Topic: Biases and impressions on Zelda: Twilight Princess

[K-man]

I finished up the Temple of Time last night.  The dungeon was very enjoyable.  I made a huge mistake and missed the big key the first go round, so when I get up to the boss door i'm like "oh crap".  Then I had to backtrack.  Boss was pretty easy.

I'm really happy to finally be getting to this game.  It was definitely one of the games in my backlog I was most ashamed of not finishing.  Hopefully I'll be able to finish up this weekend.  I'm not really interested in finding all the poes, since the reward is money that's easily found in Hyrule anyway.  And I'm not really sure i care too much about grabbing the big wallet.

Going back to this game has all but cemented my purchasing Skyward Sword when it hits.

[K-man]

I finished up the "busy work" with the Rod of Dominion last night.  I really dislike these parts.  You're near the end of the game, and it just throws something at you to keep you occupied for a few hours more.  I hated the map/triforce fiasco in Wind Waker.  At least the Rod stuff wasn't THAT bad.

Going to hit up the sky city tonight, try and get that done. 

[gpw11]

I can't do it.  I just can't play this game.  I think it's partially the Wii controls and partially the fact that I'm playing it on an old 20" crt, but every time I try to play I just can't really get all that into it.  In the first dungeon with the monkeys and I got to the end, saw that I still needed two more monkeys to get to the final boss, and just said "fuck it ,I'm done".

[K-man]

The first part of the game is a chore, hands down.  It gets better once you gain the ability to switch back and forth to the wolf at will.

[K-man]

Finished up the Sky Temple this morning.  One thing that Nintendo has said repeatedly about Skyward Sword is that it's going to break up the Zelda formula a little bit.  It is starting to become a little stagnant I'm afraid.  I am seeing the dungeons as more of an annoyance than fun.  I much prefer exploration and combat over solving dungeon puzzles.

[K-man]

Well, it is done.  Finished a few minutes ago.  Satisfying Ganon fight.  The motion controls got in the way a few times with it, though.

I'll never say never, but I don't see myself ever replaying the game.  I put damn near 55 hours into this play through, and there really wasn't a point in the game where I felt like I was playing something amazing.  I mean yeah, it was a zelda game, and it is good for all the reasons that come with that fact.  But nothing really stood out. 

[scottws]

I mean yeah, it was a zelda game, and it is good for all the reasons that come with that fact.  But nothing really stood out.

Unfortunately, Nintendo has decided to keep the Zelda formula basically static since OOT.  It's like playing a variation of the same game over and over again with different visuals.

It's actually kind of sad.  To this day I haven't played TP since my last post in this thread and I have no interest in SS.  Zelda is like that Adele "Rolling in the Deep" song... badly played out.

At least with Mario they've kept it relatively fresh.  Granted all the 3D Mario games share an ancestry with Mario 64, but they've tried quite a few different things there and they all feel pretty unique (except Galaxy compared to Galaxy 2, of course).

[K-man]

Apparently Skyward Sword is supposed to significantly shake up the formula.  We'll see.  I've preordered it, but it was mainly to get the wiimote/game combo.  Hopefully i'll be able to see a review or two before Amazon ships it.

[sirean_syan]

I've been thinking for about a reply to this thread for about a week or so since it got bumped and the best reply I can up with is that I don't really remember the game so well. Looking back on my old comments, I don't think I can stand behind them anymore because the only real memory I have of the game is sort of a bland feeling of it just being there and something that I played. Time hasn't been kind to the game. That's sort of sad for something of what is supposed to be a flagship series.

I have almost no faith in Nintendo to produce something that is really special anymore, especially after they showed their true colors with the last Metroid. They put all their chips on Miyamoto and gimmicks and both have been sucked dry. Unless they learn some hard lessons they're in for a rough ride in with their next generation of games and products (and what they've been doing with the 3DS isn't a good sign).

[K-man]

I suppose I need to amend my previous post.  The soundtrack is something that did stand out to me.  Probably one of the best Zelda soundtracks, in fact.

But yeah Sy, I get what you mean.  A lot of it felt like I was going through the motions.

[gpw11]

Bumping this old thread but I've just recently gotten around to playing this. Like Windwaker, I'm playing through emulation with Dolphin, which I highly recommend for both games.

I can't remember if I commented in this thread previously but I actually tried to play this a few years after it came out and just couldn't do it.  The combination of waggle controls on the Wii version and blurry graphics on an old CRT (mixed with bloom for god's sake) was just too much for me and I couldn't get past the first dungeon or so.

I've always been a Zelda fan and a few years after my initial attempt I tried to play Skyward Sword and I had a lot more fun with it.   The motion controls were done better, the graphics were more tuned to the SD output (I was probably in 480P on a plasma by then but whatever) and the game just seemed better.  That is until the sections where you have to run around collecting tears.  For whatever reason, it seems like every third Zelda game or so has some gameplay mechanic that kills the game for me and I can't finish that one. Majora's Mask time repeat, while totally a good mechanic, just wasn't my thing.   Phantom Hour Glass' repeating dungeon was terrible.  The fucking tear collecting in Skyward Sword.

