It's not really that large. And it's not very open either. I mean, yeah, it's "open" in that everything is connected (except for Anor Londo), but it consists almost entirely of narrow, linear paths that you can't leave. You can't just go off and explore in whichever direction, which is what I think people usually mean by "open".
(Don't get me wrong, I love DkS's world and think it's brilliantly designed. But it's not the same thing as the openness I think many want to see in this game.)
I suppose. It's definitely more "open" than any Zelda game so far. I'd consider a giant, interconnected world with NO LOADING TIMES (besides Anor Londo) an open world (god damn if the new Zelda has loading times that would be disappointing). It may consist of narrow, linear paths (though this definitely isn't always the case), but it felt like more of a living, breathing, explorable world than anything I've played since Wind Waker, or maybe Majora's Mask.
The exploration aspect is the main thing that gets me. There are actually parts in Dark Souls where you hack away at a random wall, and BOOM, you just opened a HUGE, secret area to explore. It still blows me away that they actually created some of those parts of the world hidden in such obscure places on the map. That's the kind of thing I want from a new Zelda.
Well we've already seen in this thread that there's a big difference between people who enjoy the modern Zelda formula and don't like the formula of the earlier games. And Dark Souls has much more in common with the earlier games than the newer ones, so it makes sense that they'd oppose it.
I mean, think about what you said in the bolded. The reason Dark Souls has a more interesting overworld than most Zeldas is because it's all overworld. There are no dungeons in Dark Souls in the traditional sense. You seamlessly go from one part of the overworld to the next (and yes, certain parts of the overworld are in buildings or underground), and the only thing you do is fight. So of course they have to make those areas dense and interesting because it's all one thing and that's all there is to it. In fact, it probably shouldn't even be referred to as an overworld, since the whole point of the word is to separate and distinguish between two distinct parts of the game. Dark Souls just has a world, period.
Zelda, ever since the beginning, has had a clear divide between what is a dungeon and what isn't, so it makes sense that the overworld isn't as involved as Dark Souls.
It would be fun if the new Zelda had more seamless dungeons, though. Like ones that you can enter from more than one point, or ones that feel more integrated into the overworld.
But hey, I like pretty much every Zelda and Dark Souls. Any mixture of the two that meshes well is ok with me.
Of course, the Zelda dungeons are not in Dark Souls. But you do have areas like Sen's Fortress, which are like lite dungeons.
A new Zelda that takes inspiration from Dark Souls when it comes to overworld design, but tweaks that formula so the masterful, EAD3-produced dungeons still have a place in the game, might just be my dream game at this point.
And that's key. "Takes inspiration" from the Dark Souls overworld design. I think it would be crazy to expect, or want, 1:1 similarities from the Dark Souls overworld. But some things; the exploration aspects I mentioned above, the secrets, the lack of loading time, the fact that there's always something to do (you aren't just riding Epona forward in Hyrule Field, or flying the bird towards a drop zone)... these are all elements from Dark Souls design that would greatly benefit Zelda. I played Dark Souls for the first time just after I finished Skyward Sword in 2011. It was a mind blowing experience because I felt like it did SO MANY THINGS (
not everything) that I wanted from a new, modern Zelda game.
If you look at the structure of the world, it's a hub and spoke design with a relatively empty field in the center with a central city where all quest lines originate from. Each spoke has extremely linear objectives in order to gain access to the dungeon, some more tedious than anything SS threw at you. I too prefer Clock Town to Skyloft, however I liked the fact that they returned to that kind of side quest hub, which was notably missing from TP and TWW to me. I personally felt that it had the good rhythm of "Explore - Dungeons - Sidequests" that MM had. TWW and TP didn't have as good of a rhythm in my opinion.
But I get why people didn't like SS. It's that you're constantly getting locked into specific activities like the silent world, link losing his sword, carrying the water, etc. It's just that I found these activities enjoyable where others didn't. Your mileage may vary. I completely understand in this case. It's the "oh, I hated how it was such a condense little world with separate zones" complaint that I can't understand when both OOT and MM stick precisely to that design. I don't think that's the case you were making, for the record.
Hmm, I can see that. There are definitely similarities.
I guess my response would be... Majora's Mask did literally everything better than Skyward Sword. The dowsing and Silent Realm stuff hurt Skyward Sword for me, too. And you had to do that before every dungeon, correct?