Almost 40 years on, there's still nothing quite like a Zelda dungeon

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launched last week, and I've been having a great time covering Hyrule in a bed of two sizes. Echoes of Wisdom is also the first Zelda game with traditional dungeons in over a decade, and I'm relishing the opportunity to explore both boss and minor keys. As much fun as I'm having, it's bittersweet because I could do it more often.




Four decades on, The Legend of Zelda is still unique

Nintendo's biggest series tend to span their own genres. Mario invented the platformer. Mario Kart popularized the kart racer. Pokemon led creature collectors. And Metroid became the template for Metroidvania (even though Castlevania claimed more than its fair share of the name). Yet Zelda, one of the oldest, most beloved, and most consistent series in gaming, has never really spawned its own genre outside of sporadic efforts by other developers.

In recent years, there have been a few Zelda-likes but they come out at a rate of about one a year, give or take. Hyper Lite Drifter combined Zelda-style exploration with Souls-style boss difficulty in 2016. Minit gave players a small Majora's Mask in 2018. Chicory: A Colorful Tale painted the minor subgenre red in 2021, and Death's Door and Commit Taurnip Bo Evasion occupy the same space. Tunic riffs on the series' gameplay (and fashion choices) in 2022.


If you are really investing in these games, they are not hard to find. But it's not a sub-genre that sees reliable releases by any stretch of the imagination. Compare the number of games I've listed above – which covers A period of six years — Among the number of notable Metroidvanias released in 2018 alone: ​​Dandara, Iconoclasts, Chasm, Dead Cells, Timespinner, La-Mulana 2, Guacamelee! 2, Switch ports of The Messenger, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, Yoku's Island Express, Death's Gambit, and Hollow Knight, which led to its stratospheric popularity after a quiet 2017 PC release.

Admittedly, 2018 was a particularly packed year for Metroidvanias, but I would argue that we ever It was a packed year for Zelda-likes. They appear often, but making another link to the past doesn't seem like the way to make a Metroidvania or 2D platformer for new developers.


Zelda hits hard because it's rare

For that reason, every new Zelda game released still hits like a truck. I remember last year's Super Mario Bros. Enjoyed Wonder and 2021's Metroid Dread, but neither of them felt necessary the way New Zelda did, because indie devs make sure you can play great 2D platformers and Metroidvanias every year. It's incredibly rare to get something like Zelda, and with 3D games increasingly moving in a different direction in the Switch era, getting to tackle a new traditional Zelda dungeon feels really special.

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Although puzzle games are often released, few of them take the Zelda approach of offering large spaces, separate from the rest of the game world, that are entirely dedicated to presenting interconnected puzzles. Metroidvanias do something similar, but not quite the same. When you start a new area in Metroidvania, you may not have the tools you need to tackle it. It's a staple of the genre, allowing for open-ended exploration and satisfying progression. But Zelda is unique in what it offers: entering a place and knowing that the chance to solve a huge puzzle is all you need.

Most Zelda dungeons are built around a specific piece of equipment, which you get by completing them. You go through the first parts of each dungeon by seeing, for example, statues marked with open eye symbols that are too far away to hit them with your sword. Then, halfway through, you get a bow and arrow, and suddenly you can interact with those remote statues. The entire dungeon opens up to you. It's like the entirety of a Metroidvania compressed into an hour or two of gameplay. I love it, and I wish there were games like this. The arrival of each new Zelda feels like an event because of it, but I'd like to see more developers host events like this.


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