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Looking back, was Wind Waker the better GameCube Zelda than Twilight Princess?

ManaByte

Member
of course it was... Twilight Princes is just a OoT rehash with shitty graphics

I don't think it ever comes close to OoT. I was playing OoT the other night and it's like SM64. There's something magical about it every time you start it. In SM64 even 25 years later it's a joy just to run Mario around the levels. OoT is similar. Even the N64 graphics of OoT have more charm than the drab and muddy TP look.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
Yeah wind water was the better game but it’s also one of slowest beginnings to any Zelda so a lot of people judge it on that.
 

Little Mac

Member
I liked Wind Waker more.

tom hiddleston loki GIF
 

SpiceRacz

Member
Never finished WW, but that game has more of an identity than Twilight Princess. Wind Waker also feels more in the spirit of Zelda to me. I've always said, Nintendo is at their best when they're just going for it and trying different stuff. Wind Waker is a good example of that. Twilight Princess is Nintendo spinning their wheels a bit.
 
Wind Waker has some points over it over TP but i'm not gonna just overlook that Triforce shard hunt malarky and the sailing being such molasses-speed. Yeah, these were fixed with Wind Waker HD, but that just calls attention to how these were bad enough issues to need fixes when Nintendo is usually more conservative in it's ports/remakes.
 
Considering I played Twilight Princess and lost interest after a few hours...an I bought a gamecube from a friend just to play Wind Waker? Yes lol
 

6502

Member
TP was the better release - it had loads of content and was complete. It was very workmanlike.

I had more fun with parts of wind waker, the graphical style and animations were far more charming, but Windwaker was padded out and unfinished, it was a colourful dungeon game. It was half of a masterpiece.
 
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Aldric

Member
The Wind Waker was the worst 3D Zelda by a country mile before Skyward Sword. It's very poor in pretty much every aspects that constitute the traditional Zelda experience. It has weak dungeons, terrible items, forgettable bosses and the overworld is a clusterfuck. To this day I have no idea how anyone can argue sailing for 5 minutes in a large swath of blue emptiness only to find a poststamp sized track of land with some bullshit seagull puzzle as a reward is satisfying exploration. The boat combat is also the absolute pits and before the HD remake traversal was a pain due to how slow it was and how tedious changing the wind direction became after an hour or so. TWW is also a blatantly unfinished game with the worst fetchquest in any Nintendo game and a giant waste of potential with sunken Hyrule. Yes it has charming presentation but that's about it, all style and zero substance.

Twilight Princess lacks originality for sure but in comparison it has incredible dungeons, much more memorable characters (Midna is still the best NPC in the series) and bosses, fantastic items and a great combat system which should have been used as the basis for the series going forward. Pacing wise it's also brilliant with very little filler outside of the bug collecting in the first part of the adventure, and moving across the world is much more fun thanks to Epona or Wolf Link's movements being far more enjoyable than the boat's shitty handling, the teleport system is also much better. It's one of my favorite Zeldas and an unfairly maligned game.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Yeah I thought that was the opinion amongst most fans.

What I would really like is for Nintendo to give us true sequel to OOT and Majoras Mask, ala the Spaceworld 2000 demo, a classic Zelda
 

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
Twilight Princess is a shit game.

Wind Waker just needed another dungeon or two and a bit more going on with the islands otherwise its an 8 or 9.
 

boo

Gold Member
The Wind Waker was the worst 3D Zelda by a country mile before Skyward Sword. It's very poor in pretty much every aspects that constitute the traditional Zelda experience. It has weak dungeons, terrible items, forgettable bosses and the overworld is a clusterfuck. To this day I have no idea how anyone can argue sailing for 5 minutes in a large swath of blue emptiness only to find a poststamp sized track of land with some bullshit seagull puzzle as a reward is satisfying exploration. The boat combat is also the absolute pits and before the HD remake traversal was a pain due to how slow it was and how tedious changing the wind direction became after an hour or so. TWW is also a blatantly unfinished game with the worst fetchquest in any Nintendo game and a giant waste of potential with sunken Hyrule. Yes it has charming presentation but that's about it, all style and zero substance.

Twilight Princess lacks originality for sure but in comparison it has incredible dungeons, much more memorable characters (Midna is still the best NPC in the series) and bosses, fantastic items and a great combat system which should have been used as the basis for the series going forward. Pacing wise it's also brilliant with very little filler outside of the bug collecting in the first part of the adventure, and moving across the world is much more fun thanks to Epona or Wolf Link's movements being far more enjoyable than the boat's shitty handling, the teleport system is also much better. It's one of my favorite Zeldas and an unfairly maligned game.
Yep. I understand that many find Wind Waker to be the more charming game. I do the same. But as a game there is no comparison with regard to the gameplay, especially the dungeons. Wind Waker has some of the weakest dungeons, Twilight Princess some of the best in the Zelda franchise.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
No, not even close.

