I was thinking of that Zam review that got bagged on earlier today, and after thinking more about it, the dude comes off as the kind of person upset that Pink Floyd didn't make anothe The Wall, or that Led Zepplin or the Beatles sound so different across their existence.
Nothing the person said is invalid, but it just seemed to be from the perspective that they wanted another OOT or WW, and were very unhappy that this game isn't that at all. Which is all fine, but also seems to miss a lot. If we get so fixed in to how we want/expect things to be, we make it harder to be open to change.
I think, with Zelda, I was heartened when Gerstmann said the game may have changed too much, and then the 8-4 guys and Steve Lin mentioned to him that Aonuma was going to for a return to the original Zelda, and Jeff, oh, I can see that, I can get that. It all clicked that I knew I'd be okay with this and the massive changes.
Gamers chide Nintendo so much for not shaking it up often enough, and now when they do depart and go out make something different it makes sense that there will be a group of folks left behind. The people who just couldn't get in to Revolver and wish the Beatles had stayed more Rubber Soul and earlier. Artists should be allowed the room to try and do different things, even if they are wildly different, and we should try to judge each piece separate from the last.
Yeah this gets hard with consumer goods like games that cross mediums and are part product and part art etc, but I think we should celebrate change/innovation/newness not for their own sake, but because often they force people to try and do different things and even if they fail to achieve their goal at least they made the attempt and can learn from it. If we cling too tightly to tropes, or ways of the past etc, we will tend to lose sight of what the future can be.
