The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

"Nowhere near worth the 2 year wait"

The Legend of Zelda series is one of the best video game series of all time. With only 2 games of the whole series being particularly bad (Zelda 2 and Majora's Mask). However we have a new game to add to that list. Twilight Princess. I, like most people, was eagerly awaiting this game for the last 2 years or however long it was, finally we get it, and is it the best Zelda ever? No. Is it better then Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past? No. Was it worth the wait? No. This game is way too long for what it is, Ocarina of Time 2. Most Zelda games have bits of the others but are not really identical, this game on the other hand takes things directly from Ocarina of Time and re-does them. Unfortunately from this point on I will have to reveal some SPOILERS to some of the games, particularly this one, Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. Nothing really plot revealing and nothing major, but SPOILERS nonetheless.

Where was the Turtle Rock Dungeon in Ocarina of Time? Nowhere. Where was the Dark World in Ocarina of Time? Non-existant. That is what made Ocarina of Time such a great game, it was like a 3-D Link to the Past but it didn't directly copy anything, it had it's own dungeons and concepts. In Ocarina of Time you weren't searching the Dark World for the Wise Men's daughters like you did in Link to the Past, nor were you exploring a twisted copy of the overworld. Yes, Ocarina of Time had it's similarities to Link to the Past, you needed 3 stones to get the Master Sword in one, you needed 3 pendants in the other, half of one game was exploring the world consumed by evil 7 years after the beginning world while the other had you explore the twisted dark copy of the regular world. But neither game had exact copies like this one, neither was so long it was boring and neither game was hyped and delayed for 2 years and turned out terrible.

Story: 9/10
It's story wasn't copied from any game, it did have it's own story, a generic Zelda style story, but it was unique to this game at least. I don't want to reveal any plot spoilers so I won't go into detail but this game's story was a high point.

Graphics: 9/10
This game's graphics are beautiful. Yeah, the 360 and PS3 are capable of much better but there is no high def in this game, you get what you pay for. Wii = $249, 360 = $499, PS3 = $599, which one do you expect to have better/worse graphics. Don't say anything bad about this games graphics, they are truly great. The views from the Bridge of Elden and the Hylian Bridge are incredible, Lake Hylia is vast and from one end looks never ending and everything else looks good. As long as you can accept that this in not the 360 the graphics are truly amazing and are this games highest point.

Gameplay: 4/10
Here it is. The gameplay, the bulk of a game. I have always believed that gameplay matters and graphics don't, sure good graphics are nice but if the game is good, who cares about graphics. Wind Waker was not as bad as people say, but the people who say it sucks only look at the graphics. Most who played the game liked it. This is the opposite. It's graphics are great but the gameplay just doesn't match up. Let's start with the beginning. In past Zelda's you walk out your front door and bam!, there's the first dungeon, there is the action, there is the game. Link to the Past, all you do is walk around and find the hidden entrance to Hyrule Castle and there you go, game starts, 5 minutes in you get attacked by rats and soldiers. In Ocarina of Time there was a little more, you needed to find 40 rupees for a shield and locate the sword and then listen to a long non-skipable cut scene, but 15 or 20 minutes in you are in the first dungeon, playing the game. In this game after 20 minutes you still walking around the village aimlessly talking to the villagers learning the game. Before the first dungeon in this game you need to talk to a ton of people, herd goats, catch fish, call birds, find 30 rupees and finally after all that you see some action, not the first dungeon, action. You chase after kids in the forest and fight a few easy enemies. After that you herd more goats and get yelled at for mistreating your horse (it seems you shouldn't ride it). Then you turn to the wolf for the first time, don't get me started on the wolf.

The wolf is pointless. There are no special abilities for the wolf, okay, one, but thats it. You gain no abilities after your first trip as the wolf, it can be hard to attack as the wolf sometimes, rather then pushing a button, you waggle the Wiimote like the sword swinging action, yet since the wolf's attack is biting, it doesn't feel right. You must constantly watch the repetitive transformation scene everytime you switch back and forth (and unlike the mask transformations in Majora's Mask these are unskippable) and that is once you gain the ability to change forms freely which you can't do right away, you must be human here and wolf there and can't change at all. The wolf could have been cool, and a good new addition to the Zelda franchise, instead it is boring and rather useless.

