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Suspicious Dish posted:Sandship was awesome because it was a Weird Place For A Dungeon which really worked with the scheme. TP had that with Snowpeak Ruins, where you're exploring a dude's mansion. Ocarina of Time had that with Jabu Jabu's Belly, where you were inside a giant fish. There needs to be more of that. There's one temple in ALBW which has the same kind of feel to it, in that there weren't many enemies to defeat and you mostly needed to navigate through little traps and obstacles. It was very atmospheric though they could've made it less 'dungeony'.
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Feb 9, 2014 05:22
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Suspicious Dish posted:Depends on what you mean by the sand sea place. If you mean the boat section, no, because there was nothing to explore. Not really that I can think of in wind Waker, but in Majora's mask I'd say the dungeon where the second half is the original dungeon flipped entirely upside down is really innovative and surprising, a total "whoa" moment.
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Feb 9, 2014 12:37
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Febreeze posted:There are comparatively few enemy types, and almost every single enemy is defeated with the strategy of "swing sword from direction they are not blocking from", and in many ways you only have one way to kill them. TP, for all its easy combat issues, at least gave you options. Ball n chain them. Shoot them. Use one of many different special sword moves. Or if you were boring and lame, waggle them all. But the alternate routes existed, and using them later on once you were good was fun. Swinging a sword into a moblin from x angle never got better, just more and more boring. This is admittedly one of the trickier things in the game to reconcile for those who dislike it, because the notion going in (from what I recall in a preview video, would have to track it down) was that each enemy was intended to feel like a small puzzle in itself, where the player actually has to find a specific way to kill it as opposed to just mashing the attack button at the right time. I think where Skyward Sword falls down a bit on it is that there is often just, especially given its focus on the motion control sword combat, there are at least feels like there's often just one answer that the game wants and will allow for a given enemy. I say 'feels' like it because I know stuff like the beetle can allow for multiple approaches, like cutting a spider straight off its thread instead of trying to engage it up close, but its a bit less obvious with the Moblins since, yeah, their whole thing is that they can actually block you. And the example I've mentioned previously of being able to deflect Ghirahim's shots with your sword of course likely doesn't come into play if you don't break your shield, so it doesn't crop up. By contrast, in Ocarina of Time, which I've been playing again recently on the 3DS, when you enter Jabu's stomach, your options for killing enemies are thus - the slingshot, your sword, and the shield for the octoroks. And most of these have some kind of issues to them: the first takes up ammo, the second either puts you at risk in melee or drains magic if you charge it, and the third requires a regular awareness of there being two of the things in each encounter inside there, or you're gonna get hit from the side. Once you have the boomerang, that typically becomes the 'right' option, being free to repeatedly use at range, even if it mostly became really awesome in Wind Waker. But you can still use the others if you really want to, and having had to do so for the dungeon up till that point, the player knows this.
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Feb 9, 2014 13:06
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Astro Nut posted:By contrast, in Ocarina of Time, which I've been playing again recently on the 3DS, when you enter Jabu's stomach, your options for killing enemies are thus - the slingshot, your sword, and the shield for the octoroks. And most of these have some kind of issues to them: the first takes up ammo, the second either puts you at risk in melee or drains magic if you charge it, and the third requires a regular awareness of there being two of the things in each encounter inside there, or you're gonna get hit from the side. Once you have the boomerang, that typically becomes the 'right' option, being free to repeatedly use at range, even if it mostly became really awesome in Wind Waker. But you can still use the others if you really want to, and having had to do so for the dungeon up till that point, the player knows this. Throwing Ruto at things is always the most satisfying option.
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Feb 9, 2014 13:16
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greatn posted:Not really that I can think of in wind Waker, but in Majora's mask I'd say the dungeon where the second half is the original dungeon flipped entirely upside down is really innovative and surprising, a total "whoa" moment.
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Feb 9, 2014 13:18
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Soulcleaver posted:Castlevania: Symphony of the night did this earlier but it was a moot point because you could fly and super jump and poo poo by that point. Having to actually walk around in an upside-down level should happen more often. Also that was a 2d game.
