The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Retrospective | An Underrated Triumph

[Music] whoops sorry wrong game hey yeah there we go Twilight Princess is one of the most fascinating Zelda games to look back on they came into existence largely because Zelda fans were uncultured back then and didn't appreciate Wind Waker for the gorgeous Masterpiece that it was they wanted something edgier so instead of making a direct sequel to that game as the Zelda team originally planned they had to listen to the feedback even if it went against what they wanted to do the state of the franchise depended on it after wind waker's disappointing sales and the equally disappointing performance of the GameCube the new Zelda game needed to be big bold ambitious it needed to excite audiences the same way that the space World Tech demo did which in itself was basically a more advanced and realistic looking version of the most beloved game in the series and at E3 2004 to close at the conference Nintendo traded the audience to one of the greatest and most hype reveals in video game history [Music] thank you [Music] foreign this was it this was exactly what the fans wanted this was going to be the game that would surpass Ocarina of Time as the best Zelda game ever made except it really didn't I usually don't hear Twilight Princess talked about as fondly as other entries most people agree that it's good but those same people may also say that it lacks its own Identity or that it has a slow opening or that the whole wolf link mechanic isn't really their thing this is a Zelda game that I've seen the most mixed reception towards which is crazy to say because did you hear that reaction Twilight Princess may not be remembered as the Masterpiece many hope for and wish for it to be but I don't think that it gets enough credit and I feel that it too often gets unfairly labeled as an Ocarina of Time clone I have my own share of issues with the game but I feel that the things Twilight Princess does well notably how it's more focused linear structure leases some of the greatest dungeons set pieces and moments in the series deserve more love this game has grown on me a lot and after replaying it for this video I believe that despite stumbling in a couple of areas it is one of the franchise's greatest triumphs this is an Ocarina of Time too this is the Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess [Music] thank you [Music] like I said the original plan was to create a direct sequel to Wind Waker for the GameCube and while the idea of a wind waker follow-up was Revisited for Phantom Hourglass in 2006 how pneuma begrudgingly knew that he and his team had to take a different approach if they wanted to restore the fans faith in the franchise and the most Surefire way to do this was by taking heavy inspiration from Ocarina of Time and delivering what had been teased in that old GameCube Tech demo something that Miyamoto wasn't too keen on yeah the guy who also didn't like wind waker's tune art style at first because he felt fans would want something more realistic didn't want the new Zelda game to be more realistic what do you want then everything about the first reveal feels so carefully designed to get the loudest possible reaction from the audience the Conan the Barbarian music straight out of one of Ocarina of time's most famous commercials building up to a close-up shot of Link drawing his sword while riding Epona across ruined Landscapes followed by Clips showing off the game's awesome combat and its darker more mature Graphics this is how you reveal a video game at this point the game was still in the early stages of production the reveal trailer was using voice clips from Ocarina of Time and even the Zelda logo at the end is ripped straight from that game truth be told the Zelda team didn't have much of a clue yet at what direction they wanted to take the game in the main thing they had written down was Combat on Horseback and they couldn't just rely on the graphics and similarities to Ocarina of Time to carry the whole project so what did they come up with sure at E3 2005 the game was fully playable for the first time and Link's new wolf form was shown to the masses an odd choice no doubt but nevertheless there was a lot of excitement for the game which was now given the name Twilight Princess the plan was to release it that very year but behind the scenes not everything was sunshine and rainbows there was a lot of pressure to make Twilight Princess as big of a hit as Ocarina of Time both critically and financially and with the GameCube entering its Twilight years after the Wii was revealed at same E3 the last thing Nintendo wanted was to hurt the game's sales by releasing it on a console that was about to be replaced the decision was made to delay the game by a full year not only to refine it but also to develop a Wii version in addition to the GameCube version a strategy that to this day was one of Nintendo's best launching their new system with a brand new 3D Zelda one that was already highly anticipated was a genius move even if they couldn't have anticipated how much the Wii would blow up in popularity even Nintendo systems that end up failing tend to sell pretty well in their first couple of months on the market so this still the right play as a matter of fact the Wii version came out first on November 19 2006 in North America with the GameCube version releasing nearly a month later this all culminated in what can only be described as a perfect storm Twilight Princess sold incredibly well and it was reviewed incredibly well Nintendo got the response they wanted and everyone was happy at least at first say it with me as time went on the fan base's opinion on Twilight Princess shifted the recency bias and excitement for a realistic Zelda game had worn off and what fans were left with was a really weird Zelda game weird even for the series a Zelda game with a huge world with not a lot to do in it and that you weren't even allowed to fully explore until about 8 to 10 hours in oh and you won't even get to see this world until you complete the three hour intro a Zelda game that's fun to play when you're actually slashing monsters with your sword but you're not always doing that because of the new mechanic where link does this free and a Zelda game with Graphics that looked amazing for a couple of months at least before people started realizing that this R style wasn't going to hold up that well in a couple of years the game was also really dark like in a literal sense I can't see a [ __ ] thing in here simply put Twilight Princess didn't end up being the game people were expecting it didn't do enough to evolve the series in many people's eyes and many of its design decisions became a little controversial I don't think it ever got to the point where it was hated by the fan base like Scabbard sword instead Twilight Princess was stuck in this awkward limbo for a long time where it was seen as an entry that was just okay nothing great nothing bad but no real reason to prop it up as much as Ocarina Majora or even Wind Waker the latter of which was finally starting to gain more positive recognition when I got into the Zelda series Twilight Princess was one of the last ones I played I had been exposed to the game a bit beforehand through YouTube Let's Plays a friend of mine had the game and even let me borrow it for a while but I didn't get very far I was focused on other games at the time I bought the game for myself on the Wii a couple of months after getting