I have a weird relationship with Twilight Princess. I don't dislike it, I grew up with it much like other Zelda titles released during this span such as Wind Waker and its DS sequels, Minish Cap, Four Swords Adventure, and even that dang Link's Crossbow Training game, I always like playing it, and there's so much to appreciate... but I continuously struggle to pick apart what makes it really special? Lemme put this in perspective: I can tell you a lot of the things that made me fell out of and started to loathe Skyward Sword, a game I don't even think is bad, yet with TP you'll only get a measly "yea, it's really good :)", along with a couple of other details that I don't entirely agree with followed by But Wells. Still, lemme go over the ones I do agree with containing no asterisks.

First, Midna is awesome, easily the best assistant companion during this time, and probably the best in the whole franchise. She encapsulates all the best attributes of the previous ones to a whimsical degree: the helpfulness of Navi, providing good insight as to what you need to do without being too handholdy or obnoxious about it; the contextual and thematical involvement regarding the narrative a la King Of Red Lions and Ezlo, really weighing on this game's sense of power regarding responsibility and upholding the grand mantle either thrust upon, born into, or outright steal from; and a sense of character growth much like Tatl and perhaps Marin from Link's Awakening, giving you a much stronger connection to your journey and the world, especially when That Moment finally happens... until the combat music starts and interrupts the tension both in the original versions, and this HD one. Whoops. Anyway, even disregarding the rather vocal NSFW side of the fandom - which hey, I Get It, but relax - there's a reason she's been a fan favorite of the series since her debut, which is shocking since she was initially for a completely separate and wholly original project. The only other assistant I can think of that can even outpace Midna is Zelda herself in Spirit Tracks, but even then I haven't replayed it since I was a teen so who knows maybe I'm wrong about that.

I also find that the kinematics of the combat and the general soundscape to be quite excellent. While this isn't much like the puzzle box playground Wind Waker and, to a lesser degree, Majora's Mask can offer, nor is it the simple elegance and Get Shit Done attitude like Ocarina Of Time, the focused aspects of maneuvering around enemies and using your sword is very stunning, especially on the Wii with the Wiimote feedback functionalities. Hell, each time I replay this I discover new moves I never even knew I could do, such as the one from two years ago where after doing a roll, if you time your attack just right, Link will do a forward stab popping out, which is great for closing the gap! I'm also glad Hidden Skills do get actual mileage the more you obtain them, instead of falling off the wayside as you progress, with the only exceptions being Mortal Draw (useful, but has very niche capabilities) and Jump Strike (not really that viable in heated encounters). Plus, as silly and meaningless as it is, I can't deny The Flourish Sheath is sick as fuck. Not to mention the music, I already think Zelda's track record with this subject is second to none, and TP props that claim up by containing great pieces like an Ennio Morricone homage, the fact that Hyrule Field's theme is a leitmotif for each boss fight advantage, and so many other examples to choose from, this is an easy contender for the best soundtrack in the series.

Other than those though... I can't say I quite share the same love as others do unfortunately. I've racked it around my brain as to why that is, and I believe I found the reason: I like these ideas and even executions more in a vacuum than in the overall scheme. Like, let's take a look at the dungeons. I've seen so many people proclaim TP has one of, if not the best dungeon sets in the series, and I'm sorry but I really don't see it. Yes, Snowpeak Ruins is a fantastic Sweet Home/Resident Evil homage and I wish this series would tackle it again. Yes, Goron Mines and Temple Of Time are linear dungeons that does a better job than most of Wind Waker's dungeon by a longshot. Yes, this version of the Hyrule Castle climb is perhaps the most daunting it's been, with a score becoming more and more ominous as you escalate higher and higher to face Ganondorf, yet I find that doesn't mean much when the rest of the dungeons are either merely good like with Forest Temple, Twilight Realm, and Arbiter's Ground, or are Lakebed Temple and City In The Sky which are two of the absolute worst in the entire series, or at the very least in the 3D line. Say what you will about WW's dungeons and their linearity, at the very least its far more consistent in the quality department, to the point the weakest dungeon there (Wind Temple) is still better than a portion of the dungeons here. Say what you will about Ocarina and Majora's Mask, those dive way deeper into the puzzle elements as well as delving into the environmental ambiance and aesthetics outclassing the similarly dressed ones found here a la Spirit Temple and Stone Tower Temple. Even Link's Awakening and Minish Cap, two handheld titles, had more enthralling and cleverly designed dungeons to pick apart here and there. I just don't see what the hubbub for this game's lineup is all about, sorry.

Tangentially connected to that, when I (re)played these games last year, I was doing 100% runs of all the entries mentioned here sans Skyward Sword, and of these, TP was easily the second-worst in this regard, just slightly better than Minish Cap's attempt. It isn't cause the world itself is "Worse Ocarina" like some often posit during discussion, cause I find this newfound expansion of the titular setting to be rather wonderful to poke around in with how many optional caverns there is to find, sometimes in more creative ways. It also boasts a number of NPC interacting with the world outside their established spots, like being able to see Agatha outside Castle Town in a flower bed, or conversing with the Gorons at Death Mountain and finding secrets amongst the rocky terrain, which again ties back into that secret find aspect being creative. The way it reinvents the "dual world" motif that's been around since Link TO The Past via the "Dusk"/Twilight Realm and "Dawn"/Real Realm is seriously great, providing ample opportunity to get the lay of the land first and see from the other perspective, and flipping back over once it's been restored from the harmful apparitions. From all this, there's a sense of kinship with each new person you come to meet, be they familiar faces or new ones. Sure, I have some qualms about Link - either in Human or Wolf form - not utilizing his kit as much as before, but I'm willing to overlook this to a fair degree cause the multiple races of each area's denizens are so charmingly esoteric and flat-out odd to witness in this lived-in world... but then I remember one of, if not the most common item you will find in this game, are Rupees, and suddenly that sense of illusion is shattered.

