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The story
A thread titled “Turns out the Zelda series was full of ripoffs…” on the Hardware/Industry (Geha) board turned into a rundown of popular Zelda elements alongside similar features from other companies’ games. Users brought up Luigi’s Mansion vs. Ghostbusters, the towers in Wind Waker vs. the towers in Assassin’s Creed, and Splatoon vs. the reportedly unreleased “Color Wars,” among other examples, one after another. The discussion also touched on how Masahiro Sakurai has acknowledged that Ocarina of Time’s targeting system had earlier precedents. The debate that dragged on longest was whether “Z-Targeting” counts as a lock-on feature, with opinions split over how to interpret the wording of an official Nintendo interview.
What people said
I'll keep it up until people stop taking the bait.
is a ripoff of Ghostbusters
— sucking up ghosts with a vacuum cleaner.
Plus a bit of Haunted Mansion thrown in.
The towers in Wind Waker came first, though.
When Nintendo copies, it's a beautiful copy.
Color Wars never actually got released in the end.
No idea what game that even is, but seriously, this is rough….. Now I look like an idiot for praising the first one…..
Even Sakurai himself admits Ocarina of Time wasn't the first to do it.
so it's got nothing to do with Peter Pan.
But the original dwarves and fairies don't look anything like that.
Z-Targeting isn't actually a lock-on feature, you know?
Wait, so you're saying Nintendo is lying?
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/3ds/interview/aqej/vol5/index5.html
Lol, citing Nintendo itself as your source is a power move.
It's literally described right above that as "a feature meant to solve issues like how to handle the camera and how to deal with one-against-many battles."
Did you actually read it, or did you just have AI spit that quote out for you?
So you're saying Nintendo is lying, then.
Because it's a game where you shoot Pokémon dead.
It's the "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down" thing (a saying about conformity punishing anyone who stands out).
They've probably been crushing rivals like that all along.
All I can say is it's the height of hypocrisy.
No, that's you denying Nintendo's own explanation.
Whatever excuse you come up with, if Nintendo says that's what it is, then it's lock-on.
Huh?
Nintendo describes it as "a feature that lets you switch to a view directly behind Link, talk to distant characters, or lock on to enemies during battle" — they never called it "a lock-on feature" outright.
Though Pac-Land's jumping action is a ripoff of Donkey Kong.
It's not a feature for automatically landing attacks on enemies.
Yeah, yeah, but Nintendo already admitted it's lock-on.
What you're saying is just wishful thinking and delusion.
Nintendo explains it as a feature meant to solve the complexity of camera and character control.
Turns out Mega Man Legends (Rockman DASH) beat them to it 😭
I love how Sakurai already shut this down.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
“Source-hunting” is a classic pastime on the Hardware/Industry (Geha) board, where the mechanics of hit games get lined up against earlier examples from other titles and stamped as “ripoffs.” This time around, multiple cases were paraded out — Luigi’s Mansion, the towers in Wind Waker, Splatoon, and more — but the thread’s biggest flashpoint was how to interpret Ocarina of Time’s “Z-Targeting.” One side reads the line from an official Nintendo interview, “you can lock on to enemies during battle to fight more effectively,” as “proof Nintendo admitted it’s a lock-on feature,” while the other side counters that it’s “just one of several purposes among many,” and the two sides remain at an impasse. Worth noting: this isn’t a dispute over new facts, but a disagreement over how to read the very same passage. It’s also worth keeping in mind that “multiple studios independently arriving at similar solutions to similar technical problems around the same time” and “deliberate imitation” are two different things — and simply listing parallels, as the thread does, can’t distinguish between the two.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “[Sad News] Turns Out the Zelda Series Was Full of Ripoffs…“.
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