Wind Waker HD took only six months to make, says Zelda Dungeon. What are your thoughts on this. Was six months enough to (re)make a decent game, or do you think TWWHD had some extra kinks that needed to be ironed out?
While I haven't played through the entire thing yet, it still feels wonderful and refreshing. It's beautiful, moves at a nice pace, and still has the charm of the original. In my opinion, there wasn't much to fix in the first place (besides slow sailing). It's still surprising how short of a time it took them to make this (what I believe to be) masterpiece.
The first person mode is flawed. They should have left in a normal option to make the aiming system like it was in the gamecube...or at least switch the left and right control stick operations. It's very awkward to have to let go of the control stick and then move to the button in order to shoot. Especially for moving targets.
I think they spent that small amount of time wisely on things that definitely improved the gameplay experience. They didn't make many substantial changes, but I think they used their time well. I think it would be fair to say that the return on investment for time on this game is much better than the average remake. The remake of ALttP for GBA for example was pretty much the same game, and OoT 3d was not close to what I was hoping for (more content). WW HD on the other hand addressed the vast majority of issues I had with the game, and to have done this in only six months is very impressive. To be fair though OoT had less things to fix (really just selecting the iron boots) so the designers seemed to make up nonexistent problems to fix that imo actually made the game worse like the enhanced cutscenes of puzzle rooms. Also I haven't played the game, but the list of changes made to it really impressed me. The only thing I would have added is allowing players to play the Wind Temple before the Earth Temple (unless they did fix this).
Well, I have played through most of the first dungeon so far so obviously, I have a long ways to go. So far though, I find the remake to be by far and away superior to the original. I like the revamped graphics, using the grappling hook in first person by moving the gamepad around is so much more fluent and nice then using the control stick imo. I like it a lot. I think that 6 months was fine.
More to come btw as I play through more of the game.