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[ryanofcall]

Puzzles are one of the key elements in tloz
ALBW had a couple of clever one's but not too many (mostly the one's involving the wall drawing, but once you get the hang of it you'll see through very quickly). It was very easy mostly - but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it a lot

 

[Nintendojitsu]

I could care less about puzzles in Zelda. They are a chore and a bore.

But I started with Zelda I and II as a kid. They had some basic push-block moments, but generally they were about running around figuring out what I'd call meta-puzzles -- taking clues given by NPCs and trying to figure out how to access new areas or secrets. No one told you where to go, at least not directly. The focus was exploration, not hitting switches. But the Zeldas after that just got puzzle crazy.

See, to me -- and I think Miyamoto's original inspiration of wandering through forests as a child -- the Zelda concept is about exploration and adventure. You're all alone on a quest. It's kind of dangerous and exciting and mysterious. And battling dangerous creatures -- for instance, Zelda II's combat system was great and wish they'd get back to tighter gameplay like that. In II, you felt like even random encounters were kind of a dangerous (but survivable) event.

So I think modern Zeldas kind of lost that spirit. Wind Waker had a bit of that on the high seas, but the controls were so frustrating that I really didn't want to go out of my way to explore. I get that kids who grew up on the SNES and Gamecube Zelda games think Zelda=puzzles, but I think it's a distraction from what made the OG games so fun.

The reveal of the Wii U footage has me tentatively optimistic that more action and exploration elements might be coming back to Zelda.

edit: I see some people above think the terms "adventure" and "exploration" are generic and don't mean anything, or just nostalgia trigger words. It's the mechanics, setting, and level of handholding which determine whether a game makes those attributes a focus or not. Modern Zelda games focus heavily on puzzles, heavily on making things too obvious. There's no "exploration" per se -- your journey is focused on taking you from one dungeon to the next one. Part of this is a bigger focus on narrative, which I have no problem with per se, but narrative creates structure, and exploration requires the opposite of structured gameplay.

Best post of the thread!

Legend of Lolo confirmed.

 

[Nintendojitsu]

Well put, my friend. Wisdom, power and courage = puzzles, combat, and exploration.

Puzzles were never part of the equation. See: earlier Zeldas.

EDIT: Sorry for double post.

 

[Yoshi]

This seems topical now.

People complained about the the empty overworld in TP. They introduced a lot more puzzles in Skyward Sword, to essentially turn the overworld into the dungeons everybody supposedly loves. Then Skyward Sword gets massively shat upon. Subsequently, Aonouma said he was moving away from puzzles and was going to focus more on exploration. Now suddenly everyone wants more puzzles in their Zelda games.

Different people. I don't like the overworld in TP, I love the overworld in SS and think SS is the best Zelda game ever created due to its superb puzzle design and cleverly planned through overworld where no stone is just a stone. I've never complained about Skyward Sword's puzzle focus.

 

[=GabrielKnight=]

I think that every RPG should add puzzles, instead of boring one direction dungeons

 

[kunonabi]

Puzzles were never part of the equation. See: earlier Zeldas.

EDIT: Sorry for double post.

There were puzzles they just weren't particularly complex because they were NES games.

 

[2spooky4me]

Puzzles are synonymous with Zelda for many fans.

I am concerned about the way puzzles will be handled in Zelda Wii U because of what Eiji Aonuma said about the upcoming puzzle design:

I think people have come to just assume that puzzle-solving will exist in a Zelda game, and I kinda wanna change that, maybe turn it on its ear. As a player progresses through any game, they're making choices. They're making hopefully logical choices to progress them in the game. And when I hear 'puzzle solving' I think of like moving blocks so that a door opens or something like that. But I feel like making those logical choices and taking information that you received previously and making decisions based on that can also be a sort of puzzle-solving. So I wanna kinda rethink or maybe reconstruct the idea of puzzle-solving within the Zelda universe.

