The Gaming Lounge

[it was definitely harder than OoT]

This thread is a continuation of the off-topic discussion in the Zelda: Spirit Tracks thread, which was starting to veer off topic to talking about Twilight Princess. The debate started somewhere around here. Here, we're talking about Twilight Princess; some forumers appear to have issues with the game.

I hope we can have a mature discussion about this and cut the name-calling this time around.

Anyway, I'll start things off:

Second of all, I'd say that among the 3D Zelda games, it was definitely harder than OoT, especially when fighting the darknuts. Primarially because they're hard to hit and have a number of their own special moves. Once more, take note that this is in the context of the entire series.

No, it was not. Please quit being delusional. It is by far, without question, the easiest console Zelda game ever made.

As Seronei put it, Ganon is NOT the hardest part of that game. Besides, it looks like you're quoting the video of a person who's made three-heart challenges of EVERY 3D Zelda to date. I mean look at the video's intro! Also, he just barely avoided dying in that video. Through the course of the battle, he got smacked down to a mere quarter of a heart, and had to pick up at least two recovery hearts over the course of the battle.

Either way, you're a lot worse off in the beginning, when you're stuck as a wolf. You don't have a shield and if you're not careful, you can quickly rack up uncontrollable amounts of damage. It is a lot harder to evade attacks in TP while you're a wolf. And guess what? You only have three hearts at that point ANYWAY. Combine that with how defenseless Wolf Link is (and the fact that his bite's attack power is pathetic compared to human form's swords), and you've got issues. Wolf Link's only saving grace is the dark circle attack but that takes time to charge up... during which you're, again, defenseless.

Additionally, it's also harder to defend yourself against attacks in general because from how it seemed to me, the game is a lot more fast-paced than OoT. A lot of times in TP, I've been attacking and I suddenly got knocked over and I'm thinking "What the hell hit me? Why'd I get knocked prone? Wait, no time to think, getting back up, focus on the fight." A few enemies, like the Darknuts, are especially guilty of this -- they can kick you without warning if you get too close. You can't block or dodge it.

I'll tell you that I feel fairly confident when I say I could easily do a three-heart OoT challenge -- save one part. Dark Link. He's pretty hard to beat without taking damage in turn, although you can deploy a few tricks to catch him off guard. Enemies might do a hell of a lot of damage in OoT from time to time, but they're easier to evade, or block. Your shield is much more reliable in OoT than TP and you have more measure of control over your defense (whatever happened to the ability to crouch and defend when not targeting?). Plus, you can get Nayru's Love, which briefly makes you completely invulnerable for the small cost of not being able to use magic for its duration -- but big whoop. Whenever I play video games, I play defensively.

Finally, I play the Wii version, and I realize that may have automatically increased the difficulty due to the motion sensing. Using your sword, there's bound to be a slight delay between your reaction and when the swing actually happens because the remote needs enough time to register the swing. This can put 'lag' in your fighting capabilities; it's not like on a normal controller where you can press a button nigh-instantaneously to attack, thus allowing precision timing. For OoT, I practically become one with the game due to how smooth the controls are. I can pull off quick spin attacks in my sleep, jump and block on a hair trigger, and so forth. Evading the slow, clumsy, pattern-governed bosses and enemies of OoT is child's play for me, and how ironic; I first got the game when I was just a kid. I'm confident that every boss in the game, I can defeat without taking a single hit. Forget a three-heart challenge. Maybe I'll gameshark it for a one-heart challenge.[/boast]

Now please, don't flip out, but if you're going to debate the point as to why the game is low-quality in your opinion, give more specific reasons. Instead of attacking my good tastes, tell me why my opinions are apparently wrong. Why does it lack 'adventure'?

Because the entire game is going in a straight line for about 20 hours solving puzzles and randomly button mashing your way to the end? I mean, for christ's sake, the entire world save one area is blocked off initially once you hit the world map.

So the game has a linear progression. Are you trying to tell me that other Zelda games haven't done this before? (Let's see... in Ocarina of Time, you have to complete the first dungeon before you can leave Kokiri Forest, you need all three Spiritual Stones before you can draw the Master Sword, thus allowing you access to the next 'act'... I'm pretty sure you need to finish the Water Temple completely before you can gain access to the Shadow Temple...) Generally speaking, as you progress through any given Zelda game, you gain access to new areas once you go through the current dungeon. In most cases this is due to gaining the dungeon item, although in some cases the plot requires you to finish a certain dungeon completely beforehand. The only exception, to my knowledge, was Zelda 1. If you want to Sequence Break, either CD-Stream, Action Replay/Gecko it, or play a Metroid game.

