The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

aka: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker 2, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, Zelda TP, Zelda no Densetsu: Twilight Princess
Moby ID: 25103
Wii Specs
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Description official descriptions

Twilight Princess is the first Legend of Zelda game for the Wii and also the last for GameCube. At first, Link is a simple farm boy, whose tasks consist of herding goats to watching children in Ordon village, Link's hometown. One day, Link is asked by the mayor to run an errand in Castle Town, but things suddenly go wrong…

The land becomes dark, and strange creatures appear from another world called the Twilight Realm, which turns most into ghosts. Link, however, becomes a wolf. After becoming a wolf, Link is aided by Midna, a resident of the Twilight Realm. Midna helps Link find a way to turn human again along with other tasks.

The wolf cannot use a sword or other items. Instead, as a wolf Link must use his senses to solve puzzles and get past obstacles. The beast can also dig holes to find hearts and rupees and to get in places. It can push blocks with its head to climb higher or reveal hidden passageways. Additionally, it can attack enemies by biting or pouncing on them.

As a human, Link can move around quickly, aim his bow, swing his sword, and even fish. Link also collects many different items, which allow him to perform varied attacks and reach places he couldn't before. Link performs many attacks with his sword and can even learn other sword moves.

The game's art is similar to the naturalistic style of Ocarina of Time, rather than the cel-shaded look of The Wind Waker. Chronologically, the game takes place between the two aforementioned titles, and quite a few locations from Ocarina of Time can be visited. The main adventure takes place in several provinces with dungeons and temples. With the help of Midna, you can easily travel around quickly later in the game.

The Wii U remaster of the game includes:

  • Enhanced graphics
  • Wii U GamePad support (allowing for a mini-map to be displayed on the touchscreen, or items to be changed using the touchscreen)
  • Miiverse support
  • Some areas of gameplay have had minor adjustments
  • A new difficulty mode
  • A new dungeon, the Cave of Shadows, which is accessed using the Wolf Link amiibo
  • Additional amiibo support for health refills or arrow refills

Spellings

  • ゼルダの伝説 トワイライトプリンセス HD - Japanese Wii U spelling
  • ゼルダの伝説 トワイライトプリンセス - Japanese spelling
  • 젤다의 전설 황혼의 공주 - Korean spelling

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Credits (Wii version)

227 People (188 developers, 39 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 94% (based on 173 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 226 ratings with 15 reviews)

Nothing new enough to warrant a purchase

The Good
I do like Zelda don't get me wrong. The graphics are pretty good but not exactly ground breaking, the control scheme is nice and I love the new circular inventory system. Hyrule has been overhauled and it is considerably larger than the last time we rambled around it as Link. Puzzles involving transforming between a Wolf and Link are pretty ingenious, look for ghosts pointing to the goal and then transform back into Link to get the job done!.

The Bad
As usual little has changed. The control system has been buffed but has essentially remained unchanged since Ocarina of Time, take away the pointing with the wii-mote and it's same old, same old. There are little new locations, graphics are fairly un-impressive for a next-gen console and most of the items are pretty superfluous. The novelty of changing into a Wolf wears off quickly and admit it, our new buddy is essentially Navi. Most of the music in the game is just a bunch of remixes of old Zelda tunes but there are some new tracks and some of the mini-games are boring (Whoa, let's herd what fun!) and bizzare (giant fruit collecting????).

The Bottom Line
What we have here friends is Zelda; Ganondorf is back (for the six billionth time) and another Link must take up sword and fight for the survival of Hyrule. You can do some new things and there are bells and whistles but essentially it's just the same old formula recycled with a new graphics engine, I definetly wouldn't buy this game it's a renter if anything. Buy it if you want, I mean you will enjoy it because it's Zelda and it is fun but there just isn't enough that is new to warrant a purchase.

