A Hazy Lookback At The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

[Music] let me ask you guys something what does it mean to compromise or actually better question what are the consequences of compromise Nintendo is a company who has long built a reputation on doing whatever the [ __ ] they want every single Nintendo fan on planet Earth could write an impassion letter to Nintendo asking them to please please make a new Donkey Kong Country game and Nintendo would say mhm yep we hear you and then release Bravely Default 3 okay they don't give a [ __ ] what we want Nintendo will do whatever Nintendo feels like doing and you will like it and although they can sometimes be super frustrating I respect that they typically don't shy away from making questionable business decisions in the name of artistic Vision but there was this one [Music] time the backlash and outrage to Wind Waker was absolutely hilarious ooh people were mad how could Nintendo troll us like this what is this stupid ass baby Crayola cray art style am I even playing Zelda right now or did I accidentally pop in Teletubbies for the PlayStation 1 I can't even tell Gamers felt betrayed and insulted like their favorite series had just [ __ ] on their lawn Nintendo was trying to turn Zelda into a giant joke and people were not laughing I was not one of these people I [ __ ] loved Wind Waker when it came out although to be fair I've always been a fan of both brightly colored cartoonish Aesthetics and Pirates so Wind Waker was pretty much right at my alley holy [ __ ] I played this game into the [ __ ] ground when it came out and continue to do so regularly to this day so even as a kid I was kind of bummed out at how much [ __ ] the Wind Waker got on its initial release to be fair though I think that Nintendo kind of set themselves up for this reaction by setting an expectation they had had no intention of meeting space World 2000 a gaming trade show hosted by Nintendo and primarily intended to be the tech demo for the company's upcoming new console the GameCube showcasing all of the capabilities of this new console as well as a look at the kind of games that were going to be possible on this new hardware and one of the demos shown was an imagining of what a Zelda game might look like on the GameCube now we you and me we know what a Zelda game looks like on the GameCube a Zelda game on the GameCube Oh you mean this oh oh GameCube Zelda you're talking about this right yeah this is what was shown at space World [Music] [Applause] 2000 now given this context the outrage towards Wind Waker reveal makes just a little more sense it's still hilarious but just a tad more Justified Nintendo came out here promising ocarine of time 2. .0 and then gave everybody Pono okay and that's not to talk [ __ ] on poo by any means but when you show people this and then release this I can kind of understand the Thematic Whiplash that many of the fan base may have experienced that's all and despite its glowing critical reception sadly it would take years for Nintendo fans to finally catch up to my level of intellect and realize that wind waker is a [ __ ] Masterpiece and in that interim period Nintendo would weather a veritable hurricane of [ __ ] as more and more fans demanded that darker edgier Zelda that they were promised back at space World 2000 the director of The Legend of Zelda series auma did not like the space World demo he would go on record as saying I saw that movie and I thought no this isn't Zelda this isn't Zelda at all I felt like this wasn't what I imagined Zelda to be it wasn't the Zelda I wanted to make that video clip didn't actually contain any big surprises there wasn't any kind of Revelation going on it was more like a continuation of the previous version I wasn't interested in it at all anuma had no desire whatsoever to make a spiritual successor to acarina that game's time had passed and I think onuma had already proven with Majora that the director enjoys taking Zelda in new unexpected directions hence the Wind Waker but even the mightiest Oak would bend to The gales of the [ __ ] storm that were blowing at Nintendo the backlash to the Wind Waker was unprecedented and was chopped up by many as one of the biggest contributing factors in the GameCubes lackluster sales and even though anuma wanted to do a direct sequel to The Wind Waker in the same style much like Majora was to acarina you would ultimately have to swallow his pride and compromise on his vision as Nintendo did something starkly out of character and gave the fans exactly what they asked [Music] for [Applause] The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess was released for the Nintendo Wii on November 19th 2006 I know I was there waiting outside of kmar in the snow with everybody else the hype for the Wii and Twilight Princess was palpable the game was originally going to be released in 2005 is a GameCube exclusive but was delayed in order to coincide with the launch of the Wii for a onew punch of a 2006 holiday season this gave the team more time to refine the game as well as release both a Wii and a GameCube version to the public although the GameCube version wouldn't be released until a month later this was great because for those who don't know Wiis weren't exactly easy to come by there at launch I remember my Kmart received four Wiis on launch day and didn't restock for another 2 weeks when they got