Wake-Up Call: The Troubles of the Zelda Fandom

I've just wasted the last couple of hours finishing this thing, editing it, and putting everything up on the site, so I'll just quote myself from the newspost-

I'm back from the dead for one more article. This one's a rant...about YOU!

Well, sort of. It may apply to you, it may not. I'll be blunt, this piece is about how ungrateful a significant number of the Zelda fandom is, and how a lot of the heat the series is getting as of late is undeserved. It's very edgy, and controversial, so be warned. I expect a lot of people to be upset by this, but there is meaning to it.

Read it here

And now, with vacation over, I disappear again into the life of work, lacrosse, driver ed, school, and social activities. Perhaps if I find the time I'll be able to respond to the angry replies.

I want to pick out a few key points, even though I disagree with most of what was put here.

Originally Posted by Mirren

Of course, we get more ridiculous complaints like how the overworld is so small. Yes, small in comparison to all of four other titles/franchises; Shadow of the Colossus and it’s complete lack of any activity in the world, Grand Theft Auto and it’s mediocre graphics and obnoxious load times, and World of Warcraft and the Elder Scrolls, two series that are made for your PC or powerhouse systems like 360 and PS3. This is completely ignoring that Twilight Princess’s realm barely even has load times, or the sheer beauty that so many of the areas, such as Lake Hylia and Snowpeak, contain.

Twilight Princess doesn't actually look that beautiful. It actually looks horrible compared to Elder Scrolls. Now, I know Elder Scrolls has way more power behind it, but I expected the world of TP to be somewhat larger. I mean, the size of Death Mountain and Zora's Domain just don't cut it. And then they go the other way, and create monstrous areas for the Desert and Snowpeak areas. Most of that was wasted space. Why didn't they cut the space for each in half and share it with the more important areas?

Originally Posted by Mirren

perfect controls for two completely different controllers

The Wii controls really needed more fine tuning. When you thrust forward for a shield attack, Link does a spin attack. And it takes so long for the Wii to register the aimer for the bow.

Originally Posted by Mirren

If you truly believe in your mind that Twilight Princess is a mediocre game, then you have no inkling as to what a mediocre game actually is, simple as that. Go play something like Genji: Dawn of Samurai, or Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom, and you’ll see what real mediocrity is for an action/adventure, because it’s certainly not Zelda.

I don't believe TP is a 'completely **** game', it's just awful for what I expect from a Zelda game. When the quality is so low in the Zelda series, i wonder, why am I buying the next game in this series?

Originally Posted by Mirren

Twilight Princess was just as enthusiastic as the Wind Waker was with the varied gameplay, but it handled it far better. The game provided numerous activities in between dungeon-questing that had some meat and potatoes as far as substance and content went; the Twilight Bug searches, fighting King Bulbin on horseback, sumo wrestling, fighting the Twili Bloat, flying through Zora’s River, the Carriage Escort, bringing Midna to Zelda, the Sacred Woods/Meadow (at least the first time), the entire mission to restore Ilia’s memory, and so on.

The Bug searching got so old and repetative after the first one in Faron Woods. It was ridiculous searching the entire Lanayru province for these tiny bugs. The only fun bit was the last one which was a boss. Fighting King Bulbin was boring too in the first half. The bit on the bridge was OK... Flying through Zora's River can hardly be called an entire sub-quest. And the Ilia restoring mission was never even explained. Why was she taken?

Originally Posted by Mirren

and most recently, Twilight Princess presented multiple, very different phases to nearly every boss.

OK, but the bosses were so easy! And they still followed the same formula; use the item you got in the dungeon to kill it!

Originally Posted by Mirren

but should that really matter so much for a video game?

Of course it does! Zelda has been built around a storyline basis since it's creation, so we still expect great, unique storylines.