Wii · by AxelStone (34) · 2008

Amazingly entertaining

The Good
When I bought my Wii, I purchased TP with it, because every critic just raved about it. Wii is my first console, I was a strict PC gamer before, and just wanted something fresh, something I could plug and play, not another FPS.

TP is, for me, absolutely stunning, the only games on PC that touched me that way were games like Deus Ex, Outcast or classic graphic adventures. The very fascinating about TP is you can't play 20 minutes without having had quite a few encounters, events or items. Something is always happening, the world around you lives, and looks fabulous, too. It's such a fluent and immersive gameplay, it's hardly believable.

You advance through the story without effort, discover Hyrule and its places, deserts, dungeons, monsters, villages. You catch fish, You dive fro treasure, walk along walls and on ceilings, use the boomerang, the swords, the bow... The Wiimote controls are just fine for everything, from fishing to shooting to riding your horse Epona (and what a proud and beautiful horse it is), the soundtrack is heroic, and the difficulty not too harsh. A game you can easily get lost in, and one good reason to get Wii.

The Bad
The old console problem that when you save your game, you're not back where you saved when you reload, but at a spawn point on a level map. Textures could use a higher resolution.

The Bottom Line
One of the most amazing action adventures ever made. Likable characters, dense story and game flow, lovely visuals with huge landscapes, scary monsters, tricky, clever fights and enough reward to keep you playing for hours. And once you played it through, you have passed a time that you will definitely remember.

Wii · by Emmanuel Henne (23) · 2007

Ah, sweet obsession.

The Good
The Legend of Zelda series has always seemed particularly mythological to me. I played the original NES games on my father's console as a child and then when Ocarina of Time came around I was astounded at the level of depth, graphical polish and the level of addictiveness the game offered. Majora's Mask wasn't as a big as a revelation for me, although I did enjoy it. I for one, was not put off by the use of time travel in the game as a mechanism to push you forward as things lost could quickly be re-obtained by rolling around the field as a Goron for a bit. It was just a bit "me too" featuring more or less identical progression to its predecessor released 2 years earlier.

I enjoyed Windwaker on an entirely different level to the other games. It offered something drastically different, with a renewed emphasis on exploration and turned me into an almost compulsive collector (which I already kind of am with video games in general.)

The little games in between like the Four Swords Adventures and Minish Cap didn't particularly appeal to me enough to warrant a purchase as I was waiting for another real instalment of the series to be released. Well, it was a long wait between Windwaker and Twilight Princess.

When Twilight Princess came along I was in the middle of my little Nintendo hating spree where I totally ignored everything they were releasing. It's frustrating to me now in retrospect to think of how ignorant I was to deprive myself of the fantastic games being released on the Gamecube and at the launch of the Wii around that period.

Recently when I had my little change of heart and became a warm fan of Nintendo I purchased Twilight Princess in addition to a couple of other games with my console. I have been consistently amazed by this game. There's just something indescribably appealing about it that fills me with this sense of elation while I'm playing it.

Link (or Frank or whatever you want to call yourself) is a goat herd who lives in Ordon Village. While running an errand to Hyrule Castle he is mysteriously struck down and turned into a wolf. He finds himself with a mysterious, petite companion named Midna who gradually warms to him more and more as she accompanies him on his adventures. Link (Frank) learns that the evil King of Twilight known as Zant has his sights set firmly on the kingdom's Princess (guess who?) and thusly his journey begins in earnest.

Link controls very well. The nunchuck is used to maneuver him around the world, pressing A to roll and lashing out with the Wii remote to strike with his sword. Holding Z on the nuchuck raises Link's shield and in time further uses for it become apparent. As the game progresses Link can learn Hidden Skills which augment his current stock of fighting moves. These Hidden Skills are mostly used to quickly dispatch an enemy or are defensive like the Shield Bash. They aren't particularly easy to find though and you must do a bit of exploring to find them.

