From: Lightning Strikes | #027
It's not like very similar games hadn't been made before. LoZ is effectively just Adventure on a much bigger scale with more stuff. So no, it's not especially creative at all, considering they didn't add anything especially new or exciting to the genre. What it did do was popularise these things, which is entirely different and requires zero creativity.
It's like pong, a game that gets far more credit than it deserves. It wasn't the first pong game by any means, just the first to be popular.
Now, Adventure, which created the top-down action adventure genre? Creative. ALttP, which added a ton of complex gameplay elements? Creative. But LoZ didn't do anything that hadn't been seen in action adventure games before, and lacked any of the complex creative elements of later games. The basic elements of the Zelda series had been done before Zelda, and that's really all LoZ has.
It did bring saving to consoles though, that's pretty legit. But doesn't really apply here.
So let me get this straight. LoZ is less creative than LttP? Seriously?
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Sburbopolis, Homestuck RPG: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/60981373