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Feb 9, 2014 13:38
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MinibarMatchman posted:Skyward Sword was loving abhorrent. I tried to climb a loving platform in the first few hours and wasn't allowed to BECAUSE COLLECT THIS. So much goddamn railroading and handholding on a ridiculous level, to the point where you can't even explore a whole area without FIRST SAVING TURTLE THINGS is hilariously bad. How you go from OoT and TP to that kind of poo poo is awful. ALBW's system was way more of a revelation purely because it gave you everything and let you go nuts, and had an actual progression with fast travel.
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Feb 9, 2014 16:24
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Whether or not Skyward Sword's problems bother you personally, the fact is that the series was completely stagnant by that point and Skyward Sword did nothing to resolve that. The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time were 5 and 7 years apart, and were substantial improvements on the formula while also making the best use of the new technology. 14 years later Skyward Sword feels like the same game except the sword combat is done by flicking your wrist. Metal Gear followed the exact same pattern, with the first game that introduced the basic mechanics, the sequel that vastly expanded the scope, and then the 3D game that made the breakthrough into 3D. However, Metal Gear has experimented with competitive multiplayer, co-op, open worlds, new camera angles, new control schemes, new locations, and new stealth and survival mechanics. If Nintendo made Metal Gear then we'd still be backtracking to get the PSG-1, while constantly looking at the Soliton Radar. That's not to say it doesn't suffer from the same problems as the Zelda series (still using the top-down camera in the original release of MGS3, reusing the same structure in MG2, MGS, and MGS2), but it's moved with the times, and Zelda simply hasn't. Skyward Sword was their chance to do something really groundbreaking with the series before they'd have to go HD and experimentation would be more costly, but they just made Twilight Princess again but with a Photoshop filter over it. At least they finally got it right on the 3DS, but I'm not looking forward to what they might make on the Wii U.
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Feb 9, 2014 17:08
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I guess for the me the reason I've never understood the hate for Twilight Princess is I don't understand how it's "lifeless" compared to any other Zelda overworld. There are grottos and caves with stuff in it and there are enemies running/flying around. How is that any different from ALBW? Or from the oft-praised TWW overworld? How are those sea platforms or Eye Rocks anymore meaningful than the caves and grottos of Twilight Princess? I also don't really get how having a more fleshed out main quest is more tedious than having a completely bare bones one where you go from dungeon to dungeon while having the option of looking for a bunch of secret caves that are hidden behind trees and walls that give you no indication as to which ones are secret-holding, as in LoZ. I mean, obviously everyone has their preferences but I don't really understand why some games are praised for their exploration while others are condemned when they all pretty much give the same types of rewards for exploration and, in the case of TWW or LoZ, actually require more tedious actions to find said secrets than ones like Twilight Princess.
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Feb 10, 2014 01:54
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Hidden areas that offer no hint at all that they are there or are designed so that the only way to find them is to tediously drop bombs everywhere is an absolute bullshit mechanic and should not be held up as some paragon of game design or a worthwhile addition to the series. Any argument that they should continue to be part of the series due to "tradition" is rubbish. You have to look at the time in which the original Zelda was made. There were technical limitations with tilesets, hint magazines and phone lines were common place and the idea that kids would be talking with friends at school about "secrets" (word of mouth marketing) was probably even a consideration. Replayability and difficulty was likely also a concern for a game that included a save feature, especially in an era where games were designed around money eating arcade machines. I don't think ALBW had any of those honestly, but I could be wrong. There are some that probably look as if they are that way if all you do is go around laying bombs everywhere, but all the secrets I found are because there were at least some sort of hint that they were there. Sometimes it's not a "direct" hint like a crack in the wall, but rather the placement of rocks that would indicate an entrance, or something in the opposite/mirror world that something should be there.
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Feb 10, 2014 02:31
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Beeez posted:Or from the oft-praised TWW overworld? No one has ever praised TWW overworld.
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Feb 10, 2014 02:33
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Xik posted:Hidden areas that offer no hint at all that they are there or are designed so that the only way to find them is to tediously drop bombs everywhere is an absolute bullshit mechanic and should not be held up as some paragon of game design or a worthwhile addition to the series. Yeah, I was more referring to how I do see some people say no Zelda has been as good as the first one and we should just go back to that, not saying ALBW was the same. Naerasa posted:No one has ever praised TWW overworld. People say TWW has the best exploration of any Zelda, is what I mean.