I'm assuming this was the team answering a criticism regarding the Tingle Tower pays WW had, cause it's the only way to explain why a majority of the chests in a dungeon, even by Zelda standards, are just the various pays of the currency. This was to such a degree TPHD had to tout a QoL update that, when you open a Rupee chest while your wallet is full, it automatically discards it since the original game placed it back into the chest, which outright fucked with the completion. TPHD, much like WWHD, also dabbled with replacing a chunk of the chests with a new reward, this time being about Miiverse Stamps... which is now fucking worthless since the service for it has been shut down for years. Add on top the Wolf Link Amiibo adding a new dungeon where the main reward is a damn Wallet upgrade, and this becomes a case much like SM64DS and the previously mentioned WWHD where instead of fixing issues, a Nintendo remake/remaster/whatever instead circumvents that and inadvertently "adds" to it, which snowballs into an even bigger problem. It's not like fun activities and quests aren't in this game, I quite like the Golden Bug Hunt, some activities like fishing and snowboarding are relaxing and enjoyable, and the redone Poe Souls questline is about as adequate as it was in OoT(3D), but like, if the core exploration is just being handed so many of the currency I can find elsewhere or a now effectively useless item, that just diminishes the reward factor. Much like before, I find that the other games simply did a better job in this department, even if they each have their own issue, something I even highlighted a fair bit in regard to WW.

The biggest thing that really drives this individual pickings than overall execution though, is the story. To reiterate, Twilight Princess is a story regarding the immense weight responsibility can have on not only a person, but the fate of a kingdom you inhabit. It does this by following the other route with this iteration of Link; if Hero Of Time was forcefully given the whole which robbed him of his free will and adolescence, and Toon Link was using his more as a way to explore the world he's content and enamored with, then this Link takes up the mantle solely cause he felt it was the right thing to do, especially since his humble village was the victim of the assaults the rampant Shadow Beasts. Each new area cleared is a step forward to righting the wrongs that the diabolic tyrant Ganondorf has heavily influenced within this game's plot, which is also why the treatment of Zant is ACTUALLY GOOD because this egocentric dork-a-doofus being harpooned into a demigod to be used as a pawn of Ganon's master plan just ties back into the whole theme (they also literally spell this out in the Twilight Realm, so). Yet, before that dungeon and after Arbiter's Ground, the game has you railroaded on a subplot about a group of resistance fighters that doesn't really contribute much of anything? Aside from Rusl the Ordon villager and Telma who was already an involved figure within the advancements of the plot, I genuinely forget these people and this whole thing even exist cause they don't... do any resisting. Even their inclusion in Hyrule Castle feels rather forced, like there was gonna be nothing else but then someone at the team was like "aw fuck we forgot to resolve this group" and hastily incorporated them a little under 3/4 of the way in. Plus, I dunno if this was the intention or not, but Zelda here feels very undercooked, not really doing much of anything and going on about Prophecies and Legends and all that jazz. An erroneous criticism this franchise tends to face is how they characterize Zelda as they start to experiment and grow larger in scale, since it only applies to TP, the Vaati games, and maybe BOTW but it's been a while since I played that so I'm not certain. I'm very down with Zelda here being a more inactive support than a reactive trooper, it's a fantastic juxtaposition of how OoT and WW characterize her and there's a semblance that's what they were aiming for here, but she doesn't have the depth to really stick the landing unfortunately. TP gets brought up as a victim of haphazard pacing, when really it's more that the game's script seemingly expunged some of the details to highlight the importance of these events and why they matter, cause the throughline of these events and how the dungeons are structured are justly spanned for each beat.

So... yea. I guess that's where I land with TP. It doesn't have the thematic richness of OoT and Link's Awakening, I much prefer the brood and downtrodden atmosphere of MM, and its sense of mysticism and adventure isn't quite to the grand epic WW can provide, but it's still really good overall, especially whenever the ball rolls onto the peaks, and sometimes, that's more than enough for a game to be good. As for which version, that's rather tough to say. Despite the shit I gave it in this review, there are some legitimate positive changes HD made to make the venture easier to swallow, such as speeding up most of the animation, cutting down the Tears Of Light objective to 12 pellets instead of 16, gyroscope functionality which is better for stuff like the Boomerang and Bow, makes Epona and swimming a little easier to control, has Ghost Lantern which makes the Poe sidequest even easier to do, it smartly envelops the GC and Wii version by having the former be the main mode and the latter's reflected world be the the Hero mode, and more. I also think the changes to graphics are more in-line with how OoT3D was handled, in that it majorly contains the artstyle during overhaul, even if some aspects became diluted in the transition. However, it is trapped on the Wii U, which means that system's eShop feature isn't gonna be viable for that much longer, and since it was amiibo-bundled, that means it got a price hike even if you're looking for just the game itself. There is the emulator Cemu of course, which is what I used when I replayed it, but the specs in order to run that properly are a bit more than you'd find with Dolphin where an early-2010 potato can be just fine for it. I'd say just pick whichever is more accessible to you, physical or emulation wise.

Minha primeira memória de Twilight Princess é bem vívida. Eu tinha uns 9 anos e estava na casa de um amigo vizinho pra brincar e jogar. Enquanto isso, o irmão mais velho dele também estava com um amigo. A dupla estava na sala jogando esse jogo aqui, em sua versão do Wii, na parte da ponte que pega fogo. Eles estavam tentando de novo e de novo, mas não conseguiam passar, até que o amigo disse "Tá, vou olhar o guia de novo" e o abriu no celular, e foi lendo dando instruções de quais caixas empurrar pra conseguir pular. Algo no jogo me fascinou, mas só o joguei agora pela primeira vez, mais de 10 anos depois.
O que eu tenho a dizer é QUE ESSE MOLEQUES ERAM MUITO BURROS, MEU DEUS, ERA SÓ EMPURRAR UMA CAIXA NUMA POSIÇÃO ÓBVIA E PULAR!!!
Mas de certa maneira, que bom que eram, porque foi dessa maneira que eu descobri a existência de sites de guias de jogos, o que me possibilitou zerar muitos que eu não conseguiria quando criança. Acho que é por isso que essa memória é tão marcante. O anúncio da E3 desse Zelda marcou a indústria.

Foi mais marcante do que qualquer coisa nesse jogo.
Todo Zelda tem uma peculiaridade. Nesse, é virar um lobo que não expande as habilidades o jogo todo. De resto, é Ocarina of Time de novo, mais linear, e mil vezes menos mágico, fingindo dar algum foco pro combate e com o Malo Mart.

A "magia fantástica" é uma das coisas que mais amo nessa franquia, e todo mundo já tá cansado de saber que o tom sério e o realismo desse jogo são respostas a má recepção do Wind Waker. O Link não usa armas de fogo e fala palavrões como o Shadow (Mas é um lobisomem como em Sonic Unleashed) e não há nenhum tipo de gore. O visual é sim mais realista, mas sinceramente, acho isso uma grande besteira. As texturas podem ser mais detalhadas e nítidas, mas não divergem muito do que um Ocarina of Time seria se não fossem pelas limitações de hardware. Os personagens continuam tendo designs cartunescos e mais esquisitos do que nunca, e em nenhum momento a história é DARK como quer parecer que é. Eu até preferiria que fosse mais e se entregasse de verdade, mesmo que seja algo genérico de sua época. OOT e Majora's Mask são mil vezes mais "dark" e fúnebres mesmo com os visuais mais cartunescos, o que acaba os deixando mais sombrios ainda pelo contraste. Mesmo com tudo isso, parece que funcionou, já que esse era o Zelda que mais havia sido vendido até o Breath of The Wild.