three more units people were desperate to get their hands on this game the trailer they showed at E3 2004 is still remembered as one of the biggest reveals in the history of the Expo this was it it was finally here the darker more serious Zelda Adventure everyone had been waiting for the only question that remained was if this game could possibly live up to its immense expectations it did holy [ __ ] this game [ __ ] exploded perfect scores Game of the Year Noms Universal Acclaim left right and Center so many critics and Publications were calling this the greatest Zelda game ever made game informers said the game was so creative that it Rivals the best that Hollywood has to offer Games Radar called it a game that deserves nothing but the absolute highest recommendation cubed went so far as to say that Twilight Princess was simply the single greatest video game experience Jesus Christ it is the highest rated game of 2006 on Metacritic with the GameCube and Wii versions holding scores of 96 and 95 respectively this game was a massive success to say the least proving that even when they're compromising anuma and his team will never ever fail to print money that is a universal constant now I believe we are all familiar with the new Zelda game honeymoon period with the obvious exception of Wind Waker Gamers and critics tend to react to any new Mainline Zelda release [Applause] [Music] like then time goes by folks calm the [ __ ] down and we're finally allowed to talk about the flaws and issues that always certainly exist within these games and for a good while there several years Post Release Twilight Princess also got a lot of hate from a large chunk of the fan base that new game Sheen had worn off and many called The Experience boring unmemorable a soulless rehash of Ocarina of Time I guess they forgot that's exactly what they'd been asking for for over half a decade but whatever so the question I have and the question I want pose with this video is was Twilight Princess truly deserving of all of that praise it received back at release or was it more deserving of the scorn and critique it received much later was its initial glowing reception the result of an overhyped fan base desperate for another acarina or was the game simply that good you see I find myself in a unique position here I have not played through Twilight Princess since my initial playthrough back in 2006 I know I know what you're all saying what the [ __ ] I've been watching this dude's Channel and he's only played Twilight Princess once uh unsubscribed and I get it but look I've tried many times throughout the years to go back and play Twilight Princess again but I've never made it past the first trip to kakar Rico anytime I've tried I've just always ended up distracted or just too busy to commit to a full run besides from what I do remember Twilight Princess wasn't exactly my favorite Zelda game I remember as a kid thinking that it was kind of a bummer and I wasn't a big fan of wolf link I definitely enjoyed the game overall and played through to the end but I do remember being distinctly less enthralled by it than with previous titles which I'm sure subconsciously fueled a lot of my disinterest over the following years but here's the thing I was just a dumbass little kid back then you know a dumbass little kid who thought bugs life was a good game okay so what the hell did I know I was probably just mad that this one didn't have pirates in it so I was pretty excited to finally sit down in my big boy pants and play Twilight Princess start to finish for this video and see once and for all how good this game actually is or isn't and now that I've completed Twilight Princess as a dumbass adult I can tell you finally with 100% certainty not a doubt in my mind that Twilight Princess is complicated it it's it's okay it's good it makes me feel it's kind of like uh [Music] it's I don't know I don't know I don't know [ __ ] it [ __ ] the whole thing turn off the video I'm not doing the video nah that's [ __ ] up I'm torn on Twilight Princess man like Natalie and BR ruglia torn probably more torn than I've ever been on a Zelda game there's so much that this game does amazingly well and yet so many instances where it manages to Fumble the ball for me I don't even know where to begin here presentation Twilight Princess dominates any other Zelda game in terms of Aesthetics and theming by like a lot Wind Waker may have my favorite art style but Twilight Princess is unmatched in terms of establishing atmosphere and tone The Bleak subdued color paletts the somber score with it more mature takes on classic Zelda Tunes the dungeon design the enemy design the little floaty black confetti that floats around in the Twilight G [ __ ] love this little Twilight confetti so many design choices so many thematic elements so many little details throughout the game that paint this world with a Melancholy brush imbuing every moment of the experience with that same strange feeling of sadness that Russell describes to you in the opening cutscene and it's a vibe that the player can feel it's visceral Russell's monologue here almost feels as though this was the devs establishing their mission statement to the player they want you to feel this way this is not going to be a light-hearted adventure fans asked for a darker more mature Zelda and Nintendo said and it results in a sense of immersion that I can honestly say