As most gamers know, the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 both have some form of points that players can earn for accomplishing a variety of tasks. For the sake of this article, I will focus primarily on the 360’s Achievements. To earn Achievements, gamers must be signed into their Xbox Live Gamertag and will then earn points to go towards their Gamerscore. These points are unlocked by completing challenges within games. Some challenges will be as simple as the completion of a task or something a bit more involved such as beating the game on Expert Mode or pulling off 1000 wins.
Many people find Achievements to be a waste of time that just adds to a trivial number score. At the end of the day, yes a person’s gamer score means absolutely nothing, and is just a way to show off, but there is also a large degree of appeal to having achievements.
The Legend of Zelda series has always been known for its multitude of side quests and mini-games. However, as a long time Zelda fan I find myself skipping a large percentage of these options in the more recent games. For games like Ocarina of Time, The Oracle games, and The Wind Waker, I played them over and over until I had every heart piece, every quiver upgrade, every item, and etc. As of late, I have found myself not caring about these things when I play through a Zelda game. I believe that adding some form of achievements would deepen game-play in the Zelda series and create a much richer experience.
As we all know, Nintendo does not have a username based online account system. Online play is done through the exchange of friend codes which does not allow the possible inclusion of an accumulative Gamerscore. However, there is still the possibility of an in game stand alone achievement system that gamers could use as a way to extend game-play and get more out of the adventure.
As an owner of both a Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360, I often find myself wishing that Nintendo games would have more depth and options. The Legend of Zelda is by far my favourite gaming series so whenever I am playing something else I constantly think to myself, “what if a Zelda game were to have this.”
When I play through a game I generally go through and beat it once just so I can say that I have beaten the game. From there I will either stop playing the game or give it another shot depending on what extras there are to accomplish. In a lot of games that will be a hardened difficulty, but as we all know, there has not been a difficulty selector in a Legend of Zelda game to date. So that is obviously not an encouragement to play the game again. Achievements would however give gamers a reason to play the game again. A lot of Zelda fans are fond of coming up with their own unique challenges. It is common place to see videos for things such as a “three heart challenge,” beating bosses in unique ways, and pretty much doing anything to give themselves an extra challenge.
Achievements would just add on so much to the replay value of all Zelda games. Some possible achievements that would make gamers replay are listed below:
- Three Heart Challenge
- Beat the Game without Dying
- Beat the Game without using Potions or a Fairy Fountain
- Beat the Game in under 15 hours
- Go through the game without upgrading items
So outside of adding replayability, Zelda would also benefit from achievements because it would just make the game deeper, add more purpose to otherwise trivial things, and make the game more fun.
As I mentioned earlier, I no longer do the side quests in Zelda games because I have no incentive to doing so. As a Zelda veteran I have no need to hold 100 arrows as 30 is more than enough for me. So why not make it an achievement. I believe that gamers like me would feel more inclined to complete these non-essential side quests if we were to get some kind of extra credit for doing so.
I would also feel more inclined to carry on playing the game after the main quest if there was some kind of rewards for doing some really basic things. Here are some examples that we came up with on the forums
- Beat a boss without taking damage
- Cut 200 blades of grass
- Save up 10,000 Rupees
- Get attacked by Cucoos
- Kill 500 Monsters
- Catch a 30 pound fish
The possibilities are limitless on what Nintendo could do with achievements with The Legend of Zelda series. Yes there is no vital need for this, but I believe it would add replay value, make the game-play deeper, and make the Zelda games even more fun.
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