Topic: RFN RetroActive #32: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Official Thread)

[pokepal148]

Yeah, me get a Saturday off..... not happening.

[TK Thunder]

Hey RAers! I wanted you to be the first to know that we are going to be doing this edition of RetroActive as a special LIVE event on Saturday, May 30th (time will be announced in the next couple of days as we finalize the details). I just recorded a 100% rambling mini-episode to announce it to all our subscribers this weekend. Unfortunately, that's also to explain why we don't have a real show for you this weekend, but hopefully this live show makes up for that! There is so much great discussion here already, and we hope some of you will call in next Saturday to chat with us about Twilight Princess!

Super bummed about the timing since I have to fill in at work on Saturday.  I was actually hoping to call in to the show for the first time.  That being said, I'm looking forward to this discussion.  There so many incredible and varying opinions on this game.

I just wrapped up this game this past weekend and thought I'd share a couple of brief thoughts.  First off, that ending was not memorable.  I had completely forgotten everything from Hyrule Castle, including the boss fight.  Princess Zelda seems like such a minor part in the entire story as she is barely a part of the game.  The final boss fight was underwhelming and seemed a little too easy for my taste, especially the final sequence of the final boss fight  It seems like that part was recycled for the final boss fight in Skyward Sword if I recall correctly.

I wasn't as down on the graphics like many on this forum have been.  I still think it holds up fine nearly 9 years later.  I also like that it seems so familiar to Ocarina of Time.  OoT was a great game, so playing more of it is just fine with me.  For the great expanse of Hyrule Field, there's isn't a lot to do out there.  The dungeons are a lot of fun and creative (Snowpeak being my favorite).   The controls, as with most opinions, are pretty intolerable.  I did turn off the pointer this go-around, which seemed to help out a little.  The music is great most of the time.  So there are my brief final opinions on what in my opinion is one of the better Zelda titles to date.  Majora's Mask is still my favorite.

[Darkurai the Oracle Pony]

But Jonny! The qualifiers for Nintendo World Championships are Saturday!

[pPatko]

General impressions:Twilight Princess arrived at an interesting time in the Zelda series.  Coming after the highly stylized Wind Waker, it makes sense that Nintendo wanted to see what they could do in a more traditional style using the extra horsepower of a console two generations beyond Ocarina Of Time.  In the case of the Wii version, however, developer EAD added something entirely new to gaming as a whole in the way of motion controls.
I've only just beaten the third dungeon but I can safely say, I regret not getting the GameCube version.  I love using the pointer to aim but it seems pretty unanimous - the sword waggling is a huge drawback - especially after they got it so right in Skyward Sword IMO.
That said, there are a lot of things EAD exceeded at.  Though not as unnerving as Majora's Mask, the dark tone both graphically and aurally is effective and aesthetically pleasing.  I particularly love the way the shadow realm feels.  The music gets SO DARK and brooding.  The cool glitchy SFX go well with the Tron-inspired neon and pixelized particle effects.  I think the graphics have held up pretty well barring the odd texture.  The bloom lighting is actually refreshing after not seeing so much of it these days.
TP has some really endearing characters too - particularly Midna.  Telma is another favourite - I like that she's portrayed in a fairly realistic style compared to others like the postman but it's a little jarring having such disparate designs one character to the next.  I might have preferred a more lifelike approach like this overall.
I agree that Hyrule field is just too sparse.  I find myself plowing through it from departure point to destination rather than stopping to poke around and explore.  Here's hoping they find a good balance in the next one!
That's it for now!

[Jonnyboy117]

In case you haven't seen it yet, the live event page is here:

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/40298/rfn-retroactive-live-the-legend-of-zelda-twilight-princess

And I just added details of how you could join Lindy for a freestyle rap battle version of Now Playing...

[Sundoulos]

I didn't get to play this as much as I would have liked due to the scheduling of vacations and RL responsibilitiesi.  I had forgotten how much I liked this game, really.   I know my 7 year-old son enjoyed watching me play the game.  t occurred to me that I really hadn't introduced him to a Zelda game yet.  I do think there are things/themes in Twilight Princess that are perhaps recycled or derivative, but if you are going to introduce someone to the Zelda franchise, TP isn't a bad way to go simply because it refines  a lot of what came before in ALttP, OoT and WW.  I happen to like all the "missions" and story vignettes  of the early part of the game; it makes the game feel as if it is possible to digest this very large game in bite-sized chunks.  It's not a bad jumping-on point for the series, honestly.

I think the "cynical" voice in Midna made the character more memorable; she's kind of an extension of what they were doing with Tetra in Wind Waker.  Midna and Tetra are sort of the Han Solo characters of the Zelda universe.  They're both mercenary characters whose comments can reflect what the player is thinking about the game (e.g. I remember Midna's commentary that the Ordonion townsfolk are idiots for leaving their windows open...or something like that), and it's an effective way to take a knowing wink to the player, serving the purpose of simultaneously informing the player while allowing them to suspend their disbelief.   

It mostly makes me wonder what they were thinking when they went the other direction with Fi in Skyward Sword.