Time will tell.

 

[DNAbro]

Puzzles are synonymous with Zelda for many fans.

I am concerned about the way puzzles will be handled in Zelda Wii U because of what Eiji Aonuma said about the upcoming puzzle design:



Time will tell.

I've never seen that quote before so that's a bit interesting. I really don't understand what he means though.

 

[Effect]

Without puzzles, what's the point? It's one of the things that makes Zelda what it is.

This is generally my outlook when it comes to Zelda. Nintendo isn't going to dive head first into story. They do sometimes but never go as far as they could go. Seemingly on purchase. That leaves us with puzzles as being the main challenge.

Now I don't think puzzles have be the same every time. I enjoyed that simply traversing the world itself in Skyward Sword turned out to be a massive puzzle. It doesn't have to be how to open the next door or how to move the blocks. With this I agree a lot with Anouma when he says he wants to change things. I think they have started to do that with Skyward Sword.

I will agree that things felt far to simple in A Link Between Worlds and that is largely in part because things had to be designed in such a way as to account for players tackling dungeons in any order. It wasn't possible to design a dungeon that required you to have four weapons and use them all, in combinations. This has been my issue with ALBW. The freedom to move about the world, do dungeons in an order I decided, buy the weapons (I enjoyed the bazaar in Skyward Sword a lot for example) did in turn hurt the complexity of the puzzles I feel. That balance needs to found if they decided not to gate dungeons.

Without the puzzles in the end Zelda is just another hack and slash game. Perhaps not a good one as the puzzles are what help set it apart and make up for things missing that other games might have.

 

[Kai Dracon]

It vaguely sounds as if Aonuma is talking about replacing block moving mechanical puzzles with scenarios that require the player think about what something is, where it could be, or what direction to go in. Based on things they saw in the game world previously.

Could tie into the open world I suppose. Like: a dungeon in which one of the guards is carrying the key you need, and before entering the dungeon an NPC mentioned that guy is the one tasked with locking the gate. It would give a thoughtful player a head start on finding the key, by remembering what they'd heard.

Or perhaps a tool is commonly used for a certain function in the overworld. Let's say the hammer is used by Gorons to break down a particular mineral to get gems. So you go into a dungeon and you need a gem, but there's nothing in the dungeon telling you to hit a certain rock, or that you even need a mallet to proceed.

 

[Celegus]

Puzzles are dandy and more interesting than the combat, but the main draw for me in Zelda is the exploration. Getting that item that lets you explore a new area is just the best, and sailing around the world in Wind Waker is what made it one of my favorites of the series. I'm very hopeful as far the new game goes, it looks like they're putting a lot of emphasis on the exploring and adventure aspect, which is my favorite. It's also the reason Metroid is my favorite Nintendo series.

 

[GC|Simon]

Puzzles in a Zelda game are far more important to me than everything else (e.g. combat).

And ALBW puzzels were pretty good?! I really enjoyed that game.

 

[Enduin]

Puzzles are very important to Zelda, but most people have a very strict and limited view on puzzles. They only think of block puzzles or arrow puzzles and the like, but exploration and using the correct item or finding the correct path is also a puzzle. Zelda games at their best are constantly making you think of what you're doing, how you're interacting with the world and what secret there may be in the area and how to unlock it. Bosses are about discovering their weaknesses, using items in creative ways and exploiting that to defeat them. The hard part is making all this not so obvious and that it is a puzzle.

 

[Pociask]

Not important at all to me. Puzzles actually just get in the way for me. I want to explore and beat bosses, not solve puzzles.

I realized this for myself as well. I don't like Zelda puzzles. To me, the solution is either immediately obvious yet still time consuming, or obtuse (and thus time consuming). They are the worst thing for a game that I play to have fun - boring. They also make the game drag on like unskippable text or store prompts that repeat every time.

