Pretty much. Some dungeons weren't memorable but as a whole the dungeons were far from bad (and, if you ask me, definitely not the worst in the series, but different strokes). About the third pearl, my reasoning was that having to go through Forsaken Fortress (twice) was the third pearl's dungeon, so no loss there. And if you read the last page, you already know my thoughts on the sailing, how awesome I thought it was and, if I ever play the remaster, how I'm avoiding the Swift Sail like it was covered in ebola virus.

Now then, Majora's Mask is, by far, my least favorite of the 3D Zeldas. That game is padded by constant repetition and the three days thing is annoying as all hell, completely destroying immersion which prevents me from experiencing any atmosphere the game supposedly has. I don't even remember the dungeons (but remember the bosses clearly for obvious reasons) which is always a bad sign. There was a point in which I simply gave up on trying to explore and take in the atmosphere so I just winged it and rushed for the finish line. I've revisited the game twice since then and ended up doing the same thing. Four dungeons I can't even remember, a metric fuckton of pads and a gameplay mechanic designed to shatter immersion... not my thing. Still, I'm looking forward to playing the 3DS version because... uh... I guess it has its charm.

The Spirit Temple in the Master Quest, didn't this require you to revisit it more than once as a kid and adult? I definitely remember this one being more complex. Ganon's Tower was a boss in this remix too. Other than that the rest didn't seem all that different and some like the Water Temple were even easier.

Whenever people bring up the Water Temple being hard I automatically assume they never made it to the 4th dungeon in MM. To this day, no other 3D Zelda has produced another monster like that one. You thought SoTN's flipping castle was cool, try that in fucking 3D. I can't even imagine how insane it was designing it. But heck, even the third dungeon was tough. This is what I love about both MM and Prime 2, they build upon the precursors but ramped up the difficulty for sure which is great.

Anyone obsessed with the cave themes in the 3D Zelda's? They're always so damn dark and haunting. Here's a good point I can give WW, it didn't slip up here either:



Wish we'd get an HD remaster of Twilight Princess. Nintendo had to tease us that they "messed around with it" while doing WW.

The Triforce Quest took you 10-15 minutes? Are you talking about the original or the HD remaster? It's literally impossible to do it that fast in the original if you don't know exactly where to go (even if you've already found all the maps, an arduous quest in itself), thanks to Tingle's monopoly. It's a pretty shameless game-lengthener that they only put in because they couldn't finish the dungeons they were originally going to have by Christmas.

As for the quality of the dungeons that made it, uh, opinions, I guess. I'm pretty sure that the general consensus is that WW has some of the worst dungeons in the series, especially since it's between the great Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess, which while pretty flawed, has fantastic dungeons and boss fights.



See, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. I literally cannot understand how someone could enjoy the sailing. Here's the process I used in the original:

1) Figure out where the hell I am going and open the map
2) Figure out which way I am facing and the direction of wind I need to use
3) baton song
4) start watching tv while the ship goes on autopilot because it takes too long
5) Switch the input periodically to see if i'm there yet

The Swift Sail makes the game at least 500% better. Exploring is no longer tedious, and I was encouraged to do side quests I never did in the original (which was most of them).

The original, but I knew exactly where to go and had already collected all of the maps, yes. I really liked the exploration, so I just did that on my own.


Oh noes, am I disagreeing with the GENERAL CONSENSUS?


It's like different people have different ideas of what fun is. In WW it's the atmosphere coupled with the music coupled with the exploration of the unknown. I didn't use a guide or anything so I had literally zero idea of what I would find - and I found all sorts of cool shit, like the enemy subs, weird and cool islands, neat shit to do, etc. The first time I beat the game I did it in nearly one sitting - I think I slept maybe once. I had that much fun with it. Have you ever been sailing IRL? I have.

Yeah, I always was baffled by the hate for the sailing in Wind Waker. You're on an adventure! You're on uncharted waters, seeking treasure and mystery! The music urges you onward to new horizons! It's awesome!

None of them beat this classic:


Also, WW's sounds like a remix of this:

Same, I've always been a sucker for that kind of atmosphere. I agree that the game's pacing got a little wonky after the Tower of the Gods though.