Mandatorially completing a dungeon to advance the plot before you can access the next is not a new thing to the Zelda series, and you can see it as far back as Link's Awakening, if my memory serves me right. Not all of the dungeons can have the boss and plot item postponed until the completion of the dungeon after it. I mean, come on. It wouldn't make sense to gain access to the second AND THIRD dungeons immediately after finishing the first, now would it? (Unless it was Zelda 1... in which case you can complete the dungeons in some pretty weird orders, have leftover keys from other dungeons, and so on.)

When doing a three heart challenge, Twilight princess seemed just a bit easier then OOT. Now I'll admit that twilight princess was tougher then OOT... except for the fact of all those hearts in the game. Take away those hearts in TP, and I'd say TP is tougher.

Also if you wear the Zora suit while getting hit by fire, three heart challenge gets even tougher.

The only parts of Twilight Princess I could imagine being hard with three hearts would be the Temple of Time and the Castle in the Sky. The only reason CitS would be hard is because it's a piss poor designed dungeon. And as for that video, he goofed up, that's all. It's not like he was in any harm of dying unless he messed up again. There's a fairy in the battlefield itself on top of all the hearts.

In regards to my comment about linear, you're misunderstanding. Unless you had a guide when you first played it, you did not know exactly where to go in WW, OoT, LA, or LttP when you first started playing. A good portion of the world map was opened up to you, and you could really go in any direction and do quite a few sidequests at any time. Sure, you were given a basic idea of where to go. Sure, you had to complete the dungeons in a (mostly) linear order, but you could go about everything else as you pleased.

Twilight Princess, on the other hand, holds your hand the entire way through. Some adventuring that is. 

So what I'm observing here from explanations so far is that there's a tradeoff of two elements of difficulty.

On one hand, there's the abundance of hearts and healing items, or lack thereof.
On the other hand, there's the ease or difficulty of evading attacks and defending yourself.

If you look at it this way, that Twilight Princess increases the difficulty of evading and defending, but gives you more health to compensate. Still, depending on how good you are at evading, that may skew the balance depending on the player.

Someone who isn't too good at evading, would find Twilight Princess just about merciless and they would be struggling to stay alive, continually trying to refill their life. Thankfully for them, the health is abundant. On the other hand, a person who's exceptionally good at evading would find the game beyond easy; they're barely taking any hits despite the difficulty, and when they do, there's more than enough health to restore them to full capacity.

Or perhaps TP caters more to an aggressive player than a defensive one. Notice that you have all kinds of interesting, creative, and complicated means of attacking with your sword alone. Perhaps it goes by the "Kill him before he can kill you" principle? It may also have to do with the fact that I'm not used to relying on collecting health from external sources in the middle of a battle; If what I've got on me isn't enough for a good boss fight, tough luck. That's how I learned to play -- rely on your skills, strengths, and the health you already have, not what the battlefield might or might not have available.

The difficulty that you experience is clearly not the difficulty I experience, and I attribute that to different playing styles and expectations. The strategies I was so used to using in Ocarina of Time did not serve me well during Twilight Princess. I think I understand now, but it could go the other way around.

I should probably point out that almost all Zelda games are easy by my standards. Only the original and Majora's Mask are anywhere near "hard." Twilight Princess just happens to be significantly easier (and therefore more boring) then the rest of them.

I was disappointed by TP's dungeons. They were all very straight-forward. I've always loved OoT's Water Temple and MM's Great Bay Temple, because they're just mazy and confusing. TP's dungeons don't have any of this.

I felt especially disappointed when I had finished the 6th dungeon (Temple of Time). It was easier than OoT's Great Deku Tree (including the boss).
The Palace of Twilight and Hyrule Castle were very straight-forward as well.

Also, there were enough dungeons in number, but there was too little to do in between them. Majora's Mask was excellent in this aspect, but it had too few dungeons.

You factoring all the special moves you learn in TP? Now even without these moves the game is easy for me, but either way this makes the game a little easier.
Money is very easy to obtain in TP which can be used with the magic armor to be invincible.

