Quite simply an excellent action-adventure. The killer-app of all times.
Link, our pointy-eared hero, begins the game as a farmhand in the tiny village of Ordon, herding goats and riding around on his trusty steed Epona. Before long, however, he’s thrust headfirst into a battle to save the world from the Twilight Realm, whose leader is trying to fuse the land of Hyrule with his own to create a single land of darkness. It’s Link’s job to venture forth into the dark “alternate reality” of the Twilight Realm, save the two worlds from each other and rescue Princess Zelda along the way.
However things are not quite so clear-cut, as when he ventures into the Twilight Realm, poor old Link finds himself transformed into a wolf. He’s also not alone in his quest, as he meets up with the imp-like Midna. She’s no giggling version of Ocarina’s Navi, however, as she provides hints and other help (such as complicated jumping routes) from the back of Link’s lycanthropic form, and eventually she will aid you with her ability to warp around the world map with ease.
Whether you’ve played a previous Zelda game before or not, it’s no great shakes getting used to the new Wii-mote control system. Slashing the remote to attack as either Link or the wolf and swinging the nunchuck to do a spin attack is brilliantly intuitive, while movement and camera are all handled easily through the nunchuck. That said, the button layout on the remote is somewhat unwieldy, but it’s easy to forgive the problems when you’re using the remote to slice through bad guys, aim your arrows with the bow or enjoy a nice spot of fishing down at the old fishin’ hole. Even the Wii-mote’s built-in speaker is put to fantastic use, emulating the slashing sounds of Link’s sword, Midna’s laugh when she wants your attention and even the trademark Zelda chime when you collect special items. This said, the Gamecube version is every bit as enjoyable to control, retaining Link’s trademark left-handed combat stance and saving you from working your way through a colossal amount of batteries.
In terms of structure, Twilight Princess is every bit as perfectly balanced as the rest of the series, opening up after the first few big dungeons into a huge world where exploration can take precedence over the main storyline. The lands of Hyrule and the Twilight Realm are jam-packed full of so much to do, see and discover that you’d be hard pressed to uncover everything on your first play through, pushing the game’s length way over the fifty hour mark. It’s also refreshing that the game doesn’t resort to an overuse of backtracking or The Wind Waker’s overdose of sailing – not that travelling around the gorgeous land of Hyrule and the dark, twisted Twilight realm could be classed as a bad thing: while the Wii might not have the graphical oomph of Microsoft and Sony’s next-gen machines, it more than makes up for its lack of power by being designed scrupulously by artists and designers with more talent in each finger than most development studios have in their entire offices; visually, Twilight Princess is every bit the sequel to Ocarina of Time that fans have been waiting for.
Twilight Princess is also more story-based than previous instalments in the series, packed full of slick cut-scenes and a wide array of supporting characters, each fleshed out and unique. While Link himself rarely exhibits more than the odd bout of emotional reaction and the odd grunting noise, characters like Midna make up for his speechless state. A constant companion throughout the game, her personality is far deeper and intricate than any seen in a Legend of Zelda game before. Even the characters from Link’s home village of Ordon are well-crafted, with their fates, like Link’s, linked into the main storyline.
As for the game world itself, Twilight Princess sticks rather rigidly to the usual formula for dungeons. While for many the tried and tested nature of the game is an inch-perfect example of something being unbroken and not in need of fixing, it’s also the case that for others the same old formula is getting quite tired after all these years. It’s a double-edged sword for Nintendo – if they had changed too much or not enough they would risk alienating fans. Instead, the old formula has been stuck to, but adjusted just enough to keep it from feeling stale.
If it’s any consolation for gamers who were expecting something new and innovative in this Hyrulian adventure, the classic environments and dungeons never venture anywhere near the realms of predictable and boring. In fact, the further you go into the game, the fresher it begins to feel, the classic staples of the series shining through. The puzzles are perfectly weighted, neither too hard nor too easy, and it’s nigh-on impossible to find yourself lost and wondering what to do next.
To go into too much detail about the game and its features would spoil the experience for those still holding out on picking up a Wii with Link’s latest adventure. Twilight Princess is no revolution for The Legend of Zelda, but it is a wonderful evolution for a series whose only slip-ups have been laserdisc-related and long forgotten. The game is packed full of fantastic characters, an epic and intoxicating story, perfect pitched combat, puzzles and dungeons, and a massive world to explore. What could have been an adventure game series getting a little long in the tooth, awkwardly shoe-horned onto Nintendo’s latest console, has instead managed to be familiar, fresh and fantastic at the same time. It’s an absolute must-have for self-respecting gamers everywhere, and easily one of the finest launch titles a new console has ever had.
Of course, the debate will forever rage on about which game in the series is the greatest, and to claim that Twilight Princess is a new pinnacle for the series would be as pointless as it is hard to justify. It’s not perfect and there’s no real reason to prefer the Wii version over the Gamecube’s, but The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is every bit the masterpiece gamers have been craving for, and proves there’s life in the old wolf yet.