The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

"Tell me... Do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls?"

- Rusl

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (ゼルダの伝説　トワイライトプリンセス, Zeruda no Densetsu Towairaito Purinsesu) was the last GameCube The Legend of Zelda game and the first Wii Zelda game. It was highly anticipated by many members of the gaming community, and was regarded as finally fulfilling the dreams of those who wanted a much more realistic and mature Zelda game, as seen in the SpaceWorld 2000 GameCube Tech Demo. This is the first Zelda game to be rated T by ESRB. The reason is probably because of violence, blood (as seen when Link strikes Dark Beast Ganon; it drips when he runs around), and signs of nudity- as shown by the Great Fairy. This game is also notable for being the first Zelda title released in the United States before Japan, as the Wii version was released in America on November 19, 2006, whereas the Japanese Wii version was released on December 2.

Story
Link, a young adult at the beginning of the game and descendant of the Hero of Time, is a ranch worker (but has also been called a cowboy of sorts) in his home town of Ordon Village in the Ordona Province of Hyrule. Strange beasts begin to appear in the forest outside of the village just before Link is supposed to make a trip to Hyrule Castle to present a gift to the royal family, a sword and wooden shield crafted by the townsfolk of Ordon. Three young children of the village, who serve in the beginning as one of Link's main motivations for fighting, are captured by Bokoblins while playing with a forest monkey, and taken to the entrance of the Forest Temple. With wooden sword in hand, Link goes to save them. He is able to free the monkey and his friend Talo who was caged by the Bokoblins, but this is only the beginning of his trouble.

The next day Link gets attacked by Bulblins and their leader King Bulblin and falls unconscious in the spirit spring near Ordon Village. When he awakens, he follows the pathway into the forest, whereupon he sees a large black wall draped over the ground. Approaching the wall, symbols begin to appear upon it, and as he nears closer a large and menacing black hand reached out and pulls him through the wall.

Link, is now in an entirely different looking world. A sharp pain runs through him and he doubles over. The Triforce symbol on his hand glows, and his entire body transforms into a wolf. As Wolf Link, he is captured and held prisoner within the boundaries of Hyrule Castle, which has been covered by the twilight realm that and spread over Hyrule. In his prison cell he encounters Midna, a rogue shadow Imp with mysterious powers, who aids his escape and helps him explore in his wolf form.

In the tallest tower, he and Midna find a cloaked young woman. Immediately she explains to Link how Hyrule came to be shrouded in twilight, and reveals her true identity: Princess Zelda. Although in another world, Zelda is still the princess.

It is now Link's quest to save Hyrule from the Twilight as the hero chosen by the gods. He must restore the light to all the lands in Hyrule and collect mysterious dark artifacts known as Fused Shadows in order to gain enough strength to defeat the one who rules the Twilight.

After Link and Midna collect the Fused Shadow they are confronted by Zant who heavily injures Midna, and causes Link to be stuck in his wolf form. After meeting up with Zelda, Midna is brought back from the brink of death, but at the cost of Zelda's welfare, causing her to be turned to stone. With a newly restored Midna, Link travels to the Sacred Grove to retrieve the Master Sword, breaking his curse, allowing him to transform between human and wolf form at will.

With his newly enhanced ability Link along with Midna go in search of the Twilight Mirror, an item required to travel to the Twilight Realm. After going through great trouble in the Arbiter Grounds, to locate in the Gerudo Desert, to retrieve the mirror, Link and Midna realize that Zant had broken it into four shards, with only one shard on the Grounds. In addition to this tremendous knowledge, the Sages revealed that they had sentenced Ganondorf to death, and had gone as far to impale him through the chest with the Sword of the Sages. However, through some "divine" fluke, he had previously received the Triforce of Power, which allowed him to survive the execution. He then used the power of the Triforce to kill the Sage of Water, break free from his chains, and pull the Sword of the Sages from his chest, leaving behind a glowing wound.

