To each their own I suppose. Part of what makes the Legend Of Zelda games so interesting to me, especially this one, is the mythos around it and the exploration of the world. It almost feels like I’m part of that world, exploring, talking and getting to know it, I suppose. I guess its not as fast pace as the Metroid (Which I respectfully decline with your opinion in terms of “Expected pace”, as I particularly find it no more interesting that your basic “shot them all”, which is definitely not my cup of tea) but that’s particularly what I like about this series as whole, it never feels rushed. As your opinion of the grimdark High Fantasy, this is hardly the first game of the series who works on such darkness (Ocarina Of Time And Majora’s Mask where no peaches) and I personally think it meshed quite well with its High Fantasy setting. As Wolf Link, Its just an ability that you can use. And extremely pivotal to not only the first part (By necessity) and the final battle. Which is a shame you could not bother to reach because your lack of interest. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that as far as game goes, it had a lot to offer. What it a perfect game? No, but no game in my opinion is. It all depends on your tastes in setting and styles. As I said before, respectfully to each their own
I get wanting to explore a world and discover the mythos behind it and all. Metroid Prime is one of my all-time favorite games because of stuff like that. The problem I had with Twilight Princess is that it gave me the opportunity to do just that, but no real reason to, making the game feel unnecessarily bloated. At best, all one might find through exploration is a heart container, but usually, one can expect to find a hundred or so rupees that you'll end up never using anyway since there's very little you actually need to (or even can) buy. Not to mention this game, along with the other Zelda games as I understand, has a paper-thin plot, so there's not much to get to know. While it's been awhile, I certainly can't remember what anyone said or anyone even having any sort of basic personality other than Midna being slightly mischevious and the Gorons being rather loud.
The art style seemed to like this dull sepia brown colour to everything during the evening and in the Twilight world, and that really wore on the eyes after awhile. And even in areas that didn't have that, the atmosphere still kind of felt muted, almost lifeless. I've seen Ocarina of Time, and I never really got that impression from it, but maybe that's just me. I get that they were trying to take things in a new direction after the whole Toon Link era and I get that this game was in development for awhile, but the way it was presented, other than the story aspects it felt to me like Zelda was trying to be Dragon Age. It doesn't work precisely because the story aspects clash with it, not to mention the prior games in the series.
And just because you use wolf Link quite a bit doesn't mean it was well implemented. As wolf Link you can talk to animals, jump long distances, sniff out some context-sensitive clues once or twice and... that's it really. For a gimmick that occupies quite a bit of game time, there really should have been more you can do with it. I'm not saying he should have had a Celestial Brush, but having at least one more thing over normal Link would have been nice, like being able to sneak past enemies or getting some animal friends to help you kill them or anything else, really...
I completely understand your point of view and I’m sorry if a sounded dismissive of your opinion, as that is certainly not what I wanted to accomplish
PS: Is there any way we could talk about this Okami game, here. A discussion board of anything. From what my sister’s being telling me and from what you’ve been hinted it sounds actually quite fascinating, I would love to find out how you personaly think it holds up
I did a review of Okami as well, though I think I was a bit too factual about it. I was probably wanting to avoid gushing, since it's my favorite game and whatnot.
In comparison to Twilight Princess, I'd apply all the same criticisms to it, only with the opposite opinion. Okami is a game where almost every map in the game has some sort of clever puzzle or task for you to perform, all of which have some kind of interesting or useful reward, along with some occasional story content. Every area in the game is colourful, original, and has its own unique landmarks and characters. Every ability you get and technique you learn will be useful from the moment you get it until the end of the game, and there's no shortage of abilities in quantity and variety either. Hell, the devs even found a way to implement the incredibly situational wall-climbing ability into the final boss, along with every single other power. I can't recommend it enough, quite frankly.
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One of the most boring games I've ever had the misfortune of playing
The Zelda franchise is, quite frankly, something I don't really understand the popularity of, other than its importance as video game history. None of the games ever looked too interesting to me (save those with toon Link), but one day, I decided to give this one a shot since someone else bought it. I regret that decision.
Maybe I've just been spoiled by games like Okami or almost anything in the Metroid franchise, but when I approach an exploration-based game such as this, I expect certain things, such as a quick pace, lots of useful collectibles, and interesting environments/setpieces. Twilight Princess fails to deliver on any of these except for an instance or two of unique dungeon design (such as the yeti manor). Link moves irritatingly slowly throughout vast and barren environments that offer me very little incentive to explore them, thus completely wasting my time. I understand that this is a common theme in the 3D games in the franchise, which raises the question as to why people still tolerate it.
Perhaps it would have been easier for me if this game was presented better. But this has to be one of the worst presented games I've ever seen, barring something like Shadow The Hedgehog. The grimdark High Fantasy-ish graphics don't mesh well at all with a game that's scope basically amounts to nothing more than a series of fetch quests for MacGuffins that no one has any attachment to, and I can't remember a single musical track from the game (though I used to be able to recall "Hyrule Field"). Music is a very important element of exploration games to me, being a tonesetter and whatnot, and it's a bad sign when I don't even remember most areas even having music.
Lastly, the whole "Wolf Link" gimmick really felt tacked-on. After one gets the ability to change from one form to the other, there are very few instances in which you'd want to use Wolf Link for any reason, since it has almost no abilities. It seemed to me like it was only there for a trailer feature.
So yeah, this is another game I couldn't finish. I got as far as the Temple of Time, which I felt was enough to make a judgment. Perhaps I would have done better had Wind Waker been my entry point, but still, my tolerance level for padding is quite low. I can't recommend this to anyone but a fan of the series.