http://wii.ign.com/articles/744/744044p1.html
This is a very good article, or rather half an article written up by IGN's Matt Casamassina. I'm going to summarize the points that have been covered so far.
How it compares to Zelda games of the past:
He suggests that it blows them all away. That the game feels very epic: bigger, deeper, and prettier than anything released in the past. He comments on how Ocarina of Time is still seen as the best game to ever be released by fans and crititcs alike (it is the game that most often ranks as #1 on a fan or critic chart). Twilight Princess is a worthy title to push past Ocarina of Time.
Game Length:
Nintendo themselves has stated that the game will take players at least 50 hours to complete. Matt says this is a conservative estimate, usually when a company says something like "Final Fantasy 8/7 will take over 70 hours to complete" it means that seasoned gamers can halve that time. This is not the case with Zelda. Matt, by last night was 10 hours into the game, and with the knowledge of how the game progresses, he admits that he feels he has barely scratched the surface. matt also commented that in the first village, there is hours of side quests and interactions with other characters alone which can be completed.
Nintendo Wii vs. Gamecube version:
Matt notes that the controls for the Wii version have improved dramatically since the game was last displayed. He noted that before the controls were different, but not necessarilly better. Now, it is quite clear that the Wii version is vastly superior to the Gamecube one in controls, and it is also quite clear that the graphics of the Wii version are improved over the Gamecube one as well. Essentially, the game stopped being Gamecube primarilly, and became focussed on Wii. In his words: "If you have the means to buy Twilight Princess for Wii and you still get it for GameCube, you are a fool. And I state that without meaning to suggest that the GCN iteration is flawed - it isn't. It's an amazing swan song for Nintendo's older system." Essentially, the Gamecube one now seems like a scaled down version of a Wii game.
Controls:
He states that the controls are very customizable, but that the default mode does seem to be the best. The Wii version works remarkably well, and that many of the sub-weapons, such as the boomerang and bow, work much better than they ever had in the past (and we all remember how cool Wind Waker's Boomerang was). he also mentioned that people worried about their hands getting tired were being foolish, that no one experienced any of that, and that he had played the game 10 hours. The sword slashing using the wii remote works extraordinarily well, he said.
Beginning of the game:
Without revealing any important spoilers, he explains what the early setting is like. Essentially for the first hour, the game is locked into a set-story sequence. The game begins in a province distant from Hyrule in a small Hamlet outside of the main village. There is a half-hour long video on Youtube which shows a lot of this area (though it is from a year ago). The horse is received very early on, the world is so large that the horse will be required to move around; the videos show that this is hardly an action free field either. Anyways, the player will gain access to the first real village soon, and there is a lot to do there, apparently, hours worth of stuff. The village is also a human village (in Ocarina of time there were only two human towns, Hyrule Castle Town and Kakariko village, four other villages represented four other races: Gerudo, Zora, Goron, Elf) which points that there are probably a few of these, though that remains to be seen.
The Setting:
The game is said to start off very cheerfully, but that the people just are not yet aware of the darkness that has already began to arrive. The trailers of the game already indicated that the game will be a darker, and more mythical/faery tale feeling game than the previous ones.
Side Quests:
It seems, like all the trend in all Zelda games, that this one will have significantly more side quests than the previous.
This is a very good article, or rather half an article written up by IGN's Matt Casamassina. I'm going to summarize the points that have been covered so far.
How it compares to Zelda games of the past:
He suggests that it blows them all away. That the game feels very epic: bigger, deeper, and prettier than anything released in the past. He comments on how Ocarina of Time is still seen as the best game to ever be released by fans and crititcs alike (it is the game that most often ranks as #1 on a fan or critic chart). Twilight Princess is a worthy title to push past Ocarina of Time.
Game Length:
Nintendo themselves has stated that the game will take players at least 50 hours to complete. Matt says this is a conservative estimate, usually when a company says something like "Final Fantasy 8/7 will take over 70 hours to complete" it means that seasoned gamers can halve that time. This is not the case with Zelda. Matt, by last night was 10 hours into the game, and with the knowledge of how the game progresses, he admits that he feels he has barely scratched the surface. matt also commented that in the first village, there is hours of side quests and interactions with other characters alone which can be completed.
Nintendo Wii vs. Gamecube version:
Matt notes that the controls for the Wii version have improved dramatically since the game was last displayed. He noted that before the controls were different, but not necessarilly better. Now, it is quite clear that the Wii version is vastly superior to the Gamecube one in controls, and it is also quite clear that the graphics of the Wii version are improved over the Gamecube one as well. Essentially, the game stopped being Gamecube primarilly, and became focussed on Wii. In his words: "If you have the means to buy Twilight Princess for Wii and you still get it for GameCube, you are a fool. And I state that without meaning to suggest that the GCN iteration is flawed - it isn't. It's an amazing swan song for Nintendo's older system." Essentially, the Gamecube one now seems like a scaled down version of a Wii game.
Controls:
He states that the controls are very customizable, but that the default mode does seem to be the best. The Wii version works remarkably well, and that many of the sub-weapons, such as the boomerang and bow, work much better than they ever had in the past (and we all remember how cool Wind Waker's Boomerang was). he also mentioned that people worried about their hands getting tired were being foolish, that no one experienced any of that, and that he had played the game 10 hours. The sword slashing using the wii remote works extraordinarily well, he said.
Beginning of the game:
Without revealing any important spoilers, he explains what the early setting is like. Essentially for the first hour, the game is locked into a set-story sequence. The game begins in a province distant from Hyrule in a small Hamlet outside of the main village. There is a half-hour long video on Youtube which shows a lot of this area (though it is from a year ago). The horse is received very early on, the world is so large that the horse will be required to move around; the videos show that this is hardly an action free field either. Anyways, the player will gain access to the first real village soon, and there is a lot to do there, apparently, hours worth of stuff. The village is also a human village (in Ocarina of time there were only two human towns, Hyrule Castle Town and Kakariko village, four other villages represented four other races: Gerudo, Zora, Goron, Elf) which points that there are probably a few of these, though that remains to be seen.
The Setting:
The game is said to start off very cheerfully, but that the people just are not yet aware of the darkness that has already began to arrive. The trailers of the game already indicated that the game will be a darker, and more mythical/faery tale feeling game than the previous ones.
Side Quests:
It seems, like all the trend in all Zelda games, that this one will have significantly more side quests than the previous.
-Insert Inspiring Quote-
