a giant desert with trees and rocks.

[Gors]

this is true for any launch titles, especially in the old consoles, and even more in the 2D > 3D transition. Super Mario World looks and sounds really shitty compared to newer games such as say, Yoshi's Island. The developers get to know more of their own hardware as time passes, thus newer games will make the most use of all its resources. Add-on chips also were developed in the lifetime of the consoles, which are a testament of the console mastery imo (the VRC6/7, MMC5, Super FX) in order to pull out the extra effort without abandoning the whole console.

[water dog]

basically this, the fucking game came out in 1998

that doesn't matter. the "tools" were perfectly competent; the issue is not what those tools were, but how the artist chose to utilize them and what they chose to create. super metroid came out 8 years prior and very clearly understood everything it was doing. it is the fault of the creators that they weren't able to design a quality game that worked around the utilized technology.

further, what is the point in saying "DUDE IT CAME OUT IN 1998"? that's nothing but misguided apologetics. it doesn't accomplish anything. its an admittance of poor quality trying to simultaneously pass itself off as a defense of said quality? seriously guys

did i not say i thought the game was phenomenal?

[water dog]

i was simply saying that the game can't be held to next gen standards -- it cant have billions of side quests, items, enemies, an extensive database... it just can't because it's too old, things like that could not have been done back then without compromising the rest of the game.

[Koh]

i was simply saying that the game can't be held to next gen standards -- it cant have billions of side quests, items, enemies, an extensive database... it just can't because it's too old, things like that could not have been done back then without compromising the rest of the game.

It's not being held to that extreme. And even if it was, later games on the same console show that the hardware was plenty capable of such things. If you take a look at Majora's Mask, for example, it totally has better everything in regards to engine, graphics, NPCs and stuff like that. It needed an expansion pack, but it was still on the N64, which shows it could have been done. It's another reason why I compared the original Legend of Zelda on the NES to Crystalis, also on the NES, to show that the hardware was perfectly capable of adding more detail to the world to make it actually interesting, and not a barren desert.

[Gors]

this is true for any launch titles, especially in the old consoles, and even more in the 2D > 3D transition. Super Mario World looks and sounds really shitty compared to newer games such as say, Yoshi's Island. The developers get to know more of their own hardware as time passes, thus newer games will make the most use of all its resources. Add-on chips also were developed in the lifetime of the consoles, which are a testament of the console mastery imo (the VRC6/7, MMC5, Super FX) in order to pull out the extra effort without abandoning the whole console.

[PrettyNier]

i was simply saying that the game can't be held to next gen standards -- it cant have billions of side quests, items, enemies, an extensive database... it just can't because it's too old, things like that could not have been done back then without compromising the rest of the game.

the criticism of ocarina of time is not that there "isn't enough to do", hth. that you said the game was phenomenal in the same breath that you said "it was made in 1998, man" makes your defense even more confused. you're thinking about certain criticisms - like the pointlessness of hyrule field - and thinking that the only solution is the reverse, to fill it up with stuff. that is hardly the only solution to the problem, and its certainly not the most reasonable one.

expecting a "launch" game to utilize the technology as well as a later game on the same console is a bit unreasonable. but it's also besides the point: there's a difference between not utilizing the technology on a representational level to its full extent and making poor design decisions that have little to do with their understanding of the technology. stuff like the first zelda looking like a barren desert doesn't really mean too much on a qualitative level; i actually rather like the feeling of the overworld in the first zelda. none of the other zelda games have an overworld that feels like that. if we're to stick with the graphics of the first zelda, a somewhat more applicable criticism would be the horrid choice of palette in some of the dungeons. an issue that could have been rectified but wasn't. but that still isn't really a substantial criticism because quality in games isn't just relegated to specific aspects like graphics or audio but how all of the elements work together to create a cohesive whole.

[alexmach1]

that doesn't matter. the "tools" were perfectly competent; the issue is not what those tools were, but how the artist chose to utilize them and what they chose to create. super metroid came out 8 years prior and very clearly understood everything it was doing. it is the fault of the creators that they weren't able to design a quality game that worked around the utilized technology.

further, what is the point in saying "DUDE IT CAME OUT IN 1998"? that's nothing but misguided apologetics. it doesn't accomplish anything. its an admittance of poor quality trying to simultaneously pass itself off as a defense of said quality? seriously guys

um, yes, the tools were incompetent.
when a game came out actually does matter.
you should rate a game as it was, not by what it couldn't be. back then, the memory limitations really put a damper on what they could do, especially since for a 3d game you needed memory for models, textures, sounds, UVs, animations, vertex weight data, bone data, etc. and processing power for calculations. if you ever took a modern calculator and tapped out "sin(-sin(cos(-cos(tan(-tan(x" it would take a really long time to process out before getting your answer; multiply this sort of thing by 30 times per second, and that is a massive strain on an old system.

using a 2d game for comparison is really a dick move, since a 2d game has so many more shortcuts for checking(ie running at 5 frames per second and checking a grid instead of raycasting) and takes up a lot less data(sprites, coordinates) than a 3d game would. expecting an old game to "do better with what it has" is like asking for an eiffel tower with wooden tools. the people can be as creative and awesome as possible, but the tools really make the difference in how well the object is constructed. there is a massive difference between drawing, painting, writing a story, etc and making a fully functional 3d game.

[Kriven]

when a game came out actually does matter.
you should rate a game as it was, not by what it couldn't be.

No, because good games, just like good movies, will be good despite their limitations. Anything which is not good, regardless of the reasons, is not good.