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[Serenitynow]

I think most of us can agree Twilight Princess HD was a bit disappointing compared to what Nintendo managed to do with The Wind Waker HD. After all, Nintendo didn't handle the remaster - Tantalus did.

Among all of the crazy images to come out of the Zelda GDC panel are some cool screens of Nintendo's early testings with Twilight Princess, courtesy of IGN. I think it's really cool to see what could have been...

Aonuma has stated that the Zelda team got acclimated to HD development by creating HD versions of old Zelda assets. Here are Wind Waker, Skyward Sword, and Twilight Princess Link all standing together.

Here are character models of Renado, Luda, Talo, Beth, Colin, and most importantly, Malo:

These final screens show Ilia along with Ordon village. I get a bit of a Skyward Sword, painterly vibe from how the background starts to blend the further back you go:

So there you have it - a bit of alternate Nintendo history. The last two screens in particular make me wish Nintendo put the same amount of love into this game as they did The Wind Waker, but oh well.

EDIT: Taking out the "crap port" part. Didn't mean for that opinion to dominate the thread. Main point: When we first caught wind of a TPHD being in the works, we were expecting something along the lines of WWHD. Here is what that reality might have looked like.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

wow smh

 

[Realeza]

Don't agree. I thought it was a good remake of an amazing game. The texture rework alone justifies its existence.

 

[Jonneh3003]

I don't agree that it was a bad project but it certainly could have been this.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

That would have been nice.

It would also have been massively more expensive to make and likely pulled away resources from BotW.

 

[Jawmuncher]

I thought it was on par with Wind Waker HD. Fixed up the resolution, performance, made some tweaks to the base game and called it a day.

Seeing this is cool though.

 

[Gaspard]

I think the overreactions to WWHD (muh bloom) made Tantalus go for a more simple remaster.

 

[Cerium]

You're talking about the difference between a remaster and a remake.

 

[matrix-cat]

A full, ground-up remake was probably never in the cards, but then they did charge full retail price for the final product so it certainly would have been nice.

 

[fernoca]

I think most of us can agree Twilight Princess HD is a bit of a crap port.

I don't think anyone agrees that it is a crap port.

That it lacked more stuff, touches, visual effects and so on...yeah.

But it was a darn great port.

 

[Kandinsky]

I thought Tantalus did a great job with what they had, probably 10% of what wwhd had budget wise

But yeah that looks nice, is there a video of that presentation?

 

[Mechazawa]

What kind of effort was put in the Wind Waker remaster that wasn't put in Twilight Princess from a graphical standpoint?

 

[RareFantasy64]

To be fair, wasn't it Nintendo's call to outsource it to Tantalus? Doesn't that say Nintendo didn't have the time (or the hands on deck) to make it? This would have been awesome and possibly better but for a simple HD port, I really love Tantalus' work on TP HD. It is really beautiful



Edit: this gives me hope they'll go through with a SS remaster

 

[ClayKavalier]

Wow! Looks good!

I never had a problem with TPHD, Wind Waker was billed as more of a remake and TPHD as more of a remaster. But yeah, that looks pretty damn great.

I wonder what they'll do with remasters on the Switch, they kind of blew their load with the Wii U and 3DS since they were making remasters for two systems at once. It'd be awesome to see this come to fruition but I guess they'll want to wait awhile before re-re-releasing the 3D games.

What kind of effort was put in the Wind Waker remaster that wasn't put in Twilight Princess from a graphical standpoint?

Just YouTube video of them. Wind Waker was remade from the ground up with a new art style. Twilight Princess was basically just up-resed to 1080p. It may have some improved textures and stuff but it's obvious from looking at them both that it's not changed nearly as much as WW.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

I could honestly see a Switch ground up Zelda using that art style. It looks awesome

 

[Evil's Bane]

I actually like the TP remaster better. The texture touch up is much appreciated. I don't care much for the bloom in WW

 

[Banjotanooki]

The new horse control in TPHD is absolutely horrid. Only thing that ruins the port for me but otherwise, it was alright.

