147 replies to this topic

[Nicholas Steel]

Well, I'll say that while your posts aren't too long in terms of the amount of content they cover, they can tend to be a little too wordy. It's mostly your more recent reviews/rants, you tend to use a lot of words to describe simple things.

 

It's kinda annoying? But not too annoying, not yet anyways. Just kinda being nit picky >.>"

[The Satellite]

Twilight Princess

 

Ho boy, do I have history with this one. So I don't believe I had a ton of Wind Waker experience at the time Twilight Princess was announced, but I was never in the boat of "it looks kiddie, so it sucks." However, that didn't stop me from freaking out when the first images of Twilight Princess surfaced, and we got a look at that awesome graphical style. This was the very first Zelda game I'd followed from launch until release, and actually, only one of three; I didn't follow the Spirit Tracks hype train, pun not intended, but I'll get to that in that chronicle. Though with A Link Between Worlds, soon to be four and I'm off-topic.

 

So any image, any trailer, any piece of footage I could scour off the internet, I saved and looked at in my spare time. I think I was a little too devoted to waiting for this game's release, which lasted two years. I even remember telling myself "The Wait of Two Years is over" like it was some big event or something when the game finally came out. And when I finally held that case in my hands, I felt... anticlimactic. Little did I know why until after I'd beaten it and looked back on those images and trailers till I learned why:

 

This was not the game I'd been waiting for.

 

In the past, I've spoken about my disappointment in the game, because so much of the beta content that was being shown to the public just didn't match up with the final product. What I was waiting to see, I never got to see. That was a big disappointment to me, but it also wasn't fair to Twilight Princess. Looking at it from another angle, I didn't realize these differences while I was playing the game at all, so that counts for something, right? And recently I was finally able to detach my expectations of the game from the game itself, and my experience with Twilight Princess benefited greatly from that.

 

But what about the game itself? Well, let's begin.

 

I liked Wind Waker for showing us a slice of Link's home life. Twilight Princess takes us above and beyond, really letting us get to control Link and live out his life as a ranch hand before he's inevitably thrust into adventure. You get plenty of time to meet the villagers, especially the excitable children, who all have their distinct personalities and quirks. I've heard some people complain about this being a slow start, but I liked it. It mixed things up a bit, which is a neat little change. Don't worry, I'm not about to recount the entire thing like I've tended to in the past, I'm getting to the rest of it quickly.

 

What's interesting to note is that Twilight Princess isn't one to grant you open world freedom very quickly. I guess the series has been sorta leaning this way for a while, but I played Twilight Princess before most of the "linear" ones, and I suppose I'm just used to being quickly thrust into wide-open gameplay (though with a strong nudging in a certain direction) in all the 3D titles up to this point. But Twilight Princess really does thrust you on a linear path throughout much of the game, until the overworld finally opens up completely. I suppose that, thanks to the overworld's incredible size, it's a bit forgivable, since each area you're made to explore is a fairly good size and requires its own exploration to pass. It's still pretty different, though.

 

But the overworld itself? My goddesses, this is a beautiful place. It's so large, it's so expansive, there's tons of secrets to explore... this is the epitome of overworlds in the 3D Zelda games. I feel it's only surmounted by A Link to the Past's overworld, because of the latter's better use of secrets and hidden tunnels. I'd definitely have to say Twilight Princess's is more gorgeous and expansive though, and I'd gladly take either overworld without hesitation. Thankfully, you get your horse relatively early so you're never forced to traverse the world on foot, except a small part of it after the first dungeon.

 

And the horse? Such an improvement over Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, such a welcome return. Sure, the horse sometime has its problems with sensitivity issues, but nowhere near as bad as the N64 games. Besides, it more than makes up for it by making it far more intuitive, letting you use several items on horseback, including the sword! Which is about time. One of the most excellent parts of the game is a big horseback battle in the fields against the Bulblins and their king, who's kidnapped the boy Colin from the village. It's very satisfying and I wish there'd been more segments like that in the game, or at least they had postponed it until later. But story-wise, they couldn't have, so it's a tough spot there. The only downfall to the horse is you'll have to find her yourself where you left her to get back on her, or find "horse grass" to call her. You get a horse call item, but it comes way too late in the game to be useful. Thankfully, these are the only downfalls.

