The Legend of the Zeldersatz

Zelda games. I love 'em, you love 'em. We're not the only ones though: the entire game industry is besotted with the things, ever since the original left its tri-triangular mark on the inchoate NES library and most recently again with Breath of the Wild's big paradigm shifts for both Zelda and the open-world genre as a whole. As such, even though it has such an inescapably distinct blueprint that is immediately recognizable in any new context, games can't stop doing their best imitations of the Zelda format.

Though there's no exonerating the derivative nature of these titles I can't help but appreciate them from a game design standpoint because they'll often emphasize one or more of Zelda's trademark aspects—the exploration and how that ties into character development as you find upgrades off the beaten path, the dungeons and their array of imaginative environmental puzzles, the frantic real-time sword combat that is sometimes enhanced further with combo or parry systems, and the repertoire-expanding equippable items that often aid in both exploration and combat alike—and that gives you an intriguing glimpse into the developers' own preferences as designers and players.

This list will perform a similar function as my other "-alikes" rundown, this one right here for Souls-inspired games, in that it'll help me keep track of the ones I've played and the ones I'd like to check out someday. Since being cheekily reductive is kind of my flavor these days, I've tried to narrow down in a single interrogative what makes these games stand out from the Zeldas it homages.