The flow of the game is such that it will be familiar to Zelda veterans but isn't samey to the point of being tiresome. The game is paced intelligently with lot's of story slipping neatly into intelligent gaps in the exploration. The pace of the game is driving and although you're never really explicitly told what to do it is hard to become lost as the nature of the clues provided for you are balanced perfectly. For instance, occasionally a red target will appear on your map, giving you a general idea of where you need to be but what needs to be done there remains a mystery. It keeps the pace up, while not ruining the gameplay for you.

The nature of the dungeons is also refreshing. The "dungeons" in Twilight Princess are unlike other games in the series. Most aren't temples or obvious caves but towers, mansions or mines. They flow so organically into one another that sometimes I didn't actually realize I had entered a "dungeon" area. It was a genuine surprise and that's what I like in a game, that element of unpredictability that keeps things feeling fresh.

To think the vast world of Hyrule once fit on a single Gamecube disc is somewhat unbelievable. Every inch of the world, which is huge, is rendered with immaculate detail from soft lighting filtering through trees to the many tiny details on rock faces and buildings. The muted tones of the world may not appeal to everyone, but they do to me. It makes Hyrule feel organic, grass isn't luminescent and tree bark doesn't glow a sickly brown. The pastel colors similar games use to render the world have been omitted here for a more day dreamy, fantastical presentation that makes the world look like a beautiful painting at times. Although Hyrule is split into many very distinctive provinces the land doesn't feel fragmented at all, with each unique portion of the land flowing naturally into one another from the scorching Gerudo Desert to the winter wonderland that is Snowtop Mountain.

The soundtrack is one of nuance and variety. The theme that plays when exploring the field is driving and inspirational, urging you to adventure through it as you gallop around on your horse (whom by default is called Epona, but I renamed Greg.) Town themes are jaunty and fun, boss battles play with a variation of the main theme thrown in with traditional Zelda style battle tunes and even minor incidental music displays that level of stylistic polish the rest of the soundtrack shines from.

Twilight Princess is a Zelda game of course, so then it is safe to assume the level of collectables is quite high. In this entry in the series the main side quest collectables are Golden Bugs and Poe's Souls. The characterization of the individuals who request you to collect the bugs and souls for them is eccentric and charming. Apart from the requisite collectables there are the typical heart pieces and expansions for your wallet and quiver. These things are always fun and satisfying to collect and they are here for you to find.

The Bad
There is very little not to like about Twilight Princess. Most of the criticism is in regards to some of the presentational mechanics that have become characteristic of the series. To begin with there is a lot of text to wade through, sometimes too much text and in the transition to the Wii it would have been nice to find this entry in the series with voice acting, even if it was just for major cutscenes. It's not a major detriment and anyone with even a moderate attention span should be able to sit through the text, as it is very engaging. It's just been a long time since Ocarina of Time, it's probably the right time to take that next presentational step and add voice acting.

The camera is a jerk at times. It's a pretty rare occurrence, but it always seems to happen when you're standing precariously on the edge of a cliff staring over a bubbling pit of lava or shifting sand. The camera will try to snap behind Link, yet get stuck on something or the lock on system won't work properly. Like I said, it's very rare, but it certainly did happen.

The Bottom Line
As of writing I've sunk just under 30 hours into Twilight Princess and I intend to invest many more returning to Hyrule over and over again to immerse myself in the magnificently rendered world. The adapted control scheme, beautiful presentation, intelligent and masterful pace, genius dungeon design and engaging story made me so happy while I was playing. I almost instantly fell in love with Twilight Princess and the minor faults concerning the presentation and camera really don't mean anything. This is officially one of the greatest games I have ever played, an example of gaming Nirvana, and something every self respecting gamer should experience.

Wii · by AkibaTechno (238) · 2010

[ View all 15 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Android version? Deleted (13945) May 18, 2019
Genre Correction Mark Picard (1) Jul 9, 2013
Mirrored? beetle120 (2415) Nov 25, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Delay

The game was originally announced for release for the GameCube in November 2005. This was delayed to November 2006 so that the developers could add more content to the game and release it on the Wii as well as the GameCube.

