Zelda: Twilight Princess Discussion (SPOILERS: BEWARE)

[ZeldaFreak]

THat looks huge.

[triforcemario]

So it looks like Hyrule won't be the only province in this game then... Interesting indeed.

[Cube]

So it looks like Hyrule won't be the only province in this game then... Interesting indeed.

 

Or that Hyrule itself is split up into different provinces.

[McMad]

Map System

 

Anyone else thinking that shaded in shape could be a lake? With the lines connected to it possibly being rivers? :awesome:

[Cube]

Or that Hyrule itself is split up into different provinces.

 

OK, I was wrong

 

At the start of the game, we hear that Link has never even been to Hyrule. So Link is probably Faronian

 

 

Anyone else thinking that shaded in shape could be a lake? With the lines connected to it possibly being rivers?

 

If you follow the river south, the 2 larger patches look like lakes. The large shaded bit you refer to is either a large lake or small sea. Probably the latter (just an educated guess, tho).

 

 

I wonder how long it takes us to see Hyrule in the game, then.

[DCK]

Can somebody Link me the video that shows the scale of the field? I don't mind a few spoilers but I only want some gameplay impressions, therefore I'll only watch some media.

[Jasper]

Looking Large, yes. And the highlighted part is only the Faron Province. Man, can't wait to get my sweaty, gamy hands on this game. I think I won't be standing up for a day or two and just sit in font of my television. It's shaping op to be great. Great, great. But I hope there won't be to many spoilers in the near future. The Gamespot special told me enough about the opining and it's sad that I won't discover it myself. On the other hand, I'll probably be trying other things that they didn't show - that way I can go for literally two hours before actually going into the woods. Joy!

[Emasher]

Can somebody Link me the video that shows the scale of the field? I don't mind a few spoilers but I only want some gameplay impressions, therefore I'll only watch some media.

 

well its not a vid but it has what we assume is the full feild (on the map that is).

[Haden]

GOAT IN!

 

That video was hilarious (Gameplay last night).

 

"Man, that weather vanes totally asking for it"

"You just owned that goat"

"MULTIPLE GOAT IN!

 

The way the. GOAT IN GOAT IN GOAT IN! Appeared all over the screen had me chuckling as did the shamed goat who walked away upset after pwnage time.

[Guest Stefkov]

the map looks really big. I wonder if it'll be around the same scale as Shadow of the colossus? If i remember correctly, that was quite big, but not that big. correct me if im wrong though.

 

If its bigger than that then im gonna, not literally, die.

[Haden]

Wolf Combat looks damn brutal. Oh and the map is definatly bigger than that I reckon.

[Cube]

One thing I hope about Twilight Princess is that I die multiple times. Noe seeing the death sequence once in Wind Waker was annoying.

[Emasher]

One thing I hope about Twilight Princess is that I die multiple times. Noe seeing the death sequence once in Wind Waker was annoying.

 

i'll send you a vid of me playing if you want i die lots

 

any way i just looked at the screen closer and saw that there are alot of paths that lead away from the map of the feild (posibly towns) (possibly unexplored provincess (you can see how the map is divided in to them))

[Dog-amoto]

Joystiq criticise TP because you can't read the signs!

 

Scraping the barrel for the sake of trying to be controversial methinks?

 

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/11/nintendos-new-zelda-falls-flat/

 

For the lazy...

 

At great risk to personal health, this author dares criticize The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Nintendo Wii.

 

All the leaves are brown. (And the sky is grey.) Imagine being a freshwater fish after a heavy rain. All around you: brown. Zelda's like this. The game's muddy color palette doesn't sparkle in the way that previous iterations of the venerable Zelda series sparkled. As our protagonist wanders through villages, we find ourselves wishing that those villages could be razed and in their places built more beautiful towns, filled with magic, character, and more than just the colors to the left and right of "rust" on the color wheel. (It's disappointing the Nintendo backed off of the cel-shaded art style that made The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker so fantastic.)

 

The engine that couldn't. Whenever someone dares voice his misgivings about the Wii's disappointing graphics rendering capability, defenders instantly parry, "It's the game play, stupid!" These folks are right that the controls of games are of primary importance, but do gaming a disservice when they artificially partition game play and graphics. Graphics can (and should) enhance game play.