Zelda without puzzles sounds awesome to me. I don't get the love for time stones. They were just another light/dark world mechanic, that also introduced narrative questions that the game didn't ever seem to answer (do the time stones make the local area the past? do they bring the past into the future? how come when Link changes something in the past, hundreds? of years ago, it still remains exactly the same as he left it in the present?) I think they also damage the world-building, as they make the world look more and more like a contrived puzzle, and less like a "real" place.

I like Zelda for action and exploring. I like the side quests and characters. But the puzzles, please, why must everything, even fighting the lowliest creature, be a puzzle?

 

[Shion]

Important enough to consider them part of Zelda's essence.
- Awesome puzzle-design is one of the things I want to see in a Zelda game.

Not important enough to be considered as the "alpha and omega" of the series.
- In the action-adventure genre there are many things that matter beyond puzzle design. A Zelda game that's subpar in everything except for puzzle-solving isn't a good Zelda game.

 

[Currygan]

they're a beloved part of a great recipe that made Zelda one of the best franchises ever. I'd honestly be extremely sad if they cut them off altogether, because they're so integral to the gameplay and the game's world

 

[Taruranto]

This seems topical now.

People complained about the the empty overworld in TP. They introduced a lot more puzzles in Skyward Sword, to essentially turn the overworld into the dungeons everybody supposedly loves. Then Skyward Sword gets massively shat upon. Subsequently, Aonouma said he was moving away from puzzles and was going to focus more on exploration. Now suddenly everyone wants more puzzles in their Zelda games.

I hate this pic. I dislike the last Zelda games because they are a mess of hand-holding, easy as hell dungeons and enemies, intrusive and obnoxious story and stupid mechanics (Why can't you still speed up or skip dialogues, holy shit) not because of the "style". Also different strikes for different folks. Zelda fanbase is fucking large, OF COURSE you are going to have shintons of different opinions. Do you expect everyone to hold the same idea? Holy shit.

What do I want? A good game, Miyamoto.

 

[Ceallach]

Almost as important to me as Waluigi

 

[EdwardTeach]

Can't see the point of Zelda without the puzzles.

 

[djtiesto]

Puzzles and the overarching dungeon design are the best part of Zelda, I really hope that those who want the series to turn into another mediocre open-world western RPG don't get their wish.

I do think that the basic Zelda template could stand with some updating, but they would be more refinements to a formula - more challenging and deeper combat / slightly more holistic puzzle design / more complex storylines / MUCH less handholding - than radically changing the game up.

 

[Disaster Nebraska]

Not important at all. I understand that they're there to slow your progress and make you explore the environment a bit more, but that can also be easily done with intelligently-designed areas and intelligently-designed enemies.

For instance, the hook shot. Why not have a section where you're going through a narrow valley on the way to a temple and on either side there are archers pelting you with arrows. You could try to run through and not die, which would be tough. You could shoot back with your own bow while dodging around, which would still be tough but maybe you'd make it through. You could hookshot up and attack the archers in melee combat. Or, maybe you could pull the archer off the cliff and they fall to their death. To me, that seems just as "puzzle" as going through a room where you have a specific and infexible path to hookshot around to get to an out-of-reach door.

 

[Yoshi]

Not important at all. I understand that they're there to slow your progress and make you explore the environment a bit more

No, they are not there to slow you down, they are the meat of the gameplay.

 

[yamo]

I would prefer a focus on challenge through combat over challenge through puzzles. I usually get frustrated and bored with many of the late game puzzles.

However I wouldn't mind if there were more optional puzzles to find secrets and other goodies for those who love that kind of stuff.

 

[PooBone]

I finished ALBW a few weeks ago, and while I enjoyed it, the puzzles were more of a nuisance to me than anything enjoyable. While I felt LTTP dungeons were interesting and well thought out, ALBW dungeons were organized such that I felt like I was just walking along blindly doing various busy puzzles.

