Twilight Princess

[Jason777]

I understand that the Wii version of Twilight Princess was just "meh" but the Gamecube version was completely awesome in a variety of ways...

 

-- Zant was a badass

-- Dark story that doesn't require you to really think about why it's so dark (Majora's Mask)

-- HUGE overworld

-- Beautiful graphics

-- Diverse sword combat due to the hidden moves

-- Plenty of caves you could find that didn't require any extra add-ons (OoT and the stone of agony)

-- Beautiful soundtrack

-- Sacred Grove actually felt sacred!

 

The only things I gripe about was that there wasn't an all-powerful sword besides the master sword, that there wasn't any elemental magic, and the limited physical motion of the player while in Wolf form.

 

You might have already guessed this but Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda game. Anyways, tell me why you think the game sucked or isn't all that great.

[Jotokun]

I understand that the Wii version of Twilight Princess was just "meh" but the Gamecube version was completely awesome in a variety of ways...

 

-- Zant was a badass

-- Dark story that doesn't require you to really think about why it's so dark (Majora's Mask)

-- HUGE overworld

-- Beautiful graphics

-- Diverse sword combat due to the hidden moves

-- Plenty of caves you could find that didn't require any extra add-ons (OoT and the stone of agony)

-- Beautiful soundtrack

-- Sacred Grove actually felt sacred!

 

The only things I gripe about was that there wasn't an all-powerful sword besides the master sword, that there wasn't any elemental magic, and the limited physical motion of the player while in Wolf form.

 

You might have already guessed this but Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda game. Anyways, tell me why you think the game sucked or isn't all that great.

 

-Zant was a badass

--Too bad he was

Hijacked by Ganon

... if they had made him

the sole villain

I think TP would have had a stronger story.

-Dark story that doesn't require you to really think about why it's so dark

--Dark colors do not a dark story make. Dark for the sake of dark is cheap, and TP's feels cheap and forced. I'd say this is a fundamental flaw with, as you put it, not having to think about it as a grim story is only grim in comparison to something else. TP lacks that something else.

-HUGE overworld

--...with almost nothing to do in it

-Beautiful soundtrack

--Unmemorable soundtrack. The only songs I can remember from it are Midna's theme and Hyrule Field. The others reeked of generic.

 

To add to that, the combat and puzzles (statue puzzle in the sacred grove aside) are way too easy. The light spirt / tears collection stuff made the first half of the game a complete drag to get through.

 

Needless to say, TP is one of my least favorite Zeldas. I dont think its bad by any means, its great... but I dont think it hits the bar set by other games in the series. I'd actually argue that TP so far is a turning point in that everything from it onward isn't as good as earlier works.

 

I dont want to sound like I'm mindlessly hating on it, so I'll leave with a positive...

 

Stallord. Funnest. Boss fight. Ever.

[zaneebaslave]

Well, I guess this is where we can agree to disagree. Twilight Princess was probably my all-time least favorite zelda game of the franchise. Keep in mind, though, that I came from an older generation of gaming, and love the earlier games far more then the new ones based on nostalgia alone. To me, it brought a dangerous piece of gaming to Zelda that should never had been added to Zelda: the collect-o-thon.

 

Don't get me wrong: I loved Banjo Kazooie, and that was the momma of collect-o-thons. And you can argue that you have to collect TONS of crap in previous Zeldas, such as rupees and bombs. But never before this game have you had to aimlessly pick up a bunch of crap in order to PROGRESS to the next area. You had to run around as a wolf, with that annoying "sense" power on to find any of those bugs, making it so you can't even enjoy the atmosphere of the game. Shadow World was cool, if you ever got to look at it. But the "sense" power made everything black. And you couldn't enjoy it.

 

I have many other problems with game, but I'll leave it at there.

[Conker]

Jotokun:

Wrong in sooooo many ways, but hey, whatever.

zaneebaslave:

So, let me get this straight: you hate TP because it's a collect-o-thon? What about all other Zelda games that have you collect a lot of stuff? Wind Waker? Majora's Mask? And more?