Jumping back to Majora's Mask: Not only was Stone Tower amazing, the entirety of Ikana Canyon was just insane. Just such a creeping sense of gloom and dread with only vague hints of the misfortune that overtook an ancient, ruined kingdom. Almost Dark Souls-esque from an atmosphere perspective.

I've probably said this a hundred times before, but I'm not a big fan of Wind Waker. The game was so rushed, it was very disappointing to me back in the gamecube days. Bought the Wii U remaster and beat it, still think it's the worst 3D Zelda game. The exploration wasn't interesting to me. Same with the Hyrule field in Twilight Princess and the sky in Skyward Sword. I hope The Zelda Team actually make a good overworld for the new game.

Ocarina > Majora > Skyward Sword > Twilight Princess ----------> Wind Waker

The overworld was my main complaint about Skyward Sword. The flying aspect was cool in theory, but it ended up making the whole world so disconnected since you only fly from Skyloft down to different (unconnected) areas of Hyrule, and you're never able to actually fly around Hyrule, nor do you have Epona to ride around on. It really felt like it inhibited exploration. While that is a fairly big complaint, I liked/loved most things else about the game.

Also agree about Twilight Princess's overworld - sure, riding around on Epona is great, but they basically just took Ocarina of Time's field and and made it way bigger without actually putting much content in there to interact with. A lot of the time I felt as though I was just riding around a big empty wasteland. Thankfully the locations throughout the game were suitably varied and engaging.

I so, so hope Nintendo pulls off the "open world" aspect for the upcoming Zelda.

Entering PS+ in June:

3rd June: Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes (PS4)
3rd June: Skulls of the Shogun: Bone-A-Fide Edition (PS4)
3rd June: Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (PS3)
3rd June: Cloudberry Kingdom (PS3)
3rd June: Futuridium (PS4 & PS Vita)
3rd June: Super Exploding Zoo (PS4 & PS Vita)

Not bad. I wasn't going to spend any money on MGS5 (because fuck Kojima since MGS4 and fuck Konami since... well, you know), but since it's free, might as well check it out. For once it's appropriately priced, too.

For those who play or have played MMORPGs:

It's so weird how common the complaint is here with Skyward Sword. I would like to think that I'm generally pretty good at getting through Zelda or Metroidvania styled games, with ~100% a bit faster than the average player (while not rushing and still enjoying my time)... now despite Skyward Sword not having a true overworld, it was still the longest 3D Zelda by a longshot for me. Can anyone argue they took longer to finish the other games? I'd find it a bit hard to believe. Skyward Sword was massive.

Skyward Sword is just simply more linear in design and I don't see it as a flaw, everytime you went back to areas you were opening up new paths that led to completely new areas you hadn't been to before. Lots of dungeons too, so nothing about this game felt like padded filler to me. You guys point out the mistake of Twilight Princess retreading OoT's world map, we wouldn't want that a third time!

I'm glad the flying took merely seconds to traverse and it was just right to the point. In a sense, the levels themselves were weirdly intricate designed places that were like dungeons in and of themselves. I think that's cool.

Well, at least you guys aren't complaining about the Wiimote controls. Would never be able to take you seriously again.

Now, complexity can kill it too though. I'd wager that Oracle of Ages' has my least favorite Zelda overworld. The mountain area was a complete pain to navigate. I was surprised by how much more I ended up enjoying Seasons over this one actually. I figured Ages would be a bit more like Link to the Past, but it really wasn't that.

Wiimote controls were hot garbage, especially for combat. I have no intention of continuing Twilight Princess at least partially because of those.

Thankfully I wasn't taking you seriously before anyways...

But seriously knocking on TP there is even funnier, you don't even have to try and can play with the controller in your lap in that one. It was obviously half assed but doesn't ruin it either. Also the game is on the GC too.

When gamers complain about controls, this is all I can ever think of:

Unfortunately we have the Wii version, and you won't ever convince me that the controls are good. A combat system where you wiggle a remote around is fucking stupid, and aiming the hookshot and stuff with the Wiimote was supremely annoying.