 

The game also has quite the fantastic dungeons. They're large, massive, well-designed, and offer interesting takes on familiar themes. In the Forest Temple, you rescue monkeys who help you cross gaps in the level. In the Goron Mines, you walk on magnetized walls and ceilings with the Iron Boots, which is admittedly quite lengthy and tedious. In the Lakebed Temple, you... change water levels but in a different way, and they open new areas based on how you direct the flow. Snowpeak Ruins is an ice level inside an ancient mansion. Those are just a few samples, but then it also throws new stuff at you, like my personal favorite dungeon, City in the Sky. Unfortunately, these aren't all amazing; the Temple of Time, while by no means a bad dungeon, just wasn't that interesting, and instead of a final dungeon/minidungeon, we get two final minidungeons instead in the Palace of Twilight and Hyrule Castle. A good parallel, perhaps, but neither are very challenging. Hyrule Castle does manage to get a climactic feel about it. Palace of Twilight... has really annoying hands that chase you as you carry a needed object back to the start and they can go die.

 

Might as well touch on bosses quick. They're... alright. They're all pretty simple and predictable, and the second and third bosses are pushovers. Heck, the second boss, Fyrus, is my nomination for most pathetic boss in the entire series. Excluding Zelda 1 bosses that is. Stallord and Argorok, however, shine as particularly amazing bosses, Stallord being a new and fun fight, Argorok being pretty awesome with its atmosphere, scenery, and adrenaline. Zant pulls off a good fight as well, and the four-part Ganon fight... well, it's mostly easy, but it's still impressive.

 

Speaking of... time to start getting to things I can't praise. Starting with the story. The story... it has its moments, and good characters, and good character development, but the final package just doesn't come together very well in my opinion. Zant seems poised to be a fantastic, original new villain, when suddenly he's only a pawn for Ganondorf. Shocker. The Twili race just never were interesting, and they looked and sounded weird. Not in a good way, either. And don't get me started on the Oocca... I'm chalking up every in-game "legend" attributed to them as "unreliable oral tradition," because all of these legends about them just make no sense, even after realizing one was a mistranslation. If they were so special, how come they never popped up nor were referenced again? Twilight Princess, while it has its bright moments, also delivers a ton of duds. Seriously, the Zant insanity thing... I guess I can understand it but it was still a bit over the top. At least Ganondorf was badass as all get out.

 

And the helper, Midna... Well, after Ezlo, no one else is bad anymore. Okay, so I can't say that until I've finished the series again, but Midna was less annoying to me than she was before. She has her moments, but her dialogue is true to her character, so it's more or less excusable. I only take issue with some of her more pointless comments, or her annoying pauses between text boxes. Those I couldn't stand. As a helper, not so great, but no Ezlo by any means. As a character... her development is actually quite strong, though the transition from her imp form to her normal form is... jarring and unrecognizable, though I suppose that's the point.

 

And the music... Twilight Princess has a few good tracks, but mostly it falls short. I get tired of hearing the same theme recycled over and over throughout the game, and to make matters worse, the songs have some of the worst instrumentation in the series. It just... doesn't seem right and comes off as cheap imitation orchestration trying too hard to sound triumphant. Not all the time, it works well with some songs, but a lot of the time, it just... makes me wish they'd actually gone full orchestration for the soundtrack, rather than this cheap crap. Clearly you can imagine my joy when Skyward Sword went with a full orchestrated soundtrack, and now A Link Between Worlds is following its example. The old synth sounds had their charm in the past, but if anything, Twilight Princess proved they were dying out and needed to be replaced. As for the songs, the game had some good ones, but it honestly kind of falls flat overall in the music category. Strong, but not as strong as many others in the series.

 

Oh, and the howling songs. My poor ears.

 

What else Twilight Princess did for the series... Well, it came equipped with a fantastic engine, modified from the Wind Waker engine. It feels very smooth and fluid at all times, but it's not flawless. Sometimes, the camera could go a little screwy or make your controls go screwy. Sometimes doors seemed too sensitive and you could only open them if you were standing at just the perfect spot. If you press a button to exit first-person, Link will perform the action attributed to that button, like swing your sword or talk to a person you're looking at. Sometimes you'll trigger something in a dungeon that plays a short cutscene... but enemies don't freeze, and you can find yourself being attacked as soon as the cutscene ends with no way to protect yourself. Link's running animations are weird if he doesn't have his sword out— okay that's nitpicking.

