The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Link's new adventure on Wii is one of his best yet. Find out why in our extensive review.




Version
Wii
Developer
Nintendo
Publisher
Nintendo
Genre
Adventure



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"Flicking the Wii remote to slash at enemies soon starts to feel natural... but swinging is little more than a button press in the end."

Your first trip to the Twilight world is also the first time you encounter Link's lupine abilities. Like his regular skills, making do with Wolf Link is not immediately natural. It's this gradual curve, where you slowly become accustomed to the new controls, which is partly responsible for Twilight Princess taking so long to get going. In the time that many people are seeing the credits roll in modern action games you'll scarcely be finishing off the second of the nine massive dungeons in Hyrule.

You could argue that Nintendo has extended the game so much to keep the hardcore appeased while they work on Mario Galaxy, and it does sometimes feel like it could have been pared down, but for the most part you'll be savouring every minute of the adventure. The bulky playing time reminds you that this is an epic journey during which you'll truly earn every new skill you get. By the time you get to the end of the game, you feel like you deserve the glory. It's hard for many people these days to justify playing one game for more than fifty hours, but when it's as good as this, it's worth it.

A big question about the Wii version of Twilight Princess is whether Nintendo has been able to retrofit the old gameplay around the new controls. The good news is that it does become second nature, but you'll need to adjust to it. Flicking the Wiimote to slash at enemies starts to feel natural and you might even be able to find a position that lets you slouch on the couch the way you usually do.

P L E A S E   V I S I T   O U R   S P O N S O R :

"Text dialogue can be jarring... this 20-year-old tradition harms your belief in the characters."

That said, I'm not convinced that the game couldn't have turned out just as well had Nintendo stuck with the more traditional controller. Swinging the Wiimote is nothing more than pressing a button, in the end. It's a pity that Nintendo didn't give us the option to use the GameCube controller if we wanted do. There are some advantages though. You can aim precisely and flick across the screen more quickly. But this doesn't seem enough to make the motion-sensitive controls a must-have feature.

One unfortunate relic from the series' past is Nintendo's stubborn refusal to get with the times and start voicing if not Link then at least the rest of the inhabitants of Hyrule. There are the odd exclamations of fear or surprise, but all dialogue takes place through text boxes. This is most jarring during the surprisingly frequent cut scenes that help drag the story along. When so much work has gone into creating a believable world, it's a pity that the developers' overpowering desire to adhere to the technological constraints of a 20-year-old game harms how much you can believe in the characters.

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Video Coverage
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DescriptionDur.SizeDetails
Nintendo Video Interview
Extensive video interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma, Koji Kondo & Hideki Konno, on Zelda: Twilight Princess
28.34m 181MB SD, 30
640x480
1Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
Extensive gameplay footage, commentated by producer, Eiji Aonuma.
28.51m 268MB SD, 30
640x480
1Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2006 Trailer ED
00:24 11MB DF, ED, 16:9
852x480p60
4.2Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2006 Gameplay 1
02:54 88MB CAM, ED, 16:9
852x480p60
4.2Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2006 Gameplay 2
01:51 56MB CAM, ED, 16:9
852x480p60
4.2Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2006 Gameplay 3
05:36 169MB DF, ED, 16:9
852x480p60
4.2Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2006 Gameplay 4
00:25 6MB DF, SD, 16:9
640x360p30
2.1Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2006 GameCube Trailer SD
00:52 8MB DF, SD, 4:3
640x480p30
1.3Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2005 Trailer ED
2.14m 50MB DF, ED, 60
640x480
3Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2005 Trailer ED (2)
2.13m 48MB DF, ED, 60
720x576
3Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
GDC 2005 Trailer ED
1.29m 18.6 MB DF, ED, 30
640x480
2Mbps
Zelda: Twilight Princess
E3 2004 Trailer SD
1.04m 8.17 MB DF, ED, 30
640x480
2Mbps