Not really a lord of anything
I would say that the problem was that it was more of a retread than Wind Waker and Majora's Mask were. It was kind of a step backward even if it wasn't a complete copy.
edited 2nd Mar '17 6:59:14 PM by LordVatek
This song needs more love.
The general progression of the game, at least for the beginning, is very similar.
Forest Dungeon -> Fire dungeon -> water dungeon for the mcguffins, then event that mostly invalidates the previous quest, you get the master sword, and you go to a bunch of new dungeons. The second half doesn't really follow Oo T as closely since its dungeons are themed differently. It was also a return to a more realistic aesthetic (compared to Wind Waker) which called back to western fans who had been clamoring for that for years.
The main reason it gets called a retread is that most of its differences feel superficial at best and its new mechanics like the wolf form are undercooked or tacked on, so it ends up feeling a lot like Oo T with some new bells and whistles. The entire game may not be exactly similar but it is very much made with western fans in mind, who liked Oo T and wanted the series to go back to a game that was more like a "traditional" zelda as opposed to Majora's Mask and Wind Waker which were both big departures. Many feel including Ganondorf is a big symbol of that since not everyone was happy with him being included.
I would argue that its main problem above anything else IS being stale, because it's something that pervades the entirety of the game. It's a fun game but it being so derivative is a big mark against it in my eyes.
edited 2nd Mar '17 7:10:33 PM by Draghinazzo
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A Link Between Worlds is incredibly broken.
edited 2nd Mar '17 7:13:06 PM by Zelenal
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Red Spade, Black Heart
I don't think Twilight Princess is the beginning of a downward spiral. I think it's the end of a golden age.
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It was part of a small slump for me personally. TP was too conservative, SS had some new things I liked but was quite flawed and it didn't reach the necessary heights for me to love it.
I have no idea if I'm going to like Bot W as of right now. I think it is one of the best games Nintendo has ever put out in terms of aesthetics though.
Red Spade, Black Heart
I started out really loving Skyward Sword, but I soured on it over time. I can't put my finger on why. I think the biggest reason is that there are too few settings and none of them are particularly interesting. And the Ancient Cistern is the only really great dungeon.
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For me it's a combination of small things that add up.
- The extremely grating process of showing items showing up in your inventory as if you picked them up for the first time whenever you turn the game off. It doesn't sound like a big deal but I found it very annoying.
- I don't really mind Fi as much as some people but toning her down would have been a very good decision.
- The enemy variety was garbage. Bokoblins everywhere.
- Koloktos, Ghirahim, and Demise are the only good bosses. Everyone else is boring.
- The overworld was probably the worst in the series. Both the sky and the surface were underwhelming, it felt like they took one passable overworld and then split it in two very underwhelming halves.
- It has been a while so I could be wrong but I don't remember it being as practical to use your items besides the sword in battle because you were forced into the first-person perspective every time. I didn't care for that because messing around with your items on enemies was part of the fun of Zelda for me, since the combat in the series is barebones to begin with it kinda hurt.
- The motion controls worked for the most part but there were parts where they were very annoying like the Levias fight. Thankfully not too many though.
And like, the game doesn't really have the strengths to make me able to ignore these things while playing. It's fun, for the most part, but it's definitely one of weaker entries in the series.
edited 2nd Mar '17 8:54:45 PM by Draghinazzo
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Oh, that reminds me. Chuggaaconroy's LP of SS got me to play it again, this time in Hero Mode. I'm working my way towards the Ancient Cistern now and am having a pretty great time overall. Now that I have a better grasp on my abilities and am more free and imaginative with my items, combat has become a lot more interesting. It still has plenty of problems that bug me- the Sky is the worst overworld by far, Fi forcing tutorials on you even if you say you don't want them, Fi asking if you want a repeat of the tutorial a bit later, Fi repeating information you just heard (thankfully she stops all that after Skyview Temple, more or less), the Harp is complete garbage, and Scrapper to name a few- bu I feel like it's gone up in my estimation.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Actually, a lot of your items are very useful in fights. There are times when your sword is actually the worst option for taking on an enemy.
edited 2nd Mar '17 8:43:53 PM by Zelenal
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Oh right, the Harp was trash too. I'd completely forgotten about that but I remember being pretty frustrated by how it worked.
