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The one thing wrong with Twilight Princess
So I played a lot of Twilight Princess today. I mean a lot. I beat three dungeons. I walked into the entrance of what I must assume is the last dungeon, and I saved. Now it is time for bed. Before I go to sleep, there is one thing that pissed me off so much that I must rant.
The second to last dungeon, the sky dungeon, is terrible. I mean it's bad in a not fun way. Part of what makes Zelda games so fantastic are all the small details that are so perfect players don't even realize them until they are gone. Because in Zelda you can't control your jumps, the distance between gaps is very important. When making levels Zelda designers measure every gap to make sure it can be jumped properly. They make sure that every hookshot grab-point is within reach. They make sure that you can't get trapped in a particular spot in the dungeon because you ran out of bombs or arrows. These are the types of polished and perfected details that make Zelda games, and most Nintendo games, so fantastic. The second to last dungeon significantly lacks this polish.
First off, there are these windmill things and you have to hooskhot from one to the other. The timing of the windmills is off! You get on one and it spins and the next one isn't spinning with the correct timing. This makes it impossible to progress. I had to get on and off the windmills so many times. Very annoying.
Secondly, there are many situations in this dungeon where the camera screws up royally. I am used to using Z when not in combat to straighten out the camera. It is often essential that the camera be pointed in a specific direction, so that I can see the obstacle I am about to clear. In this dungeon there are too many Z-targetable objects in the wrong places. It is often impossible to get the camera to straighten out. Also, there are many poorly designed areas where the camera will absolutely flip out. This doesn't help in a sky dungeon where the slightest screw up will send you falling to your doom.
Lastly, and most annoyingly, is what happens right after you get the big key. After you get the big key you pull a switch in order to return to the central room of the map. A branch from that central room leads to the boss door. However, you must activate this fan in order to traverse that branch. Following the hints given by the design of the map most players will jump into the centra room from the big key room. If you do this, you will have to re-traverse 1/3 of the entire dungeon to get back to the big key room again. Short of being insanely observant or reading a FAQ you will not know on the first try that you have to lower yourself into this central room with the hook shot in order to activate the fan. I ended up having to make the trip from the central room to the big key room 3 or 4 times before getting it right. If there is a shorter way to make this trip back, it isn't obvious. This pissed me off to no end and wasted an hour of my life repeating dungeon rooms I had already beaten.
Part of what makes Zelda games enjoyable is that you don't have to do things more than once. You beat a dungeon puzzle, good, you never have to do it again. Your challenges are always new and exciting because that's what's the most fun. Repeating already solved puzzles is just manual labor, and is very frustrating. I had taken for granted how Zelda dungeons are so well designed that you will never have to repeat more than one room unless you screw up royally. Yet, here is a dungeon were most players will end up making the same trip to the big key room at least twice, if not three or more times.
This really pissed me off, you have no idea. Not only did I lose time in my life, but this is a seriously bad dungeon in an otherwise almost perfect game. If I ever meet the guy who designed that dungeon, I'm going to kick him square in the nuts. Hopefully the final dungeon will not be nearly as flawed.
The second to last dungeon, the sky dungeon, is terrible. I mean it's bad in a not fun way. Part of what makes Zelda games so fantastic are all the small details that are so perfect players don't even realize them until they are gone. Because in Zelda you can't control your jumps, the distance between gaps is very important. When making levels Zelda designers measure every gap to make sure it can be jumped properly. They make sure that every hookshot grab-point is within reach. They make sure that you can't get trapped in a particular spot in the dungeon because you ran out of bombs or arrows. These are the types of polished and perfected details that make Zelda games, and most Nintendo games, so fantastic. The second to last dungeon significantly lacks this polish.
First off, there are these windmill things and you have to hooskhot from one to the other. The timing of the windmills is off! You get on one and it spins and the next one isn't spinning with the correct timing. This makes it impossible to progress. I had to get on and off the windmills so many times. Very annoying.
