Topic: IMPRESSIONS: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

[Svevan]

That's an interesting point, Artimus, but I disagree with Peer's comparison. I warmed up to the three-day chronology of Majora instantly - it didn't effect the very core of the gameplay, just the game design. If anything, I hear people saying Majora should have been more like TOoT. However, Peer is very correct: this is an entirely new way to control Zelda. And I'm absolutely willing to try it on someone else's Wii before I decide not to buy it. It could be that it takes an hour to get used to.

I've seen people of all types pick up the N64 versions of Zelda and love them. Sadly, I don't think those same people will have access to Zelda on Wii (it's not for them, I guess).

[trip1eX]

I'm buying the Wii version no matter what.  I mean the whole bow and arrow thing where you'll hear your bowstring tighten as you pull the wiimote back is something I won't miss.  

I really think a big part of the controls is a learning curve issue.  Even Miyamoto said it's probably harder for those weaned on current game controllers to get used to the wiimote.   Again my first attempts at using a mouse for fps games drove me back to keyboard-only because I was worse with the mouse.  Ultimately, of course, the mouse was superior.  

Another analogy is Tiger Woods.  Every couple of years he revamps his swing in order to get better.  AT first this results in him getting worse tho.  He takes a step backwards while making the adjustments.  Only later does the payoff happen and he takes a couple steps forward.

The only issue I really see is the switching between weapons with the d-pad.  That doesn't seem like it can be improved without ditching that scheme completely.  The only good news about that is I don't think you'll need to rapidly switch between weapons like you would in an action game.

 

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Majora's Mask was exciting and fresh.  The similarities distanced themselves once the game demanded more from your core mask abilities.  Boo to the [FORMER NINTENDO FANS] who didn't get so far!

OH HEY IT'S A TOWN WITH PEOPLE, AND THEY ACTUALLY HAVE THINGS TO DO IN ADDITION TO STANDING AND REPEATING TEXT!

IN-KEEPER ANJU AND THE MUSIC BOX HOUSE FTW

[mantidor]

Playing Zora Link was a game on its own, oh how much I wish for a return of that in TP!

That IGN guy doesnt know what the hell he's talking about, MM was rejected for being so different, and Ive never heard someone saying "its like ocarina" except him.

[Requiem]

You guys are fogetting what the hell he is talking about: Controls. The story may have changed, but MM essentially controlled like OOT.

He figured TP would to, but he found out that the Wii made it feel fresh and new. A rare experience to be sure. Maybe something akin to playing OOT for the first time?

[mantidor]

Again, Zora Link. When I mentioned him it was because that was exactly a fresh experience from a controls perspective, finally you could swim properly in the game. Theres a reason Aunoma and team decided to include a wolf, you know. In other words, the fresh experiences are going to be there in TP plenty, without the need of rev functionality.

[Ian Sane]

"Remember playing Majora's Mask back on the N64? Despite the novel three-day setup, some players found that it felt a bit too similar to The Ocarina of Time and thus simply wasn't as exciting and fresh."

I actually liked the fact that it controlled like Ocarina of Time.  I like a franchise for a reason and when I play a sequel I want that basic feel to be similar.  I picked the game up and knew how to play it instantly.  But it was still a very different sequel with an emphasis on side quests.  It was like someone made a basic control scheme and then two people made two totally different games with it (actually that kind of is what happened).  Majora's Mask is the perfect sequel.  It plays like the first game but adds a whole bunch of new and different sh!t to make it a different experience.  If anything the complaints I hear about Majora's Mask are that it's too different.

Majora's Mask in my view demonstrates a key misconception regarding the whole Wii in general.  There's this idea about the Wii that the remote is a necessity for innovation.  Somehow Twilight Princess is supposed to be more fresh and exciting because it has a different control scheme.  Why?  Isn't it still about going through dungeons and solving puzzles?  How is having a different way to control shooting a bow going to change the overall game design?  Majora's Mask is true innovation.  They didn't change the controls they changed the game on top of the controls.  They took the Zelda formula and created a vastly different game around it, that still felt like Zelda.  If Twilight Princess feels too much like Ocarina of Time it will be because of how the game itself is laid out, not because the controls are mapped a certain way.

Super Mario Galaxy didn't grab my interest because it uses the remote.  It grabbed my interest because of the design of Mario jumping between planets.  That idea is unique and that's why it grabbed my interest.  The same idea could be done with a different control scheme and I still would be intrigued becaues Super Mario Galaxy introduces a new exciting concept while still feeling like Mario.  It isn't just a Super Mario 64 clone with different controller mappings.

[trip1eX]

Miyamoto says "This is a kind of a slightly different case then what I just explained, but one example I can give would be with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which as you know takes advantage of the Wii remote for aiming with the bow. Some people found that when they were aiming with the bow, as they release the button to fire the arrow your aim would move slightly, and that would make it more difficult to hit the enemy. So the natural thinking was that maybe on the software and programming side we could make it so that even if your aim moves just a little bit as you release you'll still hit the target, kind of almost like an auto-aim type of feature. That was kind of the natural thinking in terms of how we could improve that.

