It’s not as big as you think
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- Опубликовано: 22 фев 2023
- #hyrulefield #twilightprincess #wii #wiiu #analysis #essay
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Игры
I feel like Twilight Princess Hyrule Field definitely makes itself seem bigger by having all the important locations in the middle of the map (aside from the Faron region) and then having Hyrule Field stretch around the outskirts of the rest of the map, and allowing you to circle the entire way around without encountering a loading screen if you take the right paths. It's kinda like how Lon Lon Ranch took up a good portion of the middle of Ocarina of Time's Hyrule Field.
@@thekiss2083 It's possible as long as you take the west path around Kakariko Village (the one that crosses the old wooden bridge next to the bridge that connects to Castle Town) and the west path to the north of Lake Hylia (the one with the Spinner puzzle that nets you a heart piece and is has Lizalfos on the ground) rather than passing through West Hyrule Field. Those two paths bypass the Kakariko Village and West Hyrule Field loading zones respectively.
Though I agree with that mentality, I think most of us did a full circle by galloping and stopping with a "wait, that's interesting" every now and then, as Austin says. You can walk in OoT and BotW's Hyrule Fields, but TP's one is too barren to do that and enjoy it.
@@IceSpoon Perhaps. I've always found OoTs Hyrule Field to be much less enjoyable to traverse due to being less geographically interesting and the fact that Epona is optional and you can't even get her until becoming adult Link or after beating the Forest Temple if you missed getting Epona's Song before pulling the Master Sword. Twilight Princess gives you Epona after crossing the southern part of Hyrule Field only a single time. Also while it's secrets are further apart, I find the secrets in Twilight Princess's Hyrule Field to be far more interesting and easy to stumble across. If you ask me, though, I'd say Termina field is the king of open field areas in Zelda. It's very visually interesting, significantly smaller than OoT and Twilight Princess's Hyrule Fields, and contains many more, and very tightly packed secrets and goodies to find.
ye
Epona is pretty much useless in TP once you become able to transform into a wolf at will and warp everywhere. And Wolf Link can also run almost as fast as Epona.
What a great episode of "Austin says some stuff about a game I've never played" 10/10
Did you mean 'What a great episode of "Austin says some stuff about a game I'm now going to play?" 10/10'
i would highly recommend
You absolutely should play this game.
It's pretty alright. BotW kinda ruins the rest of the series. Ngl.
@@gigastrike2 I love botw and am excited for totk more than I am to live, but twilight princess is still my favorite and forever will be unless totk is that good.
The size gives it verisimilitude. TP's Hyrule Field is basically the smallest possible size they could get away with and still have it feel like you're actually travelling between different locations.
Ding fucking ding my dude!
If you look at the detailed Hyrule maps, the infinite death pits in the Elden province are where the Zora river flows. So when you are in the bird flying minigame up the river, you are technically going through those big dark chasms.
oh that is rad, I never noticed that.
@@KairuHakubi Yeah, also when you knock King Bulblin off of Elden Bridge, he presumably gets washed down to Lake Hylia, where you fight him on the next bridge.
@@fantomflasch2289 damn. more unexpected continuity than that thing where it turns out the first five McBain sketches go together as a logical storyline
oh yeah that's a detail i have always noticed in the smash games.
ye
The best part of Hyrule field in twilight princess is just seeing it progressively open up more and become more active especially around castle town (like the goron and malo mart stuff and small things like agitha going out to get bugs). That is one of my favorite parts of tp and makes it feel like you're really making a difference. Otherwise yeah it's just big for big.
I appreciate the “opening up” aspect a little bit, but it takes quite a long time to open up and until then you are fed the various portions of the map piecemeal.
It was a little frustrating to see - for instance - Eldin Province open up, and then realize you have virtually no option but to head straight for Death Mountain with little exploration. About 45% of Hyrule is unlocked after freeing the Lanayru Province from the Twilight, so you have to complete 3 whole dungeons before you truly get to explore “freely.”
After that point, though, I enjoyed the game a LOT more.
the way it takes a while to open up is something I disliked about it, coming from ocarina of time. as a kid, I just wanted to go mess around in castle town early on.
Personally, I liked the world's size for making Epona actually necessary to use. In Ocarina, Epona is quite literally just a side quest and is not necessary to finish it. In Twilight Princess, she is necessary and plays a role in gameplay and setpieces.
Also, Twilight Princess' cave systems and hidden puzzles (like the ice puzzle in the Lanayru province) make it so fun to explore, even if the stuff in between isn't the most amazing.
“If you think it’s bad, say you think it’s bad, and keep talking” - good advice for everything
This advice was bad. And I just said I think it's bad.
