Jan 16
Wii – The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess Review
With the kid crawling every which way he can now, it makes it just THAT much more difficult to find time to curl up with a good game.
Regardless, when my brother let me borrow The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess for the Wii, I resolved to find the time…
And some 50 hours later, Hyrule is back in working order and Zelda is safe inside her castle.
But I can’t help feeling that this game could’ve been a bit better.
The Story
Without giving anything away, there’s basically two worlds in this game. One is the world that Hyrule exists in, the world of light. The other one is the world of twilight. And recently, the world of twilight has been bleeding into the world of light, bringing all kinds of baddies along with it. As the hero Link, it’s your job to banish the evil and win one for the good guys.
Along the way, you go the normal Legend of Zelda (LoZ) route, trapezing about in dungeons and finding various items to help you along the way. The most notable difference between this game and others is your ability to turn into a wolf creature that at times is the only way to advance past certain points. Which brings us to the first problem of this game…
Problem Number 1 – Wolf Link
If you’re a Legend of Zelda fan, the first thing you want to do is start the ol’ dungeon crawling! You wanna solve the puzzles, get the cool items and fight the kicka$$ bosses. But unfortunately, if you’re playing Twilight Princess you’ll first have to deal with Wolf Link. In what you could consider the first half of the game, you basically have to travel to each temple as Wolf Link… Which sucks.
- Wolf Link doesn’t have a sword
- Wolf Link has weak attacks
- Wolf Link looks cool but doesn’t act cool
PLUS, Wolf Link seems to always have to do stupid things like dig into houses, follow various scents, or killing 12 random bugs to gain entry to the temples. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the super annoying task of having to kill the group of twilight beasts at the same time so the other one doesn’t revive the group. *GROAN* Trust me, after a little while as Wolf Link (when you can’t switch back and forth), you’re going to be asking yourself why they put this in the game.
Problem Number 2 – Ganon/Story
First off, lemme say that I REALLY like Ganon/Ganondorf in the later Zelda games. He’s just awesome. But as I played through Twilight Princess I really had to question as to why he was in this game. It just didn’t seem to fit and came off as a rather lazy attempt to put the LoZ staple in this latest edition of the franchise.
And outside of the whole Ganon thing, the story really seems to come apart as you get closer to the end of the game. It’s almost as if the writer’s strike made its way into the land of Hyrule. Things happen that leave you asking *shocker* “Why is this in the game – Wait, what the hell is going on here?” and finally, “Ugh. Don’t tell me that was the ending.” I WILL say though that after reading the Zelda wiki, it seems to fill in some of the gaps of what exactly was happening with Ganon in Twilight Princess but you know what? That information should be in the GAME and not on Wikipedia where WHO KNOWS if it’s the truth or not!
The Good Things
Don’t think that just because I’m quick to point out the problems with Twilight Princess that it’s a bad game. After you get past the Wolf Link parts, the game really feels like reuniting with an old friend. And even though you’re not going to see the graphics you’d find on a 360 or PS3, everything in the game looks stellar and you’ll often be surprised at some of the graphical effects Nintendo came up with.
- Side quests are great and you’ll have fun completing them
- Puzzles in dungeons are hard enough to get you thinking
- Link controls very well
- All the items in the game are very cool
- It’ll probably take you 40-50 hours to beat the game
Conclusion
And there’s a ton of other reasons as to why this is a great game but I wonder when looking back at the 3D Zelda games, (Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Windwaker, Twilight Princess) how well this is going to hold up. It’s certainly not as monotonous as Majora’s Mask but it’s definitely not as memorable as Ocarina of Time or hold up to the visual presentation in Windwaker. I think in the end if the writer’s really tightened up the story, (again especially towards the end of the game), Twilight Princess would’ve left everyone feeling a lot more fulfilled.
But still get the game! It’s great!
January 16th, 2008 at 8:44 am
I’m just about to beat Wind Waker lol
January 16th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
@Andre – Hey, that’s a solid game. I love the conclusion of the last boss battle too. GWA HA HA
January 31st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I’m sorry you had me laughing at…
<blockquoteWith the kid crawling every which way he can now, it makes it just THAT much more difficult to find time to curl up with a good game.
Welcome to my world! I still haven’t played Halo 3, or Bioshock, or Mass Effect! At least one of us is playing! When I stop laughing I’ll come back and read the review, ok?
February 1st, 2008 at 1:20 am
@Opal T – Well that’s why lately I’ve been up at like 1 in the morning! I gotta find the time to play so I can keep writing stuff for the site! (#);D
February 9th, 2008 at 9:23 am
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