If your counting death count as far as difficulty goes, then I'll go with TP for being tougher. There's so many different areas where you could slip up. Take the fire temple for example. You could get burned which causes you to be hit into lava which could create an instant death.

Now are certain things that were tougher in TP then OOT.
1. Getting 100% - This was mainly aggervation though.
2. 50 room side quest - impossible for me to do this without lots of health and fairy power, also very boring.
3. Star-Game - Perfecting the star game provides a good challenge.

Other then that, TP still seems easier.

[idiotic]

Money is very easy to obtain in TP...

Talking about money, one of the most idiotic ideas ever created by Nintendo, was to automatically put back money from chests, if it would not all fit in your wallet. Very often, when I just wanted to open all chests in a dungeon or area, I had to leave, spend all the money, and return multiple times per dungeon. Also, after having donated everything to Malo Mart, the monk in Hyrule Town, etc, I actually had trouble looking for ways to spend money. You can't buy arrows or bombs, cause you're already at max. You can't buy potions, cause your bottles are already full. And when you want to have a bigger wallet, you first have to receive thousands of rupees from the bug girl in Hyrule Town.

Imagine winning $1.000.001 in the lottery, but you can't get a single cent of it because your bank account supports only up to $1.000.000.

Imagine winning $1.000.001 in the lottery, but you can't get a single cent of it because your bank account supports only up to $1.000.000.

Pssh, there's a simple solution for that one. Overdraw one dollar more than what you have from your account. That'll put your account balance at around -$35, and now you can cash in your lottery prize.

Well, I find that the magic armor burns through your wallet really quickly. Like, when each hit sucks away 50 or so rupees and you're losing a rupee a second, you've got less than 20 hits potential for that armor.

And yeah, the cave is quite possibly one of the hardest things for me, especially the second time through. Gwaah, too many darknuts/iron knuckles! X_x I guess I really shouldn't have thought about that since it's entirely optional, but...

As for the hidden skills, some of them can be awkward to use and I only really had a good use for a few of them. Most notably, that rolling back attack -- sometimes you can get lucky with it against a darknut/iron knuckle. (If there's one other thing I miss from OoT and MM, it's Navi/Tatl's ability to read the enemy's weaknesses, and tell you their names. In TP, it can be a bit tricky to identify some of the enemies for me, which is irritating. Come on guys, I want to know what I'm fighting. Please?) Still, it's probably another matter of playing style.

I can understand anger behind not being able to fit money in your wallet because you're one rupee over, but if you ask me this could be better handled by only putting the 'remainder' back in the chest. "You got 200 rupees! But you couldn't hold them all, so you put 37 rupees back in the chest." You know, there's not actually any bonuses you get for opening all the chests in the game; or does it just bother you to see chest icons are still there in the dungeon map?

And yes, I do consider death count to be a factor here. I mean, if you looked at the perspective taht "Death doesn't really screw you over since you can just continue your game with no penalties", then no Zelda game has any serious difficulty. You don't even lose any progress, you just get a red mark on your file that says "This is how much you suck: N deaths". Gamers ideally want that to say 0, though; the difficulty is in avoiding dying throughout the game.

Falling into hazards, as you reminded me, DOES pose a much bigger threat in TP than it does in OoT; deep lava and other "back to start" traps usually only knocked off a single heart. But in TP, depending on the hazard type and whether or not you're wearing the Zora Armor, a single dip into freezing water or lava could spontaneously knock off upwards of 3 hearts. (Of course, to play devil's advocate, who in their right minds would wear the Zora Armor in the Snowpeak or mine areas?)

Now, I want to take a look at another perspective here. I have your reasons for why TP would be easy, but for TP to be easier than OoT, OoT would have to give a greater challenge. So Sophia (and anyone else who has an opinion on this matter), other than the lack of hearts compared to TP, what are the main points of OoT's difficulty for you? Lack of hearts would only be a problem, see, if you found it hard to avoid taking damage. (Which, as has been established before, I don't.)

It also depends on the weapon choices as well. Iron Knuckles and pirate woman were very tough fighters. I had to make sure not to slip up. Now if I used a deku nut, the pirates were easier.

Now there's one major issue that screws up my entire opinion, I'm more experienced. Even though OOT still feels tougher then TP, I have no idea how TP would of compared if I played it as a child.