[regawdless]

Zelda doesn't need more hype. You will all eat it up.

trepang2 needs more hype!

 

[Stouffers]

Im 32

With that mug?

 

[lock2k]

I never cared about Zelda but I feel a lack of hype. I never even knew this game was coming out and suddenly someone sent me a link saying that the rom had leaked. Weird af.

When do I get a cute gf?

Never.

 

[Grinchy]

I have to admit I kinda want it. Maybe one day when it goes on sale for 3 whole dollars off MSRP I'll grab it.

 

[CAPTAIN RAINCOAT]

i have bought and sold about 6 switches over the years as i play the game that i really want and then it sits in the cupboard
dont make me do it again.....

 

[Eneru]

i have bought and sold about 6 switches over the years as i play the game that i really want and then it sits in the cupboard
dont make me do it again.....

You just have to download tetris 99 bro and the switch will never collect dust again.


I'm using my switch as an indie machine. For everything else I have a pc (that is collecting dust) until D4 drops in a month

 

[lock2k]

i have bought and sold about 6 switches over the years as i play the game that i really want and then it sits in the cupboard
dont make me do it again.....

Just download Yuzu god damn. lol

 

[Adam Warlock]

Its the same map?!!



Wtffff

I did not know that, there goes my excitement.

 

[Franky Family]

Looking back, I definitively think the hype was there. But the hype train for BOTW was just unparalleled in my opinion because the series was coming off of Twilight Princess which was alright and Skyward Sword which was disappointing, so fans were hoping for something good. And then we were shown something that looked to be like a home run that went into the clouds. Nobody expected to see such a monstrous change

And with TOTK, I think fans had a very good sense of what they could hope to expect. So they weren't jumping up and down every moment leading up to the game like many probably were for BOTW, being something completely new and different. As a fan, most of us knew it was very likely to be BOTW 2.0 and it basically was. I thought that there might have been a chance for something to make this the best Zelda game I had ever played, but that was wishful thinking. As much as I respect Aonuma and Fujibayashi, it might not be them who deliver such a game. They make incredible Zelda games, but if anyone is going to give us the GOAT Zelda game I think it will have to be a new face with an idea as bold as what Majora's Mask brought to the world of gaming. Something complex that brings layers to the world and NPCs again; something that can enhance all categories of the game

 

[Pagusas]

For me, personally, Botw was amazing and almost everything I wanted out of a modern forward thinking Zelda. Unfortunately Totk made the biggest sin a game can make for me… it bored me. After so many hours in Botw, totk just didn't do enough to make me want to invest more, so I gave it up after 40 hours. That has killed my personal hype for the next Zelda for the moment. But I know whenever the next is announced, especially if it's on a new map, I'll be excited.

 

[Hinedorf]

I put 200 hours into TOTK and then one day just quit and never played it again whereas I completed BOTW and felt satisfied.

The biggest complaint that ruined TOTK for me personally was the memory tears being found in incorrect order and why I ultimately just quit. I wanted to flesh out the story first with all those tears but having them come in no correct order just makes it completely unsatisfying and stupid.

TOTK took all the best pieces of BOTW and just decided to do too much. If I hadn't been able to exploit the dupe item early on the amount of required work on ingredients would've forced me to quit as well.

It truly makes me wonder with TOTK if they were actually concerned with a coherent game/story or if they just wanted to really make it about people being creative and building dumb unnecessary shit to the whole of the game.

TOTK absolutely burnt me out on Zelda or at least that model of it.

 

[macapala]

The whole time I was playing TOTK I had the "been there, done that" feeling. It didn't distinguish itself enough from BOTW. I was really disappointed when I found out they were doing the shrines again.

 

[BlackDow]

The teaser for BoTW was S tier.
ToTK wasn't any where near as good.

Not saying ToTK wasn't as good, no. It is an amazing game but as the two posters say above me There was a been there done that.plus ToTK did burn me out. I quit as well. But with BoTW I pushed on I think ToTK is what they wanted with BoTW. I also miss the terror that f facing the guardians. Those fuckers scared me.

I just think Nintendo did it right with BoTW and kinda dropped the ball promoting ToTK.

