Man, I used to be terrified of the dark. Up until I was almost twelve years old, I always had a night-light glowing in my bedroom. If I didn’t, I was pretty much convinced that Nosferatu or some big hairy big-foot was going to leap onto my bed and get me. Blasted monsters movies; I ended up watching so many that they made me go crazy.

So, is Nintendo afraid of the dark? Well, I highly doubt that a corporation of fully-grown men and women are afraid of shadows and such, but that’s not even the dark I’m talking about. I mean the atmosphere, the design, and the overall feel of something. Gothic might be a good way to describe it, demonic maybe, horrifying etc. Heck, you don’t even need black everywhere and devils spewing flame to make something dark, all you need is to make the aura very tense, gloomy and dismal.

You don’t usually see dark things come out of the Nintendo, as it just doesn’t seem to be their style. Yeah, the Castlevania series ran on their platforms for years, but Konami was the company in charge of those, and even then, 2D sprite-games just don’t always emanate a grim feeling. In Metroid Prime Echoes for Gamecube, Samus often found herself in a Dark World, but it wasn’t a devilish type of dark, it was more of a mysterious world devoid of light, and where just plain bad things resided. Though, there was the Shadow Temple in Ocarina of Time…

The Kakariko Well and Shadow Temple in Ocarina of Time would be the first attempt by Nintendo to put some real darkness into the Zelda series. This wasn’t just a bleak atmosphere that was physically dark; they were going for the look and feel that could creep us out, and make us disturbed by the gruesome and frightening surroundings. The easiest way to say it, though, is that it didn’t work.

The biggest problem is that it just doesn’t fit with the rest of the series, let alone just Ocarina of Time. Zelda isn’t about scaring us, and it isn’t about horrifying things. When you had four games beforehand (several more Zelda games afterwards, at this time) that didn’t feature any bit of this dark aura, it stands out like a sore thumb. It’s not even about an idea that it didn’t work just because of some 3D Transformation; every other area of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time felt like fantasy, not creepy. You have dense forest, tall mountains, a clean lake, running streams, a wide open plain, a royal castle, and then a black dungeon with zombies, skeletons and ghouls everywhere. Can you spot the odd one out?

Another reason why it doesn’t work is because of the enemies. The Redeads had the freaky scream, but by that point in the game, we knew about it already, so it’s not as if we’re going to be surprised to hear it. Same thing went with the Floormasters/Wallmasters, but big moving hands still isn’t anything scary. Then you have things like the Stalfos, Bubbles and Dead Hand, who might’ve been scary if most of them hadn’t had such goofy expressions on their faces. But besides, just looking at them, they just don’t seem to have any kind of ‘truly evil’ appearance to them.

Luckily, all was not lost. The one good thing that came out of that part of the game was the big enemy; Bongo Bongo. I’ve heard complaints from people about him, even in players guides, that he was a disappointing boss for what was a dark temple. Some people say that he was just plain stupid-looking, and didn’t fit the rest of the feel for the segment. Well, that’s true, but it was smart on Nintendo’s part. Bongo Bongo wasn’t meant to be scary, and he probably would’ve felt odd if he was. Instead, he was something better; mysterious. I don’t know about you, but in the cinema sequence where he bursts from the well and attacks Shiek and Link, I was wondering what on Earth he could be. Then when I saw him up close, I really wondered what on Earth he was. He was this unexplainable spirit that made you cock your eyebrow and remark “Whoa…what the heck is that…?”

That works; mystery and Zelda are a great combination. Nintendo seemed to grasp that, as their next title, Majora’s Mask, would have a mysterious feeling throughout the entire story, and that was just one of the many things about the game that were awesome. The odd musical score (this is a good thing), the bizarre happenings, the fact that you’re turning into entirely different beings but putting on masks with their souls in them, the fact that there’s a moon with a face coming down onto the earth; the game is just plain weird!

But yet, it was superb. With the mystery aspect, Nintendo doesn’t need to take away the fantasy, adventurous feel of Zelda, while when they tried a dark-approach with the Shadow Temple; they took away that Zelda feel. With a mysterious air, you don’t really have to remove other designs in the level layout, or any other kind of feelings/emotions, very much unlike what you have to do a dark ambiance, and that just eliminates what makes Zelda, Zelda.
Twilight Princess approaches, and even though there’s so much that we don’t know about the game, we still have been told a wealth of information. The most important thing is what the game is based around; the Twilight. Basically, we’ve learned that it’s this atmosphere that has begun to descend on Hyrule, turning the creatures and inhabitants into monsters and other crazy things. What more, everything is grey, black or white. Already, we’re baffled as to what it is, and I’m sure that even when the game explains it, we’ll still be scratching our heads in disbelief of just how astonishing it is.