A trilha sonora sempre é maravilhosa nessa franquia, e essa aqui continua boa, mesmo que seja a pior de todos os Zeldas que eu joguei até agora. Ela soa como instrumentalização midi de chip de áudio de console específico, mesmo que isso já não existisse mais na época, e de nenhuma maneira isso dá um charme a mais pra ela, tirando o canto da trilha do overworld noturno. Eu raramente gosto das músicas de combate da franquia, mas ninguém merece o tema de combate do lobo. Apesar disso, confesso que nunca achei que iria escutar breakcore em Zelda.

Pra resumir- gostei do jogo, excelência técnica, Midna é a melhor companion que o Link já teve, mas mesmo assim, não senti quase nenhuma emoção, nem positiva nem negativa. E eu queria muuuito ter sentido.
A parte mais marcante foi quando aquele cara simplesmente falou.

(Falando nisso, quero deixar claro aqui: odeio essa tradição de não ter vozes)

Twilight Princess is one of those games that I know is probably not as amazing and spectacular and beautiful as I feel like it is, but I still can't help but get a huge rush of serotonin everytime I think about it. Writing this is probably going to either ruin or strengthen that, but a friend requested I review this game and so review it is what I will do. It probably won't be as in-depth as my other reviews though. Twilight Princess is simply a quintessential Legend of Zelda game and an awesome experience beginning to end... for the most part.

Gameplay:
I sometimes hear people describe this game as a "remake of Ocarina of Time" and it's honestly kind of accurate. Twilight Princess definitely does a lot of its own things, but it certainly borrows a lot from OoT's gameplay style and structure. You run around Hyrule, talk to memorable NPCs, explore some great dungeons, and solve some puzzles along the way. Twilight Princess totally knocks its core gameplay out of the park. The world feels good to explore and is packed with tons of optional yet worthwhile tasks that help you become stronger. The dungeons are well designed with interesting puzzles and unique items. Combat is simple but has enough depth to remain fun and interesting. Link's transformation into a wolf adds a nice extra layer to the gameplay that doesn't stray far from the core. These elements are all tied together by the mostly well-paced story that drives them forward. There are a few iffy moments that keep me from calling the experience absolutely perfect though. The drawn out opening to the game can be a drag, especially your first time through when you don't know what it's building up to. The segments where you collect tears of light can feel quite drab and repetitive. The part where you gotta do that escort mission on horseback is nightmare on a first playthrough. Most of the problems lie in the first half of the game. The second half is pretty consistently awesome.

Story and Characters:
I freaking LOVE Twilight Princess's story. Say what you want about to long opening, but the way it sets up the world and makes you care about the characters makes the eventual moment where it all falls apart feel all the more impactful. The way the story sets up the conflict with the Twilight is freaking awesome, and it gives Link (and the player by extension) all the motivation and then some to go on this epic adventure with your initially mysterious new companion, Midna. For most of the story, you save ladies, unravel mysteries, and fight evil, all in the name of freeing Hyrule from the clutches of the Twilight, and it is awesome the entire time. Though, to be more specific than saying "awesome" over and over again (without giving away any of the juicy plot details), I'd say the story's biggest strength overall is its setups and payoffs. I don't think there is a single thing that gets set up in the story that doesn't have an incredible payoff. There's just so many cool moments that feel really deserved, and it just makes the story so satisfying to follow. The characters are great too. Midna is incredible and I love her personality and character arc. Zant is super menacing and serves his role in the story quite well. Link pushes the power of silent protagonists to the maximum in this game. The side characters can be quite charming too, though some unfortunately fall to the unmemorable side.

Sound and visuals:
Music's good. Sound design's good. That's basically all I have go say on that front. It's a Legend of Zelda game. I do have one complaint, and it's that the battle music interrupts all other music, which can ruin some important moments.

The visuals are one of Twilight Princess's many strengths. The environments look quite nice, and the dungeons specifically are absolutely epic. The Legend of Zelda series love its wacky character designs, and this game delivers them in droves, even despite its darker vibe. My favorite part of the art style is without a doubt the enemy designs. A lot of the enemies look totally awesome and menacing, especially the creatures from the Twilight. The art direction as a whole feels a lot like Majora's Mask's but if you made it listen to experimental 90's rock music for an hour.

Conclusion:
Twilight Princess is an incredible game all-around. It's got a good story, cool art style, and great gameplay. If you're a Legend of Zelda fan or just someone who likes these type of games then I'd definitely recommend this game. It is, dare I say, awesome. Twilight Princess will probably remain one of my top 10 favorite games until the end of time.





And yes, I will acknowledge the humor in me reviewing this game right after Sonic Unleashed.

I can't in good faith say that my rating of this game is entirely objective.

Twilight Princess HD is by no means the "best" 3d Zelda game, or even the "best" HD remake of one. Wind Waker's world is more developed and further boosted by it's gorgeous HD remake, Majora's Mask is grittier (regardless of Twilight princess's reputation) and more polished to boot, and Breath of the Wild completely rethinks the entire conceptual framework of what makes a Zelda Game and is able to deliver a more memorable experience through that. This all being said, in my opinion no one game reads "Legend of Zelda" as much as this one.

Twilight princess is the platonic ideal of a Zelda game. All of its parameters-- from the puzzle solving and side quests, to the worldbuilding and epic narrative-- are nestled in a goldilocks zone that just feels plain comfortable all while it's aesthetics and mood work to age up the series. In the end, this just right aspect combined with childhood nostalgia that borders on infatuation makes this my favorite game of all time

Absolutely god-tier game that I've noticed getting some unnecessary hate for its bug-hunting wolf segments that last like fifteen minutes at most. Everything about this game absolutely screams "Dark Fantasy". The atmosphere, music, story, villains, settings, and monsters all feel more twisted, strange, and evil l than any other game in the series (besides Majora's Mask). It also has quite possibly the most satisfying combat in any Zelda game. This game is damn near flawless, and is even better than BotW and TotK for my money.