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Feb 10, 2014 02:41
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Naerasa posted:No one has ever praised TWW overworld. If TWW = Wind Waker, then I personally thought it's overworld was great. Sailing around and exploring the islands had massive appeal to me and was super fun. In saying that, my introduction to it was via the HD remake which included the fast sail. Hilariously though, I didn't even know about that item until I had already explored about 70-80% of the game. gently caress I'm an idiot. 
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Feb 10, 2014 02:57
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My feelings toward Wind Waker could be summed up as: it might have been my favorite Zelda had they actually finished it. I love almost all of what's there, but there are at least three spots in the game where you could tell there was supposed to have been a full dungeon, but they never got around to it. I also had forewarning re: the Triforce piece hunt and spaced it out over the game, taking care not to get more rupees than I could carry—so rather than it being a nuisance, I had a lot of fun with it. Exploring the ocean was awesome. My hopes for the HD version were squashed when I found out they didn't really add any content to the game.
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Feb 10, 2014 03:10
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Just curious, I only remember one of those (the third pearl). What are the other two?
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Feb 10, 2014 03:13
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Presumably the Iron Boots and Power Bracelet, but Aonuma has gone on record that almost all of the ideas that were going to go into those dungeons have since been used, so there would be no real point in putting in the missing dungeons anyway.
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Feb 10, 2014 03:17
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Artix posted:Presumably the Iron Boots and Power Bracelet, but Aonuma has gone on record that almost all of the ideas that were going to go into those dungeons have since been used, so there would be no real point in putting in the missing dungeons anyway. Yeah, it was a bit suspect that the two major dungeons of the latter half of the game are earth and air-themed, and there were also prominent fire and water-themed areas containing important items. Has Aonuma stated specifically what the "lost" Wind Waker dungeons ended up as?
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Feb 10, 2014 03:28
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Rollersnake posted:Yeah, it was a bit suspect that the two major dungeons of the latter half of the game are earth and air-themed, and there were also prominent fire and water-themed areas containing important items. The water-themed area was the whole game.  (You probably meant ice).And this is pure speculation, but the Ancient Cistern in SS seemed like it was a cut dungeon.
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Feb 10, 2014 03:55
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I love the Great Sea. It's relaxing and enthralling. Wind Waker has single-handedly instilled in me a love for the ocean. Someday, I will own a boat and, if I possibly can, will christen it King of Red Lions.
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Feb 10, 2014 04:55
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Chieves posted:The water-themed area was the whole game. I thought Temple of Time in TP also seemed very much like a Wind Waker dungeon.
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Feb 10, 2014 04:58
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Every game has content cut. It's the consequence of releasing games on time. I don't know of a single game where there the team that worked on it put in every feature they wanted. Ocarina of Time was originally going to have a Triforce Hunt and a proper Light Palace, but both of those had to be cut. Considering how the Light Trials are wind-based, I'd imagine that some of the Wind Palace in WW was based on stuff from OoT. Some of the puzzles cut from Super Mario 64 were used in Ocarina of Time as well.