Originally Posted by Mirren

Zelda has shined in this respect for years, and it continues to out-do the competition. Whether it’s their unique personality, their colorful design, their intriguing background, or their gripping dilemma at hand, the characters in Zelda remain to be create some of the most creative and stand-out casts in any video game. They are what truly matter in any storyline, and very few other franchises out there handle their casts as well as Zelda does.

The only characters with depth in TP are Zant and Midna. No-one else has nearly as much depth, and most NPCs have no depth at all (most in Hyrule Castle Town don't even speak!). Zant's crazyness at the end wasn't executed very well either.

Good writing, I enjoyed reading it. But I don't agree with most of it. Nice article though. Always a pleasure to read!

I really like this article Mirren. It says alot of things about video game fans in general.

I blame myself for not enjoying Twilight Princess as much as the other Zelda games I played. As you mentioned in your article, I overhyped it, which is something I'll never try to do again. Also, I watched alot of boss battle and cutscene videos before actually playing the game.

I'm thinking alot of Zelda fans were dissapointed in Twilight Princess is because they are simply getting better at games and are getting older and smarter. Although personally, I'm not much better than when I picked up Ocarina years ago, I'm sure other Zelda fans have got alot better at playing the games.

So again, nice article Mirren and I also want to say that HYPE can be a very bad thing if you over do it. I've seen alot of ZU guys do it and they end up disappointed in the game because of their high strandards they made.

Long article, but very immature. It's basically a fanboy whinning about how his favorite Zelda game doesn't get enough praise. We hear enough of it here.

There are quite a bit of ligit complaints about Twilight Princess, but you don't bring them up because you just want to make everyone who doesn't agree with you look like fools. Is disliking the lack of side-quests, originality, difficulty, and freedom that ridiculous to complain about?

You want a game that doesn't get enough praise, look at Majora's Mask. If you want a community that is perfect, stop looking in the Zelda community.

Originally Posted by Kee Something

If you want a community that is perfect, stop looking in the Zelda community.

I don't think Mirren was really sayin' that. I mean a perfect community would be nice and all, but it just won't happen. What Mirren was getting at was probably something like in a way, we brought the disappointment of Twilight Princess down on ourselves. Now, Nintendo certainly could of made the game better than what it was, but you gotta admit, we hyped the game up like crazy. I remember the both of us going crazy over what we pictured TP to be like during the last two years.

I'm not really saying that not liking TP is a sin. Honestly I really don't care what people on the Internet think about games(please don't take offence to that.) We all have different opinions on things and we always will. I'm just sayin' maybe in the future we should lower our hype levels on games. I'm sure things could be better that way.

And with that, I'm done. I'm not big on debating/arguing.

I agree with a lot of this, although some of the points seemed like a stretch.

Like about the size of the world, the GC/Wii's power weren't to blame, and small load times isn't really something to keep bragging about. It's just how they chose to make the world, the balance they thought was best. I like the size of the world, if it were bigger things would just be stretched out more and each section would be a little less important and memorable. Hyrule isn't supposed to be the size of a real country, and I'm fine with that.

What I think is the biggest problem is everyone loves to be a critic, and hardly anyone wants to praise what everyone else seems to hate. I think the huge majority of Zelda fans love TP, it's just the people complaining are more vocal about it so it seems like a ton of people hate it.

And another problem is that since OoT became the Zelda standard when it came out, everyone bases their expectations for future games on it, and when the new game changes something, it becomes a disappointment because it's different. 'Sailing? Well it's different than OoT so it's not Zelda. Turning into a wolf? Too different, not enough like OoT.'

What I don't get is that these same people are also like 'Zora's Domain is in TP? Psh, too much like OoT, what a ripoff.' And what angers me about that is people don't realize OoT was basically LttP's Hyrule in 3D, no one complained about that back in the day.


About the hype thing, I agree that that's a big problem, it's one of the main reasons every game is crazily criticized these days. Luckily for me, TP actually surpassed my crazy high expectations, if it fell short even an inch I'd probably be saying the same things as everyone else on the internet.

