Skyward Sword vs. Twilight Princess

As January comes to a close and the Wii U continues to perform poorly in the sales department, many Nintendo fans like to reminisce on better days. In order to take our minds off of the future of the Wii U, I would like to take a moment to compare two of Nintendo's classics from the last generation: Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess. Both were fantastic Zelda games with engrossing stories and memorable moments. However, it is time to decide which of these classics was the supreme Zelda title on the Wii.

Story

Light vs. Dark. This is the battle between Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess's plot features the collision of Hyrule and the Twilight Realm, a depressing parallel universe that has been overrun by a powerful usurper known as Zant. Using skills mastered in both human and wolf form, Link must save both worlds from Ganon's rage with the help of Midna, the Twilight Princess who is fighting to reclaim her homeland. The game tries to match the dark undertones found in Majora's Mask, as seen through some unsettling sequences involving an evil form of Link and a color palette much more focused on brown and gray, but most of the time can't help being a light-hearted adventure, especially due to the odd array of side characters. On the other hand, Skyward Sword is a masterfully told origin story in which the Master Sword is forged, the first battle between the Hero of Time and an evil entity unfolds, and the groundwork for the rest of the franchise is established. Both are incredibly told stories with unique characters and charm that allows them to never grow old. Midna is one of gaming's most endearing sidekicks, offering witty conversations and character development that fuels the game's emotional narrative. Skyward Sword's Zelda, on the other hand, is the best Zelda ever conceived. She is smart, compassionate towards Link in the face of adversity, and is one of those few characters in video games who I truly wanted to fight for. In the end, though, the edge goes to Twilight Princess. While Skyward Sword's story was sometimes hindered by the game feeling like a gigantic fetch quest, Twilight Princess had a memorable storyline from the first conversation to the genuinely tear-jerking conclusion.

Winner: Twilight Princess

Gameplay:

Twilight Princess was one of the Wii's earliest exclusives, which means that there was little time to fine tune the swordplay to your movements. For that reason, every swipe leads to a generic up and down slash, leading to fun but not very intuitive gameplay. As for Skyward Sword, the swordplay is controlled by your every move and, while it is not 1:1, is still incredibly addictive and leads to interesting combat and puzzle mechanics. The real deciding factor for me, though, is the dungeons that the game provides. I honestly thought Twilight Princess's dungeons, save for the Temple of Time and Arbiter's Grounds, were very dull and forgettable. Instead of feeling like I was dodging death and solving intricate puzzles like a hero, I felt like a player searching for a key, opening a door, searching for a key, opening a door. While many will argue that Skyward Sword possesses the same linearity, I don't see it. The temples are incredibly fun and diverse with the motion controls, especially the pirate ship level with the time puzzles. In the end, Skyward Sword is more fun and diverse to play than its predecessor, due mainly in part to its superior controls.

Winner: Skyward Sword

Graphics

It is interesting how Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are polar opposities in terms of design. Twilight Princess's graphics are much darker and bleaker, conveying a sense of hopelessness and despair that matches the general dreariness of the game. Skyward Sword, on the other hand, is like a vibrant painting, bursting with color and emotion that has an everlasting visual appeal. While neither are overwhelmingly realistic, Skyward Sword definitely takes a more cartoonish approach to character models and environments, as opposed to its predecessor's focus on a believable world. In the end, while Twilight Princess's darker tones can be hauntingly beautiful, there is no denying that Skyward Sword's colorful landscapes and character models are far more endearing.

Winner: Skyward Sword

Music

While not on the same level of importance as gameplay and story, the musical score a game provides can significantly enhance or detract from the overall experience. Both games have memorable themes to accompany their lead characters (Midna's Lament and Ballad of the Goddess) that I still hum and play on my iPod to this day. However, Skyward Sword has the advantage of having the first fully orchestrated Zelda score, which sounds much crisper and cleaner than the melodies of Twilight Princess. That being said, however, the number of quality songs in Skyward Sword are scattered far and wide throughout the game (most of which end up growing tedious after a few minutes) while Twilight Princess's rhythms have a strange allure that refuse to grow old with time. The serenity of Faron Woods, the epic grandeur of Hyrule Field, and the final notes on the impeccable staff roll are forever embedded in my mind, a triumphant playlist that is too consistently memorable to beat.

