The Legenda of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Twilight Princess is my first Zelda game since The Legned of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which was released for the SNES in 1992. In high school, I was more into computer games and did not purchase a N64 nor a GameCube. I played various titles here and there for the GameBoy and DS. With A Link to the Past being considered one of the greatest Zelda games of all times, you can imagine that my expectations for this adventure were very high!
Twilight Princess starts off slower than most other Zelda games. We are introduced to Link as the ranch hand of a goat farm in the Ordon villiage of Hyrule. While this backstory is unique, it server two purposes. To make Link rise to the “hero of time” more epic and also to ease people into using the Wiimote! Since Twilight Princess was orginally a GameCube title, I believe that some of this intro section was added in so that people could get used to a completely different approach to controlling a character.
There are a few caveats of this not being a “true” Wii title. First, the graphics are hardly “next-gen”. Nothing besides making it widescreen was changed from the GameCube to the Wii version. Second the Wii version does not take advanteage of the space increase provided by the Wii DVD disks. That means Twilight Princess, for the most past is a silent game (less that of a few voiced grunts here an there). Hopefully, the next in the series will include voice acting. Twilight Princess also uses midi for its score instead of Orchestrated peices, which is a shame since the scores written for the game are so beautiful (listen for yourself). Lastly, and most importantly (to me anyway) is that the Wii version’s graphics are mirrored! This is to accomitabe the majority of the world who is right handed and might have found it awkard to control Link, who is a lefty, with their right hand. Since I am a lefty, I can attest that it did not seem awkard at all to control Link with my left hand. However, what did upset me is seeing Link use his RIGHT hand!
Once you get past the introduction, the meat of the story begins. A dark evil is trying to take over the world again (gasp!) and has cast the land of Hyrule in darkness. This darkness has transformed Link into a wolf and he is taken captive and locked in the dungeon of Hyrule castle. It is there were Link is introduced to Minda, an inhabitant of the Twilight Relm, who is willing to help Link destroy the evil so that her land can be brought back to peace as well.
Michael Petnuch is a graduate math student who enjoys walking on his hands, drinking diet coke, solving math problems, and being silly!
