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Twilight Princess Mirrored on Wii
conigs writes "As some of you may or may not know, Link will appear right-handed in the Wii version of Twilight Princess (as opposed to the left-handed Link seen since Ocarina of Time). In order to accomplish this, Nintendo has mirrored the entire game. This includes maps, since they were apparently designed with a left-handed Link in mind." Kotaku says that this will even be true in the GameCube version of Princess, to avoid confusion.
I'm glad to see the Dracula X2 developers landed on their feet! :)
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
apparently they mirrored the film titanic. most* of the budget was spent CGIing the signs to look right.
hopefully this ends the comparison of twilight princess and titanic.
*dramatisation. may not be true.
Sounds to me like they made a mistake, and are spinning the bugfix into a press release.
This is news that matters?
Where in the second link does it say that the Gamecube version is also going to be mirrored? I don't see any evidence of that.
Since some people really will want to play left-handed (I'm a lefty only when writing and eating, so not me), why not just make it a configurable option?
But mirroring the whole freaking game? Someone couldn't have thought of just flipping the character model a year or two ago when they still had time to do it? Then people could even play the game a second time with their off hand.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
yeliaB nitsuJ
------ ------
Oh wait...wrong game.
The article says:
I say:
Twilight Princess to have a right handed Link? That's so sinister.
I still don't understand why the game would be mirrored. Also, what happens if you have a lefty playing the game? I know from the fishing videos that it's backwards; I'm going to want to hold the fishing rod with my left hand and reel with the nunchuck in my right hand. I hope that this is allowed.
Canon is Link is lefthanded, but I'm right handed, which side should I root for? I mean on the one hand it might be harder to control if it's left handed in theory, but couldn't they find a compromise. On the other hand I'm an egocentric bastard and I want my games to be right handed. Oh decisions decisions.
I'm amazed at the major changes they have to make to make the game work (the entire world gets flipped) but the biggest problems comes up simply "what about those who are left handed."
In the end this really is a major hurdle that the Wii will have to deal with in most games, I can imagine some games not even being playable with left handed people but anyone can learn anything. My father was left handed (in the 50s) and back then they taught him to be right handed. It works, except his hand writting is attrocious, so it'll be interesting to see if most games force lefties to be righties or if some games give options for people like samus to have the blaster on the left.
nice pun, thanks :)
Don't you mean dexter?
This is masking a more serious design problem. A game designed for use with the Wiimote should have a setting that allows the game to be played either left- or right-handed, so as to not exclude anyone. Presumably the player's actions match up to the avatar's (in this case, Link's). Therefore, it should be possible to make Link either left- or right-handed, within the game.
The fact that this isn't possible is troubling for the prospect of lefties being able to play this game the same way righties can.
it's just that when you swing the sword/cast the rod Link'll do it with his right hand. It'll be a tad disorienting, but there are more right handed people then left, so you're kinda stuck...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I was correcting the man on his Latin.
He obviously knows what a pun is - his comment had the form and context of a very well crafted one; he just can't tell his right from his left.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handed
You might be surprised to realize that almost everything is designed with the right hand bias. Most right handed people either don't realize that their design is nigh unwieldable for lefties, or don't want to spend the time and money redesigning for potential use in the left hand.
Nearly every gaming mouse and keyboard rig on the market assumes that you will have the mouse in your right hand, and the left will run the keyboard. This didn't become an irresolvable problem until the rise of ergonomics. Now, mice and keyboards are form molded to fit into the hand that they were designed for.
Try holding that nice Logitech bluetooth mouse in your left hand. You'll find that it's uncomfortable just sitting there. Never mind moving it around on your desk.
But that just the small stuff. Dangerous tools that could maim or even kill if mishandled are only available in right handed form. I've never seen a ambidextrous circular saw.
Ever try to find a left handed firearm?
Easily 90% of the auto loading sidearm designs have all of the controls positioned to be accessed by the thumb of the right hand. Almost every hunting rifle made by man has the bolt actuator on the right side. Revolvers are almost impossible to reload left handed.
So it is frustrating when Nintendo designs a controller that is so obviously ambidextrous, and the software developers ignore it and build everything right handed anyway.
Yes, I know what a pun is. Sinister just happens to be a better fit because if its evil connotations.
Thanks for the correction; It's appreciated. Here's my correction for you: I'm a woman. Yes, we exist. You are correct about me not knowing my right from my left sometimes... you must have been trying to give me driving directions.
Assuming Link is the only major character who is left handed, then all the NPCs are right handed. "Fixing" the game by merely mirror imaging makes *all* the characters switch. Now all of the NPCs are left handed. Most sword fighting, etc. is right on right handed (look at spiral stair case design in mideval castles), and an advantage is usually to the lefty who is used to fighting against a right handed opponent, while the right handed opponent rarely fights a left handed opponent.
