Ben said:
Elaborate on why these are repetitive. The woods temple required you save a ton of monkeys to complete the dungeon. The twilight temple had you fight against a hand that chased you trying to get that orb back. The Sky Temple had you get 2 clawshots instead of the longer hookshot (as is tradition). The Ice level had a break from the tradition to trapise through a yeti's mansion where there are no hearts. I'll give you that I hated the 2 statues and the platform puzzle but I don't see how any of that is repetitive.
Bad story, Zelda tends to have simple stories, Elf saves Princess/the Kingdom and defeats evil wizard, but TP has terrible story with discarded subplots everywhere and twists that make no sense at all.
What is bad about that formula? The subplots seem to work well enough, ending a feud between the Gorons and Kakariko village, recovering the girl's memory, helping the Zoras with a succession issue.
Pandering too much to the Fanbase, or else how do you explain Ganondorf's tacked on appearance and the Wolf form?
Gannondorf made a lot of sense, getting banished (or pawned off rather) into the Twilight Realm and convincing Zant that he was a God allowing the story to take place. Much like Hyrule had Link's image as their legendary hero, Midna states that a wolf was their legendary hero.
Unused Mechanics, The wolf form is pretty much useless not because it lacks ways to play with it but because the game lacks scenarios to make it useful other than the annoying Light tear collecting segments.
About half the puzzles require being a wolf, such as the desert temple where you chase down the ghosts, or the lost woods where you track the Skull Kid. All but one encounter with the shadow beasts required wolfing it up. Getting through the snow mountain, tracking all the scents give plenty of use to the wolf.
completely unrewarding exploration, and dungeon clearing, and that goes along with the useless items point.
maybe
My point is that while it was not as rewarding as Ocarina of Time, it is still fun enough that I could pick it up and replay it any time (and enjoy the majority of it). Can't say that about too many games that have come out in the last 5-10 years.
1. The Sky Temple is just about grabbing onto hookshot grabbable zones, the Dungeon isn't even challenging or requires much puzzle solving, it comes off as a chore, like they needed another Dungeon. And of course the treasure of this Dungeon is a copy of an item you already had, awesome!
The Twilight temple had you move a sphere from a hand that takes the orb back to the beginning, unless you take it to the end first,, and your reward was something that only had use inside the temple itself. And it consists of your sword GLOWING! OOOOoooooooh.
The Yeti's Mansion has you go to one room, then back to the main room then back to another room over and over again to drag the thing down, and THEN you go to the dungeon part, wich isn't even that challenging.
2. Re-read, I said they discarded a lot of subplots, for example the thing with the Scholars, they never do anything at all, except appear in an fmv when you are in the castle, the man plot itself is casted away, Zant suddenly becomes a mook that prances around so that Gannondorf becomes the big bad, Zelda apparently vanishes when she gives her power to Midna and Midna acts as if she died, but then she appears tied to Ganondorf's throne, then Ganondorf kills Midna but Midna is okay because.... hummm.....
The Sky people was the stupidest plot development ever. Along with the "Ganondorf is the real villain because".
The Twilight world was dumb and boring, completely wasted opportunity.
The kids from the village are found like half an hour into the plot, and then you have a fight with a bunch of moblins because..... they like to kidnap children and tie them to their lances.
And of course having to recover Midna's Broken Amulet twice, because Zant decided that the plot needed more dragging so he steals them and seals them in some temples.
3. He is "justified" by a very out of place fmv when you end the Sand Temple, because they needed to shoehorn him into the plot, how did he even get to the Sand Temple in the first place? Didn't he turn into a piggy and you killed him with the hammer and Sword? the Sages didn't even looked like the OoT sages, so they apparently just kept Ganondorf in the fridge and then decided to take him out to fuck another dimension by sending him there? Why did Zant believe that Ganondorf was a God in the first place? Because he shoots yellow spells and he is a ehmmm Red Headed Brown guy? Because he grew an awesome beard? Zant can do a lot more things than Ganondorf. And the Wolf "explanation" is even blander than that.
Also it barely had any sidequest that wasn't about collecting insects or ghosts, Majora's Mask had a lot of sidequests with decent stories attached to them.
4.Half of the Puzzles? I can only think about that stupid hooping thing you do, wich is just locking on and jumping, The Shadow Creatures are defeated by keep B pressed and then releasing it, and following scents is used like 3 times and it only involves following a crooked line, the Ghosts that you can only see with wolf sense only appear once. Maybe that Golden Skultula rehash sidequest could count, but it's just a rehash of the collect Golden Skulltulas sidequest. If that is half the Puzzles then the gme has more problems than I tought. Also the Wolf talkign to animals could have been used for sidequests, it wasn't, it wasn't used for anything.
And also making an appendix to the useless Items issue, the game has also those items that you have to grind RUpees to get, an only one of them is worth anything, The Falcon eye. On the other hand we have those subtypes of bombs that you use twice maybe, and the incredibly Shitty Red Armor, that eats Ruppes by having it equipped and every hit makes you lose more Rupees, I am glad I spent that time getting all those Rupees to make them open the store to then spend more time getting the Rupees to pay for it, to then spend more time getting more Rupees to be able to actually use it at the end.
Rant over...sorry...
But then you are saying the complete opposite, you said you Judged Zelda games on a higher standard yet that messages says that you are more lenient with them. Twilight Princess felt like a chore to me, a Chore I saved 2 months of money to do (I was in highschool) a game that doesn't feel rewarding from ANYTHING you do, has mediocre puzzles and a bad stoy is not a good game. It had nice visuals.
The only good Zelda games post Ocarina of Time have been Majora's Mask and Minish Cap.