I've never gotten from any other Zelda game it's easy to see why I thought Twilight Princess was a bummer as a kid the game literally goes out of its way to fill the player with Melancholy at every chance it can get what I didn't understand as a kid a revelation that can only come with maturity was how beautiful Mel col can actually be I think Twilight Princess is gorgeous sure its art style might not have aged as gracefully as other entries but that doesn't change the fact that Twilight Princess has some truly breathtaking visuals all of which feed so effectively into its Gothic energy the rich thoroughly realized environments and locals the intense emotionally charged set pieces the beautiful character design oh my God what the [ __ ] what the [ __ ] is wrong with you nintend what kind of degenerate greenlit these character and of course the game's crowning Jewel the Twilight I love the [Music] Twilight I almost don't even want to find the Tears of Light because I like Hyrule better like this you know like all hell's ant but seriously the Twilight is this game's heart and soul and the core of the atmosphere that pervades every inch of this world sure these days Twilight Princess may suffer from trying to look like a good graphics game on the Wii in 2006 itis but to me the Twilight at least is timeless and even today it's a beautiful backdrop to a game and at the time of release it was nothing short of stunning and the confetti ah the little [ __ ] Twilight confetti but for as much as I love the Twilight it does come with one Teensy little drawback yeah wolf link did not grow on me with the second playthrough want to play as link but running around in all fours with no sword me neither but what if I told you you get to sniff smells not only does wolf link simplify the already painfully simple Zelda combat formula not only is his move set jerky unreliable and prohibitive not only are his sick jumps nothing more than unenthusiastically tapping the a button more than these more than anything my biggest issue with wolf flank is that I just don't see a distinct reason for him to exist I get that the Twilight Realm Alters your form or whatever okay like I get that but why did you have to make him a wolf it just feels kind of random you know it's not like wolves are particularly important figure of this world or anything so why a wolf what does this add to the story they could have made link a snow leopard and the only difference this would have made to the game is that link turns into a snow leopard instead of a wolf it has absolutely no narrative impact it's like the devs just said oh let's turn link into a wolf that's edgy that's edgy for this edgy game and it results in a central mechanic that feels half baited yeah it's the game's main gimmick but that's the thing the main gimmicks of Zelda games are usually the things that I you know enjoy in Twilight Princess I'm never like oh sweet a wolf section I'm actively trying to get through them as quickly as possible the sailing and Wind Waker the time travel in acarina the transformation masks and 3-day cycle of Majora these are elements of the respective games that deeply impact and enrich The Experience they Define these games in meaningful ways I want to play these games because of these aspects not in spite of them and unfortunately just like how I don't play Link to the Past to run around as a pink bunny I also don't play Twilight Princess to run around as wolf link he by no means ruins the game and he's more of an irritation than a problem but when the main gimmick of your game is irritating but if you can manage to look past the fact that lincol lick his own balls now what you will find here is one of the greatest most epic stories a Zelda game has ever told unlike Link Twilight Princess has a lot to say it's a story about Good and Evil loss Redemption sacrifice self-doubt self-discovery friendship greed Destiny corruption responsibility bugs monkeys and where a lot of Zelda games like to tell the bulk of their stories through subtext Twilight Princess is 100% in your face cinematic action mamoto actually got his brother-in-law Michael Bay to direct like four of these cutscenes I read that on the back of the box somewhere this is way more action and way more narrative than I'm used to in my Zelda games I was almost overwhelmed like an ocarine of time you only get to hear about Ganon usurping the throne and taking over Hyrule in Twilight Princess you get a first class seat to zanton his army tearing through Hyrule Castle forcing Zelda to surrender the kingdom in a Cuts scene that feels like it belongs on an Oscar nomination reel Al Numa and his team had a deeply emotional story to tell here and they wanted to make sure that every bit of it landed and every bit of it does and that's largely due to the fact that very little is left to the imagination and like I said while this isn't the typical more subtle Zelda storytelling that I'm used to I can't deny that it does a phenomenal job in upping the stakes and making the player feel all the more invested in the events of the game and for me the best part about this narrative focus is the effect it has on the side characters I have never felt more emotionally bonded with a Supporting Cast of Zelda characters Colin learning how to be brave and realizing that true strength is more than just carrying a sword Russell shame at being unable to protect the village