I had always wanted to play Windwaker and so I played it on Dolphin about a year ago.  Great game. Windwaker HD had just came out but Dolphin looked just about as nice and had some perks the retail version was missing.  Hell, you could also speed up sailing, making up for the lack of the new sail.   I can see why it's one of people's favorites and I would love to have another cell shaded Zelda in that style again some time.

Which brings me to Twilight Princess.  This time was a lot more enjoyable than last.   1080p on my monitor or big screen, actual controller controls.  The game looks great and played fantastic.   Yes, it still started out a bit slow, but that was fine, it picked up and got fun.

But then I noticed I started getting bored while playing.  It was just so "Blah".   I couldn't tell if it was because it just seemed like too much of a sequel to OoT or because maybe it was just out dated, but around the time I hit the desert I was just over it. 

I thought about it and Zelda is a great game with a great formula but I had played the following to completion:

-A Link to the Past
-Orcarina of Time
-Majora's Mask (I think I finished this?   I don't remember to be honest)
-Minish Cap
-Windwaker
-Spirit Tracks

Some of those multiple times. I have also played every other Zelda game, although as I mentioned earlier - something would turn me off from finishing them.

All of them share a lot of similarities and maybe it was just getting too old of a formula for me.

And then I saw this thread.   I would have turned the game off and probably never played it again if I didn't check this.   It seems like the game just has a big lul or so.  And just like you guys, I got past the typical, traditional dungeons, and the game really picked up.

The Snowpeak Ruins, Temple of Time, and City in the Sky are probably three of the best Zelda dungeons out there.  I'm in the Twilight dungeon now and it's also good.  And then everything just clicked and it feels like I'm playing OoT again in that it's fun as hell to explore Hyrule.  I'm blowing up boulders to look for caves just to see them. 

The art style isn't boring, it's just different than what Zelda was evolving to.  A lot of people seem to wish that they had made a second Wind Waker instead of this, and although I do think that would have been a cool addition to the lineup, I'm really glad that we got this one as well.  It really kind of captures that era of gaming and I'm just having so much fun with it now.

So, thanks I guess?

[Cobra951]

Hey, gpw.  Good to hear from you on that The Witness thread.  Been a while.

I'm still getting used to having a computer that can take everything I throw at it without breaking a sweat.  I had never tried Dolphin before.  (It wouldn't have gotten far on the old hardware.)  Other than the up-front stuttering until the shaders cache gets built up on the first run, it's just about perfect for the Zelda games.  The Xbox One controller works really well.  Just swap B and X when mapping to the GC controller, and everything else is obvious.  Are there any special codes that improve the experience?  What I really want is to speed up the text in Wind Waker.  I had forgotten how annoying the unskippable slow scrolling was.

I haven't tried any Wii games, because I don't know if I can emulate a Wiimote with mouse and keyboard.  I've only been running this emulator for a couple of days, and still learning the ropes.  I don't really want to buy special hardware to let me hook up a real Wiimote and nunchuk.  Thinking about all the functionality in those, my guess is that any mouse/kb emulation is not going to be good enough.  It'd still be cool to see Zelda SS or Mario Galaxy running on the PC, though.

[gpw11]

Hey man, hope you're doing well.


Yeah, there were a couple of special codes that I used, although I don't know for the life of me where I found them or what I actually used save for a widescreen hack (hit or miss) and a code to speed up the sailing through a glitch (helpful for long trips but REALLY sped up sailing).  I'm sure I can track all the info down again and I'll report back - hopefully they have something for the text.

Regarding other games and control schemes:   People have come up with ways to play a lot of the games without hooking up wiimotes or actually emulating them with the mouse (I've never actually done either).  I know for sure you can find a control scheme layout out there for the Mario Sunshine games that works perfectly with a 360 controller - I've only played like 45 minutes of the game both ways but I enjoyed the game pad just as much.

[gpw11]

Speed up sailing:


GK9E-JWBQ-M0D1U
HK1V-V5U2-835U6
JJQM-JZA8-57DRM


Put it in where ever you put in action replay codes.  Press down on the directional pad to enable it but it's kind of wonky:  can't steer while boosted AND it takes quite a while to come back to a stop after you turn it off so it takes some getting used to. 


Unfortunately couldn't find anything for the text.

[Cobra951]

Thanks for that.  I'm sure it will come in handy.  I may try the emulation speedup button for the text.  I vaguely remember a warning about a possible desync when speeding up emulation, but now I can't find it.  Can't hurt to try.

Edit:  Tried it, and it works well.  Like 5 times the speed during game rendering, and like 20 times (!) during the text-and-slideshow game intro.  Haha!  No program hangs, so this will do.