I’ve been playing Twilight Princess for a couple of weeks, and I don’t know completely what I think about it. To me, I guess it seemed like a really good Zelda, but unfinished. Then again, I have just finished the palace of twilight, so I still have a little bit to go before I see the end. Still though, I know I’m close to the end, yet I feel like it should be the halfway point.
The dungeons were far simpler than the ones in the three previous Zelda, but since they are somewhat formulaic, that’s not necessarily an unwelcome change. I have to say, while I was playing, there was a point where I found myself feeling a little exhausted simply gaining access to some of the early temples, which kinda makes up for their simplicity.
The map was huge and pretty, but it just seemed so deserted. Hyrule’s population doesn’t seem big enough to continue. The only real city in it was castle town. Sure, the Zora and the Gorons have their corners of the map, but their domains consist mainly of a huge hall that everyone just hangs out in at all hours of the day and night. Maybe that puts it on par with OOT, and OOT was (still is) great, but I kinda expect them to advance upwards in newer games. Also, even when I find a place with people, most of them won’t talk to me except to advance the plot.
There seems to be a big lack of side quests in the game. Let’s face it, at the heart of every Zelda game so far, you are an exterminator crawling meticulously over the countryside until you touch every part of it. The side quests that OOT, MM, and WW had in them let you almost feel like you were choosing your path. There are a few non-required side quests in TP, but not that many, and the magic armor really isn’t all that spiffy once you actually have it.
The cave of ordeals. It seems like a simple enough concept, and I felt accomplished to have survived through it, even if at the end I had only 2½ hearts left. The problem is, it is gratuitous. I know I just complained about side quests, but honestly, it doesn’t fit the game. What the cave of ordeals really tells me, is that the game is holding back. It tells me that they could have kicked my ass mercilessly at any time during the real levels, but for some reason have been taking it easy on me.
Midna is a nifty character, and a welcome new plot line, but even though she is there the whole game, she really doesn’t contribute all that much as it goes. She acts as the whip that tells me I have to go to the next part, and near the beginning she facilitates jumping high up, but then she just fades into my shadow, peeking out during cut scenes. Geez, if you’re going to ride naked on my back for half the game, at least have something constructive to say afterwards. Still a cool character mostly though, enough so that it’s a shame Zelda games have a habit of mostly not keeping that kind of addition in future releases.
The opening of new areas. It’s pretty much a given that a Zelda game, and pretty much most games, won’t let you into a new area until you have finished the previous one, but really they did very little to mask that fact in TP. In OOT and MM, you pretty much couldn’t get into a new area until you have the right toys to get in with. WW was the same way, plus you were completely lost looking at a map at the same time. At points in TP, I couldn’t get into an area, simply because I hadn’t talked to the next person in the stories plot line yet. It wasn’t a matter of following clues to discover who I had to talk to, no; Midna said talk to whomever, so I had to talk to whomever.
Epona the useless horse. By the time I got full use of Epona, I could warp. By the time I could call her whenever I wanted, I could warp anywhere I wanted on the whole map, including places the horse couldn’t reach. I guess I could ride her for fun, if there were any place to go to. Too bad though, because she thunders across the fields in a very fun and satisfying way.
My useless toys. The clawshot is useful, the double clawshot is useful, but everything else was useful for about the last half of a single dungeon, and a small bit here and there later. If you are going to make the dungeons in such a way that I don’t need the previous toys much, you could have gone ahead and let me finish them in any order I wanted. Maybe this complaint really belongs in the pile of reasons I think the game should be longer. Every dungeon gives me a new toy, and teaches me to use it, but then it’s time to play with a different new toy. If the game were longer on the other hand, maybe I could use the toys I already have for a little while longer.
What happened to the Rito? This goes to that thing about neat stuff not making it into the next versions of Zelda. Did they turn out to be Hylians with a thing for bird cosplay? Did the avian flu get them? I guess they are pretending they never made Wind Waker, but honestly that was a great version of Zelda.
