Gossip Stone: Is Nintendo Making Enough Improvements in Twilight Princess HD?

Just as we are getting ready for more possible news from the Game Awards, the hype from the newest Nintendo Direct seems to have died down a fair bit at this point, making room for theorists to hop on YouTube and various forums, and discuss what they might expect from Zelda Wii U, Tri Force Heroes‘ DLC, and of course, Twilight Princess HD. That being said, we have hear almost as much negativity about what we saw of Twilight Princess HD‘s trailer as we have of positivity. The graphical update is not what man of the fans thought they would get, and that is causing some strife here and there. Should more have been done? Could Nintendo have easily redone the graphics like they did in The Wind Waker HD?

Join the discussion after the jump!

It has been argued that Twilight Princess HD was created simply to fill time while Nintendo was developing Zelda Wii U, and while I try my best to defend Nintendo, I believe I agree with this theory. While The Wind Waker HD may have very well started a trend of remaking Gamecube games, I really do think that Nintendo is remaking this game more for the sake of distracting us from their rather obvious wish to keep Zelda Wii U news under wraps. In doing so, they may have rushed to finish this potentially… unremarkable remake – doing little more than making the original visuals sharper.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some amazing and faithful HD remakes out there that simply up-res the original graphics, and are still worth the buy. Like any of the awesome HD collections by Bluepoint Games. But notice that word there? “Collections”. Nintendo is telling us to buy this game for the price of a full NEW game, on it’s own without any other games coming with it. One would think that they must be redoing the graphical style, adding new items, changing some gameplay mechanics and remastered music. But no. This is not The Wind Waker HD. The graphics may be quite clean in this new version, but by the looks of it, many fans are getting the idea that Twilight Princess HD will have better graphics, Wii U controls… and that’s about it, in terms of changes. Unfortunately, I am inclined to agree.

The biggest cause for skepticism about this game’s $60 value, in my case at least, is the work of a man called Tomoya Hamasaki. Below is a video by HMK, featuring an extended look at Hamasaki‘s non-profit Twilight Princess HD Project, started well before Nintendo’s announcement of the official game. Nintendo has likely been working on Twilight Princess HD as long as Tomoya, or a bit less time, but either way, check out what one group of fans can do in that much time.

The preview clips begin around the 1:10 mark.

Just recently, Tomoya released a preview video of the progress on Faron Woods.

This Project is supposed to be available to play in early Spring of 2016, and if that is true, I must say, Nintendo would do well to explain themselves. If one fan, later joined by some more supporters and programmers, can improve enemy AI, add new gameplay features, throw in some great shaders, and of course, remake the graphics and textures to that level, why can’t the game’s original developers do so? In even less time? Personally, this leaves me less angry, and more… confused than anything else. I certainly hope Nintendo surprises me with this, as they often do, and either way, I always love some Twilight Princess action, but I really do worry that this game will be a significant step down from their previous (and very impressive) HD Zelda remake.

What are you guys’ thoughts? Do these points point towards Nintendo being somewhat lazy with Twilight Princess HD? Or is there more to this game than meets the eye? Drop a comment.