Five Gaming Innovations Pioneered by Zelda (by Carl B.)

June 22, 2011, by Carl B. - The release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D has everyone feeling a bit nostalgic, remembering the golden ages of gaming where substance and innovation was more important to the industry billion dollar marketing campaigns and the milking of brands. Zelda has always been a series that has strived for change, with each title being a different experience from its predecessor. The series has also pioneered several gaming innovations in its 25 years.


Saving Progress

Super Mario Bros. may have revived the fledging game industry in the 80s, but The Legend of Zelda truly set it apart from the arcades. With the NES version of The Legend of Zelda, the first game in the storied series, Shigeru Miyamoto and his team set out to make something that could not be played in an arcade. It's true that Super Mario Bros. was a revolutionary breakthrough, but it could be done on an arcade machine – in fact, many NES titles were arcade style experiences. Nintendo did something even more revolutionary with The Legend of Zelda: it allowed players to save their progress right on the game cart, making it a game that wasn't possible on an arcade machine.

Exploration

Games like Oblivion have dominated the action adventure and RPG genres in recent years with their focus on open world exploration. The game that pioneered this idea and really the genre as a whole was the original Zelda on NES. Players were thrust into the gigantic world of Hyrule, with no direction whatsoever. Their only sense of direction came from in-game hints and by talking with friends – it was an unforgiving game, but it wasn't hard for the sake of being hard like games such as Darksiders do today. There were nine dungeons in total, but players didn't have to complete the first eight in order if they didn't want to. During my first playthrough of The Legend of Zelda, I couldn't find the second dungeon until after I completed every other dungeon, sans dungeon nine.

Vast, 3D Worlds

During the Nintendo 64 era, developers weren't exactly sure how to program a game in polygonal 3D. Nintendo came out with Super Mario 64 and blew everyone's minds, but it still didn't have a vast, sprawling world; they had to handcuff it a bit by using the castle's paintings to reach different environments. Interestingly enough, in a recent Iwata Asks segment, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that one design for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had Link going through different paintings, similar to Super Mario 64, because they weren't sure if the N64 could handle the vast world of Hyrule. Nevertheless, Nintendo was able to create the first 3D Zelda title, and it completely changed the way players thought of a game's world. Case in point: when running around on Hyrule Field, players were able to see Death Mountain on the horizon, and they could actually walk over to it and climb to the very top. We take things like this for granted in the HD era, but back then, it was something that was truly mind blowing.

Targeting System

Another problem developers had with programming in 3D space was combat. How would the player's character interact with an enemy? How would the camera be controlled? Nintendo had a half-baked solution for this with Super Mario 64, but it wasn't perfect. The biggest complaint with Super Mario 64 was its camera system, and the combat was never one of the game's main focuses. Then Nintendo came up with the solution: Z-Targeting. With this revolutionary but insanely simple mechanic, players were able to lock onto an enemy and strafe around it, with the camera never breaking. This lock on mechanic has been used and improved upon in every 3D Zelda title since Ocarina of Time's release, but it's funny to see how many games today have broken cameras or lock on mechanics when a game that came out 13 years ago does it better.

1:1 Sword Combat

The upcoming Zelda title, Skyward Sword, looks to be a large change for the series with its many new additions, including weapon upgrades, dynamic dungeons and fields, and flight combat. But the biggest change coming to the title is the implementation of true 1:1, third person sword combat. I had the opportunity to play the game at E3 2010, and the controls were absolutely fantastic. It isn't your typical hack 'n slash game, either. Every enemy has a distinct defensive pattern that players have to attack around in order to damage them. Like the original Zelda, it isn't hard for the sake of being hard – you really have to forget everything you knew about combat in a game to adjust to this more realistic, intuitive style of play. After playing the game at least year's E3 conference I tried to go back and play Twilight Princess on Wii and just couldn't do it. No matter where motion controls end up, Skyward Sword will be remembered as the game that truly used them to the fullest.