The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

"Uses the tired Zelda formula to the letter, but still a fun game"

Review: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
By BadFortuneAndre

Introduction:
I'm pretty sure I've played all the Zelda games. At least all the console ones, as I am not much of a handheld gamer. After I bought a Wii, I picked up Wind Wake (having never owned a Gamecube) and was thoroughly impressed. So how did the first proper Zelda game for Wii turn out? Read on.

Graphics:
There's been a lot of criticism that the graphics in Twilight Princess fail to meet Wii expectations because it was originally being developed for Gamecube. This is really the wrong way to look at it because if you compare the Wii's graphics to the competition, then you are going to be disappointed. Instead, try to look at the game for what it is. That said, Twilight Princess looks great. The detailed environments, colorful characters, and pixelated shadows of the twilight world all look terrific. One thing that really stood out in my eyes was the facial animation system. It's not quite the achievement in facial animation that Half-Life 2 is, but it is really nice. Our silent hero, Link, seems like much more of a real character thanks to the emotions he is able to express through facial animation. I haven't played the game with Component video cables, but I'm sure they can help smooth out the rough edges that do appear from time to time.

Sound:
There are some ups and downs to sound in Twilight Princess. While many reviewing sites have criticized the fact that there is no orchestral score, I thought the music still sounded great. It does a very good job of getting emotions of various moments across throughout the game. The lack of voiceovers was a slight annoyance; I think the story would have been a lot more effective if they had a cast of talented voice actors (except for Link, of course). The sound effects are tough to rate. Everything that comes out of your TV speakers sounds fine, but the Wiimote speaker in this game turned out to be a disappointment. It's nice that you get to hear the bow string tightening in your actual hand or your sword being pulled out of its sheath, but for some reason the quality of the sound coming out of the Wiimote speaker was just terrible. It frequently crackled or sometimes cut out. There were times when it wouldn't play at all. This was a big disappointment to me, especially after Wii Sports did such a great job with the Wiimote speaker.

Story:
Not gonna say much here; don't want to ruin anything. I'll just say that the story of Twilight Princess is a little bit darker than the previous games, probably putting it on par with Majora's Mask. Many serious events happen, in well-presented cutscenes, and it helps draw you into the story that much more. That said, this is still a Zelda game, and the story at its core is pretty basic.

Gameplay:
Ah, the gameplay of a Zelda game. Have you played Ocarina of Time? Of course you have; everyone has. So, that considered, you have technically played Twilight Princess. This brings me to something I'd like to discuss about the Zelda series in general before going on to talk about Twilight Princess-specific gameplay. Nintendo was in a rut for a while, in that they found a formula that worked for Zelda and never deviated from it. I'm talking about the twelve-or-so dungeon routine, usually cut in half by Link finding the Master Sword. After Ocarina of Time, Nintendo seemed to get a little braver and deviated from said formula. The result was Majora's Mask and (to a lesser extent) Wind Waker. Neither is among the greatest games of all time, as Ocarina of Time could be considered, but both are great entries into the series because they tried to do things a little bit differently. I feel that with Twilight Princess, Nintendo may have fallen back into the old rut. The game's pacing and flow is nearly identical to Ocarina of Time, as is the world map (though I can let the map slide). You start out in a forest village, get an errand to the big city, things go wrong and you end up working through however-many dungeons (of course acquiring the Master Sword somewhere in the middle). This isn't to say that Twilight Princess isn't a good game; I'm just trying to express why it could have been a better game. Nintendo did try to innovate a bit with the wolf-form segments and the twilight world mechanics. Sadly, these are the most tedious and unnecessary parts of the game, and playing as Link's wolf-form seems to have ended up less grand than what you or I might have imagined it to be.

All right, but how good does the gameplay in Twilight Princess actually feel? The Wiimote controls your sword and is swung to do various stabs and slices. The Nunchuck attachment is used to do your spin attack, lock on to targets, and move Link around (using the joystick). When firing projectiles like the bow, it goes into a Resident Evil 4-ish over the shoulder view, where you can aim your weapon with the Wiimote and fire with the B trigger. As far as motion sensing is concerned, I had no problems. Except for one: “why?” Why use the motion sensing to swing the sword? The game doesn't respond to your movements exactly (seeing as it's from well before the WiiMotion+ technology), so you're really just flailing wildly to swing your sword. Flicking your wrist and hearing the sound of the sword being unsheathed is satisfying, but I think I would have preferred to just press a button to attack with the sword. However, I have no problems with the bow motion sensing, as it actually serves a mechanical purpose. Some people have said the Nunchuck's motion sensing is a little unreliable, but I had no problems distinguishing its functions. You can eventually push it forward to do a shield bash, and then you shake it side to side to do your spin attack. I rarely mixed the two up, and the responsiveness was satisfactory. The game does have an enjoyable pseudo-progression system for Link's sword-fighting abilities. All of the new moves he can learn are useful and stringing them together can create some cool looking fights. Mounted combat works well and is something that should be flushed out more in future Zelda titles (lances, maybe?).

The boss fights are fun and rather visually impressive. As you'd expect, you have to use whatever item you found in the corresponding dungeon to weaken or stun the boss, then damage it with your sword. If you doubt this game's ability to visually impress, wait until you fight the drake on top of a high tower in the pouring rain. That would have to be the one part of the game that struck me more than anything. A few of the dungeon items are quite a bit of fun to use, such as the dual hookshots.

Closing Thoughts:
Nintendo pretty much played it by the book here. Other than the Wii controls, the game is Ocarina of Time with a fresh coat of paint and some mundane wolf-form segments. Twilight Princess is a tired game, playing upon crutches that are nearly a decade old, yet it remains surprisingly fun and can impress quite well at various moments. It's got good length to it; I spent about 50 hours to beat it and got most of the side stuff in that time though not all. Just don't expect anything wild or radically innovative (motion sensing is not innovation when you don't use it to do anything new), and you'll likely enjoy the game for what it is.
7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/17/09

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