With the last of their power, they activated the Mirror of Twilight and banished Ganondorf into the Twilight Realm, and so he waited for a way out. He soon found his chance of escape in Zant, acting as a "god". Using a misguided Zant, Ganondorf found a way to seek his revenge on Hyrule. The Sages task Link and Midna with the duty of repairing the Twilight Mirror and defeating Ganondorf. They restore the mirror and use it to enter the twilight realm and defeat Zant. With him defeated, they return to Hyrule and, with the regained Fused Shadows, Midna breaks the seal surrounding the castle. It is in the castle where Link battles and defeats Ganon. This releases the curse on Midna. She then returns to the Twilight Realm and also shatters the Mirror of Twilight breaking the only known gateway between the two worlds.

Link returns the Master Sword to the Pedestal of Time. The children of Ordon Village also return home to their families. But Link does not stay. He is seen riding away from Ordon with Ilia watching him leave.

Gameplay
Twilight Princess features a stylized, naturalistic art style (similar to, but more advanced than, that found in Ocarina of Time), rather than the cel-shaded look that The Wind Waker exhibited — although it still makes use of cel-shading effects, using a very heavily modified version of The Wind Waker’s engine. In a further departure from The Wind Waker, Link is once again a young man, as opposed to a child, as in the latter part of Ocarina of Time and in The Adventure of Link. The game also takes on a darker tone, rivaling that of Majora's Mask.

Link transforms into a wolf when entering the Twilight Realm, a void that has ensnared Hyrule. This is not a wholly separate place like the Dark World in A Link to the Past, but a festering malignancy across Hyrule.

The Wii version uses the "point-and-click" feature of the Wii Remote as a "fairy" cursor (an on screen pointer modeled to look like a fairy), for accessing menus, and for using various tools such as the Hero's Bow, Clawshot, and Fishing Rod, (see Weapons, items and abilities); it uses the Nunchuk attachment analog stick for movement. In order to swing the sword which Link uses as a weapon, the player makes a slashing motion with the Wii Remote. A jab with the tilt-sensitive Nunchuk will cause Link to perform one of his secret moves, the shield attack. To use Link’s “spin attack” (a powerful attack where Link swings his sword circularly around himself), the player shakes the nunchuck side to side horizontally.

In the GameCube version of the game, you use the Y and X buttons for add-on weapon such as the Clawshot, Bombs, Iron Boots, and Hero's Bow. Many items found in the older Zelda games have carried on into Twilight Princess. The B button is used for your sword attacks. Tapping it once does the normal slashing motion. Pressing it two and three times just combos your sword attacks. Hold B until you see your sword charge and make a "ching!" sound, and then release for a spin attack. L locks onto enemies or people to talk to. The C stick rotates the camera around. The A button is for actions like talking, opening doors, and picking things up.

In order to use items in the Wii version, the game allows the player to equip the items to the left, right, and down positions of the D-pad and the B button of the Wii Remote using the item screen. When an item's respective direction button is pressed, the item is switched into the B button for easier use. The built-in speaker on the remote is used for sounds like the bowstring of the Hero's Bow being drawn and released, Midna's laugh, and the ever present “Zelda chime” when discovering secrets.

In Twilight Princess, Link learns more moves than in any other The Legend of Zelda game to date. Link also shares similar moves between human and wolf. For example when an enemy is on the ground, Link has the option to finish them off by plunging his sword into their chest or in wolf form (on poes, to rip out their souls). Link can communicate with animals in wolf form as if they were people. When transformed into a wolf, Link’s sense of smell is greatly improved allowing him to follow trails left by certain characters in the game. With these abilities come some disadvantages. While he is a wolf, Link cannot utilize any of his items, or open any doors with handles until he transforms back into a human.

There is no extensive voice acting in the game. The characters laugh, scream, and make other such noises, as they have in previous installments on the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo GameCube. In conversations, Link remains silent, and his responses are implied by nods and facial expressions, much like other The Legend of Zelda games. The only character who is completely "voiced" is Midna. However, she says no clear words, instead speaking in an unintelligible language (similarly to E. Gadd in Luigi's Mansion).