Beating every Zelda in timeline order 6/20:

Twilight Princess was my first Zelda game and the one that I've beaten the most. By a lot. I love this game. After returning to it with a fully developed brain, it's not everything I'm looking for in a Zelda game, but it's damn near close. This is by far the easiest Zelda game I've played so far, and although all the bosses LOOK super cool, they are some of the most brain-dead easy sequences in the game, excluding the final boss sequence. The game takes a bit to get going in general, having you run back and forth in Faron Woods for like, 2 hours. Once you're in it though, the meat of the game is all great stuff. I love nearly all the dungeons in the game, and although they're not always difficult, they're always fun to work through. Their theming and designs are some of the best in the series. I still pick up on new things every time I experience the story, which speaks to its longevity. And I like the vibes. These are great vibes, all around. Makes me wanna be under a big blanket and play in a dark room until 3 am.

Twilight Princess is without a doubt the most nostalgic Zelda game for me, and anything I have to say about it probably doesn't hold up under scrutiny. But I fuckin love this game.

>no first person crawling
>no moving in third person aiming
>removed sword collision with walls
>inferior modified horse turning
>rupees that won't fit in your wallet are wasted
>no heatwave post processing effect in goron mines
>useless stamps replace small rupee rewards
>incorrect teeth textures
>jittery camera control
>minor graphics errors

I know some people didn't like this port because it didn't change much. But you know what? It took one of my favorite games of all time and put it in 1080p, 16:9, and added FANTASTIC gyro aiming via the Gamepad. You can even pick Hero Mode right from the start, adding a bit more challenge to a familiar game, alongside flipping the game to match the geography of the Wii version WITHOUT waggle controls. That's more than enough for me.

Twilight Princess rules. And this is the best way to play it.

Ever since Breath of the Wild invigorated the flame underneath me to give the Zelda series another chance, I've finally gotten around to this game. I never thought I was into Zelda growing up. The only game I played to completion was The Wind Waker, and while I really enjoyed that game, other games like OoT never seemed to mesh well with me. Maybe it was the dungeon design not gelling well with me, maybe it was the medieval fantasy setting that never really appealed to me. Either way, none of the Zelda games I had tried up until this point (ALttP, ALBW, OoT) ever really seemed to grab me.

I remembered playing this game at a friend's house many years ago on his Wii, and I've always had this memory of the game feeling and looking dark. It always intrigued me, but for whatever reason, I just never acted on playing it. For many years, I've always had it in the back of my mind that I would really want to try that game at some point. So after trying Link's Awakening and OoT, I decided to finally give it a chance.

The result is that, I think this might be my second favorite Zelda game.

The beginning of the game really hooked me in. Starting off in a small, quaint village, with lovely townsfolk felt very homely. You reach the point where you spend just enough time with them to begin to understand them and feel for them. And very, very suddenly, you are pulled into the depths of hell — both figuratively and literally. Having the village attacked by these strange looking beasts really hit home, and suddenly being whisked away, beaten, chained up, locked into prison and turned into a wolf with a evil imp lady forcing me to be her slave is just a very dark turn that I enjoyed a lot.

... Not in the masochistic way, I mean for the narrative.

It's a very jarring feeling to see a character like this end up in a horrible situation, especially for a Nintendo game. And I think because of that, it ended up making me feel for Link in a way that I haven't felt before. Granted, I was always aware in the back of my mind that everything would eventually work out for the best for Link, but it was still effective as a narrative hook.

Midna as a character surprised me. I now completely understand the love for her that I've seen on the internet. She's a sassy little gremlin, and ends up changing as the game goes on. She has a very sweet arc of realizing she was wrong for abusing you like she did for her own selfish interests, and begins to show facets of her true self. She's much more of a character than Zelda was in this game, strangely enough. Though, they did still manage to make me tear up with Zelda's words and actions. Every character, despite them being very minor, I ended up liking in some capacity. Not all of them were memorable, but the game definitely had a charm to it.

Having played BOTW first, it was remarkable to me just how much that game was closely related to this one. A lot of the iconography resembled BOTW, to the point where they felt distinctly within the same vein, whether that be intentional or not. I had read and heard two things while I was looking up more things about Zelda. The first was that, the original concept for the series had to do with a cybernetic realm mixed with the medieval fantasy, which was why Link was named Link, after a hyperlink. The other was that, the Legend of Zelda is kind of meant to be a retelling of a story, but with pieces missing and not clear, as if it were a real legend. Those two ideas were in my head the entire time while playing this game, and I'm not sure if it was intentional, but a lot of this game feels like it's in part, a holographic simulation. A lot of the Divine Spirits all project themselves, presenting themselves as concepts we understand, all of whom have a similar ancient technological glow like what's found with BOTW's shrines glowing. They're always in the background and become activated when these beings communicate, as if they're projections from the technology that we don't see the light from due to the legend misconstruing the truth of these beings. There's ancient tech that the Twili have that ends up changing perimeters of the simulation, like with Zant and his final battle. A lot of little things like that ended up making me think that the game is a misconstrued medieval world with "gods" controlling the fate of the world, whether it be the makers of the simulation, or the manifestation of alien beings contacting and controlling humans. It was fun thinking about all of this, and especially seeing how this game has elements that look like they're directly linked to Tears of The Kingdom. (The game even has tears as a collectible, and I wonder if the new game will elaborate on what they are really.)

I read interviews discussing how the framework to this game was meant to be another attempt at what OoT was trying to accomplish, I think in terms of dungeon design and world design, they accomplished that. A lot of the dungeons in this game were very good and things you could solve on your own through your own intuition. A big problem I had with OoT's dungeons is that they built a lot of puzzles on looking around a room to find a switch. Alongside that, they'd have you enter multiple situations where you could find one key, use it on an optional door you didn't know was optional, and be forced to comb the dungeon to look for another key to progress forward. These dungeons tend to build upon mechanics and ideas in a way that meshed well with my brain. Most of the bosses are fun to take out as well, except maybe the Zora temple's boss. That one more has to do with being in water more than the mechanics, however. The Goron and Mansion temples were my favorites, having a really fun design/layout.

A lot of the gameplay is fairly iterative of OoT, with the exception of the Wolf Link sections. While the concept feels a bit under utilized after a certain point, (especially when the Twilight world and the world of light end up being fased out with Midna being able to join you in the world of light), but I still enjoyed switching to the form and attacking enemies with it. Wolf Link runs faster, has a very snappy feeling quick attack, and it's just very fun to control him. It's just, by the end, they have a bit of a hard time justifying the mechanic, along with some of the dungeon items, but I don't really mind that. When they are in use, they're fun to use.