What do I want? I guess I want more of the same, but different, you know? Consider this; OOT was great, except for the parts where MM was better. The people and environment in MM was terrific, even if the quest didn’t have the traditional Zelda feel. Yes, they reused a lot, but it was really very good. It was an opportunity to give something slightly more refined, without too much new effort. Yes, I want a new Zelda that will have all sorts of new and interesting things, but hey Nintendo, as long as you developed all the cool stuff for Twilight Princess, how about going ahead and making a bit more of the same while you have it, or maybe a direct sequel? Save Gannon for the next full legend, and bring in a fresh lesser villain that Link and Midna can whoop on for a while. Concentrate on increasing the dwindling population of Hyrule, giving the NPC’s more personality, and plenty of bonus optional quests.
Edit:
Tuesday I sat down and finished up Twilight Princess. The final boss fights were easier than I anticipated, but overall a satisfying end, especially the last fight. I won’t say much more about it, so as to avoid spoilers.
Anyhow, having finished Twilight Princess, I decided to take another shot at Wind Waker. I deleted my old save games and started from the beginning. Having a vague recollection of my surroundings and what’s going on makes the first part go fairly smoothly, but it is still enjoyable. It didn’t take long until I was in the fortress, and while I was sneaking around under a barrel, feeling like I need to pee while I’m waiting for one of those pig monster guys to pass, it suddenly occurred to me that WW may have been the better game. OK, saying it’s simply better may be too strong, but at the least I think that I may like WW better than TP. Here is why.
Every Zelda game is basically a predefined list of goals, all of which must be completed in more or less a particular order, but in the end the only way to actually lose the game is to give up and quit. That brings me to my first reason; TP is too easy to beat. Maybe they wanted to make it easier to compensate for the Wii’s new unfamiliar controls, or maybe they wanted to appeal to younger players, I don’t know, but the end result is that I knew that if I simply kept walking forward swinging my sword and going where Midna told me, I would reach the end. There simply weren’t very many real puzzles. WW on the other hand has riddles, maps, and secrets hidden in a way that I might never find them. WW makes you collect clues to reach certain goals, and makes it challenging. Link may look older in TP than in WW, but actual gameplay in WW is designed for older players who have more patience. If I just want to follow a story, I can watch a DVD, but in a game I want to make the story. In TP you follow the story, and in WW you make it, maybe not fully, but more so than in TP.
WW is not OOT. TP is very similar to OOT, and OOT is an epic game, but honestly, OOT is big enough that if I wanted to repeat that experience, I could just play OOT again. In fact, OOT is downloadable for around $10 on the Wii, although I won’t be buying that way because I already have the GC disk. TP is a terrific tribute to the qualities that make OOT great, and in many ways an improvement on OOT, but WW is a great game without being a direct imitation of OOT. If future versions of Zelda are going to be imitations of old versions, we may only have ourselves to blame, for not appreciating WW enough.
WW is a very polished game. The NPC’s in WW have personalities, interests, and places to be, where in TP many of the people only speak to tell you who you really should be talking to, or they run around randomly to create ambiance. Ambiance is not a good substitute for substance. Maybe TP was rushed to shelves because the Wii was being released, so they just didn’t have time to program all the little people, but I would have been willing to wait a while longer if I could have gotten a more complete game.
WW makes you walk to work. I have to drive for about 15 minutes each morning to get to work, and if I had warp points in real life, things would be swell. That’s the problem though, it’s not believable. How can I feel like I’m saving the kingdom of Hyrule, when even commuting is easy? Why did we love Epona so much in OOT? We loved her because up until that point we had to walk, uphill in both directions. In TP I didn’t even need the Epona they gave me. A free horse, but I didn’t need it! TP spoils gamers rotten, and in the process makes it harder to feel like Hyrule is a real place or that the quest is real. WW requires travel time, and you even have to look for parking. Sure, the boat occasionally could have stood to go a little faster, but when you went someplace, it was like reaching a real place.
I guess in an ideal situation, TP would have been released years ago, and WW would have been released recently. That wand would have gone well with the Wii controller. That hindsight is great stuff. Anyhow, everything is subjective, and everyone will have different opinions, so feel free to feel differently about anything I said. If anyone here never owned WW, I encourage you to go out and buy/rent/steal it.
