The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (Wii) Review

     The legend of
Zelda Twilight Princess is considered to be the best (by some) and the
worst (by others) Zelda game ever made. The reasoning behind this is
twisted and deserves a detailed explanation.

     The game was
set to release on the year 2005, but was delayed until 2006 to allow
more content and release a Wii port of the game. There are some major
and minor differences between the Gamecube and the Wii releases.
While the Gamecube version's over-world stays true to the series
(Such a Kakariko and Death Mountain to the west and Lake Hylia in
east Hyrule) The Wii version of the game is Mirrored. (The reason
that this was done was to not confuse right handed players to swinging
the Wiimote with there left hand instead of there right) Other
differences include swinging the Wii remote to attack with your sword
and the bow is used by pointing at the screen. Now let's get this
review underway.

     ~Graphics~ 8

     The graphics
are very well done. They are fairly clean and have a nice amount of
textures to them. The fields and sky create a nice environment (as in
there are actual rock structures blocking you from going out of
hyrule instead of a big flat wall or that your on a floating island
like in Ocarina of Time.)

     Our hero Link
looks better then ever as well as Epona and Gannondorf. (And thank
goodness that link does not have a radio-active head like he did in
The Wind Waker!) Expressions from other people, or uhh, hylians as
you call them have actual expressions and emotions instead of just
one happy sprite, one sad sprite and one shocked sprite.

     The only thing
that really looked awful in the game was Wolf Link and the Twilight
realm. Wolf link looks slightly to blocky if you look at his nose or
his underside it just seems as if he was a little to rushed in
development. As for the Twilight realm, Imagine everything is covered
in a blanket of orange fog, mix that with ever object in the game is
a dark shade of its true color, and add a touch of black floating
particles floating through the air. Yep just awful, am I right.
But to excuse the dilemma, the twilight realm only played a small
part of the game, and only will take up 3 hours of play at most
(that's only about 8% of you total play time provided that you beat
the game) And the designers wanted it to be that way, they only
wanted you to spend 3 hours in there at the most. Now, onto depth

     ~Depth~ 7

     I must give
some credit to the depth of the game, It has a high amount of it,
even though most of it is engraved into the main quest one way or
another, there are still some neat mini-games involved. The actual
plot to the game is very deep (I'll cover the story later) and the
dungeons are very large (takes about 1 – 2 hours per dungeon) there
are many chests hidden in the over world. But there is one problem
with the chests, 99% of the time you will find rupees inside and
they are very useless in the game (and the worst part is that you
must put them back if you have a full wallet). There are apox. 3,000
of those gems hidden in chests and you have nothing to spent them on
except repairing a bridge, and buying magic armor that drains rupees
at a rate of 2 per second.

Now, about
the mini-games. A particularly fun game is the STAR game, the motto
is as follows

So
all you need to do is

Track
down all the glowing orbs

And
collect them all before time

Runs
out!

     And that
really explains it. You must get the glowing orbs with your claw shots
by shooting at the wall to reach them while they are suspended in the
air. Very hard and addicting. ( if you try to beat stage 2 without
the double claw shots that is)

     Other
mini-games include a rive raft ride, a giant bird ride, herding
goats and rolling a marble across an obstacle course. But the
best Mini-game by far is. . .Fishing

     Fishing is
easy to learn, and hard to master, but it's all worth it when you
catch that Legendary Hylian loach. Now then, there are two kinds of
fishing, Bobber and Lure. Bobber fishing is done with a plain rod you
get at the beginning of the game. You can fish practically anywhere with
water. Unless the place you decide to fish in doesn't have any (Hey
you still can fish there all you want, but don't expect to catch
anything) Bobber fishing is easy, put bait on the hook, drop the
line in the water with the Wiimote, and watch for the lure to sink
just below the surface (this means that a fish has bit the hook. .
.Wait. . . You didn't put any bait on the hook?) And then pull up on
the Wiimote to catch the. . . boot? (I told you to put the bait on
the hook man. :/ )