 

In the latest Zelda, the game's designers have been forced to sabotage game play to atone for the console's graphical shortcomings. Example: roadside signs are illegible. In Zelda, merely reading signs becomes laborious and annoying. You must first walk up to the sign. You must then press the controller's "a" button. When you do this, the game zooms in on the sign (taking a moment to do this). The game then shows you the text of the sign. Finally, having read the sign, you must hit another button to zoom away from the sign and regain control of your character. If your character were blind and had to read via Braille, then bumping into signs and fumbling a button would be appropriate. But such a kludgey mechanism merely rankles here, because most modern games have legible signposts.

 

(Nevermind that previous Zelda games have used this same mechanism: it's clumsy. It's doubleplusungood because it's coming from the same company that's been thumping its chest about "innovative controls" for the last year. Controls should never interfere with immersion.)

 

To read a sign in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, merely stand in the street and look at it. Signs (by design) are meant to be read from afar. Zelda's clumsy sign-reading is just one example of how graphical shortcomings result in decreased immersion and a lower overall fun factor. Oblivion won praises for its immersive feel. Zelda falls short of the bar set by modern virtual worlds.

 

This simple example demonstrates the importance of graphics to game play. There are plenty of other game play elements affected by the Wii's weaker graphical engine. One more example: at one point the player must catch fish in order to solve a puzzle. Thanks to the indistinct graphics, it's actually impossible to tell how much of your bobber is underwater, making it more difficult to know when to set the hook in order to reel in a fish.

 

In sum: it's clear that we're playing a GameCube game that's had motion-sensitive controls bolted on in order to move Wii boxes off of retailer shelves. Zelda will do that job admirably -- it will still sell in the millions. It will earn praise. But to compare this title to PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 games isn't fair to the game. To give any Wii titles a fair shake, we're going to have to compare them to Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube games.

 

This isn't our official review of the title -- there's plenty positive to be said about Zelda, despite its unappealing visuals. Stay tuned for that post in the very near future. In fact, another Joystiq blogger is working on a rebuttal to this post right now.

[Guest Stefkov]

i'll send you a vid of me playing if you want i die lots

 

any way i just looked at the screen closer and saw that there are alot of paths that lead away from the map of the feild (posibly towns) (possibly unexplored provincess (you can see how the map is divided in to them))

 

hmmm yeah, i remember OOT, when you came out of the forest, there was that little arrow and thet flat part sticking off the map. Good eyes you got. Lots of places to explore there.

[CooInTheZoo]

who really gives two fucks. you get a world map on screen! the main purpose of signs wasnt ever for directions but learning new abilities for first timers like, like "press a to swing your sword" i dont remember reading a signpost since ocarina of time, and to be fair i was about 11/12 when i played that!

 

what a load of bollocks.

[Emasher]

read the signs who does that

 

by the way the sword swing in games other than the original (which had no signs) is done with "B" not "A"

 

and for the incredibly stupid its done by swinging the wii-mote in tp (wii version)

[DCK]

I wonder what would've been more tedious, pressing the A button to read a sign, or focussing the camera and standing so so that you could read the sign yourself? I think it's not worth trying on fuzzy SD TVs honestly.

[Dante]

Can somebody Link me the video that shows the scale of the field? I don't mind a few spoilers but I only want some gameplay impressions, therefore I'll only watch some media.

 

Fierce Wolf Gameplay

 

Quicktime

 

WMP

[DCK]

Thanks Dante, you're awesome.

[Charlie]

I wonder what would've been more tedious, pressing the A button to read a sign, or focussing the camera and standing so so that you could read the sign yourself? I think it's not worth trying on fuzzy SD TVs honestly.

 

Even with an HDTV its still hard to read a sign because you have to position the camera in the exactly right place so you can see all of the sign and not have any part of the players body in the way.

[Tellyn]

OH GOD YOU HAVE TO PRESS A BUTTON! Welcome to Zelda.

[The3rdChildren]

Aren't the signs usually in Hylian anyway so unreadable without pressing A on them by default? I've never had a problem with sign reading in Zelda games and I'm damned well not going to start having one now.

 

Not to sound fanboyish but that is probably the weirdest thing anyone could have nitpicked about the game. And since the graphics are from a GameCube game they should be compared to other games of that generation, although I've heard talk from people saying they're actually very nice in motion so I dunno.

 

So long as it plays half as well as people are saying it does I think it'll be fine, but to be honest I think we've all secretly come to accept this isn't going to be another 10/10 game.

[Cube]

You know, I think that "article" was "nitpicking" just to cause an uproar.

[Dante]

Zora's armor

 

 

:shock: :shock: