Musings of a technophile

I finally beat Zelda last night. Even though the game came out three years ago, I didn’t get a Wii until recently, so this was my first chance to hack away at the game, and what a beautiful game it is. I’m a big fan of the Super Nintendo Zelda and the Nintendo 64 Zelda, so obviously I was expecting this game to be just as good – and I wasn’t disappointed.

This time around, Link has to fight off the Twilight, basically kind of like another dimension, and eventually save Hyrule from the Evil wizard Zant. In order to accomplish this, Link morphs into a wolf form while in the Twilight, and has different tools at his disposal while in that form (seeing invisible things, digging a hole through a secret underground passage). He also comes across Midna, a girl from the Twilight who helps him in various ways such as portals, advice and teleporting objects to other places on the maps.

This game definitely follows the same style as the Nintendo 64 Zelda. It even has the Z-targeting the same as in Ocarina of Time (OoT), and you even visit certain places that you visited in OoT such as the Temple of Time. I did bother to look it up and according to the lore, Twilight Princess takes place hundreds of years after OoT – so there is a method to the madness.

The only thing I found disappointing about this game was that the bosses were all way too easy. Heck, the first boss of the game can’t even hit you if you stand far enough back, and yet you are able to hit it just fine from there. I don’t think there was one time in the entire game that I came even remotely close to dying on a boss – even on the final one.

In any case, the puzzles remain just as difficult and fun to figure out as they were in previous installments of the series – not too hard, not too easy. You also get weapons that are new to the Zelda series, such as a Ball and Chain – whihc let’s you smash huge boulders and ice, and the Spinner – which is a spinning top you ride that can ride along special pathways found on walls. I really liked the Spinner, although I felt it wasn’t used enough – you do fight a boss with it and that boss fight just seemed kinda epic.

Anyways, if you have not played this game yet, you should try it. It’s available for the GameCube as well as the Wii – although the Wii version should be much more fun since you get to swing the Wiimote in order to swing Link’s sword and the like. I wouldn’t say this is the best Zelda game ever, but it’s definitely in the top three.