Wind Waker because Lord knows I was not going to be able to find a copy of the GameCube version there are way more Wii copies out in the wild and GameCube copies just look at the difference in how much each version goes for on eBay it's insane the Wii version is how I first beat Twilight Princess and I liked it I thought it was good but I definitely didn't like it as much as the games that came before it I wasn't that big of a fan of wolf link or how Baron the game felt and the story didn't do much for me at the time I never really replayed it either or even had the desire to revisit it not until 2016. it only seemed logical after nearly every other 3D Zelda game had been remastered that Twilight Princess was the next in line to get the same treatment and there were tons of rumors and leaks about Twilight Princess HD remember in 2015 when this new render of Link started circulating around the internet its Link in his iconic Twilight Princess pose but this was completely new artwork suggesting that Twilight Princess HD wasn't just real it may also be getting a revamped art style and that got me pretty excited and when I remembered the gorgeous Wii U Tech demo from 2011 which used Twilight Princess character designs I got even more excited time really is just a circle isn't it during the November 2015 Nintendo directs the presentation opened up with Twilight Princess and I was eager to see how the game would look in HD they started off by showing footage from the GameCube version and any second now it was gonna transition into the new visuals I'm still waiting the footage being shown was footage of Twilight Princess HD and it took me way too long to realize this I was pretty bummed out every other Zelda remake at the time looked drastically different from The Originals there was absolutely no confusion and this was all doubly disappointing because unlike Wind Waker HD which managed to get away with minimal graphical changes because of how well its visuals aged Twilight Princess did not have that luxury if the game wanted to pass off as a modern title a lot of work was gonna have to be done it needed a total visual makeover but it just seemed like Nintendo cheaped out and opted for a simple resolution bump instead during a time when the company was Jeeping out on a lot of things it wasn't until I closely analyzed the HD version well after the game's release that I realized more work was put into this remaster than I initially gave it credit for textures are at a much higher quality now and don't look nearly as muddy as they did on the GameCube or Wii the game looks way cleaner and way sharper than it did back in the day if we're being technical more work was probably put into Twilight Princess HD than Wind Waker HD but then again going back to what I said earlier Wind Waker didn't need to be improved much to begin with from a casual perspective Twilight Princess on Wii U doesn't look as impressive you need a magnifying glass to appreciate the upgrades and in that sense I can't help but call it a failure when putting it up against the other remasters from a visual standpoint it also sold a lot worse than Wind Waker HD did and I think that the underwhelming graphical enhancements had something to do with this heck the main reasons I bought it when it came out were for the wolf link amiibo and it was 2016 and I was a Nintendo fan what the [ __ ] else was I supposed to play the GameCube is where you'll find Twilight Princess in its most basic form the game plays and runs very well this is the console it was designed for after all though interestingly you only get two item slots in this version because midna occupies the Z Button making this the 3D Zelda game with the least amount of item slots up to this point Wii games are often criticized for forcing in pointless motion control gimmicks for the sake of having motion controls and Twilight Princess is no different in the Wii version you swing the sword by shaking the Wii remote but since the Wii remote by itself can't detect precise movements very well shaking it just acts as a makeshift button press so it's not as if you can swing the remote diagonally to do a diagonal slash this type of accurate swordplay wouldn't be implemented until Skyward Sword which required the Wii Motion Plus accessory the combat in this version feels very unintuitive and straight up sluggish because of this it doesn't feel very good to play at all nowadays frankly I don't know how my younger self was able to tolerate it there are some benefits to this control scheme like the simplification of the Spin Attack which can now be executed instantaneously by shaking the nunchuck you technically have four item slots in this version and the weirdmost pointer is now used for aiming which I am always a fan of but it just boggles my mind that Nintendo didn't at least give players the option to plug in a GameCube controller to play the game with a traditional control scheme like man there's four perfectly good holes right there it also would have made this a definitive version between the two by default and made it more accessible for left-handed players since the game is designed around the sword being in Link's right hand only the team went as far as making link right-handed for the first time in the most roundabout way possible by mirroring the entire game everything is now flipped and I kinda like this if only because it's a quirk that only a company like Nintendo would have come up with why just changeling's character model when you can mirror everything and offer a slightly different experience from the other version Mario Kart had already approved years before this that doing something as simple as mirroring level design can provide a fresh take on something familiar but aside from this the pointer controls and the 16x9 aspect ratio Twilight Princess on Wii is not my preferred way to play the game now Twilight Princess HD gives you the best of both worlds as you can play the game in either orientation except for one small caveat each version is locked to a respective difficulty setting if you want to play the GameCube version you have to play on normal mode and if you want to play the Wii version you have to play on hero mode and there's no way around this which is dumb I'm sorry but it's dumb if there's one thing that gets on my nerves with remix and remasters it's a lack of options it's not a huge deal but it's something that's always bugged me and you know what else bugs me amiibo not the figures themselves but with how Nintendo integrates them into their games sometimes the things they unlock are pretty insignificant and other times they act as a paywall for gameplay content I actually want to try out exhibit a scanning the Ganondorf amiibo makes you take double damage you might be thinking well that's what hero mode does too which is true but even in hero mode the Ganondorf amiibo can still be scanned meaning you take quadruple damage basically unlocking a secret superhero mode I would have loved to try this out or use this as a workaround of sorts to play a more difficult version of the GameCube version but I don't have the amiibo exhibit B the wolf link amiibo unlocks the cave of Shadows a modified version of the cave of ordeals dungeon from the base game that forces you to play as wolf link now I'll talk about both of these dungeons later but regardless of whether I think the chaos Shadows is good or not spoiler alert I don't this should not be locked behind an amiibo yes the physical version of Twilight Princess HD came