---

ANYWAYS, TP is my favorite, too, Jason; I guess we're some of the few people that don't look back at the old games with rose-tinted glasses, huh?

We actually learn to not let nostalgia cloud our judgment of the newer entries, which are, in many ways, far, far superior to older entires in the series.

 

So, yeah, before I leave this topic, from best to worst in numerical order:

1. Twilight Princess
   
2. Skyward Sword
   
3. Wind Waker
   
4. Majora's Mask
   
5. Ocarina of Time
   

Yes, I put OoT last because it's boring as shit. So boring, in fact, only community-made expansions/mods can save it from being a horrible, dull experience.

It's way more dull, boring, and empty than many people claim Twilight Princess to be. Ooooh yeah, it really is.

[Blaze_Uchiha420]

IMO Twilight Princess is better than the Wind Waker. You want to talk about a huge world with nothing to do? You spend 75% of the game sailing around on a little ass boat. Don't get me wrong though, it's still a great game, story wise.But Twilight Princess was a great game with unique puzzles and items. I agree that the bug killing in the Twilight Realm was more than a little redundant, but the graphics, story, gameplay and overall atmosphere were phenomonal. This was the game we wanted the first time but we got Wind Waker instead.

[Conker]

You want to talk about a huge world with nothing to do?

 

Do you? Ocarina of Time. There's far, FAR less to do in it than TP, yet, so many people place it upon this pedestal for being soooo perfect, but they bash TP for all of its problems.

(i.e., completely disregarding how empty and void of activities OoT's world is compared to TP's, praising it, and then bashing TP for having the problem, but on a less extreme scale)

 

When compared to Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time is a broken and unenjoyable experience.

[Blaze_Uchiha420]

Do you? Ocarina of Time. There's far, FAR less to do in it than TP, yet, so many people place it upon this pedestal for being soooo perfect, but they bash TP for all of its problems.

 

When compared to Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time is a broken and unenjoyable experience.

 

OoT world wasn't all that huge to me, just mostly empty. The only thing great about OoT was there was alot of Dungeons but in its defense we didn't exactly get the entire game from the get go

[Conker]

It doesn't matter. We got what we got, and that's all we ever will have from Nintendo with OoT; my point still stands.

[Blaze_Uchiha420]

Best to worst:

 

1. Twilight Princess

2. Majora's Mask

3.Skyward Sword

4. A Link to the Past

5. Ocarina of Time

6. BS Legend of Zelda AST

7. Legend of Zelda

8.Wind Waker

9. Adventures of Link

 

I didn't included any of the handhelds I know but out of console games this is my opinion of best to worst

[Conker]

You forgot to add the CDi Zelda games as the best. They're obviously the best.

[zaneebaslave]

OoT also was about 10 years old by the time TP came out. If the over world was empty in OoT, it was because it was their first try at a 3d game. TP was empty for NO reason. It was far bigger then OOT's over world, but with less in it. Far less. Also no other Zelda that I can recall had me collect anything in a tedious manner such as TP. If I had to collect anything, it was to refill my items. Any other form of collection was built into the story effortlessly, so I didn't have to feel like I was collecting anything. The tears, however, we're unnecessary, and more a manner of annoyance then actual gameplay.

 

I also kind of hated it's atmosphere. It was really bland, color-wise.

[Blaze_Uchiha420]

You forgot to add the CDi Zelda games as the best. They're obviously the best.

 

Those games were all crap not even worthy of being considered a zelda game

[Conker]

OoT also was about 10 years old by the time TP came out. If the over world was empty in OoT, it was because it was their first try at a 3d game. TP was empty for NO reason. It was far bigger then OOT's over world, but with less in it. Far less.

 

I'm sorry, I don't ever consider "first 3D game" an excuse. Super Mario 64 was the first 3D Mario, yet they added tons of stuff to do in EVERY level. Your point is moot.

And considering Majora's Mask had a whole lot to do, there's no reason they couldn't have done the same for OoT. No, they were just too busy removing/reworking stuff in the game to concentrate on things such as a world with more content. The fact they got sidetracked with reworking it SO much didn't help; they spent too much time on just that, and failed to flesh it out as much as they could have.

