The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is somewhat controversial in the Zelda fanbase. But, Zelda was starting to struggle before its release. Nintendo was extremely disappointed with how well Zelda sold in both Japan and the West, and after Twilight Princess, the team tried Four Swords Adventure deciding innovations was what gamers were looking for. Unfortunately, it was another massive misstep and failure for Nintendo and Zelda.
So, Eiji Aonuma had a bitter pill to swallow. While he hated the realistic Zelda presentation Nintendo had shown to promote the GameCube, Western reactions had been positive to it. So, he presented a realistic Zelda to Shigeru Miyamoto, and the team went forwards with a more realistic Zelda – hoping this project would succeed. Nintendo doesn’t always have the time/money/resources to spend on long development cycles, as revealed by Satoru Iwata, so, hopefully Twilight Princess would succeed. Dave Klein breaks down this story with the help of Manley Reviews.