bundled with the wolf link amiibo but what about people who got the game digitally or used they don't have the amiibo hence they don't have access to the new dungeon which was used as a selling point it's even on the back of the box amiibo have always been super inconsistent with the type of content they unlock a discussion for another day and no I don't consider these to be Solutions they're cheap but they still cost money at the very least they're more readily available so I'll at least give them that so anyways Twilight Princess HD is pretty great putting my nitpicks aside this is the best way to officially play the game they may not be as graphically different as many of us hope for it to be an unfortunate reality that really shows the game's age but it still looks really nice playing this on a big TV where you can properly notice and appreciate the higher quality textures is definitely the way to go and if you go back and revisit the Gamecube or Wii versions afterwards you'll definitely notice just how much better the remaster looks and aside from the quality of life updates you'd come to expect by this point there aren't really any drastic changes to this version it definitely plays it safe and some may say that it only does the bare minimum but seeing how every other Zelda remastered before this received backlash of varying degree for changing too much from The Originals I think this was the way to go the things that are different are definitely for the better collecting rupees after loading a save file no longer access if you never collected one before if your wallet is full when opening a chest with rupees you collect them instead of putting them back in when you unlock the ability to freely switch between Link's human and wolf forms you can touch this button on the top right corner of the gamepad screen to instantly transform a ghost Lantern item was added to the game that lights up when you're near a Poe which I don't find to be that useful since you have to be pretty damn close for it to work another change is the simplification of the tiers of light sections since you now only have to collect 12 instead of 16. thing is at least from what I've noticed the tiers of light that were removed were already relatively close to other tiers that were kept in so the total time you save is negligible and it really makes me wonder why they even bothered with this and why a lot of people act like this makes the Twilight sections infinitely better and it makes little to no difference and just like Wind Waker HD Twilight Princess HD had mirror support in the form of stamps that you were able to share with others these stamps can be found in chess in the game replacing chests that used to contain rupees or something even though Miiverse is dead it's still pretty cool having these to collect as opposed to the tingle bottle that became absolutely worthless after the server shutdown my playthrough of Twilight Princess HD is what made me start to appreciate the game a lot more the Zelda game that I initially felt lukewarmed towards was now the Zelda game that I considered to be better than Ocarina of Time and frankly I couldn't put the game down when I replayed it to record footage so much so that I often forgot to write down notes after completing certain sections of the game even the story which didn't really leave much of a lasting impression on me back then has also grown on me at least most of it some aspects of the story that impressed me even on my first playthrough words presentation and tone the cutscenes in Twilight Princess are the most cinematic we've seen yet they wanted this game to give the same Vibes as an epic medieval Hollywood movie in other words the team was clearly trying to appeal to the Lord of the Rings crowd since the movie trilogy had become synonymous with popular culture in the west at the time and it definitely works the story is filled with thrilling exciting action set pieces and balances these well with plenty of moments of tension and sheer dread this is one of the darkest Zelda games right up there with Majora's Mask a decision that was very much intentional to appeal to the fans who wanted a more mature and grown-up version of Zelda it's why this is the only Zelda game to receive a t rating see this this ain't for kids Twilight princess's opening does a great job of tricking the player into letting their guard down giving them a false sense of security to make the moment that everything ghost is all the more shocking you've gotten used to the calm and peace of the simple ranch life seeing Link's routine of running errands herding goats and hanging out with the village children but just when you think the game is about to let you go and find the real Adventure the adventure finds you in a very abrupt and brutal way link gets his skull shattered Illy gets shot in the back holy [ __ ] the kids get kidnapped and Link chases after them but ends up getting into the Twilight Realm by a shadow Beast oh and he turns into a wolf this whole sequence establishes just how messed up Hyrule has become Twilight Princess isn't afraid to show characters beaten afraid and fearing for their lives tortured and on the brink of death this is a world where not even children are safe the villain this time is Zant the self-proclaimed king of Twilight and even putting aside how his quest to engulf the world in Twilight has consumed almost the entire Kingdom just seeing how aardon Village has been impacted is more than enough initial motivation for link and the player to want to stop him like Wind Waker this game features a protagonist with a personal goal to fight for as always link is the chosen hero but Above All Else he wants to protect his home and save the missing kids who look up to him and his childhood friend just look at the determination the sheer anger in his eyes when King Baldwin holds call in hostage after he returns to attack kakariko Village and just look at the way he smiles when he helps Ilya recover from her Amnesia I mean link does smile quite a few times in this game at times I feel it may as well be his default facial expression I like when there's more to Link's character than him simply being the one note hero who heads out to sea of the world just because that's his job who else is going to do it you maybe you I didn't think so link becomes much more interesting to me when he has a personal stake in the story and the best part is that Twilight Princess doesn't just give us one relatable protagonist it gives us two Mena is just as much of a main character as link hell I'd argue she's even more important than him when the main plot and quest to stop Zant is concerned at the end of the day this is her story midna is like a much more fleshed out version of tattle a companion whose own motivations line up in some way with links so they use him to their advantage to get what they want but let's be real here Mirna is way more interesting than tattle and is unquestionably the best companion character in any Zelda game I love that she's initially selfish and super manipulative with how she persuades Lincoln to helping her out she doesn't really care about the children or the state of Hyrule at least not at first welcome kids bro as someone whose home is the Twilight realm she welcomes the change of scenery and doesn't try to hide it even when you meet Zelda and she explains how Hyrule fell to Zan's power and the guilt she feels for not being able to do anything about it midnight just teases her she doesn't empathize with her or any