Friday, November 13, 2015

Twilight Princess HD Announced


Whyyyyyyy? This seems so unnecessary. You can already play the Wii version of the game on Wii U, the graphical updates seem marginal and there's nothing really to improve, since the game's flaws are in the underlying game flow and can't be fixed with a few adjustments. This has to be the first time, where I'm not excited about an upcoming Zelda release since the GameCube era. And coincidentally it was Twilight Princess, which originally re-sparked my love for Zelda in the year 2005.

But this doesn't look too exciting. Something along the lines of that Wii U tech demo from 2011 for the next console could have been more impressive and maybe more valuable, since we will be running out of remakes soon. Skyward Sword HD would be the last to follow and that's something I could easily picture, since those painting style graphics are meant to be upscaled to HD.

Anyway, the biggest blow in the face were probably the amiibo features. Seriously... who needs that? At least it's only one... I'm getting used to these amiibo Special Editions by now, I also got them for Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Splatoon. And as long as I don't need to buy tons of amiibo, my hate for this trend will be contained. Though I'm worried what all the Zelda Smash amiibo are going to do, since I only have Link and I don't really want any of the others.

It's not all bad though. I'm positively surprised that they used the unmirrored GameCube version as the base. That's nice, since I originally played the game on GameCube first and memorized the world that way. Every time I played the Wii version, it was very confusing to me. And the GameCube version is the true world, how it was intended.

I wonder, if they will keep the Wii controls as an option though. And whether the game will be still mirrored in that case or not. I hope not, so that the Wii version remains to be the oddball, but on the other hand this could become a nice feature.

And since this blog always has been dedicated to possibilities with Zelda, let's think about what they could improve, even though my excitement isn't there...

The first thing that came to mind, was playing all 64 levels of Rollgoal yet again on the GamePad, which would be actually a very nice fit for the minigame. I even started to wonder, if this was the sole motivation for the entire game, Aonuma thinking "Wouldn't that minigame be nice on the Wii U? Let's remake Twilight Princess already!"

But one thing that could get me really excited ends with "Quest". 2nd Quest, Master Quest, Hero Mode ... call it whatever you want, but I always liked the idea of having a harder version of Twilight Princess, where you take double or even triple or even quadruple damage and where stronger enemies appear everywhere. Add some Darknuts to the Lakebed Temple, please! This would be exciting to have.

Besides that the game already has it all. Maybe also a Boss Challenge somewhere, maybe make the citizens of Hyrule more talkative... but overall it's just a very linear experience, which they probably won't fix, so I don't have many ideas for improvements.

Except this one: please stop telling me how much all the Rupees are worth. Thank you.

4 comments:

K2L said...

This was by far the most underwhelming Zelda-related novelty in the Direct. Granted, I was never looking forward to a TP remake when I already played and loved the 2006 version, but I didn't expect it wouldn't even meet the bar of TWW HD (which I didn't get either).

Also, WHY are they still being secretive with Zelda U?! >_<

Lankelink said...

For me, a 2nd Quest where the only change is that you take more damage is rather disappointing. I prefer some other changes: a room with more/different enemies would be better than the same room with the same -stronger- enemy.

And I agree with you that this game was totally unnecessary. But I'm going to be selfish here and, since this is the only Zelda I haven't beaten (well... together with 4 swords adventures...), I'm not so against this game.

Eduardo Jencarelli said...

After playing A Link Between Worlds on Hero Mode, I have to say: no 4X damage ever again! It was downright frustrating. 2X I can handle, but if you accidentally touch a Lynel, you're pretty much dead. I literally ran for the swamp temple in order to snag the Blue Mail before doing anything else.

Twilight Princess could benefit from a harder quest, but 4X damage is too much. The Cave of Ordeals is challenging enough on regular mode as it is, given some of the merciless ice enemies plus armies of Darknuts and Aeralfos near the end.

Unknown said...

unfortunately twilight princess is one of those games that you need to an actual remake to make the game feel more like Zelda and by doing so would completely change the game, which takes a lot of time to do. even the wind waker has many flaws that despite being fixed in the hd version can be fixed easily without remaking the game (although not as much).