A common complaint that gets leveled at the more modern Legend of Zelda games is that they feature far too many tutorials. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in particular had the player go through hours of learning exercises that most players felt could be skipped entirely without missing anything important. Going forward though, this might not be the case.
When you go out and buy a game, you buy the game because you want to play it
Kotaku’s Jason Schreier was able to talk to the current Director of the Zelda series, Eiji Aonuma, who promised less tutorials in the future. “When we created Skyward Sword, I really felt the need to make sure that everyone playing the game understood it. But I also understand now, in hindsight, that when you go out and buy a game, you buy the game because you want to play it, and you don’t want to have any obstacles in the way.”
Aonuma goes on to explain that players usually want help only when they are stuck, not when they first start out. He also admits that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was especially “frontloaded” with these sequences forcing players to learn about mechanics before they actually needed to use them.
The new method has already been tested somewhat in the recent 3DS entry The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. In that game there were “Hint Ghosts” that could be activated if a player felt the need for some guidance. Presumably this allows new players to get the help they need, while permitting veterans of the series to play without being told about basic mechanics. Considering the newest entry for Wii U is meant to take inspiration from the older games in the series, it is likely to have much less hand holding than the more recent console entries.
