Leminnes

I wish to submit you a question. Unfortunately, it’s completely objective but I want you to contemplate it. What do you think makes a Legend of Zelda game great? Ask yourself that question and keep whatever you answer inside yourself. That is your opinion. Do not let anyone else destroy that opinion because it is yours. Now, I am going to tell you what my answer to that question is. You don’t need to agree with it; you don’t even need to read it.

What makes a Zelda game great for me are a few things: Story, Gameplay, and Aesthetics. The story must be simple, yet meaningful. The gameplay must be unique but intuitive. The aesthetics must be beautiful and imaginative. All of those ideals create a Zelda game for me. Nothing else. And I must say, Twilight Princess delivers all of that.

I started playing Twilight Princess November 19th at 1:17 AM. To be honest, after waiting 14 hours for this game I don’t think anything could’ve really disappointed me which is why I think the 5 or so hours of tutorial-like gameplay at the beginning didn’t bother me.

One thing that I love about the past few Zelda games is how they start. Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess all start with one of Link’s friends or loved-ones yelling at him to wake up. Granted, the two from Ocarina and Wind Waker were far more important to the story but that is beside the point. It’s just the simplicity of a person calling him to begin his unsuspecting odyssey. To Link, it’s just a normal morning but to the fates, his friends are calling him to legend.

I will admit, playing the beginning again without the built-up excitement inside me, the beginning isn’t the best part of the game. But it’s far from being horrible. It’s far better then having Navi, the built in tutorial, scream at Link every three seconds. Just thinking of that, I can bare a few hours of simple tutorial: learning to ride Epona, use a slingshot, fishing. Even the first dungeon is simple. It doesn’t take complicated thinking or extended thought but it’s only a refresher for the rest of the game.

The rest of game is where the action is – the meat of the game. Contrary to popular belief, the controls are fantastic. They are new and they do take about 90 seconds to get the hang of but they are amazingly intuitive. I can’t even imagine what going back to pressing a button to swing my sword and aiming with the analog stick. A testimate to the quality of the controls is my love of the bow and arrow now. I used to hate the bow and arrow in other games. You have no idea how long it took me to shoot those arrows at the birds flying around Needle Rock Island so I could use a seagull to turn off the flames… you get the point. Either way, it is one of my favorite things in this game now.

Since this review took far longer then I was expecting it to, I’ve obviously had a good amount of time with Twilight Princess. I’ve played the game a total of 140 hours and still not sick of it. I won’t say there are tons of Mini-games but there is a very good amount to keep your interest long after the story line is over. My personal favorite is definitely fishing. The one thing I love about fishing is there’s no reason to stop doing it. I don’t win anything for getting a bigger fish so there’s no real goal to ever build up to, just a satisfied feeling that I just caught a 22 inch bass.

The other Mini-games are also lots of fun. There’s the STAR Game, Fruit Pop Flight Challenge, Falbi’s Flight-by-Fowl, Snowpeak Sledding, Iza’s Rapid Ride, and Rollgoal. Each of these has given me a good ten hours each of trying to get a higher and higher time and/or score and some of them still are.

But enough of what to do before and after the game, I am sure you want to know about the middle of the game. Well, the game has nine dungeons in all. It includes some classic ones – fire, water, nature – and some brand new ones and one especially creepy one. The dungeons get larger and larger as the game moves forward all the way up until the seventh when it gets a bit smaller. By the sixth dungeon there are eight floors.

All of these dungeons have fantastic puzzles too. The thing that drives most people crazy is the insane simplicity of the puzzles but they are still extremely hard. Nintendo is prolific at making apparently simple puzzles very complex because we don’t expect them to be so easy. One puzzles in the last dungeon had me sitting and thinking about it for about two hours until I had to ask someone and it turned out to be insanely easy. Of course, this will be different for various people but all in all the puzzles work well.

One of my favorite things about Twilight Princess was the mini-bosses. That might surprise you guys at first but I really liked some of the Mini-boss battles. They didn’t seem like they were thrown in there just so Link could get some item he needs, they actually had a bit more depth in them and it actually felt enjoyable to defeat them. Regardless, they were thrown in there so we could get an item Link needs from them but I quickly forgot about that as I was fighting them.

As for the boss battles, I will admit, I was somewhat disappointed in them. Not hugely disappointed just slightly. They definitely seemed epic enough. All of the bosses were huge and I loved that almost every boss had two “phases” to it so it was like two bosses in one. But all in all, the bosses were not very hard. Some of them were slightly easier then some of The Wind Waker’s bosses. But this is not saying that because they were easy they were not fun. All of them were a lot of fun and some of them were more challenging then others.