[TheAuthority]

I'm travelling and will miss the live podcast but hoped to get in a few comments before it starts.

I never got into Twilight Princess for some reason back in 2006, and it has since sat at the top of the backlog of shame, so this retroactive provided me with the motivation to play it to the end.

On the whole I really enjoyed it, and regret not playing it when I bought it eight or nine years ago. As others have said it has some of the best Zelda dungeons. And contrary to some other opinions I think the graphics have aged mostly fine. In dungeons and in certain environments the graphics still look great, but in the twilight world especially it looks like, as Mr Lindemann said on the podcast, someone smeared Vaseline all over the screen. On the whole though I like the graphics. And Midna is comfortably the best sidekick character in any Zelda game.

The overall excellence of the game can override, but not hide, the many many niggling little flaws it has. Principally I think the problem is that of brevity. This game wastes so much time. The starter village made a really bad first impression when I first played it in the mid noughties. And having now finished the game it seems all the more absurd because it doesn't even teach you anything that you need. When do you ever use the hawk\basket trick trick again? Many of the in-between dungeon quests were unnecessary padding, but that isn't unusual in a Zelda. What really got on my nerves though is the constant interruptions to the flow of gameplay in the form of micro cutscenes. Yes Midna, I can see there is a f***ing open window. The game obtrusively holds your hand in a manner reminiscent of Skyward Sword.

A second major problem I found is the muddled storyline. I think it had the makings of a great story and it had some moments of real greatness but it just never did anything with them. For example there was a cool cutscene about a third into the game which established that the fused shadows were very dangerous and corruptive, but they never really went anywhere with that. And having Ganondorf pop out of nowhere as the big bad is just as feeble as having a game called the Legend of Zelda which barely features Zelda and doesn't really establish who she even is.

I think the game could have benefitted from some editing and a few months of extra work but I don't want to be too negative because of course I really enjoyed it, and that's the main thing. I suppose its just easier to start with 10\10 for a Zelda game and work backwards.

I'm in a bit of a hurry or I might have presented my thoughts a little clearer. Good luck with the podcast in a few hours guys.



Oh another thing. They seems very proud of their ability to flood the screen with characters in this game. Hundreds of spiders are not fun. They are a chore. Same goes for the puppets in the lost woods. They offer so little resistance they might as well not be there.

[ejamer]

Well, I'm not going to finish the game before the discussion today - but feel like I've got a pretty reasonable chunk under my belt. We've (my kids are watching) just finished the desert dungeon this morning, and based on how full my item list is I'm guessing there isn't much more after chasing down the mirror pieces.


A lot of early impressions have stayed the same.


Graphic and world design are both fine, but don't push the bar (compared to other games of the time) and are both less interesting than what Wind Waker accomplished. Even my daughter (5) brought this point up, talking about how much cuter Link was as a little boy (ie: Wind Waker), when he had big expressive eyes that really let you know how he was feeling. It also feels like there are more regular loading screens - not a big deal, but the world in this game certainly feels less "connected" than it did Wind Waker.


Combat controls in the Wii version are a liability. The motion controls don't bring any benefit and are less accurate than a button press would be. I'm not anti-motion controls, and when they increase immersion I often prefer them... but this is waggle at it's worst. What makes this most disappointing is that I feel like the combat system is interesting enough it could have been a lot of fun if controls were good. Instead I can't help but wonder if combat was watered down (every battle I've encountered so far is incredibly easy) to make up for the control problems.


Dungeons have been fun so far, and I think they are clearly the high point of the game. It's just a shame that bosses are so damned easy (up to this point). Part of this is normal for Zelda games - as you get more hearts and bottles, it becomes almost impossible to die - but I still think the boss design should have put more emphasis on the technique and skills required to beat them, rather than just making bosses look cool.


Pacing is much better after the world opens up. Disappointing that it took hours and hours to get there... and that might be enough to prevent me from replaying later. On the upside, I'm enjoying the game now and enjoying the experience enough to actively keep playing.


Unsure if I'll be able to get in to the live chat... might even prefer to hold off on that (or listening to the podcast) since it feels like we'll be wrapping up the game in about a week at our current rate of play.  Hoping it goes really well though, and look forward to listening to the whole thing once we do finish the game!

[Sundoulos]

A couple of other notes.  I decided to pick up a relatively cheap copy of the Gamecube version a few weeks back.  I played the Wii version at the system's launch, but I haven't really touched it since.  I prefer playing my Zelda without motion controls, mostly because I feel more embarrassed and foolish waving my arms around like a maniac when my wife is in the room.

That being said, I can see some benefit to the motion controls.  For example, I did have a difficult time using the Gale Boomerang on Diababa while using a Gamecube controller.  I felt like it took too long to pan the screen to find a moving target, and I kept getting hit while trying to lock onto the baboon that would swing across the screen.  That's probably at least partly to due with the fact that I'm old, don't play video games as much as I used to, or I just suck.  I remember having an easy time with it using motion controls.

It's probably been said upthread (or in podcasts past), but the influence of the Lord of the Rings movies on this game is fairly obvious.

