REVIEW - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006)

Ahh the Nintendo GameCube, the home of my youth, well, sort of (I also had a PS1, N64 and PS2 at the time, so I was in a diverse family). Without a doubt the best third place console ever made, with it's amazing controller and third-party support. What about those first party games tough? Well, while a tonne of them are amazing (Like the ever so popular Super Smash Bros. Melee and the absolutely stunning Metroid Prime), none of them have the scope, grandeur or satisfaction of today's game.

Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (also on Wii)

Twilight Princess takes place on the "Young Era" of the ever so lovely and confusing Zelda Timeline, taking place after Majora's Mask and before Four Swords Adventures. In the land of Hyrule, darkness is on the rise. Being's known as the Twili are converging on the land, and the Princess is being held captive in her own castle. Pretty dark stuff.

Meanwhile in Ordon, a Village nation which is technically independent from Hyrule, a young boy get's told that he has been chosen to deliver a package to the royal castle in Hyrule. This boy is the ever omnipresent and silent Link, the hero of the series (albeit a different version of Link). On the day he is due to leave, Twili attack the Faron province and they kidnap Link's friends Colin and Ilia. Link, out of stupidity really, follows them into the Twilight. As soon as he enters, he undergoes a transformation into a wolf (that's TWO games I know that have Wolf powers....huh), which is different from other humans who simply disappear into a flame. As he is the descendant of the legendary Hero of Time from Ocarina of Time, Link is the holder of the Triforce of Courage, which is what allowed him to just transform into a wolf. Link is brought to a dungeon underneath Hyrule Castle, where he meets Midna, an imp girl. Midna tells Link that she knows about his friends and how to change Hyrule back to the way it was. The journey Link and Midna undertake is one of strength, hardship and conquering the beast inside. It's one of the better plots in the Zelda series, and that's no easy feat to accomplish.

In the gameplay department, Twilight Princess runs off of Wind Waker's gameplay engine, so a lot of elements are similar between both games. What set's the two game apart are the wolf sections and the fact that Twilight Princess takes place on dry land rather than the open ocean. As Human Link, you go through the traditional Legend of Zelda experience. You traverse a huge overworld full of monsters and colourful locations, tackle dungeons, gain new items and abilities and make huge bosses fall (seriously, the scale of the bosses in this game are only topped by those in Skyward Sword). Sword combat is fast paced and satisfying as hell, using items to solve puzzles can be unique and the dungeons are well laid out.

On the flip side of things, there are the Wolf Link sections. Wolf Link cannot use a sword, or any items for that matter. He has 3 abilities: Biting, Sensing and Digging. Biting is the default way of attacking enemies. Sensing is used to gather a scent of a person or object and Digging is just that, digging. Later, you gain an abilities to attack multiple enemies at once, and it's satisfying as hell. However this comes at a price: The sections you play as Wolf Link in are nothing more than a scavenger hunt (well, at least until you get the Master Sword). Your objective is to simply go around a province and collect tears of light to fill a vessel so that you can become human and defeat the dungeon. It's just very slow and tedious and ruins what is a perfectly sound formula.

Graphically, for a Nintendo GameCube game, this is stunning. The environments are massive and expansive, creating a huge living, breathing world unmatched by any Zelda game to date. The character models are quite nicely detailed, and the areas in the Twilight sections all have this distinct glow that make it stand out. In the Wii version, the game runs in a native 16:9 aspect ratio (WideScreen for those who don't know their TV Ratios) whereas the GameCube version runs at 4:3, and the map is flipped between the two versions.

The music is very hit and miss. On one hand, you have the absolutely stunning homage to the original Legend of Zelda which is one of the all time best songs in the franchise, but then you got boring MIDI crap ike the main battle theme which is really jarring coming off of Wind Waker's amazing battle theme. It's more positive than negative, but still, i'm left wanting more.

Overall, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is a fitting swansong to one of the best video game consoles in history. it's plot is great, characters memorable, gameplay is tight and has a decent enough soundtrack. You can get this game for dirt cheap on the Nintendo Wii which is the same game but with a flipped world map, widescreen support and motion controls. One of the all time greatest games, and one of the best Nintendo has ever produced.

Story: 8

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 10

Sound: 8
Personal Enjoyment: 10

FINAL SCORE FOR THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS: 9/10