Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD - OT

@Octane Yep. This and SS are the only 3D Zelda games I haven't played.

Oh God the horse controls.

I won't spoil a thing for you just in case. But the horseback combat definitely overstays its welcome, they shoehorn it into way too many battles.

And by too many I mean like three.

@Ralizah You didn't own a GameCube or Wii back in the day?

@Ralizah I loved the ogre duel. And nice to see you enjoyed the Goron Mines, the dungeons are great in this game as you'll see. Just one more Tears of Light quest left for you and the rest of the game will be exhilarating.

Also, about Wind Waker - I felt the same way initially about ocean navigation, but after a while, even with the swift sail it just seemed way too boring and empty.

There are several other complaints I have about Wind Waker I forgot to mention as well:

• Less content relative to other Zelda games
• Tetra was great ... until she turned into Zelda and the king told her to hide in an old basement for the rest of the game lol. Great way to mess up a strong willed, independent character.
• People said Ganondorf in this game was much better developed, so I was looking forward to that ... and was kinda let down. One sentence about "my people and I lived in the desert, we wanted the welcoming lands of Hyrule" didn't exactly make him much more characterized, considering it doesn't really inform any of his decisions in the game and is just one sentence in the entire game.
• AND my biggest one: Wind Waker just felt wayyy too much like Ocarina of Time. Yes, you read that right. People usually complain Twilight Princess is the one too close to Ocarina, but as you play through it you'll realize it has numerous innovations and features to stand out. In terms of gameplay, take away the sea sailing and Wind Waker is very very similar to Ocarina. Absolutely no new items (and less in total than in Ocarina or TP), the dungeon design was good but felt a bit conservative compared to the ones in Twilight Princess, and overall it just felt more like Ocarina + Sea for me. That being said I liked the game, it's just not on the masterpiece level that Ocarina and TP have reached for me.

@Haru17 To be fair, IMHO you set yourself up to dislike the game if you choose to 100% BotW. That is virtually guaranteed to be a slog, Nintendo didnt really design the game so that you had to collect all the Korok seeds or even do all the shrines so doing them will make the overall game feel quite redundant. I honestly think if you didn't 100% the game and if you cast away your expectations of what a Zelda game or Zelda dungeon should look like, you would have a much different opinion.

@shadow-wolf So should I play the game or shouldn't I? You apologists XD. Anyway, in none of those hours was it a Zelda game so it doesn't even matter.

@Haru17 Considering you put in all the effort to 100% it, you should probably just take a break for now. Give it a year or two, maybe even longer, and approach it again with a fresh mind and no expectations about what it should be or shouldn't be. Take it from the person who used to dislike TP quite a bit but now loves it when replaying after an 8 year break.

@shadow-wolf I have that EXACT misgiving about Tetra's character arc. She becomes the princess and is told to hide in a basement while the men go do the real work. Nevermind that she had lived her entire life as a competent, tough-as-nails pirate captain.

Re: Ganondorf in Wind Waker, he was still paper thin (he always is, and I like that BotW acknowledged this by turning Ganon into a literal force of evil), but the character felt... less cartoonishly evil, I guess. It's as much about his demeanor as his explicit backstory or motives.

@Octane I did (bought a GameCube for cheap years after it was off the market, and my family owned a Wii), but until the 3DS I mostly ignored Nintendo games, playing primarily on Playstation and Xbox consoles. OoT3D in 2011 was actually my first 3D Zelda, and Super Mario 3D Land was my first 3D Mario.

@Meowpheel Horseback combat is cool in theory, but I've yet to find a game that does it elegantly. BotW and SotC come the closest, but they're still kind of awkward.

I never had problem with most of the TP things you guys mentioned. Maybe you're all just weird.