of the cowering soldiers you find throughout the castle and despite all of this she still manages to be incredibly likable part of that is due to her quippy and Sassy nature but it's mostly because of her character growth the more fuse Shadows you collect which are basically the MacGuffin equivalent to Ocarina of Time spiritual Stones the more Midland starts revealing her true colors she has a personal beef with zent and refuses to accept him as her King and as she spends more time with link she reveals that she wants the power of the few Shadows to be able to take him down and expose him for the false ruler he is she even begins to show compassion for Zelda situation and apologizes to link for dragging him around everywhere I'm not gonna lie I didn't really like Mina all that much at first I thought she was kind of a [ __ ] but these small character moments in the latter half of the first third of the game started changing how I viewed her to the point where after that scene where the nehru warns link about misusing the power of the few Shadows I started to worry for midna and wondered if she'd be okay once she had them all even fearing that she might become a villain worse than zent if they overpowered her and just like that without even knowing it yet I fell right into the Trap that the writers had set up for me because after obtaining the last few Shadows xant appears and up he overpowers link and midna and even leneru he takes the fused Shadows for himself curses link permanently trapping him in his wolf form and leaves midna in critical condition there's a reason why this is widely regarded as one of the best sequences in the entire series the sorrowful track Midas lament playing in the background the sense of urgency the Curiosity to see where the story goes from here when all hope seems to be lost it's perfect and Incredibly emotional foreign and in an unexpected twist Zelda uses all of her power to save minions life sacrificing herself in the process Twilight Princess had the nerve to kill off the title character and it was done in a way that was in service of this story and these characters it's at this point where midna's attitude completely changes the weight of Zelda's Noble sacrifice now rests on her shoulders this selfless act that saved her life now makes her determined to help link save both Realms not just the Twilight realm from Zan's tyranny after link follows Zelda's advice and finds the Master Sword to break Zen's curse turning him back into a human the bond between him and midna only get stronger and you feel that the two legitimately care about each other now as they start to develop a genuine friendship whereas before midna was twisting Link's arm to convince him to help her accomplish her Mission she now asks him as a friend to help her find the mirror of twilight to reach Zan's hiding place she also opens up to him more telling him about the oppression that her people the twilly faced under Zan's Rule and how the shadow beasts they've been fighting are actually residents of the Twilight realm who have been transformed into monsters to serve as ants minions you learn that she's been through a lot of pain and you start gaining insight as to why she acted so distant when you first met her midna's Arc is the strongest part of Twilight princess's story Bar None and her relationship with link is really enjoyable to watch this story is at its best when it's attempting to do something new but unfortunately it's not always doing something new what I'm getting at is I don't think Ganondorf should have been in the story bringing him in as the Puppet Master behind the scenes feels like such a cowardly thing to do as if the writers thought fans wouldn't be content with having a new character as the main villain so they resorted to shoehorning in another character who has no real business being here because unlike Wind Waker which feels like a natural conclusion to ganondorf's story and made his motivations in that game a core part of the story's messages and themes Ganondorf and Twilight Princess feels like he was written in at the last minute and because he's here Zant has to be cast aside so we can get another climax with versus Ganondorf but with realistic Graphics this time and don't get me wrong this is a cool fight if a little too easy but it doesn't carry the same weight that wind waker's final boss did for me aside from making me think that he killed midna boy was I pissed when I saw this the first time but I would have had the same emotional response maybe even a stronger response if it was Zant holding up her helmet instead he already filled the role of the Despicable villain perfectly even more when you find out that midna was the true ruler of the Twilight realm Before xanth usurped the Throne and turned her into an imp that's it you're going on the list Zant should have been the main villain not Ganondorf but nothing feels like more of a cop-out than when Zelda comes back for no [ __ ] reason completely undoing and undermining her sacrifice and it's not like she does anything important to Warrant this oh she gives link the light arrows that's why we went back on one of the boldest and most impactful narrative decisions in the series so we can have a fight on Horseback with Ganondorf that sucks because the horseback combat in this game is dog no the real reason is because now the finale is like Ocarina of Time because people respond to Nostalgia checking boxes for the sake of checking boxes I'm probably overreacting more than I should here I just find it so disappointing that there was all this setup for a unique story that the franchise hadn't done before just for it to devolve into a retread of something we've already seen all for a janky looking final blow animation well done guys everything else I'm a real fan of barring some busy work here and there that does feel like padding like the whole Quest involving ilya's recovery to give one example but Twilight Princess has some of the best moments characters and twists in the series even if some of the twists get undone by the end and it's not like I hate all the fan service I really like the return of the Temple of time and how it's used as a conduit between the present era and the era of the hero of time and speaking of the hero of time making him the hero's shade who passes on his wisdom and skills to the hero of Twilight was a brilliant idea and a great way to connect the two games and made in the reverting to her original form at the end but remaining the same snarky friend I'd come to care for on the inside always puts a smile on my face the way her Arc comes to a close also really resonates with me as she understands her responsibility to keep the Realms of light and Twilight separate and destroys the only thing connecting the two knowing she may never be able to see her Newfound friends again she's left behind her selfish ways and self-destructive Quests for revenge and has learned to use her power not for conquests like zat did but to keep her home and Link's home safe but the main reason I've come to love Twilight Princess so much is its gameplay but before that let's talk about the intro coming from somebody who defended the first Tower of Majora's Mask I can't do the same for Twilight Princess and a big difference right off the bat is that this opening isn't just an hour long it's closer to two maybe three hours if you count how long it takes to get to the first temple after starting a new game in between that time it's a lot of cut scenes rupee collecting