     Now, the real
way to fish, Lure Fishing. There are up's and down's to lure fishing,
the good part is that this method of fishing is more realistic and
you get a boat and it's just overall better then bobber fishing. The
only downfall is that you can only fish at the fishing hole up Zora's
river. Fishing is done with 4 ( or really five) different lures.
Basic, Popper, Spinner, Frog,(but be earned by completing the marble
obstacle course game ) and the illegal sinker lure (shh, It's a
secret to everybody)

     To cast the
rod you would do so like you would in a real boat on a real pond, and
you reel the line in with the nunchuck. Some pointers would be to
wiggle the Wiimote when you have a fish that looks interested in you
lure, just don't overdo it, or else you will go to fast and the fish
will not have an opportunity to bite the lure. You may want to look
near rocks and water falls to find the big ones.

     And Final the
Cave of Ordeals. The cave of ordeals is a big, bad, take-them-all-on
type of challenge The object? Defeat all the enemies in the room and
advance to the next. (It is very similar to the pit of 100 trials
found in Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door) You must make it
down 50 levels (without dying) to complete the pit. . . Without any
form of health recovery. It can get tough when your up against 5
gibdos and a hoard of stalchildren. The only bad part about the pit
is that there are faeries who look like humans with wings, except they
are not wearing a shirt, just hair covers there upper half. That
made me think twice about the morality of Nintendo for a second. But
other then that, the pit is the best attraction of the game.

~Music~ 10

     I give the
music a flat out 10, it is so, so, so, beautiful That a entire
soundtrack (it is still is development) is being made by devoted
fans. The music is just purely awesome, My personal favorite tunes
are Hyrule Field and Midna's
laminent. I would make this section longer, but I think that the
links provided shows more then enough.

Hyrule field:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyjBrU0orfE

Midnas Lament :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nq-gEG-E04

That Fan project I was talking about. . .

http://twilight-symphony.com/

     ~Difficulty~ 5

     Let's be honest, the difficulty sucks. All of the enemies in the
game deal 1/4 to 1/2 heart of damage each time they strike. To pu
that in perspective you can hold 20 hearts at the end of the game and
4 bottles. With 20 hearts you can take up to 80 hits before death
occurs. Add 4 bottles to that filled with 100% health regeneration
potions, and you now have 100 Hearts. And can take up to 400 hits
before death, that is a lot. Oh yeah, don't forget to add that the
final boss takes out a whopping 1/2 heart of damage, so you have 200
hits before death in the best case scenario. THAT"S PATHETIC
PEOPLE! And I'm sure that no one could disagree.

     ~Gameplay~ 9

     The gameplay is awesome, I can't really describe how epic it
is to ride through the fields on your horse and slay dragons that
are flying beside you by swinging the Wiimote, and to hit bublins
(trolls) that are minding there own business in the field. It is just
so awesome you have
to try is for yourself! The music and the combat, and the fields are
just a perfect combo, Everything just flows so perfectly together.
     Wolf/Twilight mode is much different though, you are in a
environment that you have never seen before, it is a big ol' mess
because of Zant, and the colors are just awful man. I know that this
section is really short, but I put a lot of words into depth and
graphics so there is not much left to say really.

     ~Story~ 8

I'll just say it now, SPOILERS AHEAD!

     The plot of the game is quite good actually, It is deep, expresses
more then a few characters back storys, And doesn't suck like most
people say. The reason that some don't like the story is because of a
few things

~Zant is the 'Main villian' instead of Gannondorf. Gannondorf just
appears out of nowhere half-way through the story and has no place in
it. And that Zant is a crazy lunatic.

~The Twilight Realm and Midna

I will explain why Gannondorf belongs in the story, Zant actually has
very much hidden depth, and how the twilight is not all that bad a
plot

BUT Before I explain, let's re-cap the story

~Link spends 3 days in Ordan before getting KO-ed, Transformed into
a Wolf, and drug to the dungeon of Hyrule castle

~ Midna helps Link escape and speak to Zelda about what tragedy has
befell them

~Zelda explained that Zant has taken over and is now in charge of the
Twilight encased Hyrule

~Link gets the weaponry from Ordan and frees Faron from the Twilight

~The Light Spirit Tells you that you now wear the legendary garb that
the hero from Ocarina of Time once wore.