children and his joining the resistance is both a form of penance and a way to prove to himself that he can make a difference defeating Ganon has never felt more like a team effort link doesn't just charge into Hyrule Castle solom man 5000 as per usual he's got all of his friends behind him they all contribute to the saving of Hyrule and that's beautiful and something very atypical of Zelda and midna Jesus Christ what is left to say about midna she is Far and Away the best companion character in the history of Zelda she's funny she's sarcastic she's complex and her character development is some of the best in the entire series I think Gru may just Edge her out but God damn is it close her and Link's Journey from begrudging Partners to genuine friendship is handled phenomenal it is so believable it is so earned and it makes midna's final decision all the more gut-wrenching as a [Music] result get Ilia sucks though yeah she sucks I love the idea of Link having a romantic interest outside of Zelda but Ilia is painfully forgettable which is ironic because the whole shtick of her character is that she gets amnesia it's one of the big side quest of the game and what's funny is it's actually possible to beat the entire game without ever fully restoring Ila's memory it's like the de say yeah we don't give a [ __ ] about her either but that being said ilot is the single weak link and a very strong chain of supporting characters that this game has to offer I will say if there is one narrative fuxa that the game makes over and over again it's that Twilight Princess leans heavily on Ocarina of times established beats like almost to the point where it feels like was trolling like okay you ungrateful turds you want another rock Arena how about a forest mountain and water dungeon for the First Act oh you want the master sword better go to the Temple of Time and get it remember that remember that like an ocar uh-oh lake kyia is getting a little low don't you think don't you think it's a little that's not good that's not good kind of reminds you of something look we've got a fresh new villain for you fresh new villain with an interesting motivation and back story psych it's Ganon like the exact ganet from AAR of time don't worry it's not like a new Inc no midna cannot wield the Triforce of wisdom that is not what happened in acarina bring Zelda back to life right now I don't care how inexplicable it is and it's a damn shame because they really laid the groundwork for a truly unique Zelda experience here Zelda dies halfway through this game for those of you unfamiliar with the series that does not typically happen having a Zelda game where Zelda dies and another princess a banished princess who failed to protect her own kingdom from the same threat now facing Hyrule begrudgingly taking up the mantle of the Triforce of wisdom in Zelda's Place and helping link save both Realms is that not dope tell me that's not dope and it aligns so well with the darker themes that Nintendo was going for here but no Zelda comes back no harm no foul obliterating any weight or impact your sacrifice may have carried reconning the one thing that made her even remotely interesting in this game oh well and they [ __ ] Zant over the same way Zant is a legitimately compelling chilling presence throughout the majority of this game right up to the point where it's revealed that he's merely a puppet of Ganondorf and it just it just lets all of the air out of his character man like why why develop this cool new villain just to shove Ganon down our throats at the last second why have Zelda sacrificed herself for midna just to bring her back at the last second it's the same feeling I get with wolfling what was the point of this how do these things meaningfully affect the game snow peak ruins the Twilight realm Zant midna it's no coincidence that the best parts about this game are the truly unique ones not the cheap callbacks to acarina and whether onuma wanted to make this game or not I think he missed a big opportunity to do something truly new here I think you took Ocarina of Time 2.0 a little too seriously and I think Twilight princess's Legacy has suffered quite a bit because of it another thing Twilight Princess borrows heavily from acarina is dungeon design however in my opinion unlike many of the the other elements it borrows from acarina I feel Twilight princess's dungeons are an improvement rather than a regression these instantly became some of my series favorites I know I made that joke earlier about the forest mountain and water dungeon Trope but even these are executed better than an acarina in my opinion in fact all of these dungeons have that Classic Link to the Past Ocarina Style just taken to the next level the puzzles are topnotch a little easy but fun and occasionally challenging and they make some very creative use of their respective dungeons items I do think that the dungeons in this game Drag a little bit in length there was always like one or two rooms or puzzles per dungeon where I was like they probably could have just left this out but at the end of the day I'd rather have too much than too little dungeon you know what I mean and the boss fights in these dungeons have been appropriately scaled with the same level of epicness that the rest of the game carries and make these encounters all the more exciting some of these fights are ripped straight out of [ __ ] Greek