Plus more isn't always more. I think they threw more at ToTK game you more to do. But it just didn't hook me as much as BoTW. If they kept the guardians in game somehow that would have made it more interesting to my mind not saying ToTK wasn't good or sucks. Not at all. Just it was just to much. I rescued a point where I got bored of traversing the depths. I got bored of having to go all over. BoTW and echoes of wisdom done it right you explore you have areas you can go to and hidden places you need to reach as the objective. Not. All that then more. Which got like a chore in ToTK. BoTW was great in the exploration aspect. ToTK stretched it too far. That and the build mechanic I didn't gel with it too much after a while I got bored with it. Which is a shame as the game has so much going for it maybe too much. I hope they refine it in new Zelda games

 

[Stopped_Cold_29]

They need to move on from the Breath of the Wild formula. It was good for 2 games, but it really stifles their ability to craft a compelling narrative. What I would really like is for them to find a balance between the open feel of the last two games and the more narrative driven quest of the previous games. Wind Waker, forgiving some of its other flaws, probably did the best job of giving an open world feeling while also steering the player towards the story.

 

[Hinedorf]

Just to clarify for me what exactly is the biggest gripe with BOTW/TOTK. It's the duality of the shrine games within the game itself. Having played 2 full iterations of Nintendo doing this I have no interest in a threepeat and by that I specifically mean having to discover shrines, run through shrines all to upgrade Link to further progress in the actual game.

We need a return to an open world in any format similar to ANY other Zelda game in which Link gains hearts/master sword within the game itself and is not comprised of separate mini games.

When I think of playing either BOTW and TOTK my hype immediately becomes tempered in knowing to really progress I am forced to do this shrine bullshit. My biggest gripe with Mario Odyssey was it became nothing more than a 'collection' game and TOTK followed a similar format.

 

[Neil Young]

BOTW was incredibly overrated. It did what the Assassin Creed games did but worse. Frustrating climbing, few interesting locations, no skill progression etc. But BOTW gets a pass because muh Nintendo. It was a bland, soulless game that created a beautifully empty world to run around in. Icons littering the map and towers equal good for Zelda, bad for Ass Creed. Get the fuck outta here.

TOTK was the same exact game with MORE messy menu management and a tinker toys crafting system glued onto it that made ZERO sense to the world it inhabited. 'I glued a boulder to a sword!!". What are we doing here?! It's like two separate teams never spoke to each other when making the game. "We made Banjo Nuts and Bolts!". "Great, we can shove that shit into the next Zelda game and call it a sequel.". "Won't the game run like shit?". "These are Nintendo fans, they'll be fine with 20fps.".

So no, I have no hype or faith in any goofy shit they will come up with for the next game.

 

[Polden]

I'm just done with anything open-world.

 

[Mickmrly]

I think that the next Zelda should severely cut the amount of shrines to about 40 or less, and have hearts be rewarded based on either NPC quests/finding hidden locations/beating special enemies.

Some shrines are fun but too many of them makes things grindy, just like finding the koroks.

I think when an open world game makes 100%ing insanely tedious, then the collecting should just be cut back until completing the game is more manageable.

 

[Saruhashi]

I think that the next Zelda should severely cut the amount of shrines to about 40 or less, and have hearts be rewarded based on either NPC quests/finding hidden locations/beating special enemies.

Some shrines are fun but too many of them makes things grindy, just like finding the koroks.

I think when an open world game makes 100%ing insanely tedious, then the collecting should just be cut back until completing the game is more manageable.

I'd much rather have a 25 hour Zelda game that I might play 2 or 3 times over the years than a 100 hour game that I'll play one time.

Plus I think with BotW and TotK you tend to start the game exploring and trying everything and spending 10 hours on the starting area.

Eventually it just gets tiresome and for myself I just end up making a run for the end of the game and ignoring all the side shit. Same in RDR2, same in Elden Ring, Horizon, AC Origins and so on. Even GoW Ragnarok where it isn't fully open world I eventually just think "fuck it" and go for the end.

Problem in BotW and TotK is that you don't even have character builds or stuff like that to maybe bring you back someday. I say that but the idea of going back to start Elden Ring again is not appealing either.

I totally get the idea of instead of having dungeons why not break all the puzzle rooms etc from dungeons apart and instead of having 8 dungeons with 20 rooms you have 160 shrines about the place. It allows for shorter gaming sessions to feel "productive" but it also gets annoying just looking for shrines.

I think BotW is an interesting game and the choices they made all have pros and cons.

Regardless of all the shit talking it's clear that many other developers took notice and have been influenced by BotW. So there's something there for sure.

TotK was always going to have a hard time following that up and looking back at launch there are some low level takes like "it's the same map" or "it's the same game" or anything about fanboys or biased reviewers that can just be disregarded.