The Cat Knows Where It's At
The problem with the Harp isn't necessarily the concept- although the concept could have been better- but the fact that it controls very poorly. Something that should be really simple becomes surprisingly hard as I have to keep changing exactly how I move my arm until one possibility decides to work (seriously, I did the first two times almost flawlessly with one method but said method didn't work at all the third time and I had to try a few others until I found another one that worked flawlessly for it).
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vicarious
Like the pan flute from Spirit Tracks?
Anyone else got Arts and Artifacts?
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Honestly, I think I preferred the pan flute but it's been ages since I played Spirit Tracks.
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It's been a very long time for me as well but I remember the pan flute being less annoying.
Red Spade, Black Heart
Moldarach was a pretty neat boss too. Nothing groundbreaking, but fun to fight.
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Complaining about the settings is also an incredibly shallow complaint. I mean really, I want you to imagine a game with no grasslands, forest, lava, ice, mountain, underwater, urban, and mechanical/industrial settings. What do you have left?
WW did that too. Only difference is that's invalidated after you get the Master Sword.
Which is good. But I wouldn't say that OoT was particularly realistic even for the time since MGS existed. The differences are highlighted with the 3DS remake, which doesn't simply transplant the TP style onto OoT.
I would argue that its main problem above anything else IS being stale, because it's something that pervades the entirety of the game. It's a fun game but it being so derivative is a big mark against it in my eyes.
But OoT didn't have things like running up and down the overworld for tears, transforming into another form (which is useful in Arbiter's Grounds, Snowpeak, and Hyrule Castle mind you), an overworld that was essentially islands separated by tunnels, nor a story (not a good one, I agree, though) that arbitrarily blocks off dungeons and important areas. TP's items also lack the simplicity of the Fire and Ice Arrows, Din's Fire, or the Hammer; instead the new items are very contextual and only work on their obvious targets. And for one of the few plusses of TP's story, OoT never had the minions like the Bulblins be important to the story.
TP's main flaw is its bad direction, not it trying to be OoT again. If anything, I guess its stale on the shallow level, but badly directed on the deep level. Hey, that reminds me of Star Fox Zero!
Even still, MM and WW established Zelda as being on the high end of experimentality of video game series (heck, it's almost on the too-far end that Sonic and Star Fox occupy). You gotta allow some room for a "standard" sequel on the level of Pokémon, AssCreed or COD every once in a while, right?
edited 2nd Mar '17 9:25:40 PM by WaxingName
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The Cat Knows Where It's At
No it didn't. The purpose of getting the three Pearls was to gain access to the Tower of the Gods so Link could prove himself to the gods and be granted access to Hyrule so he could get the Master Sword. How does completing your quest invalidate your quest?
Meanwhile, in Twilight Princess, the purpose of getting the other three pieces of the Fused Shadow was to take on Zant or break the curse on Midna or something (can't remember). As soon as you get the third piece, Zant shows up and immediately declares the Fused Shadow to be worthless against him and it is never brought up until Midna suddenly whips it out break the barrier around Hyrule Castle and again just to get killed (maybe) by Ganondorf.
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Red Spade, Black Heart
The experience of actually playing Twilight Princess is so satisfying that all those little story hiccups don't bother me in the slightest. It's just a game that feels good to play. It helps that it has the best combat in the series by far. (And that Midna is there. Midna is the Marceline and/or Vriska of Zelda, and one of the series's few three-dimensional characters. I gotta give it points for that.)
Y'all are entitled to your opinions, obviously, but I'm just not down with this Twilight bashing. I don't think you detractors are being fair to the game and all the things it did right. And I don't consider its similarity to Ocarina of Time, be it narrative or mechanic, to be a legitimate flaw.
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Hey, I really enjoy Twilight Princess, too. Aside from the first two (which I just can't play due to age and BS, respectively), there's not a main title Zelda game I don't love. I'd say the worst a Zelda game has ever been is pretty good.