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Feb 10, 2014 05:13
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Beeez posted:I guess for the me the reason I've never understood the hate for Twilight Princess is I don't understand how it's "lifeless" compared to any other Zelda overworld. There are grottos and caves with stuff in it and there are enemies running/flying around. How is that any different from ALBW? Or from the oft-praised TWW overworld? How are those sea platforms or Eye Rocks anymore meaningful than the caves and grottos of Twilight Princess? Twilight Princess is lifeless because there are no NPCs, the world is heavily segmented, there is no reason to travel there because teleporting is so much more useful, the color palette is ugly (especially compared to TWW), lots of empty space equals lots of boredom, horse riding is a hassle/useless/requires those stupid whistle leaves for most of the game AND randomly throwing retardedly easy enemies at you does not equal fun, it's just annoying. ALBW has the same problem in parts - mostly because it apes ALTTP, which more often than not had empty maps full with random rocks, trees and enemies. Only ALBW is much less tedious because it's faster, both because of actual speed, screen transitions, being 2D and no retarded movement gimmicks (wolf and horse). And the grottos aren't just full with "stuff": they have puzzles, huge, cave-filling puzzles, even. ALBW was pretty great with its mini dungeons - I wish every hidden cave that wasn't about a NPC was like that. TP, however, ONLY had brain-dead caverns, maybe with some enemies, one or two obstacles, or the usual use-gadget-XY-here-spot. No secret place was nearly as well-designed or involved as the incredible dungeons. They were, literally, filler, to populate a desolate overworld. Not to mention the ALBW overworld was MUCH more fun to explore thanks to the wall merging ability. It pretty much made you look at every wall twice, making you think: "CAN I go there?" And more often than not, you could! Finding these little nooks and crannies was more rewarding than the secrets you could find! TP has nothing like that - you're never wondering if there could be anything hidden you're not seeing yet, because EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME, you can see the corresponding switch/bombable wall/use-gadget-XY-spot. Which is, again, why the very best Zelda gadgets are ALWAYS those that expand your ways of movement, NEVER the gadgets that are glorified keys. Beeez posted:I also don't really get how having a more fleshed out main quest is more tedious than having a completely bare bones one where you go from dungeon to dungeon while having the option of looking for a bunch of secret caves that are hidden behind trees and walls that give you no indication as to which ones are secret-holding, as in LoZ. 100% agreed - I don't really get what's so great about the arbitrary secrets in LoZ, either. Seems more like a hassle than actual exploration to me. However, I don't think your argument with the fleshed out main quest holds water. How is a quest involving seven incredibly well-designed puzzle dungeons not fleshed out? Do the story segments make the parts inbetween dungeons in TP everything somehow better? Even though some of them (*desert full of endlessly spawning enemies cough*) are clearly underdeveloped, lazy and boring? The very opposite, I think: focusing on the star of the game, the dungeon, actually IMPROVES the main quest. It's a rare case of Nintendo actually understanding how their own game works. And just so you know - ALBW schools TP even in regards to NPCs. You actually know all seven sages, albeit briefly, and there's lots of people who went to the sages' families later to tell them they're safe, even though there is no game reason to do so. That's a success - people feel for NPCs they met only once! Whereas, in TP, noone gives a gently caress for Link's girlfriend (whose plot was horribly messed up) or those heroes (who have the saddest cutscene during the final dungeon, even though it's meant to be heroic and poo poo). It looks like Nintendo plain and simply overdid it, and messed up during the confusing development of TP - whereas ALBW stayed simple, didn't mess up and succeeded thanks to that. You know - I'm starting to believe that SS and TP really are the two worst Zeldas, stuff older than ALTTP excluded (I'm not very familiar with those). I'm not sure which is worse, though. Both of them feel so incredibly stagnant and... bloated. It's kinda weird, because they're still good games. Just very forgettable, and not nearly as great as other Zeldas.
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Feb 10, 2014 15:08
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Torquemadras posted:Twilight Princess is lifeless because there are no NPCs, Oh come the gently caress on now. It's cool to hate TP but get real, that game had the best loving NPC's, even if we didn't get to do a whole lot with them. E: This is the game where a young child (2 years old?) starts a chain of shops filled with men and children dancing in his honor E2: I can name more one-off characters in TP than any other Zelda game. Austrian mook fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 15:28
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Torquemadras posted:You know - I'm starting to believe that SS and TP really are the two worst Zeldas, stuff older than ALTTP excluded (I'm not very familiar with those). I'm not sure which is worse, though. Both of them feel so incredibly stagnant and... bloated. It's kinda weird, because they're still good games. Just very forgettable, and not nearly as great as other Zeldas. I don't know, at least they have decent controls outside of the motion swordfighting and the lack of a second analogue stick for the camera. The DS ones are far more frustrating to control and feature the most tedious overworld navigation in the series. If anyone thinks that Nintendo would never ruin a game's controls by putting it on a touchscreen device, just play Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and Star Fox: Command. Unfortunately, I'm not as much of a fan of 2.5D top-down Zelda games, especially when Ocarina of Time made the jump into 3D so well. Actually being able to look around the enormous environments in that game rather than just the patch of ground around your feet was amazing. It doesn't help that ALBW is so zoomed in compared to the original game.