Ironically for me, Wind Waker wins in graphics and artstyle. But TP is the better game. Please don't kill me for saying this, but WW was a little boring. Having to change the wind in order to traverse, was cumbersome. The dungeons were inferior to TP's, not to mention there were fewer of them. TP is just better to me.
 
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sunnysideup

Banned
Neither is as good as oot.

While graphics are great in ww. The game is empty and disjointed. Its way overrated because of The charming graphics.

Tp overworld is Also disjointed, Some parts feels like sperate like the dessert. And The whole black sludge beginning is booring as hell. Plus the games graphics are ugly.
 

RCU005

Member
I played Twilight Princess on the Wii, so for me, Wind Waker was the best Zelda on GC and TP on the Wii. It's great I didn't have to choose between them because I liked them all.

With that said, I'd choose Twilight Princess.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Nah, TP is better. Not because it is more "adult", but because it has more and better content. WW has aged much better visually though.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Twilight Princess is on a short list of games titled: Zelda Games I couldn't be bothered to finish.

TWW is on the list of Zelda games I enjoyed and finished.

Verdict: TWW wins.

I picked up skyward sword on Wii, that's the only Zelda that I liked less than TP, I didn't bother trying the reissue on switch.
 
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mcjmetroid

Member
of course it was... Twilight Princes is just a OoT rehash with shitty graphics
Groan what a shit take. People say that haven't played it and only looked at gameplay vids and said " look you ride a horse in both... Similar!"

Twilight Princess and in particular the HD is the better game hands down.

Wind waker gives you more of a sense of wonder I suppose but Twilight is a tighter game, very well paced especially in the HD version. I think wind waker is a major case of rose tinted glasses for a lot of people. It depends on how you found the sailing.. which is something nobody talks about anymore but was a major point of contention at the time.

Some people found the sailing boring, I was somewhere in the middle there.
 
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jigglet

Banned
Here's my take:

Windwaker had the better art style. I fucking loved it so much. But the awesome ocean over-world was underutilized. I mean for fucks sake there wasn't even a fishing mode, wtf.

Twilight was the better game, except for that fucking WOLF shit. I play Zelda for Link, not a fucking wolf. I wish developers would stop having us play as other characters - create a new franchise if that's what you want. Stop with this "hey play the game you love except as some totally different character" bullshit.
 
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Fare thee well

Neophyte
This is just personal to me, but sea themed adventures just don't ring my bell. And WW came at a time when I really wanted a more mature experience for an RPG exploration. So that was about the time I broke away with games like TES Oblivion and went to pc more.

I do fully recognize the genius of WW and that it truly is a flawless Zelda (maybe minus the sea treasure hunt part we all know). It's just one of those preference things. OOT, MM, and TP were sadly the last times I truly enjoyed Zelda.
 
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Shut0wen

Member
This year is the 35th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, and although Nintendo is ignoring the anniversary I've been going back and playing the NES, SNES, N64 and GCN Zeldas (ok, and I played Minish Cap the other night too). I actually think that Wind Waker, in the end, was the better GameCube Zelda than Twilight Princess.

After 20 years a lot of the vitriol might have subsided, but when the game was originally released people revolted against it. At the time, Nintendo fans were really trying to fight back against the "Nintendo is kiddie" image, and Nintendo wasn't helping things much with a purple console that had a handle and then a cartoony Zelda.

It also didn't help that Nintendo initially showed THIS Zelda at Spaceworld 2000:


Only to give people THIS Zelda at Spaceworld 2001:


The demand for a "mature" Zelda spawned memes. When IGN learned of the "mature" Zelda being revealed at E3, they staged the photo that became the "reaction guys" meme. People rejoiced, and Miyamoto won E3 just by swinging around the Master Sword on stage. But in the end, I think Twilight Princess was a more disappointing Zelda compared to what was done with Wind Waker. It feels like Nintendo really trying too hard to win over those people who demanded a dark and "mature" Zelda, but it lacks the fun (and even innovation) that Wind Waker had.

Wind Waker has also aged MUCH better. Its cell-shaded graphics have been more kind to it than Twilight Princess's darker and more realistic take. And I feel the sailing/wind mechanics was something more interesting than the Wolf Link stuff in Twilight Princess (I also don't think Okami helped things much as it was released in the same year as Twilight Princess).

I'm NOT saying Twilight Princess is a bad Zelda game, I just think the years have been much kinder to Wind Waker than its original reception and after twenty years it feels like the better of the two Zelda games Nintendo released that generation.

Definitely i dont know it feels like twilight princess just lost the zelda charm if you ask me, out of all the 3d zeldas i do feel its definitely the weakest one, only criticism i have lf wind waker was collecting like 100 triforce pieces on the gamecube but the wii u version fixed this, did like the repetitiveness of collecting the bugs as a wolf so that you can transform into a human plus the only memorable dungeon i remember from TP was in gerudo desert
 
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