The music to the game has been really nice. There's some great renditions of previous songs, but some new ones as well. Zelda music has always been great, and this game's music is no exception. Midna's sick theme is genuinely beautiful, it's a very sweet song for a very sweet moment. It's undercut a little by having to force a stealth section and a enemy encounters, but the emotions hit my heart strings when the song started to kick in. The more I think about it, the more I think Midna might be one of my favorite Zelda characters.

I think my only few gripes with the game are, it's fairly iterative of OoT, albeit intentional, the horse controls aren't very good on the Wii U version, and that it underutilizes it's main gimmick. Other than that though, I'm kind of in love with this game. There's some genuinely superb stuff in here. It's making me want to go back to the Wind Waker to see it it truly has usurped the second favorite spot.

The tingling excitement of finally getting to play this game back on christmas in 2006 after an infinite period of prolonged delays still remains unmatched for me and is a feeling that always rekindles every time I decide to revisit Twilight Princess.

It's not the most unique Zelda game, and it is probably the most linear adventure in the series with a weirdly stretched out, but heavily underutilised overworld, but what it does well is absolutely everything else from its well designed dungeons, locales and epic narration, as well as introducing some really cool new items at the final half of the game.

The story is beautifully presented with well animated cutscenes, and a strong synced up soundtrack that hits the sweetspots at the right moments.

The mood in this game strikes with every note from its sweet and touchy moments to the darker and grittier which complements the entirety of the journey so well.

The HD remaster adds a decent amount of textures and added polygons which really makes Twilight Princess look a lot less muddy than its original predecessors on Gamecube and Wii.

The input latency is unfortunately a bit iffy and is especially noticeable when riding epona or when you want to change directions, it's weird , but not too intrusive except for a few moments when you're at tight platforms and need extra precision.

Other than that there's several additions that just makes me prefer HD, faster climbing animation, gyro aiming plus a realtime map and menu with the gamepad is easily a go to.

Oh, and Midna best sidekick.

Eu joguei o comecinho da versão original de Wii e acabei droppando, mas finalizei agora pela versão HD e pessoalmente não parece haver tanta diferença.

Acho bom ressaltar que o ultimo jogo da franquia que terminei foi o arrastadíssimo Skyward Sword, que mais denota o cansaço da formula que vinha se seguindo de Zelda com uma linearidade baseada em templos "passe por 3 templos e consiga as três coisas para salvar o mundo. Mas então acontece algo e você tem que passar por mais alguns templos e desafios para derrotar o vilão". Então eu fui jogar esperando chegar na metade e desanimar igual o Skyward Sword, mas pra minha surpresa assim como o Ocarina ele tem uma qualidade constante, o jogo é divertido do começo ao fim.

A história é muito cativante, apesar de que eu esperava que fosse mais profunda e séria, o jogo diferente do que falam só tem a estética e o design mais sério e sombrio, e apesar do tema principal focar em um mundo das sombras e tudo isso parecer super edgy, no fundo ele é a mais pura essência de Zelda, não se distancia muito de um Ocarina. E falo isso em comparação com o Majora's, que esse de fato é super sombrio, misterioso, e assustador, e eu esperava algo mais diferentão nessa pegada.

O combate de início parece uma porcaria, mas conforme você ganha mais habilidades se torna bem mais divertido, apesar de que a I.A. de alguns inimigos seja ridiculamente burra. Acredito que os puzzles e templos são alguns dos mais criativos e divertidos de toda a franquia, e a mecânica como lobo é bem bacana e adiciona bastante na gameplay e na proposta do jogo.

Twilight Princess is exactly the type of game you’d expect to follow up Ocarina of Time. The 6 games that released post Majora’s Mask featured a significant shift in the overall vibe of the series. Not a bad one per se but as someone that holds the vibes of the Ocarina of Time-Majora’s Mask duology near and dear to their heart, it wasn’t hard to notice that the series was trying to forge a new identity for itself. One that strays away from the occasionally creepy and dark vibes of Ocarina-Majora and leans towards a more light-hearted and cartoonish vibe like in The Wind Waker and The Minish Cap.

While I still I really like those games, I couldn’t help but feel like an ingredient of the Zelda recipe was missing from them. All the games pre-Majora’s Mask felt like they had a good balance of feel-good light-heartedness and serious, more mature undertones while the post-Majora’s Mask games seemed to lean more towards the prior. I really have no issues with this as I thoroughly enjoyed them but I can’t deny that they felt different.

This, of course, caused a lot of discourse within the fandom. Ocarina of Time was a cultural phenomenon widely regarded as a pioneer of not only 3D games but gaming as a medium. This departure in identity over the 8 following years cast a fair share of doubt on the series ever reaching the heights of Ocarina of Time again. The Wind Waker was ruthlessly scrutinized, The Minish Cap barely sold, and Four Swords Adventures came and went with no noise. Forcing Nintendo to be like “You want another Ocarina of Time? Fine, we’ll make one.”

Twilight Princess isn’t just a modern version of Ocarina of Time like some people like to say, it is a full blown spiritual successor. Everything from the art style, to the music, to the world and dungeon design feels like a proper evolution of Ocarina of Time. It just feels like the obvious direction they would’ve went with with the series. Twilight Princess relies on the foundations of Ocarina of Time while forging its own unique identity.

The game goes for a grounded and more mature vibe overall, completely contrasting The Wind Waker. I love The Wind Waker’s vibe a lot but playing it after what came before brings a feeling of unfamiliarity, I know most of us had to readjust ourselves for The Wind Waker in the beginning of it and said “oh okay this is different!” That readjustment wasn’t as present in Twilight Princess. As soon as you boot the game up you get an overwhelming “oh we are so back!” feeling as it exudes the same aura as the pre-Wind Waker games. That familiarity to me is very comforting which is why I find myself gravitating towards Twilight Princess more, even though I think The Wind Waker is the much bolder and more adventurous game.

Twilight Princess is often criticized for its linearity. While it sports a big map, it’s not really an open-world experience like The Wind Waker’s. Frankly, I don’t really care about that. A lot of people say that exploration is a huge standard of the Zelda series and it is often used as a tool to gauge how good some of these games are. I don’t really agree with that, Zelda isn’t a series that thrives on openness and exploration for me. Instead I think Zelda thrives on the sense of discovery more. You’re discovering new areas, overworld secrets, dungeons, towns, etc. Linearity doesn’t stop that sense of discovery, it just guides it. I can see how that can be a problem if you’re looking for a sense of unguided discovery, but that’s not what I play these games for. I’ll get into what I do play these games for later in the review. But for now I just really want to establish how I don’t have any issue with the linearity of Twilight Princess. I think it’s the reason why the game works, the linearity allows for a tighter and more planned out narrative-driven hero’s journey take place.