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Feb 10, 2014 15:31
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Austrian mook posted:Oh come the gently caress on now. It's cool to hate TP but get real, that game had the best loving NPC's, even if we didn't get to do a whole lot with them. Okay, let me correct this: TP's overworld is lifeless because there are no NPCs. You're right, some of the NPCs are pretty great - like Realistic Tingle (seriously!), the fishing shop girl, the shopkeeper bird, and so on. Of course, given TP's style, they're a bit ugly in comparison (especially those kids), but not too bad. Only there are large parts of the world without them, and the NPCs we get aren't very involved. Seems like the NPCs are well-designed, but Nintendo plain and simply ran out of time to do anything with them, besides an awkward short sidequest and putting them somewhere in Kakariko or whatnot. Hell, Kakariko is a ghost town. And it has probably the second-most amount of NPCs of any location in the game! No comparison to the truckload of shenanigans you could get up to with NPCs in Windfall Island, for comparison.
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Feb 10, 2014 15:41
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Torquemadras posted:Okay, let me correct this: TP's overworld is lifeless because there are no NPCs. You're right, some of the NPCs are pretty great - like Realistic Tingle (seriously!), the fishing shop girl, the shopkeeper bird, and so on. Of course, given TP's style, they're a bit ugly in comparison (especially those kids), but not too bad. Only there are large parts of the world without them, and the NPCs we get aren't very involved. Seems like the NPCs are well-designed, but Nintendo plain and simply ran out of time to do anything with them, besides an awkward short sidequest and putting them somewhere in Kakariko or whatnot. Yeah, I see what you mean. It's really more of a change in tone though, and I think in a way it works. TP works off of this sort of idea of loneliness, think (for a lovely tired comparison) a Dark Soulsy feel. I really love the moments of sitting in the middle of an empty, sorry field with that loving haunting, beautiful song playing in the background, I don't know that it "works", certainly not to the level that the Souls games make it work, but that's sort of what they're going for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqZXoRdQsGY seriously, listen to that. It's the perfect mix of scary, peaceful, I loving love it.
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Feb 10, 2014 15:45
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I do hope whatever Zelda they make next they work on minimizing or getting rid of as many screen transitions as possible. I understand there are limitations on what consoles can do, but being able to load areas on the fly without transition screens really really improves immersion in games. Zelda just seems to have more than other modern games.
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Feb 10, 2014 15:48
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Torquemadras posted:Twilight Princess is lifeless because there are no NPCs, the world is heavily segmented, there is no reason to travel there because teleporting is so much more useful, the color palette is ugly (especially compared to TWW), lots of empty space equals lots of boredom, horse riding is a hassle/useless/requires those stupid whistle leaves for most of the game AND randomly throwing retardedly easy enemies at you does not equal fun, it's just annoying. It's been a while since I've played Twilight Princess, but that's not entirely true. For example, it had a whole other segment of the Goron Mines you could find in Hyrule Field. There were also things like the Zora River minigames in which you traveled through part of the world in a different way. And pretty much every single minidungeon that I can remember had enemies in it if it didn't have a puzzle. Almost every minidungeon in ALBW was the exact thing you dismiss in Twilight Princess, they were almost all one room with a puzzle that involved using "key-type items" to get to the chest. And Twilight Princess' lack of NPCs in Hyrule Field is again something it's being singled out for for no good reason, because no game since ALttP(or maybe the N64 games since those ones did have Deku Scrubs) have had very many NPCs out in the field. Plus, if you want to talk too much empty space, The Wind Waker is the most egregious in that department easily because for ten years that game only had one speed you could go and you had to stop your boat every single time you wanted to change direction, which is a lot more tedious than a horse you have full control over, that goes faster in, and is in an area that