The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GCN, Wii)
Despite how much of a Zelda fan I have been during my lifetime, I will make sure to make this review as unbiased as possible; as I always try to achieve to do this. This was my fourth time finishing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but only my third time of finishing the Gamecube version of it. The reason for myself playing LoZ:TP again was because of my run of video games I have been showing to my boyfriend. Sadly, after replaying this I did not like it as much as I did when the game was first released.
Twilight Princess starts itself with a little bit of melancholic dialogue before informing You (or Link, since the game has the name programmed) that the day after tomorrow You/Link will be delivering a gift to the Hyrule Royal Family. Afterwards, the game starts showing you how peaceful life is in the southern Hyrulian Village of Ordon. You are introduced to your horse Epona, a couple children (including a smart-alec baby), their parents, and one of the game's female love-interest characters; Ilia. All of this is an obvious setup that something is about to go horribly wrong, and indeed, something does go wrong. Right before Link is able to leave on his journey to Hyrule Castle, King Bulbin appears. He clubs Link in the back of the head and kidnaps Ilia with the help of some lesser Bulbins. Once Link wakes up, he runs off towards the forest... only to be pulled into the veil of Twilight and pulled into an adventure bigger than he imagined.
The gameplay of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is akin to the gameplay of almost any other Zelda game with a few things changed. When inside the Twilight Realm, Link is transformed into a blue-eyed sacred beast (read: wolf), and all the inhabitants of the area are turned into spirits. The people can not see you, but you can see and listen to them. You won't be able to do much until you meet Midna... but don't worry as you meet her almost as soon as you become a wolf for the first time. As a wolf, you can dig in the ground to find hidden items, sniff scents to show you the way to go, use Midna to jump long distances (only in certain areas), and use Midna to warp to other areas once you open the corresponding portals. When encountering enemies, you can jump on them or you can use Midna to create a circle around you where any enemy enclosed in it would be attacked. Every area transformed into Twilight can be turned back to normal once you capture 20 Tears of Light from special bugs in the area.
Once you are "human" again, the gameplay turns into the routine style of past Zelda titles. You have a sword and shield... plus the items you acquire over the course of the game; like the Boomerang, Bow, and et cetera. There are a few different item choices in this game though. Instead of getting the Hookshot, you now have what is called a Clawshot... and you get TWO of them; but you have to wait till the end of the game for the second one. As awesome as it was to fly around with two Clawshots, I felt a little bit ripped that instead of getting a new exciting item in one of the later dungeons... I just got another of an item I received towards the middle of the game. Though, relating to another item decision, I thought it was interesting that the Latern required oil to stay lit... even if I used no more than 3 bottles of oil during the whole game.
Aside from items, Link is able to learn Hidden Skills thanks to the help of a glowing wolf/skeleton named the Hero's Shade. All of the skills are activated in battle depending on reactions from enemy attacks. Though, you must go out on your own and find various stones with wind blowing through them to access the Hero's Shade. All of the these stones require you, as Wolf Link, to howl the same sound that the wind makes before the Golden Wolf will show itself.
The musical score of this chapter in the Zelda series was not as memorable as past Zelda titles; which is confusing since most of the score consisted of remixes from older Zelda scores. The instrumentals during the game were beautiful, and well placed, but after a while the music felt like it just mixed together and was undiscernible as to what song was from where. Nothing noteworthy to listen to outside of the game other than Midna's Theme and Ilia's Theme.
As far as how the game looks graphically, after being on the market for almost 5 years the game still looks decent. Twilight Princess does not fall into the 1080P HD 3D Realism, but it does indeed still look decent. Compared to other Zelda titles, the details and certain characters (such as Zora Queen Rutela) just stick out in my mind. The only thing I wish is that they would take the level of detail to Hyrule's landscape. Ever since Ocarina of Time (except for Majora's Mask), the landscape has looked bare with hardly any kind of vegetation growing.
Overall, despite The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess being a "darker" Zelda title, and as all series know Darker = BETTAR... I was not entirely amused by the game. This is not to say that the game is bad. The game is good, but as far as being as amazing and deserving of the pedestal that people place it on... no. The whole time while playing Twilight Princess I had no feeling for the inhabitants of Hyrule. There was no sense of imminent danger for their lives. Even when the characters were transformed into spirits in the Twilight Realm they still continued on with their lives as if nothing happened. Now, there were a few who acted scared but that was in reaction to enemies moreso than the characters realizing that their world changed, and once you defeated the enemies the people were back to normal. During Twilight Princess, you feel more like a background character more than the character who is saving everything.