TotK feels like a game where they just went to far and it just gets boring unless you are super into building all these contraptions and shit. Plus you can kind of get through the game without really bothering TOO much with that. I don't mind building shit to solve puzzles but I hate feeling stuck between building shit that can trivialise or break the game and how the game is intended to be played.

In many ways TotK is a better game than BotW. However, it's a 100+ hour follow up that doesn't change enough to stand out from BotW and as a result it gets boring more quickly.

No woke shit.
The gameplay IS actually good.
Sold 21 million copies.
Critic scores and user scores high and in alignment.

Addition of sky islands and the depths was awesome.

The combat in these new Zeldas is fantastic with all the interactions that are possible. Very fluid and open and lots of scope to be creative or ridiculous.

Yet, I just feel like a tighter and more curated experience would have been far better.

Also, it rains too fucking often in these games. They need to calm down when it comes to that. Let it rain once in a while instead of 50% of the time. Maybe even more than 50%. Feels like those moments where it's clear and you can enjoy the color and the views and climb shit easily are so rare.

 

[regawdless]

Zelda Souls like when.

 

[LtGoose]

Zelda City Builder please

 

[Saruhashi]

Zelda Souls like when.

Surprised they haven't already gone down this route by now.
I wonder how Nintendo would manage that without just going for "Baby's First Souls Like".

 

[Epic Nemesis]

Woa this is a crazy post mortem on the last two games. I loved both games, and played to a point where I finally said "okay I'm ready to finish this thing" and then went and beat the final boss and walked away completely satisfied with the experience.

I agree that they botched the tears sequences by putting them out of order, I just skipped all of them until I could watch them from start to finish. That was a weird design choice when they could have just had each tear give you the next in the sequence.

I also agree that the shrines are the limiting factor on replaying the games. They just got monotonous. After I filled up my stamina bar and got enough hearts to be functional I just skipped doing them and only used them for fast travel.


I think there is still a lot of room to explore in this style of gameplay, but it needs an overhaul where it's less about uncovering a map and doing shrines and more about exploring and quest lines. Echoes of wisdom did a good job of this, allowing space for exploring the world while also having proper dungeons and story. Bring that philosophy to the 3d versions and you've got a winner on your hands.

 

[Franky Family]

This is the kind of topic that makes me glad I'm here and not arguing with some clueless babies on Reddit or some other place. Just the other day, I got into this debate about how Breath of the Wild was replete with filler, just filled with it. And believe it or not, an entire group of Reddit users (this conversation took place on Discord by the way) were strongly insisting that BOTW had absolutely zero filler. Not even the Korok Seeds were filler to them, they strongly insisted

Anyway, yeah, the BOTW and TOTK open world filler Zelda needs to die. To be honest, my hype levels were only at about 60% for TOTK because I knew that the game would be a lateral move or maybe a step or two up like it turned out to be. Knew it wouldn't be a major leap forward creatively like Majora's Mask had been from its predecessor, Ocarina of Time. TOTK was BOTW with more to do and some improvements. The next Zelda for Nintendo Switch 2 has the potential to draw fans back in as long as they go as far away from BOTW/TOTK territory as possible. We need a new land to explore once again. Something outside of Hyrule for a change. The last time that happened, was in the year 2000

 

[Mickmrly]

Zelda City Builder please

Only if the construction builders from BOTW are main characters/advisors:

 

[Saruhashi]

This is the kind of topic that makes me glad I'm here and not arguing with some clueless babies on Reddit or some other place. Just the other day, I got into this debate about how Breath of the Wild was replete with filler, just filled with it. And believe it or not, an entire group of Reddit users (this conversation took place on Discord by the way) were strongly insisting that BOTW had absolutely zero filler. Not even the Korok Seeds were filler to them, they strongly insisted

Anyway, yeah, the BOTW and TOTK open world filler Zelda needs to die. To be honest, my hype levels were only at about 60% for TOTK because I knew that the game would be a lateral move or maybe a step or two up like it turned out to be. Knew it wouldn't be a major leap forward creatively like Majora's Mask had been from its predecessor, Ocarina of Time. TOTK was BOTW with more to do and some improvements. The next Zelda for Nintendo Switch 2 has the potential to draw fans back in as long as they go as far away from BOTW/TOTK territory as possible. We need a new land to explore once again. Something outside of Hyrule for a change. The last time that happened, was in the year 2000

I don't think the Korok seeds are filler. The basic idea is fine. Find these little guys and expand your inventory.
The problem is that there are WAAAAY too many of them.