some combat about here and there and the first wolf link section which has its own merits mind you I don't dislike wolf link anymore but it goes on for quite a bit and isn't as fun as the taste of gameplay you had earlier as a human and if you want to take it a step further when you finish the Forest Temple and enter Hyrule Field it doesn't take long until you have to return to the Twilight realm which means another wolf link section to get through to open up another chunk of the world for most first time players from the beginning of the game to the end of the second wolf link segment I estimate they're going to spend about three to four hours of that time not controlling human link with his sword that's a lot of time to ask the player to invest especially if they're not having fun the entire time the game gets a lot better after this first chunk and continues to get incrementally better from here on out but that's not really a positive is it just wait a couple of hours and then you'll get to the good stuff Majora's Mask and Skyward Sword are the other 3D zeldas that have received the same criticism the bad first impression but Twilight Princess is definitely the worst of the three and this is coming from someone who loves Majora's opening and likes skyward Swords goat heard isn't fun and not much changes the second time around sneaking around as wolf link isn't that exciting and while I like seeing the peaceful life that this version of Link has when I replay the game I just want to skip past this stuff and the initial mystery and Intrigue I felt the first time exploring the Twilight realm just isn't there anymore it's not a good thing when the first couple of hours of a game are the worst part about it but at the same time this means that it only gets better from here and I really mean it a big issue with the intro is that you're forced into a specific sequence of events with little to no opportunity to deviate from the path that has been laid out for you you're not given a lot of freedom and to an extent this holds true even when you get past the intro Twilight Princess is a lot more linear than its predecessors to access new areas and progress the story it's no longer just about having the right item accessing say the Goron mines isn't as simple as just passing through kakariko Village and Death Mountain to get there you have to dispel the Twilight in the Elden region first then attempt to climb Death Mountain and fail then go back to order on the village to get the iron boots from the mayor to be able to stand your ground against the gorons a mission that involves a sweaty wrestling match by the way and if that wasn't enough returning to kakariko Village triggers the fight against King bulbin that leads to The Showdown on the bridge of Eldon previous Zelda games also had certain events that needed to be triggered to reach the next plot in boring area but this type of progression is 10 times more prominent in Twilight Princess from what I've gathered a lot of people consider this a flaw while I consider it a boon that enhances this particular Zelda game the linearity provides the opportunity to have exciting scripted set pieces to look forward to such as the aforementioned battle on the bridge of Eldon but there's also storming the enemy base in Gerudo desert defending this Carriage as it makes its way to kakariko Village and snowboarding down a mountain Sonic Adventure Style just to give a couple more examples there's this added sense of importance to everything you do because these moments of gameplay naturally push the story forward diving for Rupees to get a scale feels sort of random by comparison whereas the quest to get the Zora armor feels more organic or completing a set of Trials to open the way to the master sword even if this part makes me want to tear my hair out yeah there are exceptions of course but even these exceptions can still manage to be fun like I still think that helping Ilya gain her memory back is blatant padding but if there's a silver lining to this Quest it's the hidden village where you use your bow to clear out the entire area from the bokoblin infestation and completing this unlocks a quest where you have to comb The Village from top to bottom to find 20 cats what's not to love about that the linear structure may not work that well for some during the intro since the tasks you're asked to do are relatively mundane but this is not the case for the rest of the game Twilight Princess is super fun to play and brilliantly designed it's constantly throwing new ideas at you or bringing back old ideas with an added gimmick which is why I can't take people who label it as nothing more than an Ocarina of Time clone seriously yes I poked fun at how similar the two are at the beginning of the video but it was all in good fun there seems to be this vitriol against linear games that I just don't understand there are benefits to more open-ended games but let's not pretend like something more scripted doesn't have its own set of benefits linear games aren't objectively worse than non-linear ones just like how 2D games aren't objectively worse than 3D ones or how turn-based RPGs aren't objectively worse than action RPGs they're just differently designed games and we should be focusing more on whether a game succeeds at pulling off what it wants to be rather than bashing it for not being something else I understand if fans wanted the series to evolve by this point and try something new it's okay to have preferences it's okay if you prefer games that offer more freedom but to write linear games like Twilight Princess off as glorified hallway simulators when that's far from being true is childish I'm not gonna act like I'm not guilty of having this mindset at one point but I accept that I used to be quite ignorant and I've opened my mind up since then and I've been able to enjoy lots of games way more because of it a linear game May sacrifice a rich open world but because of that it can refine and polish other areas in Twilight Princess I enjoy the lead-ups to dungeons almost as much as the dungeons themselves at times and yeah I wouldn't say its world is packed with things to discover but there's still a respectable amount of secrets to find Hyrule Field rewards players with a Keen Eye and a good memory for instance you may come across these suspicious rails along the walls and not know what to make of them at first but keep them in the back of your mind then you may be compensated with a valuable heart piece when you get the spinner and remember to come back and certain side quests like collecting golden bugs for Agatha or hunting posts to break Tony's curse Phil Hyrule Field with even more stuff to look for and even though this world probably didn't need to be as big as it is considering how much empty space there is it is so exhilarating riding across the fields with Epona the burst of speed you get when you dash with her feels so satisfying traversing Hyrule Field has never been this thrilling and of all the pre-breath of the wild Zelda games this is probably the one I'd be the most likely to boot up just to ride around the world for a while and I don't know if this is a hot take or not but this is the best Overworld theme in the series and it really helps sell the epicness of the adventure [Music] thank you this game also has the most mechanically interesting combat yet if I can get one nitpick out of the way first there is a noticeable bit of input delay here wind waker's combat definitely feels more responsive in this regard