The Legend of Zelda:
Twilight Princess Review

Tim asked me to review this game because he admitted he doesn't really care for a lot of my other book and movie reviews. If this is the case for any of you, please let me know and tell me what you would be interested in me reviewing. I can't promise I'll do it, but I might. Doesn't that make it worth a try?

Also unless you don't want to know anything about the game, this should be free of spoilers. I put the only spoiler, my personal opinion of the end, in difficult to read text at the very end. If you want to read it, you can highlight it. Otherwise, just don't try to decipher the dark text.

Anyway, onto the review:

The Story:

I originally played The Ocarina of Time purely for the storyline. This may seem incomprehensible to hardcore gamers, but I am still most interested by good stories and not necessarily games. That said, I do not feel the story of this game disappoints. It's possibly a better story than Ocarina. As with many of the other games, it takes place in Hyrule and stars the Link character, but it doesn't directly relate to the events of any of its predecessors. This game's storyline seems meant to give you a sense of Link's reincarnation over time, and there are several references that those who played Ocarina will appreciate, but they're only like echoes over a great distance and those just getting into the series won't be confused because of them.

The simple summary of the story is that Link is a simple goat-herder in a village called Ordon. But one day all the children of the village are kidnapped by monsters and Link sets out to find them. In doing so, Link is ambushed by the shadow beasts and turned into a beast himself, a wolf. Then Link finds out that the problem is bigger than his missing friends. All of Hyrule has been beseiged by the beasts of Twilight and Zelda herself asks for Link's assistance. Throughout the game Link goes between his wolf and human forms with the guidance of a strange imp from the twilight world, Midna.

The only characters from Ocarina are Link and Zelda. Otherwise, it's an entirely new cast. I think the best of all of them is Midna, and this was actually the biggest surprise of the game. Those who played Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask would probably be surprised as well after the annoyances of Navi and Tatl. Normally, the guide characters are the worst, clearly only there to tell you what to do. Midna, on the other hand, is actually a major character in the story, and by the end I completely fell in love with her unique mixture of good and evil. As a creature from the shadow realm you even get to explore Midna's world and you learn a lot about it and her as the game progresses.

Sound and Music:

Those who've played the previous Zelda games will recognize the old sounds and themes but there's also enough of an infusion of the new that people shouldn't be bored. The music also seems to be more complex, probably because the Gamecube and Wii systems can support better sounds. It sounds less like midis and more like the real soundtrack of an epic fantasy with a more real sounding orchestra. Much as I loved the music of Ocarina, a few of the tunes drove me a little nuts with their repetition. I didn't have that problem in Twilight Princess.

However, I was disappointed by the lack of a musical instument in this game. The wolf can howl which is used to play music instead. This is a cool idea but you don't have the freedom to howl whenever you want and it's a lot more difficult to do than the ocarina or any of the intruments in Majora's Mask. The rise and fall of the notes are controlled by the joystick on GC and this is problematic at best. Maybe if I'd been able to just settle down and howl to improve my technique, I would have gotten better and enjoyed it. But as it was, it was just a constant frustration.

Strange Extras:

You can pick up dogs and cats in this game, pet goats, and throw bones to play fetch with eagar dogs. None of this appears to have any relevance on the game at large.

One thing that was also more of the opposite of an extra was the inabillity to talk to people who are walking in Castle Town. I think any person who won't talk to you is just a lame waste of space.

You can also sumo wrestle a goron and snowboard against a yeti. While these were awesome, I was disappointed that the sumo wresting wasn't a mini-game of its own. Once you've done it in the course of the game, you can't go back and challenge the goron to wrestle with you. This made me sad. Happily, the yetis are always up for a race.

Graphics:



I know that the GameCube will never be a Playstation, but I was happy with the graphics. Everyone who plays Nintendo knows they don't do it because it has the best graphics. That being said, for the GC and the Wii the graphics are still awesome. You can even see actual detail in the irises of Link's eyes in certain scenes and some of his facial expressions are priceless. The better graphics allow the characters a wider range of emotion which, considering that Link is the strong silent type, really helps flesh out his own character.

