Discovering What's Missing from Modern Zelda

I've been playing quite a bit more Link's Awakening lately, and something struck me the other day. One of the big complaints about recent Zelda games is that they don't highlight discovery nearly as much as earlier iterations of the series. I think that part of the reason for this is graphical.

Let me explain.

Link's Awakening (even in it's excellent technicolor update, Link's Awakening DX) is not a graphically impressive game. It uses simple sprites and easy animations, that are just a notch or two above the flash of the NES.

However, one thing (aside from the obvious graphical difference) that sets it apart from the modern Zelda games is that it scrolls from screen to screen. That is, as you step from one room or area to the next, the entire screen moves with you.

Okay. This might not seem like a big deal. But think about that in terms of the feeling of discovery so often associated with The Legend of Zelda in its early days.

In The Legend of Zelda, Link's Awakening, and A Link to the Past especially, the very way in which you move through the world obstructs your view and your perspective of that world as a whole. Rather than conceiving of the world as one singularity intuitively (because the graphics tell you to, as they do in a 3D world, seen in third person), I think players more readily think of those earlier games' worlds as a series of screens that may or may not be directly connected.

Therefore, when something new is discovered, it's not so much a feeling of "oh wow, that rock just totally had a cave in it!" but instead, "oh snap! That little individual mini-world had so much more hidden in it! I wonder if this sort of thing happens anywhere else in the game?" This sort of intensification of discovery is definitely manifold when you discover an underground passage that takes you from one side of the overworld to the other.

Since the game world opened up into the 3D venue, this excitement of exploration simply hasn't been as potent.

Yes, there are things to discover in Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword, but they aren't as super charged with a sense of wonder as their earlier counterparts. Sure, you still move from one locale to the other (between which there are some minor load times) but rather than the sense of a limited perspective that the top-down, eagle-eye view provides, we're placed firmly behind Link, and see everything before us quite clearly - even things that are quite far away.

Now, two special cases need to be mentioned here. Skyward Sword, I think, actually takes a step towards re-creating the sense of discovery that comes from having a limited perspective. You can still see things off in the distance, but they're blurred, and indefinite. This distance blurring (rather than just not showing far off things at all, or showing them clearly but in perspective) sets up vague expectations.

With such vague expectations set up, the discovery of what's actually in the distance becomes more complex than just experiencing that place as a locale or setting for an event, it becomes possible to meet with the unexpected - just as you might if you only see the world one screen at a time. Wind Waker does something similar with its sailing mechanic.

And I think that's what's really missing from modern Zelda games (handheld titles aside, since they still retain that top-down look): a sense of limitations. After all, it's breaking these limitations or finding loop holes around them (secret connecting passages), that made past Zelda games exciting, discovery-filled experiences. And getting back to that with the modern size of games and hardware capabilities would make for an incredible Zelda experience.