Thanks Kamoshida
Yeah all too often especially on comments o nothings people just say ‘no’ or ‘their blunt opinion’ and don’t explain why or elaborate or give any balanced view, if something’s worth saying it’s worth explaining
@@IceSpoon is not bad, for the reason the comment above explained.
@SeanLives I really like how you phrased that man, "if somethings worth saying, it's worth explaining." Very clear and concise, but can be applied to so many aspects of life.
TP's Hyrule Field felt so impressive back to me back in the day. I loved watching the shadows of the clouds pass by as I ran around on horseback. I'm a fan of the dollhouse approach that makes the world feel bigger than it actually is - in fact, I think it would be good if more games returned to world maps around this size.
All zelda games need to do is return to exploring dungeons not shrines
Generally, I prefer smaller, more detailed world spaces over larger empty ones, but the latter can be advantageous. It can give more focused moments additional room to breathe, like a quiet moment right after a high-emotion scene in a movie: You have extra downtime to ruminate on story beats or wind down after an intense bit of gameplay. It can also help to convey how desolate a setting is - Shadow of the Colossus is a great example.
Overall though, I'm glad we've mostly moved past the phase of games needing to sell you on how big their world is.
The bigger the maps got the more bored I got
Having played Twilight princess at launch on the wii, I was in awe walking through Hyrule Field for the first time. I was very satisfied with the amount of secrets as the game kept you coming back to discover new things like puzzles, chest, and heart pieces, as you progressed in the game and obtained more items. There doesn't need to be an overwhelming amount of things to do like skyrim to be considered good. I like that the game lets you breathe and enjoy the beautiful scenery, music, and backdrops of the world in between quests and dungeons.
i totally agree. it doesnt need to be smaller, or jam packed with POIs, i think it was perfect how it was.
yeah I agree... and it's sooooo much better than botw, which somehow gets a pass from everyone for being boring and empty
My favourite part of the overworld in Twilight Princess wasn't the overworld itself, but the handful of bombable walls that led to LOOOONG cave systems. They seemed to go on forever, you had to go carefully and check that you've investigated every intersection, and as far as I remember everything in them was optional--just rupees, heart pieces, potions, etc. It harked back to that feeling of pure exploration from the very first Zelda on NES.
Then BOTW removed caves...
@@RenSako Yep. I liked them anyway.
Partly because the game otherwise felt pretty scripted (all those long cutscenes ...) but the caves just let you go for a wander.
I remember when this game came out a lot of the excitement was tied to Epona being a really integral part with the new horseback combat mechanics as well as her having more story relevance. I think it makes sense that they purpose built Hyrule field for her and I personally recall it feeling more like a path that loops around the map than a big empty space.
I'm definitely in the camp that a slightly-too-big world with lots of walking and looking at stuff makes a game more engaging. I like when the game encourages learning landmarks and efficient pathing and punishes forgetting to do something while you were there. I also agree that the goodies you get in a game are more exciting when there's a little scarcity. I'm currently replaying paper mario, and I love how they kept all the numbers small. You do 1 damage for most of the first chapter, so it's awesome to be able to double bounce and do 1 damage twice. When you can finally do 5 damage in one hit you feel like a god. You can hold like 10 or so items, and only buy/sell/find one of one thing at a time, and only a different few things each part of the map, so it's worth figuring out what you like to carry and where to find it.
The keeping things small in Zelda is one of the reasons I like it so much. Getting the master sword feels significant because there's only like 3 swords in a game, and it's not like most games where I feel like am are swapping weapons every 5 seconds or need to constantly upgrade one.
@@alexanderackerman3807 I pondered the emotional significance of the Master Sword after reading your comment, and I’ve found that it’s not the same for me. In the 2D games, I don’t remember the Master Sword feeling all that significant to me aside from the substantial damage increase. In the 3D games, it varies, but typically comes down to the significance to the way the story unfolds as you claim the sword.
In OOT, you didn’t only get a legendary sword… you also got 7 years older, and doomed the kingdom to 7 years of turmoil under Ganondorf. (At least in one timeline)
In WW, you finally learned the truth about Boat-Dad, Tetra, and how/why Hyrule was flooded.
In Twilight Princess, you get back your true form, the ability to switch forms at will, and reconciliation/fantastic character development with Midna. You might even reconcile with Skull Kid, too.
I love when game words connect and your perspective of it changes throughout. For example, Elden Ring, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3
One thing I really disliked about Breath of the Wild was the pattern of the shrines. You have to activate it, enter, and go down the elevator. At the end, you talk to the character, get the same item, and teleport out. Some of this is skippable, but it really doesn't make sense to repeatedly put the player through the same little scenes over and over, especially if it's not to serve as a loading screen. Somebody mentioned how you can warp in Twilight Princess so you can experience the large fields once or twice if you want. You don't get stuck in the repetitive, useless pattern of traveling through them over and over if you don't want to.
