- Joined
- Sep 18, 2011
The reviewer was not reviewing the game as a Wii game. He was viewing it as a video game. Its perfectly valid to fault the graphics. I think graphics lack of VA and no true overworld warrant a 9.3. If you don't then oh well. Write your own review when you play the game. And who really cares about the score anyway? The reveiwer obviously loved the game. No matter the score it seems every reviewer agrees that this is the best Zelda in a very long time. I see no real reasons to be complaining.
Okey, so you think that if Majora's Mask/Windwaker/etc would have had voice-acting, this would fit the style and athmosphere of the game and improve the game as a whole?
Honestly, I really don't agree at all with that whole "graphics don't matter at all" attitude that very many Zelda fans apparently have. To me it seems like a lame excuse to defend Nintendo (and that's coming from someone who can be described as a Nintendo fanboy - me).
Seriously, would you play SS if it were released with the original Gameboy's 160x144 resolution and 4 monochrome colours? You can't tell me that this would do the game anywhere near enough the justice it deserves.
Graphics are a part of video gaming, as the name implies (FIY, video = Latin for "I see"), just like music, story, controls and gameplay (and yes gameplay is the most important factor for me).
So if the graphics fall short, then it's very appropriate for reviewers to deduct points there, as it is appropriate to deduct points if music, gameplay, story or controls are bad.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying old NES/SNES games a lot because back then it was the best they had and I respect that.
Maybe I'm spoiled a bit because even on my very first PC in 1998 with its "great" Pentium II 350 MHz processor, 8GB HDD, 64MB RAM and nVidia TNT 2 graphics card (8MB RAM), I always played my games in 1280x1024. But now it's 2011 and a 640x480 resolution is just sub-par, it's a very outdated video broadcasting standard that has been introduced in the 1950s (as NTSC). LOL, even the 1962 PAL standard was better (720x576). Add to that the fact that there is absolutely no anti-aliasing then this makes things even worse. Just look at the Lyre which Link plays at some point in one of the newer trailers (I thin it's when he meets the guy that upgrades his sword to the master sword), you can almost count the pixels. A screenshot to show what I mean:
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I recently replayed TP on Dolphin at Full HD with 8x anti-aliasing and it looks just soooo much better than on the Wii, I really hope that SS will run on Dolphin too.
So after all I think that they still gave it a good score with 93%, and having in back of the mind that it would probably have been rated higher with better graphics (which I will enjoy with Dolphin) then we can't really complain.
What matters is that the artstyle fits the overall athmosphere of the game. Windwaker would not be Windwaker if it would have had HD Twilight Princess graphics. And Twilight Princess would be quite awkward if it would have had the cartoon-style graphics from Windwaker.
I can imagine Twilight Princess, with it's 'realistic' graphic style would look better if it had even higher resolution and beter overall quality, but I doubt one would even notice the difference after 15 minutes of playing.
But you know, Zelda is not about graphic quality. This game is about the story it tells, the fantasy world it creates and the athmosphere and emotions, you as a player, are absorbed into. Visuals are nessecary to create that world and make it beautiful, but that's it.
What you should do is rent the game Okami. This game is very Zelda-like and has the most weird graphics ever.
After finishing this game, you will perhaps understand what I mean.