Not all of us were lucky enough to score a Wii yet!
Last week I picked up a copy of Zelda Twilight Princess for the Nintendo GameCube at Circuit City for the fair price of $37.99. I’ve been waiting for this game to come out for at least three years now, actually six, but I guess they gave us Wind Waker 
. Anyway, I had pretty high expectations going in. Unfortunately, the game has not lived up to them so far.
I have only completed two dungeons so far, and I am almost to the third, but I already have thirteen hours of game play. As you can obviously see doing anything in this game tasks forever, and I thought it bad sailing all the way across the map in Wind Waker! However, the time issues don’t bother me, the stages are setup fairly large, and there is not a whole lot of grinding going on so it does not usually feel the long.
Those who have played Wind Waker will be very familiar with the controls, because practically nothing has changed, with the exception of a few additions you get later on. Now, these controls were fine in Wind Waker, since the visuals were cell shaded, so the simplified controls felt right. Now, however they have brought the visuals up to a level that the series deserves. The downside is that the fisher price controls feel constraining and clumsy. This is particularly evident while riding the horse. If someone knows how to slow down the horse without coming to a complete stop let me know ASAP! It is very frustrating when you over taking an enemy and you need to slow to match their speed. When you pull the stick back, even just a little, expecting the horse to slow, it rears up and comes to a complete stop.
Still, there is no jumping. Still, this frustrates me to no end. I know that in Wind Waker, I played for a few hours and got frustrated and bored, until I found an action replay code to allow jumping. Instantly the game became 1,000% more fun. So, naturally, I have been watching code junkies to see if they were going to release a jump code for Twilight Prince. Well, they released their codes, but there is no a jump code…the disappointment.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of good in this game. However, not only do I not think that it is the best Zelda game, but it isn’t even the best for the GameCube. So far, I would have to put Wind Waker ahead of it, because the visuals in Wind Waker match the controls much more than than the “realistic” visuals of Twilight Princess. Still, A Link to the Past utterly dominants any other game in the series.
Now, I should admit that I have not defeated either of the N64 games. I have played both, but did not beat them for different reasons. I stopped in OoT because the game glitched inside the whale, and there was no way I was going to start over. However, I am considering playing it in the collector’s edition after I finish Twilight Princess. I did not beat Majora’s Mask because it was so frustrating to have everything that I did become undone after each day passed. I think I beat the first four dungeons in it, then called it quits.
Ugh…the wolf. I am not sure who thought this was a good idea, but they should be put out of my misery. I wonder what the meeting was like for it, did someone pose the question, “what can we do to piss fans of the series off, but still have them buy the game?” I could see that if it were something that you could control, and flip back and forth so that you did not have to use it if you did not want to, it would be ok. But, the lack of control over it is frustrating. Leading me into my next point: linearity.
I know that all of the games have been basically linear, but Twilight Princess is ridiculous. It seems as though every action you make is strictly scripted by the developers. In most of the other games, you are not necessarily required to do the dungeons any in particular order, the only linearity is enforced by what items are required to do whatever. In Twilight Princess you are basically up against the wall, you cannot even explore different areas, because they passages to them are blocked off.
Now, not everything about the game is bad, but those are really just the glaring things that I have been wanting to get off my chest. I’m sure that when I do my more finalized post about the game, I will spend more time talking about the stuff that I like about the game.
P.S. Do not waste your money on the blasted STAR game in Castle Town. I wasted 100 rupees playing that damn game.
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