The Legend of Zelda series of games is widely considered one of the most innovative and well built franchises out there. It gave players some truly wonderful adventures when it placed them in the boots of Link, a young warrior who set out to save the Princess Zelda from the evil Ganon in the fantasy land of Hyrule.

The brainchild of legendary game creator Shigeru Miyamoto, this franchise intertwined seamlessly elements of action, adventure, puzzles or role playing. It spawned over 14 games, released on a variety of Nintendo platforms, from the SNES to the Wii. Without a doubt, one of the most critically acclaimed titles in the series was Ocarina of Time, which gained, upon its launch in 1998, extremely positive reviews, with critics giving it a wide variety of awards and prizes.

Although Shigeru Miyamoto is the figure most widely associated with the Zelda franchise, the director of Ocarina of Time, Eiji Aonuma, has recently stepped up and made some very interesting statements. He said that, although he appreciated the praise that the game received, it also meant that none of the other games surpassed it. He then expressed his wish that the future Zelda titles would try to overtake the benchmark game, and take the series to new levels.

"I'm happy that a title I worked on some time ago remains highly praised to this day, but that also shows how none of the subsequent games in the series have surpassed it," said Aonuma. "As someone who is still working on the series, I have mixed feelings about that. Because I haven't yet surpassed it, I can't quit. Surprisingly, that simple motivation may be the reason I continue to work on the Zelda series."

Some quite interesting words, as it is always good to hear that developers want to surpass high goals and, in the process, create a great game that players will remember for quite some time. Let's just hope that the future Zelda title will bring fans the same great gameplay and deep story that made the franchise what it is today.