The overall story of Twilight Princess is alright. It’s nothing really revolutionary, I prefer the story of The Wind Waker as an overall narrative, but Twilight Princess shines through its fantastic story moments. It’s very cinematic in the sense that the scenes feel like they were directed like they’re for a movie. There’s a lot of framing techniques, musical cues, and moody lighting used. Characters are very grounded with their movements and express themselves like normal humans do in the real world. Scenes like the attack in Kakariko, the vision in Lanayru, Midna’s lament, and Illia’s memory are wonderfully directed and are some of my favorite scenes in the series. If Twilight Princess was a movie it would definitely be a big blockbuster. It’s just so grand and epic in every way with massive set pieces sprinkled throughout.

My first criticism about Twilight Princess is the pacing of the first half of the game. I know people usually complain about the opening hours of the game but I really have no problem with the opening. I feel like it’s a great tone-setter and shows you what normal life for Link look’s like before the main inciting incident happens. It’s a literary tool that is used in most movies, books, and other forms of narratives we see today. My issue actually starts after the inciting incident happens. The the world is now engulfed in twilight and every time you go to a new area you have to first go through the twilight realm version of that area and free it. This is the worst thing in the game for me and not because of the Tears of Light quest.

A lot of the previous Zelda games featured a dual-world mechanic with one being the normal world and the other being a distorted version of that world. Seeing the normal versions of those areas first and then seeing how the distortion makes them look is cool, but doing that order in reverse doesn’t work for me for several reasons. First, it's about the first impression you get of the new areas, the Twilight realm feels the same in every region of Hyrule, so having the excitement of going to a new location be met with an oppressive atmosphere that is shared by every other area in the game, even when that atmosphere is done masterfully, just doesn’t give a good first impression to any area in Hyrule. It doesn’t help that the most notable change that happens after freeing these areas from the twilight realm is that they’re now brighter and have their own musical theme. The areas just feel the same but with a different filter on now so it doesn’t feel that satisfying to free them.

My other big complaint about these sections is how they bring some of the narrative conflicts to a halt and ruin some story moments that would have otherwise been much better done. This comes with the fact that in the twilight realm, you can see what’s happening in the real world but you can’t really interact with anything from it. A big example is the kidnapped kids from Ordon Village. When you see them get kidnapped you naturally worry about where they’ve been taken and want to save them. What is the next thing the game does with that sub plot? Have you stumble on them while you’re in the twilight realm, finding out that they are safe with adults while not being able to interact with them until you finish releasing the area from the twilight. I don’t like these sections at all. I will say though that the sound design in the twilight realm is fantastic. As it is with the rest of the game.

What I love about Twilight Princess is that it’s very atmospheric and that comes in large part from the music. The music is spacious, triumphant, and nostalgic, even if you’re hearing these tracks for the first time. There are so many highlights including: Title Theme, Ordon Village, Midna’s theme, Twilight, Meeting Zelda, Light Spirit’s Elegy, Faron Woods, Forest Temple, Hyrule Field, Kakariko Village, King Bulblin Battle, Queen Rutela’s Theme, Lake Hylia, Zant’s Theme, Midna’s Lament, Sacred Grove, Arbiter’s Grounds, Snowpeak, Hidden Village, City in the Sky, and Final Battle. I didn’t realize how many favorites I had until I started listing them out. This might be one of my favorite soundtracks in the series. The only criticism I have with it is that I wish it wasn’t MIDI. These melodies are mesmerizing and deserve a lot better. I hope if the game gets another rerelease, they remake the soundtrack to be orchestral.

An area where Twilight Princess shines for me is through its characters. Not counting Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess takes a massive leap in terms of character writing. The people of this world feel real with real struggles, and complex motivations. Link himself is one of my favorite incarnations, he is just so expressive and responsive to what’s happening around him. He shows a wide range of emotions throughout the game: he gets passionately angry sometimes, remorseful, cheery, relieved, etc. He’s not as stoic and serious as all the promotional art of the game depict him. He’s just a simple farm guy with a big heart and wants to help out however he can and the game sells that through his characterization. He also works especially well with Midna, who is probably my favorite character in the franchise.

Midna’s the first character in the series that gets a proper arc. Midna is mischievous, sassy, charismatic, and just wants to use Link for her own selfish gains but as the game goes on, she grows a sense of admiration for Link and the sense of camaraderie that builds up between the two really carries the game. They are a great dynamic duo that really give the game its own sense of identity. Midna actually in many ways feels like the protagonist of the game with Link being the deuteragonist. She is the driving force behind the narrative, the stakes are much higher for her than they are for any other character, and she’s the one that has personal beef with main antagonist. This is Midna’s game and Link is just a vessel for her story to be told. The closest thing we got to a character this dynamic before was Tetra in the Wind Waker but the way she was handled in the back-half of that game kinda fizzled her out for me. God, I love Midna. Most of the emotional punches of the game for me come from her. There’s obviously the big Midna’s Lament sequence but that doesn’t come close to her agency and involvement during the final section of the game. All for it to lead to one of the most beautiful endings of the series which wouldn’t have hit at all if her character didn’t work.

Twilight Princess also has other characters that are really compelling! Zant and Colin come to mind as other stand out characters. Some characters do leave some to be desired though. Illia’s treatment is just weird to me, she’s Link’s childhood friend/potential love interest. I’m gonna go over minor spoilers Illia as a character so feel free to skip this paragraph if you haven’t played the game. I just don’t understand what they were even going for with Illia, she’s introduced in the beginning as someone that Link really cares about, then gets kidnapped and disappears for a while. At that point she’s used as a main motivator for Link to go through his journey. You don’t find her with the rest of the kidnapped kids, so you’d think they’re delaying that moment to do something interesting with her. Once you do end up finding her you find out she has amnesia? Interesting choice but nothing is done with that plot line at all. She just disappears for the rest of the game until close to the end where you help her get her memory back in a wonderful scene.. only for her to just stand there doing nothing for the remainder of the game. Just a very weird way to handle the character which is why she never worked for me.