I agree with a lot of this. It really was hyped to the point that it was supposed to be the second coming of Jesus, and when it just turned out to be just a video game there was much whining and gnashing of teeth.

Also, I agree that "mediocre" is definitely not the word to describe it. I've played mediocre video games before, and TP should definitely not be lumped in that category. It's a great game. Of course it's not perfect, but as people seem to forget, TP =/= Jesus.

Long article, but very immature. It's basically a fanboy whinning about how his favorite Zelda game doesn't get enough praise. We hear enough of it here.

Disagreeing with your views is immature? Did he even say it was his favourite Zelda game?

You know, totally crazy idea here, but maybe people were let down by TP not due to the overhyping of the game but of the sheer lack of new ideas in the game.

I know I didn't jump on the hype train, I had a look at a couple of pictures on IGN, read a short preview in a magazine of the Wii controls and that was about it, other than occasionally scanning Aussie Nintendo for a release date.
I'd just started a new job and would've forgotten to buy it if I didn't set a reminder on my phone to do just that.

I had nearly no expectations of the game, other than it being a new, original adventure. Majora's Mask and Wind Waker were original, each bringing fantastic new ideas to the table so I expected TP would do the same.
Maybe I should've had no expectations at all, maybe I should've treated the TP case as a blank DVD case, then when I put the disc in I would've been blown away, 'WOW A ZELDA GAME! I NEVER EXPECTED THAT ONE!'.

I couldn't help having expectations of it (as I suspect many others couldn't either), it was Zelda and it was new, of course I had expectations of the title.
All I wanted though was an original adventure, and I didn't quite get it.
I'd walk into a new area... and I'd been there before in OoT. And hey! The water temple's back! Complete with water levels. That you have to use the iron boots to access... again. And wear the Zora tunic so I can breathe underwater... again.
What's this Gorons? Your leader has gone to see what's wrong in the temple and hasn't come back? I'll go find him! Don't worry, I know what to do! I did exactly the same thing 8 years ago!
And so the similarities continued (Master Sword again? It didn't even explain why it was in the game! Chasing four ghosts around? Definitely haven't done that before!), each time giving me a sinking feeling. This wasn't evoking feelings of nostalgia, it was evoking feelings that I'd just dropped $100 on an OoT rehash. Not a good feeling at all, as it meant it didn't meet the one expectation I had of it, that it bring some new ideas to the series.

(There were many, many other reasons why I didn't like the game, however I didn't want to go into detail on all of them. Maybe next time )

I agree mostly with the article. Zelda has it's flaws-the combat, the overused storylines and the linearity (which nigh on all games have), but it has many qualities; the music (which is flawless), the characters, the gameplay, and the natural beauty of it. Zelda has been evolving over the past two decades, and Twilight Princess is the culmination of all it has achieved-nearly. PH should be okay, and then the series will go in a new direction. Remember, TP is 'the last Zelda as we know it'. What does that mean? Only time will tell...

Originally Posted by MMKB

Master Sword again? It didn't even explain why it was in the game!

Actually it did, you were probably too busy looking for references to complain about and missed it. Seriously, why are references to past games so terrible? The four poes, that wasn't put in the game because they really couldn't think of anything new, it was to give Zelda fans something familiar, which I liked.

So the Zora tunic being in the game pissed you off, and so did the iron boots? ONOES NOT STUFF THAT'S BEEN IN PREVIOUS GAMES. IT'S NOT LIKE MAJORA'S MASK OR WIND WAKER USED ANYTHING FROM PAST GAMES, AND IT'S COMPLETELY NOT LIKE OCARINA OF TIME WAS BASICALLY A LINK TO THE PAST IN 3D.