Playing devil's advocate, I think a good counter argument here is that maybe you aren't supposed to get EVERY Korok seed. Maybe you don't need to explore every inch of the map.

I think you could argue in BotW, and even more in TotK, that the player makes their own fun.
So maybe nothing is filler since everything is kind of optional?

Maybe there is such a thing as too much player choice? To the point where the player is not really seeing that they can just ignore stuff that they don't want to do.

I felt this way about a lot of open world games. They can be better if you just ignore the open world and just do the bare minimum.

 

[macapala]

I don't think the Korok seeds are filler. The basic idea is fine. Find these little guys and expand your inventory.
The problem is that there are WAAAAY too many of them.

Playing devil's advocate, I think a good counter argument here is that maybe you aren't supposed to get EVERY Korok seed. Maybe you don't need to explore every inch of the map.

I think you could argue in BotW, and even more in TotK, that the player makes their own fun.
So maybe nothing is filler since everything is kind of optional?

Maybe there is such a thing as too much player choice? To the point where the player is not really seeing that they can just ignore stuff that they don't want to do.

I felt this way about a lot of open world games. They can be better if you just ignore the open world and just do the bare minimum.

You literally get a piece of Korok shit as a reward if you collect all the seeds. The developers are making fun of anyone who wasted their time finding them.

Players were just meant to stumble across them during their adventure. That's why there are so many of them. You could argue the developers didn't even want players to look for them.

 

[Franky Family]

I don't think the Korok seeds are filler. The basic idea is fine. Find these little guys and expand your inventory.
The problem is that there are WAAAAY too many of them.

There is definitely way too many of them. I also asked the guy what exactly is filler and to define the term. It was a sincere request too, because I wanted to understand fully his take on what filler is and how BOTW has tons of it. The dude was upset though, and refused to give any answer and kept going in circles. Filler to me in my own words for video games is kind of how I see it for anime episodes. It's half-hearted content that's just there to fill in for the time being; something to fill a void or gap. Like instead of having a cutscene and some memorable event taking place in Hyrule Field it's like Nintendo said how about you just find these useless Koroks instead (if you've fully expanded everything) and collect their seeds. That's definitely filler. My take is that like 670 or so of the 1,000 Korok seeds or however many there are, are there simply just to find... They don't count for anything, other than to collect and find and provide something in an area that could do without the useless Korok task. Well over 500+ of them... And they're the same half dozen or so things over and over and over again. Deliver to a friend, follow the flowers, pop the balloons, dive and catch, Dandelion floating, hidden in a little Korok nut, put the boulder in the cup, climb to the top, etc. How is that not filler? They are utterly useless outside of being an OCD completionist time sink and to give one more task to complete here and there within the land of Hyrule to make it a tad bit more interactive

Playing devil's advocate, I think a good counter argument here is that maybe you aren't supposed to get EVERY Korok seed. Maybe you don't need to explore every inch of the map.

If we aren't meant to find them, then why put them in the game nearly by the thousand? Optional content is fine, but Koroks are just sickening for me to see now at this point. Honestly, get them the fuck out of my face I've seen these retarded leafs constantly for two entire massive open world games now at every turn of the overworld and I'm sick of hearing that annoying high-pitched frolic noise they do. For nearly eight years now these leafs have been the most persistent characters in the 3D Zelda games and all they do is hide, laugh, and give you a damn seed every time you see them. They were never even that great of characters in The Wind Waker where they were first introduced. Only Makar had big nuts

I think you could argue in BotW, and even more in TotK, that the player makes their own fun.
So maybe nothing is filler since everything is kind of optional?

It's right to say that the player's imagination comes into play and impacts the fun factor of the games with BOTW and TOTK. But if it's in the game, players are going to be drawn towards these alluring tasks. Korok seeds have a handful of purposes but the problem is that they're lame. It's like getting a burger that you expected to be 100% beef but then you find out the patty itself consists of 30% bread crumbs. Nobody buys a video game looking forward to completing 1,000 mundane hide and seek puzzles, but those 1,000 puzzles are there and they're going to attract you so your mind tells you might as well go along with it, same way as when you collect a rupee when your wallet is full, and you end up going for all Koroks. At some point you're just like fuck man, why are these things still here? You get sick of em after a while and wish they weren't there lol

Maybe there is such a thing as too much player choice? To the point where the player is not really seeing that they can just ignore stuff that they don't want to do.