Winner: Twilight Princess

Final Thoughts

Ranking Zelda games is like ranking famous paintings in a museum: everyone has their own preference, but each work of art is a masterpiece in its own right. Each adventure has its own unique qualities that set it apart from other games. Twilight Princess has a masterful atmosphere and plot that is further enhanced by a sense of grandeur, intense boss battles, and a somber art style. Skyward Sword is vibrant and beautiful, featuring more interaction between the player and the sword, as well as innovative dungeons and a well-written origin story for the franchise. That being said, both games have their own unique flaws. Twilight Princess sometimes can be a dull experience, especially in its dungeon design. Skyward Sword's controls can occasionally falter and sometimes the narrative feels like a fetch quest. When all is said and done, however, I will always choose Skyward Sword. To me, this game first lured me into the Zelda universe, conveying that incredible sense of heroism that is virtually unmatched to this day. While I still enjoy Twilight Princess and its darker tones, Skyward Sword's vibrance and ingenuity will always reign supreme.

Overall Winner: Skyward Sword

Skyward sword was both too ambitious for the technology powering it (both hardware and motion controls) and there were terrible decisions all over the place also hampering what could've been a good game. ALL over the place...

The art design is lovely, the graphics are vomit. It has some great dungeon design (Better than TP at its best but not as consistent), but with terrible pacing. The motion controls are intuitive, but also aren't used very well because you have to use them in stupid ways which otherwise could've had simple controls like swimming, flying etc.

Also, fighting enemies (at least the grunts) with the sword is repetitive and doesn't really add anything to the game. They really didn't capitalize on the motion controls anywhere near as much as they could have, and using Wii motion plus for everything instead of using the IR pointer when it made sense also puts a dent in the controls. For the bow, motion plus was fantastic but for example the slingshot should've used IR. Having to recalibrate the pointer every 5 seconds where you shouldn't have to is annoying.

Then the hand holding, seeing the same item pick ups literally hundreds of times, the padding etc. etc. really makes the game frustrating even when there's good design underneath.

I'd love to see motion controls come back to Zelda at some point, but only when they've ironed out all the kinks. I'm really excited for the next Zelda since it's using traditional controls and sure to be a darker ambitious game, I just hope it doesn't use the gamepad for much.

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Although Twilight Princess was a bit safe and could've been a lot better, there really weren't any big flaws in the game. I even liked the slow start because the atmosphere is so great. The ending was not great though, turning Zant into a clown and making ganondorf a pompous fool (still bad ass) in addition to him being thrown into the story was just bad. Hyrule castle before the end was lame and slow though. Overall just a safe, solid Zelda with great atmosphere.

I will give Skyward Sword the win for music though.

Those two are one of my favorite Zelda games. They share some of the best moments for the franchise, but they also have some of the worst. I can't deny their flaws. I mostly agree with your reasons and I also prefer Skyward Sword over Twilight Princess. Hopefully Zelda Wii U is as solid as A Link Between Worlds, but offers the epic experience and grandeur of TP and SS's best moments at a consistent rate.

Twilight Princess is one of the worst Zelda games ever created

The fact that you even compare it Skyward Sword means you shouldn't be having this discussion

Skyword Sword just needed bigger more meaningful side quest to break up the continuous dungeon solving like game play.

@Jaysonguy: oh jasonguy, why is everyone of your posts ulcer inducing?

"The fact that you even compare it Skyward Sword means you shouldn't be having this discussion" Like do you ever read your posts and think man, other people might like things i dont?

@juboner: I agree most of the sky overworld was barren and the side-quests with the harp weren't really that interesting. While Skyloft made up for this, there were plenty of opportunities for more engaging side missions.

Skyward Sword was absolute filth.

Twilight princess was a masterpiece. Quite possible the best overall Zelda game of all time.