But I went back to the team and I said, well, you know, if you think about it though aiming a bow is not something that's very easy to do. So the fact that you have to be very precise adds reality, it adds realism to the game. So rather than try and take that type of aiming system and change it into something that's more along the lines of a shooting game, it's better to retain that type of realism and challenge the player to really kind of get into the feeling of shooting a bow. I think often times people kind of have these old habits in creating games, that they always tend to try and resolve issues in the same way, even though resolving that issue may not be the best solution for that particular piece of software."

[trip1eX]

Q:  This more active gaming style is a departure from today's gaming, which tends to be sedentary.  What's the backup plan if gamers aren't willing to follow into that more active sort of gaming? Do you see more games being made for the classic controller?

Miyamoto  says "Of course we will have games that will be functional with the classic controller as well. And in fact if you try Zelda in the living room setting on the show floor you'll see that you can actually sit back and with very little motions play Zelda and have a very good time with it. Those gamers who aren't interested in doing those very sweeping motions, they don't have to. But in fact, I think, they're going to find as they're playing that they're gradually going to start doing those motions because it's so much more fun to actually be that involved in what is going on the screen and it adds that much more realism and I think there a large number of players out there that are really excited for that type of control scheme.

Even when you're just sitting there with this more laid back style of gameplay, I think everyone's going to find that just using the pointer in and of itself is very convenient and a very good addition to the control experience as well."
 

[Smash_Brother]

It's still 5-6 months until this game hits store shelves. I'm not at all worried about it.

Nintendo has all that time to tweak and fine tune the game and the controls. I have zero concerns.

[Kairon]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane Majora's Mask is true innovation.  They didn't change the controls they changed the game on top of the controls.  They took the Zelda formula and created a vastly different game around it, that still felt like Zelda.

I...disagree with that statement strongly.

I found so much about MM sparkly innovationy. Look, the whole world runs on a 3-day cycle that is predictable and that you can easily jump to the very beginning of! Look, more masks! And look! MORE MASKS!

I mean...ick. MM was a friggin' true sequel to me, not in the Nintendo sense, but in the Call of Duty and Call of Duty 3 sense. It had great production values, but no Miyamoto magic.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com
Hater of games

[ruby_onix]

Quote
Originally posted by: Hostile Creation
Still not sure which version I'm going to get.  It'd be nice if the Wii version supported a Gamecube controller (since the controller is compatible with the system), but I may just get it for cube.  We'll see.

No. The GameCube controller isn't compatible with the Wii. Those ports are inaccessable to Wii games, and only function when the system is in "GameCube mode". Wii games will control exclusively with the Wiimote.

And you people thought I was crazy to complain about such a thing.

Oh wait. I'm forgetting the Shell. The Shell is perfect. The Shell will be tailor made, in different forms for each and every game that could possibly use one. And free. They will come free with those games. Yeah, I forgot.

[mantidor]

I really would prefer they could spend working this 5-6 months polishing the GC version instead of tweaking some controls Im not going to use. I understand the reasons behind the decision of putting rev features, but they couldve also promote the standalone GC version as a launch title and promote the backwards compatibility at the same time, then the console wouldve had the best of both worlds, traditional and new games, thats the direction I would've liked. Afterall Aunoma said TP is for the hardcore Zelda fan, it makes no sense to put features so "anti-hardcore" so to speak, the audience of this game isnt going to be scared away by complex controls at all.

I do disagree with Ian that Mario Galaxy could be made with normal controllers, and any other rev game, just the fact that they were made with the remote in mind changes the game design completly, what happens is that now is harder to understand, because all we the normal bunch have is videos and hands on impressions, Again, this is a demo, and it has a long way to go.

[ShyGuy]

An excerpt from Kaplan Joystiq interview:

Quote
JS: With regards specifically to Smash Bros., that is a title that is not necessarily going to be using the Wii motion control.

PK: It may or may not, but I guess it's still in development, so let's talk when it's done.

JS: One of the developers said at the event where it was unveiled, "Don't throw away your GameCube controllers." That would imply that maybe --

PK: That would apply to Zelda too, and Virtual Console games...

This would seem to imply that the cube controllers can be used on the Wii Zelda and the virtual console.

[ruby_onix]

Yeah, I just read that and came back here.

It's just more hinting and teasing, and it conflicts with Reggie's clear statement from February about it being a hardware limitation.

http://www.planetgamecube.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=11050

I'm not sure how to take it. It's possible that they changed the hardware, but they're not allowed to say that they did, because of the all-important hardware secrecy and specs not mattering and whatnot. Or it was never really a hardware limitation, and more of a strongarm tactic, which they didn't want the public to know about but now they can't afford so they're backing off. Or the hints from Perrin and E3 are just lies meant as a delaying tactic, so that when people finally get peeved about the controls in the Wii version of Zelda they might be scattered and not have a unified voice.