Returning from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, a horse can again be ridden in Twilight Princess. The default name for the horse is Epona (the set name of the horse from the two aforementioned games) and is used as the main form of transport whilst Link is in human form and until various warp points are opened around Hyrule. For the first time, Link can use his sword in combat while riding Epona in the game.

The enemy's AI of Twilight Princess is more advanced than in The Wind Waker.

Game Information
The game is meant to have a more mature atmosphere than the rest of the Zelda games, as well as significantly darker, and more rabid versions of monsters from older Zelda games. It is also supposed the longest Zelda game to date, accumulating at least sixty hours of play, twice as long as Ocarina of Time, confirmed by Iwata, although many who completed the game believed this to be innacurate. Princess Zelda and Ganon also appear in Twilight Princess.

The game's story takes place after Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. As featured in The Wind Waker, Link uses special facial expressions to inform the player and give subtle clues on how to solve certain puzzles. For some gamers, the game still proves to be more challenging than other Zelda games preceding it, although all the bosses have been noted as remarkably easy, taking most gamers only one try to defeat. Another returning feature is the day and night system of Hyrule, consisting of not only the cycle of days but weather and atmosphere effects as well.

Motion capture is used to bring the characters alive in a realistic manner. This is most evident during cinema sequences.

Development
Twilight Princess was first revealed E3 2004 when Nintendo showed a teaser trailer of their new Zelda game to a small group, resulting in outrageous uproars from the viewers. When the Zelda community found out, many fans were extremely excited. Many were happy to see Zelda taking a mature turn, which, as opposed to the the cartoony, cel-shaded art style of 2003's The Wind Waker, received a much warmer welcome. Threads popping up on Zelda forums everywhere discussing what the new game looks like, sounds like, even smells like. After ten months of complete silence from Nintendo, a new trailer was finally revealed at the Game Developers Conference on March 10th, 2005 to an eager audience.

It was learned at the Nintendo E3 conference on May 9th that Twilight Princess would be released on October 4, 2006 and would simultaneously be released on GameCube but then was later announced it would be released on the Wii in a mirror version.

On Wednesday September 13, 2006 it was revealed that Twilight Princess was to be a launch title for the Wii which will be available on November 19, 2006, while fanatics had to wait another week for the GameCube version to be released.

Graphics
Twilight Princess uses a heavily modified version of the The Wind Waker engine. This modified version of The Wind Waker engine makes the graphics in Twilight Princess realistic, as opposed to the cartoonish, cel-shaded design of The Wind Waker. However, as the Wii version is a mere port of the GameCube version, the graphics supposedly fall short of the Wii's capabilities.

Audio
Music once again plays a role in Twilight Princess, as in previous The Legend of Zelda games. While Link does not carry a musical instrument of any type until well into the game, he can pick grass from certain patches and whistle with it to call an animal, either a Hawk or Epona, Link's horse (later on, an instrument shaped similarly to the grass used to summon Epona is given to Link and has the same effect as the aforementioned grass). Also, while as a wolf Link can howl near the same patches, to the same effect. When Link is in his wolf form, there are seven "Howling Stones" (including one with a Triforce symbol at the entrance to the Sacred Grove) located around the world where, after Link howls a certain melody shown on screen a few times, a golden wolf appears and jumps somewhere else in the world. Link must then change back to his human form and find the wolf to learn a hidden sword technique. The songs howled by Wolf Link are taken from Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time, and The Wind Waker, with the exception of the final howling stone, which is the "bass" of the game's Hyrule Field Main Theme.