That's fine, some people like gristle and fat instead of steak, doesn't mean we should encourage them.

I am a guy who thinks every 3D Zelda released up to this point is rated somewhere between 9.5 and 10, so it is a very even battle.

However, I will go ahead and give the nod to Skyward Sword. It had great character development, better sidequests, and slightly superior dungeons (I think both games are the peak of the series when it comes to 3-D dungeons).

I also think Skyward Sword's compact world was much better than the sparse emptiness, though visually impressive, environment of Twilight Princess. I sure would have liked the three portions of the maps to be connected, but I really loved how you had to truly explore each area like a outdoors dungeon to advance. The game could have done with less backtracking, though.

Wait, now how do you give credit to the Twilight Princess dungeons where they used lame ways to make it longer then it had to be like iron shoes?

I loved the iron shoes!

They made Goron Mines one of my favorite dungeons in the game. It's probably my second favorite actually, only trailing the Snowpeak Ruins.

I'm so going to hit you lol

One of my biggest problems with that game is that it's very empty and everywhere where there is action it's so drawn out.

It's like this is the only conversation that happened during making the game...

"Are we at 40 hours yet?

"No, not yet"

Team works feverishly adding more tedium to the game

"40 hours now?"

"No, keep going!"

And those *@#&*#@*( shoes are one of the biggest ones!

Those 2 and the water temple are the 3 best. The last one also gets credit because you're freakin' spiderman.

Out of both games, the 4th dungeon in skyward sword is easily the best.

I also disliked how slow the Iron Boots were. It does make them seem heavy, but it only resulted in me desperately trying to find ways to get through the magnet parts faster. There was a huge sense of freedom when I found out about the Iron Boots glitch. It made that dungeon much more enjoyable.

Ugh. I frekkin hated the Water temple in Twilight Princess. Perhaps my most disliked water temple of the entire series...

Twilight Princess is way better. It has a great story and it give us Midna who is my favorite Zelda character.

@Chozofication: Yes! The Cistern had one of the best temple designs in Zelda history. The way you had to navigate the different layers of the statue, and the incredible boss fight with Koloktos, made it one of my favorite dungeons of all time.

Why?

The temple was simply bland and boring to me from its design to its music. It's not a terrible temple, just not one I enjoyed playing through...

Skyward Sword by a large margin. Like @Chozofication said, Twilight Princess was safe. It didn't really do anything new. Even the setting was basically just OOT on a larger scale. I really liked the motion controls in Skyward Sword. I also liked the story, characters, dungeons and bosses a lot. Skyward Sword does a lot of things that should have been better, but it is completely unlike any other Zelda game. Twilight Princess uses the same combat that had been in place since OOT, in a setting we had really already seen before. The only unique thing that it did was turn Link into a Wolf for portions of the game, and those portions weren't as fun as the portions where you were human. Give me a flawed game that is fun and unique over a game that, while still fun, is just Generic 3D Zelda #4.

I also loved the water temple in Twilight Princess (Lakebed Temple?), it is my third favorite in that game.

I will agree with Jaysonguy that the action is indeed drawn out. It is Twilight Princess' main problem. But we will have to agree to disagree on the boots. Their use inside the Goron Mines is brilliant!

As for Skyward Sword, the Ancient Cistern, the Sandhip, the dungeon in Skyloft, and Lanayru Mining Facility are all awesome! I also love the last fire dungeon.

Apparently I'm in the minority of people who liked Twilight Princess slightly better than Skyward Sword.

And don't you all remember how annoying the Iron Boots were in Ocarina of Time? Compared to that, the Iron Boots in TP were way better.

Personally I felt that a lot of Twilight Princess's items were forgettable. Other than the spinning top and the hookshots, nothing really stood out to me. Skyward Sword's wind machine, flying bug, and motion-controlled bow all were useful throughout a majority of the game and were fun to use.

Twilight Princess. It didn't feel extremely padded (even though it was at parts). Plus it has more memorable enemy designs and better dungeon themes (Arbiter's Ground is still one of my favorite dungeons) and Zant was by far a superior villain. Plus Midna didn't suck... Unlike Fi.