The only gripe I have were the lights and darks. Now, my sister has rigged an old computer screen to play her video games on so it may just be because of this, but I could never get the color contrast to work properly. The beginning of the game even has a selection of color squares to help you adjust your screen but mine wasn't capable of the proper adjustment. As a result, some of the lights were a bit too buttery bright and the darks were a bit darker than they should have been. This made some of the text difficult to read at times. Still, as I said before, this could have just been because of the weird arrangement we had. If you have a normal TV, it's probably fine.

Gameplay:

You get to fight on horseback in this game, and while it looks cool, it's a bit hard on the fingers if you have more than one attacker. In the GC version you practically have to push every button frantically at once while jiggling the joystick to pull this off. I asked my friends with the Wii version if this was any better but they seemed to think it was just as difficult on the Wii.

Difficulty, however, was lacking in a lot of other aspects of this game. Now, keep in mind this comes from the girl with the cheat guide. But I had two cheat guides to Ocarina, and I still think it was a lot harder than this game. Maybe I've just gotten better, but even the final boss in this game didn't require me to use all of my heath potions, and you only have four bottles in this game to what I think was six in the other. Fairies also only restore eight hearts in this game, which I suppose was their attempt to make things more difficult, but it didn't. The bosses just aren't as hard. It was a bit more difficult for my sister who didn't know exactly how to defeat everything, but even she passed the game the same day I did and actually spent less time than me doing it without using the cheat guide at all.

The only truly difficult thing in this game is called "The Cave of Ordeals." I crawled out of there with only two hearts left, no healing potions, and a sprained L-targeting finger. It isn't necessary to pass the cave in order to pass the game, though. Bats in this game also seem faster and more difficult to shoot down. I remember in Ocarina and Majora's Mask I could clear a room of bats without blinking, but now I'm lucky if I can get one that's not in targeting range. Then there's rupees. For some inexplicable reason it's more difficult to get rupees in this game. You can still find them in the grass and other places, but it seems to take a lot longer to fill your wallet. Getting lost is a problem in this game too. I suppose this is good news for explorers and bad news for people like me who just want to get from point A to point B without a lot of running in circles. Everything is bigger. There isn't just one field; there are several. The fishing pond is even bigger! I would get lost in the town when I first started playing. Maybe players of the previous games asked for these changes, but if Nintendo purpousely made these things more difficult while making the bosses easier, then I still question their motives.

I don't want people to take any of this as an excuse not to get this game, though, because I still think it's lots of fun regardless. Just don't expect to be overwhelmed by the difficulty of the battles. I can't speak for all the puzzles since I hate puzzles and cheat on practically all of them. But I still felt the dungeons, though more numerous, were smaller and easier to get through in this game. There were, however, plenty of things I would not have been able to figure out so easily without my guide, so the puzzles weren't a complete loss.

All the same, I now have every poe, bug, heartpiece, and possible piece of equipment. I even caught the largest fish in the fishing pond. It's a bit sad really. It's all over for me.

But it doesn't have to be for you. If you haven't already played, I highly recommend it.

Overall Rating: 9.75/10

A few random scenes to leave you with:

***Spoilers!***
(Highlight the text below for easy reading. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't look too close!)

I think Link should marry Midna and have lots of sex and babies since she's cooler, hotter, and a better Princess than Zelda! Clearly Link thought so too at the end. That's right, Link. Run away from silly Zelda into Midna's arms. And I know what you're saying. You're saying, but Cherie, I thought YOU wanted to do all that with Link. Yeah. But Midna's definitely my video game alter ego. Twilight Princess all the way baby! Why did she have to seal the portal to her world? WHY?! Miiiiiidnaaaaa!!!! *Sobs inconsolably*

I even made a poem out of one of Midna's lines at the end.

"Zelda, your words are kind and your heart is true..."
But I am so much cooler than you!

http://www.karenfreberg.com/TwilightPrincess2006.JPG

Click the link to see a picture of human Midna to compare her beauty with Zelda's (above). I think the answer to her question is "Yes!"