Twilight Princess without Gravity pt03

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Finally, we got a sword, we got a shield, we got our human body bad, best of all, we got new duds, and best of all we're finally off to finally get into the first dungeon finally! Gah! It's felt like it's take weeks, but we're almost there, baby! Yeah!

But first, let's talk about the reason I'm doing this again. Thing is I'm going to talk a lot about negative aspects of this game, but that's not because I want to rage about a game I don't like. On the contrary, it's because I love this game, and I want to help make better games like this in the future.

Thing is it took me a while to write this third part, and I wasn't exactly sure why. But after thinking about it for a while, I realized it was because of the way I normally write these things.

Generally I have my sibling playthrough it first while I take notes, either privately or on twitter, then I play through it myself, pause when I reach a part I need to write about, then resume and repeat until the article is finished.

But I realized I didn't want to do that this time, or rather the last part. I didn't just want to play, stop and write─I just wanted to play a game that I loved. And you know what? I finished most of the article in a single day.

And that's why I wanted to say this right at the front of this article; I love Twilight Princess. As I said last time while Nintendo games are very formulaic, it's how much can you overlook the formula to appreciate the uniqueness which determines how much you'll love a Nintendo game.

And that's what's really frustrating about Twilight Princess; I don't think there's another Nintendo game that is so unique but also so formulaic. And I don't think there's any better examples of that then what we'll be talking about today; the dungeons.

But that will be in a little bit. There are some things to discuss first. To start with, let's talk about likable characters, and we'll be using Coro for our demonstration. Say hello, everyone!

Now we've already met Coro, if you'll recall. When Malo ran off into the woods alone, it was this guy who gave us a free lantern to help us find him. So right off the top we show how to make a player like a character; they're a benefit to the player. You're trying to find Malo and he helps you out.

It's also cool that he's honest and up front with you that the reason he's doing it is a business tactic; he sells lantern oil, so now that you have a lantern, you two can do business with each other.

Now that we're human again we need to talk to him again to unlock the path to the temple. He's nice and friendly as before, warns you of the danger but then says you look like you can handle it and give you the key. But before you leave he tells you he can sell you a new bottle for 100 rupps.

Coro is a memorable character not only because he has a kind personality, but because the things he gives to the player are things the player wants; a lantern and an empty bottle. In any other game he'd just be the guard NPC that you have to talk to in order to pass through. But because of the way he acts and helps the player, he becomes, well, memorable. He feels a lot more real, even if we don't see him that often, and that's really cool.

Remember when I said I'd lose my mind if there was another
side-quest before the dungeon? This is really pushin' it.

The part with the monkey and the lantern, however, I'm not so fond of.

I mean, it's annoying, but it's not terrible. The monkey takes your lantern to move through this fog and you have to sllooowwwlly follow her. It's a pain, but at least the monkey is trying to help which fits in with the theme of the game (which we'll get into further in a few) and it's nice that while she's terrified of monsters, she'll keep trying to swing the lantern around to keep the mist away instead of immediately cowering. So at least I'll give her a gold star for "doing her best."

Oh, but now... Now we're getting to the good part.

Just before entering the first temple, you'll come across a golden wolf who will pounce on you, which teleports you to a world of mist, apparently at the top of Hyrule Castle. When Link turns around, the wolf has transformed into an undead knight which quickly knocks Link on their butt. That's when the apparition tells Link "you think you're going to be a hero like that? No you ain't! I'm going to pass down my secret techniques to you!"

This is how you learn the first Hidden Skill, which honestly are a great gameplay mechanic. It's cool that Link is finally being taught new sword techniques aside from "swing sword wildly" (not that that isn't fun). I also like them because not only is the game set up so that the hidden skills are useful, but they also serve as a way to connect Link to previous heroes through the techniques.

For example, this first skill, the Ending Blow, is not only a way to kill enemies with lots of HP that are momentarily stunned, but it's also a call back to Zelda 2's stab down.

Hidden Skills are probably the most unique mechanic that Twilight Princess brings to the table, and it helps to make Link actually feel like they're growing as a swordsman and hero. And the best part is only one or two Hidden Skills suck, so you'll mostly be glad when you learn a new one and actually interoperate it into how you fight.

The only thing that really holds the Hidden Skills back is, well, the combat. Combat in Twilight Princess is kinda... Well, not good. Or at least, it's a big step down from Ocarina of Time. And I know how that sounds given how hyped up Ocarina is and if you're younger than me you'll look at Ocarina and probably see this...

... And wonder how I can honestly say it's better than Twilight Princess. I mean, Twilight Princess was made for the Gamecube and Wii. How can an N64 game compete with that? Well, it's all in the game design, and what Ocarina of Time did best is something no other Zelda game has really ever tried to do since; multiple solutions to any given puzzle.