I mean seriously when you saw that you played as Link in MM you must've been angry huh? And the same old green clothes, man they're not even creative enough to completely change everything, what gives? Holy crap the hookshot makes a return, this is now a waste of money. Wait, and not to mention just about every other item in MM and WW. Actually besides the masks, most of the post-OoT unique items came out of...Twilight Princess, huh. At least they made the hookshot a clawshot and completely changed its use, they didn't even try something as simple as that in MM or WW.

Basically the only thing reused from OoT would be locations, but even those have changed a hell of a lot. They've changed just as much as they did between LoZ and LttP or LttP and OoT, but no one's going to complain about OoT rehashing those games because they were 2D, so they don't count as games.

Originally Posted by Linkprry

I don't think Mirren was really sayin' that. I mean a perfect community would be nice and all, but it just won't happen. What Mirren was getting at was probably something like in a way, we brought the disappointment of Twilight Princess down on ourselves. Now, Nintendo certainly could of made the game better than what it was, but you gotta admit, we hyped the game up like crazy. I remember the both of us going crazy over what we pictured TP to be like during the last two years.

I'm not really saying that not liking TP is a sin. Honestly I really don't care what people on the Internet think about games(please don't take offence to that.) We all have different opinions on things and we always will. I'm just sayin' maybe in the future we should lower our hype levels on games. I'm sure things could be better that way.

And with that, I'm done. I'm not big on debating/arguing.

My expectations were totally unrealistic when the delay was first announced, but I was pulled back into reality after September when we got the release date.

Originally Posted by CPW

And another problem is that since OoT became the Zelda standard when it came out, everyone bases their expectations for future games on it, and when the new game changes something, it becomes a disappointment because it's different. 'Sailing? Well it's different than OoT so it's not Zelda. Turning into a wolf? Too different, not enough like OoT.'

Sailing was criticized because it was tedious and not many have criticized the wolf segments, but it certainly isn't better than the transformations in MM.

Is OoT still the standard for Zelda? That is up for debate, but I can't say that Wind Waker or Twilight Princess showed enough improvement to be considered the new standard in the series. If anything, Majora's Mask should be considered the new standard because it improved on pretty much everything in Ocarina excluding the number of dungeons. Ironically, MM get's the least attention of the 3D Zeldas. I think most still consider OoT the standard because it is arguably the most balanced Zelda game.

What I don't get is that these same people are also like 'Zora's Domain is in TP? Psh, too much like OoT, what a ripoff.' And what angers me about that is people don't realize OoT was basically LttP's Hyrule in 3D, no one complained about that back in the day.

Not really. It's the fact that TP had most of OoT's landmarks, but did nothing to improve. In fact, you cxan argue that TP's towns and areas are downgraded containing less minigames, sidequests, NPC, and things to do in general.

OoT's map is very similar to ALttP's, but it grealy improved on them, and added more! On top of that, it was the first time we saw Hyrule in 3D. TP has Hyrule in 3D again, and nothing had been improved, in my opinion.


Is Twilight Princess a bad game? No. I'm currently on my 6th playthrough and I really enjoy it. Does it deserve to be called the best Zelda? Definitely not. It is too unbalanced for that. It has a decent amount of dungeons, but activity in towns, side-quests, and things to do in general are not very strong. Here is where Majora's Mask outshines all the other Zeldas. (I'm obviously a MM fanboy, but I do have a point, right?)

So, if the new zelda wasnt hyped up as much, had some new items and new ideas, and more side quests with some obvious changes to the town. that would be alright?

Originally Posted by CPW

Actually it did, you were probably too busy looking for references to complain about and missed it. Seriously, why are references to past games so terrible? The four poes, that wasn't put in the game because they really couldn't think of anything new, it was to give Zelda fans something familiar, which I liked.

So the Zora tunic being in the game pissed you off, and so did the iron boots? ONOES NOT STUFF THAT'S BEEN IN PREVIOUS GAMES. IT'S NOT LIKE MAJORA'S MASK OR WIND WAKER USED ANYTHING FROM PAST GAMES, AND IT'S COMPLETELY NOT LIKE OCARINA OF TIME WAS BASICALLY A LINK TO THE PAST IN 3D.

