ToTK and how it contradicts the lore of the series along with thinking about how complicated the lore the series already was post WW had me thinking:
Zelda really had some charm that was lost in Ocarina of Time and even more by the time of The Wind Waker. The first four games prioritized gameplay over story, and the story that was there wasn't some over convoluted mess of a lore like it is now. And while there were technically multiple Links in those games, it wasn't apparent at the time. For all we knew, the series was about a single hero and his multiple adventures in Hyrule and surrounding regions.
Part of me wishes that the series stayed simple. None of this convoluted lore, half-baked story over gameplay, ship-bait female characters, etc. Just fun, top-down, action-adventures with RPG and Metroidvania elements, and just have it be about a single hero and his many adventures.
Seriously, just looking at modern Zelda and it's fanbase, it's mostly just shipping and debating about the lore of the series. The latter isn't bad by any means. The former is, however, and even then, it feels like most people don't even care about the gameplay. Like all the praise that OOT gets is just how "emotionally impactful" the story is when it is really just the same "coming of age" story where a character realizes that they are not who they thought they were, and the gameplay is just ALTTP in 3D.
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TotK spoilers, rant
@xianc78 the story of TotK is okay taken on its own if you haven't ever played another zelda game. it does a lot of what oot did but worse in some areas. Time travel, sages with special stones, master sword being repaired for a super long time in a holy place, Ganondorf swearing fealty to the king of Hyrule and then stabbing him in the back. They reuse the term "imprisoning war" and puppet zelda. It's kind of uninspired when you already know the rest of the lore.
But then you realize that even without all of that borrowing, in terms of lore it is the actual opposite of fan service. Nobody has any fucking idea what's going on. There is so much that conflicts with other stuff that has been established. The story is a major letdown, with only a few key moments that are actually really cool and more unique, like Zelda turning into a dragon or there actually being a 5th sage you need to recruit.
I think going with the whole memories thing again was a huge mistake. The story should have been unfolding while we played instead of stuck in the past again. The story is easily the worst part of the game and might even be the worst in the franchise. It treats breath of the wild particularly poorly, to the point where I don't even recommend people play botw anymore, just play TotK instead. Like, the historical events from botw where they had that battle with calamity ganon 10,000 years ago with all the guardians and divine beasts is never even mentioned. TotK doesn't respect botw's established lore at all.
The good parts of the story are also kind of outweighed by other things in the zelda lore, and it is clear that Nintendo wanted you to not take any of that into account because it throws the timeline away when talking about where botw takes place. All the previous games are just "legends of the distant past." The messaging is mixed up though, because they also throw in a lot of fan service in with things like the temple of time, the names of areas using names already from the series, clothing items and weapons from completely different timelines, the divine beasts named after oot sages but also one wind waker sage for some reason, the plaques that talk about princess ruto in zora's domain, etc... Nintendo wants you to forget about the past games' lore, but it doesn't let you because all this stuff is still named after things that happened in the lore.
TotK takes what was already a messy, but definitely understandable, timeline and just kind of shits all over it. They could have had something going if they walked things back to botw's story but instead it is a brand new thing.
OoT through Skyward Sword (minus MM) all did so much work in establishing all of this lore and making it all fit together pretty well. They had a really good thing going so it's pretty sad to see all of that tossed out the window. Wind Waker was the first time we really got to see Ganondorf fleshed out as a person instead of just some evil dude and that never got explored again.
That being said, the game is still ridiculously fun and I love it. As a Zelda lore guy though, it is pretty damn bad. I'd prefer something like a sequel to Spirit Tracks that takes place in a more modern era (1900s-1980s) where pretty much the only thing anyone knows about is that the city name New Hyrule came from some old kingdom that got flooded forever ago, then you slowly piece things together when ancient evil arises.
TotK is also still missing shit like the Triforce. Just really, really bad in the story department if you've played any other zelda game.
@xianc78 some zelda games have this thing going where the game itself reflects where the franchise is at the moment, and how the devs feel about it. Ocarina of Time is a coming of age story right as video games were sort of "coming of age" where they were making the jump to 3D. Majora's Mask is an allegory to the game dev cycle for the game, where they had a limited time to make it and were under lots of pressure to do so. Wind Waker is all about courage and trying something daunting, but new and exciting, which is heavily reflected in the change of art direction and more open approach to the world.
Knowing all of this, it kind of leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth for the Switch Zeldas. They're both about starting over and forgetting everything you knew. Your past life is gone and things are different now, but there is still a facsimile of that previous life still hanging on, just enough that you can keep your former identity.
@beardalaxy Ocarina of Time's coming of age story wasn't even good because Link was put to sleep for seven years. From his perspective, growing up was instant when he pulled the Master Sword. And that's when the Zelda series really prioritized story over gameplay.
I have a theory that the decision to make Zelda more story driven during the N64 era was made to make up for all the RPG devs moving to the Playstation and Zelda being the closest thing Nintendo had to an RPG (excluding MOTHER and Fire Emblem which only one is a traditional RPG). They probably felt that they needed a more story driven Zelda to compete with the likes of Final Fantasy.
I also remember hearing about how the development of the cancelled Earthbound 64 had influenced the development of OOT. Itoi's talent at unique storytelling had some impact on Miyamoto, and he didn't want his games to look weak in comparison so he decided to make OOT more story driven. If you played both Mother 3 and OOT you will notice that both games are coming of age stories that span multiple years, so there is probably a connection there.
Majora's Mask is probably the only 3D Zelda game I truly love because the story is unfolded as you do more sidequests. You are not experiencing the story, you are dropped in the middle of it and it's up to you to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
@xianc78 ocarina of time is a coming of age story, but imo it's done in a pretty unique way where instead of the part where you slowly grow up, it is all thrust upon link very quickly and he still has the opportunity to go back to where that wasn't the case to change things about the future with the knowledge he later gains. it's pretty interesting, it's a coming of age story but in a bit more of a somber, dark way.
The walls-of-text-ification of Zelda happened in LttP, it was already a bridge too far by the time OoT had come out. I think the striking closer to the heart of the problem is that they aspired to have the cutscenes that drag on first and foremost, struck gold, and kept making it worse with every passing game. Any of the winners that came post-OoT (MM, TP) were either accidents or winners in spite of the fact.
I'm making it a personal goal of mine to play every Zelda game in chronological order to become the authority on why my favorite video games are better than yours, but that's gonna take a while.