Other characters that kind of fall short for me are Zelda and Ganondorf. Their designs do all of the heavy lifting for their characters, these two never looked this good before (or since to be honest). But other than that, they’re a bunch of nothing. Zelda gets a total of 3 minutes of screen time in the whole game and is only challenged by Ganondorf’s 3.5 minutes. Did these two really need to be in this game? Zelda and Ganondorf’s inclusion just feels like it happens out of necessity to the series traditions. Part of me wishes for a version of Twilight Princess that fully skips on including these two and instead makes Midna and Zant the Triforce wielders of the game. You could even change their names to Zelda and Ganondorf to offer a cute twist of expectations having the incarnations of those two be from the same tribe this time. I know the manga adaptation gives Zelda and Ganondorf some cool stuff so all I can hope for is for that to be added if we ever get a proper remake on the same level as Final Fantasy VII Remake. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening so I guess I have to live on with these incarnations that feel like nothing.

My favorite thing about Twilight Princess and what I think sets it apart from the rest of the series is its dungeons. This is the best dungeon lineup in any 3D Zelda game. Every single dungeon in the game ranges from great to fantastic. Forest Temple, Lakebed Temple, Arbiter’s Grounds, Snowpeak Ruins, City in the Sky, and Palace of Twilight are among my favorite dungeons in the entire series. Each dungeon has a visually and sonically distinct atmosphere that sets it apart from the others, some dungeons are spacious vistas of nature like the forest temple, some are ancient locations with cultural impact like the Arbiter’s Grounds and City in the Sky, and then there’s Snowpeak Ruins which is a fancy and sprawling mansion. I also love them all from a game design perspective, they serve a great balance of the simplicity of The Wind Waker’s dungeons and the labyrinthine design of Ocarina of Time’s dungeons. To me, these serve as the perfect level of challenge where they’re designed well enough for players to be able to figure out how the puzzles work without taking mental leaps to do so. They really are a highlight and the most fun part of the game for me, everytime I finish from a dungeon, I’d be so excited to get to the next one. Contrasting the sense of dread I get from some of the dungeons in some other Zelda games.

All of these dungeons are capped off with boss fights that I can’t describe in any word other than epic. Mechanically, they all function like regular Zelda bosses where you have to use the item you acquired in the dungeon to defeat them, but in every other way, these bosses are leagues above everything that came before. The sense of scale has been upped significantly, these bosses are big and they do a great job of making you feel like the most badass guy in Hyrule. I talked earlier about how Twilight Princess feels like a blockbuster movie with its set pieces, these bosses are what come to mind. Something really great is that each boss has their own distinct theme this time. Actually there are some really cool musical moments that happen with the bosses, mainly the triumphant tune that comes in as you get the upper hand on these bosses just fills you with so much adrenaline. Highlights for me are: Morpheel, Stallord, Blizzeta, Argarok, Zant, and of course Ganondorf.

Everything in Twilight Princess culminates in the climactic final part. Arguably the best final section of any Zelda game (only to be contested recently by Tears of the Kingdom). Only to be topped off by the best final boss fight of the series thus far, again only to be contested by Tears of the Kingdom. Ganondorf might only have 3.5 minutes of screen time but he makes them count! Fantastic final boss in every way and a fantastic ending to go along with it. I will never forget the first time I finished this game and how much I was in awe over this ending sequence. Top 3 favorite endings in the series by far.

Twilight Princess is not a perfect Zelda game but it sure comes close. It has every element that I look for in a Zelda game. I said earlier in the review that I will get into what I look for when I play Zelda games. What’s most important in a Zelda game for me is atmosphere, story, characters, music, dungeons, and bosses. Moving forward, I will be focusing on these 6 elements with each Zelda game I review as these categories are what’s most important to me. Twilight Princess excels in all of these categories which solidifies it as an S-Tier game for me and one of my favorite games in the series. I freaking love this game and I’m obsessed with it. I wasn’t planning on writing this much but I really love Twilight Princess so much that I just can’t stop talking about it.

For some this is the darkest Zelda game, for others it's a rehash of the incredible Ocarina of Time. For me, it's possibly the best Zelda game of all time.

For this review, I played the HD remaster for the Wii U, the differences are subtle so wont be mentioned much. Everything I say here will apply to the Gamecube and Wii originals too.

In recent years, Twilight Princess has been seen as a bit of a 'black sheep' in the series, alongside Majoras Mask. I'll never understand this as in all honesty, Twilight Princess has an almost un-rivalled ability to suck you into it's cooky world of darkness almost instantly. Just like it did back in 2006, the game opens up with you taking control of of our hero Link. Here, he is a farm boy living in the cosy forest village of Ordon, helping the village with menial tasks, spending time with the village youths and of course, herding goats. Instantly, Link becomes that under-dog hero we all know and loves living the easy quiet life. We just know that something darker is brewing around the corner.

Without going into to many details, eventually Link and his best friend Ilia are attacked while giving Links horse Epona, a wash in the spring water fountain just outside of the village. The kids of the village are kidnapped and our hero is turned into the wolf we see on the cover, he awakens in a cell and we are met with one of, if not the single best character in the entire franchise, Midna. Midna is an inhabitant of the Twilight world, a sort of echo to Hyrule where everything is dark, Twilight monsters roam freely and contact with the regular world of Hyrule is extremely limited. It's a hauntingly beautiful sight every time we cross the Twilight barrier.

The afore mentioned Midna happens to be my favourite character in all of Zelda. In fact, I named my cat after her! Without spoiling too much, Midnas character evolves throughout the game in a way in which we have rarely seen in Zelda games or even Nintendo games for that matter, even to this day. She starts the adventure poking fun at Link in his horrible situation and having a disdain for the occupants of the light world, but eventually she molds into this loving character who trusts Link with saving not just Hyrule, but the Twilight realm itself. She's a wonderful character to experience.

In typical Zelda fashion, Link and Midna have to adventure throughout this vast iteration of Hyrule, meeting the different races that live there, traveling through dungeons, beating bosses, attaining different unique tools and solving puzzles, all in the name of saving Hyrule as he always does.

The version of Hyrule we have in twilight Princess is vast, beautiful and full of the memorable quirky characters the series is known for. The giant stone Gorons of death mountain at first don't get along well with humans, but with Links help, they become the friendly gentle giants we absolutely adore. They even have a handful of different designs, some of which are so hilariously lovable in their mannerisms that I have to say, they become the most memorable of all the Gorons in Zelda.

