(12-10-2012, 05:54 AM)Garteal Wrote: Even then, only familiar villages, like Kakariko Village, etc, were taken and reconstructed in other titles.
They didn't feel the same, even if they have the same name.
They're familiar to gamers in the same sense that Link and Zelda are. They change throughout many of the games, but you can consider them to be sort of "staples" that you'll see over and over. Wind Waker broke away from those staples (again, except for Hyrule at the end + Link & Zelda); it created Zelda world that was largely unrecognizable in comparison to others that had come before it.
(12-10-2012, 05:54 AM)Garteal Wrote: Termina was only in Majora's Mask and was also a 'brand' new, if you will.
Yes, I'm aware of that. I mentioned it because it is one of the more distinct lands from the LoZ universe (like Holodrum and Labrynna) that shares a connection with Hyrule, and hence maintains some familiarity to the player. Terminia is really considered by most as a parallel world for Hyrule at any rate.
(12-10-2012, 05:54 AM)Garteal Wrote: Every Zelda game feels massive and seamless.
The overworld has almost always been large for every Zelda game, but far from seamless imo. For the 2D Zelda games, you only have a specific chunk of the screen you can view at one time. To go to the next, you go to one of the ends of the of the screen at the top, bottom, right, or left. The whole game is designed in squares, and it's stitched together. That's not what I mean by seamless; it's more than just visual design and aesthetic. It'd be a different case if the games scrolled along dynamically. You're constant having to jump from screen to screen. Note: I have never played Zelda II, so I cannot speak about that. A Link to The Past got closer to a truly seamless world by allowing Link to explore areas larger than the actual screen before transitioning to the next segment.
OoT and Majora's Mask handled this a lot better since the jump into 3D allowed for more expansive environments. You could see a lot more of the world before the game made any kind of transition to another area. Still both games segmented different areas. For example, in Hyrule Field, going to Death Mountain, the Zora's Domain, or the Gerudo Valley required the game to make a new transition. The same applies for Terminia Field whenever Link goes to one of the four surrounding regions. Each of these regions in both games is similarly divided into smaller sections requiring more transitions.
TP improved even more on the seamlessness of it's world, and Skyward Sword went a step further (the maps for a single area in that game are huge). But Wind Waker really took it to a different level. You just get in your boat, and nearly every inch of the ocean is accessible to you (with all of the right items of course). You can go from one island to the next. You walk around Outset Island, stop by Windfall Island, investigate any number of islands in between that, and then go to the Forsaken Fortress all without doing any scene transitions. That's seamless. You really only make scene changes where it's pretty much required, e.g. going into dungeons or into certain locations. The whole world feels more connected and open in that way.