Twilight Princess also has 3 times the enemy variety of Breath of The Wild and obviously it's a real Zelda, so the dungeons are truly unique and varied, the story is good too and you get heartpieces in many ways and no dogsh*t stamina or weird survival gameplay bloat.
Finding Poe spirits, collecting goldenbugs, and having the mail man sprint along the quiet plains of Hyrule and break the tension just to give me a letter are good memories I’ll never forget from this game. :) Thank you Austin.
The indiscernable difference between it being bigger and smaller that you're looking for is the fact that if it was smaller, having a horse wouldnt be nearly as exciting. And given how much the game wants you to ride your horse, and given how much of an improvement that is from ocarina of time's horse riding (and majora's and wind wakers travel combat), Id say hyrule field succeeds in doing what it set out to do. I remember being a lot more into the riding in twilight princess and it making for great moments that wasnt offered in the other games.
Botw has this too of course, but because there are a lot of areas you have to climb and since you can teleport near everywhere, and since the horse movement is also pretty automatic (you hardly control the damn thing) it doesnt really feel like a game very friendly for horse combat or riding.
If you're not a big fan of horse combat or whatever thats fine, I think that does answer your reason of "its bad/good and this is what that means".
For a game about actual exploration, I'll give botw points for that, but for a game that kind of centers around set-piecy, cinematic moments, Twilight Princess uses what it does have very well. I think they ultimately choose to achieve different things
Agreed. Also, does every location need to be dense? I mean yes, it's nice to have so much to do, but I always thought Hyrule Field was just the central land to go through to reach other regions and I never expected to hang around too much. It's just a wild field with some enemies and secrets if you look for them. Also, from a narrative point of view, Hyrule Field is the land you step into when you leave home and see the vast world. So, the epic music is great, the strange enemies are there to foreshadow your future obstacles, and your horse has value (much like it would in real life!) for the sake of getting around.
botw sucks
I dunno I've always really liked TP and its environments. It can be a bit big but it overall feels like it was designed as a slower experience compared to other games. It's cool to take a few minutes to enjoy a ride from Ordon to Kakariko. It's cool that you can loop around the entire field with no loading zones.
This was a really nice video, it helped me think about how perspective and environmental design make us believe the size of the playfield in a game is bigger than it actually is.
appreciate you
I don't think I've ever heard anyone so nonchalantly tear into a video game like this
It really tries to recapture that feeling of walking into OOT's Hyrule Field for the first time. Just a sense of overwhelming openness, designed to make the player feel small. If that's the goal, then I don't think every corner of Hyrule Field needs to contain curated content. My biggest complaint with games like Skyrim is that you can't walk ten steps without tripping over something significant. Let the world breathe.
I concur 100% even though BOTW has a ton of tiny curated areas with koroks and shrines the majority of it is just…… pretty, and a nice place to walk through.
Yes! A large world needs spots of emptiness between points of interest. If you stumble over something ever 10 meters or so it makes the world feel small again, and less immersive.
I've been replaying Twilight Princess recently and realized that the dungeons are really the game's strong point. I still enjoy going through the field but remember how I felt first playing it, realizing it's actually a bunch of smaller fields that make the whole map feel bigger overall. But after playing much larger games I see now how quick it is to get across these fields and it seems like there may be some graphical illusion that makes them look a lot bigger.
It feeling large invokes a specific feeling of a grand adventure, even if it's barren
I don't know how much I would like it now, but back when I was playing this on my Gamecube I loved the open horseback stuff. It felt epic, and the horseback fights with Moblins was so cool, it reminded me of Lord of the Rings. Twilight Princess was a blast.
Thank you for playing this game and keeping me from dropping money into my broke janky wii just so I could play this one more time. My favorite locations were Snowpeak Mountains (for the vibes) and the city in the clouds (for the anti-vibes) and I'm glad you gave them some recognition. I may not like your point on Hyrule Field as it hurts my boomer nostalgia, but you're right about one thing...we all fetishized Midna at some point in our lives.
you can’t prove I said anything about Midna
holy based. i made a tp video can i have 50 bucks lmao
I just beat this game 100% for the first time. I… agree. The biggest sin is locking so many objects to nighttime and then not giving the player a way to change the time, forcing them to check their phone for 6 minutes until the Poe appears
Twilight Princess's overworld suddenly becomes populated with content once you get the Master Sword. Poes and hidden grottoes pop up when they previously didn't appear before. The problem is that the Master Sword unlocks fast travel and the main quest will have unlocked most of the portals up until that point...so there's no reason to explore the overworld again when this new content materializes into existence.
