I dont agree with that remotely, I find Lttp to be a lot more intuitive. Im not sure what parts you were referring to in the above section of your post
First, I don't blame you for getting stuck there, at the river to Animal Village; it happens. Classic Zelda games all have tricky parts in them at times, I've gotten stuck plenty too.
But on the subject of LttP, did you read my previous posts in the thread? Particularly
this one and
this one. After the first of those posts, I think the OP realized that LttP is actually a fairly confusing game, and said that they prefer newer Zelda games to that style, now.
Do you forget what kind of game LttP is? Have you forgotten about the numerous hidden items that game requires that you find, which have no or almost no clues? I guess I need to link my old article again; please read it, and consider how LA has nothing anywhere near as confusing as ANY of the things in my list in that article.
http://www.blackfalcongames.net/?p=319
I focus there a lot on the hidden items, because they were one of the most frustrating things about LttP for me. The list includes the Book of Mudora, the Quake Medallion, the Flute, the Ether Medallion, the Bombos Medallion, getting into the Swamp of Sorrows, the Ice Rod, and the Silver Arrows. LA does not have puzzles like those because it does not just require you to find items randomly hidden in the world to progress. Instead you get required items in more sensible ways, either from the other characters or from dungeons. In LttP that Ice Rod part particularly was REALLY horrible, and the Ether Medallion is barely any better. LA would NEVER do anything like the nonsense LttP makes you go through if you didn't happen to find those items in your travels! Nintendo had progressed games forward in the years in between, and made Link's Awakening a more straightforward and gated experience with better hints and puzzles more connected to the point you are at in the game. The closest LA equivalent to those hidden items is probably the Boomerang, which is optional.
Thank goodness that no Zelda game since LttP actually allows you to get to the very end of one of the last dungeons without an item you need to complete it, only to force you to leave the dungeon, go find said item which there are no clues about besides something very early in the game you can miss and can't have the game repeat (unlike LA, which allows you to repeat some such messages on the map), and then makes you play through that whole long, warp and shortcut-free dungeon from the beginning once you look up a guide which can tell you where to find the needed item (the Ice Rod)! That is what I went through, and it is incredibly frustrating game design. Sometime between LttP and LA, Nintendo realized that. They then decided to make their next game less easy to get lost and stuck in. I am very happy with the results. (Yes, when I first wrote that article some people said 'you should have found it early on, explore more'. But I think that better games, like LA, don't let you get in that situation in the first place.)
And in LA that is exactly what they started doing. LA dungeons give you the required item. Lots more hints were added including clues in dungeons about puzzles in the dungeon, not something Zelda had had much of before. The world was sectioned off more so through most of the game you are following a clear path forwards, as opposed to LttP's mostly open worlds. There is more story, more interesting characters, and a more to do in the town. LA puzzles are confusing at times, but you almost always have the abilities on hand to complete them, you just need to figure them out. That was very definitely NOT the case in LttP, not if you were missing some key item in a corner of the map! And if you don't have the ability in LA, they almost always make it clear. The trading game is the one potential really tricky puzzle, but even there the NPCs give you strong hints about things they want, you just need to figure out how to get those things. Your attack and defense abilities were improved in LA as well with the longer sword range and such, warps were added at the halfway points of every dungeon, and more.
I don't mean the generation, I mean more like the hand holding age, waiting for the game to help you or show you a hint on every step
This "gonna-use- detective-mode" mentality
I don't mean it in a bad way, I mean the lazy way we've got accustomed to
I like something balanced between the two, myself. I do not enjoy 'just explore and find everything' NES-style, but totally linear handholding can get boring as well. I generally like objective markers and would never turn them off in, say, Metroid Prime. But again I think that LA balances that so well, with just the right amount of handholding to make me keep going, but enough openness to make exploration rewarding. It's brilliantly done stuff.
