Topic: IMPRESSIONS: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

[MegaByte]

Are the new controls really that great for this game?

The newly announced Wii version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess had some of the longest lines in the Wii booth.  This year’s demo featured levels completely different from last year’s E3 showing, as they were designed to show off the new Wii controls.  A fishing level as well as a standard demo level was playable.    

I felt that Zelda had the worst controls of any of the Wii games that I played.  While not totally broken, the controls were unintuitive and often confusing.  For example, unlike the demo shown at the press conference, arrows are not shot by pulling the remote from the nunchuck.  Instead targeting is performed by the remote, and arrows are shot by pressing and releasing the A button.  The hookshot worked in the same manner.  Targeting, as most of the games shown at E3, was very sensitive.  Movement was controlled with the control stick.  Item switching was done by pressing the appropriate direction on the D-pad.  The inventory was one of the more annoying things to activate, and the remote had to target a small icon in the corner of the screen marked inventory.  The positioning of the D-pad relative to the A button makes switching between them somewhat uncomfortable.  The B trigger was used for sword slashing, yet special sword moves were performed by jerking the nunchuck attachment.  Overall, button assignment felt haphazard and hard to remember, being split across the two hands.  It is my hope that these controls will be modified before the final release.  Otherwise, I’ll probably stick to the standard controller.    

The actual demo took Link through an obstacle course of sorts, allowing players to test out the various controls and items, including the newly introduced electromagnetic boots.  After this, a short dungeon was presented, at the end of which players finally had a chance to battle against the Balrog-like creature shown in previous Zelda trailers.  The boss battle was pretty interesting as it required players to use several techniques in sequence.  First the head of the monster had to be shot by an arrow.  This would stun the creature so that it wouldn’t swipe Link with its chains.  Next, Link had to go behind the monster and grab his chains.  However, Link isn’t strong enough to pull the chains by himself and must use the metal boots to give himself enough traction.  Pulling the chains caused the enemy to fall down, after which Link had to attack his head using his sword.  Once this sequence was completed twice, the demo was completed.    

The graphics were no different than the GameCube game, which means that they were very nice for a GameCube game, but nothing to write home about in comparison to a next gen game.  The game, as all of the other Wii games, was running in 480p widescreen mode, which is sure to please a lot of people.  Nintendo still hasn’t shown us a lot of what the game will entail, mostly focusing on how the game will be played.  Judging from the trailers, Twilight Princess is sure to be an amazing game.  Just don’t expect the Wii controls to add too much to the experience.

[mantidor]

uh oh... here we go again.

On al lighter note, I think that fishing will be great with the remote, as I said a long time before, is the only remote functionality Im excited about.

[Artimus]

Further proof that people don't like having to learn anything. "It's too hard! I actually have to aim!"

Poor baby!!!!!

[NWR_pap64]

Oh boy...Zelda twilight Princess E3 demo bitching, whining and complaining..take two aaaaaaand...ACTION!

I'll be completely frank with you guys. It seems that you are willing rag on the game just because you couldn't get used to it.

I've seen Twilight Princess videos from a lot of websites. I have a 6 minute video from IGN where the player plays a LInk, goes through the dungeon and fights the boss just fine. I didn't see any awkward moments in between gameplay and the only thing I noticed that felt weird was the fairy cursor flying around.

I said it once and I'll say it again...
THE GAME WAS AN EARLY E3 DEMO THAT WAS RUNNING ON VERY EARLY WII HARDWARE. GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS ALREADY.

And don't give me any of the "The game has been development for over a year" bullcrap. Just because the game appeared at E3 it doesn't mean that the game is FINISHED.

The E3 was buggy? Fine. But please, don't be so quick to judge the final game, especially when even Nintendo has saying that they are still working out all the bugs from both the controller and the games, meaning that changes will be made from not till the Wii is released.

And people, I'll be honest with you...Out of ALL the games announced this generation, Zelda: Twilight Princess is perhaps the game that has recieved the most bitching, whining and complaining. Seriously, every piece of news that comes out is met with a lot of whining and complaining and you guys end up insulting Nintendo for it...

FOR GOD'S SAKE...

THE GAME WILL EVENTUALLY GET RELEASED! In fact to please people they will be releasing the classic GC version so that you can play it on the GC.

Pick which ever version, play it THEN you are allowed to bitch, because at least you have PLAYED the game...  

[Ian Sane]

"Further proof that people don't like having to learn anything. 'It's too hard! I actually have to aim!'"

Why should anyone learn anything when they can get the same game with controls they're already used to on a console they already own?

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Quote
"Further proof that people don't like having to learn anything. 'It's too hard! I actually have to aim!'"

