Review – [Revisited] Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

The Legend of Zelda franchise is big to Nintendo. With the Italian plumber by the elves side, they are an unbeatable combination. Legend of Zelda had a few break through titles as well as those that are hardly spoken of, but are unbelievable in their own way. With Skyward Swords on it’s way for the Wii and Wii U, we want to look back at the previous anticipated title; Twilight Princess. Many fans were expecting this game to arrive before the end of the GameCube’s life. It did make it onto the GameCube but also snuck it’s way onto the Wii, taking advantage on the Wii’s features at the time. The Wii version gives you a greater experience compared to the GameCube game, but was it worth the wait?

When it comes to new games we want a good solid story. It needs to be original and captivate the audience and gamers straight away until the very end. As per Zelda game starts, Link is somewhat small in a village or town. In OOT he was a mysterious boy who pretty much lived in his tree. Wind Waker showed us he was a boy who lived on an island with his grandma and sister. And so with continuing these, a rather peculiar beginning, Link works on a farm in Twilight Princess.

And so that is where the story of Twilight Princess goes. You meet the mysterious Midna but also the Princess Zelda, which confused me as I thought she would be captured. The main villain was Zant…wait…he’s not?!?! But I thought that he would be? Oh no he’s not! Nintendo had done it again. Kept the dark secret of who the villain is in the game and waiting until near the end to come out with him…or her. It’s pretty obvious whom it is if you have played the previous Zelda games, but incase you do not know; it’s Ganondorf (Ganon). He is pretty much linked with the major titles of Zelda. You work out that everything that has been done during the game was his doing, and not Zant. Well isn’t that annoying?

Moving away from the story we have a look at the graphics. This game looks completely upgraded from the cel shaded Wind Waker and hits the adult’s attention more than the latter did. The Wind Waker was a great game in it’s own respect but it seemed more of a child’s game when you looked at it. Twilight Princess has the more realistic view on it, looking something that might have come from The Lord of the Rings. Shigeru Miyamoto had said he got influence from the latter and other sources, so it is not as surprising when we look at the graphics that way. Throughout the game the graphics maintained perfection for the world of Hyrule. The Battle scenes with Bosses and the final battle were also brilliant.

Now when we look at the controls we can see that this game was perfect on both the GameCube and the Wii. The only difference between the two was that the GameCube world was flipped around. So say if the Goron city was on the right, the GameCube version would be on the left. Moving back to the controls, it was easy to grasp how the Wii worked with the game. To swing your sword you have to swing the Wii remote and so on. To use weapons you have; you had to use the remote in a specific way. An example of this would be when using the bow and arrow. You select that weapon and then you use the Wii remote to pinpoint the direction and place you want to hit. Obviously this takes skill if you are aiming far away but you get a great feeling after accomplishing this. I have not played the GameCube version so I will not be able to compare the game’s control features. However I do believe that they would be similar to The Wind Waker’s control system.

The voice acting is the same as always in this game. I think that Nintendo were right to add no voice acting in this (characters talking wise) and I think this because it would not suit the game. We have all been accustomed to the characters not talking and just reading through text with what they would have said. Also they would have dubbed it when it comes out in countries abroad and that would have cost them a bit of money. So either way this game is perfect without Link or Zelda finally learning to talk. Their voice affects however are the same and slightly better in this game. Link sounds a lot more adult and Ganondorf is pretty much the same evil person we know and love (just kidding!). Either way we love Zelda and that’s how it will stay.

Looking at what Skyward Sword will bring us, it looks promising. But for now we do have a perfect Zelda game, just not to the point where it overtakes Ocarina of Time. No Zelda game will be able to beat that and Nintendo are continuously raising the benchmark for their games. Hopefully they bring out a Zelda title that is both awe-inspiring and life changing as Ocarina of Time had been. So all in all Twilight Princess is a brilliant game by itself and when compared to the other titles, it outshines all but one! Well done to Nintendo for this title and hopefully Skyward Sword proves to be something similar!