Difficulty-- SS or TP

[Djinn]

Looks like a few too many posts were not really contributing to anything in here. If that continues the thread will be locked.

 

[Sydney]

I played Skyward Sword before I had played Twilight Princess, but I can easily say that TP was much easier than SS. In SS I struggled constantly trying to figure out the puzzles and dungeons, whereas in TP I plowed through the dungeons and puzzles with ease. Even though Fi was much more helpful than Midna in their respective games, TP was still (unfortunately) easy. Does that mean it's a bad game? No, I thought it was a great game, but I do believe there should have been more of a challenge to it. Difficulty wise, SS takes the cake. Sorry TP, maybe another day.

 

[caleb11roy]

I played Skyward Sword before I had played Twilight Princess, but I can easily say that TP was much easier than SS. In SS I struggled constantly trying to figure out the puzzles and dungeons, whereas in TP I plowed through the dungeons and puzzles with ease. Even though Fi was much more helpful than Midna in their respective games, TP was still (unfortunately) easy. Does that mean it's a bad game? No, I thought it was a great game, but I do believe there should have been more of a challenge to it. Difficulty wise, SS takes the cake. Sorry TP, maybe another day.

You see this is proof that everyone has a different opinion and in this situation there is no one right answer! Thank you so much!

 

[Scoby]

SS was mch easier game, it's the reason it my least favorite game because it so easy.

 

[Vanessa28]

Hmmm I think TP was very easy. None of the bosses were hard, the gameplay was so easy I could play it blindfolded BUT I did and still do enjoy TP. But hey I'm honest; they could have done a better job at making it more difficult. There were scary looking enemies but that's the point. It ends just with the scary looks but defeating them was a simple walk over....coughcougharmoghomacoughcough.

But having said that the game is still my big fav out of those two though. Just because I enjoy to play it

 

[Cfrock]

In my experience, Twilight Princess was the more difficult game. Don't get me wrong, it is still a fairly easy game but Skyward Sword was much easier for me. I could rate it based off the fact that I died a couple of times in Twilight Princess and only once in Skyward Sword but that seems a bit too simplistic.

In terms of combat I felt Twilight Princess was more challenging. There was a lot more going on for a start. Link had his sword attacks, of course, but a lot of the dungeon items could be used as damaging weapons too, like the Ball & Chain and the spinner. The Bow was given a scope as well as turned into a bazooka by combining it with bombs. We could use bombs underwater too. On top of that we also had the Hidden Skills which, unlike The Wind Waker, actually required you to perform a specific set of actions to pull off. The use of these skills, while not necessary, deepened the combat a bit and the game was throwing so many different kinds of enemies at you all the time that mastering them all was fairly beneficial, I felt.
Compare that to Skyward Sword where it's all pretty much the opposite, as far as I can see. The items weren't as offensive in nature. The Beetle, Whip, Gust Bellows and Bug-Catching Net weren't much help in a fight (well, the Whip was helpful to a degree but its role was more to inconvenience enemies than it was to kill them). There were no Hidden Skills or fancy moves to speak of either. Combat revolved around the Motion+ and enemy design followed suit. Gonna shamelessly quote myself from the other day to save my poor fingers the effort:

I appreciate that Nintendo tried to add a bit of strategy to the way enemies are fought but every single one came down to just figuring out which direction to swing your sword. As Ventus mentioned, all variants of Bokoblins held their weapons to one side, indicating you had to attack from the other. The Lizalfos all did this as well and Beamos had electric blue lines on them which screamed out 'Cut here!' It was clear Skulltulas had to be stabbed, Quadro Babas guided you either vertically or horizontally, Moblins just let you hack away at them with little to no reaction and Deku Scru- I'm sorry, Land Octorks were just a classic enemy that required a classic tactic. It was fun to fight these enemies (and the many more besides who's names I forget, like those three-headed lizards that line up so obviously wanting to be slashed in that direction) but it was not difficult. Within a second or two, you are shown which way to slash and so you do it. Fun, yes. Difficult, not so much.