There's always a need for balance in video games. Nobody wants to be locked into a game for years and years unless they're a fanatic and completely obsessed with the game(s) in the series. But even then, it's usually only the pure RPGs out there that can hold a player's attention for that amount of time

I felt this way about a lot of open world games. They can be better if you just ignore the open world and just do the bare minimum.

I honestly dread modern open world games after only enduring a few of them. Even with Zelda, as fun as BOTW and TOTK have been, seeing another overworld this huge again is going to bring concern more than it is hype for me if it is Hyrule yet again. Give us a new continent or Kingdom or even realm and concept to explore if it's to be open world again on that massive scale. I love Hyrule, but a break is needed at this point. I'd argue it's long overdue. Koholint, Termina, Labrynna, and Holodrum are all great

 

[Goatmilk]

I'm an absolute crazy Zelda sperg. My collection is absolutely insane, and I put this down after 10 or so hours.

Just a complete fumble from Nintendo. They went in 100% the wrong direction, opting to appease autistic faggots instead of gamers.

Aonuma is a hack and deserves to be fired from Nintendo.

 

[DonDonDonPata]

I'm an absolute crazy Zelda sperg. My collection is absolutely insane, and I put this down after 10 or so hours.

Just a complete fumble from Nintendo. They went in 100% the wrong direction, opting to appease autistic faggots instead of gamers.

Aonuma is a hack and deserves to be fired from Nintendo.

I made it about 30 hours and then quit after the quest to gather all pieces of the robot suit. They went 100% Aonuma PuzZelda and ruined what BotW had started.

If BotW was inspired by Xenoblade, by Minecraft, by Skyrim, then Tears was inspired by Fortnite. It was an Aonuma Physics Puzzle Simulator masquerading as a Zelda game.

 

[Goatmilk]

I made it about 30 hours and then quit after the quest to gather all pieces of the robot suit. They went 100% Aonuma PuzZelda and ruined what BotW had started.

If BotW was inspired by Xenoblade, by Minecraft, by Skyrim, then Tears was inspired by Fortnite. It was an Aonuma Physics Puzzle Simulator masquerading as a Zelda game.

Yep. Good game design traded off for creative freedom and horrible UI to manage the freedom.

Fuck Aonuma. Get EAD Tokyo or the Pikmin team on Zelda.

 

[chainsaw]

I played Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link on the original NES (many times). Obviously Link had a much different approach, but I loved them both. By the time the SNES came out with the Link to the Past, I'd moved on to PC RPGs, so I never played it much. Anyway, the next Zelda game I played was BotW, which I played once and thought was cool enough - except for the breakable weapons (annoying), lack of actual dungeons (?!?) and lack of the fun original soundtrack (come on!). I tried TotK and thought it sucked - so fucking tedious with the damn gluing shit together, oops it's crooked, now unstick it and reglue it and and all that. Hated it. After the tutorial island previewed this as an important mechanic/activity, I turned it off and never played it again. That shit's not Zelda to me. If they do another Zelda, I'd like to a return to basics - explore and fight with an occasional puzzle. For the love of god, no more tedious building.

 

[Franky Family]

Not to mention how tacky the glue looked too. I hate seeing tacky art design in video games. I agree with anyone who thinks that we ought to move on from Aonuma and especially Fujibayashi as much as it is hard for me to say that. I used to have strong belief in their work, and I still think that they are incredible. But there needs to be somebody else at the helm after all that I've seen

As much as I like BOTW and TOTK, they're the only two Zelda games I never want to come back to and replay for a playthrough. Their replay value is just not there for me and I think that is for many reasons but how can we have a true classic on our hands if even the most hardcore Zelda enthusiasts are not willing to revisit one of the greatest games? And BOTW and TOTK are upper tier Zelda games, yet the sheer volume numbs you at some point and you become turned away from something that is and was excellent for a long while? BOTW and TOTK are outstanding in many ways but also mediocre in a ton of ways. If Nintendo does not change its course far from BOTW/TOTK then I think they will be making a huge mistake and the next game will probably miss its opportunity to become a classic

The problem with both BOTW and TOTK is that the NPCs are mostly very plain and simple and that the game lacks a permeating tone and serious dosage of atmosphere like 90% of the game

 

[chainsaw]

Yeah, a lot of the new TotK gameplay elements felt better suited for a spin-off than as part of the core for a Zelda game. I wasn't super crazy about the telekinesis (etc) in BotW - and then TotK took those concepts and made them even worse for me (lol!). I'd rather they had spent time deepening combat attack/movement options to enhance combat. You don't need to go full-on FromSoft with them, but just seemed that their "novel ideas" doubled-down on something I had already only tolerated (rather than actually liked).