In a first for the Zelda series, part of the soundtrack has been orchestrated as opposed to using MIDI (for example "Don't Want You No More" featured in the introductory video in the game). The fact that Nintendo has decided to use mostly MIDI for the sound-track, however, has been a point of criticism. MIDI allows the background music to be more dynamic, but the sound quality suffers. Koji Kondo, the lead composer for the game's sound-track, originally stated that he "would really like to push for" the music to be orchestrated. Part of the full sound-track (featuring the songs "The Legend of Zelda: Orchestra Piece #2", "Hyrule Field Main Theme", "Ordon Village", "Kakariko Village", "Death Mountain", "Midna's Theme", and "Ilia's Theme") is received when a Nintendo Power subscription is purchased (the subscription also comes with a game guide for Twilight Princess). A sound-track also is packaged with the Twilight Princess Collector Box, an exclusive item sold at Target stores. The soundtrack also features two bonus tracks. The first bonus track, known as "D.S. Trailer Pack", was the theme that was to be used instead of the present Hyrule Field Main Theme.

This game, like most other Zelda titles, features very little to no voice acting. There is only one example of vocal acting, Midna, with grunts and yells from all other characters. Midna is the first character in a Zelda game to be fully voiced, although her vocalizations are entirely in the language of the Twili and cannot be understood except by reading the subtitles.

Along with the standard features of sound in a Zelda game, the Wii console offers something more to the customers buying the Wii version of Twilight Princess. Using the Wii Remote, various sound effects (sword swimg, Midna's calls, etc.) come from both the television and the Wii Remote's internal speaker, improving the gaming experience.

Setting
Eight years after appearing in Ocarina of Time, Hyrule is once again fully explorable in a 3D console title. In order to provide appropiate continuity, this incarnation of the sacred kingdom features most of the regions and zones portrayed in the 1998 title; a major difference, however, is that Hyrule is much bigger than before (similar to how it was shown in The Adventure of Link), thus it's now divided into provinces, six in total. Because the GameCube and Wii versions of the game feature mirrored (west/east) variations of Hyrule, it must be noted that all indications shown below are based on the GameCube version, which is largely considered the official map in the continuity of the console Zelda title. In the Wii version, East and West are flipped.

The southernmost province is Ordona, a rural zone where milk, pumpkins and cheese are exported to the other parts of Hyrule (as hinted during the exploration of Snowpeak Ruins), and where Link lives until fate calls him to fight evil; north from Ordona is Faron Province, a forest area inhabited by monkeys and very rarely by humans (or any other race), and where there used to be an ancient temple guarding the Master Sword; found northeast from Faron is Eldin Province, which houses Kakariko Village (now a wasteland due to invasion of monsters, and where a graveyard keeps the rests of deceased Zora monarchs) and Death Mountain (where the Goron tribe inhabits and has developed a mining complex over the flow of time).

North from both Faron and Eldin is the Lanayru Province, which houses the sources of water in Hyrule (namely Lake Hylia, Zora's River and Zora's Domain, the latter one inhabited by the proud Zora tribe), as well as Hyrule Castle Town (where most of the Hylians live, and where Hyrule Castle can be found); southwest from Lanayru (west from Faron) is the Desert Province, entirely uninhabited except by monsters that overran Gerudo Desert and Gerudo Fortress, and where the long-fabled Mirror of Twilight lies a the top of an ancient dungeon; Northwest from Lanayru (north from the desert) is the Peak Province, also entirely uninhabited except by monsters and the gentle Yeti race, and seen as the coldest region in Hyrule.

Twilight Princess is also one of the few games, along with Oracle of Seasons, in which new lands other than Hyrule can be explored, albeit very briefly. The City in the Sky is, as the name suggests, a place in the heavens, and is inhabited by the Oocca, said to contribute significantly to the creation of Hyrule. Also, through the aforementioned Mirror of Twilight, it's possible to visit the Twilight Realm, inhabited by the Twili tribe, and where the antagonist Zant spends most of his time.

Timeline Placement
Twilight Princess originally appeared as if it would cause a large amount of grief to those fans who studied the timeline. Debating on the false pretense that Nintendo had intended the game as something of an Ocarina of Time-The Wind Waker connection, theorists found a large number of seemingly irreconcilable inconsistencies. Thankfully, the majority of these problems were solved when perusal of more respectable Japanese material showed that Nintendo actually had a very different intention for the game.