Twilight Princess's enemies felt more original and varied to me, they each presented a unique challenge. Skyward Sword's basically presented the same challenge over and over again, with only a tiny smattering of exceptions (like Armos). I found this made things easier because once you knew how to defeat the very first Bokoblin, you had already bested about 80% of the game's enemies. Starting with 6 hearts also helped make the game easier since it was a lot more forgiving at the start.

One area of combat in which I will say Skyward Sword was more difficult in was boss fights. Although epic and enjoyable, none of Twilight Princess's boss fights were hard. Skyward Sword's, while not really hard either, were more challenging overall.

As for puzzles, I never really noticed much difference. Twilight Princess mostly just used the same kind of puzzles we've gotten used to over the years (except for one nifty little moment when we had to put out the light in a few torches, rather than light the unlit ones) and Skyward Sword more or less did the same, in my opinion. However, Skyward Sword did add in some specific Motion-based puzzles, most notably the Boss Room's being entered by turning an oddly shaped block until it fit the hole, as well as some places where you had to roll bombs and others where you had to move your sword in a circle. Not exactly The Krypton Factor though. It was still pretty straighforward what you needed to do and even the ingenious Time Shift Stone puzzles were instantly obvious to me. So I wouldn't truthfully be able to say one game's puzzle element was more challenging that the other game's.

In the end, Twilight Princess gets my vote because, easy as it was, its combat was that little bit more challenging than Skyward Sword's in my opinion.

 

[JuicieJ]

Twilight Princess's enemies felt more original and varied to me, they each presented a unique challenge. Skyward Sword's basically presented the same challenge over and over again, with only a tiny smattering of exceptions (like Armos).

Which enemies that are not of the same race -- as in not counting different colors of a specific enemy breed -- performed in the exact same ways? I can tell you with accuracy it's none of them. TP's enemies mostly just consist of running up to them and attacking them. There are many instances in SS where you'll be fighting a Bokoblin, yes, so much of the combat is swordplay, but almost every other enemy breed doesn't use that blocking technique they have, and even if they do, they do it differently. Different tactics are required for beating different enemies. Plus, the fact there's diversity in the way you can swing and that you can manipulate a Bokoblin's defenses to your advantage if you wish automatically increases the way you can take out a foe. And do I need to mention the 7 different ways a Deku Baba can be taken out like I did in my article?

 

[Cfrock]

I addressed this in the quote from my last post.

Bokoblins would raise their weapon when you approached them. This indicated which direction to slash your sword. Deku Babas mouths indicated which direction to slash your sword. Quadro Babas indicated which direction to slash your sword. Beamos indicated which direction to slash your sword. Skulltullas indicated which direction to, well, thrust your sword. Those three-headed lizards indicated which direction to slash your sword. Lizalfos indicated which direction to slash your sword.

That significantly more than "none of them".

 

[JuicieJ]

I addressed this in the quote from my last post.

Bokoblins would raise their weapon when you approached them. This indicated which direction to slash your sword. Deku Babas mouths indicated which direction to slash your sword. Quadro Babas indicated which direction to slash your sword. Beamos indicated which direction to slash your sword. Skulltullas indicated which direction to, well, thrust your sword. Those three-headed lizards indicated which direction to slash your sword. Lizalfos indicated which direction to slash your sword.

That significantly more than "none of them".

Ah, but the way they go about this is different, and that was my point. You have to use directional swinging with different strategies. That's not found in Twilight Princess. It's just button-mashing/wiggle-waggling.

 

[Cfrock]

I don't understand how approaching the majority of different enemies by slashing in a specified direction equates to different strategies. I used the same strategy for all of the ones I mentioned: Approach, wait for it to tell me how to kill it, kill it. Enemies like the Armos and the little missile-firing robots are the only enemies I can think of off the top of my head that didn't require just a generic slash (like Keese) or told me a direction beforehand (like Bokoblins). Oh and those big horrible snails in the Lanayru Desert.