~Link heads to the forest temple and get's the fused shadow inside

~Link heads to Eldin, clears twilight and gets the fused shadow on
the Mountain

~Link heads to the third providence, clears the Twilight and gets the
fused shadow inside the Temple

~Link gets confronted by Zant and get turned into a wolf (again) And
Midna is mortally wounded.

~Link takes Midna to Zelda and Zelda sacrifices herself to regenerate
Midna

~Gannondorf seals Hyrule castle with a barrier

~Link pulls that Master Sword and regains his human form

~Link heads to Arbatures grounds in the desert and gets access to the
Mirror of Twilight

~The mirror shards are scattered by Zant and are hidden somewhere in
Hyrule

~Link recovers the shards and gives Zant a visit. . .

~Link defeats Zant and gets the fused shadows, Midna also
(accidentally) Kills Zant in her anger using the power of the fused
shadows

~Link invaded Hyrule castle by having Midna break the barrier around
the castle

~Link faces Gannondorf and defeats him

~Midna regains her true form and heads to the Twilight, her home

~End credits play 
 
 

                        Now that I have refreshed you memory, lets have some Q's and A's
 
 

Q. Why isn't Gannondorf the main villain?!? He appears out of
nowhere and has "apparently" been working with Zant from
the beginning.

A. Gannondorf is the 'Main villain, it's just that in this game he
wanted to rule the world under the grip of the twilight instead. And
the best way to do that was to get someone from the twilight to help
him. Zant is the perfect choice because he is greedy for power, is a
tyrant, a brat, (though Gannondorf could go for it if he didn't have
that particular quality) and wand's to be the leader of the twili. You
see, Zant said "All my god (Gannondorf) wants is what I want,
and he had but one wish. To mix light and shadow and create
darkness." hmm, sounds like modern day politics. Anyways With
the power of the Triforce, Gannondorf loans his power to Zant so he
could cloak Hyrule in Twilight. And then fulfill all of Zant's
wishes.

Another
thing that is interesting is that Zant and Gannondorf are opposites,
Gannondorf is calm and confident. And Zant, well. . .He can keep his
cool if things are going exactly the way he wants. But that will
never happen. Gannondorf waits in his castle for you to show up, But
Zant out of extreme fear personally
shows up after you obtain the fused shadows and makes sure that you
will never be able to harm his god. And even after you return, He
awakes Stal-Lord to keep you oppupied while he breaks the Mirror and
throws the pieces all over Hyrule. He is that convinced that you will
kill him. When you approach him in the palace of twili he goes crazy
because he knows
that he is doomed, and much worse, they will most certainly put his
god to rest.

Q. Why is midna Sooooooooooooooooo annoying?

A.
I will admid, she is as annoying. But she gets better along with the
story. It's called Character development and it was a choice
by the developers. She already does so much good for you, she can
warp you around the biggest overworld in the entire series and can
help you get rid of those nasty Messengers (ugly black twiletic
monsters). But if you still not satisfied, it may also be because you
forgot to turn the volume on the Wii remote down to 0 on the Wii
menu.

Q. Why are there Jerks that think that this is the best game ever?

A. First of all, they are not 'jerks' for thinking that, most of them
made this the first Zelda that they have played, and 85% of all Zelda
Fans have a special attachment to the first game that they played.

And I respect those that bond to their first Zelda. And it is
completely understandable because it makes a HUGE impact on what your
outlook on the series as a whole.

Q. Is this game better then Ocarina of Time?

A. It's a secret to everybody .

Q. This is a great review!

A. Isn't it?

Oh yeah, one more thing

SPOILERS END HERE

~Overall~ 8.6

The Graphics are nice, create a nice environment and scenario, the only
complaint is the twilight realm

The Depth is descent, there are not a lot of sidequests, but there is
a lot to explore in the over-world

The Music is awesome, just take my word for it.

The Difficulty is lacking, but this can be fixed easily by not
grabbing the heart containers.

The plot is different than you would find in any other Zelda, it
really is good overall though