actually has less empty space than TWW. Which again goes back to what I said originally, which is that Twilight Princess gets a lot of poo poo for things that are evident in most Zeldas before or since it was made that are looked at by the fanbase much more fondly. quote:100% agreed - I don't really get what's so great about the arbitrary secrets in LoZ, either. Seems more like a hassle than actual exploration to me. However, I don't think your argument with the fleshed out main quest holds water. How is a quest involving seven incredibly well-designed puzzle dungeons not fleshed out? Do the story segments make the parts inbetween dungeons in TP everything somehow better? Even though some of them (*desert full of endlessly spawning enemies cough*) are clearly underdeveloped, lazy and boring? The very opposite, I think: focusing on the star of the game, the dungeon, actually IMPROVES the main quest. It's a rare case of Nintendo actually understanding how their own game works. I don't agree at all about NPCs and your explanation for how they're better is completely anecdotal. Ocarina of Time fleshed out it's version of the Sages better than this game made 15 years later. ALBW, both in having so little happen in between dungeons and having such a brisk pace in general, didn't really flesh out the characters or this version of Hyrule much at all. Maybe it's because I started playing Zelda with Ocarina of Time, but I've never played these games just to be shunted from dungeon to dungeon. Even if the stories themselves are simple, some Zeldas have done a pretty good job of making it feel like the world and characters have a backstory beyond whatever has happened with Ganondorf last time, and ALBW is not one of the ones that accomplished that for me. Plus, people complain that Zant was second in command to Ganondorf, but he was still treated with more respect than Ganon himself was in ALBW and had more depth than the main villain of ALBW, too.
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Feb 10, 2014 15:56
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Majora's Mask had the best NPC's. Accept no substitutes.
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Feb 10, 2014 16:25
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I think most can agree on that score.
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Feb 10, 2014 16:33
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greatn posted:I do hope whatever Zelda they make next they work on minimizing or getting rid of as many screen transitions as possible. I understand there are limitations on what consoles can do, but being able to load areas on the fly without transition screens really really improves immersion in games. Zelda just seems to have more than other modern games. The Wind Waker was able to do this with the great ocean, although having such large distances between the islands made it less impressive. Twilight Princess also had these bottlenecks in Hyrule field which they used to swap a new area into memory, but it wasn't used between most other areas. I know what you mean, and it gives seamless games like Shadow of the Colossus a completely different feel from ICO since you can start off at the temple, ride out into the field, find an entrance to an abandoned keep on the side of a mountain, explore it, and fight the colossus inside it without having any loading screens. You can rewind in your head the route you've taken, which is more difficult if a game's broken up into separate areas. Even just being able to enter houses in the recent GTA games feels better when there isn't a loading screen.
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Feb 10, 2014 17:23
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That loving Sned posted:The Wind Waker was able to do this with the great ocean, although having such large distances between the islands made it less impressive. Twilight Princess also had these bottlenecks in Hyrule field which they used to swap a new area into memory, but it wasn't used between most other areas. I can't find the article, but Wind Waker actually does have a significant amount of stuff loaded up and going on all at once compared to many other games. It was an interesting read there was apparently a lot of really advanced technical stuff going on under the hood with that game. And to its cred it felt way more seamless even with the ocean, no matter where you were you were always just about to head towards something. I'm so sick of loading corridors too though like you say. Some games like Tomb Raider or Metroid Prime get away with it because the structure of the older games lent themselves to it (elevators and narrow conntecting tubes in Metroid and the many small caves in Tomb Raider series) but it's such a drain on supposedly open games when they don't do a good job of hiding their structural bottlenecks. Here we are: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=104415