I just seemed to spend the majority of my time in Skyward Sword slashing with my sword while in Twilight Princess I used a more diverse range of moves and weapons. Just how my experience of the games went, I guess.

 

[JuicieJ]

I don't understand how approaching the majority of different enemies by slashing in a specified direction equates to different strategies. I used the same strategy for all of the ones I mentioned: Approach, wait for it to tell me how to kill it, kill it. Enemies like the Armos and the little missile-firing robots are the only enemies I can think of off the top of my head that didn't require just a generic slash (like Keese) or told me a direction beforehand (like Bokoblins). Oh and those big horrible snails in the Lanayru Desert.

I just seemed to spend the majority of my time in Skyward Sword slashing with my sword while in Twilight Princess I used a more diverse range of moves and weapons. Just how my experience of the games went, I guess.

There's a level of monotony when you're just mashing a button. The N64 games did a good job of staying away from that. The GameCube games didn't. Skyward Sword had different timing, different item use, and different swings both for different enemies and within specific enemies themselves (7 ways to kill a Deku Baba, multiple ways to kill a Bokoblin with the sword alone not to mention items, slashing a Chuchu in a direction so that it doesn't instantly morph back together, etc. etc.).

 

[Cfrock]

Therein lies the difference in how I played the game. While I wouldn't say 'monotony' because that implies I didn't enjoy it, throughout Skyward Sword I was pretty much only using my sword because the combat was largely designed for it and it got the job the done. In Twilight Princess I felt more encouraged to mix things up because there were more offensive items, more moves with the sword and it was rare that multiple types of enemy would do what I saw as the same thing. Like I said, in my experience Twilight Princess was slightly harder. Our experiences were clearly very different. And is that not the beautiful thing about The Legend of Zelda?

 

[JuicieJ]

Therein lies the difference in how I played the game. While I wouldn't say 'monotony' because that implies I didn't enjoy it, throughout Skyward Sword I was pretty much only using my sword because the combat was largely designed for it and it got the job the done. In Twilight Princess I felt more encouraged to mix things up because there were more offensive items, more moves with the sword and it was rare that multiple types of enemy would do what I saw as the same thing. Like I said, in my experience Twilight Princess was slightly harder. Our experiences were clearly very different. And is that not the beautiful thing about The Legend of Zelda?

In that case, I highly recommend playing through Skyward Sword again and trying to figure out all the different nuances of the enemies and situations. You just might find more variety than you originally did.

 

[SavageWizzrobe]

TP was easier for sure, especially in terms of the combat. In TP you can just waggle and abuse hidden skills to be successful, and enemies do on average 1/2 a heart of damage. In SS, on the other hand, you have to think before you swing and enemies generally do a full heart of damage. In terms of puzzle difficulty, the two are fairly similar.

 

[Not Take Mirror]

TP had some challenging parts but overall, I found SS more difficult.

COMBAT:
I think SS wins in this category. Enemies do more damage. Motion controls can make it harder at times. Like killing beamos, you have to slash at just the right angle to avoid getting zapped.
TP did have the Cave of Ordeals which was quite challenging but as a whole, I think SS was more difficult.

BOSSES:
Both games had pretty easy bosses with obvious weak points. I'd say SS may have been more difficult because the bosses seemed to do more damage.

SIDEQUESTS:
SS had alot more of them, so it would be harder to 100%
However SS had the far easier fetch quest, made easy with dowsing.
TP had the poe quest, which was very difficult to find all 60 without a guide

MINIGAMES:
Overall SS had the hardest minigames. All of them were difficult and frustrating for me. The worst being Dodoh's high dive. (I've never beaten it)
TP's minigames overall, were only moderately challenging by comparision. The major exception would be rollgoal, which is probably the hardest minigame in all of Zelda.

PUZZLES:
I'd say SS had the easier puzzles but it may be just because I played SS after TP and by then I had more experience with them. Also Fi is captain obvious and sometimes gave away the solution.