 

But it also adds a ton of awesome little things to enhance the experience: Dust and dirt crumble from dungeon doors you haven't opened yet, Link sets down the lamp he's holding to open a chest, his tunic turns darker if he gets wet, you can play fetch with dogs, etc. Definitely enhances the atmosphere greatly, and feels more interactive. If you have too many rupees and open a chest with rupees, you'll put them back, a system that should have stayed and been extended to items you find in chests like arrows or bombs; though speaking of rupees, every time you boot up the game and find a blue or yellow rupee on the ground, it plays the message telling you what they are again. What's up with that? And there were probably way too many treasure chests in the game as well... But hey, we got the ability to skip cutscenes, which is good for those who don't want to see them on replay, or want to skip some of the annoying level cutscenes that just take time when you already know what to do. The game's definitely a lot more cinematic than previous games, for better or for worse...

 

What was really fun was finding the Hidden Skills to expand your sword abilities. These were great ways to improve your abilities and create new methods of attack, and I hope something like this returns in the future. I know The Minish Cap had a similar system, but that was a much simpler system. Still, I had a lot of fun with this aspect. 

 

I guess some final thoughts on negative aspects... it was far too easy, few things damaged you very much. The Postman, who was fairly quick to get rid of, was still an annoyance that interrupted the flow of gameplay; I would have preferred postboxes. The sumo wrestling segments were based on pure luck and probably shouldn't exist. Ooccoo was kind of useless as an item and sometimes showed up way too late to be useful anyway, and was very underdeveloped as a character as well.

 

All this time and I hardly talked about the wolf yet. I honestly liked it, it was new and shook up gameplay. I liked the bug-hunting segments, it was fun and you got to see and learn more about the world while you did so, which enhanced the atmosphere. In fact, I love how the game was so jam-packed with action that kept you on your toes... almost the entire way through. The adventure aspect is kind of lessened after dungeon four, though picks back up before dungeon seven. Still, it's a great, fun, adventurous game. It has flaws, but what game doesn't? I enjoy it highly, though wish it could have been just a touch more immersive with a better story package and music. Great game, one of the best in the series, and I'm glad I was able to finally appreciate it for what it was.

 

But the Gamecube version is the only true version.

[Aevin]

It's interesting to hear so many positives about Twilight Princess, because for me, it's the one Zelda game I've never finished.  I haven't heard in so much detail exactly why some people love it. Thanks for sharing.  I have to wonder whether I would enjoy it more if I played the GC version, since I found the Wii control scheme clumsy enough to break immersion.

 

I also see a rift between players who seem to enjoy the more "cartoony" Zelda games and those who prefer more realism. Personally, I found TP's graphics to be another big turnoff. I found them too realistic, and the points I enjoyed myself the most were places in the game that felt the most fantasy styled. I loved the ice mansion level, for example, because it was so incredibly colorful and had a unique theme and mood. But many of the other levels I thought were "just another forest temple" or "just another fire level". And personally, I found the water temple level to be so dull that it's stopped my game dead in its tracks on three separate attempted playthroughs.  The overworld is large, but felt empty. And something about the entire game just didn't feel like it had the same spirit of adventure.  I did enjoy the story for the most part, but it felt like it existed outside the lore of Zelda, not fitting neatly into the rest in terms of style (or to a certain degree, timeline) like earlier entries did.

 

I really WANT to love this game, and I can see many things to be admired, but it remains my least favorite in the series.

 

One other thing I'll mention ...  I've been largely avoiding your reviews here because seeing you tear apart games I love leaves me feeling genuinely bad. It's not that I can't take differing opinions, but sometimes it feels like you express your opinions as fact. "This is the worst game in the series," vs "this didn't appeal to me." It makes for a strong writing style, but one that comes across as cold and unmindful of the others out there who disagree.  It's just my opinion, of course, so take it however you like.

[kurt91]

This game is weird. I have it sitting on my shelf, and I'm even looking at it right now. I just don't have anything from this game in my memory that really stands out to me. I remember I liked the game when I played it, but that was a very long time ago and I have never played it again since then. The only thing that pops in my mind when I think of this game is the level with the weird Yeti people. That's it. It's not a bad game at all, it's just not very memorable, and I don't have any urge at all to revisit it a second time. I can't put my finger on why it is. I don't know what was wrong with it to absolutely fail to pull me back into it, but it just doesn't.

 

Hey, what do you know. A short post, for once!