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Eh, Triforce Heroes is pretty bad in my opinion. It's like a worse version of Four Swords.
Had some incredible
music, though. I'm in favor of Ryo Nagamatsu being the lead composer for the next 3D Zelda. He's the best composer Nintendo has right now, IMO.
It's invalidated when it turns out the Master Sword lost its power and sharpness, so it can't scratch Ganon.
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The Cat Knows Where It's At
No it doesn't. They still need the Master Sword. Without it, getting replacements for those two Sages would be completely meaningless.
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Transcender of Gender
Personally I enjoyed Triforce Heroes more than Four Swords. That might be because I was playing FS by myself while TH was occasionally with other people, but still I wouldn't call either of them bad.
I'm with Zelenal in that the first two Zelda games are the only ones I didn't enjoy playing- and even then I was still interested in the RPG elements that Adventure of Link brought to the table.
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Officially intimidated
Since BOTW has finally survived its (long-denied) Troubled Production and is for sale, I may not post much here because I don't want to be spoiled. So I will drop a list of favorites and least favorites to see if the newly-released game will change any of them after I play it:
- Dungeons:
- Most: Level 8 and 2Q! Level 6 (TLOZ), Great Palace (TAOL), Misery Mire and Turtle Rock (ALTTP), Spirit Temple (OOT), Stone Tower Temple (MM), Tower of the Gods (TWW), Arbiter's Grounds and City in the Sky (TP), Mutoh's Temple (PH), Tower of Spirits (ST), Lanayru Mining Facility and Ancient Cistern (SS), Desert Palace and Dark Palace (ALBW).
- Least: Level 6 and 2Q! Level 4 (TLOZ), Sea Palace (TAOL), Ice Palace (ALTTP), Inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly (OOT), Woodfall Temple (MM), Earth Temple (TWW), Temple of Time and Hyrule Castle (TP), Temple of the Ocean King (PH), Ocean Temple (ST), Earth Temple (SS), Ice Ruins (ALBW).
- Bosses:
- Most: Gleeok (TLOZ), Dark Link (TAOL), Mothula and Trinexx (ALTTP), Phantom Ganon and Twinrova (OOT), Goht (MM), Ganondorf (TWW), Stallord, Argorok and Zant (TP), Eox (PH), Demon Train (ST), Ghirahim (SS), Zaganaga and Yuga Ganon (ALBW).
- Least: Gohma (TLOZ), Gooma (TAOL), Kholdstare (ALTTP), Morpha (OOT), Twinmold (MM), Jalhalla (TWW), Armogohma (TP), Crayk (PH), Phytops (ST), Tentalus (SS), Knucklemaster and Dharkstare (ALBW).
- Items:
- Most: Bow (all games), Magical Key (TLOZ and TAOL), Fire Rod (ALTTP and ALBW), Cane of Somaria (ALTTP), Lens of Truth (OOT and MM), all transformation masks minus Giant's (MM), Grappling Hook (TWW and PH), Spinner (TP), Beetle (SS), Double Clawshots (TP and SS), Sand Rod (ST and ALBW).
- Least: Raft (TLOZ and TAOL), Cane of Byrna (ALTTP), Deku Stick (OOT and MM), Circus Leader's Mask, Giant's Mask and Great Fairy's Sword (MM), Telescope (TWW), Hawkeye (TP), Whirlwind (ST).
- Characters:
- Most: Flute Boy, Saria, Romani, Cremia, Kafei, Anju, Gorman, Medli, Makar, Midna, Shad, Ganondorf (ALTTP, OOT and TWW only), Linebeck, Zelda (OOT, TWW and ST only), Byrne, Groose, Impa, Lanayru, Ghirahim, Irene, Ravio, Yuga, Princess Hilda.
- Least: Old Man, Navi, Mido, Nabooru, Gorman Brothers, Pamela, Maggie's and Mila's respective fathers, Princess Zelda (TP), Ganondorf (TLOZ and TP), the entire Anouki tribe (PH and ST), Fi, Faron, Osfala.
I don't even see that many similarities to Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, but that might be because I haven't played Ocarina of Time.
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