Don't care much though, game was pretty boring... like all modern Zeldas

I'm left handed and ergo hate any wii game where I need to aim and use the nunchuk. Either I aim like a tard or try to reverse my hardwired gamer instincts.

The motion controls were awesome. I think some people just have a mental block on motion controls and go into it with a bad attitude or overdo it. Maybe they're not communicated well enough and that's a problem on its own, but to say they don't work simply isn't the case. I've seen people play Skyward Sword and really struggle with the controls because they're just flailing or being too aggressive with it, while I considered them an improvement over standard controls.

Going back to Wind Waker, a game all about presentation, so I guess I'm not surprised it appeals mostly to people who look to video games for that. When it's called great, it's usually because of how it looks or because of the story, or because it felt like there was a lot of freedom (though there really wasn't). Things like the Triforce Quest (and the tedium within it - not just getting the charts), multiple obviously missing dungeons, revisiting the same places over and over, boss rush mode, the mostly uninspired level design, and changing directions to sail tend to get swept under the rug a lot. I really don't think the presentation elements are strong enough to overcome the game's many faults, at least when comparing it to Zelda titles with far better gameplay and design, which, IMO, includes almost every other 3D Zelda game.

Motion controls are horrible ass. Maybe I'm not Open-Minded(TM) enough for them but we hatesss them, precious. So glad that Nintendo mostly ditched that dumbfuckery and went with a zanily anachronistic giant ass Nintendo controller instead for WiiU.

Hey, it's all good, we don't have to like the same things, so long as we can discuss it like adults, it's all fine and dandy. In any case, we do indeed have to agree to disagree, because I'd say there's tons of freedom in the game. Back in 2002-2003, even overwhelmingly so. You don't think there is and it's alright.

These, however, I've problems with.

Hmmm... I can't shake the feeling that you are trying to say "people that liked Windwaker were obviously distracted by the pretty colors, but I don't get caught up in such primitive, Neanderthal impulses". Because that game can be played. But I'm not going to. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, if that's the case, then I apologize and I won't bring it up again. But there's little wiggle room for interpretation in the quote.


Well... it took me no more than half an hour. By that point in the game, I was loaded with Rupees and the game spells out what it wants you to do very clearly. The only way they could have made it any more explicit was to just give you the shards and point them out in your inventory with flashing neon signs, so I wouldn't say you absolutely require a walkthrough to finish that part relatively quickly, at least in my experience.

Anyways:

*sigh*

That's the biggest reason why I use the Gamecube controllers for whenever I play Super Smash Bros on the Wii. I'm not really fond of the "brilliant new technology" that is motion control.

I have no problems with motion controls. It's simple to use and almost all games have options for regular controls anyway. The only thing I didn't like about Skyward Sword was having to fight bosses over again, that seemed like a cop out and cheap way of lengthening the game. Also, the shadow world was a cool touch but that never eventuated to anything significant beyond a few timed missions.

I think you're simplifying what I said a bit.

People look for different things in games. Some people play games to get immersed in a world, and therefore value things like story, visuals, atmosphere, etc. over the gameplay. Most people would say that Wind Waker is the best in the series in this regard, maybe a bit behind Majora's Mask. Some don't really care very much about the presentation, and value the gameplay over the presentation. Most people would say that Wind Waker is the worst in this regard, maybe a bit ahead of Phantom Hourglass. This is why WW is probably the most polarizing game in the series.

I guess the question I'd ask is, what about the sailing did you enjoy? Someone earlier in the thread said:



And that's obviously where the difference in opinion is. I don't find it fun to sit there and stare at Link for 15 minutes while he sails around; I need to be doing something. I would literally just put the boat on auto-pilot and watch TV until he reached the destination, which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that when I'd finally reach the islands and dungeons, they were almost invariably underwhelming and sub-par by Zelda standards.

I kill muslims/americans (depends on side I am in the round) in FPS called Insurgency. Very nice game, I love it.

I also play Arma 3.

And MMORPG called RIFT.

I agree with the Red Snifit when it comes to Wind Waker.

