Saw someone talking about the first Legend of Zelda game in a now archived thread when someone asked about how the hell...

Saw someone talking about the first Legend of Zelda game in a now archived thread when someone asked about how the hell you were supposed to figure the game out without a guide and they said in response
>The game came with a strategy guide packed in, and there were more hints in Nintendo Power.
>They didn't leave you groping in the darkness.

>It was meant to be figured collaboratively.
>People on the school bus would talk about what they found in the game and figure things out over time.
>There's no real reason to play it in the age where everything is spelled out by an FAQ, I guess.
>It was designed for a social dynamic that no longer exists.

Were games really made with the idea of people going and talking to each-other about secrets like that instead of having everything be hinted at in the game and such like modern games are? That sounds like it could be frustrating but also really neat, that whole thing though, sounds like idealistic nostalgia and I have a hard time picturing it actually working like that.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=5ySSq2d5mKE
youtube.com/watch?v=_yNDH0FiL5M
youtube.com/watch?v=uhJDkt3HUK0
youtu.be/ZpRxZuC52jU
youtu.be/BDFNSOVnSxU
youtube.com/watch?v=AyET6N-g4_Y
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

I always figured the reason they had that philosphy was because they needed to pad out the games with artificial difficulty

seeing how breath of the wild inspires this same exact result, I'm really not surprised that was a premise of the original Zelda

>Were games really made with the idea of people going and talking to each-other about secrets like that instead of having everything be hinted at in the game and such like modern games are?
Yes. See tower of durga for a similar game.

youtube.com/watch?v=5ySSq2d5mKE

Video very much related.

>i'm so old there are posters surprised by human interaction.

Kids would discuss games and things on the bus, before school and after. This led to the infamous bullshitters that made up crap to seem cool or be an asshole. They were the real life shitposters.

I can't speak for Zelda because I never gave a shit about Zelda, but there were guides and secrets in Nintendo power.

druaga

it kind of runs counter to their idea that playing video games is somehow a social stigma

I always mess up the name. But yes.

>That sounds like it could be frustrating but also really neat, that whole thing though, sounds like idealistic nostalgia and I have a hard time picturing it actually working like that.
Remember that stupid Kotaku article about how Bioshock Infinite was the best multiplayer experience the author had played despite it being a single player game, because she was able to talk about it to so many other people? It's kinda like that, except there's shit worth talking about because the other person might tell you where the blue ring is, and you can tell them that you accidentally found Level 8 super early or something. Same with BotW, you can share anecdotes on dumb physics engine shit you did with others.

I was thinking about this recently.

Is there any way to recreate that experience in the modern age with the internet at our disposal?

>sounds like idealistic nostalgia
The idea that it always happened joyously and smoothly is a bit fanciful, sure. It all comes down to whether you knew other people that had the game or were willing to look into Nintendo Power. Outside help was incidental.

The game itself hints at most of what you have to do, though, and secret entrances are often pretty conspicuous.

>no fighting game has any move lists
>people only find a few special moves on accident in match by mashing then trying to recreate it
>people sharing the special move inputs they found
>the best player was the guy who actually knew all his character's special moves and when to use them
Fighting games were a lot different back then desu

Nope. Shit gets blown wide open usually within days of release (if not beforehand).

Sites like TCRF exist that basically detail all the guts of games, dataminers ruin shit like MMOs, and hackers usually find ways to cheat games and rush to the end.

>Same with BotW, you can share anecdotes on dumb physics engine shit you did with others

this is pretty much what happened with my circle of friends

Guess thats a good example where the guide really cane in handy. If you go in butt naked it can be insanely hard to traverse and find your way.

I am still playing it and on the 5th dungeon. Its great fun but monstrously hard. Overworld has murdered me so much

yes its shit, zelda 2 was always the better game

yea well you have to remember this was in an age where you weren't expected to see the end screen of the game on your first play through. some games were brutally difficult so people would make up shit or tell their friends about the ending etc.

Back in my day Nintendo games were the taaaalk of the townnn. Some nice fellows helped me catch Mew on Pokemon Red, get Luigo for Mario 64 & find all the levels in Zelda.

this

>>It was designed for a social dynamic that no longer exists.

