The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Review

This is more of my history with Zelda games than it is a review.

I only got my Wii last summer, so I missed it when Zelda came out back in 2006. I didn't get Twilight Princess until Christmas of 2007. Now there's something you should know about my history with Zelda games, the only one I have beaten is Phantom Hourglass for the DS, and even this gave me problems. This is something I'd like to call "The Curse of the Water Temple." I know this sounds like an awesome new Indiana Jones movie, but it isn't, sorry.

I played the Zelda games on the NES and SNES in little snippets and only at friends houses, I never really got into them, but didn't deny that they were fun. The first Zelda game I got was Ocarina of Time for the N64. I played and played it and played it. Then something started to happen around the Water Temple. I had never played any game this long, and was growing sort of bored with it, and found the game play redundant. I honestly don't remember how far into the game the Water Temple was, but that's where I stopped. I put the game down thinking I'd pick it back up again some other time, that never happened. Ocarina of Time went
unfinished.

When the Wind Waker came out I was so excited, I loved the visuals and couldn't wait to get back into another Zelda game. I felt bad for not beating Ocarina of Time, and I thought I could make it up by beating this. As you can see, this didn't happen. I accidentally deleted my save file. Now there was no "Water Temple" per say in this game, but the whole game was based off of sailing around to different islands, so my theory still holds up, water was involved somehow. I was right at the part were you navigate your boat into the "Tower of the Gods" so it pretty much was the water temple anyway. I did not want to have to do all of that over again, so I never played it again. Now after beating Twilight Princess I do want to go back to it, but thats another story.

I picked up Phantom Hourglass simply because I loved the Wind Waker's visuals, and this was a direct sequel. I played it for a while and loved how the controls were working on the DS. Then came the Ocean temple, or what I like the call the "Water Temple" for the DS. The game makes you go back and do the Ocean temple after each major boss fight. There is only one checkpoint about halfway through it. I got so frustrated with having to purposely re do this temple multiple times, that I thought I was going to break my DS. It's not an easy task, although you do start to remember where things are after doing it 4 times. I didn't think I was going to beat it, the curse remained. I wanted to smash everything that had to do with the Ocean temple. But I pulled through, somehow I got past it each time and managed to beat the game. My first Zelda game finished! The curse had been lifted. I was thrilled.

When I got Twilight Princess I thought I could definitely complete it, no problem, it would just take a while. 44 hours later and I finished it. I loved it, some parts did get repetitive and frustrating but if you just stick with it you will be rewarded. This game had some of the most epic battles I've ever seen in a video game. The weapons were great, and the conrtols worked pretty well with the Wii remote. The graphics looked outstanding at times, and gamecuby at other times, which wasn't really a bad thing. The music in the game was also pretty great, it wasn't fully orchestrated like Smash Bro's or Mario Galaxy, but the compositions sounded awesome. It was by far the longest amount of time I've ever spent playing a single game. I'm surprised myself that I managed to stick with it and not give up. I can't wait for the next Zelda game, and in between Smash Bro's sessions I plan to pick up a copy of the Wind Waker and give that another whirl.

Labels: Nintendo, Reviews