Why should anyone learn anything when they can get the same game with controls they're already used to on a console they already own?

Because its more relistic to actually have to aim yourself

[Ian Sane]

"Because its more relistic to actually have to aim yourself"

So?  Who cares about realism?

[Avinash_Tyagi]

isn't that the point of movement based controls?

[ShyGuy]

I don't know if I like this Aaron guy...  

[MegaByte]

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64
THE GAME WAS AN EARLY E3 DEMO THAT WAS RUNNING ON VERY EARLY WII HARDWARE. GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS ALREADY.

Yes, exactly.  Which is why everyone here doesn't really have a right to complain about my E3 impressions.  That's exactly what they were, E3 impressions.  Controls aren't finalized, and if the general consensus is that there were control problems, maybe there were.

My biggest issue was that they basically faked controls during the press conference demonstration, making it look like how you'd think the new controls would work rather than how they actually did.  With the exception of fishing, the game didn't really have more realistic controls, which was my point... the new controls didn't serve to provide that or even make the game easier to play.  You can argue that Wii games are easier to pick up by non-gamers.  However, this game is one of the ones specifically made for gamers, and Miyamoto has even said that he specifically kept the aiming difficult to provide "realism."  Unless you can pull back and release the bow while you're aiming, this really doesn't provide much more realism.

I don't understand all of the defensiveness over the demo.  Unless you actually played the demo, get over it.  As I said, the final game will be
wonderful, but I have every right to convey my experience with what Nintendo chose to show us at E3.  It's not like I'm making comments solely on some video I watched.  Also, I don't think the controls would be that hard to fix, either.  If they aren't going to add the realism, they just need to rethink some of the button assignments.

[vudu]

Quote
Originally posted by: ShyGuy
I don't know if I like this Aaron guy...

I was thinking the same thing.  

Who the heck is he?  And why did he wait a week to post his impressions?  He sucks.

[mantidor]

Quote
Originally posted by: Avinash_Tyagi
isn't that the point of movement based controls?

The point of any game or console is to have fun, people sometimes forget that realism =/=fun.

On that note I also think that realism =/= inmersion. I can get more inmersed in a Tetris game than in call of duty any day.

[ShyGuy]

Ah, it's Megabyte.

Anyway, I've always preferred my game previews to be objective and my reviews to be subjective. I realize this is an impression, I guess I would just prefer a preview. Hold the judgements until the game can be tested in a finished state in a proper enviroment.

My first impression of Einstein is he has goofy hair and a big nose, I guess he must be a loser.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Quote
Originally posted by: mantidor

Quote
Originally posted by: Avinash_Tyagi
isn't that the point of movement based controls?

The point of any game or console is to have fun, people sometimes forget that realism =/=fun.

On that note I also think that realism =/= inmersion. I can get more inmersed in a Tetris game than in call of duty any day.

You have a point

[Karl Castaneda #2]

Quote
Originally posted by: ShyGuy
Ah, it's Megabyte.

Anyway, I've always preferred my game previews to be objective and my reviews to be subjective. I realize this is an impression, I guess I would just prefer a preview. Hold the judgements until the game can be tested in a finished state in a proper enviroment.

My first impression of Einstein is he has goofy hair and a big nose, I guess he must be a loser.

Well, these are demo impresisons, not Aaron's impressions of what Twilight Princess will ship as. He played the demo, so he's perfectly qualified to judge it. The game may be infinitely better, and Aaron (and Evan) knows this; so you see, this isn't so much a finalized opinion of the game as it is an opinion on what Nintendo showed at E3.

To borrow your Einstein theory, it would be like me wondering about Einstein, and you're the only person I know who's had any contact with him. If you said, "Well, based on what I've seen of him, he has a thick accent and his speech is a tad dizzying," that would be entirely accurate of what his behavior was (as you saw it), right? It wasn't your final opinion, just your impressions.

[ShyGuy]

I hope Ebert starts giving impressions of movies based on the trailers.

[Karl Castaneda #2]

HOHOHO

BANNED!

/jk

[ruby_onix]

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64
And don't give me any of the "The game has been development for over a year" bullcrap. Just because the game appeared at E3 it doesn't mean that the game is FINISHED.

The game was FINISHED over a year ago. It didn't appear at E3. It appeared at LAST YEAR's E3.

Seriously, since Nintendo split the game into two versions, I don't see why they ever bothered to delay the GameCube one.

There's no way Nintendo is going to come out ahead after all this in my eyes, unless they re-merge the package back into one game with two discs. That would literally solve everything. But Nintendo's too cheap to ever do that.

