Are you using revision 7719? That's the best for SS. 3.0 is ass and renders it improperly.

also your processor speed is pretty bad for dolphin. you can probably do better with 2xAA, 2x internal res, @ 720p maybe.

So when a series runs its ideas into the ground and keeps rehashing over and over it's okay because change has no logic

yeah, sure. right.

why not change the setting? why does it have to be generic fantasy settings with elves every time? time must progress in the zelda-verse. tell a story from a different time period, a different character's perspective, or i don't know, just fucking make something new

how many mainline zelda games have there been now? zelda, zelda 2, zelda lttp, zelda 64, zelda major's mask, zelda wind waker, zelda twilight princess, zelda skyward sword. if nintendo out and out refuses to make new ips with new characters and settings, the only solution is to just fucking shake things up with the series that they DO have. especially when they've been running for so long that creatively they're fairly bankrupt.

I love how we've basically migrated any Skyward Sword on Wii discussion to how to get the game to work properly on an emulator. XD

Well, that's what the Zelda series is, though. It's Nintendo's whimsical fantasy adventure series. It's about swords and magic and heroes and princesses. You take that away and it becomes Zelda in name only. Progress Zelda to a Victorian steampunk setting or something vaguely WWI-ish or even futuristic cyberpunk setting and you lose the setting that frames the idea of a boy with a sword and shield fighting monsters to save the princess.

They aren't really creatively bankrupt though. Skyward Sword has great puzzles and dungeon design; its only real problems are the constant hand-holding (Fi) and the interface issues (treasures, shops, etc.). Even combat becomes a puzzle game about angles, and that's pretty cool.

Totally agreed with DS on this one. We don't consider Mario Tennis, Party, Golf, etc as main Mario games. We consider them Tennis, Party, Golf, Kart etc games with a Mario theme. You give Link a gun and set it in the future, it's not Zelda anymore. It'd be a branch of Zelda.

Now that I think about it, that's kind of what happened to Mario in the Galaxy Series. Mario in Space with weird gravity effects. But they do still have the Mario formula in it: platforming, getting stars, level-by-level progression, then at the end, Koopa. If you just change where a Zelda game is set, or the theme, people still complain that "you still get the same items and go to dungeons with bosses with a main boss at the end of the game", aka the Zelda formula.

I think Nintendo could branch out in the setting a bit. One of the best things about Skyward Sword for me was the feeling that I didn't know what was coming next as far as setting. They've already given us the alternate world of Termina; a world with a decidedly darker and weirder feel over Hyrule. It also turned many conventions and characters on their head. Capcom gave us Holodrum and Labrynna. I'd love to see another Zelda take place in not-Hyrule. They could give us a new artifact that has nothing to do with Time or The Triforce. Maybe a female antagonist for a change. Vaati in a console game would be cool. Zant and Veran were good antagonists but were both kind of bogged down by Ganondorf. There's plenty they could do to liven up the series. Changing up the formula to where it's a completely different game doesn't seem like the answer. Some reviewers( the CNN reviewer I linked earlier being a prime example) aren't even fit to criticize the game and just seem to be jumping on the Nintendo hate bandwagon). I read somewhere that it may be a good idea for some people to give Zelda a rest, rather than say Zelda needs to take a break from Zelda.

Having said that, I think a lot of the innovations Skyward Sword introduced are being met with a lot of undeserved flack. Motion controls being chief among them. There's a lot of room for misunderstanding. I know people that have completely condemned using Link's shield yet they didn't understand that you can stagger the enemy with a well-timed motion. Oh well. Hopelly people will realize the err of their misjudgements and skyward sword's motion control will be next year's wind waker graphics.

It's stupid because no one expects the same thing of games like Mario, which have been the same game for 20 years. If you don't like the Zelda formula, don't play Zelda. If you don't want to play a game that has Link having shenanigans related to magic and swords and gadgets, don't play Zelda. Sometimes I don't pick up the newest Mario game because I'm sick of platforming and I'm bored with fire flowers and super mushrooms. I probably won't be getting Super Mario Land 3D because it doesn't look fresh and exciting enough to me. That doesn't mean that Nintendo should completely reimagine the Mario universe, maybe even take Luigi and Peach and Bowser out of the mix. That wouldn't make any sense. Some people like the familiarity, they don't mind that the general structure of the game has stayed constant over the years. Mario sells, Zelda sells, why change it if people apparently like it?

Same thing for Mario Kart. I owned Mario Kart 64 and I loved it. Then I rented Double Dash and DS and I didn't like them at all. So I stopped buying Mario Kart games. Everyone wins.

I'm sick of how the 3D Zeldas always attempt to copy OoT in some shape or form every game, but overall I usually enjoy the experience anyway even if there are some things that are wrong with the game. I would love it if Zelda games branched out a bit and followed in the footsteps of games like LA and MM, but getting rid of the characters and completely reformatting the general dungeons and bosses and item collecting structure wouldn't make sense. That'd be like taking kart racing out of Mario Kart, and platforming out of Mario. Every installment of the Zelda series has at its core been about dungeon crawling.

im ok with this.

But go look at the sales of the Zelda game that did nothing other than change the game's graphical style and tell me that would work out well for Nintendo. I mean it wasn't that bad, but it was present throughout most of the GCN's lifespan and it only sold 4.5 million.

so much editing

To be fair, I do think that there is potential for the Zelda series to branch out a bit. After all, there are full on Mario RPGs! So I think that there's room for a Zelda RPG, or strategy game, or what have you. Spin-offs.

As for the main games, I think it's the gameplay that makes zelda what it is. Namely: Sword combat, puzzle solving, item acquisition and exploration. Every zelda game has that to some extent, and that is the core of the gameplay, just as Shoot, take cover and lob grenades are the core gameplay for almost every shooter out there. To change these core mechanics would be to change the very essence of the game. If Call of Duty 16 was an run'n gun game like Contra, would it be Call of Duty? In name only: the game is so radically different that without the title it would be unrecognizable as being from the same series.
Zelda 2 suffers from this, but to a lesser extent. Although it is a dramatic alteration from the standard Zelda series, it still retains enough of the core gameplay (sword combat, item acquisition and exploration) to qualify it as a Zelda game. Really, all it's missing is the puzzle solving, but some of the enemies and bosses are almost puzzle-like.

My point is that you can change the dressings or even setting of the game, but if you remove the core gameplay, it stops being recognizable. If you don't like the core mechanics of the Zelda games, then don't buy them: if those mechanics were changed, it wouldn't be Zelda.

Again, this is for the main series. As for any side games, I think they could branch out a bit and experiment, but maybe remove the 'Legend of Zelda' from the title, as it really wouldn't be a "Legend of Zelda" game.

For quick comparison, the 'main' mario games usually have 'Super' in the title. Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Land, Super Mario Galaxy, you get the idea. A Zelda spin-off should do the same thing.

Heck, they even have.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...d_Coverart.png

You want a unique Zelda game? There you go.

Did I stumble into an alternate universe wherein Wind Waker was never created? Also, it's sequels Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks? Or were you thinking something more along the lines of a futuristic Final Fantasy VIII or XIII setting, because I think those two games got just a ton of praise from fans and no criticisms whatsoever.

EDIT: Oh, also, Mario Kart 64 was the pinnacle of the Mario Kart series

Neko must be in the other timeline