 

As for TP being barren, I could give a shit less. You know what? Almost every Zelda game is baren; Wind Waker, Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, even Mahora's Mask.

While MM may have quite a bit to do, it's still empty. Every 3D Zelda is. These games aren't meant to have tons of shit to do after the main story like some big budget RPG would allow you.

 

Sure, after you beat the games, there's collectibles to find, minigames to play, ect., but overall, they're pretty empty games. All of them.

 

Also no other Zelda that I can recall had me collect anything in a tedious manner such as TP. If I had to collect anything, it was to refill my items. Any other form of collection was built into the story effortlessly, so I didn't have to feel like I was collecting anything. The tears, however, we're unnecessary, and more a manner of annoyance then actual gameplay.

 

Recall harder. That's all I have to say.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Colonel Blinx
Fixing typos, and overall tidying up my argument.

[Blaze_Uchiha420]

Also no other Zelda that I can recall had me collect anything in a tedious manner such as TP. If I had to collect anything, it was to refill my items. Any other form of collection was built into the story effortlessly, so I didn't have to feel like I was collecting anything. The tears, however, we're unnecessary, and more a manner of annoyance then actual gameplay.

 

What about the gold skulltulas in OoT and MM? Not part of the story but still a boring and tedious task and after you get the heart piece in OoT it is rather pointless

[Gump]

Blinx, the difference between MM and OoT is 4mb of RAM, which allowed it to have a bigger field. In the original plans, OoT wasn't even going to have a field due to memory constraints.

[Conker]

What about the gold skulltulas in OoT and MM? Not part of the story but still a boring and tedious task and after you get the heart piece in OoT it is rather pointless

The Triforce shards in Wind Waker is one, too.

This annoyed the ever-loving shit out of me, and could have been done a better way.

 

 

 

Blinx, the difference between MM and OoT is 4mb of RAM, which allowed it to have a bigger field. In the original plans, OoT wasn't even going to have a field due to memory constraints.

 

Uhm, I was talking about a bigger field? More stuff to do has NOTHING to do with a bigger field.

[Blaze_Uchiha420]

The Triforce shards in Wind Waker is one, too.

This annoyed the ever-loving shit out of me, and could have been done a better way.

 

Agreed that was the dumbest shit ever

[Conker]

I guess TP was the Zelda game people wanted to hate, for some reason?

All I know is that people dis it for problems that exist in OTHER Zelda games(even in entires people praise), yet, they disregard those problems in the other Zelda games and put all the heat on TP.

 

Some people, I swear.

[zaneebaslave]

It is curious to me that TP is your favorite Zelda, yet you bad-mouth OoT like it is the most overrated game in history. After all, TP was Nintendo's way of trying to bring back the spirit of OoT. Hell, even GANON showed up at the end!

 

I mean... I didn't hate it. It just brought absolutely nothing to Zelda. The temples were often boring and generic (except for yeto's house. That's one of my favorite temples ever.), the story was A LINK TO THE PAST, and the art style was just... Not the best. It is one of the few reasons I'm not as big a fan of Zelda as I used to be, quite frankly. It was just... Blegh. Not my favorite. Sorry if you can't understand it, but it's true.

[Conker]

It is curious to me that TP is your favorite Zelda, yet you bad-mouth OoT like it is the most overrated game in history.

 

No, that is not even what I'm doing:

I am bad-mouthing OoT because it gets too much praise, when it shares some of the problems that make people DESPISE TP.

That's just people being blinded by nostalgia and bashing TP for the sake of bashing it, in my eyes, which is just stupid. But hey, can't fix the damage, I guess.

 

Also, what does bringing back Ganon/Ganondorf for TP have to do with OoT? He was in the series since the first game.

(I am aware that the game tries to bring back the spirit of OoT, but I felt like pointing that out to you)

Edited January 14, 2013 by Colonel Blinx
Fixed wording.

[Blaze_Uchiha420]

I guess TP was the Zelda game people wanted to hate, for some reason?

All I know is that people dis it for problems that exist in OTHER Zelda games(even in entires people praise), yet, they disregard those problems in the other Zelda games and put all the heat on TP.

