Until the current console generation, I’d not gotten into the Zelda games. But when I tried out Twilight Princess, I fell in love. You’ll notice that when I listed my top five favorite games, Twilight Princess was number five. “So!”, I said, “This is what all the fuss is about. Zelda games are awesome! I needs to try me some more! That Ocarina game seems to be one that everybody loves; I’ll try that.” I downloaded Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console, played for about an hour, and got bored. Or maybe I got distracted. What else was I playing back then? No More Heroes? Oblivion? Elite Beat Agents? Not sure. But just recently, I started playing Wind Waker based on a friend’s recommendation. He said that Wind Waker was his favorite Zelda game. I finished the game yesterday and I really did enjoy it. But did I enjoy Wind Waker more than Twilight Princess?
Wind Waker had a number of things going for it. The cel-shaded art style was a big one, although I felt that the cel-shaded graphics in Okami were way better. Wind Waker’s music was also stellar. The music in Wind Waker was even integrated into the combat, with musical hits coinciding with Link’s sword strikes. The “Mini Boss” battle music is fun, “Graaandma” is a very simple piece with a lot of heart, and I particularly enjoyed the music for the battle against Gohdan. The various themes for the island towns are all good. The sole advantage that Twilight Princess had in its music was the fact that it was performed by an actual orchestra, whereas Wind Waker’s music was synthesized. Nonetheless, I preferred the songs in Wind Waker. The ocean travel music was amongst the best bits of the Wind Waker soundtrack, which was good given that you do so damn much travelling in the game.
And that was one of my main complaints about Wind Waker – the monotonous ocean travel. Whereas Twilight Princess had scenic views, forests, and fields with landmarks, Wind Waker had just… water. I suppose it was a cheap way to make the game world big, but I much prefer Twilight Princess’s Hyrule over the vast “fishless oceans” in Wind Waker. And on that note, I really hated the sea battles. Whenever possible, I avoided them. Fleeing was so much easier than spending five minutes trying to hit some swimming enemy with a cannonball, getting knocked off of my boat four times, and ending up at half health all for no reward at the end. Those Gyorg were the worst. They’d pursue me for fifteen minutes straight while I sailed from one corner of the world to another. Often I’d set down the controller for five minutes and surf the web while travelling from place to place since it was so boring, but those damn Gyorg would force me to spend the time dodging instead. Once I got the Song of Winds this was less of an issue, but still a pain.
Looking back now on my original review of Twilight Princess, I remember many of the things I’d forgotten about Twilight Princess. It did so many different things, and it did them all so well. I’ve discussed gameplay variety a number of times before, and Twilight Princess accomplished that variety better than any other game I can think of. In Twilight Princess you snowboard, herd goats, go fishing, hang-glide from a chicken, sumo wrestle, and a number of other things I’m sure I’m forgetting. And Twilight Princess’s dungeons were the most creative I’ve ever seen. The water temple with its waterway-related puzzles was a standout, but Twilight Princess’s other dungeons had you swinging from ropes, swimming underwater, walking on walls, and hook-shotting on a floating island. I’ve heard people speak of the game’s muted colors, and I guess that I can see them if I really look, but to me the pros far outweigh the cons. Wind Waker had a bit of stealth gameplay at the very beginning which I really liked, but not nearly the variety of Twilight Princess.
All this talk really makes me want to replay Twilight Princess, but it was such a long game, and I’m wary of Zelda burnout given the upcoming Skyward Sword game, to which I’m very much looking forward.
i dont understand, how you can say ocarina of time would be boring, or better said how you can drop the game after playing it just for an hour.
you should play it a 2nd time with more patience. tell me more than 3 games, which arent boring, no boring is the wrong word, which doesnt start slowly and which are RPG’s or action adventures. okay, three is not that hard, but what i want you to say is, that almost every game starts al little bit slow, but ocarina of time doesnt really??
you start a new game, you get a sword for what you have to make a mini, mini, mini, mini, miniiiiii puzzle, you collect some rupees for a shield and than you directly go into the great deku tree. so why is that so boring?? the first hour offers you a lot of items (more than 5!!), the first dungeon and the first boss (okay, it depends on how expirienced you are, but you can do all this in the first 1-2 hours).
so i dont understand why you got bored that fast?
when i was 8 and played this game, i was abolutely amazed, but it was simply too hard for me and without the help of a friend of mine, i would have been stuck in so many places.
and even with the help. i didnt finish the game.
now, 1-2weeks ago i started to play the game again, after i fnished twilight princess, which was really amazing.
i finished ocarina of time in this 1-2weeks (i think it were 8-10days, or even less,exactly a week?dunno…yesterday/this night i finished ganons castle/twoer and ganon – what a nice end-boss!) and i was just amazed. the game IS hard and tricky, some puzzles i couldnt solve without the guide and walkthrough I used-thx zeldadungeon.net-, but thats nothing negative and Ocarina of Time is SO amazing awesome – i can recommend every gamer to play this awesome game, its really one of the best ever.
you can ask every expirienced gamer and especially zelda-fan; ocarina of time has some many elements, which are used by modern games like god of war, red dead redepmtion and so on – you can say, this game DECIDED the future of 3d-games especially action-adventures an genres like that (for example rpgs), thats no hype, just truth, read the iwata asks interviews and you’ll see.
when i played twilight princess and i read comments of people like “TP sucks, its nothing compared to OOT” and so on, i absolutely couldnt understand, today i still dont understand why people dont like/hate TP, because it is an absolutely great, amazing game which is big fun, but i can understand when they are just not satisfied because its maybe to easy or something like this.
all in all ocarina of time is a P E R F E C T game, it starts good (and not a slow as twilight princess does – the first hours in TP -can- be boring for some people,, for me they were absolutely okay) and becomes just fantastically great and satisfying, no one who calls himself a gamer, should miss to finish this game – cause you really MISS a great gaming experiance if you do!
Sry if there are some grammaticaly incorrect spelled parts in my text, but my english isnt perfect.
ps: next games on my list: majoras mask and wnd waker! =)
Greets from germany, Tatsu
I love love love love love love love love twilight princess! I’m playing it a second time through, just to get me back in the feel of things so i’ll be ready when skyward sword comes out. Second time through is less enchanting, and my eyes hurt, but i dont care, i’m the hero chosen by the goddesses, lol!
I have played both, and it’s clear that Twilight Princess wins.