Zelda: Twilight Princess | 15 hours

15 hours into Twilight Princess and I absolutely love it. Several reviewers had negative comments to make about the first 6-8 hours saying they were slow and laborious, but I absolutely enjoyed every minute of them and found them to be perfectly in-line with the atmosphere that the game creates.

15 hours in, I’ve just finished the Death Mountain dungeon and it was a total blast. This reminds me of all the great Zelda exploring and puzzle solving moments I’ve had in the past, but of-course naturally better and more refined as time benefits the most recent creation. Zelda has never been terribly difficult, but there have been one or two little puzzles or environment elements that have made me stop for a second before acting. Zelda has always been about exploring a world that is alive and thriving, and being totally immersed in the environment. Twilight Princess succeeds over and above expectations.

When I first played the demo here in Australia which, by the way, I’m fairly certain was one of the earliest E3 demos (a cut-down and modified version of one of the outdoor Death Mountain areas), I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the aiming for the bow, but after acquiring it in the mountain and using it, the sensitivity has been refined to perfection and it’s very easy to use.

From all accounts, the initial 40-60 hour basic quest looks to be fully fleshed out in this way, and hopefully we won’t get any of the Triforce-piece hunting that we saw in Wind Waker. I’m sure it would have been mentioned in reviews if such an element was present, and the cries would have been loud and clear, so even though there’s so much more game in Twilight Princess, I’m more confident that I’ll never have a dull moment and give up on it like I did with Wind Waker – a shame as for the most part, Wind Waker was almost just as brilliant.