You are really over-stating this.The truth is that most people just bought Nintendo Power or some guide.

Zelda 2 is just as bad.

Also in ng Zelda a few things were changed around

me and a close friend recently played a bit at his place and our approaches to combat are totally different and equally effective. he likes to use stasis and charge attacks liberally but I prefer to outmaneuver my enemies and flurry rush them/shoot them with arrows

when i showed him the sheer destructive force of a quickfire lynel bow and a full stamina meter of slowdown he nearly pooped himself

Zelda and Zelda II are both great.

The game really needed more NPCs. I'm not saying that because I'm casual and need help, I'm saying it because it would add more immersion to the world. Some of the NPCs should have marked dungeons on your map or gave you tips to find them (more than just the cryptic shit they say now).

On its own, it just feels blatantly illogical. Hell, it would have been cool to find map tips drawn on cave walls or something (as citizens may have done to navigate the world). It really makes no sense that the world would have nothing in the way of assisting your direction.

>I'm not saying that because I'm casual and need help
>Some of the NPCs should have marked dungeons on your map or gave you tips to find them (more than just the cryptic shit they say now).

jesus you 180'd so hard *I* got whiplash just watching

It's literally just to make the games longer and harder.

Glitches. People still discover new glitches in OoT for instance. Nowadays, game develops should intentionally add exploits and rare glitches to drive the feeling of discovery.

youtube.com/watch?v=_yNDH0FiL5M
This was better

>The game really needed more NPCs
Nah.

I for one have never given much of a shit about NPCs in Zelda games. ALTTP's level of liveliness is more than enough for me, and I enjoy the more desolate feeling of the original.

My point is that it's bad for immersion. The old man in the cave gives you a sword, but tells you nothing else about the world or some significant landmarks? The people in caves give you dumb riddles but no real information or lore? That would have helped make it feel more like a real place.

your point was well obfuscated between all the "I'm not asking for help, i just need help", so that's on you.

When you're "grown up", yes it is, but kids would talk about games all the time.

Give me a break. I was trying to say that the lack of any realistic guidance hampers immersion and that my complaint wasn't purely about casual complaining.

There was a lot of ideas held over from arcades which actually did have artificial difficulty to get more shekels.

The story doesn't even make sense. Zelda hides all the triforce pieces....and you need to get them again, to save Zelda? If she had known the Triforce pieces were needed to defeat Ganon, why hide them in the first place?

The P.t. Game was like that.

And I'm just letting you know that half your post about immersion was actually about being a casual (except you totally aren't)

And you're wrong anyways, just so you know. Especially in a game where bombing/pushing/igniting everything on every screen would take a week of regular play (few hours a day) at most.

You get a break when you earn one. Your inability to communicate is not a burden the rest of us are required to shoulder.

The Western release told you how to get to the first two dungeons as well as giving you information about all the different items and enemies in the game. Once you had cleared the first two dungeons, you'd have the knowledge and ability to explore the rest of the world and complete the game. The game also had NPCs littered all over the world, although due to some shitty translations they ended up being quite cryptic (and I think some of them were inaccurate with the Western release, like the one that says Pol's Voice are weak to sound despite the fact that the NA version wasn't compatible with the microphone).

To some extent, Dark Souls was like this at release.

>using nintendo power and being social as an argument
How deep does Jewtendo have to be

PT recreated that experience to some extent, but that was an insane teaser demo

No, you are being stupid and ignorant. My point was that a complete lack of guidance is just as immersion breaking as too much. Imagine if in most RPGs, characters you met never told you anything or never even bothered to help. If the people initially giving you the quests told you nothing about how to actually achieve them.

It has nothing to do with being casual, and everything to do with poor design and lack of immersion. Just because YOU are bad at reading comprehension doesn't mean you can smugly imply I have an inability to communicate.