This actually changes *a lot* and is disapointing as a fix. It does not balance the world, or make it correct. Making Link right handed fighting right handed opponents would be a more accurate fix, though it defeats the purpose of having Link being left handed in the first place.
Not having an option to play a left handed Link also disapoints me because I am a lefty. I would like the option to use the sword in whatever hand I choose to. This is one game I was excited about, but am now indifferent to. This is a deal breaker for the Wiimote to lefties. Left handed batting? Left handed catching? If these are not possible, I'm not buying.
I'm sure, given time, this will be adressed in other games if they don't want to cut out 10% of the population
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
Link was left-handed even in the original Legend of Zelda. Well... three quarters left-handed, anyway. When he was facing 3 of the 4 directions he used his left hand for his sword. He used his right hand when facing one direction because the same sprites were used when Link faced left and right, just reflected.
I am right handed. I personally think that it shouldn't matter much about the character being left or right handed as much as the game being playable for left or right handed people. If the player is right handed, then the on screen avatar should be. If the player is left handed then a left handed avatar.
True, Link is an established left handed character but having the avatar match the player makes more sense. It's much better than making Link right handed and also forcing all the southpaws to "just deal".
I haven't been fishing for over 20 years, but I do use a right hand retrieve reel when fishing. This is where you reel with your right hand. This page even calls a right hand retrieve a "Classic" method but goes on to say that it's just preference. I will say that the Dreamcast's fishing controller is right hand retrieve but you can clearly see that videos show Twilight Princess' fishing as left hand retrieve.
(Score:-1, Redundant)
That's classic.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
...unless you've never played with a console controller before, it will feel more natural to use the Wiimote in the right hand, since it has the main buttons, which have ALWAYS been featured on the right side of paddle controllers. The nunchuk, held in the left, will have the control stick, just like in traditional controllers.
If you think about it, controllers have always been strangely left-handed. It's our left thumbs that do the precision controlling that is usually associated with the dominant hand, while the right hand does the button mashing more commonly associated with the subordinant hand. Joysticks and keyboards feature directional control with the right hand. Seeing that Nintendo both designed the first paddle controller and featured a left-handed Link, one wonders whether the lead design team was made up of mostly lefties at the time... not that it really made much of a difference in the long run.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Link is left-handed and the nerd inside would have just used his left hand.. DAMN YOU NINTENDO!
I'm tired of all this nonsense where lefties get the shaft. When will game developers (and the rest of the world) learn to make things that work for both lefties and righties? Take guitar hero for example. While they did add the option to flip the way the notes are displayed on the screen, actually using the guitar upside-down sucks; the whammy bar has to be PULLED on, and the strap gets in the way, making it just that much less fun and giving me less of a reason to want to buy it. Even games with traditional controllers can be different for lefties. Try playing Tiger Woods and using your left hand to pump the power button while swinging the left analog stick back and forth with your right hand. I mean, we lefties learn to adapt, but you righties just don't realize all the little things like this that take away just enough from things to make them annoying. I will, however, give props to the makers of Brain Age and their nice, albeit simple, way of compensating for lefties. P.S. Another reason they should cater to us lefties is because we tend to have shorter lifespans, so give us a break here and enjoy your few extra years.
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
I'm a woman. Yes, we exist
Such nonsense. Next thing you'll be telling me is you're a sasquatch or a unicorn.
I've never noticed this until watching some current footage of the game. I couldn't even sit through the whole thing; something just looks wrong with a right-handed link. I'm glad this was posted; I wanted to get the wii version (I dont have a cube) but I wouldn't be able to play five minutes of that. It's just too awkward.
Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
From the summary:
"As some of you may or may not know, Link will appear right-handed in the Wii version of Twilight Princess (as opposed to the left-handed Link seen since Ocarina of Time)."
From the source material:
"Link nodded silently in approval, and left the room after taking a long glance at the altar. Then with a magical sword in his left hand and a magical shield in his right, he set off alone on his long travels."
Instruction manual, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
... that's the first mention in the written text. If you look at the sprite in the first game, it's painfully obvious that link is left-handed.
The more you know!
Take care,
Mark
There is a solution...
Open up the controller and scrape the black residue from the d-pad off the metal contacts and it will work much better. Goes for both NES and SNES controllers.
I thought the whole point of the Wii technology was to develop a strongly symbolic connection between the player and their avatar via controls. I suppose I might be expecting too much sophistication from a relatively new technology.