That and also you get the horse charm super late into the game (between dungeons 6 and 7). Having to find horse grass to be able to call Epona is super annoying considering the world is so big and slow to traverse. Also not giving the player the option to cycle through day and night really made poe hunting a lot more inconvenient than it had any right to be
right
@@Thierce So big and slow to traverse?
Have you ever played Wind Waker, Breath of The Wild?.
@@saricubra2867 Yup, but im talking about TP
@@Thierce Pretty bad take, with epona it takes about 3 mins going from Ordon village to the top of the map. The shortest traveling time relative to game world size with Majora's Mask.
Wind Waker takes several dozens of minutes because it's all water.
PS: I started writing this comment before I finished the video.
Being big gives you a feeling of freedom that gives you a break in between the cramped dungeons.
I think something that you're really neglecting to note is the horse. (Ya I know you did now)
I mean if you could only ride your horse at top speed for like 10 seconds before you hit a wall, or if your horse was only slightly faster than walking, it would feel a lot lamer. To be honest, when warping is in the game, it's not like you're actually having to run through these fields constantly anyway (like you basically have to do in wind waker), so honestly, it functionally serves more of a way to make the game feel like it isn't all locked in doors.
Personally, I actually have a lot of fond memories riding and running through these fields. For me it kinda has the chill vibe of a car ride. Who knows, maybe I'd be sick of it if the whole game was riding though this field, but since it's basically an optional activity, it really just lets you have a nice victory ride after clearing a dungeon you've been stuck in forever.
I also never really went into the game expecting it to be realistic, so maybe that played a role.
In case you are wondering, Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild are a toss up for my favorite game of all time. Some might be surprised to hear that, but as amazing as BotW's world is, I did kinda miss the aesthetically diverse and difficult dungeons from TP; that's a big part of Zelda for me.
Just woke up from a 10 year coma. Glad your channel hasn't changed!
Was thinking the same thing!
For the record: this comment is a joke about how 10 years ago Austin uploaded the first Twilight Princess Eggbusters episode. This channel is special and always will be.
This is beautiful. We need an unremarkable and odd places for twilight princess!
I remember fighting the bulblin king in that really cool horseback combat section being one of the high points of twilight princess. I remember one of the low points of twilight princess was when I went back to the area you fight him in, a weird outcropping of empty land seemingly surrounded by bottomless pits, and realized that it was just a boss arena with no value beyond that single set piece.
litterly after that the bridge got stollen and you had to find it and teleport it back
I don't know if it's just because I'm high but this episode felt like the most ranty stream of consciousness. Like it made sense and felt totally abstract at the same time
That's our Austin for you
literally
It also helps that the entirety of Twilight Princess feels that way.
I think some of Austin’s comments were a little unfair to the game but most of it is on point.
I feel like there's literally no other channel that's talking about and appreciating games in the same way that we see here. I love it.
I would describe this video as "borderline incoherent" but also probably "my favorite thing I've seen you make"
Video essays should be like this.
Hyrule Field is neither too big nor too small. It's precisely as big as it means to be.
The weird thing to me is how little I remember of this field. I just remember it was exactly like I always dreamed zelda could be, right down to the horseback combat stretching across the field. I think it's because it's so empty and not very interactive, compared with the previous fields where you had a lot of like.. hey go roll into that tree, cut that grass, see if there's a secret bomb spot.
There are bomb spots, you weren't exploring enough or judging a book by it's cover.
I get it if you don't remember Twilight Princess, there's no official way to play it nowadays on a current console.
I have the Gamecube original and still a fully functioning retro CRT Wii and Gamecube setup.
@@RenSako Hmm, you have stuff in the mountains and for other areas. I ended up finding heartpieces in every single one, just like in A Link To The Past.
It's so great seeing you make another video on my favorite game of all time! Funnily enough, at the time of this upload, I'm replaying Twilight Princess for like the 100th time haha. I'm very bias but TP's Hyrule Field is still my favorite - I love the music, all the locations, and everything you can do in each part of the field.
The fences on the wooden bridge are 2+ meters tall. That makes me believe they literally enlarged the map after they designed it
yes! i love your closing thoughts here. why are we all so fixated on being the judge of art goodness when all that does is shrink the discussion to a boring yes/no question. tell me how you feel when experiencing the thing, try to articulate why it has that effect, point at things and ask if they're weird! make your art critique into art in and of itself. not everything has to be a quantification.
9/10 comment. :p
I really feel what you’re saying here! Basically, more media analysis needs to focus on the experience rather than judgement, on qualia rather than quanta.
I bet there was pressure for the developers to make the game feel larger to look good up against the open world fad starting to catch on at the time. Note the comparison to Shadow of the Colossus.
well that, and they were kinda trying to be the opposite of the previous game, while still running on the same engine and with the same designers and lots of same people.
