Still My Favorite - Twilight Princess Nostalgic Ryview

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, by Nintendo.

Is it worth your time?	YES	How much?	40 Hours
Is it worth your money?	YES	How much?	$30

Twilight Princess is, as my title suggests, my favorite of the series (although, to be fair, I'm a 3D kind of Zelda man, so I've never been fortunate to play any of the 2D entries. I plan on playing a few in the near future, but for right now, the 3D games are my pool to choose from). Ocarina is a close second, and I actually just recently started Skyward Sword, but Twilight Princess will be hard to beat.

The Epicness pains me [1]

It seems to me like there are patterns across the Zelda games in more than just the mythos and core mechanics. For example, Skyward Sword and Wind Waker both involve expansive free roaming areas and a brighter tone, whereas Ocarina and Twilight Princess both have a more rigid land and darker tones. And as someone who tends to like childish, friendly games, I'm surprised that my two favorite Zelda titles are what I perceive to be fairly dark (although Majora's Mask still gives me the creeps).

But Twilight Princess excels in one key category that Ocarina does not: boss fights.

Relive 2 boss fights from my earlier years:

One involves fighting an ameoba in a pool of god knows what, trying to Longshot a little jellyfish brain out of his attacking appendage, only to realize that it's sometimes too far away, or the camera is deciding to not work, and you're stuck running around a very non-circular room avoiding spikes and more noodly appendages of death.

The other involves climbs some pillars with not one, but two hookshots while zooming around trying to land on the head of a freaking dragon so you can slash him to death. You can pretty much always see the bad guy and at no point did I ever question my life choices when fighting him (it helps I only fought him once).

But there's more. Compare a really frustrating fight with 2 disembodied hands and arrows that don't seem to hit their mark often enough to a sand pit where you're rolling around on a death glider trying to bash in some big dude's spine.

This dude's spine [2]

Twilight Princess has memorable, unique boss fights that actually feel like strong caps to the dungeons. The dungeons themselves are also filled with nice vignettes and puzzles, but those are always strong in the Zelda series. In Ocarina (and Wind Waker and Majora's Mask, aside from Goht) the boss fights were a chore at the end of the dungeon, rather than a reward. They should be a big cinematic experience where you use recently acquired skills to show off your true badassery, not some fumbling fight with a monster you can't easily target or avoid.

But even aside from the better bosses, Twilight Princess has a fantastic world. There's a lot of new mythology surrounding the light spirits, and there's some good "pullin' at heartstrings" moments with the village children. There's an underground resistance in Hyrule Castle Town that your work with, finally making it feel like the entire world isn't single-handedly saved by Link and Zelda every time. And Midna kicks some serious ass.

There are several new weapons, including multiple types of bombs and bomb-arrows, and you get to dual wield hookshots late in the game. Who wouldn't want that? Honestly, my main complaints with the game are that you have to get 5 pieces of heart for a heart container and the super long intro section before the first dungeon, but that's mostly because I've played that section about half a dozen times more than the rest of the game.

"Dammit Colin, I don't care!" [3]

If you've never played Twilight Princess and you're a Zelda fan, you should  be ashamed of yourself and you should go try to find a nice used copy somewhere. It will even play in the Wii section of your brand new Wii U, so that's convenient. And if you've never played a Zelda game before, while I'd probably recommend playing Ocarina of Time first, this is a pretty good entry point too, especially if you don't have an easy method of playing Ocarina. This game does a great job slowly bringing you into the right puzzle mindset and showing off solutions to puzzles early in the dungeon for later head-scratchers. It's a great game for young and old and it definitely holds up against the age.

Is it worth your time?	YES	How much?	40 Hours
Is it worth your money?	YES	How much?	$30

Let me know what you think of Twilight Princess in the comments!

Until next time,

Ryan

Images courtesy of Wikipedia except where sourced

[1] http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090428221843/zelda/images/9/9a/Characters_(Twilight_Princess).png

[2] http://zeldawiki.org/images/thumb/8/81/Stallordrender.png/350px-Stallordrender.png

[3] http://www.zelda-infinite.com/games/zelda10/screens/images/image062.jpg