Can anyone confirm the horse controls in BOTW are back to just using the analog stick?

 

[Jonneh3003]

What kind of effort was put in the Wind Waker remaster that wasn't put in Twilight Princess from a graphical standpoint?

Wind Waker HD had lots of nice new effects but Twilight Princess HD had a complete texture rework. WWHD ends up looking nicer but it's just a more appealing art style.

 

[Kindekuma]

Skyward Sword's beautiful artistic DoF was too good for this world. I wonder what it could've been like implemented in other games. The impressionistic style is so good.

 

[Geno Breaker]

Real shame this game and WWHD don't run at 60fps or even stable 30fps. Plenty of other HD remasters of 6th gen games often had improvements and were released in packs of three.

 

[kunonabi]

Yeah, I freaking hated TPHD. It controlled like ass and their attempts at streamlining it just made certain sections feel off. Their refusal to offer a wiimote/nunchuk setup was also BS.

 

[Cow Mengde]

Could have been what? These images are so bad, I'm not even sure I can see what the difference is compared to the remaster that we have right now. The remaster had amazing textures.

 

[foxuzamaki]

People made a ruckus over nothing and when people actually got the game in theri hand, they quickly had shut up about it

 

[SinCityAssassin]

That remaster would balloooooooon.

 

[Mr. F]

TP with a good art style is the true 'what could have been.'

 

[Vital Tundra]

I think they had to decide between HD assets or the new lighting. Wind Waker didn't have to have its textures redone so they could add in the lighting without building up costs.

Now should they have bit the bullet and raised the budget to add in some new lighting? I think so. But I think the game looks great with the texture work they did, its actually outstanding.

 

[dragonbane]

TP HD achieved a much bigger "wow this looks a lot better" effect for me than TWW HD. But I'm also in the group which really hates the new bloom

 

[Hydrus]

Playing TPHD right now and I think it looks really good. I'll admit, during the early footage of, I thought they did almost nothing to it. But playing thru it, everything looks nice, sharp, and clear. Also surprised at how colorful they made it, compared to the original. But yea those pic look really nice, would of loved that. My biggest disappointment with TPHD is the music. Wished they would of at least re-did it with an orchestra like SS ost, and not use the GC music.

 

[Astral Dog]

They were never going to make a full remake

 

[EhoaVash]

wow this looks soo good damn for once ilia looks good

 

[dragonbane]

it may have some improved textures.

Some? Basically 99%. For a game as huge and varied as TP in its locations thats a massive task on its own. One TWW HD didnt go through. Also new reflections in the Temple of Time area and some touched up character models and objects. Overall they put a lot of effort into it. TWW HD obviously looks more different because the entire lighting is different, but I'm in the camp who think the style is not necessarily for the better at all. But to each their own I guess

 

[jnWake]

TPHD is fine, the textures are really good. I do agree that I'd have liked new lightning since it'd have helped the more realistic art style of TP.

 

[leroidys]

Didn't MORE work go into TP than WW HD? WW HD was just upressed with a new lighting model. TP had all new, higher res textures.

 

[Yukinari]

Its not just about the graphics, TPHD lacks the many quality of life changes that WWHD had to make it flow better. Instead they thought adding a shitty wolf only cave was a good idea.

Oh and the little things like Midna's Lament getting interrupted still or wolf link NOT HAVING A FINISHING MOVE. But its ok guys we added a poe lantern.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Maybe next time. What are the odds of TPHD showing up on Switch?

 

[Kthulhu]

That looks so much better.

Maybe one day...

 

[Mathematics]

Nintendo wizards

 

[renzolama]

I thought it was a quality remaster technically, at least in terms of efficiency of effort vs results. Throwing out random numbers here obviously, but you're always dealing with diminishing returns on the effort curve in software development, so why would I want a gifted team to spend 50% more time making something 5% better? At the end of the day, companies make software for money, not for artistic perfection.