Sure, there were a few solid, puzzles, like the Pegasus Boots lair, but most of it was just waiting to get the right item to do the obvious thing. I went on tvtropes to look up game puzzles, and I was amazed by how neatly many of the Zelda puzzles fit in. When I played Alundra a year ago, many puzzles stumped me for several minutes, but ALBW felt obvious and straightforward for the most part.

Recently, we had a thread on GAF where someone said later Zelda titles focus too much on puzzles, and not enough on monsters. Thinking about it, I share that perspective. ALBW had one of the weakest boss sets in the entire franchise history. Even the Tower of Terror was easy. I just never felt challenged or afraid of the foes I was facing.

So I ask you GAF: do the puzzles even matter? Would things be better if the game was focused on the combat mechanics, or something else?

I agree with the entire OP.

 

[khaaan]

Short answer is yes I do want to see puzzles in my Zelda games but it's an interesting challenge that Nintendo has to overcome. After so many iterations it's hard not to have a pavlovian response when I'm in a dungeon.

I walk into a room and everything closes around me. Does killing all the enemies do anything? Does breaking all the things in the room do anything? Are there any blocks? Oh look, there's the block. Can I move it? Are there pressure plates around? Can I stand on it? Is there an upper level?

I know you can trivialize any puzzle if you apply that sort of logic but the Zelda franchise has existed for so long and long-term players will have seen so many variations of it. Skyward Sword did a decent enough job thanks to the new approach the controls offered but there was no real situation where I had to stop and think for an extended period of time...and that's okay because a game is a sum of its parts and puzzle solving is just one them for Zelda.

 

[eyeball_kid]

And how the hell is it a miniquest? You clear a path with 1 or 2 throws of the boomerang.

Hmm, perhaps I'm thinking of the wrong room; it's been a while since I've played WW. I thought this was the area with a big tree and you have to jump up and up throwing the boomerang at different spots. It was so tedious.

 

[Disaster Nebraska]

No, they are not there to slow you down, they are the meat of the gameplay.

Since when? The Zelda franchise has a lot of titles and puzzles play a key role in only some of them.

 

[Pociask]

Short answer is yes I do want to see puzzles in my Zelda games but it's an interesting challenge that Nintendo has to overcome. After so many iterations it's hard not to have a pavlovian response when I'm in a dungeon.

I walk into a room and everything closes around me. Does killing all the enemies do anything? Does breaking all the things in the room do anything? Are there any blocks? Oh look, there's the block. Can I move it? Are there pressure plates around? Can I stand on it? Is there an upper level?

I know you can trivialize any puzzle if you apply that sort of logic but the Zelda franchise has existed for so long and long-term players will have seen so many variations of it. Skyward Sword did a decent enough job thanks to the new approach the controls offered but there was no real situation where I had to stop and think for an extended period of time...and that's okay because a game is a sum of its parts and puzzle solving is just one them for Zelda.

That's kinda the problem for me too. Walk into a room, start looking for a switch. See an easy obvious path, and avoid it because you can guess (correctly) that something will block that way and you need some key/switch/plate pressed somewhere else before you can go forward. I know a lot of people here thought the Sandship was amazing. For me, it was "meh" mixed with a door puzzle I couldn't figure out (there were clues on the floor? I couldn't see how those matched up to the puzzle. The helper character gave zero help. I stopped playing the game to look up the answer on the internet. What fun). At this point Zelda games feel a lot like sleepwalking. Anyway, after I got through Sandship and wasn't blown away, I realized that the puzzles just weren't for me anymore.

 

[bababouille]

The Ancient Cistern in SS is one of my favorite gaming moments ever.

 

[MisterGrey3000]

Since when? The Zelda franchise has a lot of titles and puzzles play a key role in only some of them.