I'm so happy for this hard hitting 16 year old journalism.
Getting this post notification on my phone while doing homework was so wild I closed my computer
Back to work Emma
It does remind me of how Morrowind felt like a much larger world just because of how slowly your character moved for much of it, and as you become more powerful and more swift the world becomes smaller and smaller. If Link was really big but his movement speed didn't scale up to that, it'd still feel big
Twilight Princess sticks in my mind because it came out as the exact same time as Okami, which is a mind-blowing, incredible game that also featured a wolf on its cover. Although now a beloved classic, at the time Okami came out it did so poorly in sales the studio shut down. I have always thought it is because people were only going to buy one "wolf" game ta a time, and Twilight Princess had the big Zelda name. Not that I hate it, actually it also sticks in my mind for the soundtrack and some really unique areas, but it is nothing compared to the beauty of Okami.
I personally liked the openness of it in TP, you almost always have epona or wolf form to go fast and so the big emptiness let's you feel fast. Not to mention the great soundtrack, it progresses with the different parts of the day and can really add to the mood with the occasional optional exploration.
Yes but riding through all the different sections of Hyrule Field on Epona is a blast!
“Here’s a nice cardboard cut out of Hyrule castle. Zoom in on that. That’s a classic.” 😂💀 The deadpan voice is chef’s kiss.
The phrase if you think it's bad say it out loud and then keep talking is a phrase I think should be used more often.
5:46 Death Mountain looks like goddamn cabbage and I fear I'll never be able to unsee it again.
The horseback was placed into the game for good reason. It gives the inflated largeness of Hyrule Field more meaning by giving it a grander sense of adventure. What's more exciting: walking on a big field, occasionally stopping to battle enemies, or epicly galloping on a horse and slashing enemies with your sword as you trot by? Obviously the latter. I mean really, they even change the theme to fit the badassness of you galloping on your horse by altering certain parts of the Hyrule Field theme. It shows their intent loud and clear.
Also, the game definitely is not bad. It has an excellently crafted story, and some of the most well-written characters in the series (especially midna). The temples are also excellent and the boss fights are some of the best in the series (as well as the combat in general with the hidden skills and whatnot). On top of that, the darker feel of the game is much more preferable to me alongside the art style, which is better than what BOTW offers, which doesn't fit the series as much imo. It's too...anime. And this is coming from a huge anime fan.
But yes, hyrule field is very empty and they could have sprawled a few more things here and there to fix that. Though do take into account this is an old gamecube game and tech was limited at the time, so I think they did very well for a game that old. Ocarina of time's Hyrule Field really isn't any better.
Either way though, I did like the video overall. It was interesting to see the areas you cant explore pointed out. Never really paid any attention to that. And the comparison to the tree walls in Ocarina of Time was cool.
You know, the gorges actually make me think of something I hated in BoTW, which is the northern section of the map. I don't really like bottomless pits in level design, anyway. You look at a death pit and know there's nothing down there, but then get irritated because instead of having _nothing_ down there to explore, the game could have had _something_ instead? Invisible walls actually bother me far less in games than using canyons/gorges/bottomless pits to indicate the limit of the world.
For me the field is only memorable because of the things that take place in it, not the field itself. King bulblin fight, the freaking mailman run up to you with his eyes bulging out of his head like he's in the vacuum of space, catching bugs for a girl, some other interesting fights, and of course the Zant and Ganondorf fights
I'll never get that mailman out of my head
@man with a username I'm not sure I'll be closing my eyes tonight, thank you
Oh gods, is this how he became the mailman?
Some of my favorite parts of your videos is watching them on the clock so we both get PAID.
ALSO SUPPORT THIS MANS PATREON SO HE CAN MOVE SOMEWHERE WITH BETTER INTERNET AND BRING BACK THE CHILL ZONE AND SHOW US COOL PLACES IN FLIGHT SIMULATOR
Your assessment of twilight Princess sticking out certain people’s memory more than BotW is accurate because BotW is a blur to me and I never feel like revisiting or doing anything with it but I always wanna revisit Twilight Princess if not for anything than the dungeons and story
Twilight Princess is by far the easiest Zelda to 100%, by that alone the exploration is good as well.
I rather punch myself in the face than trying to do the same in Breath of The Wild and Tears of The Kingdom with Shrines and koroks and spirit orbs that shouldn't exist.
Twilight Princess is old school simplicity.