mythology I swear to God links over here soloing Titans the fights themselves are actually pretty simple I don't think I was killed by a single boss but God damn when you slay a dragon in this game they make you [ __ ] feel like you just slayed a dragon and of course every ounce of atmospheric finesse that oozes through this game is Amplified 10 times in its dungeons never before have Zelda dungeons felt more like actual locations in a world rather than levels in a game they genuinely peaked my curiosity who lived in snow peak Mansion before yetto and Yeta who built it out there in the middle of no where and why likewise who created the city in the sky who lived there where did they go and why did they leave their diseased inbred livestock behind the arbiter's grounds are literally the place where the sages executed Ganondorf for his crimes against the kingdom but not before he takes one of them with him ooh I love these dungeons they add so much to this world and they add so heavily to my enjoyment of this game and in my opinion the true strength of these Dungeons and in 3D Zelda dungeons as a whole lie in their linearity you may notice that I keep saying in my opinion over and over again and that's because I know that what makes Zelda dungeons good or bad is very subjective and that what I consider a good Zelda dungeon may be exactly what someone else considers a bad Zelda dungeon and that's fine opinions vary in fact the release of Tears of the kingdom last year has sparked one of the biggest debates amongst the Zelda Community yet and that is the argument of traditional linear 3D Zelda versus open world nonlinear 3D Zelda now I'm a retro guy okay I think I've established that I typically don't talk about a game unless it's old enough to drive you know what I mean however I'm about to weigh in here a bit on a subject directly related to the current Zelda gaming climate this is a very scary thing for me okay so please remember that this is strictly my opinion I am not trying to convince anyone of anything when I say what I'm about to say and if you disagree with me that is completely fine and you're probably right that being said these are the kind of dungeons that need to make a resurgence in modern Zelda one of my biggest issue with tears of the kingdom is the same issue that a lot of players have voiced the lackluster dungeons The Dungeons and breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom just feel disjointed like each dungeon is just a collection of rooms and puzzles stacked on top of each other purely for the sake of being a dungeon there's no cohesion there's no structure and they kind of had to be like this because these dungeons like the rest of these games were designed to be tackled nonlinearly it's completely on the player which parts of the dungeons they tackle in which order and how they tackle them and while this sounds intriguing on paper in practice it results in dungeons that feel Bland forgettable and dare I say it easy not that Zelda dungeons have historically ever been very difficult but holy moly there were so many puzzles and tears of the Kingdom's dungeons that I was able to completely cheese or just skip Al together simply by using the game's physics and the tools at my disposal in fact many times I would solve a puzzle or get to a key area without even realizing it just by [ __ ] around and while this style definitely has an appeal of its own I can't help but feel that it robs me of a sense of accomplishment I've only ever gotten from conquering a traditional 3D Zelda dungeon and for me this is a key aspect of the Zelda experience when you're running around the Forest Temple and Ocarina of Time desperately looking for that key you're missing to move forward only to realize it's been hanging out up in that Tree near the entrance the entire time that's a fantastic moment one of many Fantastic moments I've experienced playing Zelda games and these are the moments that are distinctly missing in breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom and look I do think nonlinearity is the right move for the series in terms of world design and exploration it's a perfect fit however I don't necessarily think that that nonlinearity needs to extend to dungeon design you can have a large nonlinear open world to explore and fill it with linearly designed dungeons the two concepts don't have to be mutually exclusive I mean come on they had the [ __ ] figured out and link to the pack in that game you can take on any of the seven Dark World dungeons in any order you want go nuts you can fall in a hole and end up in a dungeon in this game and these are seven iconic expertly crafted linear dungeons spread across the map that can be tackled in any order the player chooses so why can't this concept exist within breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom why is this nonlinearity thing such an All or Nothing play for anuma for God's sake you could take the dungeons from Twilight Princess dropped them on to tears of the Kingdom's map and that would be the best [ __ ] game I've ever played Link to the Past came out 32 years ago what the [ __ ] are we doing all right sorry for the tangent I just think that fusing linear dungeon design with nonlinear exploration is the key to the Zelda game that everyone's been waiting for but anyway bottom line Twilight princess's dungeons good linear and good it's a game that