The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina if Time is unquestionably more important than Twilight Princess.But when discussing which game is better, especially when the games are so similar on so many core levels, i think Twilight Princess stands true. I'm this short of writing a review for both games, but honestly, my review for Ocarina would have to focus on its importance to be fair. I really can't go back and pretend I'm a 16 again. I was an asshole PlayStation fanboy when I was 16, and my argument against Ocarina was pretty much along the lines of "It's just Mario with a sword."
So i do think it is okay to prefer the less important games. Here are some personal examples:
Tomb Raider 1 - Tomb Raider 2
Metroid - Super Metroid
Resident Evil - Resident Evil 2
The Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past
SMB - SMB3 or SMW
Diablo - Diablo 2
Final Fantasy 7 - Final Fantasy 6
Half Life - Half Life 2
GTA3 - Vice City,SA, or GTA4
and of course
Ocarina - Twilight Princess
On the left are the games far more important. On the right are the games I feel are unquestionably better and the games I would prefer to play.
The Super Nintendo era was such an amazing example of this point. So many of the games were focused on refining a series and trying to make it perfect. While the Nintendo did some amazing things with early console 2d on the NES, you will see much more of the SNES iterations of the respective franchises in peoples top 10 "all time" lists.
Maybe now with games like Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, Resident Evil 4, and even something like the new Tomb Raider games, we are finally starting to achieve what the SNES era did with 2d. Maybe we are finally seeing perfected what was started in early 3d.
The real question? Where do we really go next?
Brad
2 comments:
Of course. The first one's to do it are the most important. They introduced the idea. Look at the Bettles and Elvis - they introduced us to a style of music that has been built upon through the decades, but to be frank I think all of us would rather listen to the music from our age.
See it as a building: The old games are the foundation. You plow out the ground and place it down. Without it, the building that we now see (the new games) would not be standing.
As I've stated before, the techology will only get better, the ideas will always add to what's been used, and the games will get more detailed.
As for where do be go next: Virtual Reality?
I've heard rumours that some companies are starting to develop headpieces. Dunno though, could be good? I think 3D can still be taken to another level.
Well this is exclusively a matter of personal taste, but I think I appreciate both the less important games and the more important games, just on different levels. Take Mirror's Edge for example. It's something very, very new. Free running in a game, plus interesting race mechanics like racing your own ghost. It's new and exciting. Never mind that it's very "On-The-Rails," or that in a few years they'll optimize the gameplay mechanics on the PS3 and maybe even make sequels for future machines. I think the value of the game is that it's opening the market, and it deserves a lot of praise for that.
Of course, all that newness would be pointless if there was no "improvement." The key, I think, is trying to strike a balance. Red Alert 3 changed things up a bit by including navel warfare (though it wasn't AS innovative as you'd think). It also had the benefits of learning from the mistakes of C&C 3, especially multiplayer. Technically, it was a major improvement, and it had some level of innovation.
David mentioned this in his blog comment thingy (Terminology is NOT my strong suit haha). Yes, Twilight Princess was more Epona, more talking to Gorons, etc. What would have made that game truly shine would have been the original, plus the technical features, plus more innovation. Not just new items, because every Zelda Game had a slew of items, but some new applications. Sort of the way GTA 4 implemented a custom cover system, clothing, etc.
I don't really think this answers much about which game is better per se, so I'm not sure where to say other than I guess more of what I said last time. There's innovation, and then there's advanced performance. To go back to ME, I can appreciate it a lot more now, but in the future, when it becomes the standard, it will be much easier for me to point out even more faults. "Jeez, they call THIS fluid movement? *I* could do better than this in the RL!"
The future is always more promising. Go technology!
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