I'm about to finish twilight princess for the first time (might get all the bugs and any left over side quests first so I've been putting it off for a few weeks) but I've never played a game before that annoyed me so frequently but was still so addicting and enjoyable. I've heard people talk about how a certain amount of jank can be charming and I definitely think that applies here, playing this game makes me so nostalgic for when games weren't so polished and perfect. I'm kind of hoping BOTW2 goes in a darker direction like this game and majora's mask did, based on the trailer I think it will but for some reason I can't get very hyped for it? I think I just got so tired of BOTW and just wanted a fresh, clean slate type of experience but I really hope it blows me away! Awesome video, I can't believe I never played TP sooner, I just love almost everything about it
Yes! We need another installment of angsty link
Yeah I just can't get excited about a game that started as DLC and ended up taking 6 years to develop using the same engine as the last game. I think of BotW as the best game I've played in years that I have almost no desire to finish. It just doesn't scratch the Zelda itch for me.
It TotK manages to throw in a bunch for old school fans I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I am disinclined to think that's the direction this team is even interested in going. As it is I'm not even sure I want the game on release
@@chompythebeast me either, the shrines are so soulless and repetitive and the divine beasts weren’t much better. I think that has to be the biggest disappointment in BOTW for me, the only thing that comes close to resembling a traditional dungeon/temple is at the very end and you only get one.
I feel the same way as you guys, and seeing that TotK will be reusing the same overworld as BotW really worries me. I have no desire to explore that version of Hyrule again
I appreciate seeing these more one off videos. Series are great too, but keeping different content in as well keeps things fresh.
Also it makes sense given the game is literally about Twilight, but TP's sunset/sunrises are simply gorgeous
love this video so much, it's so cozy and interesting
and an update on that surgery consult: it didn't go as planned, but it went well, and i may be one of the scheduled live broadcast surgeries for WPATH training standards! thanks for putting out the best videos and music to calm my nerves with, austin. you're amazing
the difference between walking and going everywhere on horseback is that you get to ride a horse. hope this helps
this is the best channel on youtube for just talkin about games. and games are fun to talk about.
In a world of highly scripted video essays, there's something refreshing about hearing someone just ramble about something that interests them. With the caveat that the person has to be naturally entertaining enough that the viewer does not get tired of hearing them repeat themselves and stumble around. For me, austin strikes this balance.
to be fair, breath of the wild even has death planes at the edge of the world.
I think Hyrule field in tp serves the same purpose as the ocean in Wind Waker. You’re meant to experience it on horseback, and the map just gives you a playground to run through, simulating travel across the countryside the same way wind Waker, and even phantom hourglass, simulate seafaring.
I feel like the low density was precisely so you'd just get to enjoy some horseback riding for a bit (I think it's a fair sacrifice to make you *think* the world is big, which is nice), and then maybe find a couple secrets in the postgame. You have to think it also accomodates a couple bossfights and an escort mission. All in all, could it be better if it had BotW's content density, or more interesting terrain? Sure. But the game didn't really have a use for that in its final state.
I remember being excited about the possibly of having a scene where Link fights alongside an army against an army of monsters and maybe that was the reason for the size of the map. Never happened but it could have.
I appreciate that this is basically themed rambling and then pointing at things like "wow, that sure is funky, huh?". Something about it really suits Twilight Princess
Great video. One thing I found engaging about TP Hyrule Field was the emptiness for setting the scene of a world that has been stripped away- that extra moment of contemplation especially without the horse - just listening to the music and feeling how empty it is in comparison to the vibrant small community you start in. It really made the switch from environments and gravity of the world being unpleasant
I love TP's version of the field but a lot of areas are like this when you start paying attention. There's very little reward to explore outside of the golden bugs or hidden chests, but like the ones you found in the video, many are on the main paths themselves.
I find that Hyrule Field, and Twilight Princess as a whole, is full of those weird spaces that you never really notice because there's no reason to. You'd probably be able to make a whole episode of "things you've never looked at" on it. There's weirdly a lot of detail in areas with no detail, if that makes any sense.
Impressive for the time where previously you had a bigger, emptier ocean and before that was tiny Ocarina and Majora over worlds.
I wonder how much the size of Twilight Princess' Hyrule Field had to do with the beta Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time (as seen in the Giga Leak, iirc). Maybe the devs saw it as a chance to do what the N64 just couldn't handle.
Your concept of them just blowing up an actually small thing very nicely sums up that early OoT field's feel for sure. Thanks for articulating that, and for this video!
Now that I think about it, my fondest memories of Twilight Princess was the dungeon exploration and not the overworld exploration.
The purpose of making the field bigger, is..
1). More area to hide secrets in, like the bugs, heart pieces, optional little caves and other such things,
2). To give you the sense that you're traveling larger distances between diverse locales (always found it funny in some older RPGs where a snowy mountain is within 30 seconds walking distance from a desert which is only 45 seconds walking from the sea),
3). To give you a reason to actually care about riding the horse,
4). To give you a big enough area to escort the wagon during that quest where you do so,
5). Just to give you an opportunity to see this huge sprawling landscape (even if most of it is a facade).
