The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Pacing is a good game that, as the name implies, has pacing issues. Out of all the games in the series, this by far feels like the longest entry by a significant margin and i'm not sure how i feel about it. There's a lot to like in this game but it often feels like you could trim certain aspects of this game and the whole thing would benefit and I want to talk about that first.

No where is that more evident than the game's very start. There is so much shit you have to do before you can enter the game's first dungeon. You have to: round up sheep, do some errands, round up sheep, then get turned into a wolf, then meet Zelda, then go back to the starting area, then go to the next area and kill bugs, then let a monkey guide you through the fog and then, only then can you actually enter the first dungeon. Wind Waker, another Zelda game with a similarly sluggish start, is not this bad about it. I would've been halfway through Dragon Roost Cavern by the time i entered the Forest Temple in Twilight Princess. It's common for Zelda games to make you run an errand before you enter the dungeon but this game just goes too far with that.

Eventually, this even starts affecting the dungeons. Starting in Arbiter's Grounds, i've felt that you could just cut a section of the dungeon to make it smoother. There's always something that slows it down. Honestly, even outside of the game, there's certain choices that made me go "huh?". The fact that skip travel is dependent on Wolf Link so until you get the Master Sword and the ability to freely change form, once you clear the curse for each area, you can't skip travel. The fact that you don't get the Horse Call until like start of the late-game.

I think the main reason all this happened is because of the game's story. Twilight Princess really likes it's story. Whereas past Zelda games were light on story (basically most of them) or told them in unique ways (Majora's Mask, Breath of the Wild), Twilight Princess really feels like it's putting the narrative front and center. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but the way it was done i feel ran into conflict with the traditional Zelda formula. I think at some point they realized this because the story feels so frontloaded. There's a lot of plot during the first four dungeons. After Arbiter's Grounds, the game's like "alright go look for the rest of the Mirror Shards" and doesn't really bring up the plot again until you enter the Palace of Twilight. Makes the whole thing feel jarring.

But for what it's worth, it is enjoyable. Midna's an amazing character, Zant is decently creepy, I like the stuff with the Hero's Shade, Ganondorf using the sword that was meant to kill him is badass. The game's story as a whole is decent, the main issue would be that it kinda feels like they sacrificed the gameplay for the story at times.

The dungeons themselves are pretty neat, barring the Sky City that i want to burn to the ground. I really like that a lot of the dungeons are inhabited by NPCs who'll help you out. The fact that there's enemies present makes me question their safety but hey, it's a neat thing. The overworld is pretty big and it was obvious it was done to facilitate Wolf Link movement but it also allowed for some neat horseback battles. The first fight with King Bulbin was pretty epic. I wish it was the only fight, i don't know why he needed to stick around for three more fights but hey, i enjoyed it. I enjoyed unlocking new moves for Link, moves that definitely made some fights go smoother (Helm Splitter goes hard). The items are so good, i love that some of them put new spins on established classic. The Gale Boomerang, the Water Bombs, the Double Clawshots which let you really feel like Spider-Man. Even the Iron Boots, that now has magnetism. If there's one fault of the gameplay that isn't related to the pacing, it's that a lot of the bosses in this game feel like all bark, no bite. Zelda isn't known for having challenging bosses but man, it left me wanting more here.

The music is of course, good. It's Zelda after all. Probably has my favorite version of the Hyrule Field theme.

I think the best way to sum up Twilight Princess is that it's the slow burn of all time. When it gets going, it's great. It just takes a while to get there at times. While it's better than Ocarina of Time in my opinion, I do think the pacing issues have me placing this game lower than the other 3D Zeldas. That said, it is still a good game.

Reviewed on Mar 24, 2023


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