Skulltulas are a good example of this. In Ocarina of Time Skulltulas are basically a wall enemy─they only hurt you if you get close and if you wait a second it will spin around so you can hit its weakspot. In and of itself that's not very interesting, but what made it interesting was that you had a whole inventory full of tools that had different effects on them.

For example if you hit its weak belly with your sword or slingshot, it would take 2 hits, but Deku Sticks deal double damage, so using that could let you get through it quicker. Also when you're an adult you get the bow, and it allows you to pierce the skull of the tula so you don't have to wait.

And you have several more items to try, remember. So what happens when you use bombs? the hookshot? your hammer? Din's Fire? You have a ton of options, and most enemies react differently to different items.

Another example is the Stalfos. They're set up to be a one-on-one sword fight, with Navi even saying if you target one the other won't attack, but no one said you ever had to play fair! Use deku nuts to stun them! Throw bombs when they drop their guard! You can use more than just your sword to topple these foes! And what about the Iron Knuckle near the end of the game? Too scary to get so close to hit them? Well, then just keep chucking bombs and bombchus at them until they fall over! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! >:D

Sometimes you can even circumvent a boss if you use an item you're not supposed to. Like, I didn't know until more than a decade after I beat Ocarina that you can use the Ice Arrows to beat Bongo Bongo much quicker! That level of detail to me is nuts! And I love it!

Maybe that sounds like a lot of cheap ways to get through enemies, but this is the point I'm trying to make; Ocarina of Time encouraged experimentation. It rewarded curiosity, and the childlike musing like "what if I place a bomb next to a Gossip Stone?" The fact that multiple items could work on foes and that sometimes certain items on certain enemies would get unique reactions encouraged the player to use multiple strategies to get past obstacles.

But Twilight Princess doesn't encourage this. Generally, there are only 2 solutions to any problem; your sword, and an item/skill that makes your sword attacks more effective.

Cycling back around to Skulltulas, these guys are a perfect example of how deteriorated the combat is compared to Ocarina. Now credit where it's due─Skulltulas, like almost every other enemy, are incredibly well designed and even your first encounter with one here, where it drops from the ceiling to walk down to kill you, is incredibly well scripted. It's also just cool that Skulltulas went from this kinda whatever blocking enemy to an elite foe. It's pretty dang cool, but the problem is fighting them isn't terribly fun.

The reason why is because you have to wait for the spider to attack you before it becomes vulnerable, which is just a pain in the booty. But hang on, I'm hearing Goofus again! "But didn't you have to wait to attack a bunch of enemies in Ocarina, too?" Yeah, but here's the thing; the waiting time for Ocarina's enemies was actually a skill barrier. If you knew what you were doing you could take down enemies quickly. If you didn't then you'd have to do the whole song and dance and wait for them to expose their weak point. It encouraged you to fight enemies more efficiently so you didn't have to wait for its arbitrary weak point to be exposed.

Here? You basically just have to wait. Worse, it being exposed and it blocking your sword swings look nearly identical. So yeah, it's pretty bad. Or, wait, you could also jump attack it to make it vulnerable? Yeah! In this play session I found out jump attacks will expose the Skulltula's weakness. Huh. That's actually neat. So maybe there will be some experimentation down the line. I guess we'll have to see.

Alright, so shifting gears, let's talk about the Forest Temple itself, and I can't think of a better place to begin then with the monkeys. The monkeys are, in a word, rad. They are a brilliant idea because not only do they help you, the player, but they also tie into the theme of Twilight Princess being the story of everyone in Hyrule.

One unique feature of Twilight Princess is many of the dungeons have NPCs in them that help Link out (more or less) and here in the Forest Temple it's the monkeys. The monkey that took your lantern needs your help to free her friends, and as you do more areas of the temple open up to you because more monkeys can help you now.

You can't get through the dungeon without the help of the monkeys, and the monkeys can't free themselves. It's a great two-way relationship where you feel like you're helping someone else and not just having to do all the chores to save the world yourself. And this reaches its peak when you get to the boss of the dungeon and get help from the boss monkey. It's epic AF, which as we've established is what Nintendo was going for, so I commend them on that.

And what really takes this idea from "pretty neat" to "rad AF" is that the monkeys don't talk, so your entire relationship with them is purely through gameplay. It's like Nintendo thought "how can players interact with these characters with more than just dialogue?" That is amazing.

But remember, this is Twilight Princess we're talking about here, so for every moment of light, there is darkness to accompany it. You better get those shot glasses ready, cause it's time to talk about poor design! Woot!

First of all, that great idea of NPCs helping you in the dungeon and following you through it? This is the best it gets. Yeah, from here on there are some fun NPC, but none of them really help you the way the monkeys do (with one major exception, but that's a long ways from now, so we'll have to get back to it).

And in any other game it'd be annoying for Nintendo to drop the ball like this, but in Twilight Princess it's a borderline disaster. Because they have this brilliant,amazing idea which could be used to explore the theme of the game through gameplay alone and give us some of the most memorable dungeons in any Zelda game, and they completely jettison it right after the first dungeon. WHY?