At the time when TP first released, it was the first 3D Zelda game since Majora's Mask IIRC, and graphically and design-wise, it was a huge step up from the N64 games. They wanted to give you bigger areas, but couldn't fill these areas in with lots of set pieces etc because of hardware limitations of the Gamecube (this is why areas with lots of details such as broken bricks, bushes, etc are usually up ontop of ledges or down slopes that you can't see from a distance). At the time, when this came out, it felt _amazing_ even if by today's standards, you're just seeing a giant empty field with a tree here, a fence there, and a few bushes over there with uniform blankets of grass as far as the eye can see with lots of "death pits" everywhere. 16 years ago, this kind of stuff was amazing. Today, any budding developer could re-create a field like this one and stick it in a generic Unity or UE engine game with some assets lifted from the asset stores. It's a testament to how far gamedev has come.
love how austin just gets distracted by random things mid sentence hes just like me
In Red Dead Redemption 2, you actually spend the majority of the game in an area that was one of those cheap, deceptive far off regions that gave the illusion of size in rdr1.
I find it very strange to go back to rdr1 now and look at New Hanover, Lemoyne and the north half of West Elizabeth before they really existed
Austin never fails to cheer me up. I love watching these and seeing others relate as well. It’s like we all have similar minds how we perceive things. I love you all
I think, as I grow up and spend more time on larger games, I find that I don't have the same emotional connection I had as a child to the neat little things you find in a smaller world or smaller areas.
No idea how to explain, but maybe an example will help?
In The Witcher 3, I came across a beautiful garden with wooden lattices, it appeared to be very old and storied (as it was partially falling apart, I think) but I kind of just rushed through it, looking for The Next Thing.
Meanwhile, as a child, I recall spending time in the room at the entrance of the Forest Temple of OoT, just hopping from tree to tree and enjoying the ambience.
I still think about that garden though, so maybe I just wasn't in the right headspace at the time.
Maybe I just spend too much time watching Austin's "weird and unusual places" videos.
I remember buying a Wii back in the day so that I could experience the largeness of this field in glorious 480p
Holy shit you're so close to 100k!! I love listening to just rant about stuff, your videos are honestly so refreshing compared to so many other people who make formulaic content. I know you're not a huge channel, but I really appreciate that you still upload so consistently over the years, it really shows your passion and I think that's cool.
Austin, you make really thoughtful and well-reasoned videos on videogames in such a way that it expands my own appreciation of them. And that's so precious to me!
I personally like twilight princess way more than BOTW. It just has so much more character. It doesn't have as much "stuff", no doubt, but its limitations almost makes the game have a more mysterious and intangible air about it. The art, sound design, locations, and characters also feel so much more inspired to me. Its genuinely intriguing to me which is part of why I love it, but I also love the characters, the vibe, the temples, and the minigames. Something about BOTW ironically felt more empty and shallow to me, like nothing really had significance or consequence. I felt like BOTW allowed me to be lazy and find a way to cheese the puzzles. I realize this is a very unpopular opinion haha
i dont really find the game boring except for the section where you go find the book pages that was a little slow
could it have had more quests and depth to the field sure but the devs were pressed for time for and it still came out as one of my favorites of all time
@Obscure Gun very true and even majora's mask managed to become something special in such a short time
That's what she(Zelda) said.
The 12 Angry Men reference really caught me off guard, that was hilarious
Man I watched your videos years ago and now that Ive found your channel again its like a blast from the past.
XL love this video style. Pausing to admire small details in the middle of what you're saying is just wonderful
7:05 "Twilight Princess is a very boring game, but its moments of excitement are a lot more exciting than the least exciting moments in the game... which can sort of make a game like Twilight Princess for certain people stick in your memory a little more deeply than Breath of the Wild." You caught me red-handed - I'm that kind of person. I have to admit that I love TP in spite of its obvious flaws.
Austin your thoughts are on another social class level.
I guess they were kinda forced to expand Hyrule fields, since they wanted to keep realistic proportions concerning Castle town and a surrounding environment for it. Castle Town is huge in size as well, but yeah it also shares the same issue. You can only enter 7 doors in the biggest city of this game. It's a shame this game felt so empty, but most of the time it felt at least bigger as it was. It worked for my 17 year old self. Videos like these remind me, how naive and easy to be impressed I was. Thank you! :)
The "Flat cutout" of Hyrule Castle made me think, "Let's not go to Camelot, it is a silly place."