Since the first damn game.
There were a lot of puzzles; they were simple, crude, and obtuse but they were always there. I remember watching that old G4 documentary series "Icons" (a show worth watching btw, despite a few inaccuracies here and there), and I recall Miyamoto saying that the puzzles were crucial to LoZ1's identity. He wanted to make a game that contrasted SMB's design; a game where the player had to think rather than rely on their reflexes/body (fighting monsters, jumping, climbing, etc.)

Edit: I love how a few people in the fan base are trying to revise history to make LoZ's puzzle mechanics seem like they never mattered, it's kind of funny.

 

[cascardian]

I could care less about puzzles in Zelda. They are a chore and a bore.

But I started with Zelda I and II as a kid. They had some basic push-block moments, but generally they were about running around figuring out what I'd call meta-puzzles -- taking clues given by NPCs and trying to figure out how to access new areas or secrets. No one told you where to go, at least not directly. The focus was exploration, not hitting switches. But the Zeldas after that just got puzzle crazy.

See, to me -- and I think Miyamoto's original inspiration of wandering through forests as a child -- the Zelda concept is about exploration and adventure. You're all alone on a quest. It's kind of dangerous and exciting and mysterious. And battling dangerous creatures -- for instance, Zelda II's combat system was great and wish they'd get back to tighter gameplay like that. In II, you felt like even random encounters were kind of a dangerous (but survivable) event.

So I think modern Zeldas kind of lost that spirit. Wind Waker had a bit of that on the high seas, but the controls were so frustrating that I really didn't want to go out of my way to explore. I get that kids who grew up on the SNES and Gamecube Zelda games think Zelda=puzzles, but I think it's a distraction from what made the OG games so fun.

The reveal of the Wii U footage has me tentatively optimistic that more action and exploration elements might be coming back to Zelda.

edit: I see some people above think the terms "adventure" and "exploration" are generic and don't mean anything, or just nostalgia trigger words. It's the mechanics, setting, and level of handholding which determine whether a game makes those attributes a focus or not. Modern Zelda games focus heavily on puzzles, heavily on making things too obvious. There's no "exploration" per se -- your journey is focused on taking you from one dungeon to the next one. Part of this is a bigger focus on narrative, which I have no problem with per se, but narrative creates structure, and exploration requires the opposite of structured gameplay.

I actually like the puzzles, but I also sort of agree with this. Making a good Zelda game is extremely hard. Just look at this and every other Zelda thread in existence. Even people's dustmites have differing opinions on what constitutes a good Zelda game. There's no way all of those desires can ever be completely fulfilled.

 

[P90]

Life is like a Zelda puzzle. So, very important.

 

[Prof. Bathtub]

Even if Zelda is its own genre, most would broadly call it an Adventure Game. I'm honestly struggling to think of a game with adventure elements that contained no puzzles at all. If we're talking point 'n click and text adventures, odd videogame-logic puzzles are synonymous with the genre.

So, I don't really mind at all what the ratio of puzzles is, as long as they're fun. Zelda games want you to beat them, so they won't be too tough, but puzzles are part of the adventure.

 

[eyeball_kid]

I recall Miyamoto saying that the puzzles were crucial to LoZ1's identity. He wanted to make a game that contrasted SMB's design; a game where the player had to think rather than rely on their reflexes/body (fighting monsters, jumping, climbing, etc.)

Edit: I love how a few people in the fan base are trying to revise history to make LoZ's puzzle mechanics seem like they never mattered, it's kind of funny.

I think Aonuma's quote is relevant here. There's "puzzle" as an abstract concept of solving a problem given a set of clues, and then there's "puzzle" in the sense of manipulating an environment in a physical sense, often with physical clues, to progress.

I agree that puzzles in that abstract sense have always been part of Zelda's design ethos, in the same way that Metroid presents its overall worlds as puzzles to navigate. In later titles, the second kind of puzzle became very entrenched in Zelda, to the point where the repetitive, expected nature of the puzzles has Aonuma feeling like he needs to change the formula.

