This "remotely dark atmosphere equals bad" mentality kills me. Not every game needs to be buried under saturation to be good and half of the people don't know what they are talking about when they call a game edgy.
It's just the tide of common sentiment crashing back the opposite direction after years of only gritty and dark games and media being well-received, and anything less being seen as immature or something. Wind Waker is the best example of this, since it was criticized for being too cartoony, and Twilight Princess was made in response to the outcry over not getting a darker, more realistic Zelda instead. But as the tide turned and everyone began taking the piss out of how dark and serious everything was getting, it seems like the majority sentiment flip-flopped, and Wind Waker went from being the underdog, and Twilight Princess became the bad one. Because two games can't both be good for different reasons, apparently, and it has to be about which one's good and which one's bad.
But both perspectives judge those games not on their individual merits, but on based on their styles and tone alone, out of a feeling that one has to be better than the other, which isn't true. I don't begrudge anyone for like Wind Waker more. Again, it was my first Zelda game, so I'll always love it. But it's the same thing that happened with Melee and Brawl, to an extent. Years after Brawl, many people decided to take the stance of "Melee is king, Brawl sucks and is for casuals," based solely on one narrow, opinionated perspective, rather than any comprehensive, objective evaluation.
If Wind Waker never existed, then I don't believe there'd be nearly as much criticism for Twilight Princess. But Twilight Princess exists because of Wind Waker, so oh well.
Funny, though, because now we're at a stage where goofy, lighthearted games like Fortnite and Minecraft are what's most popular and coloring the gaming landscape, and now people are pining for more serious and darker media to save us from this kiddy hellscape of sorts.
Feel free to talk about TP as much as you like! I myself could fill dozens of posts with reasons why I love the game.
Plus, let's not forget that it gave us the best Zelda character:
Seriously, Midna is probably one of the best, if not the best written character in Zelda. She has actual character development, intriguing lore, and a fantastic personality. I really wish the recent Zelda games would take more cues from TP's writing; it is horribly underrated.
Midna is great, and alongside Skull Kid is probably the only other character most deserving of a spot on the Smash roster. It's a shame that Fi kind of salted the earth regarding companion characters, since that went a little overboard and made Breath of the Wild such a hands-off approach.
Speaking of BotW, its characters get a lot of love, but I found them to be really one-dimensional and bland. Except for Zelda, whose character arc was pretty good, but the Champions are all super generic and have no depth. Hopefully with the new gameplay formula established, the next game will get to focus more on story and character.
I never played Twilight Princess, but I see a lot of people liking it, actually. I just want to know why you like it a lot.
I like Twilight Princess's dark tone as well.
Ah, well I suppose it no one else minds, I'll be dropping a rather long analysis in the thread sometime today. Or, if there's a space more appropriate, I can do it there. Just don't want to have anyone roll their eyes at some huge essay popping up out of nowhere (if people don't already).
, 
