Ultimately, typical anime stylization applies primarily to ‘hot’, ‘cute’ or just ‘pretty’ characters – the ‘funny’ or ‘ugly’ or just ‘normal’ characters in TP look far more westerm. But really, the same applies to a lot of anime shows – often the side characters or even the villains will have designs that look less overtly Japanese.

This is all true. Twilight Princess is undoubtedly an Aonuma game.

What I like about Twilight Princess is that there are times when you are playing it that you can, for a short period of time, believe you are playing an Aonuma free experience. This is because Twilight Princess was made as a reaction to the backlash to Wind Waker. Some of the pluses are some of the dungeons, the darker themes, and the older Link.

A nephew of mine was finally old enough (around 13) to play Zelda. Yes, I had him go through the NES Zeldas which was interesting to say the least. I warned him NES Metroid was hard, really hard. He thought he was such a tough guy. NES Metroid showed him how hard video games can be (he HATED it hahaha). So I lent him Twilight Princess which he eagerly accepted since the visuals were more up to what he is used to. I pushed and encouraged him to go on and warned him the early parts of the game were the most boring.

What happened is that he quit Twilight Princess in the middle of the second dungeon. “This game is so boring,” he says. He HATED the times he was a wolf getting those stupid bugs. He had no interest in the ‘story’. I don’t think he cared about the puzzles one way or another.

Only old people play Zelda today, often those who got into Zelda with Ocarina of Time. There are no young players. Zelda is a dead franchise.

Thanks Aonuma, you destroyed one of the best game series ever made.