 

Some people, I swear.

 

Twilight Princess was my favorite just because it seems to me like what OoT shoud've been

[Jason777]

One of the complaints that people had about Wind Waker was that it was too childish and that they wanted the next game to be "dark". They did exactly this with Twilight Princess and for some reason everybody hated it... Why? I don't know.

 

The thing with Zelda fans is that there is absolutely no way to please them all. I'll admit fetch quests are pretty annoying, but they're apart of practically every Zelda game in history. Blinx made a great argument when he pointed out that nearly everything that people bitch about in TP is present in almost every other game, too.

 

And you say that the overworld is empty? You mean that there are only certain areas where enemies are present. It's like that in all the other ones. There's just a difference in size and aesthics. OoT was just a field. Majora's Mask was small but had more to look at than OoT. Wind Waker was huge... but pretty boring. I'll admit that Wind Waker's rendering distance so that you could see the outlines of an island from very far away was impressive, though. Twilight Princess's overworld was beautiful and huge in my opinion.

 

Anyways, my argument is clearly biased as well as everybody else's. Oh yeah, Oracle of Seasons was my first game. And I played OoT before TP. So the argument that I hadn't grown up around the good ol' classics is useless against me.

[zaneebaslave]

I actually didn't find anything bland at all about Wind Waker. In fact, it gave you TONS to do, I thought, as you traversed the ocean. You must not have been playing it right. There were puzzles, islands, fortresses, watch-towers, giant octorocs. Not to mention the thousands of treasure sights. Then out comes a NEW game, one that should have learned from it's predecessors and improved on it: a HUGE overworld with about five trees, and bugs to catch.

 

...

 

And chu jellies.

 

See where I'm getting at? I don't need SCENERY. Scenery is nice and all, it adds atmosphere, but it doesn't provide the slightest bit of fun. In fact, the word that best describes TP in my mind is "bland". I just wasn't moved.

[Jotokun]

Jotokun:

Wrong in sooooo many ways, but hey, whatever.

zaneebaslave:

So, let me get this straight: you hate TP because it's a collect-o-thon? What about all other Zelda games that have you collect a lot of stuff? Wind Waker? Majora's Mask? And more?

---

ANYWAYS, TP is my favorite, too, Jason; I guess we're some of the few people that don't look back at the old games with rose-tinted glasses, huh?

We actually learn to not let nostalgia cloud our judgment of the newer entries, which are, in many ways, far, far superior to older entires in the series.

 

So, yeah, before I leave this topic, from best to worst in numerical order:

• Twilight Princess
• Skyward Sword
• Wind Waker
• Majora's Mask
• Ocarina of Time

Yes, I put OoT last because it's boring as shit. So boring, in fact, only community-made expansions/mods can save it from being a horrible, dull experience.

It's way more dull, boring, and empty than many people claim Twilight Princess to be. Ooooh yeah, it really is.

 

Well... you asked for an opinion. We disagree. That doesn't mean you or I are wrong, just that we look for different things out of the Zelda series.

 

I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan of OoT either. My first game was Link's Awakening, and I loved how tightly everything fit together. While OoT was 3D, I felt that the dialogue was overly simplistic and outside of the dungeons, the overworld was lacking. But it was an evolutionary stepping stone, and for that I see it as important, a milestone for the series.

 

Majora's Mask expanded on that in pretty much every way, and is IMO the gold standard for 3D Zeldas. While the world was smaller, it was far more alive. It improved on the tightly integrated world of LA with its groundhog day loop that allowed every NPC to operate on a schedual, making them feel real. It threw Ganon/dorf aside, proving that while an important part of the series, Zelda does not rely on his presence. It showed that the Zelda series could go beyond the generic black and white world of morals and showed genuine examples of fear, sadness... and most importantly, the most genuine examples of joy and happiness. With the negative vibes to serve as a backdrop, the positive ones are more pronounced and better appreciated.