None of which are scenarios that I like. But I'll take one of the two that result in non-borked controls.

[mantidor]

Kaplan is always very ambigous, while Reggie goes to the point, thats good, but gives chance to end up looking like a liar, examples: Mario 128 shown at last E3, TP to be released in April, TP not having Wii features, etc.

[Smash_Brother]

Keep in mind that stuff Reggie says might change after he says it, effectively making him LOOK like a liar when he's really not.

Kaplan is ambiguous because she's afraid of saying something which people might call her on later.

[IceCold]

Quote
Originally posted by: ruby_onix
Replace the D-pad and A button with a traditional four-button diamond. That means you're losing a button, right? No problem. Put in a second trigger, to match the nunchuck. You still want a D-pad? Sure, put it on the bottom of the remote, instead of those two redundant buttons. Voila! Problems solved. And now you can use the remote for more Virtual Console games than just the NES.

Hey... I thought of that idea!

[Jonnyboy117]

Quote
Originally posted by: trip1eX
I'm buying the Wii version no matter what.  I mean the whole bow and arrow thing where you'll hear your bowstring tighten as you pull the wiimote back is something I won't miss.

That was not in the E3 demo at all.  To use the bow, you just press down on the D-pad to pull it out, then press again to shoot an arrow.  You don't pull back the remote and "let go" or anything like that.  Same problem as with the sword, when you don't really swing it around like in Red Steel.  That's exactly why some of us are complaining about Zelda's controls...they just complicate the game without adding any immersion because they are underused and poorly at that.

[Pale]

It was actually hold down the button to pull it back and the release the button to shoot, but same difference.  

[trip1eX]

Ah no pullback?  Ah well.  It doesn't seem like the controls are complicated tho.  What's complicated about aiming while holding a button and letting go of it?  It sounds like more fun than moving that analog stick to aim with the bow.  Analog stick bow aiming in the  mini-game you played with the fish in Windwaker sucked arse.

I threw a quote up above in another post that I found in an E3 Endgadget/Joystiq interview that said Miyamoto didn't want to make it easier to aim and hit a target with the bow.  Designers complained your aim 'shook' when you pressed the button to shoot an arrow.  He actually said yeah, but it's realistic.  That's how a bow is in real-life.  And so it stayed in there.   I just think aiming will be fine.  

The only beef I read that doesn't sound good is the d-pad thing, but it doesn't seem to be a big dealio in a game like Zelda where, at least in the last one, it doesn't seem like you need to rapidly switch weapons while playing.  They could change this too to pointing and aiming at the icons to switch.

I looked at the wiimote again and the d-pad is awful close to the A button.  CAn't you  press the 'A' button with the the middle of your thumb and use the top of thumb to control the dpad?   I do that with the Gamecube controller and the 'A' and 'Y' buttons.  Is the d-pad as tiny as on the Gamecube?  Maybe they need that one on there if it isn't.  But that wouldn't be good for games when the thing is turned sideways.

Anyway I guess  I always saw Zelda on the Wii as a Gamecube game with enhanced features for Wii instead of a 'for the Wii from the ground up' game.  And that's exactly what it seems like we're getting.  I didn't really expect the 'full-fledged' wii treatment here.      

[Requiem]

Any word on aiming and moving at the same time?

I know it might be hard, but I bet i'll master the Wii in no time. Hell, I bet the learning curve is still MORE FUN than the original. Then once you master it, it's like butter. Silky smooth immersion.

[AnyoneEB]

Requiem: I asked the same question a few days ago: http://www.planetgamecube.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=28&threadid=15993

[Svevan]

Good question, Requiem and AnyoneEB: Yes you can aim and move at the same time. Since you're holding the D-Pad to enter aiming mode, and moving the Wii-remote to aim, the control stick is free to move your character. This was actually fairly vital during the boss battle, and it is definitely a positive function of the Wii controls in Zelda.

[mantidor]

Im actually happy about the implementation so far, my biggest fear was swinging the remote to swing the sword, I knew it was going to be tiring and get old really quickly and Nintendo seemed to agree, the bit about the arrow is not what I expected though, I really thought it was like pulling the bow string, but maybe doing that isnt as easy as I thought.

My criticism has always been that the implementation cant really go beyond that, Nintendo is mapping buttons to gestures here, its kind of hard to make it more intuitive or natural without modifing the core gameplay mechanics of the game, something they cant do, they dont have the time to do such heavy modifications right now anyway.

Something I dont understand though is the D-pad/A button reachability, the remote is really small, you should be able to reach any button with your thumb easily, right?.