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Feb 10, 2014 17:38
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Beeez posted:It's been a while since I've played Twilight Princess, but that's not entirely true. For example, it had a whole other segment of the Goron Mines you could find in Hyrule Field. There were also things like the Zora River minigames in which you traveled through part of the world in a different way. And pretty much every single minidungeon that I can remember had enemies in it if it didn't have a puzzle. Almost every minidungeon in ALBW was the exact thing you dismiss in Twilight Princess, they were almost all one room with a puzzle that involved using "key-type items" to get to the chest. I have no idea what you're trying to say with the Goron Mines. The River minigame is also not really a good example for modes of transportation - it's a minigame, absolutely not what I meant with gadget. As for the minidungeon: did we play the same ALBW? You can hardly call the minidungeons of ALBW "one room with a puzzle". I mean the minidungeons with the thieves at the entrance. They were A LOT more involved than that. Also mention that I NEVER called anything in TP a puzzle - "key-type items" are the very opposite of puzzles, and TP uses them all over the drat place. Most Zeldas do, unfortunately. It's the series' curse. Believe me, I'd be even happier if ALBW didn't even have a single one of those, but you can't have everything, no? Beeez posted:And Twilight Princess' lack of NPCs in Hyrule Field is again something it's being singled out for for no good reason, because no game since ALttP(or maybe the N64 games since those ones did have Deku Scrubs) have had very many NPCs out in the field. Plus, if you want to talk too much empty space, The Wind Waker is the most egregious in that department easily because for ten years that game only had one speed you could go and you had to stop your boat every single time you wanted to change direction, which is a lot more tedious than a horse you have full control over, that goes faster in, and is in an area that actually has less empty space than TWW. Which again goes back to what I said originally, which is that Twilight Princess gets a lot of poo poo for things that are evident in most Zeldas before or since it was made that are looked at by the fanbase much more fondly. Why are you talking about TWW? I certainly didn't. And I never defended the empty space. And it's not about NPC density or some silly metric like that. The fact remains that there are large parts of TP that feel unfinished, that have nothing for you to do except for lots of filler caves, that pretty much exist only so that you ride through them. Other games do that too, of course. Only TP is pretty bad about how unfinished and empty it is in many places. Take the desert, for example, or the ice place, or the Twilight Palace... It's not that TP is THAT MUCH WORSE than every other Zelda - my point is merely that it's probably at the bottom, and ALBW is so much better it's not even funny. Beeez posted:I don't agree at all about NPCs and your explanation for how they're better is completely anecdotal. Ocarina of Time fleshed out it's version of the Sages better than this game made 15 years later. ALBW, both in having so little happen in between dungeons and having such a brisk pace in general, didn't really flesh out the characters or this version of Hyrule much at all. Maybe it's because I started playing Zelda with Ocarina of Time, but I've never played these games just to be shunted from dungeon to dungeon. Even if the stories themselves are simple, some Zeldas have done a pretty good job of making it feel like the world and characters have a backstory beyond whatever has happened with Ganondorf last time, and ALBW is not one of the ones that accomplished that for me. Plus, people complain that Zant was second in command to Ganondorf, but he was still treated with more respect than Ganon himself was in ALBW and had more depth than the main villain of ALBW, too. The seven sages were an example of how less can be more. ALBW doesn't have much of a story and, in my opinion, benefited greatly from that. TP's story is bloated, hastily done, and it shows. Also, I'm not sure why you're always talking about what "people" said about TP or ALBW or whatever, I don't necessarily share that opinion. ALBW doesn't flesh out anything because it's besides the point. Hell, TWW probably has the best story of all Zeldas - and yet ALBW serves just fine, because what little story it has works perfectly with the game. I'd take that over the unfinished mess that was TP's story anytime.