Secondly, there are many situations in this dungeon where the camera screws up royally. I am used to using Z when not in combat to straighten out the camera. It is often essential that the camera be pointed in a specific direction, so that I can see the obstacle I am about to clear. In this dungeon there are too many Z-targetable objects in the wrong places. It is often impossible to get the camera to straighten out. Also, there are many poorly designed areas where the camera will absolutely flip out. This doesn't help in a sky dungeon where the slightest screw up will send you falling to your doom.
Lastly, and most annoyingly, is what happens right after you get the big key. After you get the big key you pull a switch in order to return to the central room of the map. A branch from that central room leads to the boss door. However, you must activate this fan in order to traverse that branch. Following the hints given by the design of the map most players will jump into the centra room from the big key room. If you do this, you will have to re-traverse 1/3 of the entire dungeon to get back to the big key room again. Short of being insanely observant or reading a FAQ you will not know on the first try that you have to lower yourself into this central room with the hook shot in order to activate the fan. I ended up having to make the trip from the central room to the big key room 3 or 4 times before getting it right. If there is a shorter way to make this trip back, it isn't obvious. This pissed me off to no end and wasted an hour of my life repeating dungeon rooms I had already beaten.
Part of what makes Zelda games enjoyable is that you don't have to do things more than once. You beat a dungeon puzzle, good, you never have to do it again. Your challenges are always new and exciting because that's what's the most fun. Repeating already solved puzzles is just manual labor, and is very frustrating. I had taken for granted how Zelda dungeons are so well designed that you will never have to repeat more than one room unless you screw up royally. Yet, here is a dungeon were most players will end up making the same trip to the big key room at least twice, if not three or more times.
This really pissed me off, you have no idea. Not only did I lose time in my life, but this is a seriously bad dungeon in an otherwise almost perfect game. If I ever meet the guy who designed that dungeon, I'm going to kick him square in the nuts. Hopefully the final dungeon will not be nearly as flawed.
Comments
Then again, I do think it would be cool to be able to turn hints off. It would make the game quicker for people who are beating it for the second time. It would also please the masochists.
The issues I had with it was that a lot of the things you have to do in one room to get to another aren't really obvious at all.
1. How is the overall story of the game? Is it groundbreaking or amazing for veteran Zeldaphiles? Is it at least satisfying to Zelda noobs?
2. Does the Wiimote add anything to the gameplay? Is it worth getting a Wii just to play this game?
3. Does it ever drag on longer than it should?
4. How is the soundtrack and such?
I would normally go to various review sites or blogs for this information, but I value your opinions much more. Hopefully, you guys AREN'T Zelda fanboys who would automatically rate this game highly; your opinions won't count if you are one.
To be honest, the Sky Dungeon, upon hearing about the propensity to become stuck from major gaming journalism sites, was the one dungeon I expected to be stuck at least an hour on. I didn't get stuck. I had this great awareness of the dungeon that I did not have with the other dungeons simply because I believed that if I did not pay attention to each detail, I would pay an extra fifteen minutes per time I get stumped.
In my opinion, the Sky Dungeon is actually too well constructed. I felt that the dungeon moved way too fast since you only use one small key before getting the boss key.
I'll tell you my experience with the dungeon.
When I first entered the dungeon, I looked at everything. I looked at the walls, the Ooccaa, and every single clawshot point I could find. I looked at the ceiling, the floor, and everything in between. I was determined not to get stuck. I climbed up everywhere, trying to find where entrances lead and exits exited. Now, maybe this is the lazy gamer talking, but I am stubborn in the most laziest way. If I can't get to something, I just keep looking at it until I find something, and ignore everything else. I go right, get key, dragon destroy bridge, go left, do some stuff, get double clawshot, go right, get boss key, do stuff, drop down, iron boots few times, yadda yadda yadda. Boss. Beat in about ten to fifteen minutes, stare at screen in awe as I could not believe how short the dungeon was, a dungeon I was supposed to get stuck on.