I had really expected that when you hold the sword (remote) in your right hand, Link would be right-handed. Switching the controllers (as a left-handed person might do) would cause Link to become left-handed. In fact, I had taken it for granted that the twin controllers would give you control of Link's left and right hands in almost every situation.
I understand that this is a rushed solution to a last-minute feature. Still, I have to ask, why is sword interactivity with the Wii controller being kludged on, last minute, on Nintendo's flagship title? I really wanted to believe in the Wii, but all of the little things are really starting to add up against it. It is starting to seem to be more and more of a gimmick as the release draws closer.
This issue does raise an interesting point -- what happens to character, when the player and their avatar are this closely connected? In according to Zelda canon, Link should be a southpaw. If the Wii provided a perfect interface, we would lose this, forcing Link to share the same traits as the player.
From IGN,
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
If it's true (unlike the blurb says) that the GameCube version will be un-mirrored, then this will make for an insane replay of the game if done a second time on the other system. Spacially, it will mean re-charting everything in reverse, which the human brain isn't really all that good at doing. You will be much more likely to not immediately remember the solution to each puzzle just by reconizing the room, since a reversed layout will many times look just "different". If this is true, I'm going to wait a few months, and then go back and play the other version... this could make for a REALLY interesting case study in spacial memory.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
"JUSTIN BAILEY -------- --------" just happens to be a valid password by the game's password checksum algorithm. The state of the game you get just happens to be what matches the setting of those bitflags. I would guess that a player named Justin Bailey tried this and found it worked well - and no other password at the time was known to allow a suitless Samus. In modern times, a password is known that gives you a suitless Samus at the starting point with no power-ups.
There is only one special-cased Metroid password: "NARPAS SWORD0 000000 000000", probably meaning "Narihiro's password". It gives you infinite life and ammo, and was not discovered until the assembly code behind the password system was analyzed.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I guess "peer pressure" made them add sword swinging after all, even though they said it'd be too tiresome. Ah well.
n/t
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
Glad someone did. /. is getting harsh these days. I can't be getting THAT old.
...and I grew up playing Contra. ...and could beat it without losing a life.
:P
Okay, so the game is from 9 years ago, and I consider that recent.
Okay, yeah, I'm getting old.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Quotes copied shamelessly from imdb.com
:s/Man in Black/Link/g
Inigo Montoya: You are wonderful.
Man in Black: Thank you; I've worked hard to become so.
Inigo Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?
Inigo Montoya: Because I know something you don't know.
Man in Black: And what is that?
Inigo Montoya: I... am not left-handed.
[Moves his sword to his right hand and gains an advantage]
Man in Black: You are amazing.
Inigo Montoya: I ought to be, after 20 years.
Man in Black: Oh, there's something I ought to tell you.
Inigo Montoya: Tell me.
Man in Black: I'm not left-handed either.
In other news, Kameo's Co-Op pack on Xbox 360 reverses some of the levels. Amazing! The mind boggles!
Headline: "Minor change made in video game under development!"
Comment of the year
that more lefty gamers aren't concerned about the Wiimote control system in general. I mean, sure, the 'mote itself is ambidextrous, but as soon as you add the nunchuck it becomes almost detrimentally right-handed. Think about it. When a lefty picks up a remote control, he picks it up with his LEFT hand (at least I do). Now look at video games. We've all conditioned ourselves to control an onscreen character's movements with our LEFT hand, as is the standard. So we're used to having a remote in our left AND a controller in our left. So whichever hand you hold the remote in, the nunchuck is going to make for an extreme learning curve. Personally, I'm planning on trying to learn to play the system as if I was right-handed. That way, it won't screw up my gaming when I switch to a 360 or PS3 controller. It's been noted before here, but I still find it interesting how many things in this world just don't work right for lefties. While there are obvious ones, like mice and scissors, there's other not-so-obvious ones too. I for one can't get an iron to work comfortably. Now, you're probably thinking that an iron and ironing board is ambidextrous. And looking at it, I'd agree. But for some reason, I just can't use it comfortably in the left hand. Can't tell you why, it just doesn't work. Being left-handed is a big plus though when it comes to learning to be ambidextrous. I trained myself to be ambidextrous in baseball. So now, when my left arm gets tired from throwing, I just switch gloves, and voila! a completely fresh arm.
> In order to accomplish this, Nintendo has mirrored the entire game.
> This includes maps, since they were apparently designed with a left-handed Link in mind."
Uhhh, wouldn't it be easier to mirror Link's movements and body?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That's right, your beloved hero of time is a flautist named Lefty.
You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.
Hooray for bad Engrish on fortune cookies
I second "right hand retrieve" to be the default setting among humans running the fishing program.
You've got issues.