[The Satellite]

One other thing I'll mention ...  I've been largely avoiding your reviews here because seeing you tear apart games I love leaves me feeling genuinely bad. It's not that I can't take differing opinions, but sometimes it feels like you express your opinions as fact. "This is the worst game in the series," vs "this didn't appeal to me." It makes for a strong writing style, but one that comes across as cold and unmindful of the others out there who disagree.  It's just my opinion, of course, so take it however you like.

There any specific examples? Other than Four Swords and any time Ezlo was mentioned, I'd like to think I wasn't spewing vitriol toward any of the games of the series. I do apologize if I do come off as you say, if anything I'm just giving my own standpoints on each of the games.

 

I actually forgot to talk about the colors in Twilight Princess, how I do prefer the brighter colors of other Zelda games and that Twilight Princess looked a little dull and boring in comparison, so in that way I agree with you. I manage to look past that, though, since I do quite enjoy the game. I just wish it was a little bit of a stronger package, but ah well.

[Aevin]

The Minish Cap is just littered with ridiculous tedium, that even its brightest spots can't overcome.

I found this rather wince-inducing. I think the biggest issue is how it's a judgement on an entire game stated as fact rather than opinion. Ultimately, I think I'm just too sensitive about these things. If people only write tame, safe reviews without trampling on anyone's opinions, it gets boring quickly, I suppose. Maybe the answer is for me to argue with you more.

Edited by Aevin, 23 July 2013 - 01:12 AM.

[The Satellite]

Heh, well, that was just my own feelings on the game. A professional reviewer might say something similar in my shoes. But I'm more than willing to entertain intellectual discussion about our opinions on the games, that was actually something I hoped might happen when I made this thread. Heck, keep it going even after I move on to the next game. I welcome it.

[Shane]

I agree about the bosses; they had cool designs yet they were predictable and weren't threatening more than they should have been. Fyrus over Morpheel for most pathetic? I feel like Morpheel shouldn't be considered a boss at all during it's second phase. I don't think it attacks unless you intentionally swim in front of it so it can attack. Oh well. I personally think Twilight Princess won in terms of atmosphere and would like to see such atmosphere return for the Wii U Zelda game. Maybe a little more brighter though, so it pleases the Zelda fans that think Zelda should be bright and colourful.

 

Funny though, WW2 was being planned but people wanted a realistic Zelda so TP and PH was made.

Edited by Shane, 23 July 2013 - 01:30 AM.

[The Satellite]

Fyrus over Morpheel for most pathetic?

 
Morpheel is actually mildly threatening in its first form.

[Shane]

Oh, and Armoghoma can be considered around "Fryus" easy. I forgot about him/her/it.

[Nicholas Steel]

I found the ability to not take the contents of a chest if your inventory is full, to be annoying as I'm kinda OCD and don't like having chest markers on my map when completing a dungeon as it makes me feel like I didn't 100% it.

 

The Rupee explanation bug is annoying and only affects the Wii version.

 

Possible to get stuck in the game (I think this is exclusive to either the Wii or GC version, not both) and having to restart from the beginning. (I never suffered this and I don't think Nintendo released a piece of software for the Wii to fix affected save games, I could be wrong though. I know they did for Skyward Sword players though who encountered a similar kind of issue)

 

Majority of secrets in the overworld are pointless money/ammo rewards, the bug fetch quest is fairly pointless once you get the first wallet upgrade and the Poe quest is pointless after getting the Heart Piece reward and the Poe's never vary. It gets boring going out of your way to kill the same enemy 60 times for trivial rewards and definitely not worth it to kill all 100.

 

Hardly anything worth while to spend money on. I spend most of my time in the game opening then closing chests because I'm always at max currency. Completing a certain quest makes it even easier to not run out of money.

 

Every town had very little to do in them after completing the wolf segment in those areas, a ton of Town NPC's serve no purpose and are only there to make the environment feel busy.

 

Boring Wiimote control scheme with unreliable shield bash.

 

Various dungeon items are either under used or very inefficient to use outside of the dungeon they're found in.

 

Music tracks are either terrible or too similar to OoT.

 

Only one fairly interesting puzzle (The one required to get the Master Sword where you jump around and try to get statues on certain squares).

 

Boss fights felt more repetitive then previous Zelda games and stuck mostly to stunning/wailing on the boss 3 times to defeat it/move to the next phase (Wind Waker had a couple lousy bosses too but also a bunch of good ones). It does have fairly interesting mini bosses though.

 

Hidden Moves you can learn are hardly required for anything.

 

Very linear progression and very slow story progression.