but that's really the only problem I have because the gameplay is so flashy and visceral otherwise and it feels so good this link may be a happy boy but he can also be an angry boy you can really feel the power that he puts into each one of his sword swings the jump attack and spin attack feel especially awesome this time around and every connecting hit makes the action pause for a fraction of a second and it really helps sell the impact of each blow and while they got rid of the Parry from Wind Waker Twilight Princess introduces hidden skills you can learn by activating these howling stones in your wolf form allowing you to meet with the hero's shade who will teach you a new ability the ending blow looks dope as hell and solves one of the problems I had in Wind Waker where you were forced to wait for enemies to get up after being knocked down to continue hitting them with this the pacing of the combat is improved quite a bit the shield attack can be used to render an enemy defenseless the helm splitter lets you follow up a shield attack with an overhead slash the back slice lets you roll behind an enemy quickly to attack them where they're more exposed the Mortal draws a powerful but risky move that can only be executed when your sword is sheathed and the jump strike and great spin are much more powerful versions of the jump and spin attacks respectively Twilight Princess gives you control of a very competent link his raw strength is probably thanks to wrestling goats and [ __ ] all day I always like to use dark nuts or a similar type of enemy as a benchmark to judge how much I enjoy the combat in these games and even during my first playthrough I was just waiting for the moment when one would appear because of my earliest memory of Twilight Princess is actually seeing this piece of key art in a Game Informer Magazine and it's one of my favorite pieces of key art of all time it really conveys the viciousness of the game's combat and when I did finally fight a dark note I was not disappointed fighting three of them at the same time is a little Overkill I will admit but one-on-one encounters make for really memorable fights and I also want to praise the links of voice actor this time around Akira sasanuma for the energy he puts into his performance [Music] if the combat has a sour spot it's definitely mounted combat which is a shame because if done right it could have resulted in some fun fights and I may have actually gone out of my way to fight enemies while riding Epona but for how much it was featured in promotional material it really isn't given a lot of attention in the final game when you are forced to use it it doesn't feel very smooth getting close enough to enemies to slash them is an awkward struggle I find myself spending more time running into things than actually fighting because paying attention to where I'm going isn't the easiest thing to do when my attention is already on the half a dozen enemies trying to kill me the good thing is that mounted combat makes up only a small fraction of the game and it's totally optional outside of very few scripted moments there is one other side to the combat I've been neglecting but to talk about that we need to talk about the Twilight Zelda is no stranger to the concept of dual worlds exploring a location you've already been in again but with an added twist and Twilight Princess this idea returns in the form of the Twilight realm the atmosphere while you're in here is second to none this game is care characterized by its Brown and orange color palette sunsets in this game look beautiful and I love how the world gets briefly colored in this orange glow but in the Twilight you have this bright gold Hue that illuminates the environment the skies have this almost blinding glow to them that contrasts gorgeously with the black clouds and Twilight particles rising from the ground all around you the music is different from anything I've heard in any other Zelda game and it fits perfectly Twilight is like a mesh of the best aspects of previous dual World mechanics to create something that is uniquely unsettling and unwelcoming staying true to the game's darker tone like the future time period and Ocarina of Time you get to explore a bleak version of Hyrule Shadow beasts roam the land forcing people to take shelter and not even the Hyrule Castle guards are able to fend them off though something tells me they were never that great at their jobs to begin with in another Ocarina of Time callback the Waters of Zora's domain are frozen cutting off the waterfalls that the zores used to travel between the domain and the rest of Hyrule but unlike that game where you were merely told that most of the zores were trapped beneath the ice you see it firsthand here and it is deeply unnerving the leneru Twilight segment despite me thinking it overstays its welcome just a bit also contains one of my favorite Side Stories in the game where you help with the spirit of the late Zora Queen rutella to rest by fulfilling her request to save her sonoralis who she had sent to warn Zelda about Zan's Invasion unfortunately he fell ill before he could make it from being away from water for too long the heartbreaking thing about all of this is that Rallis has to learn about his mom's death after he regains Consciousness at least this Side Story does have a happy ending and you do save the Zoras and everyone else trapped in the Twilight by collecting The Tears of Light bringing light back to each region to accomplish this you have to search for the tears in these unfamiliar places while occupying an unfamiliar body and this is my favorite thing about exploring the Twilight realm how it forces you to approach these environments in a different way given your new limitations and abilities as wolf link the tears of light are all marked on your map The Challenge comes from how to get to some of them seeing as there are certain things you can't do as a wolf you can't use ladders or Vines to climb to a higher ledge but you can jump really far to make it to the top instead with midna's help using your animal senses you may find a spot to dig your way into a building since you can't open doors or another animal to talk to who may give you some helpful advice link is in as versatile as a wolf but with minha's help you can create this field of dark energy around you allowing you to quickly lunge and kill any enemy trapped within it wolfling certainly isn't as exciting to play as compared to human link and after you've gotten rid of all the Twilight outside of a couple of dungeons that take advantage of his abilities there isn't much of a reason to use wolf Link in the later parts of the game but I definitely wouldn't say that he's a bad addition and he still gets his moments to shine here and there since you need to use the sensibility to defeat pose around the world and there's plenty of digging spots around the field that lead to Collectibles hidden underground speaking of the world that's something I want to talk more about specifically the things there are to do in the world or rather the lack thereof probably because of the game's more linear nature there's a noticeable drop in side quest variety and there aren't too many to begin with and even the ones I find fun to complete have a few annoying things about them the hunt for post holes is similar to the gold scotula side quest for Ocarina of Time to the point where just like the spiders hoes that are Outdoors only spawn at night but Twilight Princess is the only 3D Zelda game where