Tag: rewriting twilight princess

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Over the past few months, we’ve reviewed numerous issues with the story and proposed methods through which they could have been resolved – all while trying to maintain the same basic story as in the game we got. It’s one thing to provide a solution; it’s another challenge entirely to do so in ways that the development team could have feasibly implemented. Sure, not every idea was that simple…but then, I made no promises that they would be.

All the work we’ve done has been segmented: we’ve dealt with one issue at a time, rewriting it as best we could. Even so, it should be clear by now that I’ve been writing these articles with an overarching perspective – after all, we’ve often taken aspects of previous articles to use later in the series. So today, since we’ve gone through all the major issues that I noticed, I figured it was a good time for a general recap.

Herein lies the entire reworked tale of

Twilight Princess, replete with all of the changes that I’ve put forward over the course of this series. It’s my hope that, by viewing all these changes in one place, you can see the vision that I’ve had for the game.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

Standing on the outskirts of Hyrule, Ordon Village is Link’s home and, therefore, the first area you explore in the game. While this could have set it up to become a location of major importance as the story progressed, the developers decided to go an entirely different route: ignore it, forget about it, and hope that gamers do the same. I mean, it’s not like anyone actually pays any attention to storylines and arcs, especially not for a

location…right?

*cracks knuckles* Heh, heh, heh… Well, Nintendo,

actually…

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

Despite this being our third article on issues focused around the Ordon children, I actually had very few problems with the kidnapped kids themselves. They were mostly minor characters with minor roles, who completed their character arcs early in Link’s adventure and stepped out of the spotlight without vanishing or becoming stagnant: Malo took over the store, Talo manned the lookout tower, and even Beth and Colin at least had different things to say as you continued through the game. Most of them were fine as-is.

Key word: most. Not all. One of the abductees completely failed to live up to her potential, which is even more disappointing given how strong a character she was in the first half of the game. Let’s dive in and take a look at the child of Ordon whose role definitely deserved some improvement: Link’s dear childhood friend, Ilia.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

Last week we started looking at the issues related to the Ordon children, and this week we’ll be continuing that discussion from a different angle: looking at how Link himself is affected by these characters and his relationship with them. …Or, at least, how he’s supposed to be affected. What actually happens brings about a severe dissonance between Link’s goals and actions, completely undermining his character and rendering it much weaker than it should have been.

I can already hear the haters sprinting for the comments section…

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

Some of the biggest and most blatant issues with Twilight Princess revolve around how it handles – or rather, mishandles – some of its most important characters: the children of Ordon Village. We’ll be covering these problems over the next three (that’s right, three!) weeks, but to start with, we’re only looking at a single scene: one which holds the utmost importance in the game…and which, in retrospect, completely fails at its task.

Without further ado, let’s discuss the children’s kidnapping.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

One of the most memorable and freakiest scenes of Twilight Princess, if not of the Zelda series as a whole, comes after you’ve at last rid Hyrule in its entirety of the Twilight. Upon meeting with Lanayru, you’re treated to a tale of ancient times, when evil ran rampant in its pursuit of the sacred power of the Triforce. This story gave me chills the first time I saw it, and continued to do so even after I paused the game to go watch the scene on YouTube a couple dozen times (I was a timeline theorist! DON’T JUDGE ME).

(Editor’s note: TOO LATE)

Looking back on it, though, I do have one major complaint related to this scene. I have nothing bad to say about the Legend! Nothing at all! I thought that thing was brilliant! But…I do have a problem with the expectations that it raised and, unfortunately, never lived up to.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

It might seem nitpicky to say that there are issues with the Light Spirits and the Sages. Really, nothing they did was necessarily wrong – in fact, some of my favorite scenes of the game revolve around them (Lanayru’s Legend of the Dark Interlopers, anyone?). But, as with several issues we’ve discussed thus far, it isn’t always about what happened as much as what didn’t happen. In the case of the Spirits and the Sages, there’s a noticeable gap between what they could have been, and what they actually were.

Let’s expand on that, shall we?

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

It’s no surprise why the titular princess of the series was included in this game – she’s been there since the beginning of the franchise, almost always serving as a motivator for Link’s journey and oftentimes personally assisting him through the many challenges he has to face. But this incarnation of the legendary royal felt decidedly underwhelming to many of us, and her role has become yet another source of much criticism ever since the game released. Not to mention some aspects of her character arc are downright confusing.

Hop inside to hear what I’m talking about (assuming you don’t already know) and to see how it could have been done instead.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

In the second half of the game, we meet a specific group of characters who each help Link locate the ancient dungeons that house the Mirror of Twilight Fragments. Referred to in

Hyrule Historia as “The Resistance,” Auru, Ashei, Rusl, and Shad are all a great help to the Hero, and if people complain about them, it’s usually just because we didn’t see them more.

But although they’ve escaped the heavy criticism that our previous subjects have each been hounded by, that doesn’t mean that the developers finally got everything right. Even the story arc of the Resistance has a problem that I think needs some fixing up. Let’s see to that, shall we?

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

One of the most jarring parts of Twilight Princess comes during its second half, after Hyrule Castle has been enveloped by a massive barrier…that no one seems to notice. Why don’t they see it? Is everyone in Castle Town blind, ignorant, or idiotic? Does no one try to enter the castle at all? And that isn’t even the biggest issue I have with it – the real question, in my mind, is why does nothing else happen?

Don’t worry, I’ll explain myself. This seems simple at first, but it actually isn’t the kind of stuff that we can fix without resorting to one of those “huge, sweeping changes” to the storyline that I mentioned back in the intro article – but hey, that’s why the opening paragraph ends with a disclaimer.