The sailing was awful. I really don't understand how people could enjoy that; it was like riding through Hyrule Field on Epona non-stop and endlessly. It serves only for you to get from point A to point B and - at least until you get the ability to transport - it's just so damn time-consuming. I get its purpose and how it's supposed to be immersive, and I respect that, but the sailing was too much for me, personally. Beyond that, I didn't really find the world to be as amazing as others make it out to be. There were a few cool islands, but most islands were repeats with the same singular purpose and same expected actions and results: you have the fairy islands (6 total), the reefs (7 total), the islands for the fire and ice rods (2 total), the triangle islands (3 total) and the star islands (4 total). There's a total of 49 islands, and from this list alone you have at least half of them dedicated to repetitive one-off tasks. Generally, there was no reason to go back to any of these islands. The game at points often felt repetitive itself, with the grinding of treasure charts and certain items (joy pendants, rupees) from submarines, sea platforms, bigoctos, caves. Windfall Island was great. The temples were few, but great. The storyline was cool. But what felt like grinding just took away the enjoyment of the game from me.

And then there was the last third of the game... dedicated to finding triforce charts, paying an insane amount of money to Tingle for him to "decipher them," and then hunting for the shards. I wouldn't be surprised if most people gave up the game at this point.

I enjoyed the motion controls in Skyward Sword. I thought it was a really worthwhile thing to bring to the formula.

Overall, the best thing about the Wiimote was the IR pointer. The gesture based stuff was mostly rubbish in a lot of games, but pointing at the screen to shoot things was amazing in games like Metroid Prime 3 (and the Trilogy collection). Way better than aiming with dual analogue sticks.

To me, that depends. Gameplay is (or should be, at least) the most important aspect of a game, but it surely isn't the only one. I'm willing to let slip ups go on some components for the benefit of other(s). Borderlands' New U Stations (and yes, I'm back on a Borderlands 2 binge) are an example. They make for gigantic plot holes but allow a smoother way to continue the game after you die, servicing gameplay. In Wind Waker, however, I was never at that disjunctive: I never felt like a part of the experience was being sacrificed to make something else better, which is why I find your comments on the dungeons so bizarre, since I thought the dungeons were solid, thoroughly enjoyable and worthy of the series' legacy while you find them so deeply disappointing and substandard. It's alright if you think that way, I'm just having trouble understanding where that comes from, but don't mind me. Back to the initial point, I'd say it also depends on each individual's expectations before going into the game, but that's another discussion.


Shortly before failsafe posted what you quoted, I wrote this:

As usual, failsafe was decidedly more succinct and on point, but our meaning was essentially the same, so I didn't comment too much on it.


I guess it comes back to my original post (meaning the one I quoted above). The sailing gave me all that and, to me, gameplay didn't suffer because of it. On the contrary, my experience, as a whole, was greatly enhanced by it. If you didn't see it that way, I respect you and your opinions. I would suggest you tried giving it a go with the mindset failsafe and I did, not because I'm trying to convince you of anything, but because my experience with WW was so amazing, I'd like others to have it too. But there's no way to emulate the sense of awe and discovery in a game we have already finished more than once, huh? Anyways, it was a nice chat, man.

I enjoyed the motion controls in Twilight Princess. The only time I didn't like motion controls in a Wii game was having to shake to spin in the Mario Galaxy games, but that's a minor flaw.

Hey, same here! Going to see how quickly I can get my Siren to UVH.

Cool, I'm trying to max my Assasin's level (currently a level 69) because I want to get some level 72 gear. Don't know if I'm doing any OP levels, but initially I didn't think I was going to do multiple characters and I made a Mechromancer (level 37) and I started a Gunzerker and a Psycho (level 7-9, I think), so that could easily change. How is the Siren? I've looked up the skill tree and I'm still unsure if I'll enjoy using her. I did use the Siren in the first game (albeit as a secondary character) if that means anything.

I'm still something of a Borderlands scrub, having only played a Commando in both games - my BL2 Commando was at 52 where I left off at the start of UVH, which I'll probably pick back up at some point. Picked the Siren to try something a bit less newbie-friendly and it's been fun so far; been putting most of my points in Elemental with a few points in Motion to buff the phaselock length and get the effect that pulls enemies toward it.