The Zora of Zoras domain are a beautiful graceful race of mermaid-like fish people. Very stoic in their nature, they have recently lost their Queen and we must help their Prince find his courage to lead the Zora as his mother once did.

We also have a new race, the Oocoo, of which late in the game we get to travel to their city in the sky and save them from a giant twilight dragon. They are little bald bird-like creatures that talk with weird mannerisms, can glide like cuccoos (chickens) and walk on walls, for some reason.. Instantly memorable!

Of course we also have the humans (Hylians?). In Twilight Princess, humans come in so many different varieties, just like in real life, all with different passions, styles and bursting with personality. A few of the most memorable are Rusl, Links mentor in Ordon Village. Agitha, a young 'princess' who lives in this games Castle Town and is obsessed with bugs, in which Link must collect them all for her. Fyer, a man who lives in the stunning Lake Hylia and owns a cannon, and is instrumental in helping Link later in the game. Falbi, who owns a Cuccoo mini game in which you must grab a cuccoo and float down towards Lake Hylia and land on a platform of treasure chests and possibly my favourite human character, Telma. Telma is the owner of Telmas bar in Castle Town who uses her, ahem.. assets.. to help Link and his friends throughout the adventure. She's brave, smart and always seems to know something more than the other characters with that cheeky wink she does constantly.

We also have a pair or Yeti, Yeta and Yeto who reside in the Snowpeak Ruins. They are a married couple that I cannot wait to meet every time I play the game. Their warmth (despite living on a frozen mountain) friendliness and humour are one of the peak sections to the game, if you pardon the pun, ha!

As I am sure most people know, Ganon/Ganondorf is the main big villain in the game, and he is great here with his best ever design. He's huge, menacing and seems so powerful in this world. Better still, we have Zant whom we meet early in the game and turns up from time to time. He's an inhabitant of the Twilight world, has an unbelievably interesting design and seems so unique for a villain in a Zelda game, he even has a good back story. You better believe we will be kicking his ass later on!

By now, you probably know how the classic format of Zelda is structured, we beat temples and dungeons. In Twilight Princess, dungeons have so much more to them stylistically compared to most other entries in the series. A few of my favourites are the Goron Mines, a fire temple of sorts in which we actually meet some aging Goron elders in the temple itself! This is where you get the Bow and Arrow! The Arbiters Grounds which seems to be the favourite among fans. It's a temple in the desert which becomes a very important place in the story and includes a call back to Ocarina of Time in which you must find and defeat 4 ghostly Peo souls. You also get the fan favourite Spinner tool which can connect to runners like a gear in various walls throughout the dungeon and Hyrule, leading to some adrenaline pumping high paced puzzle solving! They have to re-introduce this into the series some day. My favourite dungeon in the whole series is the Snowpeak Ruins. Married yetis Yeta and Yeto call this abandoned mansion in the snowy mountains home. Yeta isn't feeling great and she accidentally sends us around the mansion searching for her bedroom key while her husband Yeto is lovingly making a soup! We also get a brilliant weapon here, the Ball and Chain which can destroy things, mostly ice, and helps us throughout the rest of the game with some really unique application.

There are no bad dungeons in the game at all, some other great ones include the first temple in the game, the Forest temple in which Monkeys help us traverse the place and gives us the Gale boomerang, The City in the Sky where the Oocoo live and we get the brilliant double Clawshot letting us zip around like Spiderman and the seriously under-rated Lakebed Temple, which is a water temple under Lake Hylia. It's a water temple done right (I'm looking at you Ocarina of time) and where you utilise the easy-to-use swimming physics of the Zora armour.

Part-way through the game, Link is able to transform into a wolf at will, this gives him a digging ability which lets us find rupees, heart and the occasional cave which can house all sorts of goodies from large rupees, poe souls and heart containers. Wolf Link is also able to utilise his scent ability which lets him track people down in the story as well as finding the spots to dig! He can also fast travel around Hyrule in this form, which is needed as this game is huge!

Lets talk about the music quickly. It's unbelievable good. The Hyrule Field music is an instant ear-worm which I hum almost constantly. Kakariko village is present in this game with a little melody that difficult to not whistle! There is even a spaghetti western inspired song that plays in a hidden village later in the game where we must use our bow and arrow to clear out the enemies present! The highlight song is Midnas Lament however. Without spoiling the story too much, we must save Midna from death. This simply gorgeous piano ballad plays which is emotional, haunting and fitting for the character and what she is going through, a must listen even if you don't play that game.

If I had to pick some parts of the game that I don't particularly enjoy, well first would be the difficulty, it's probably too easy, but that makes it an excellent game for people looking to get into the game. I don't think I've come close to dying in the game ever in any playthroughs. There are these sections where you play as Wolf Link and must collect 'Tears of Light' to progress the story early in the game. This occurs three times early in the game and are shortened in the HD remaster, but they still feel like padding. Bearing in mind the game came out in 2006, I do wish that the Hyrule field was a little more inhabited like the towns and villages are but my biggest gripe is Zelda, The titular Princess herself! She's rocking a beautiful mature design here but she's not in the game much at all, I think we see her 2 times in total.

It's a masterpiece of a game and in my mind, Twilight Princess is a near-perfect entry into the series. Is it better than Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask and Wind Waker? I'm not sure, they all have their highlights but for me, I'm picking Twilight Princess as my absolute favourite in the series.

If you are looking for traditional 3D Zelda operating at peak performance, this is the one. It really is the true successor to Ocarina of Time. Its got a ton of dungeons, most of them being very fun. Snowpeak Ruins is now officially in the running for best Zelda dungeon. The game oozes with charm throughout. The characters, the areas, and the music, all of it. I simply love the Ordonians, and Kakariko village was always fun to return to. The story was pretty good, I definitely liked how it wrapped up, but I don't know if I was hooked on it all the way through. I really like how Zant's true character is revealed though. It's another great Zelda OST with a lot of varied hits. Overall, Twilight Princess is 3D Zelda in its purest form which is fine by me because they executed on the formula very well.

'Tis been 7 years since I last played this game, I considered it my favourite game at that time as well. It's a pretty great adventure. Never feels like it drags on which is surprising considering the amount of "detours" it feels like you have to do to continue. Not really too big of a fan of 100%ing this game though. A lot of the Heart Pieces felt slapped around the place, Poes were annoying because you can't change the time of day and they only appear at night. I also didn't end up going for the Wii U exclusive stuff. Consider it as me technically 100%ing the GameCube and Wii version lol. Overall, this game is a pretty amazing time, I always have trouble ranking Zelda games. This series means a lot to me.