Anyway, you're the wolf and you are in a castle. No soldiers, no bosses, just a few rats and birds that can actually kill you easily, rats and birds shouldn't do 1 heart of damage this easily but the damage really can pile up. After walking through a jail cell and sewers you watch a cut scene then return to the village as the wolf. Sounds cool, but it isn't. As the wolf you must wander the village and steal the sword and shield while avoiding the villagers. No fighting just walking around. Then you back into the forest, looking for insects that are causing the twilight. You kill all 16 (not as fun as it sounds) and become human again. If you liked the wolf for whatever reason, too bad, you change back until you find the next section of twilight. Finally in human form you follow a monkey through the same woods you already traveled through twice (once as the wolf and once as a human) to the first dungeon, the Forest Temple. Now where do I know that name? Oh yeah, that is the exact same name as the 4th dungeon in Ocarina of Time. Couldn't they come up with a new name? First Forest Temple is generic and second it has been used before. Some things can have the same name, Hyrule Castle, Lake Hylia, what else will you call them? But they could easily come up with a new name for the dungeon. Anyway 3 hours or so later you are at the first dungeon, bored and wanting to try taping the plastic back on and returning it.

You will continue to do almost the exact same thing 2 more times to get to the next 2 dungeons. Killing 16 bugs to rid the section of twilight, forced to use the crappy wolf form and bored as all hell and tired of seeing more Ocarina of Time copies. Then you get to the part that bothers me the most. You get to Lake Hylia, it has run dry. Just like it was in Ocarina of Time when you were an adult, so you follow the river to find out why and there it is. Zora's Domain. Frozen. TWO YEARS NINTENDO AND ALL YOU COULD COME UP WITH IS FREEZING ZORA'S DOMAIN AGAIN? This time you can unfreeze it but that is not the point. They delayed this game for 2 years and couldn't come up with a better reason for Lake Hylia being drained again but "Zora's Domain is frozen".

The game continues with another 4 main dungeons (one of which is called the Temple of Time, another recycled but easily replaceable name especially since time travel has nothing to do with anything in this game) and 2 small dungeons. Each with lots of stuff to do first, most of which involves very little action and is relatively boring. There is a glitch that if you happen to trigger will cause you to have to do 30-40 hours all over again. (Search "Cannon Room Glitch" on the boards for more info). And while some of the boss fights are fun and some of the new items are awesome, there is just too much that is not fun in this game like guiding a statue though an entire dungeon using a wand (ooh, doesn't that sound good), oh, and enemies can attack you while you do this.

The gameplay just fails. It is supposed to be fun while most of the game is just boring.

Replay Value: 1/10
Read the above, are you really going to want to do all that again? I don't. I play every game I have at least twice through, usually more, but I honestly never see me playing this game again. I can't sit through another 3 hour tutorial. I can't search for 16 bugs three more times. I can't guide a statue through an entire dungeon again, and very few others will. Unlike most other Zelda's (I've played Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time more times then I can count) this game just won't be fun to do again. Every game has parts you don't want to do over, Link to the Past had the very annoying Ganon's Tower and Skull Wood's dungeons and Ocarina of Time had the races to get Epona, The Well, Jabu-Jabu's Belly, and the annoying Shadow Temple but they were bearable enough to do again to enjoy the game again. The statue, tutorial beginning and wolf sections and everything else really make it so you don't want to play again.

Wii Motion Sensor Abilities: 8/10
This game does do relatively well with the motion sensor abilities of the Wii, mostly. Aiming the Bow and Arrow and Boomerang is well done. Shaking the Wiimote to swing your sword isn't great but could be worse. It does work well with the special sword abilities like spinning the Nunchuk to spin attack or thrusting it forward to hit your enemies with your shield. Like I previously mentioned, the controls for attacking with the wolf seme very unnatural though.

So,

Pros:
Good Graphics
Mostly good use of Wii motion sensor abiilties
Awesome Items

Cons:
WAYYYYY to Time Consuming
Too many boring sections
Poor use of the wolf
Poor use of the Horse (I know I didn't talk about it but this too could have been done better)

Conclusion: 7/10
It isn't a terrible game. I still say Zelda II and Majora's Mask are worse but this isn't great, especially since it was delayed for so long. I look at this game as the Final Fantasy VII of the Zelda series. Okay, but way overrated. It just should have been better, it was delayed for 2 years and all it is is just boring sections, wolf sections and copies of Ocarina of Time. They had so much extra time it should have been much better. To me, this game seems to be what we would have gotten if it did come out when it was originally planned to, but it's what we got it was delayed for 2 years.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/13/07, Updated 09/15/08

Game Release: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (US, 11/19/06)