Is Twilight Princess the worst 3D Zelda?

[DerpSandwich]

mZuzek said:

DerpSandwich said:
Exploration, story, art direction and atmosphere are some of the most important things to me. So for me, Twilight Princess was the height of Zelda. Skyward Sword was a disappointing mess.

Huh, that's funny. I thought Twilight Princess had by far the weakest exploration and art direction in any 3D Zelda. Maybe the worst atmosphere too. The story was better than most, certainly the best at the time, but I think Skyward Sword topped it.

I could give you art direction, because that's based on personal preference, and I won't scoff if you argue that the exploration was weak, but I feel like it's one of the only Zelda games that actually HAS an atmosphere.  Everything was dark and cloudy, and felt kind of sinister.  The odd pixely quality of the enemies made them feel so otherworldly.  It was very dire, and the muted color schemes made everything feel so real and just plain cool.

In SS everything was bright and colorful.  The townspeople just sat around obliviously as you saved the world.  I felt there was no atmosphere at all--no overarching feeling as you went about your business.  Same with Wind Waker, and largely Oot (though adult link's sections had some broody stuff I guess).  MM was of course an atmospheric masterpiece, and I feel it's the only Zelda game that is even almost at the same level as TP as far as that goes.

(And to be clear, I'm not trying to say that the only way for a game to be atmospheric is to be "dark," though that does tend to be one of the most effective types of atmosphere.)