I hear you on NPCs, but given my background via the two NES games, I didn't really expect much there, so I wasn't let down.

We'll see what's next soon enough. I suspect they start with a remaster of BotW and then do something fresh in a couple of years. Multiplayer coop would be really awesome. After how much TotK flopped for me personally, though, it's not anything I plan to get worked up over, that's for sure.

 

[Franky Family]

Multiplayer coop would be really awesome.

At one point, I was thinking that TOTK was going to be able to be played co-op since the overworld was as expansive as it is. For that reason, and also because I misinterpreted the Yiga Clan insignia for a couple of months lol. I had a theory that ended up being incorrect but for a while there, I honestly thought Nintendo was going to make this massive overworld some kind of unprecedented quest where players could team up and traverse Hyrule in similar idea to that of the FS and FSA chapters in TLoZ series

 

[hans gruber]

I haven't played TOTK yet but while I enjoyed BOTW for what it was, I hope they don't feel locked out of making anymore linear games. A 15-25 hour Zelda focused on traditional dungeons would be perfect for me.

 

[chainsaw]

Seems like a no brainer, right? At my house, I would have bought another Switch to coop Zelda with my son. Maybe the tech just wasn't there. Fingers crossed for "someday."

 

[DonDonDonPata]

At one point, I was thinking that TOTK was going to be able to be played co-op since the overworld was as expansive as it is. For that reason, and also because I misinterpreted the Yiga Clan insignia for a couple of months lol. I had a theory that ended up being incorrect but for a while there, I honestly thought Nintendo was going to make this massive overworld some kind of unprecedented quest where players could team up and traverse Hyrule in similar idea to that of the FS and FSA chapters in TLoZ series

Yeah when we had that "BotW sequel speculation" thread I had hoped they would add co-op, or land deformation, or both, and Nintendo added neither.

 

[Franky Family]

Yeah when we had that "BotW sequel speculation" thread I had hoped they would add co-op, or land deformation, or both, and Nintendo added neither.

Same man, and I even had mistaken a major ally for a villain. I used to think about Zelda Wii U (it eventually became known as BOTW) so much that I had like a dream of what is essentially now something similar to one of the caves in TOTK one time. I still remember that dream too, down to the tilled farm land and the area it started near. Was more of a nightmare, but it was about Link exploring an underground spot in Hyrule

That's what's missing in current Zelda games and has been for some time. Twilight Princess actually tried to have that very strange, unusual, enigmatic nightmare fuel aura going for it but failed to replicate imo what the N64 Zelda games had going for it. Skyward Sword, BOTW and TOTK all don't even try to have any of that energy or vibe coming from hardly any of their NPCs. In those games, it's all very straight forward. You have almost entirely, very plain denizens of Skyloft and Hyrule. Idk why, but imo both Fujibayashi and Aonuma are completely dropping the ball on their character designs and their characters overall as well as their power as characters to leave a lasting impression or imprint on the games. I draw such a huge blank when trying to figure out when I ask myself, who in SS/BOTW/TOTK truly stood out and was a Tingle like character that immortalized himself or herself as a distinguishable franchise character? There is not a single character outside of maybe Zant, who is from TP in 2006, that makes me wonder or has much of any depth... I guess I just really do not like nearly anything about how either of the two artists are handling their NPCs. I truly believe that the NPCs have been lackluster in the Zelda series since arguably Koizumi left the franchise to work on Mario games. The Wind Waker had some good NPCs to be fair, but they still kind of bored me even then. Twilight Princess onward has produced some of the most bland characters in the series and I think that's a shame because NPCs are usually a huge factor in any game's full worth looking towards its entertainment value

I should maybe take a critical look at the NPCs in the series from ALTTP onward to present because of I'm being honest here, I think you may be right is assuming Aonuma is the problem here and might be holding the series back in that regard. Fujibayashi, even when he was making games on handhelds for the series, had some nice characters going for him. Ever since he paired with Aonuma everything has been kind of flat, missing, or generic. It's so weird to me that we went from Majoras's Mask a classic and I would argue, a top five video game of all time, with some of the best NPCs in gaming period, to some of the worst NPCs in the franchise immediately when Aonuma takes the helm...