To illustrate how often monkeys screw you in Nintendo games,
I'm just going to throw in random Nintendo monkeys for the rest
of the article.

Not to mention it's monkeys we're talking about here. Do you know how many times a monkey tired to steal your hat, or sent you on an insanely long fetch quest, or tried to destroy the entire effin' galaxy?! So we're not exactly in a place to trust these monkeys from the get-go, ya know?

Also the monkey's designs... Aren't great, honestly. They're fine. But they're not really endearing. They certainly aren't as cute as the ones from Majora's Mask. And the dungeon itself isn't all the memorable outside of them. Is anyone going to think back to TP & say "the Forest Temple was my favorite part"?

Well, then again the monkey's have a boss, like I said, so maybe he's got a great design you'll remember forever! So let's see what he looks like, shall we?

... video games were a mistake.

In all honesty, the dungeon itself doesn't have a lot of memorable puzzles, which is to be expected for the first dungeon, I suppose. There are some interesting bits where you have to active torches with your lantern, but when you get the gale boomerang you have to blow them out to get secrets you couldn't get before, so that's really neat.

But honestly, even though the dungeon doesn't have a lot going for it in the way of gameplay, this is probably my favorite Forest Temple in any Zelda game, and not just because of the monkeys; it's because the art team clearly put a lot of heart and soul into this dungeon. Despite being the first one and a forest dungeon on top of that, there's a lot of intricate design and a ton of variety all over the place.

Some rooms are bright, while others are dark. There are rooms that seem dried out, while others have huge bodies of water in them, making them feel like a lake or marsh. There are rooms of all different sorts of shapes and elevations. Some are round and others are sprawling rooms. Some rooms with wooden scaffolding while others have stone structures, there's a room full of spiders, one that's outside and used as a juncture of between other rooms and has these neat platforms that change their angle depending on the wind. There's a ton of details all over the place, and that makes this forest temple feel more unique and alive than any other

This monkey wants to destroy the universe.

Also, I could make a point about the fairy living in Link's boomerang tying into the overall story
theme too... But the boomerang being sentient is really, really weird and it never comes up again in the entire game, so we're going to move right along and pretend it doesn't exist, like the game itself does. Poor fairy.

Also a pretty cool new feature of this game is if you open a treasure chest that has 20 or more rupees in it, the game will put the money back if your wallet if full. That's pretty neat. But what's also neat is I just got a blue rupee, which is worth 5 rupees! I'm so glad the game told me that! 😆

Another interesting thing that Twilight Princess tries to do is make itself a bit harder by diminishing the healing effects of bottled items. So far I've found milk, which in previous games heal 5 hearts twice, but here only heals 3 hearts twice. Red potions, which used to heal all hearts but now only heal 8. And fairies, which used to bring you back to full life if you died, but now only heal 8 (but still revive you).

Honestly, I think it's a nice gesture, but it doesn't mean much since I barely ever go for potions still. I'm not sure why that is, but I'll try to figure it out.

Trading game with monkeys in Earthbound

Finally I save all 8 monkeys, which allows me entrance to the boss's lair. Again, the room is unique compared to all the others, as this one has sickly purple water, implying toxicity. It feels your inside a poisonous swamp inside the heart of a giant tree. So it's kinda of like a combination of the great Deku Tree and Wood Fall Temple. And that's really cool and interesting! So don't take a shot for once!

Aesthetically, all the bosses in this game are really amazing. For example,this one appears to be two giant deku babas, so it's cool that they have their own boss enemy. They come out of the water and you use your boomerang to bomb them to death. Pretty simple, but when you beat them the room starts to quake, the bomb bugs hide in their homes, and out from the water appears a giant, dragon-like plant monster! Now the real fight begins!

After a few attacks the monkey boss comes in and helps you by bringing some bomb bugs with him. Again, use the boomerang to get the bomb bugs into the mouths, stab Diababa's eye weakness thing, and boom! Congratulations! You beat your first level in Twilight Princes!

I'm also starting to realize the dialogue in this game is really good. Everyone says just what they need to so you know things but also they don't wear out their welcome. In this scene all Midna tells you that the what she's looking for is the same things the light spirits told you to get; relics of darkness called Fused Shadows. She gloats about how easy it was to get and says if you really want to know what they are, you should get the other two.

There's also an interesting juxtaposition going on with everyone in the world being super helpful to Link... Except his companion, Midna, who is just the most annoying, unhelpful little jerk. And that's part of what makes her so awesome.


And with that we wrap up this post. Thanks so much for reading! Join us next time when we return to Wolf Link, talk about a few more of their unique mechanics, as well as some good character bit and more bug hunting. Until then, take care 💜

Never forget... Never forgive...

Part 01 || Part 02 || Part 03