[Svevan]

ShyGuy, the movie trailer analogy does not hold up because games too have trailers. A demo for a game is a unique phenomenon: though games on the whole are far longer than most films, a game is learned and understood in its first moments. A film unfolds and is understood over its entire length. A game communicates cinematically (read: artistically) throughout the course of play, but your interaction with it starts in a basic way and advances only incrementally until the end. During E3 we get a chance to see this basic start. Rather than judge level design, depth of gameplay, story, or artistic value during a demo, we have to judge the controls, the presentation, the premise, and the fun.

We, as much as any other press outlet or blog, were invited by Nintendo to judge its rough draft. What we saw were a bunch of errors (not bugs, but deliberate mistakes). We now post these opinions in the hopes that Nintendo sees them, and gamers become concerned. Journalism is about wading through PR bull and finding the truth, then communicating it to the public. Nintendo's "Playing is Believeing" mantra held up on almost every E3 demo, except for Zelda. If you don't care what we have to say, having played the game ourselves, why read us? If you're going to argue with us about a game you haven't played, use logic and reason, not "it was buggy." Notice, pap, that not a single person on PGC has said the game was buggy. Everyone said it felt finished, it felt complete, but some believe its inherent design was improperly executed.

Of course the controls can change in the future - we aren't judging the future, only the present. If the Zelda at E3 was released today, I wouldn't buy it. I'll definitely be reevaluating the game once Wii is launched.  

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64
I've seen Twilight Princess videos from a lot of websites. I have a 6 minute video from IGN where the player plays a LInk, goes through the dungeon and fights the boss just fine. I didn't see any awkward moments in between gameplay and the only thing I noticed that felt weird was the fairy cursor flying around

The second time I played the demo I was able to finish it in under five minutes. I had gotten used to the controls. They were still problematic, mainly because of the physical limitations of the Wii Controller. We're not talking about Zelda being impossible to control; rather, it was no better (and in some ways worse) than playing on GameCube, which says nothing for Nintendo's supposed "Revolution" in game control.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

oh gawd not again

EVERYONE, STOP THINKING.

~~~~~

On the flip side, JUST SOME THOUGHTS, many of your are already accustomed and SKILLED at aiming with analog sticks (INVERTED Y-axis, no less).  Ask newcomers to get that thru their heads AND take into account analog sticks have sensitivity ranges, and you're still gonna find people treating it like a D-pad.  New schemes mean new learning curves to ride on.

It's obvious the general scope of the game was designed for previous-generation controls.  iF zELDA AIMING IS bROKEN (which i believe it is, and at the same time, not), LET reTro studios Fix it.

STOP THINKING.

[Hostile Creation]

"So? Who cares about realism?"

Okay.  How about immersion?  How about fun?  Aiming is more fun than just buttons, trust me.

I'm still not sure about which version to get.  I'm going to have to play it myself, everyone else obviously has no idea what they're talking about.

[Bloodworth]

Quote
The game was FINISHED over a year ago. It didn't appear at E3. It appeared at LAST YEAR's E3.

Seriously, since Nintendo split the game into two versions, I don't see why they ever bothered to delay the GameCube one.

How many times do I have to debunk this CRAP.  They are just now tying the level design together.  The game wasn't delayed because of Wii controls.  Do you really think that they decided to delay their biggest money-maker for 2005 just for these slight differences?  I guess if I believed that, I'd be pissed too.  

I see the Wii controls as another acknowledgement that the GameCube is dead, and if they have to release Zelda this late, they decided they needed to take advantage of the new system somehow.  

[mantidor]

I think that without wii controls, the game could be ready by summer. If the GC version wasnt affected at all in dev time by the wii version (something I really doubt) we would have to wait anyway, because Nintendo will use the wii version as a launch title and it wouldnt be convienent for them to release the GC version sooner because it would steal hype from the wii version. This really sucks for the people who have been craving for this game for such a damn long time. For someone like me who never wanted or want to try the remote functionality (except maybe the fishing) is worst.

I should get Paper Mario meanwhile, or to *gasp* invest more time into my studies

 

[MaleficentOgre]

goodness wow.  little bein a little harsh are we guys? I like impressions being honest, makes them fell more. . .honest y'know? this just justifies me gettin it on cube is all. even though I'm buyin wii at launch I've never been a fan of port 'em ups.

[TrueNerd]

I really don't think the controls matter. It's Zelda. The controls won't ruin Zelda. They may take some getting used to, yes, but will they really affect things all that much? It may not be an improvement, but I don't think they'll be a step backwards. Certainly the fishing will be sweet, as will the bow and arrow aiming once we get used to it. The execution of the spin attack sounds fun as well. I'll be getting the Wii version, but I won't yell and scream at those who won't. Let's just be glad Nintendo's offering both versions and we can continue living in harmony with each other.