I mean seriously when you saw that you played as Link in MM you must've been angry huh? And the same old green clothes, man they're not even creative enough to completely change everything, what gives? Holy crap the hookshot makes a return, this is now a waste of money. Wait, and not to mention just about every other item in MM and WW. Actually besides the masks, most of the post-OoT unique items came out of...Twilight Princess, huh. At least they made the hookshot a clawshot and completely changed its use, they didn't even try something as simple as that in MM or WW.

Basically the only thing reused from OoT would be locations, but even those have changed a hell of a lot. They've changed just as much as they did between LoZ and LttP or LttP and OoT, but no one's going to complain about OoT rehashing those games because they were 2D, so they don't count as games.

When I was playing the game I was always looking for things to enjoy, for things to surprise me. I was never looking for things to complain about, these things just made themselves apparent to me, I never actually went out looking to rip into the game.

I wouldn't have minded if the returning items and tunics were used in different ways, but the fact that we used these same items, in the same sequence, in the same place to achieve the same result.
In other words if there was a whole town or world underwater that needed exploring with the Zora tunic and Iron boots then I wouldn't have minded. It was the fact that we were again using them to sink down to the bottom of a lake and access a temple, then using them to access different levels of that temple ala OoT that got to me.

As for Link looking the same in MM (he nearly always looks the same, I wouldn't expect someone like Sonic to suddenly become green or become a different animal so I wouldn't expect Link to dramatically change either), that was part of the games' odd charm. It took elements of OoT and warped them in such a way that they felt familiar but new at the same time. It pulled off the feel of a strange alternate dimension very well.

Originally Posted by Kee Something

Is Twilight Princess a bad game? No. I'm currently on my 6th playthrough and I really enjoy it. Does it deserve to be called the best Zelda? Definitely not. It is too unbalanced for that. It has a decent amount of dungeons, but activity in towns, side-quests, and things to do in general are not very strong. Here is where Majora's Mask outshines all the other Zeldas. (I'm obviously a MM fanboy, but I do have a point, right?)

You do, MM obviously has the most content of that type and OoT is the most balanced, but for me that doesn't mean they're higher quality.

I enjoyed playing sidequest stuff in OoT, but I've learned I really don't need it and in some cases it can even clutter the game for me.


I'm going to use Mario as an example, hopefully people here will get me.

So I'm guessing you guys know how replayable Mario 64 is, right? It's a blast to play, and you can rip right through the game if you know what you're doing. And even though it doesn't last a huge amount of time, and even though the locations are pretty tiny and, in my opinion, aren't even designed very well, when you play it you have fun. And when you're done you could just start a new file and have all that fun again. Most of the game is bam, bam, bam, star to star to star, each one takes maybe 3 minutes at most, and at the 100 coins it stretches out a little, and that's it. It's short and sweet and fun to redo.

Then there's Mario Sunshine. Much bigger, the amount of stuff to do is huge, side stuff is all over the place, there's just so much to do. You can beat the game sort of quickly, but the rest will take you forever. To me it's reached a point where there's too much side stuff. I find myself no longer interested in playing when what I have left to do is find 4 billion blue coins dispersed around a bunch of levels that each have 8 episodes, with no hints at where they might be. And I don't want to start a new game when I haven't completed this file, so the game stops getting played. It's not replayable, it demands too much even though the side stuff is not required to beat the game. Mario 64 had a better formula without having much stuff on the side at all.