Both games were terrible in their own way but I felt like Twilight Princess had the better world though it could have used some filling in. I especially like the darker colors over the bright vibrant colors of Skyward sword. I was however disappointed with how few side quest were in both games. They just wasted so much vast empty space by filling it with nothing. I could see Twilight Princess having a multitude of towns to visit and subdungeons where you'd go to do missions. Or maybe retrieving an item or rescuing a person from say an orc hideout hell why not give the orcs a village. For Skyward Sword I'd have done three towns for each of the goddess. One for hylians, one for gorons and one for the Zoras. If Zoras and Gorons can't be in the sky put their towns on the surface. Also the sky and falling down holes in the cloud is equivalent to mario selecting a level so scrap that and let us travel to each area on our own. Also bird races with increasing difficulty why was this not a thing. there's so much they could have done with these games. I'd like to revisit the world of TP again but this time fill it in and don't reduce the second to last boss into a joke of a fight. Zant should been hard to beat

I prefer Twilight Princess. Both games are quite boring at parts, but TP had more things I liked. Skyward Sword was boring enough to be my first Zelda game I've played that I haven't felt like finishing. I like the controls, but those were not enough.

I give Skyward Sword huge props for producing a new and unique experience that needed to be created. If this game doesn't sell you on motion controls nothing will essentially.

The controls functioned perfectly giving you 1 to 1 immersion in a world brimming with things to interact with. There was a lot to do and to see and the main quest was filled with nothing but enjoyable gameplay opportunities. It felt like there was never a dull moment or filler. It had great dungeon designs and puzzles that shook off the stale cut and paste puzzles Zelda started getting too comfortable with.

In the end Skyward Sword was something fresh and new. An experience that cannot be found anywhere else. It did what it intended to do exceptionally well. Whether it was for you is the big question.

Twilight Princess is a really good traditional Zelda and Skyward Sword is a great bold new experience.

I don't see what about Skyward Sword is so different than other Zelda games. I don't think the motion controls worked perfectly. I didn't see a world filled with a bunch of stuff to do; I saw a lotta wasted space, and they could've put more stuff in the game. And the whole last 3rd of the game being a big fetch quest was a bit of a turn-off.

As for the dungeons, they were hit and miss, like in every Zelda game. Some are fantastic, others you can't get through fast enough.

So what are you seeing that I'm not?

LOL Fi when she is singing looks really weird, her mouth just stays wide open and it reminds me of some kind of evil robot.

Twilight Princess brings back so many memories. Still remember getting that along with my new Wii on launch day back in 2006. Been meaning to play that sucker again soon.

I also JUST finally got Skyward Sword recently and am going to play it for the first time (I have been so behind on games lately). Should be interesting to see if SS can top TP, which I personally think is one of the best Zeldas.

@Superzone: I hope it does! While I enjoy both games, I had much more fun with Skyward Sword. The swordplay was engaging and each dungeon was a detailed puzzle that was just waiting to be solved.

Wasted space? Where? this was the most condensed 3D Zelda by far.

I dunno it's like we're seeing completely different things

I'd also like to add that the silent realm portions were a blast to play through. Some of my favourite parts in a Zelda

I agree with you on the silent realm part. The music and atmosphere, plus those were the parts where the new running mechanic was best put to use. Hmm... running should probably be in the next zelda.

Sigh... Skyward sword really is a great game underneath all the crap. I can see why you love the game, but damn is it irritating as hell.

@Chozofication: You know what, now that I think back on it, water temple wasn't terrible. I think its the start of the temple that's so uninteresting but it picks up after getting the hookshots. Music did (Like most of the temples in TP) nothing to help the dreary atmosphere.