I realized how easy it is to cheese the beginning of normal mode if you get a good flame weapon then buff the elemental skill that increases your chance of causing elemental effects.

Siren rules in BL2. It's my favourite character. Well, haven't tried Mechro and Psycho but Siren is my favorite from the basic 4 characters. I just love the Phaselock.

Enemy locked, pewpewpew, enemy died. So nice <3

I've concerns with how useful Phaselock is, especially in comparison to other action skills. Controlling enemy positions could be useful but You can kill them outright with other action skills, so... meh. At least that's what it looks like to me. Certainly doesn't seem as good as Phaseblast.

The Mecromancer is a beast, I did an Anarchy build for most of the game and it's surprisingly good, basically the opposite of the Assassin: while the Assassin needs to "set up" his kills, Gaige rampages letting bullets fly everywhere, ricocheting off walls and even enemies with the right skills. All the while, Deathtrap is shooting lasers and slashing at enemies all over the place. Takes some getting used to as you have to drop the habit of reloading... ever. If you have a few bullets left in the mag, it's better to shoot them to get and preserve the Anarchy stacks. Gets pretty hectic, but she may be the most powerful character in the game.

...why? Nah, just kidding I went sniper twice.

From what you said about the Siren, is it fair to say that elemental damage is her main source of damage? Because I could do with that, slagging stuff and setting it on fire is quite useful and very fun to do.

Control is obviously geared more toward group play; if you want to solo you can use the elemental tree to focus much more on elemental damage buffs. There's also a Motion skill that pulls enemies toward a phaselocked enemies, setting them for easy grenade damage or AoE effects. I'd imagine that actually gets increasingly useful in UVHM, where placement and tactics become critically important; the enemies there hit so hard that as a Commando I can't just throw my turret down and use it for damage absorbtion and easy kills.

Interesting... sounds like Phaselock is more of a support to the elemental slaughter. I could get used to that. It'll have to be after I'm done with Gaige as I'm already in TVHM with her.

UVHM is so satisfying. Difficult but always fair. I will admit to having a very hard time in the quest where you reach BNK-3R, that was a real mess. At least that boss is notorious for being one-shotted by Zer0, so the boss itself was a breeze, but the run to him was brutal. I already finished the main story with Zer0, currently at Captain Scarlett's DLC, but I already messed up by turning in the mission where you get the Sand Hawk, so now I'm stuck with a sub par level 67. It's quite sad, really.

In both games I played through as Siren, easily my favorite class almost entirely for the absurd DPS when you max out the elemental trees. Phasewalk was better than Phaselock, but by the time you're done with the Cataclysm tree you can pretty much breeze through the game solo with almost no trouble. Control and Motion are definitely more geared towards co-op, but I never play online so it was a pretty obvious choice for me. Was gonna play through as the Assassin next but the Pre Sequel came out by then. Was running through as Athena but never finished it.

Only thing I hate about UVHM is that certain quests become a massive bastard to complete since by that point your build is so specialized. Good example is that quest Torgue gives you in the Tiny Tina's DLC where you have to grief n00bs by killing them in particular ways. My melee hits do like 0.001% of those guys' health bars in damage and sniper rifles also suck for my build so it took forever to get those kills done.

Aren't those just optional objectives? Besides you can always do most of your damage with normal guns and finish them with the melee attack or whatever. I'm 90% sure that's an optional objective though...

Nah, not in that mission. There are some where it's an optional objective but in that particular quest you have to do like they say. And yeah, you *can* knock their health down with other stuff, but it's still super hard to do. Since damage and health go up geometrically, at that point in the game something like a level 75 badass has ludicrously huge amounts of health compared to those gamer guys you have to kill for that mission, so my dude has a hell of a time shooting them just enough to not kill them. Hit them with too many projectiles or whatever and they die outright, too few and they're at 60% HP and would take hours to kill with melee attacks. I had to slag 'em then use underleveled guns to get their health down to 1% or so, so that my (on-level) sniper rifle and melee attacks didn't take more than a couple minutes to kill them.

Splatoon is so fucking good. I can't stop playing this. I want more content overall, but the base game is so fun that I've already put in 20 hours into it.