This is kind of my feeling about TP and MM as well. I haven't 100%'d MM once, and this has prevented me from starting another file at all. I've 100%'d Mario Sunshine once and I don't plan on doing it again, it just wasn't fun or rewarding to get everything. But TP and Mario 64, I've 100%'d them each tons of times because the games are mostly just pure action you can run through and have fun with over and over again. There are searches here and there, like finding the 60 poes and the 100 coins in every level, but not enough to overwhelm anyone. Sometimes I don't want to walk through the fields with a magnifying glass studying every nook and cranny in the game, I'm very satisfied just going through the dungeons, finding poes and rupees in between, seeing the story, beating the boss, and finding the heart pieces, that's all I need. I can do it pretty quickly now and the second I finish I can start again, same with getting the 120 stars in Mario.

Originally Posted by CPW

You do, MM obviously has the most content of that type and OoT is the most balanced, but for me that doesn't mean they're higher quality.

I enjoyed playing sidequest stuff in OoT, but I've learned I really don't need it and in some cases it can even clutter the game for me.


I'm going to use Mario as an example, hopefully people here will get me.

So I'm guessing you guys know how replayable Mario 64 is, right? It's a blast to play, and you can rip right through the game if you know what you're doing. And even though it doesn't last a huge amount of time, and even though the locations are pretty tiny and, in my opinion, aren't even designed very well, when you play it you have fun. And when you're done you could just start a new file and have all that fun again. Most of the game is bam, bam, bam, star to star to star, each one takes maybe 3 minutes at most, and at the 100 coins it stretches out a little, and that's it. It's short and sweet and fun to redo.

Then there's Mario Sunshine. Much bigger, the amount of stuff to do is huge, side stuff is all over the place, there's just so much to do. You can beat the game sort of quickly, but the rest will take you forever. To me it's reached a point where there's too much side stuff. I find myself no longer interested in playing when what I have left to do is find 4 billion blue coins dispersed around a bunch of levels that each have 8 episodes, with no hints at where they might be. And I don't want to start a new game when I haven't completed this file, so the game stops getting played. It's not replayable, it demands too much even though the side stuff is not required to beat the game. Mario 64 had a better formula without having much stuff on the side at all.

But the Super Mario games are in a completely different genre. Platformer games generally have more replay value because they are so simple, fast-paced, and you can play the levels over and over again. It's much different in Zelda (with the exception of Majora's Mask) because you can't go back to dungeons and resolve puzzles/replay bosses.

Zelda needs the extra content to keep you coming back to it.

Great article, Mirren. I agree with many of the things that you have pointed out in that article, and I do believe that alot of the hate towards Twilight Princess evolved from people setting their expectations too high. And yes, the series is evolving, at it's own pace.

Whoever says that Twilight Princess is a "bad" or a "mediocre" or a "terrible" game is highly exaggerating. I can understand if people might say that it was a tiny disappointing, but it doesn't mean that it is a bad game. That, again, is just people's expectations controlling their opinions.

I agree with the majority of your article.

On the subject of hype, I didn't follow the "hype train." Infact, I didn't know squat about TP. Because of that, the plot and events were completely fresh. I really enjoyed it, and I gained a good connection with Ordon and Link's life. The Twilight was a mystery, and Zant was, to me, a completely unexpected villain. Midna was an interesting character who really did seem like a demon (that's what imps are.) I didn't know if she'd betray me or not, but if she did I got the feeling that I'd have had one awesome fight.

Originally Posted by The War Chief

I want to pick out a few key points, even though I disagree with most of what was put here.



Twilight Princess doesn't actually look that beautiful. It actually looks horrible compared to Elder Scrolls. Now, I know Elder Scrolls has way more power behind it, but I expected the world of TP to be somewhat larger. I mean, the size of Death Mountain and Zora's Domain just don't cut it. And then they go the other way, and create monstrous areas for the Desert and Snowpeak areas. Most of that was wasted space. Why didn't they cut the space for each in half and share it with the more important areas?



The Wii controls really needed more fine tuning. When you thrust forward for a shield attack, Link does a spin attack. And it takes so long for the Wii to register the aimer for the bow.