I hope, from his statements and the Wii U footage, that we are going to see more of the abstract kind of puzzles. Using your brain, yes, but less of the push this block, shoot this thing with an arrow kind of rote gameplay, and more about synthesizing information to come up with a solution to situations while exploring. Less of a focus on the puzzles being rat-in-maze dungeons, and more about puzzles being something you naturally solve while wandering around a wide world.

 

[brandonh83]

One of the things I like the most about playing a Zelda game for the first time is finding the dungeons and then getting stuck and trying to figure out how to proceed. So this notion of Zelda not needing puzzles or that they're a "chore" can fuck right off. People say well it could focus more on combat and exploration! But the puzzles do help strengthen the exploration aspect; you're exploring dungeons and trying to figure out how to proceed, if you're overlooking something, etc. There are other great elements about Zelda, but it should never lose that. Ever.

I just wonder what "exploration" means to people. I see people claim that Skyward Sword doesn't have exploration, but I spent like most of the game doing just that. Wandering around new environments, looking for the way to go, what's around the next corner... that's exploration. Just cranking up the world size and adding more woods and shit to walk around in aimlessly without puzzles, I mean they may as well just make fucking Elder Scrolls.

 

[DarkKyo]

That's like 50% of the experience!! Of course it's absolutely vital and quite enjoyable. That feeling of completing a tricky dungeon puzzle is soooo satisfying.

 

[Painguy]

Puzzles invoke a sense of mystery for me. If they find a fun, and proper substitute to bring back that same feeling then I don't care if there are puzzles or not.

 

[Robdraggoo]

That's like 50% of the experience!! Of course it's absolutely vital and quite enjoyable. That feeling of completing a tricky dungeon puzzle is soooo satisfying.

agreed, say what you want about SS combat and fetch quests but the dungeons are a master class in good game design. except no substitute

 

[MisterGrey3000]

I hope, from his statements and the Wii U footage, that we are going to see more of the abstract kind of puzzles. Using your brain, yes, but less of the push this block, shoot this thing with an arrow kind of rote gameplay, and more about synthesizing information to come up with a solution to situations while exploring. Less of a focus on the puzzles being rat-in-maze dungeons, and more about puzzles being something you naturally solve while wandering around a wide world.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the concepts that you're describing sound like the ideas that Kai Dracon came up with in an attempt to decode Aonuma's cryptic quote.

Here's the thing, these aren't new novel concepts in the series (as you've admitted). LoZ is half an adventure game; the player will always be tasked with solving problems/puzzles outside of the dungeons that don't deal with manipulating the environment, but contribute to the main goal (Such as: reading a dead person's journal to find the "resting area" where they hid their important loot, finding a "Water King's" daughter's letter in a far off liquid filled area so you can progress, bringing an ancient being "back from the dead " so that they can recreate a lost map of the present desolate area, etc.)
I mean, these kinds of "investigative puzzles" are still part of the series' life blood...it would be odd (imo) to see them solely focus on these kinds of ideas when I feel that the balance has been perfect so far.

Edit: Btw I like those kinds of puzzles; they're "crucial" from theming, narrative, and game play (variety) perspectives. Upping the presence of these elements would be interesting, but not particularly exciting to me.

I just wonder what "exploration" means to people. I see people claim that Skyward Sword doesn't have exploration, but I spent like most of the game doing just that. Wandering around new environments, looking for the way to go, what's around the next corner... that's exploration. Just cranking up the world size and adding more woods and shit to walk around in aimlessly without puzzles, I mean they may as well just make fucking Elder Scrolls.

As far as I can tell, it feels like some people are mashing "free roaming/open world" with "exploration" and turning them into completely inseparable terms because they seemingly prefer that kind of game play/story structure in their games.