you can't change the time day there's no special song of time or even a bet to sleep in and I can't tell you how many times I've seen a PO off in the distance and just barely missed it because the Sun starts to rise meaning I have to wait till Nightfall to kill it the other collect-a-thon type side quest is Agatha's bug hunt I don't really have an issue with how difficult it can be spotting some bugs that was very much the point and you can always wait until night time to make the search easier but the only rewards you get from this Quest are wallet upgrades and a bunch of rupees rupees are also your reward for collecting the postals other than Ocarina of Time Twilight Princess may be the game where rupees are the least useful the biggest money investment in this game is the mallow Mart side quest where you help the spawn of Satan open up his own shop in Castle town to drive out the greedy vendors trying to bleed the residents dry with their high prices I appreciate the consumer friendly Mission but I have to ask who the hell taught this kid how to become a successful businessman the big item you're able to purchase once you fund mallow Mart's grand opening is the magic armor which is nowhere near as good as it was in the last game I still find this Quest worth doing though if only to give castletown another place event interest because without it this place is pretty dull there's telma's bar that becomes a base of sorts for a resistance group that helps you out in the later half of the game and among them is Russell from auradon Village which is pretty cool there's a mini game you can play in town testing how good you are at using your claw shots and bow there's a fortune teller who I completely forgot about until I started writing this video so I never got any footage of her and even though the place looks busy it never feels busy if that makes any sense more side quests would have really livened up the place where at the very least more named NPCs because there aren't a lot of them and the ones you do meet are kind of forgettable even with their flamboyant character designs either that or they're flat out creepy like Ooka here thanks for letting me leave dungeons whenever I want but I don't want to look at you there are a handful of enjoyable mini games at the very least and I like pretty much all of them even fishing which is way more simplified so it's actually a relaxing past time now instead of something that makes me want to throw my controller against the wall I really love the boat ride through the Rapids in zores river and flying through the Canyons in Lake Hialeah to pop balloons for points snowboarding is definitely my favorite and the race against Sierra is actually quite hard you can't afford to make any mistakes here there's also the cave of ordeals which is pretty much like the Savage Labyrinth though I feel like this one is a lot more difficult the cave of Shadows is the same deal but you're stuck as woefling for the whole thing and oh boy some of these enemies were clearly not designed to be taken on as a wolf this just doesn't feel very balanced and the only way I've been able to reach the end is by scanning the Zelda amiibo to refill my hearts I also don't like that the game makes you do the first five floors then the first 15 floors and then all 40. yeah the dungeon is divided into three tiers and each tier makes you start from the beginning and for your troubles you get the Colossal wallet assuming you have all the other wallet upgrades it holds 999 rupees but say it with me this reward is lame as hell you can't even do all 40 floors until you reach the Palace of Twilight so I have to ask what are you going to be using rupees for this late in the game at least this means you're not losing much if you don't have the wolf link amiibo other than a good night's sleep if your hardcore completionist Twilight Princess may not have the side content but that's okay the game makes up for it in other key areas one of those being possibly the best part of the game and the first thing I always point to when I defend it the dungeons the dungeons are excellent with every 3D Zelda game fresh in my mind now it is more clear to me than ever that Twilight Princess has the best dungeons out of all of them like you know how good the Forest Temple Stone Tower Temple and the Ancient Cistern are that's like every dungeon in Twilight Princess in terms of quality the items you get in these dungeons may be virtually useless outside of them yet another consequence of the game's linear design but the items in this game shine in ways they never have before their potential is used to their fullest in their respective Dungeons and the creative ways in which you use them go beyond what's been done in the past without these items these dungeons wouldn't be half as fun as they are most of these are worthy contenders for the best dungeons in the entire franchise the worst ones are the first two but even these are still pretty good it's like saying Metroid Prime 3 isn't as good as one 2. the Forest Temple is a great starting dungeon it eases you into how a lot of the game's dungeons are designed by using the monkeys as an in-game guide nudging you towards where you need to go and the second half opens the dungeon up more once you unlock the Gale Boomerang on top of being able to lock onto multiple targets like in Wind Waker a magic gust of wind follows the boomerang wherever it goes now and the puzzles you're required to solve with it make it feel like a combination of wind waker's Boomerang and the Deku Leaf one of my favorite puzzles requires you to figure out that you can lock onto a bomb followed by something else to send the Boomerang on a path where it carries the bomb to the second thing you locked onto it can be an enemy or a breakable Boulder you couldn't normally reach the Goron mines are about as good as the Forest Temple only brought down to Peg because of its lower pacing you use the iron boots to magnetize onto certain walls and ceilings but you move at a snail's pace when you do so it's also a pretty simple dungeon overall but that doesn't mean I don't like it it's a fire temple with a creative setting an industrial mine with lots of metal architecture and I really dig the heat wave effect it really shows just how hot it must be in here and when link Falls in lava in this game it's pretty brutal the lake bed Temple is like if the water temple and Great Bay Temple had a baby which to some may be a terrifying concept but as someone who doesn't hate those two dungeons and even adores the second one it's no wonder why I love this dungeon so much it feels just as intricately complex as the previous two borrowing ideas from both but still managing to have its own identity there are several levels like ocarina's water temple and you're in charge of changing where the water flows to affect different rooms in the dungeon kind of like the Great Bay Temple I like how often you have to inspect your surroundings for claw shot points to launch yourself towards as stalactites you have to bring down with your bomb arrows to create platforms yeah bomb arrows are a thing in this game they're pretty great though I wish the process of switching between bomb arrows and regular arrows was a bit snappier and as you might expect a lot of the dungeon requires you to go underwater which the Goron mines already gave you a bit of a taste of unlike Ocarina of Time though not only can you swing your sword underwater and even use bombs thanks to a new very introduced in this