It’s not much of a secret that I really enjoy the The Legend of Zelda series of games. Jim Gee and I have a paper in the upcoming The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy book (pictured above; click here if you wanna preorder from Amazon). It’s also not much of a secret that, while I love this series and have played at least a little of every installment, I have only played deeply into three of the games in the series (The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Phantom Hourglass, with more than moderate dabbling into Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and The Minish Cap, I suppose). After all, with a few notable exceptions (Majora’s Mask, Link’s Awakening), most of the Zelda games feature roughly the same settings, the same puzzle/adventure game mechanics, and the same save-the-princess/kill-Ganon storyline.

It’s been almost two years since Twilight Princess was the Wii’s most anticipated launch title, and over a year since Phantom Hourglass made it to North America. What’s next for this series, arguably the most influential yet quite possibly most stagnant Nintendo series of them all? Last week, IGN had a feature on this topic, entitled “Wii’s Next Zelda Game.” It’s a good read — nothing terribly groundbreaking, given the lack of any real news from Nintendo (other than, surprise, they’re making a new one and, surprise, Miyamoto would like to shake things up a bit) — but, generally, they hit on some of the issues that will arise for the first Zelda game actually developed for (and not just ported to) the Wii.

Here’s a chunk that piqued my interest, about the potential of the upcoming Wii MotionPlus controller extension:

Zelda traditionalists may argue that Nintendo needn’t fix what isn’t broken and that mucking around with MotionPlus controls could ultimately damage a perfectly fine configuration. Take, for example, Wired’s Chris Kohler, who would rather the developer play it safe and remain cautious of dragging more motion work to the franchise.

“I’d absolutely hate for the next big Zelda game to be a Wii MotionPlus game that’s centered around 1:1 sword fighting, or something similar that throws the baby out with the bath water,” he says

Cassidy disagrees. “I can’t stop thinking about the possibilities of MotionPlus. I would be extremely shocked and disappointed if the next Zelda title didn’t use the device. The types of gameplay and movement that the MotionPlus makes possible would work perfectly into a Zelda game. It might be the best way to move the series forward, while still keeping things familiar. Everything from sword fighting to boomerangs would become a lot more engaging,” he explains.

With respect to Kohler, we tend to side with Cassidy on this one, but we definitely understand the point of keeping an eye on the dangers of overuse in regard to MotionPlus. Having waggle just for the sake of waggle is unnecessary and could even feel contrived or broken. Were, for example, the next Zelda to ditch the adventuring altogether for a MotionPlus-enhanced sword fighting game, we would not be able to contain our disappointment.

These comments all seem to miss the mark for me. If one thing typifies the Zelda games for me, it’s the variety of “tools” (boomerang, arrows, metal boots, hookshot, etc.) that Link has at his employ. If the next game incorporates the Wii’s MotionPlus (which I suspect it will), then ditching the (historically) core mechanics of Zelda in favor of overwhelmingly focusing on something like a sword-fighting game would be acceptable only as a spinoff (a la Link’s Crossbow Training), not as a “core” Zelda game. The problem is that creating a novel, innovative game with new mechanics may verge on making one which seems merely Zelda-skinned, thus alienating those players who expect the series’ standard puzzle/adventure mechanics.

This is a pretty interesting problem, actually. What are the essential elements of the Zelda genre of games? With fourteen official (Nintendo-produced) games, a number of “apocrypha” (the CD-i games, the BT Zelda games, etc.), a few comics, a cartoon, etc., there has developed a Zelda canon. In the paper that Jim and I wrote, we discussed this issue only tangentially, acknowledging that the question of what games count as being “real” Zelda games pops up in the debates over the games’ overarching chronology. But, as I have been focusing more and more on game design in the past year, I’ve begun wondering more about the implications of the fan base’s collective assumptions about what a Zelda really is. How might this affect innovation in this series? Is it possible to make a Zelda that “counts” as a Zelda but features completely different game mechanics?

The IGN piece also made me happy to see that the American gaming press has begun to reconsider their kneejerk reaction to The Wind Waker’s visual style. Five years later, it seems that there’s a lot more respect for the amazingly expressive and beautiful visual style of the game — certainly, Phantom Hourglass showed that there’s viability in continuing the setting and story of The Wind Waker, and I find it interesting to see that IGN advocated updating these games with a teenage/adult Link. Ideally, this would be a way to continue to innovate the artistic styles of the game (frankly, it’s easier to do this with a cartoony look than a “realistic” look), while also providing an excuse to explore the games’ stories on multiple platforms (the DS, Wii, and whatever comes along next).

What doesn’t get mentioned much, however, is how The Wind Waker attempted to radically change the landscape and story of the Zelda series, setting it several hundred years after the earlier games, above a sunken Hyrule. This seemed a clean break from the older Zelda games in theme and, to me, signaled a potential way out of the old Zelda tropes. Unfortunately, given the initial poor reception by American gamers, it seems like they took a step backwards to a more familiar Hyrule with Twilight Princess, while adding a number of new, interesting twists (Midna, switching to wolf form, etc.). Time has already, I think, been kinder to The Wind Waker than to Twilight Princess — I hope Nintendo appreciates the ongoing changing of opinion on its cartoony classic, and continues to innovate while keeping the best parts of the series.