Skyward Sword is a mostly linear experience (I wouldn't argue otherwise), but I always felt like I was exploring and discovering new things; having a "set path" (in the sense that I had to go to the Lanayru dessert and do "something" before I could go back to Faron and open a new area) didn't really make me think the game was any less intriguing or adventurous than any other LoZ game I've played.
The game always captivated me, and I'm appreciating it even more in my second playthrough from a game play and presentation perspective.

 

[Mory Dunz]

If Zelda fans can't agree on how important puzzles are to Zelda (I mean, what you doing for 75% of the games...), I wonder if they can agree on anything. At all. Ever.


...So, Shiek's a guy. I said it. >_>

 

[iconoclast]

The dungeons and puzzles are pretty much the only things the Zelda series has going for it, so I'd say they're pretty important.

 

[Valjean Lafitte]

Edit: I love how a few people in the fan base are trying to revise history

I could say the same of you. I don't know of anyone who played the original Legend of Zelda for the puzzles. They played it for the intense action and exploration. No matter what Miyamoto says, puzzles are not crucial to Zelda I or II any conceivable way.

 

[vctor182]

Define puzzles in a Zelda game, because finding secret rooms or bombing walls are not that. Puzzles are like that statue part in Twilight Princess, it was very annoying.

 

[Makonero]

I could say the same of you. I don't know of anyone who played the original Legend of Zelda for the puzzles. They played it for the intense action and exploration. No matter what Miyamoto says, puzzles are not crucial to Zelda I or II any conceivable way.

There have been a lot of games since the first two. Many Zelda fans are not huge fans of the first two. Just because they are all that defines Zelda for you does not mean that Zelda is encapsulated entirely (or best) in those first two games.

 

[Valjean Lafitte]

Clearly puzzles have been a selling point of the Zelda series from early on. Not thrilling action, mystery, and high adventure. Clearly.

 

[binhoker]

When I think back on what I have enjoyed most about the Zelda games none of the moments that come to me are solving puzzles.
( unless dashing into the hollow tree in lttp counts ). It's all music, atmosphere and world building that I love about those games.

 

[brandonh83]

As far as I can tell, it feels like some people are mashing "free roaming/open world" with "exploration" and turning them into completely inseparable terms because they seemingly prefer that kind of game play/story structure in their games.

I just don't think having a big world to walk around and "explore" is that much fun. I like big pretty environments but not at all at the expense of gameplay and directive. I think the reason I prefer Zelda so much to these other adventure games with massive open worlds is because there's still plenty to see and do and the variety is really good, whereas in Elder Scrolls or Infamous I feel like I'm always looking at the same shit and doing the same shit.

In Skyward Sword people complained about the linearity, but after a while once all the areas had been visited you could go explore at your own free will, and the game kept opening up and introducing new areas. You were usually along with a directive, but I found that you could still, you know, explore it at your own leisure. So I never really got that complaint. In the other Zelda games, save for maybe the original you couldn't just go to absolutely every single location in the game right away; you would generally need an item or whatever so I didn't really see how it was too much different.

 

[Valjean Lafitte]

When I think back on what I have enjoyed most about the Zelda games none of the moments that come to me are solving puzzles.
( unless dashing into the hollow tree in lttp counts ). It's all music, atmosphere and world building that I love about those games.

This. I always thought that the appeal of Legend of Zelda were the worlds, the characters, the music, the action...puzzles, while enjoyable, don't define Zelda for me, and I firmly believe did not come to define Zelda until sometime around the time of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Sad to see so many gaffers have drunk Aonuma's Puzzelda kool-aid.

 

[maxcriden]

Different people. I don't like the overworld in TP, I love the overworld in SS and think SS is the best Zelda game ever created due to its superb puzzle design and cleverly planned through overworld where no stone is just a stone. I've never complained about Skyward Sword's puzzle focus.

I'm currently playing and loving Skyward Sword and this is one of my favorite aspects of the game so far, the way you interact with and transform the overworld as though it's one meta dungeon.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Least important aspect for me. I just want to go on a adventure use items and beat baddies.