 

Wind Waker was a step back in the realistic NPCs, but in most other respects was able to keep up with Majora's Mask. What looks on the surface like a bright cartoon is really one of the darker entries in the series. Everything has a backstory, every backstory shows a different set of colors than one may expect. Ganondorf being the best example, in WW its hard not to sympathise with him. The music was amazing, the difficulty for the combat was just right, and the visuals were stunning and still hold up today. The Triforce fetch quest is tedious, yes, but the dev team only went with it because they ran out of time. If you dont look at that one instance of padding, WW is a really strong entry.

 

Twilight Princess, on the other hand, did nothing new. Transformation mechanic? MM. Twilight Realm? ALttP says hi. Ganondorf? Same old stereotypical villain Ganondorf instead of someone with a genuinely clear motive fueled by understandable reasoning. NPCs? Static and, for many of them downright annoying and unrelatable people . Fetch quest padding? Frequent. Combat? Wiggle the wii remote until victory. Puzzles? Press switch, hit glowing spot. Music? Aside from Midna's themes and remixes, bland and uninspiring. Overworld? Empty and oversized to realistically use for travel. There was nothing really "dark" about the game aside from your generic "Evil guy is taking over the land". Majora's mask worked because it went beyond that. Sick father with no way to help him? A fear that you cant run a business by yourself? Knowing you'll never achieve one of your life dreams? While in different forms, every one of those can potentially happen IRL. TP, not so much.

 

Skyward Sword did a lot, and being the most recent Zelda game I'm kinda hesitant to talk about it even if it has been out a while for fear of spoiling something. However, as much as it tried to innovate, between the unusable motion controls and Mario64-esq hub world instead of a proper overworld makes it my least favorite entry in the series as far as the console games go.

 

IMO, of the 3D console Zelda games,

1) Majora's Mask

2) Wind Waker

3) Ocarina of Time

4) Twilight Princess

5) Skyward Sword

 

Again, this is just an opinion. Dont feel its a personal attack or something like that if you disagree.

[Jason777]

zaneebaslave: I guess I can't really relate to you all that much... scenery is a huge deal to me. In Wind Waker, while the Great Sea did have a lont of content for the player to find the travels in between just felt bland. The most exciting thing for me which would happen from time to time were a pair of seaguls which would decide to join me for the rather long and tiresome sailing trip. In Twilight Princess I would gaze off into the mountains, admire the ancient ruins of some old Hylian structure, or notice the looming Hyrule castle in the distance. Having enemies within the field really did not make much of a difference for me. Like I said before, I love scenery and combat only plays a minor factor in Zelda-game for me (besides Boss fights). However, I do enjoy finding random caves which Twilight Princess was full of. I guess you can say that those mini pirate fortresses in Wind Waker were the equivalent of that and I did enjoy stumbling upon those. Unfortunately, it appears that we look for very different things in a Zelda game so I find it hard understanding why you hold certain things in such high regard or disregard.

 

Jotokun: the way you structure your arguments is incredibly impressive and effective; I find myself sitting back and mumbling to myself "he's got a point there..." from time to time. See the thing about Twilight Princess is that Nintendo delivered a game that instead of being new and fresh was more of a polished and revised version of the classic Zelda formula. This is why most people say that Twilight Princess did nothing to new to the series... because it didn't. This also why not everyone will ever agree that Twilight Princess was a great game. You may complain that it's just same old same old Zelda but that's exactly why I like it. After Wind Waker some people were wanting a Zelda that had realistic graphics, inproved mechanics, and had concepts and plots like that of the classic Zeldas (almost like a Gamecube remake). When it came out it was just that-- nothing more and nothing less. This was exactly what I was looking for. You may be one of those people who is always wanting change. I generally am too, but Twilight Princess will forever hold the place of number one in my heart due to the fact that it took my nostalgia and merely enhanced it to be able to fit in with the games of its generation at the time. I guess the whole simplicity of it all has me so attached to the game. Not to completely contradict some of Blinx's previous argument but... yes, nostalgia does play a role in my love for this game. You probably think I Iike OoT 3D because of the same reasons I like TP. Hell no I don't. I guess I'm weird that way and Twilight Princess just rubs me right. It's probably because I think of Twilight Princess as the perfect "remake" under the disguise of an "original" Zelda title.