Played another 3 - 4 hours of this tonight. Impressions:

• Collected 6 more heart pieces, so I'm up two extra hearts from when I beat the last dungeon.
• Why is there a world-weary toddler in Kakariko Village lecturing me about how "time is money?"
• While I'm not a fan of how inflexible and tank-like Link's movement is in this game, I do like all of these different skills he can learn from the generic Dark Souls baddy (skeleton in a suit of armor... whatever).
• There are moments when the game is wonderfully atmospheric.
• I have to admit: after BotW, it's pretty pathetic to watch Link be unable to reach a chest because it would require him to jump a foot off the ground to reach the ledge it's on.
• So, apparently when you quit the game, it transports you back to a particular spot in the zone you're in, but it remembers where you left Epona. So, if you're in the part of Hyrule Field where the Eldin bridge is, and you left your horse on the other end of the map when you died or quit last, you have to walk allllllllllllllllllllllllll the way over to him, unless you're lucky enough to chance upon some horsewhistle grass, or whatever it's called. Words can't describe how irritating this all is. Having to run across a horrible, empty map section for four minutes because the game wasn't decent enough to spawn your horse alongside you, and having to find some special plant to summon your horse!
• I know I've mentioned this, but... yeah, Hyrule Field sucks. It's needlessly huge and utterly desolate.
• Then, upon entering a new area, I discover that I have to turn into a wolf again. Oh joy. Cue hours of sniffing the ground, finding weirdly elusive bugs (WHY DID I HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY BACK INTO THE TOWN TO FIND ONE?!), and running everywhere trying to solve what turned out to be a fairly simple puzzle (I totally didn't remember that volcanic rock on Death Mountain when I should have).
• That cryptic vision from Lanayru was... something. This game is definitely bordering on dark fantasy at times.

So far, this is the Sonic Unleashed of the Legend of Zelda franchise. Half decent Zelda game, half tedious horror game where you run around as a wolf killing giant insects, because Nintendo apparently decided to go all edgy with this one. I guess to balance out the joyous Wind Waker.

I'm guessing that's Malo. He's one of my least favorite characters in thr game. He's borderline insufferable and acts nothing like a normal four-year-old.

I honestly prefer Malo to any of the other Ordonian kids.

Except Mr. Unborn McBaby. I'll give that one the benefit of the doubt.

I've gotta admit, I really like these deep cave systems I'm finding around Hyrule. I uncovered one via bomb-able wall in the Lake Hylia area that was surprisingly long. I'd love to see something like this return in the next Zelda game.

I'm not sure how I feel about these extra techniques Link is learning from the howling stones. Ending Blow is pretty useful, and the shield one... I guess I could see myself using it once or twice, but the controls for activating the back slice seems pretty finicky, which is weird, because it seems similar to the parry attack in The Wind Waker, and that was quite easy to pull off.

@Tyranexx Yep, Malo, that's the one. He's a funny character. Reminds me of Baby Herman from Who Framed Roger Rabbit

i don't think Ralizah understands what a horror game is since basically nothing in Twilight Princess plays like a horror game (which is why I like it)

i mean it is tryharding to be darker to be sure but so are plenty of things that aren't horror games

Well excuse me but Twilight Princess has a whole 1 second of horror.

Did you forget Blizzeta?

the Blizzeta boss doesn't play like anything in a horror game. Not even RE4 era horror, really.

Yes I do realize he was obviously talking about the horror-like elements from the aesthetic and story of Twilight Princess. It's a dumb complaint and I'm using his poor word choices against him for my own amusement.

Also, implying Sonic Unleashed is a horror game is an insult to horror games. And I say this as someone who doesn't like many horror games. Tbh, Majora's Mask is more of a horror game, since it at least has a time limit to put some real anxiety on the player. Twilight Princess is just Ocarina of Time but kinda darker and with more repeating of areas.

I'm not talking about the fight. I meant the ""jumpscare"" before it.

That jumpscare is not gameplay. Invalid. We might as well consider Kirby horror for its occasionally creepy final bosses.

I literally said "one second of horror". Not sure what you're arguing about, I was more or less agreeing with you. With sarcasm.

@Meowpheel
It's all subjective. Let's move on. There's no need for any more horror on this thread! d^__^b

Meh, I prefer most of the other kids to that pompous, weirdly mature baby-faced kid.

@Meowpheel: Both that and Lanaryu's vision sequence are nightmare fuel material, IMO.