But for real, most of the unconvincing distant landscapes are artifacts of this being a game originally designed for Gamecube where you would be playing in 480i resolution and those objects didn't need to be detailed because they were supposed to be blurry and distant. The HD remake of Twilight Princess didn't actually do much besides put more detailed textures on everything and make it run in 1080p.
I think the only reasons Hyrule field is so large is for the final battle arena and that one protect the cart mission that plagues my childhood.
I played Twilight Princess as a kid, and it's the Zelda game that had the strongest impressions on me. I never completed the game, although I think I only had like the last area left after the sky place, not sure. I distinctly remember the chickens in the sky, and the desert atop the plateaus beyond the horizon that you need a canon to reach.
My childhood memories vastly misconstrued the canon. Like a vague thing I was sure was real. Like I knew the canon was real, but it had this puzzling vagueness about it in my memories. I think there is something so dreamy and impressive about launching oneself over the impenetrable border walls of videogames, revealing a completely new location and atmosphere. It was the foundation for so many fantasies and dreams. (And later when I played Mario64 on ds, I'd end up dreaming the same of the outside castle, and that waterfall beside it. I wanted to go up beyond the waterfall. And also to see what was ontop of the roof and behind the castle).
I had many dreams that merged various places together. Some vague dreamy mishmashes. Places that puzzled me while playing, or seemed suspicious, my subconscious would make up secrets there for me to find.
Such a peculiar game. The characters, the atmospheres, the artstyle, the sounds... the chicken people. Sus.
i feel like Austin's thing is that he explains gaming stuff like he's talking to a non-gamer girlfriend LMAO
death mountain is a ball for some reason. maybe they wanted it to be the moon, but I noticed this when using an infinite double clawshot code.
Crazy how twilight princess has just as empty of an open world as ocarina, but it’s art direction and (seemingly) vastness makes it so much better to navigate.
Isn't near as empty as Ocarina of Time. There is a complex cavern system that it introduced and it was removed in Breath of The Wild for some reason.
It had Heartpieces inside dungeons as well besides the boss room which was a first for the series, expanded upon the hookshot concept and getting more use on the overworld, dungeons...
Fun fact, Twilight Princess has 3 times the enemy variety of Breath of The Wild, 7 real dungeons.
The game is still awesome, very fun to explore, mainquest is complex and varied, sidequests are straightfoward, fun dungeons, the camera system (on the Gamecube) is still better than current games...
Don't judge a book by it's cover.
The concept of measuring something not in units of length but in time is something I do a lot in videogaming. The experience of the player comes in a change in surrounding/environment. How much time that takes makes a big difference. I bet you could remember a time in a game where your movement speed is greatly reduced (ie stuck walking) when in a beautiful/impactful area. Now imagine all the different speeds you could have available; some players would zoom right by without even noticing. This must be balanced with how much time it takes to cross an area because time is a fundamental resource the player has limited access. The result is to think of a space in terms of time, and to make the time they spend as entertaining as possible. I think all games try and balance this issue of exploring a "space". weather that may be an actual map or the 64 squares of a chess board, the rate of exploration is commonly more important than the space to be explored.
I really like these videos you make. it makes me feel less crazy knowing im not the only person thinking of these kinds of things while playing games.
totally agree. I think it's why there's been such a push these days for bite-sized gaming and 'gameplay loops' and all that other stuff we didn't really used to need. because OTHER games, the big cinematic AAA games, have gotten verrry slow. last time I tried to boot up RDR2, by the time it was done loading, I managed to leave the camp, run over a turkey, bring it back to the camp for food, then I was out of gameplaying time.
I’m glad you pointed out how terrible Death Mountain looks. To this day I still don’t know what I’m looking at
I always felt that the field in Twilight Princess was very tedious, but I kind of feel that way about most of the ‘boring hub’ areas in zelda games. Good video.
You're so right, I wish people would waste less mental energy on "good" and "bad" games and just open themselves up to what a game is offering
It would be interesting to see a mod where Hyrule field was shrunk down and see how it plays
Thanks for making such great videos that always seem to scratch my geek-itch!
new austin content makes any day incalculably better
I think it’s a lot more fun that the field is big initially but feels a little smaller when you get your horse. The difference in the initial slow toil vs barreling through it all later is a fun contrast.
For me it depends. Because like, I want to believe that the world is way bigger than what I experience in a game. Like in let's say Morrowind, I believe that there are other countries and civilizations because there are ships and docks that say they take people to other places. But in Twilight Princess and OOT theres basically just walls and no believable roads. Where does Hyrule trade with? The Gorons, Zora, and Gerudo who are just a short jog away? Everything feels very isolated in OOT. In TP I can at least believe there are other places due to seeing fields on the other side of gorges and such. I believe Kakariko is an entirely different place because it feels like it is so far away from Hyrule Castle Town in TP.