They made the best commentary about Zelda that I've read (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, April 03, 2019, 10:53 (2063 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I’m interested in opinions as well. But when people can’t or won’t distinguish between their own opinions and facts, that tells me something about their thinking. Specifically, they are usually haven’t thought things through properly. Or better said, they CAN’T think things through clearly, because they can’t tell the difference between their own opinions and facts.

Is it really that hard? Here's how to tell if something is someone's opinion:

Is it a referential statement to an events that actually occurred? Is it in quotation marks? If the answer to both is no, it's their opinion. As far as I could tell, there were few facts at all in Saving Zelda save for release dates and things like that.

Late in the original Zelda’s second quest, I got stuck.

Fact.

That is what I’m claiming: that modern Zeldas are broken at their core.

Opinion.

Why is this only clear to me?

Because you cherry picked an example out of an article filled with other statements that don’t support your argument. He also makes statements like “Ocarina of time isn’t the best game of its generation (it isn’t even a good Zelda game)”. Presented as fact, and the whole article hinges on that premis, but it it 100% pure opinion.

The main issue is not whether I, the reader, can spot the difference between facts and opinions in the article. The issue is can the writer tell the difference between facts and his own opinions. And based on this article and others, I don’t think he can. There seems to be zero recognition of the role that nostalgia plays into his opinions, and the problem with that is nostalgia has as much to do with the person as it does with the game being discussed. He’s not taking into account his state of mind or point of reference when gushing over The Legend of Zelda. There’s zero awareness presented that he’s aware of the fact that HE changed just as much, if not more so, than Zelda has.

That’s a common problem with these “they don’t make them like they used to” pieces. People often forget to account for the fact that they played these old games when they were kids, life was relatively carefree, and they were in touch with their imagination to a greater degree than the average adult.

Again, there are plenty of good and interesting points in that article. All the comparisons in design philosophy between TLoZ and BotW are welcome and interesting. It’s the self-important, overblown agrandizing of his own opinions that drag the piece down for me.