Development

  • During development, Midna's hair was red and green, while in the final version it's red but ends in blonde-yellow.
  • Although Sheik, Zelda's ninja-like alter-ego from Ocarina of Time, does not appear in Twilight Princess, an updated design of the character was drafted up in its development. He is however available as a playable character in the Wii game Super Smash Bros.: Brawl.

Characters

Throughout the game you'll encounter the strange Shadow Beasts (the dark blue/black coloured humanoids with the bizarrely shaped disc-heads and tentacle hair). However, in two cut-scenes, you can see two big Shadow Beasts with differently designed disc-heads flanking Zant like bodyguards.They don't appear in-game as enemies.

Glitch

There is a bug in a room with a big cannon Link can use to warp. If you save in that room, an invisible character won't let you leave, but he can't be spoken too. Link can't transform into a wolf either. Customers could return the disc to Nintendo to have it replaced. A video of the glitch is available in the related links section.

Inside Zelda

Nintendo of America's official magazine, Nintendo Power, published a monthly series of articles called Inside Zelda, which revealed how the game was developed. The series can be read in its entirety here.

Inspiration

  • The Oocca race appears to be inspired by M.C. Escher's painting Another World.
  • The masks worn by the Ancient Sages resemble those worn by chorus members in Ancient Greek dramas.

Midna

The character Midna, who speaks gibberish, is actually speaking English that has been scrambled beyond comprehension. Some of her unscrambled voice lines are related to the game's story whilst others are related to key gameplay elements (such as "I'll take you there with my power", which is used when warping to other areas. This is especially interesting as Midna's voice actress, Akiko Kōmoto is Japanese.

References

  • if you look around the fishing hut, the owner, you'll see an old black and white photograph of the Fishing Guy from the Lake Hylia fishing pond from Ocarina of Time. The hut's owner and operator Hena refers to him as the "legendary fisherman" and comments that she may be a descendant of his.
  • In Hyrule Castle Town you meet a character named Thelma, who owns a bar in the city and is a fairly important NPC to the storyline. She also owns a cat named Louise, who helps you as well. The two characters are a reference to the movie Thelma & Louise.
  • The characters Malo and Talo, children living in Link's hometown Ordon Village, are named references to Malon and Talon from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, who are references to Marin and Tarin from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
  • The symbols that represent each Sage are the Six Medallions from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Version differences

Unlike every other Legend of Zelda game, Link is right handed in Twilight Princess. This is so most people (right handers make up 85% of the population) can make use of the Wii controls in the same hand as Link. Sword in the right, shield in the left. The GameCube version has Link using his left hand as usual. To make the game work for the right handed Link of the Wii, the Wii and GameCube versions of this game have the world map and everything in it mirrored So everything stays the same relative to him.

Awards

  • GamePro (Germany)
    • February 01, 2007 - Best Console Game in 2006 (Wii version) (Readers' Vote)
    • February 01, 2007 - Best Console Action-Adventure in 2006 (Wii version) (Readers' Vote)
  • GameSpy
    • 2006 – Game of the Year
    • 2006 – Console Game of the Year
    • 2006 – GameCube Game of the Year
    • 2006 – Wii Game of the Year
    • 2006 – GameCube Game of the Year (Gamers' Vote)
    • 2006 – Wii Game of the Year (Gamers' Vote)
    • 2006 – Wii Adventure Game of the Year
    • 2006 – Wii RPG of the Year

Information also contributed by Keeper Garrett, Mark Ennis, Sciere and Thomas Dowding

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Keeper Garrett.

Wii U added by Kam1Kaz3NL77. Android added by firefang9212. GameCube added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Sciere, Freeman, gamewarrior, samsam12, —-, Patrick Bregger, Grandy02, Rik Hideto, Kam1Kaz3NL77, FatherJack, Deleted.

Game added November 20, 2006. Last modified February 11, 2024.