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And maybe some other stuff. I didn't really like the game, but it was passable.

Edited by franpa, 23 July 2013 - 05:48 AM.

[Avaro]

I just recently finished TP again, 100%, and I really enjoyed it. I liked reading your opinions about it TS, it's a pretty good and very fitting review. I agree with your negative aspects about the game too.
 

And personally, I found the water temple level to be so dull that it's stopped my game dead in its tracks on three separate attempted playthroughs. The overworld is large, but felt empty.

That is both very strange.. I though that the water temple was the most climatic of the whole game. Loved the water, the music and the cave setting! It's a really cool experience to go through that dungeon.

About the overworld, it is not empty at all! There were so many secrets to find and caves to explore. There was even a cave that used the magnetic gimmick of the fire dungeon.. I never knew that cave existed before. However, exploring the overworld on it's fullest was only really possible and enjoyable after completing the air dungeon. When I finished that dungeon, I walked around the whole overworld in search for the heart pieces.
 

I found the ability to not take the contents of a chest if your inventory is full, to be annoying as I'm kinda OCD and don't like having chest markers on my map when completing a dungeon as it makes me feel like I didn't 100% it.

I agree with you about that problem. Though when I played this game, I just spend all my rupees on repairing that bridge and opening a shop in the town and I tried getting the larger wallet very early on.
 
The Rupee explanation bug is annoying and only affects the Wii version.

Glad I have the Gamecube version 
 
Possible to get stuck in the game (I think this is exclusive to either the Wii or GC version, not both) and having to restart from the beginning. (I never suffered this and I don't think Nintendo released a piece of software for the Wii to fix affected save games, I could be wrong though. I know they did for Skyward Sword players though who encountered a similar kind of issue)

Never knew that. That's definetly not nice..
 
Majority of secrets in the overworld are pointless money/ammo rewards, the bug fetch quest is fairly pointless once you get the first wallet upgrade and the Poe quest is pointless after getting the Heart Piece reward and the Poe's never vary. It gets boring going out of your way to kill the same enemy 60 times for trivial rewards and definitely not worth it to kill all 100.

The secrets on the overworld were fantastic. I loved exploring all the caves and there were many nice little things to find everywhere. Agreed about the poe quest though.
 
Hardly anything worth while to spend money on. I spend most of my time in the game opening then closing chests because I'm always at max currency. Completing a certain quest makes it even easier to not run out of money.

As I already said, there were some things you could spend about 2000 rupees on iirc, to open a certain shop in the market. After that, when having too many rupees you could buy that red tunic and THAT was the perfect way to spend rupees on, as that tunic uses rupees over time to make you invincible. Not that this game is hard at all, but at least you could now tone down your rupee counter at will. The tunic was also useful for that 50 level mini fights dungeon.
 
Every town had very little to do in them after completing the wolf segment in those areas, a ton of Town NPC's serve no purpose and are only there to make the environment feel busy.

Lol yeah, exploring the towns was not nearly as great as in MM or SS
 
Boring Wiimote control scheme with unreliable shield bash.
 
Various dungeon items are either under used or very inefficient to use outside of the dungeon they're found in.

They definetly should have made the items more useful, yes.
 
Music tracks are either terrible or too similar to OoT.

I don't know whats everyones problem about the music, but in my opinion the soundtrack was pretty amazing! Especially the dungeon themes were very amtospherical.
 
Only one fairly interesting puzzle (The one required to get the Master Sword where you jump around and try to get statues on certain squares).

There were various others, like using your hookshot on the ceiling, then pulling downwards. Or the double hookshot segments in the air temple.
 
Boss fights felt more repetitive then previous Zelda games and stuck mostly to stunning/wailing on the boss 3 times to defeat it/move to the next phase (Wind Waker had a couple lousy bosses too but also a bunch of good ones). It does have fairly interesting mini bosses though.

Twilight Princes ALSO has a bunch of good ones. As TS said, stallord was one really cool boss and the dragon was very climatic and thrilling.
 
Hidden Moves you can learn are hardly required for anything.

Umm, they make fighting agains enemies easier..
 
Very linear progression and very slow story progression.

At least this game is way more cinematic and story-heavy than all previous zelda games.
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And maybe some other stuff. I didn't really like the game, but it was passable.

[Nicholas Steel]

1) Hardly anything worth while to spend money on. I spend most of my time in the game opening then closing chests because I'm always at max currency. Completing a certain quest makes it even easier to not run out of money.