I don't believe TP is a 'completely **** game', it's just awful for what I expect from a Zelda game. When the quality is so low in the Zelda series, i wonder, why am I buying the next game in this series?



The Bug searching got so old and repetative after the first one in Faron Woods. It was ridiculous searching the entire Lanayru province for these tiny bugs. The only fun bit was the last one which was a boss. Fighting King Bulbin was boring too in the first half. The bit on the bridge was OK... Flying through Zora's River can hardly be called an entire sub-quest. And the Ilia restoring mission was never even explained. Why was she taken?



OK, but the bosses were so easy! And they still followed the same formula; use the item you got in the dungeon to kill it!



Of course it does! Zelda has been built around a storyline basis since it's creation, so we still expect great, unique storylines.



The only characters with depth in TP are Zant and Midna. No-one else has nearly as much depth, and most NPCs have no depth at all (most in Hyrule Castle Town don't even speak!). Zant's crazyness at the end wasn't executed very well either.

Good writing, I enjoyed reading it. But I don't agree with most of it. Nice article though. Always a pleasure to read!

First off, the grafics. This was my first next gen (actully now it last gen) Zelda since moving up from my N64 (I don't count WW as having next gen grafics) so to me this was like moving from black in white to color TV. I've learned that if you look past visuals, you can descover a truely good game (this what happens when you have only a N64 until 2006, when I got an Xbox).

I do think the Wii could use some work, but I thought this about the Xbox controler when I moved from N64.

What are you talking about? WW was the only truely disaponting Zelda (next to the cursed Phillips CD i titles)

She was captured becuase they thought she would be of value to them.

All games have a formula that remains constant

TP had the best story of any Zelda

Do you think every random person has to be a key part of the game? Link was developed more than any other game and it added in key characters like Ilia

This made sense to me, I think Twilight Princess is a good game, I just think everyone was upset with it because it didn't have every little thing they wanted in the game. (fanboyism)

And about Wind Waker, I also think this was a verry good game as well, the gameplay and bosses were good, you could pretty much go where ever you wanted after you leave dragon Roost island, And the story is verry good as well.

And the only thing that I can think of why people think its a verry bad Zelda game is because of the Graphics, and even this not much of a big deal..

You guys just build off your disappointment and give your self more pointless reasons to not like a good game because it had somthing you didn't like.

What the hell? This thread actually became active?

Well, I wasn't expecting to ever come back but...might as well. I won't reply to most of the arguments against my piece, since it seems that a bunch of you have started your own discussions about that.

Originally posted by Kee Something
Long article, but very immature. It's basically a fanboy whinning about how his favorite Zelda game doesn't get enough praise. We hear enough of it here.

I wish I had a favorite Zelda game, it'd make my posts and articles so much less complicated.

There are quite a bit of ligit complaints about Twilight Princess, but you don't bring them up because you just want to make everyone who doesn't agree with you look like fools. Is disliking the lack of side-quests, originality, difficulty, and freedom that ridiculous to complain about?

The originality I can understand (to some extent), same with the lack of side-quests (I emphasize "side-quests" and not extras, which TP is packed with) but I will always find it just plain stupid that someone thinks a game is immediately crap because of lacking difficulty and linearity.

Why? Because all of the 3D Zeldas are easy, and they're arguably the greatest adventure games ever made, same with Okami. And 95% of action/adventures are linear, and 95% of them don't suck. Resident 4 is possibly the greatest game ever made, and it's just as linear as TP, maybe more.

My point isn't to ignore the flaws in TP, my point is not to go ballistic over them and then push aside all of the game's positives, which many fans have done.

If you want a community that is perfect, stop looking in the Zelda community.

No need to tell me that twice!

Okay, but in all seriousness, I'm almost offended that you would imply that I want something perfect after all of the b-tching that I've done across the community about how it's ridiculous to consider any game perfect (you've seen me talk about OoT and you know it).

My friend, I don't believe in perfection.