I beat it around 6-7 years ago in 12 hours or so, no guides, walkthrough or manual, well, I looked at the world map once and this is how I found the best sword, but I knew there was something wrong with graveyard so I would've found it myself eventually. Game design is not that bad honestly, there are a lot of hints which helping you with some troublesome moments, the hardest part was to find entrance to one of the dungeons, took me like 2 hours of walking before I found a hidden entrance under a tree, that you supposed burn down with a lamp, also I didn't know that you can defeat Ganon only with silver arrows, I was just swinging with my sword at him and thought he will die eventually, it took me like 3 or 4 continues before I realized that silver arrows probably has some purpose.
>Were games really made with the idea of people going and talking to each-other about secrets like that instead of having everything be hinted at in the game and such like modern games are?
Basically — " What are roguelikes?", especially ADOM since it's closed source and there is so much hidden and just not obvious content in it. Even though game is more than 20 years old — there is still some unsolved mysteries in it.

>complete lack of guidance

different colored terrain. odd single instances of something that usually appears in clusters. Don't exaggerate in an effort to validate your stupid and poorly expressed opinion.

I'm not bad at reading comprehension, your IQ is just insufficient.

Maybe they can make a game with fake NPC players you can trade discoveries with

That was sort of what I was hoping BOTW to be.

>Guys did you know you could ride bears?
>Hey, if you walk around with a fire or ice weapon out, you don't need to equip thermal gear!
>There's a guy in zora's domain that trades 10 shining stones for a diamond!

Etc.

The Triforce of Wisdom isn't what defeats Ganon, it's the Silver Arrows that have the power to defeat him. Zelda simply hid the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom because if she didn't then Ganon would be able to take it from her easily.

You could have an item like the Tingle Bottle in Wind Waker HD that allows players to share hints with each other.

Is "second quest" actually fun?
I never spent much time with it back in the day; it seemed like randomized crap with no hints. I just stopped after first quest and called it done.

>that battlestation
Jesus christ how cozy

The game tells you anything you need to know to beat it. I beat it fine in 2010 wothout any guides or outside help.

No it had shitty translations so people and publications had to help out
The game literally has all you need to attempt to solve the puzzles

People also forget that every company had their own tip line back then for help with games.

Things lots of people get stuck on, were also there to generate toll call revenue.

I'll never not be mad that they removed the Tingle Tuner for that facebook feature. The biggest problem was the hardware requirements for it in the original game, and the Wii U was practically built for that kind of thing. It was the feature I most looked forward to seeing improved when they announced WWHD.

>Were games really made with the idea of people going and talking to each-other about secrets

Yes, especially in Japan. That's how the play-testers got through games, the developers always thought they weren't hard enough.

Video game culture in the 80s was arcade culture, it wasn't the lonely neckbearded hobby that it would become in the late 90s. In the 80s and early 90s, everybody played vidya, not just nerds, and vidya was hard as shit and you usually played in groups and if you ever actually beat a game it was a huge accomplishment.

>That sounds like it could be frustrating but also really neat, that whole thing though, sounds like idealistic nostalgia and I have a hard time picturing it actually working like that.

Darks souls 1 is similar to that tho

>This led to the infamous bullshitters that made up crap to seem cool or be an asshole
Ugh the "MY dad works for Nintendo" kids were the worst. I was always "No he doesn't, Nintendo is a Japanese company and we live in fucking Kentucky you liar!"

I don't think its the confusion about actual social interaction, it's moreso about games being DESIGNED with it in mind

>Were games really made with the idea of people going and talking to each-other about secrets like that instead of having everything be hinted at in the game

Sierra and adventure games like it most definitely were meant to be played like this, if I recall they even talked about sharing hints with friends and whatnot.

Also, old NES manuals had a section in the back for notes where you could jot secrets down and I and other autists I know had notebooks and binders full of secrets in games that we found.

>I don't think its the confusion about actual social interaction, it's moreso about games being DESIGNED with it in mind

You have to remember, in the 80s and 90s life was way different than it is now, people weren't so alienated, you talked to neighbors and had friends at school and people and society was generally more social. Even moreso in homogeneous Japan where lots of these games with super difficulty and lots of secrets were made.

>Is there any way to recreate that experience in the modern age with the internet at our disposal?

Only if you and a group of people that can be trusted refuse to read faqs and walkthroughs and whatnot, but really the information age kinda ruined it.

The best were A Link To The Past and Link's Awakening.

My grandmother still calls all video games "Nintendo games".

>1997
>jotting down random bits and pieces from OoT so i don't forget
>2017
>notebook filled with hastily scrawled sketches of factorio setups and ideas

>The old man in the cave gives you a sword, but tells you nothing else about the world or some significant landmarks?