Twilight Princess occurs due to a number of events which occurred in the days of the Hero of Time (Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask Link) during what we identify as the "Child Timeline" (approximately a century after Majora's Mask). After defeating Ganon in Ocarina of Time, Link was sent back through time by Princess Zelda to relive his sacrificed childhood and divert the past Hyrule away from its terrible future. In the past, Link's knowledge of Ganon's plans allowed him and Zelda to prevent Ganon's invasion of Hyrule. Ganon was taken by the Sages to the Arbiter's Grounds and Link ventured off to Termina. Twilight Princess's placement in the series was confirmed on March 10, 2007 by Eiji Aonuma.

However, some fans still disagree with the creators and have placed this game on a linear timeline, which has incurred much criticism from other fans.

Reception
Twilight Princess has received universal acclaim from reviewers and journalists, who cited it as the greatest Zelda article of all time. Clocking with a 94-95% approval on Metacritic and a similar compilation score on GameRankings, the game was praised in nearly every aspect. IGN editor Matt Cassamassina stated that Ocarina of Time was dethroned by this game, citing the length of the adventure, the storyline and the gameplay, and concluding that it "...is must-see, must-play and must-own entry into the series that proves over and over again why Nintendo is the best developer in the world". However, Matt also lamented that the game used MIDI-based soundtrack, instead of orchestrated score, and that the characters lacked yet again fully-voiced speech.

Kristan Reed from Eurogamer initially warned that games created to be overly long usually may end up being tiring and in need of replay value, in contrast to shorter games that sometimes offer richer experiences; however, he also said that Twilight Princess succeeds in being consistent and keeping the player interested in it despite its pronounced length. Kristan also considers the game a true successor to Ocarina of Time thanks to the elements borrowed from the 1998 game, and that the Wii controls work well despite the game being originally developed for the GameCube only; as for complaints, he said that most bosses are easier to defeat than expected, and that the overworld's huge size makes the game's pacing more difficult when it comes to completing the main objectives.

1UP.com journalist Jeremy Parish commended the game for living up to the series' legacy and for appealing for gamers that expressed complaints on some aspects of The Wind Waker, mainly the graphical style; he also praised the implementation of Wii controls, as well as the size of the adventure. He said that the only shortcoming of the game (and therefore in disagreement with Kristan from Eurogamer) was the fact that the game was too similar to Ocarina of Time, and that it felt "predictable" in some aspects, mainly in gameplay and storyline.

GameSpot critic Jeff Gerstmann was more critical, and stated that the Wii controls feel "tacked-on" because of the fact that the game started as a project exclusive for the GameCube; for the same reason, he considered that the graphics felt outdated, therefore lacking the visual impact of other Wii games, and thus concluded that Twilight Princess "...could have been so much more with a few presentational updates and more effective and interesting uses of the Wii's unique control scheme". However, he ultimately recommended the game, citing the legacy it took from the other games in the series.

Despite the positive reviews, there are mixed opinions in regards of whether the game has surpassed Ocarina of Time or not, as well as whether the game itself is a current-generation game or an old-generation title delayed multiple times since its 2004 announcement. Likewise, some journalists have criticized the fact that the game undid the ambition factor seen in games like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, as well as the fact that the long wait for the game's release wasn't completely paid off in the end.

Regardless, the game became a best-seller, with 4.52 million copies (Wii), plus 1.34 million (GCN), sold worldwide. The game is the third best-selling Zelda game to date.

Legacy
Part of the game's realistic tone is carried over in Skyward Sword.

Trivia

 * According to Speed Demos Archive, the fastest completion time for Twilight Princess is 3 hours, 56 minutes by Daniel 'Jiano' Hart on April 19th, 2009.
 * Twilight Princess is the only Zelda game to date where Japan uses the same literal subtitle as the rest of the world. The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link, Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask all use the same title in English and Japanese, only not directly romanized.
 * This is the very first Zelda game where the Octorok enemies are absent.
 * This is the first game in which Link appears in 3D human form shirtless. This happens only when Link learns how to Sumo wrestle.
 * This is the only Zelda game that, when released, was available on 2 Nintendo consoles.