The dungeon is very, very well designed. If my description reads short, that's because I thought the dungeon was short. The windmills you talked about. I actually believed that for the first few times that the windmills were off. It's actually not like that. It's just that you sometimes, depending on where you are hanging, have to aim where you think the clawshot will attach. Like leading a headshot.
The Z targeting and realignment of the camera was non-issue to me since I use the C button most of the time. The Z button is for locking on. C button is for precision. That's the first thing I picked up since the Z button is a little imprecise for anything else than split second decisions and traveling from point A to B.
My keen observations of the dungeon actually allowed me to see that there was a vine patch in the fan on the ceiling. When I saw it, I couldn't do anything since the fan was still spining. The only reason I saw it was because I used the clawshot to aim around to see what was in the room. Using the clawshot, you can see you can latch on to the vined pillar on the left when you first enter the central room and you can also see the vines from the ground floor simply by looking up at the fan. When the fan was shut off, I remembered the vine patch and used it to my advantage. The thing is that in almost every dungeon, there is usually a short cut back into some other part of the dungeon that normally would take a long time to traverse on foot. Being the lazy gamer that I am, I simply looked for anything to do with the clawshot and found it.
I won't say anything about observational skills to anyone since the dungeons I did get stuck on were the dungeons no one got stuck on. I didn't expect to get stuck, but I got stuck anyway. For example, the Ice dungeon. I got stuck after getting the compass and I repeated the room several times until I realized that the compass was the item I needed to find the small key.
I will say this now, as I think, in my humble opinion, it can be applied to anyone playing this game. Wasted time in this game is the result of player error, not the game design. There are people who finish the game within thirty-two hours while there are those who have spent ninety hours and have not passed the third dungeon.
Don't take this as an insult, but it's probably your fault as it is my fault for getting stuck on simple dungeons. You can't blame the game since the game cannot and will never cater to the skill level and habits of the player.
The sky dungeon in Twilight Princess is disproportionately obtuse when compared to every other dungeon in the game. It's not even like that's the point in the game where dungeons get tricky. Everything that comes after the Sky Dungeon does not exhibit these problems. No other dungeon goes against the intuitive conventions of the game so drastically. Just because you received a warning and where able to avoid these problems doesn't mean they don't exist.
I reserve my own judgement until I play through the game.
Stuck: To spend 1+ hours in a video game with no progression whatsoever in the fields of skill, storyline, and distance.
Let me take the Earth Temple in Twilight Princess I just played as an example. Simply put, I got the fourth monkey before I got the third monkey. So I was running around through every room for an hour before I found what I had missed. I suck at Zelda games. But that doesn't mean they aren't fun!
I don't recall the name of this one but it involved zombies walking around and Danny Phantom was in it as well as SpongeBob and a few others.
The one area I got stuck in was the inside of a building. you entered the building by jumping from a dumpster and over a wall.
The problem was that all of the other characters would follow you in and you could not get out of the building!!!
Modern Zelda games always give you hints as to what to do next. Sometimes the hint is direct like "Go to the Eastern peninsula." Sometimes the hint is subtle like the camera moving off of Link and pointing at a chest. Follow the hints. Don't worry about missing too many things. They aren't going anywhere. Keeping your eye on the prize and your feet moving forward is the way to get through the game without getting lost or stuck. The surest way to lose the path is to stray from it.
A mature, hard-core pokemon game would be awesome. Any pokemon game should be deeper (e.g. the skill stats actually mattering), tho.
1. There are tons of items that will raise skill stats. Have you actually experimented with any of them? It takes many to really see a difference, but they DO work.
2. There are also attacks that raise and lower skill levels. Once again, experiment with them. They actually do something.
A couple of reasons why:
1. The water temple was one big maze.
2. Also, raising and lowering the water levels, If you did it wrong, you had a VERY difficult time resetting it.
3.Fighting Underwater. Almost none of your items worked at all.
On the other hand, I thought the fire temple was pretty easy for the most part.