However, as it has been said by many a reviewer, this game is very similar to other Zelda games. Now, does this make it a bad game to me? Not even remotely. I, for one, would be perfectly okay with brand new mechanics with a new Zelda game but I find nothing wrong with the one right now. It never gets old, it always gives us hours of game play and it’s always fun. Not only that, but each Zelda game does differ from each other. If they were all the same it would be hard to have favorites. Ocarina of Time had the Time element, Majora’s Mask had the Masks, The Wind Waker had the water, and Twilight Princess had the Twilight Realm. All of those made each of those a unique game. Sure, they had the same general goal – save someone by collecting something – but who’s to say that there’s anything wrong with that formula if it works every single time and that the games are changed enough that they don’t get old.

This might not be a good example but if people got sick of game mechanics quickly then the Final Fantasy series would’ve lost steam long ago but with Final Fantasy XII and its vastly changed fighting mechanic perhaps Zelda needs something like that too. At the moment, I don’t think it would hurt but the repeated game style of Twilight Princess is certainly not hurting it.

Nevertheless, Twilight Princess is a great game. One of the other great aspects of the game is the new items. Of course, there are some old, nostalgic items like the Hero’s Bow and the Lantern but there are some brand new ones I love. One I like to refer to as the Top of Death. I’m pretty sure IGN called it this too but it is a very fitting name for it is a top that causes death. I won’t go any farther then that but I will say its real name is the Spinner. Then there are some new ones which are cool but seem completely useless out of the dungeon I got it in. One of these you get very late in the game and it is one of my favorite items but I just wish it was utilized more.

Now that I have given you the majority of the meat of the game, let me give you some of the seasonings. The first thing that makes the game even better is the story. Just the first opening scene is fantastic with foreshadowing and metaphors littered all over it. Although the game play takes a little while to get interesting the Story does not. In little less then twenty minutes I was sucked into the Twilight Realm where the story gets nice and juicy.

The story, in short, is about a young man named Link who is supposed to be destined to be the Mayor of the little town he lives in. His mentor is the local swordsman, Rusl, who gives him the task to bring a sword that he has made as an offering to the gods in Hyrule. I’m not going to go much farther then that for the sake of not spoiling it for people but I can truly say, the story is fantastically twisting and exciting. It has many dark moments that give the story an almost gothic feel that I really enjoy.

As for the aesthetics of the game: The art direction is fantastic. I’m not going into anything technical because I don’t care how many polygons Link has or how many FPS there are all I care is how pretty the game is to look at. I’ve heard many things from “The textures look like sh*t” and “It looks like a really nice Gamecube game.” But, what am I here to review? The graphics compared to what a system is capable of or what the game looks like as is? It is definitely the latter.

The game, in general, looks fantastic. Everything from the side of the ladders to the water are fine tuned and very beautiful. I have to say, the water is amazing. It’s not really uncommon to get very nice water nowadays but the water in Twilight Princess is beautiful. When it rains it becomes murky and when Link dives under the surface the underwater effects are eerily realistic. All in all, I love the water.

As for the rest of the game, it is also quite beautiful. The lighting effects give everything a somewhat ethereal look as tiny little gossamers glimmer in the air and the grass sways in the wind. Bees are buzzing on a large tree to the south and a huge expanse called Hyrule Field spreads out in front of Link’s vacant feet. It’s all very immersive and glorious. I’m not going to say that I do not wish the graphics were not higher quality but all in all, the number of polygons means nothing to me. That chill that ran down my spine the first time I saw a small portion of Hyrule field makes up for all of that.

And now for the crowning glory: the twilight realm. The twilight realm is a numinous, strangely demented world of grotesque creatures and ugly monsters but even with all those dissonant images, the world is beautiful. I don’t really prefer the Twilight Realm over the regular world but it is insanely beautiful nonetheless. I’m not even sure how to explain it. I could try to be original but I think people have summed it up best saying that it is a world crumbling apart. Although, I’m not sure if the world is “crumbling” but it does seem to be dissolving. The bright colors and the feathered outlines, everything just blends into each other.

Overall, I loved this game. It is most definitely the greatest Zelda game ever made. I was only disappointed with a few things: Not utilizing some items enough and slightly easy bosses but really, that’s about it. The graphics never bothered me, the game play was fresh and original with the use of the Wii remote making aiming far easier, the art direction is genius, and much more. Although Twilight Princess can hold my attention for a long time, I really want a new Zelda already and the hype has already started for the next Zelda Wii game. I’m sure we all can’t wait.

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