i completely disagree with your TP comment, how is it a rip off? and it certainly isn't a step back, TP is 10 times better than OoT
I am not here to argue whether
Twilight Princess "rips off"
Ocarina of Time, since I do not believe it does. However, I will argue against the claim "TP is 10 times better than OoT."
Twilight Princess is a far weaker Zelda game than Ocarina of Time due to major issues in difficulty, sidequests, and game pacing.
Point 1: Difficulty
Twilight Princess, compared to most other Zelda game, and to
Ocarina of Time, has a far lower level of difficulty, making it less fun to play through multiple times. Enemies are of little challenge, with the Darknut being the only major enemy that is of much trouble, though even it is only of moderate difficulty once the pattern of battle is learned.
In addition, dungeons are mostly straightforward or are rehashes of
Ocarina of Time dungeons, except made easier. For example, the Lakebed Temple is a simplified Water Temple, and Arbiter's Grounds follows very clearly after the Forest Temple. None of the dungeons have any feature that complicates them incredibly, unlike the Water Temple or Inside Lord Jabu-Jabu's Belly from
Ocarina of Time. Plus, most of the bosses are predictable, with multiple "eye weakness" bosses, which do get boring after a while.
All in all,
Twilight Princess struggles in the aspect of difficulty, while
Ocarina of Time has dungeon and enemy difficulty.
Point 2: Lack of Sidequests
One of the major aspects of
Twilight Princess that was quite disappointing, probably more than any of its other issues, wad the lack of side quests in the game, especially when compared to games like
Ocarina of Time or
Wind Waker (not to mention
Majora's Mask).
Twilight Princess did have Golden Bugs and Poe's Souls going for it, but these were generally easier and less numerous than the Gold Skulltulas of
Ocarina of Time. In addition, these were two of only a few sidequests that
Twilight Princess brought to the table, most of which were simple minigames for a Quiver Upgrade or Bomb Bag, and possibly a Piece of Heart (for example: STAR Minigame, Falbi's Flight-By-Fowl). The lengthy sidequests were also far weaker than in
Ocarina of Time. While the semi-long Mask Salesman trading sequence brought Link the Mask of Truth and access to many Easter Eggs via Gossip Stones and the lengthy and difficult Biggoron Sword Trading Sequence brought a weapon twice as powerful as the current sword, the
Twilight Princess Malo Mart sequence brought the POTENTIAL to buy, for a large amount of rupees, an armor that used rupees and I found rarely useful, and the rather boring at times Cave of Ordeals brought.... Fairy Fountains.
Clearly,
Twilight Princess could have done far better in the use of sidequests.
Point 3: Game Pacing
Though it wasn't as poorly paced as
Wind Waker,
Twilight Princess suffered from severe pacing issues in the story. Though the middle of the game, from the Fused Shadows to Arbiter's Grounds, was paced fairly well, the rest of the game was not, at all.
The start of the game, before the first dungeon, though some parts necessary to explain the story, was very lengthy. Compared to in
Ocarina of Time, where most of the exposition was between the first two dungeons (getting the main part of the game started before getting too far into the story, and giving a sense of adventure in the first dungeon),
Twilight Princess had a time of well over an hour before the Forest Temple. Midna taking Link to Hyrule Castle was clearly necessary for the story, but perhaps some of the Ordonian story at the beginning could have been cut.
In addition, by comparison, the portion of the game from after Arbiter's Grounds to the boss fight against Zant seems to move too fast. Unlike others, I have no issue with the Ganondorf addition, but the later game dungeons seem to move too fast with nothing in between. In
Ocarina of Time, the exposition is perfectly spaced between the first two dungeons, and the late game does not speed up too much, with a good amount of things to do between each dungeon.
All in all,
Twilight Princess has multiple factors that make it a weaker offering than
Ocarina of Time.