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Feb 10, 2014 17:58
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Torquemadras posted:I have no idea what you're trying to say with the Goron Mines. The River minigame is also not really a good example for modes of transportation - it's a minigame, absolutely not what I meant with gadget. I mentioned the Goron Mines because one of the mini dungeons in Twilight Princess is a big lava room in which you use the Iron Boots and magnets to get your way over to a Heart Piece. I wasn't referring to Zora's River in the way you think I was, but we'll drop that point I guess. My mention of key-type items was not to get into semantics over what a puzzle is, it was to say that the mini dungeons of TP in which there aren't real puzzles do have monsters to fight, at least. As for your assertion about ALBW's minidungeons, that's exactly what every single one of those ones with the treasure hunters is, man. It is literally one room with a puzzle involving one of the items you get from Ravio. quote:Why are you talking about TWW? I certainly didn't. And I never defended the empty space. If it's not about NPC density then why did you say this?: Torquemadras posted:Okay, let me correct this: TP's overworld is lifeless because there are no NPCs. You're right, some of the NPCs are pretty great - like Realistic Tingle (seriously!), the fishing shop girl, the shopkeeper bird, and so on. Of course, given TP's style, they're a bit ugly in comparison (especially those kids), but not too bad. Only there are large parts of the world without them, and the NPCs we get aren't very involved. Seems like the NPCs are well-designed, but Nintendo plain and simply ran out of time to do anything with them, besides an awkward short sidequest and putting them somewhere in Kakariko or whatnot. Sounds to me like you are indeed saying that Twilight Princess is lifeless because there aren't many NPCs out in the field, to which I say every Zelda has lots of areas that have no NPCs at all. Also, I'm talking about TWW because I was talking about it before you even responded to me. From the get-go I wasn't just comparing ALBW with Twilight, I was talking about the games people poo poo on vs the games people praise and why I think they're not as different as is claimed. quote:The seven sages were an example of how less can be more. ALBW doesn't have much of a story and, in my opinion, benefited greatly from that. TP's story is bloated, hastily done, and it shows. Also, I'm not sure why you're always talking about what "people" said about TP or ALBW or whatever, I don't necessarily share that opinion. I'm not sure why I made a post that wasn't even directed at you about the general perception of the games and you're now questioning why I'm talking about what "people" said when that was the whole point of my post to start with as opposed to being directed only at your opinions. I was commenting in a general way. As for story comparisons, ALBW does everything Twilight Princess is accused of and does it with less depth, so I don't agree on that count either. I'm not saying Zelda needs to be some deep Final Fantasy-type thing, I'm saying the overall journey of ALBW felt, no pun intended, paper thin to me. Everything from the dungeons to the side stuff to the overall quest left me saying "That's it?", so completely independently of comparing it TP I don't think it was as amazing as people are saying. But I'm becoming more and more confused by what your argument is, so I don't know what else to say.
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Feb 10, 2014 18:58
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Neo Rasa posted:I can't find the article, but Wind Waker actually does have a significant amount of stuff loaded up and going on all at once compared to many other games. It was an interesting read there was apparently a lot of really advanced technical stuff going on under the hood with that game. And to its cred it felt way more seamless even with the ocean, no matter where you were you were always just about to head towards something. I've seen that article before, and it's really cool to see all the technology they were able to use in what appears to be a simple-looking game. Unfortunately, I don't like a lot of the changes they made to the HD version, with the exception of the new real-time shadows. I mean, look at this poo poo:  It's even worse when you open a chest: 
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Feb 10, 2014 19:41
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That loving Sned posted:I've seen that article before, and it's really cool to see all the technology they were able to use in what appears to be a simple-looking game. Oh my god why does Link look like he's made of play-doh when he's opening a chest. I'm kind of torn, the real-time shadows do look kind of nice, but I don't actually think the game looks better with them.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:53
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That loving Sned posted:I've seen that article before, and it's really cool to see all the technology they were able to use in what appears to be a simple-looking game. Are those screen shots of Wind Waker running on Dolphin? When I played the HD version, it looked much better than the GC one.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:12
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Spacebump posted:Are those screen shots of Wind Waker running on Dolphin? When I played the HD version, it looked much better than the GC one. The left picture of Link and the chest look like they're from the HD version. The one GC pic looks like it's been upscaled from the GC's native resolution, so there are plenty of jaggies about.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:13
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Dolphin does not run Wii U games.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:28
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Beeez posted:As for story comparisons, ALBW does everything Twilight Princess is accused of and does it with less depth, so I don't agree on that count either. I'm not saying Zelda needs to be some deep Final Fantasy-type thing, I'm saying the overall journey of ALBW felt, no pun intended, paper thin to me. Everything from the dungeons to the side stuff to the overall quest left me saying "That's it?", so completely independently of comparing it TP I don't think it was as amazing as people are saying. But I'm becoming more and more confused by what your argument is, so I don't know what else to say. How does LBW do everything TP is accused of? Because what TP is accused of is story bloat and overlength. Personally I much prefer the LBW style of very limited story and shunting between dungeons, and judging by the popular response to it I'd say most people agree. The '3 hour intro' thing has been brought up multiple times but it almost can't be brought up enough because you seem to be straight ignoring it. I don't want to play minigames, I want to play puzzles and dungeons. I especially don't want to play 3 hours of minigames and cutscenes before I get to play puzzles and dungeons.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:33
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