[ejamer]

Too late for the retroactive show, but if anyone is still reading the thred I was curious if others felt disappointed at how Zelda took a huge back seat in this game after being fairly front-and-center in Wind Waker.


Maybe there will be some kind of late game reveal that she's been more active than I think... but the fact that you only see her trapped and powerless in the tower a couple of times for much of the game (again, I haven't finished yet) is very disappointing. I would much rather have had a Tetra-like character who is strong and independent than an unseen damsel in distress.


Midna does take on the female protagonist role somewhat, and I do rather like her character... but she's a sidekick at best and not a major character that my little girl can identify with.  I'd love to see a Legend of Zelda game throw the title character into a starring role sometime - as long as it doesn't use "woman powers" the way Nintendo's Princess Peach DS game did.

[redfieldjames]

Too late for the retroactive show, but if anyone is still reading the thred I was curious if others felt disappointed at how Zelda took a huge back seat in this game after being fairly front-and-center in Wind Waker.

Other than Wind Waker, Zelda always takes a back seat in Zelda games. It's kind of frustrating. Personally, I would absolutely love if Nintendo played a Metal Gear Solid 2 on gamers with Zelda Wii U. You play as Link for about 5 or 6 hours, then Link gets captured, and Zelda picks up the master sword. Please note that this would only be fulfilled if Nintendo kept this secret until the game was released, much like MGS2.


I would revel in the massive online outrage, hate, anger and disappointment with a ravage glee...


I know that Cdi made at least one of their 3 Zelda games with Zelda as the protagonist, but much like Nintendo, I 'm happy to ignore their existence...

[Kobeskillz]

I think the pointer messing up in sunlight left a bad taste and the opening a chest and up able to skip mini cutscene.


The game was great and I loved so much about it and I didn't mind the slow start or the waggle or even the length and I think the graphics are still gorgeous taken as a whole but man the pointer would just screw you.


In Skyward the pointer was even worse because it was motion based. Why can other games get pointer perfect and not Nintendo. lol. That Zelda team needed classes on pointer controls.

[ejamer]

Yay!  A week late but Twilight Princess has moved from the backlog to my list of beaten games!   


The final boss fights on Wii were incredibly disappointing, because it highlighted just how poorly the waggle controls worked. The classic "deflect the projectile with your sword" routine was particularly annoying when movements weren't picked up as intended - and after spending roughly 40 hours on the game it's shameful that I couldn't get the controls to behave consistently and responsively.


It's funny. In the end I have a bunch of gripes against the game, but only when compared to other Zelda games. It's hard to continually set the bar higher, and I think because the Zelda series is really the high-water mark (in my mind) for adventure games sometimes I judge more harshly if an entry in the series doesn't exceed my hopes.


Twilight Princess was a great experience overall and I enjoyed the vast majority of my time in that world. It's not going to land in my Top 3 (probably not even top 5) Zelda games... but I'm very gald this RetroActive event gave me incentive to finally play through the game.

...  Other than Wind Waker, Zelda always takes a back seat in Zelda games.  ...

I guess that I felt her role was growing in the series. In Ocarina, we got to see Zelda dress up and covertly fight against evil as Sheik (at least, that was always my impression - that she was waging a kind of guerrilla war against the evil in Hyrule while Link was missing) and then in Wind Waker she had a very fun and active character.


But then in Twilight Princess she is horribly under represented. Midna could have been an ok replacement, but also seemed to largely disappear for the second half of the game because you didn't need to spend much time as a wolf.


I'm really not into the current feminist movement when it comes to video games, and don't think that games need to be politically correct in any manner.  But I personally want to see Zelda as an empowered character in the series. She's got one third of the Triforce, right? She's been blessed by the gods themselves? So don't stick her in an inaccessible tower as a helpless maiden with virtually no value to the game for 99% of the adventure.


That's just my take though.

[NWR_DrewMG]

Late to the party (way late) but I started playing Twilight Princess (GameCube) over the weekend and I have been really enjoying it.  It's true that the opening section is way too slowly paced, but what is really striking to me is the attention to detail in the animations and environments.  The world of the game feels lived in, and the characters in the game are expressive and relatable.

I am about halfway through the fire temple, and I'd forgotten just how involved these dungeons are.

Also, for a 9 year old game, it looks way better than I remember.  I was actually really taken aback by how good some of it looked. 

All in all, I'm really enjoying my replay of this game.  It's my third time through, but my second time through stalled out halfway in. 

[pokepal148]

Way Way late, playing through the game now is interesting because you hear about how in The Legend of Zelda: Wild Zubat Appeared, a lot of the story sequences are going to be optional.

Funny story: you can skip this cutscene. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can just high tail it straight to Lake Hylia and not bother with going to Castle Town that first time.

Also, Twilight Princess has a very nice sense of scale for Hyrule (at least in the HD version) that I wish it would show off more often.

[Fatty The Hutt]

I'm about 3/4 of the way thru the HD version.
I heard that in the final boss fight, you can distract the boss with the fishing rod and then strike. I find this funny and will definitely try it. This has got to be the first boss fight to be made easier by a fishing rod.