The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Review (Wii)

By Casey Lynch Nov 19, 2006, 22:21 GMT

Nintendo delivers a new console and one of the most hotly anticipated games in all of video gamedom -Twilight Princess. Wii-motes ready!

If there was ever a group of people that would disagree with Sony’s Kaz Harai statement about the next-gen of gaming starting when Sony says so, it would be Link-loving Zelda fans everywhere.

Whether or not Twilight Princess has signaled the beginning of the next-generation of gaming is debatable, but one thing is for sure – a whole new generation of questing fans was born when Twilight Princess finally saw the light of day this week.

Understandably, there is a lot of hype surrounding the release of the newest Zelda game – above and beyond the 13 assorted Zelda titles that have sold a whopping total of 50 million units to date, Zelda is one of the most beloved and venerated gaming franchises in history.

The basics

The general plot of Twilight Princess follows the unsuspecting Link, who finds himself in a bad situation in the Twilight Realm after trekking to the Hyrule Summit upon order of the mayor. After being transformed into a wolf, a magic bearing woman named Midna comes to your aid, freeing you and setting you on your quest to figure out how to save the land from Twilight.

You’ll face everything you’ve come to expect from a Zelda game – oodles of puzzles, platforming, dungeon upon temple upon boss upon dungeon upon… you get the idea.

This time around, though the graphics of Twilight Princess don’t impress on say the level Resistance: Fall of Man does, but thanks to the Wii and the Wii remote gameplay mechanics, there is something very next-gen about playing Twilight Princess.

Recognize this guy?

Bottom line - if you’re a Zelda fan, you will feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven after playing Twilight Princess. If you’re a Zelda noob, but you like adventure RPG’s (role-playing games), you’ll probably like this as well. If you’re more a shooting-everything-in-sight or Madden guy, you should probably skip Twilight Princess and pick up Gears of War.

The big difference between Twilight Princess and, well, every other Zelda game, is of course the Wii remote and nunchuck set up.

The aiming works much better with the Wiimote and nunchuk setup, but it's hard to master at first - you'll feel like a drunk sailor trying to roll a barrel the first time you try and shoot while riding atop Epona, but after awhile, you'll never want to go back.

Like a lot of long time fans, we were skeptical about the effectiveness, collision and overall realness of the sword fighting - after playing Red Steel, anyone would be skeptical – but we’re very happy to say it works very well and has become our preferred way to play. Playing the GameCube version after playing the Wii version feels clunky and a tad removed – you’re just farther back from the action when you’re mashing buttons versus swinging a remote.

In addition to just your trusty sword (which you will love once you get it, progressing past your beginner lame wooden sword), using long range weapons like the slingshot, Gale Boomerang or even your bow and arrow feel totally on spot and makes playing with the GameCube analog stick layout seem like a joke.

The game itself is just massive. We focused primarily on the main quest but there are a bevy of side quests that, together, could keep you in Hyrule for 50, 60, 70 hours… even more. What’s more, you can play through the game however you choose as you trek from lowly villager to conqueror the games mulitlpe bosses and finally face Ganondorf (no spoilers but he’s an important bad dude, that’s all we’re saying!)

The boss fights - and Darknut here - are righteous!

Twilight Princess is nearly perfect, but nearly means it has a few small issues,mainly that have to do with sound, or lack there of.

Call us progressive, but it would be nice if people talked in the game – is that too much to ask? Instead, you’ll be catching up on your reading as pretty much all the dialogue is delivered in text boxes. Seriously, that was cool when we were playing Ultima and King’s Quest like 20 years ago, but c’mon, the whole game in text boxes?

Secondly, though the soundtrack is definitely vintage Zelda, its all done electronically, but hiring a ginormous orchestra would’ve taken the pretty cool soundtrack and moved it into a totally different class of epicness.

Still, them’s small beans to gripe about when the majority of the deep, huge, epic, fun, exhilarating game is great.

What it all means

Honestly, with a game like Twilight Princess, which you can plunge as much time into as say what you spent on Oblivion last fall, we could go on and on about characters, themes, weapons, dungeons and the like, but that would be no fun. Barring some complaints about the music and dialogue, Twilight Princess is everything longtime fans hope it will be and it will be equally appealing to new Zelda-ites looking to book their first trip to Hyrule.

4.5 out of 5 STARS