thrives on linearity it eats sleeps and breathes linearity and it delivers fantastic storytelling that would have only been imp possible through linearity without it you wind up with a story like tears of the Kingdom that's all over the goddamn place where I accidentally spoil the entire ending for myself 3 hours into the game because I happen to find the wrong tier first oopsie meanwhile beating Twilight Princess feels like reaching the end of a good book you've been reading it's very fulfilling with a clear beginning middle and end the writing is better than it's ever been and the plot is perfectly paced every epic moment every bit of buildup is guaranteed to have an amazing payoff and sure it doesn't exactly push the series forward in any significant way mechanically I mean take away horse combat and wolf link and this is basically just Ocarina gameplay again but it's clear that they intentionally had a much larger focus on narrative here than ever before and they do a great job of drawing the player in and connecting with them on that emotional level it really is like playing the video game version of an action movie with many of the cutcenes feeling like legit cinematics from a Zelda film and that's super dope but this does have the drawback of a lot of my favorite parts of Twilight Princess being things that I watch not exactly things that I do which begs the question is that what I should be feeling playing a video game or should I just be watching a movie instead is this Killer story worth the generic by the Numbers Zelda gameplay or would I have preferred them to do something truly new does this game do enough to stand out from the series in more ways than just aesthetically will I remember this game as a unique experience with killer dungeons or will I remember it as the Ocarina knockoff with the shitty wolf mechanic I'm still torn on Twilight Princess like I said for me there's a lot it does so well and a lot it does not so well like it's got my favorite Ganondorf fight in the series that final segment specifically God damn no tricks no weak spots no gimmicks just two dudes trying to kill each other with swords love that and I love that the hidden moves get their chance to shine making this fight significantly easier depending on how many you bothered to find but of course this fight comes at the cost of completely sandbagging the brand new villain that I was actually really enjoying and giving me antagonist Whiplash in the process and the Twilight the Twilight is an amazing concept and the Twilight realm itself is such a beautiful intriguing new Zelda local that makes you want to dive head first into its lore but wol link sniffs butts and how about the fact that I adore this story and the entire cast of its characters they're probably my favorites in the series but the plot makes so many fatal flaws right in the home stretch that it ends up overshadowing a lot of those narrative bright spots for me I don't know man is it the worst Zelda game not even close is it the best Zelda game not by a long shot and it's certainly not the single greatest video game experience Cub you silly geese but it is a good game it sits comfortably in the middle this is my most middle opinion I've ever had on a Zelda game it could have been great sure with a few tweaks here and there maybe even one of my favorites but alas hindsight is 2020 Nintendo compromised just a bit too much here if you ask me and in trying to please everyone they ended up playing things too safely they were clearly shaken by the Wind Waker Fiasco and opted to follow up with a nice safe Zelda game that was guaranteed to sell and sell it did however as brightly as this game shined upon its release it's clear to see now many years later that Nintendo's compromise left Twilight Princess with a legacy that is nothing compared to that of its predecessors its impact on the series isn't felt nearly as much as the likes of acarina or even Wind Waker nowadays and that's due primarily to the fact that so much of its identity is made up of the series past Majora's Mask manages to have a stronger identity than Twilight Princess and that's a game that took 80% of its assets directly from acarina so I see no excuse here if they truly intended to go all in on narrative with this game then they should have left it all on the table they should have left Zelda dead they should have kept G indorf out of it and they should have made link a snow leopard these three simple changes could have made this one of the most compelling memorable Zelda experiences I've ever had instead it ends up being well to quote anuma himself it just felt more like a continuation of the previous version Twilight Princess is a fun game it's an engrossing story with action adventure plenty of drama and it will keep you turning the pages until the very end but don't be surprised especially if you're a series fan man if you find that it leaves you feeling like something's missing that one key defining thing that makes a Zelda game a Zelda game and it's a damn shame because with just a little bit more courage this game could have been so so much more I give Twilight Princess one and one3 thumbs up definitely play it but definitely play other Zelda games [Music] first

Channel: StoneyRPG

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Id: qHqVHx9HZp4

Length: 31min 59sec (1919 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024