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Originally posted by: Chiller
After lurking for a while, I have decided to join and add my two cents to this particular topic. I have just finished TP, after about 40 hours of play (still need 3 heart pieces, and 10 poe souls, though).
I just finished it on Tuesday night, with a clock time of just under 60 hours. I still needed to collect about 20 more heart pieces, 21 more poes, 8 more bugs, one more bottle and one more bomb bag. And I barely did any fishing, actually...
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In regard to the controls, let me say that this was perhaps one of the easiest playing games I have ever played. Now, I have been playing since '84, and have owned or played every widely available system, so I have a bit of experience. I have also thrashed many control pads and joysticks over those years out of contempt for unresponsiveness.
Very similar background to me here. Been playing videogames since my family got an Intellivision for Christmas in 1982 (I was 8 years old), and I've been a huge Zelda nut since I first played the original on my NES in late '87 or early '88. I've also owned nearly every domestically-released console and gone through many different input peripherals (consoles and PC) in my quest for responsive, intuitive controls.
I didn't find Twilight Princess to be one of the "easiest playing games" I have ever played. Well, it was easy in terms of the controls being intuitive and responsive, which let me actually focus on the game itself and not on coping with an input device.
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I must say that not once did I ever feel the urge to dash my remote at any point during the normal gameplay (level 8 of rollgoal came close).
The closest I got was when escorting the wagon from Hyrule Castle to the village. I had to try it a good six times to finally get through. Mainly because I had trouble getting the boomerang to lock on to the wagon instead of the orc-guys or the birds. If the remote hadn't been strapped to my wrist (and if the system hadn't been an early Christmas present from my wife, who was sitting right next to me), I might have thrown it across the room. :-) Last time I threw a controller in a Zelda game was in Ocarina of Time. Twice, actually. The first time was after fighting that stupid Bongo Bongo in the stupid Shadow Temple and dying again, and the second time was during the fight with Ganondorf and I was having trouble reflecting his "balls of light" back at him.
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Nearly everything came with complete ease, with the sole exception being the shield-attack. Ironically, the difficulty came, in a manner of speaking, from the ease of execution. I found that my problem with the shield-attack came mainly from overzealous articulation. For myself, the best way to get the most consistent result was to use a gentle pushing motion. A simple shove forward worked nearly 100% of the time. Only when I became too forceful did I find myself activating the spin attack instead. So, chalk this up as another vote for the Wii control-scheme.
I agree with you -- sometimes a more subtle, gentle motion of the controller is all you need. In the heat of battle, however, I find it easy to get caught up in it...
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Secondly, I would like to have seen an increase in difficulty. I never died, or had to use a potion once - something I have never accomplished in any other game in the series, including Wind Waker.
I had a completely different experience. In Wind Waker, I never died once although I did have to use potions once in a while. I think I only had 13 heart containers when I finished the game, too. The only spot where I came close to dying in Wind Waker was during one of the "puppet" phases of the battle at the end -- the centepedy thing. However, I also hadn't played the game in several months and picked it up to try and finish it off so I was pretty out of practice.
I died quite a few times in Twilight Princess. In fact, I hadn't seen that many "Game Over" screens in a Zelda game since Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Especially at the beginning of the game, enemies seem to do a lot more damage than then did in WW and hearts are dropped dramatically less often from enemies and pots/grass than they were in the previous few games. And you take quite a bit of damage from falling into Lava or into a bottomless pit. Red potions, soup, milk, and fairies heal fewer hearts as well.
I honestly believe that the "easiness" of recent Zelda games is in a large part due to the players having played and replayed the previous games and just getting too good at them. The Wind Waker is criticized everywhere for being too easy and definitely much easier than Ocarina of Time. My wife has played and completed A Link to the Past 3 or 4 times but never played any of the N64 Zeldas. I got her to try Wind Waker (which I found much easier than Ocarina of Time) and she found it too difficult to play. She thought the controls were too complicated and difficult and the 3D world was too disorienting to navigate.
Those of us who have been playing video games for 20+ years and who were playing throughout the evolution of gameplay from the simple 8-bit games to the more complex 2D 16-bit titles and through the PlayStation/Saturn/N64 transition-to-3D-era (not to mention the concurrent transition to 3D games on the PC platform) have a significantly different perspective than those who missed part(s) of this gradual transition. A game that would be truly challenging for us would most likely be unapproachable for new gamers or those who haven't really played games since the SNES. I'm thinking mainly of adult gamers here -- children are generally more adaptable and primed to learn and those who grew up playing 3D games wouldn't encounter the same issues. Twilight Princess was the most fun I've had with a game in years, and I felt more personally involved in the gameplay than in any other game in recent memory. That's enough for me.
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Finally, if you have any sort of epicondylitis or other tendonitis in the arms, make sure to take a break once in a while.
I have pretty severe tendonitis in both arms from daily computer work and while using the mouse really starts to hurt my arm after a while, I haven't had any problems with the Wii remote yet. Though Wii Boxing really makes my arms fatigued after a couple of matches.
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