It’s like the Dark World from A Link to the Past put on steroids. The Dark World we knew was the ravaged Sacred Realm that Ganon warped while he was trapped inside of it. If you went in, depending on what kind of person you were, you got turned into a monster, or some other animal (Bunny Link, anyone?). Very straightforward, it was just some region devoid of good with all kinds of evil beasts. The Twilight though is a much more interesting place, because it doesn’t focus on using the easy ‘darkness’ tone, but instead, the eerie. Just look at it; it’s all grey, it’s dismal, and there’s some of the oddest creatures we’ve ever seen in there.

If anyone remembers my first article, I talked about those strange things that fell from the magical portal in the sky. These are probably the most unique Zelda enemies I’ve ever seen, purely in their design. I mentioned that they could be robots or cyborgs or something, and while I doubt that my first assumptions were correct, I still have no idea what to truly call them. They just drop from black hole, have stone heads, and explode into a storm of shards when they’re killed. What can you make of them?
So, yeah, Nintendo’s keeping that mystery aspect in Zelda. Good job Nintendo, you’re on the right track. But they’re not off the hook just yet. There’s still something that really needs to be added to Twilight Princess that we haven’t seen in most of the Zelda games; severity.

We don’t need a blood-bath, we don’t vulgar language, we don’t need disturbing actions, we don’t need any kind of mature theme, heck, you don’t even need that to create a very serious nature to the game. But, you do need something that will get a reaction from the gamer, something that will get them enthralled with the storyline. That doesn’t mean that Zelda needs to become an adult series (and it better not), it simply means that Nintendo needs to put some emotion into the plot. Make the characters get fired up, make the characters act passionately, make our villains downright wicked and detestable, add some drama, add some fury, add some tragedy etc. It doesn’t require the elimination of all humor, happiness and light-hearted moments, but instead just a good combination of it with the seriousness. You know the old saying; moderation in all things.

This also includes our enemies, and good old Ganon. Personally, I was getting kind of tired of the same old Moblins, Stalfos, Iron Knuckles and Darknuts coming at me in the games. It’s not that I don’t like them, but it just seems that after being used in the same way game after game, they losing their magic. That, and let’s face it, if we’re going to be fighting the soldiers of this mighty dark being, they shouldn’t be a bunch of goofballs (bad boy, Wind Waker). Make a bunch of them vicious; make them look intimidating, that’s all I’m personally asking for. And most of all; make them something new.

Wind Waker was a mixed bag with the enemies- there were only a few that could truly be called ‘new’, and a lot of the new designs looked pretty mediocre. I understood that it was meant to be a more cheerful adventure than other Zelda games, but many times I felt unchallenged by them, in both their appearances and battling styles. Luckily, Twilight Princess seems to be giving us more attack-orientated enemies, and some nice new enemies; skeleton bulls, the Twilight ‘things’, the Balrog rip-off, and it also looks like they’re creating new designs; Stalfos, Dinolfos, giant spiders etc.

Then we have Ganondorf. What can I say about him? Well, first off, he needs a personality. He looked radical in Ocarina of Time, but he had no interesting character, unlike the Wind Waker’s version. He needs to be made different from every other villain who wants world domination. More importantly, he needs a new look, at least for the Ganon form. I’m really getting sick of the Pig-Ganon, I admit it. Not only am I growing bored of it, but I’m also losing my respect for Ganon as a daunting adversary. It doesn’t look particularly frightening, and it’s been done to the death now.

Ganon needs a new look, it’s as simple as that. Don’t just bring back Ganon from Ocarina of Time, Nintendo, do something new with your number one bad-guy. Look at Dracula from the Castlevania series; he’s been pretty much the same in his humanoid form for every game, and that’s fine, but what shines about him is the multitude of forms he’s had afterwards. He’s gone from giant demons to giant gargoyles, to huge bats, to a winged beast formed from his cape, to a monstrous dragon, to even a thing that can only be described as a giant skull cracked open to reveal half a brain, an eye, and a giant claw. Even if Ganon isn’t turned into a whole new entity like Drac has, and he remains to turn into just a giant mammalian beast, it should be something new. It’s not hard for you, Nintendo; you’ve given us unique stuff hundreds of times before.

Nintendo seems to be trying to appeal to teens and the older gamers as of late, putting a lot of attention to the Metroid series, becoming a home for Resident Evil games, and such. Will Zelda ‘mature’ at all? It might, it might not. We know that Twilight Princess will be rated Teen, though that may be a result of the more realistic graphics, and realistic violence. Who knows? But in all honesty, I really don’t think it’s a matter of how serious Zelda becomes. Instead, I find it to be the matter of, in whichever situation, if it’s done right, and it feels like Zelda.