As I already said, there were some things you could spend about 2000 rupees on iirc, to open a certain shop in the market. After that, when having too many rupees you could buy that red tunic and THAT was the perfect way to spend rupees on, as that tunic uses rupees over time to make you invincible. Not that this game is hard at all, but at least you could now tone down your rupee counter at will. The tunic was also useful for that 50 level mini fights dungeon.

 

2) Every town had very little to do in them after completing the wolf segment in those areas, a ton of Town NPC's serve no purpose and are only there to make the environment feel busy.

Lol yeah, exploring the towns was not nearly as great as in MM or SS

 

3) Very linear progression and very slow story progression.

At least this game is way more cinematic and story-heavy than all previous zelda games.

 

1) Sure, but what else can you do aside from those? You don't need that new shop as you've got plenty of currency to go elsewhere. Sure there is that Magic Armour but it is only useful in one part of the game that I didn't think the games graphical style suited (The God Trial area in the desert, the games art style just didn't suit that place at all. Such places were awesomely presented in Wind Waker though.)

 

I will admit, the Magic Armour can indeed be used to open all those damn rupee chests.

 

2) Skyward Swords town is pretty lousy gameplay wise too, as are the other explorable sky islands. However the atmosphere/music/art direction really make it an enjoyable experience regardless of how shallow everything in those places is. Link's Adventure, Link's Awakening, both Oracle games and Majoras Mask have pretty interesting towns though with Majora's Mask probably always being the best and most interactive.

 

3) I'd rather DO stuff then to spend over half the time watching cut scenes, and no, you can't skip them until after you've watched them already and the only time you can see a cutscene multiple times is probably if you die. Not an issue if you start another playthrough, so long as you have a save game it will remember cutscenes you've previously watched. If you erase all your save game slots then I'm pretty sure it erases what cut scenes you've watched too (Just like Metroid Prime Trilogy [not gamecube versions] and N64 Rare etc, games did).

 

4) I also forgot to mention that god damn fairy courser. It serves no purpose at all. When using weapons that require aiming the game switches to a targeting reticule and when doing anything that doesn't require aiming it shows the pointless, noisy, constantly animating fairy courser. Disabling the fairy courser has the god forsaken side effect of disabling aiming any weapons that can be aimed, via the Wii Mote (Instead requiring you use the analog stick).

 

So you either have the pointless fairy courser and ability to aim weapons with the Wiimote, or no fairy courser and aiming weapons with analog stick. Keep in mind the fairy courser serves no purpose other then to show where you're pointing while doing everything that doesn't require you to point at the screen.

Edited by franpa, 23 July 2013 - 07:13 AM.

[The Satellite]

The Rupee explanation bug is annoying and only affects the Wii version.

 

Nope, that's a Gamecube bug too.

 

Yeah, the game does have its issues, but let's be honest, it's not the only game with "pointless" collection quests or a massively-unbalanced rupee economy, so that's a strike that can be kind of ignored. The towns in TP were alright, though I honestly preferred the OoT version of the market. Kakariko Village also didn't seem much like Kakariko Village, and I didn't care much for the new song. But Ordon was nice, as were the other areas to explore. Zora's Domain is pretty neat, too. As far as skipping cutscenes, that's available from the start; it's Skyward Sword that doesn't let you skip cutscenes the first time around, sadly.

 

The items though, I felt they actually did do a fairly good job of utilizing them outside of their dungeons well. Except the ball and chain I guess, but the others popped up for minor tasks here and there, so it's not like they were forgotten.

[Russ]

I actually forgot to talk about the colors in Twilight Princess, how I do prefer the brighter colors of other Zelda games and that Twilight Princess looked a little dull and boring in comparison, so in that way I agree with you. I manage to look past that, though, since I do quite enjoy the game. I just wish it was a little bit of a stronger package, but ah well.

Funny, I thought TP got pretty vibrant. Around twilight especially (probably intentionally), when everything became hues of orange, it just... I dunno, I liked it a lot.

 

As for TP itself, I really like it. Best overworld in the series, bar none. Good dungeons for the most part, but some we're a bit too linear. Creative and dark story, interesting characters, cool items... I honestly don't understand why the game gets so much hate. It seems to me like, because of the limitations with the N64, Nintendo couldn't make OoT into the game they wanted it to be, so TP was basically what OoT would have been with better hardware. And boy is it better for it.