Without a doubt. I think people that believe Twilight Princess is a better game either didn't play Ocarina of Time when it first came out, or they're Wii fanboys living in denial.
Twilight Princess has a lot of bad design choices that hurt the game a bit, also they managed to create a character far more annoying than Navi ever was with Midna. Several portions of the game really just seemed tacked on to extend the length and ultimately just feel kind of uninspired. The game really doesn't try anything new at all and sticks a little too close to the Zelda formula, which kind of held the game back from feeling truly next-gen. Now, for the record, I think Twilight Princess is a great game overall, but man, it felt like it was trying to top Ocarina of Time by doing many things it did and just making them bigger. In the end, it turns out that doesn't quite work and it just seems like they were playing it too safe. Remember the first trailer of the game? All the intensity and epicness? The horde of enemies approaching from the horizon? We didn't see that kind of awesomeness in the final game. Many of the bosses looked cool, but weren't much of a threat. The alternate outfits were quite lame, especially the final one which is just ridiculously dumb. Also, I'd say the lack of dual analog controls hurt the Wii version quite a bit. It's just more convenient to be able to control the camera at will rather than having to constantly press a button to recenter the camera. But that's more of a fault with the Wii controller than the design of the game.
I'll throw out a few examples of some of the problems I have with the game, just for the heck of it. Okay, once again, the rupee problem rears its ugly head, but this time it is worse than ever. Frequently in Zelda games, you'll have a full wallet and not much to spend it on, and which point collecting more rupees, while encouraged, is a waste of time. Twilight Princess did have some donation thing you could put money into, which temporarily helped this problem, but man, you're just collecting too much money in the game. Look at the bugs for instance, you want to collect them, but your only reward is money, and chances are your wallet is full so you can't carry it anyway. Wow, hey great, thanks for letting me know I'm wasting my time. Give me some better rewards, man. Something I can't normally access any other way would be cool. Here's what makes this problem worse than ever in TP. If you have a full wallet and open a chest with rupees you can't carry, what happens? Link puts the money back and closes the chest. Now, I understand what they were thinking when they did this. "Hey, we'll do this so they can go back later and pick up the money when they need it". The problem is that you'll never do that for one, and let's say you're trying to collect all the hearts in a temple. Well, you know that chest you opened but closed to put the rupees back? Well, it's still gonna appear on the map, so while you're trying to avoid it and get heart pieces instead, you'll likely end up going after a chest and finding out it's one with rupees you've already opened before. Pretty frustrating. This problem extends outside of dungeons, too. Twilight Princess has many well designed puzzles throughout Hyrule. Many of which you'll see throughout the game, but will be unable to solve until you get a certain item later. Just being teased by the chests like this really makes it more enticing to finally figure out the puzzle and open them. But then you finally solve this puzzle that has been taunting you throughout the entire game, and reach a chest, only to find..... a chest with rupees, oh, and your pockets are full so you put it back. Dude, that's freaking retarded. That's just a minor complaint that I've clearly dragged out too long, but it just goes to show how this seemingly good developer design ended up being very frustrating for gamers. And I'm sure anyone here who has beat the game knows exactly what I'm talking about. The money issue rears its head in nearly every aspect of the game with all the various things you'll want to collect.
Okay, another criticism. This will just be one specific example, but there are countless similar ones you'll experience in the game. Remember the cat in the first area of the game? The woman wants her cat to come home. You decide to help her out, since that's the polite thing to do and actually, I think it was necessary to progress in the game. So you bust out your fishing pole, and the cat starts following you. So you're like "Alright! This is easy!" and you get him to follow you to the door of the house and you go inside. Then what happens? Nothing. The cat didn't go inside. You go back out, the cat is where it originally was as if you never did anything. You probably try it again, and still see you have no success. After that, you're looking for another way. You're probably trying to see if you can chase the cat and catch it and carry it inside. That doesn't pan out. So then you decide to fish, since cats generally like fish. But this fishing is very awkward because this is just a short line on a stick. No reel or anything, you can't really cast it out into the water, which makes fishing kind of difficult because it seems like you're doing something wrong. Anyway, eventually you catch a fish, and hey, the cat's following you and the fish. You think you've solved the problem! Now he'll follow you into the house! You and the cat go to the house, you go inside. OH, JUST GREAT! The cat didn't come inside, once again! You know what? Screw the cat. Forget it, I'll go continue my quest without it. Oh, but wait! You can't! You need to get that cat in the house before you can continue! See how frustrating such a simple little task can be in Twilight Princess? Now how do you really solve this puzzle? Well, you have to catch a second fish for the cat! And the cat takes it and runs into the house on its own. Dude, that's freaking stupid and some bad game design. The cat should take it when you catch your first fish. Chances are that after you've tried luring it with the pole a couple times and even tried luring the cat with a fish, you're gonna think that it's not the answer and you're gonna be looking for another solution. But you know what? You're not gonna find one. Maybe you'll have enough patience to try fishing again with the lousiest fishing pole ever, or maybe you'll get stuck and frustrated and have to resort to a guide to find the answer. Now, if you're reading this, and it wouldn't surprise me if you aren't (since I seem to have an unusual habit of posting my longest, most detailed responses in like the 3rd or 4th pages of threads where almost no one looks), then you're probably thinking that's just one really specific instance and isn't enough to hurt the game. But in reality, there are several instances just like this in Twilight Princess, I'd say I encountered at least 4 during the game, and it's not because I'm retarded or bad at video games, but because the developers made some bad design choices.
Oh, and dude. Don't get me started on how lame of a character Zant turned out to be in the end. With that, I am off!
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