Review Detail

Picture this: Space World 2000. Nintendo, which was in the process of creating a Zelda game for the then newly announced GameCube put together a quick tech demo of Link fighting Ganondorf using the realistic style of Ocarina of Time in order to promote the system Fast forward to 2003(2002 in Japan) and Nintendo releases The Wind Waker, a cel-shaded cartoon adventure that has one of the most expressive Links in the series...and is also not the game we're talking about. I bring this up because its commonly believed that the Space World demo is partially what lead to Twilight Princess adopting its more realistic aesthetic as opposed to the cartoony-ness of its predecessor, fans wanted that grittier Zelda game. And they got it. Twilight Princess which was both a launch title for Wii and a final farewell to GameCube released in 2006 to critical acclaim. The game handled its more mature themes rather well, the characters are expressive and very believable. Whether its the kids from Ordon village or Midna, the companion character who is commonly regarded as the best companion character in Zelda for good reason. Compared to characters like Navi and Fi, Midna isn't very obtrusive and actually develops a bit over the course of the game. By the end, you really come to care about her, which is pretty impressive. The main villain also gets points for being very memorable, the Twilight King is not you'll forget anytime soon and I actually remember being surprised by the twist involving him around the middle of the game. Besides the characters, the world itself is nicely detailed, to the point to where this is probably one my favorite versions of Hyrule. On horseback or in wolf form, its usually not boring to traverse and looks pretty good for a GameCube game with its flowing rivers and lively fish. Speaking of Wolf form, its a definite highlight and one of the things that really caught my attention with the game. Initially limited to only being in Twilight, Link gains the ability to change whenever he wants later on. There's a dungeon in the game that makes excellent use of this. And one thing thats a major plus is the games dungeon design. Each dungeon has its own unique feel and means to navigate. There are mines where you can use iron boots to magnetize to the ceiling in order to walk through a room, or an actual mansion where you have to find soup ingredients, Nintendo really nailed making the dungeons stand out and fun to go through. Sadly this also leads into one of things I like the least: How they handled the dungeon items. Not that the items are bad, some of them are pretty good and fairly creative. Its just that most of them aren't utilized much if at all outside their respective dungeon. The Spinner from Arbiter's Grounds is a prime example of this, there's almost no need for it after finishing said dungeon. Other than that though, its a Zelda game and an excellent sendoff to an excellent system. It even got a remastered version for Wii U in 2016 which came with amiibo support and some still hope it gets re-released again for Switch alongside Wind Waker. Very much worth playing and still one of my favorites to this day