I’m taking a break from refreshing E3 speculation sites to write a blog post. Who cares about new games when we have great old ones we can still enjoy! Well, Twilight Princess is only 6 and a half years old, but it is (kinda) 2 generations ago now. I got this game for my birthday, from my older brother. At the time I was trying to decide between it and Skyward Sword. The contrasts are interesting, but not something I’ll go into here as I’ve developed something of an irrational aversion to that game, for a large amount of small reasons. Having not played it, I also imagine the worst about the experience—a mechanism that helps me cope with not owning and playing every game I lay eyes on. On the other hand, here’s a game I have played: Twilight Princess, and I did enjoy the experience.
Approaching this game as I did probably gave me a very different set of expectations to those players who seized it brand new, full of expectations and concerns about the direction of the franchise and the new hardware that the game had been accommodated to (it was developed for Gamecube originally, then ported to Wii with added motion controls and released simultaneously on both). I mentioned earlier that my first impressions were occuppied with the jagginess of the visuals. That’s one factor of revisiting slightly older games that were still striving for what has arguably been executed better since with more experience. However, it is true that this quickly becomes a non-issue as you play and adjust.
In fact, it’s the most realistic Zelda that exists, as I believe SS went back a bit on the cartooniness spectrum. Not that that’s a bad thing, but being of the generation that reveres Ocarina of Time, the increased fidelity of the world and the detail were very helpful to the immersion factor. I’m sure Miyamoto would say the motion controls helped too.
Since I bring it up, the comparisons with Ocarina of Time are inevitable and apt. I think since its phenomenal success, so groundbreaking and different at the time, subsequent 3D Zeldas have spent perhaps a little too much effort trying to recapture it, and in popular opinion this one most of all. I think though that there is enough to make it unique while being in recognisably the same world, the balance was struck very well here.
Where to start. How about the shipping, get that out of the way. While Wind Waker mercifully avoided it, this game embraces pairing Link up with different gals over the course (again, like OoT). Ilia, Zelda, Midna, oh and Hena too. The ambiguity and the confusion was very well summed up in the final sequence, though. This didn’t carry through too much in the game, though. A very tricky problem, developing relationships in a subtle and effective way through gameplay. I must admit though, I did have a little fun filling in the blanks in my mind. I haven’t made up my mind about it one way or another, which is for the best I think. I prefer not to be a rabid single-minded ship captain.
Now that I think of it, the game did a pretty good job conveying emotions most of the time. They worked hard on the faces to bring that through, and it really helped. There were a lot of memorable characters, like the Resistance for instance. They even had a few scenes actually doing stuff, although to me these brief cutscene-only events only served to highlight how static they were functionally. Still, it’s a step forward.
While playing I was helped by reading stuff on zeldawiki or elsewhere, about connections, small details, or fanservice-type stuff. By which I mean it helped with my appreciation of the world I was inhabiting in this game. Knowing that the Yeti mansion probably belonged to Ashei and her father; or the fact that Fanadi, Agitha, and Telma were references to the Sheikah, Kokiri, and Gerudo races despite those races not being represented much otherwise; these facts had me making connections and thinking about the world when not playing the game, which was fun and good. I thought up backstories both for the absence of those races and the presence of those individuals, for example. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.
As for the game itself, it made a good use of motion controls, I thought. You didn’t often have to be too precise, and I wasn’t resentful of the requirement like so many seem to be. I actually prefer it for aiming, which most of the subweapons required. Oh, with one exception (aside from curse you, ROLLGOOOAAAL!!!): thrusting the nunchuck to shield bash never worked for me, it doesn’t work. I always did the spin attack instead. That made some of the sword techniques seem useless, a factor also contributed to by the difficulty in scoring hits on some of the tougher enemies. Fighting them just wasn’t very fun when you only have one or two techniques you can use. Link’s vast array of equipment he always amasses makes it seem like you might have options, but often they only have specific uses which makes half of them seem like junk most of the time.
So the enemies weren’t that impressive, although I liked the Twilight versions. Dubstep birds, I called those Twilit Kargorocs, because they made unearthly sounds when attacking. It was a cool effect, and the visual effects were cool too. Slight tangent here, the pacing of the whole game was a little strange, with the twilight areas being resolved pretty quickly and then a long time without them, and then… oh I don’t know. And the wolf’s abilities weren’t utilised for a long time so i forgot about them. Well, I’m rambling so let’s talk about one of my favourite aspects: the dungeon design.
Specifically, some of the dungeons were absolutely awesome, a couple were a little bland. I loved that after so many Zelda games that had “X Temple” these ones were very flavourful, tonally internally consistent but not externally consistent and just explored some interesting concepts in ways that made a lot of them seem fresh. Of course, again living up to OoT, the Water dungeon (Lakebed Temple I think it was called) was poorly designed and frustrating. But the Snowpeak Ruins just blew me away. It’s an actual mansion, and there’s Yetis squatting there, and you get the map from the Yeti, and there’s snow coming in through holes in the roof! The presentation really impressed me, it felt so natural. Ok this paragraphs a bit all over the place, let’s start a new one.
No wait, I’m not done gushing. Going through those doors in the ruins of the Temple of Time into the sepia-toned splendour of the ancient Temple was breathtaking. The Hyrule Castle courtyard had a great sense of scale, even if it was annoying to get around. The City in the Sky had chicken men everywhere! Meeting the Gorons in the mines was great! Anyway most of the dungeons were great. Great everything is great!
Oh let’s whiplash back to a huge negative which I’ve mentioned before, the money. I was too often at max Rupees and putting them back into chests. There wasn’t enough to spend them on and they gave you too many in a too-small wallet. Other games since (and even before) have spread out rewards with treasures and other stuff, and more things to buy. I feel like the Magic Armour was added later to suck up some money that you always have. I liked seeking out hidden treasures and stuff but too often the reward was just more Rupees I didn’t need.
Anyway next thing. Oh there’s no more next thing? Wrap up? Ok. Well there’s certainly a lot to say about Twilight Princess, I haven’t even mentioned how cool Midna and Zant are as characters yet (super cool) or how the concept of the Twilight stuff is introduced so well but kind of peters out while you’re collecting Mirror Shards, then jumps right back (part of the pacing thing I mentioned earlier). It’s also interesting to examine it as part of the greater Zelda series, but I don’t feel I have the space to do that any more justice. Suffice to say, overall I feel it’s my favourite Zelda yet. Ok, I say that about a lot of games I finished recently but this game is damn good. It takes lots from Ocarina but also brings in so much new stuff, and it does both of these very well. If you loved Ocarina and let’s face it, everyone does, this is great as a follow-up. Ok that’s enough. TP gets 3/3 Fused Shadows, 4/4 Mirror Shards, and one flustered chicken from me.
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