What sets the Zelda series apart from other fantasy-adventure games?
>>320658971
responsive gameplay. controller based gameplay. useful buttons.
>>320658971
The brand, everything else is generic.
>>320658971
Not much. Impecable structuring used to be the big thing but it's been analysed to death and duplicated a few times now.
But it was good enough to carry the series through a decade or more.
its shit
>>320658971
It was the most intuitive fantasy series in its heyday and thus introduced a lot of the staples we see in fantasy games today.
It's not particularly remarkable, except in the sense that it's a base that other fantasy adventure games decided to follow in the same vein that Tolkein's literature popularized and revolutionized the fantasy genre in other mediums. Zelda has a simple story with charming characters, memorable races, great soundtracks, and cohesive puzzles with well-designed dungeons crafted around them.
By today's standards it's not immensely creative or grandoise or any of that, but it works and it works well. It has since ALTTP at the very least. More importantly, it worked better than similar fantasy adventure games of its time, and that's what helped it build a legacy.
>>320658971
Nostalgia
>>320658971
it used to be mechanics and AI response
All other fantasy-adventure games are just rip-offs of Zelda anyway.
I seriously have hard time thinking of anything quite Zelda-like (action) adventure games. Okami and Alundra are obvious examples, so much that they pretty much fall to the clone category.
That being said, Zelda series pioneered many nowadays common elements. First Zelda was one of the first "open world" games, with separated dungeons spread around its map, often with no real "order" for them. It also had battery saving system!
OoT invented / perfected things like target lock-on and context sensitive actions for a single key.
tl;dr: Zelda's special because it coined many major inventions, and overall have been very well made, entertaining games.
It's the most diverse series thematically (no two stories are alike) and gameplay-wise. The only series that comes close to it in either of those categories is Goemon.
Unlike Final Fantasy, which went form high fantasy, to cyberpunk, to sci-fi; and can't go back, Zelda has no designated setting.
Zelda is also the only video game series to never be retconned. It's been going on for 30 years yet it's still consistent (Hyrule Historia is not canon).
That freaky 90s 3D feel
>>320658971
Each game has a completely different theme. You could throw anything in a Zelda game and it would still feel like a Zelda game.
>>320658971
For starters, Zelda games are still being made. There are tons of games I'd rather have a proper sequel of. I thought that by now we'd at least have a dozen of indie Zelda clones, but no luck on that front either.
