Wii | Zleda: Twilight Princess | Complete

After 47 or so hours, I’ve completed The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on Wii. It can probably be completed in 40 hours as per most of the reviews online, but I did spend a significant amount of time exploring and doing things that weren’t directly necessary for completing the main quest, some of which I’ll return to now that I’m done.

While many of the elements of the game where exceptional, it is far from perfect. Without focussing too much on the negatives, I’ll say that the foremost problem I had with this edition of Zelda was that the bosses were far too easy; so easy in fact that for a couple of them, one almost didn’t have to do anything. This is particularly an issue in light of the brilliant set-pieces that were created for these bosses, with fantastic environments that often really capture the feeling of being a small hero facing a very large threat… the problem was of-course that often the very large threat was hardly threatening at all.

The second main issue I had was that the dungeons were very short, with more than a few of them being quite simple and fragmented. Some of them were actually quite clever, but they were over far too quickly without really exploring the greater possibilities given the creativity of the environment design.

As things come in threes, I should at least make mention of the teleporting. I suppose this has come about after the backlash over Wind Waker’s endless sailing in the search for the pieces of the Triforce. Twilight Princess’ teleporting separated the player from the land I think, and broke down the sense of scale in just how large an environment it is. While the sailing in Wind Waker was over monotonous ocean, I liked riding across the plains and environments in Twilight Princess, and eventually stopped using the teleporters all-together except for where absolutely necessary.

That being said, my favourite dungeons were Death Mountain, The Sky Temple (forgive me for forgetting the correct name for it) and Hyrule Castle, while my favourite bosses would have to have been the ones at the end of Death Mountain and the Ice Castle, again, forgive me for forgetting the appropriate name. There are also many brilliantly immersive environments that are travelled throughout the game where one can stop and take in the view, with the fishing lake perhaps being one of the most breath-taking.

Now no write-up of Twilight Princess would be complete without making mention of Midna. Everyone who has completed the game will no-doubt itch to go on and on about her, just as I am, but just like them I must hold my tongue and not spoil anything. Suffice to say that Midna is the star of the game, an absolute legendary character, and one of the most beautiful creations in a game ever, and I mean that in all senses of the term and in all ways – those who have finished the game will know what I’m talking about. I like this subtle shift of focus in the atmosphere of the Zelda universe, and after all is said and done, Midna comes out as the centrepiece of the entire game, bringing about a subtle change in the main character of Link that we’ve never seen before. Above the overarching narrative and dramatic events is this brilliant anime-like theme with Midna at the core, and I must commend Aonuma on keeping this element alive underneath the myriad of things that make Zelda games what they are. The whole Midna element pretty much over-rides all of the negatives about this game, and while they may taint the general experience of it, her part in the game at least is perfect.

Truth be told, I really do think it’s time Aonuma got his own project away from core franchises. Give him a decent team and a bit of time and I suspect him of being capable of creating a brilliant story.