game known as water bombs but you can swim if you have the Zora armor equipped and it feels really nice Zoro swimming is still better though not that one the arbiter's grounds is a fan favorite and for good reason I love horror elements in Zelda games and this dungeon delivers in that respect to great effect your first goal is to chase down these four Poes yet another homage to Ocarina of Time the enemies you fight range from Undead of Warriors to the returning gibdos and every now and then you may find yourself feeling a little heavier if you turn into a wolf and turn on your senses but this dungeon starts getting really fun once you get the spinner one of my all-time favorite Zelda items look at this even just watching gameplay of it speaks for itself the snow peak ruins automatically stands out for telling a story as you progress through it this is actually the home of a Yeti couple yeto and Yeta and your main goal here is to explore the Dungeon to find ingredients for yetto to use in a warm soup he's making for a sick wife once she gets better she helps you locate the key to her bedroom which is where she's keeping A Shard of the mirror of twilight well that wasn't too bad Jesus Christ that's a good jump scare I'm not gonna lie and when you snap yet out of her fit of rage with a good old whack with a 200 pound ball and chain the reunion between her and her husband is so adorable I love these two and they make some damn good soup the ball and chain item you get in this dungeon is used to break the large chunks of ice blocking the way to important rooms in the Mansion you'll also use it against the various enemies you'll encounter who are completely made of ice and to hit these chandeliers to turn them into swinging platforms you can jump across in one of my favorite Parts you have to shoot a cannonball into a specific room to shoot it out of a different cannon that's aimed at a chunk of ice you have to get rid of this dungeon also has possibly the hardest block pushing puzzle in the series the solution wasn't immediately obvious to me and I liked that it forced me to do a bit of Forward Thinking and you can find block puzzles even harder than this one in a cave in Hyrule Field the Temple of Time is a great example of how a more linear dungeon isn't automatically worse than a non-linear one to put it very simply it boils down to going in a straight line one way and then going back the opposite way to bring this statue to the central room but every room along the path presents you with a new obstacle overcome and it's really fun solving them to reach the next room some rooms are more puzzle focused and others are more combat focused I also love the ambience of this dungeon something about it feels so lonely and I think it has to do with the fact that it's a temple from a bygone era one where pretty much everybody who lived during it is now dead I don't know something about this place always gives me chills you won't be lonely the whole time though because the Dominion Rod lets you make companions out of these statues the statues follow your every movement and you have to use them to press down on switches or in the big statues case use its Hammer to break these Gates and figure out how to guide it to these designated spots that transport it to the next room as you make your way back to the entrance with it just try not to Bonk yourself on the head the city in the sky is massive oh Jesus there's more of them the claw shot you got from the lake bed Temple gets even better when you find the double claw shots and using them to scale this city really puts into perspective just how huge it is I love when Zelda dungeons aren't the typical Temple Affair you know I much prefer when they seem like locations that fit naturally within the world and are simply designed as a traditional dungeon you really get the sense that a whole civilization lives here the technology here is way more advanced than what you find on the surface and it all comes together to create a truly magnificent place and the way you have to navigate it by claw shotting all over the place adds this feeling of disorientation that I'd come to expect from being thousands of feet in the air in a city that is in desperate need of Maintenance I uh I'm afraid of heights but putting my phobia aside this is another excellent dungeon and easily one of my favorites finally there's the Palace of Twilight and Hyrule Castle they're not exactly conventional dungeons per se though they still largely share the same excellent design philosophy where each room is a test of your wits and strength and how fast you can run from this creepy ass hand that won't leave you alone the outside of the Palace of Twilight is just just look at it this area proves that there's a certain Beauty to the Twilight that you can help but admire and Link making his way up to the throne room in Hyrule Castle is one of the most intense buildups to a climax in any Zelda game the atmosphere here elevated by ganon's theme and the stormy backdrop once you arrive at the top of the castle never fails to give me goosebumps foreign [Music] Twilight Princess is an absolute spectacle and the dungeons are emblematic of this and spectacular dungeons need spectacular boss fights I like just about every one of these even the easier ones aren't as easy as say the worst of wind wakers pushover boss fights these bosses are imposing as hell and a lot of the wow factor comes from how this tiny lad manages to defeat these giant monsters with nothing but a sword and maybe a Beyblade if the situation calls for it just look at this this [ __ ] is cool they really nailed the bosses this time around and with how many of these bosses are hundreds of times your size it makes them more grounded bosses feel that much more special which is why my feelings about him being in the story aside fights like the final battle against Ganondorf are incredibly memorable foreign [Music] if Twilight Princess isn't everyone's cup of tea despite me arguing how the greater emphasis on scripted linear gameplay puts it A Step Above other Zelda games in many respects to me I know not everyone agrees and videos like these definitely won't change their mind but I'm not trying to convince anyone to love the game like I said earlier everyone has their own preferences everyone has their own opinion on what their ideal version of Zelda is but just take it from me someone who wasn't all too crazy about this game when I first played it if you're even slightly curious about whether you might find something to enjoy about Twilight Princess now I encourage you to give it another shot because when I took the time to gain a better understanding of why it's designed the way it is and how refreshing and unique it is despite how much it borrows from Ocarina of Time I realized just how underrated the game truly is I still like this game more than Ocarina of Time I like this version of Link this version of Hyrule the story and I love how the game embraced the reaction it got when it was first revealed it is chock full of similarly exciting and hype moments it's an adventure worthy of the name Twilight Princess is a Triumph and reminder that Zelda can take on many forms but on the inside it's still the same series we've come to know and love thanks for watching [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: PGReviews

Views: 153,366

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Id: 8kf8QHBl2jk

Length: 51min 36sec (3096 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 22 2023