Edit:Not that I wouldn't love to live in your world OP

 

[Fantastapotamus]

It's probably because I haven't played much of TP HD but I don't really see a big difference. It's probably there judging from all the responses so far, I'm just not looking at those screens and thinking "Wow! Damn!" myself.

 

[WillyFive]

The 'HD version' seemed more like a cheap Wii U port than anything else. The visuals are mostly the same except for the new textures, which look really out of place next to everything else. I thought Wind Waker HD was a flawed remake due to failing to accurately transfer the original WW art style to HD, but at least Nintendo tried with that game. I don't want to blame Tantalus too much because in all likelyhood it was Nintendo's fault they had no budget or time or whatever, but this is what the game should have looked like:

 

[nynt9]

It's probably because I haven't played much of TP HD but I don't really see a big difference. It's probably there judging from all the responses so far, I'm just not looking at those screens and thinking "Wow! Damn!" myself.

...what? TPHD was a port, the shots in the OP are new assets with a new art style. This would have been a straight up remake.

 

[Seik]

TBH, I did quite appreciate the work of Tantalus on TPHD.

The texture work they did was A1, to me it was a solid remaster, though I can understand the feeling since WW was quite something as well. A similar lighting wouldn't hurt TP.

 

[Astral Dog]

Didn't MORE work go into TP than WW HD? WW HD was just upressed with a new lighting model. TP had all new, higher res textures.

WW also had higher resolution textures,i played recently they look pretty good 😍
Anyways,both are fine but most work went to superior artstyle of course.

 

[Cday]

Wind Waker HD looks wrong and runs worse than the original. I would rather it had been a more straightforward HD port with reduced price and smooth performance instead of this wank shoehorned lighting that makes everyone look like toy dolls.

 

[moustascheman]

Eh, I'm not really feeling those shots. While they do look nice, they don't look like twilight princess, the bloom is way too strong and the lighting makes the areas feel completely different. While I would've liked more than what nintendo did with TPHD, those images really don't seem all that appealing to me either.

 

[Screamapillar]

The art style of TP really doesnt lend itself to the same treatment that was given to WW. Im not sure it's fair to criticize the quality of the port just because the graphical upgrades weren't the same between both HD remasters.

WW was meant to look like a cartoon.

 

[ClayKavalier]

Some? Basically 99%. For a game as huge and varied as TP in its locations thats a massive task on its own. One TWW HD didnt go through. Also new reflections in the Temple of Time area and some touched up character models and objects. Overall they put a lot of effort into it. TWW HD obviously looks more different because the entire lighting is different, but I'm in the camp who think the style is not necessarily for the better at all. But to each their own I guess

I totally agree about Wind Waker, I prefer the look of the original by a long shot. The bloom in HD is obnoxious and the more cartoony look is more charming.

I didn't realize they redid that much of Twilight Princess, and don't think I would have ever noticed without doing a back-and-forth comparison. My point was just that it's immediately obvious that WWHD looks drastically different. TPHD looks sharper, but it doesn't look like it's been reimagined to anywhere near the same extent.

 

[Astral Dog]

The 'HD version' seemed more like a cheap Wii U port than anything else. The visuals are mostly the same except for the new textures, which look really out of place next to everything else. I thought Wind Waker HD was a flawed remake due to failing to accurately transfer the original WW art style to HD, but at least Nintendo tried with that game. I don't want to blame Tantalus too much because in all likelyhood it was Nintendo's fault they had no budget or time or whatever, but this is what the game should have looked like:

Eh, thats a full remake,they would rather make A Twilight Princess 2 than that and it would be the best choice.

In this era of HD (sometimes) textures,60fps 1080p remasters those RE like are a thing of the past. The most you are going to get is a Ocarina 3D like remaster but that was a N64 game

 

[Mawile]

Still way too much bloom in those shots.

 

[Luigiv]

Honestly, I would have settled for just self-shadowing, that alone would have made a huge difference.

Also "A" to place and "ZR" to throw. Seems like such an obvious fix, I don't get why they didn't do it.