6 replies to this topic

[Wolf O'Donnell]

Well, I finally managed to get a copy of Hyrule Historia. I'm beginning to regret paying £26 for it. The book is lovely but it just feels like this randomly cobbled together mish-mash that had no thought behind it whatsoever. I'm going through the concept art and I'm seeing a lot of "perhaps this is so and so" or "I'd be really curious to see what they going to do with that" or "it is unclear if..." So not only do I not know, but the people who put the book together don't know either. It just doesn't seem right; I didn't get this nonsense when I bought a book about Salvador Dali's art. No speculation, please. Just state the facts. I just don't understand why they got people who didn't know what they were looking at, to comment on those exact things.

 

Anyway, I'm probably being too harsh. I've become a very negative person as of late.

 

It certainly helps to give me a condensed timeline and remind me of what vaguely happened in the games, so I don't have to boot the damned things up in order to look up some information.

[JRPomazon]

It's a nice collection of the art, the what might have been production choices left out of the final products and comprehensive look at the series as a whole. I don't read my copies much (one being Japanese) but I like poking around in the pages from time to time. My only gruff with it is that lack of Link's Awakening art and content.

[Masamune]

Anyone who has the Link's Awakening player's guide will lament that, because that game had gorgeous artwork for it. 

[Fëanen]

Anyone who has the Link's Awakening player's guide will lament that, because that game had gorgeous artwork for it. 

Is that art Japanese, though? I'm not entirely sure, but I think not.

 

As for the writing style - I don't think it's genuine lack of knowledge so much as trying to present it as a pseudo-historical compilation.

[Wolf O'Donnell]

It's a nice collection of the art, the what might have been production choices left out of the final products and comprehensive look at the series as a whole. I don't read my copies much (one being Japanese) but I like poking around in the pages from time to time. My only gruff with it is that lack of Link's Awakening art and content.

 

Oh yes. That was disappointing too. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get about the product.

[lord-of-shadow]

So not only do I not know, but the people who put the book together don't know either. 

 

Exactly. That's the deal. They don't HAVE anyone anywhere that knows, authoritatively, everything there is to know. Game development is a messy, iterative business, especially when you're looking at an entire series that's been touched by hundreds or thousands of people over a 25+ year period. Ideas are floated, half-fleshed out, thrown out, and mutated into other things constantly. Minds are changed from one game to another. They're giving us a window into the development and process of creation, with all of the mess and ambiguity and half-baked, unfinished material that comes with it. I'd rather have that than a meticulously curated and 100% factual listing of information any day. 

Hyrule Historia as a factual source on lore is nothing more than a snapshot of what is currently considered canon by the needs of the modern-day team (after all, I guarantee that the triple split timeline wasn't planned when OoT was developed), combined with a lot of other, looser material. They need to keep the door open for changing their minds based on future needs, so it's couched in language that tries to avoid presenting it as 100% factual. 

I loved the book... As an art book and a view into the development of the series.

[Wolf O'Donnell]

 

So not only do I not know, but the people who put the book together don't know either. 

 

Exactly. That's the deal. They don't HAVE anyone anywhere that knows, authoritatively, everything there is to know. Game development is a messy, iterative business, especially when you're looking at an entire series that's been touched by hundreds or thousands of people over a 25+ year period. Ideas are floated, half-fleshed out, thrown out, and mutated into other things constantly. Minds are changed from one game to another. They're giving us a window into the development and process of creation, with all of the mess and ambiguity and half-baked, unfinished material that comes with it. I'd rather have that than a meticulously curated and 100% factual listing of information any day. 

Hyrule Historia as a factual source on lore is nothing more than a snapshot of what is currently considered canon by the needs of the modern-day team (after all, I guarantee that the triple split timeline wasn't planned when OoT was developed), combined with a lot of other, looser material. They need to keep the door open for changing their minds based on future needs, so it's couched in language that tries to avoid presenting it as 100% factual. 

I loved the book... As an art book and a view into the development of the series.

 

 

Yes, but what's the point of speculating? Leave the reader to speculate. Just present the art and say, here are some ideas that weren't used.

 

I'd get a greater glimpse of what was going on if they presented facts about what was happening at that time and what conversations were being had. That's what happened in the Salvador Dali book I bought. I was told what was happening at the time he painted the pieces and what people thought of the art.

Edited by Wolf O'Donnell, 08 January 2014 - 04:19 PM.