You were expected to have read the manual to get the backstory. Storage on cartridges was very limited and the first Zelda was one of the first games to even have a save battery.

Willow is one of my favorite NES games, one of the best NES games period, but it has a fucking password save system and over half the time you copied down the long as fuck password wrong and had to start over.

>Were games really made with the idea of people going and talking to each-other about secrets like that instead of having everything be hinted at in the game and such like modern games are?
Yes. Just take a look at Pokemon. "If you surf into the cave on a Friday night, there will be the one Lapras you can catch in the game." That is exactly the sort of rumors you think are completely bogus, yet it turned out to be accurate for Gen 2. Pokemon was full of that sort of thing (not so much anymore) and it expected for kids, who played the game and gathered together during school, to swap stories or involve each other in trading for specific evolutions.

It was the same idea with a bunch of NES games. Stuff like how to get through Super Mario Bros or where to find stuff in Final Fantasy was the intended conversation. Not all games ended up that popular, though, which was why game magazines kind of took over instead.

Former school bus shitposter here, can confirm.

Loved the music and gameplay of that game, but god damn the dungeons are really samey seeing as so many of them are those fucking labyrinthine caves. I always thought how you start out shitty and slow with new swords and develop skill with them over time was a really novel mechanic.

There is an NPC in Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal that explicitly tells you there is a rare Pokemon deep within Union Cave. It's not like you needed friends to tell you that it existed.

Yeah the game was like that.

That said the game isn't that unfair, you're bound to find out about burning bushes and blowing up walls on your own.

The only thing I'd say wasn't fair is the stupid lake where you have to play the whistle to make a dungeon appear. What the fuck was that shit about?

Not really, it's actually because it makes people more likely to talk about it and more people talking about it means more people buying it. Consider this scenario:
>three kids are riding the bus together
>two of them have Zelda
>one does not
>the two that do spend the whole trip talking about Zelda and trading tips and tricks
>the one that doesn't has essentially been given a sales pitch his entire bus ride.

I'm pretty sure a version of this phenomenon is responsible for the success of the Souls series.

virtually everything in pokemon has an NPC line to go along with it, including friday lapras

>you talked to neighbors
Is that a normal thing to do? I've never lived in a place where I have neighbors.

Just like going over and bothering your neighbors seems like a super weird thing to do. Like what do you do? Just go walk up to them when you see them or knock on their doors? Sounds like something a creep would do.

Someone mentions that in game. I think it was an old man in level 5.

>but god damn the dungeons are really samey seeing as so many of them are those fucking labyrinthine caves.

Yeah, that was probably the worst part, the boring dungeon designs.

I'm sure in the Japanese version that's just fine, but given the English translation it's about as helpful as EASTMOST PENINSULA IS THE SECRET

Like, when you're both outside at the same time, coming home from work (because back then people mostly worked 9 to 5 hours), being outside on the weekend. Hell, in my neighborhood growing up we used to have block parties in the summers.

Pokemon was just an example.

Metroid is a better case of having a lot of hidden variables where kids would talk to each other to help people find them.

That soundtrack though, especially that main field theme, god damn it captured the feeling of an ADVENTURE perfectly

youtube.com/watch?v=uhJDkt3HUK0
youtu.be/ZpRxZuC52jU
youtu.be/BDFNSOVnSxU

They only had so much memory on those old carts. It's actually a huge technical advancement that the world was as big as it is, and that the maps can scroll.

He says there's a secret in a lake with no fairy, though he doesn't tell you what to do there.
Still, the thing about the first Zelda is that there aren't any multi-room puzzles. Whatever you need to do has to be within the room, and you only have so many tools, so you can just try everything.

>some nu-male who doesn't even understand old game design is going to tell me how zelda sucks and is too hard

turned it off 2 minutes in

This. Plus between the video title and thumbnail, this shit is just clickbait.

They already did this recently. It's called Demon's Souls.

Seconding this question.

>Video very much related.
The autistic OP from the "archived thread" and this thread is trying to pass off that videos argument as his own

The soundtrack was excellent and had some great feels

youtube.com/watch?v=AyET6N-g4_Y

>cuck who tries to defend Man of Steel and Batman V Superman
lol