As for this topic, between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, I'm gonna have to give the nod to Skyward Sword. I mean I really like Twilight Princess A LOT! But from an initial play through, I can safely say Skyward Sword >>>>>> TP. Skyward Sword is just hands down the better overall game. But when I look back on which one has better replay value, I'll give it to TP. There are some key things that TP does better. Between both companions, Midna is leagues better than Fi. TP world, despite how dull it was, felt better to explore than Skywards Swords world. I prefer TP dynamic night and day system over Skyward Swords static system. And, even though it was a refreshing experience, I still prefer TP more traditional dungeons over the integrated world/dungeon Skyward Sword had. (Perhaps if done a bit better, I'd be aboard Skyward Sword style of integrating the world with the dungeon.)....

@tocool340:

Yeah the clawshot was used pretty well in that temple. and the redirection of water mechanic was great.

I love pretty much all the music and the atmosphere, though I can see why some would find it grating.

@Chozofication: Have to say that mansion in the mountains of Twilight Princess was definitely my favorite "dungeon" of the game in all aspects. Its atmosphere and music felt fitting. Beside Sacred Grove and Twilight Realm (And a few areas that illuminate nicely during night time), it was probably the most beautiful spot of the game as well...

Personally I thought the Twilight Realm was a let-down. For such a promising new world it was extremely short and bland (except for those creepy floating hands).

Even though the music was orchestrated or whatever in SS It was not memorable at all imo. I would rather listen to ALttP main theme repeating over and over.

@Pikminmaniac: The wasted space was most of the sky world. Besides Skyloft, there isn't much up there except a few other islands and lots of floating rocks (with and without optional treasure chests). Why bother giving us a flying bird and a sky world if there's almost nothing there?

And I wish the world below the clouds had a bit more variety to it. Just a little.

But I do agree with you on the Silent Realms part. Those were pretty good.

@EnoshimaJunko: To be fair, though, Hyrule Field was extremely empty too. Other than the occassional hidden cave and the bridges, there really wasn't much to do there either.

@cbeers2513: That's certainly true, but Skyward Sword introduced the whole bird-riding thing, which they hardly expanded on when they should've. Here they give us this new feature, then fail to capitalize on it.

The Sky is certainly one of Skyward Sword's lows; probably the biggest one.

But the world below the clouds is fantastic. Some portions of the game do feel like they are simply there for padding the adventure. However, most of the backtracking is really well done.

Sure you have to visit all three locations of the game three times, but on most of those trips you are uncovering new areas or facing old scenarios in completely different ways. I will agree that some of the backtracking was bad (such as the underwater Faron Woods), but the others, such as the one on which Link loses all of his items or the whole segment leading to the Sandship are brilliant!

PS: My memory is really fresh when it comes to Skyward Sword because I have been replaying it!

the one that utilizes motion control the most is the worst of the two.

Skyward Sword's highs are some of the best in the series, but the overall quality was inconsistent.

I'd still place it above Twilight Princess though, since TP...wasn't hugely memorable outside of a few boss fights. I never liked the art-style, the motion controls were nowhere near as good as SS', and although it was a really good game...I think it fell a tad short of being a great one.

@Planeforger: What parts of Skyward Sword did you feel were inconsistent? The overall back-tracking?

Skyward sword is nowhere close to touching TP.

Skyward sword has controls that feel good, but are of course more difficult to play with as you aren't just mashing buttons anymore. So they decided to make enemies tougher than ever? WTF?

The graphics are awful for a wii game, but the style is nice and unique

The over-world is terrible and the dungeons are not fun.

Characters are actually the most likable thing in this game.

Repetitive warnings and fi are awful

How can this game possibly be better than TP? It isn't

Twilight Princess gets my vote. I enjoyed Skyward Sword thoroughly and there are a number of things it does better than its predecessor, but the better overall experience for me was the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess.

I think another reason Skyward Sword succeeded was because its combat was more than just pressing a button and instantly killing anything in your path. You had to align your sword and parry with your enemies like a real sword fight, making each battle with the simplest of foes engaging.

I'd probably be happier if the lands below were all intertwined instead of needing to fly back to the sky in order to transition to the next area. That's tedious as wind changing in Wind Waker, on an even greater scale. At least introduce a way to warp from area to area like Ocarina of Time's warping songs or Majora Mask bird warping statues (Probably more appropriate given the bird statues in SS)...