Zelda Retrospective: The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess Review

After receiving significant backlash for a perceived shift in tone, Nintendo focused their efforts on a brand-new Zelda game to send off their humble Gamecube with a bang. Unfortunately, this would place it within the launch window of their brand new Wii console and so decided to delay their highly-anticipated sequel, Twilight Princess, as a Wii launch title. Much has been said about Twilight Princess, but since I was an edgy teenager at the time I thought it was just what the Zelda series needed. I was wrong. I'm sorry.

Review: The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess

The writing on the wall should have been so clear in retrospect, but even the title of this new Zelda screamed unnecessary edginess. "Twilight Princess?" Just the word Twilight evokes thoughts of darkness and melodrama, so it should come as no surprise that Nintendo tried to create a game oozing with edgy darkness and edgy melodrama only to drop the ball hard. This Link was more similar to the adult Link from Ocarina of Time, weathered and ready for a harrowing adventure because that's what you wanted, I guess.

Unlike many previous games in the series, there's no legendary tale to serve as the backdrop in Twilight Princess, instead dropping the player into a melancholy conversation between Link and his mentor, Rusl. Between the two disparate tones of darkness and melancholy, the latter is executed much better and the opening scene sets the mood perfectly. The game begins to falter almost immediately after, and doesn't pick itself up for a fairly long stretch.

In past games the plot setup is delivered quickly, though a better description would probably be 'efficiently.' A story doesn't need long and drawn-out exposition to introduce its conflict, and games like Ocarina of Time and The Minish Cap exemplify this aspect. That's not even considering the NES Zelda games which simply throw the player into the game without worrying about story at all. I'm all for a good story in a video game, but if a video game takes more than half an hour to introduce its conflict I consider that poor story-telling.

If Twilight Princess took a while to establish its story like The Wind Waker I'd be much less annoyed. In that game players are given their outfit, the sword, and go through their first dungeon by the time the player is out of the tutorial for Twilight Princess. The tutorials aren't even fun or very engaging; rather, the player is forced to herd goats and play with kids to teach them how to use items. It's horribly unintuitive and at times it can be outright patronizing. Tutorials in Twilight Princess are invasive and seep into every corner of the game, further increasing its linearity.

The overall size of the game world is much larger than Ocarina of Time, but it's still much smaller than the Great Sea. Despite the larger size, linearity is a major problem and is probably the worst in the series by this point. Majora's Mask is also very linear--requiring players tackle each area of Termina in order--but at least that game allows players to actually explore the entire field map whenever they want. Twilight Princess regularly cordons off chunks of the world map to make sure you're heading toward the dungeon it wants you to finish. Road blocks stop the player from entering certain parts of Hyrule, some requiring Epona to jump while others need to be taken away by characters who don't appear until the story concludes. A bridge will be removed from the map at one point preventing the player from going back for an extended period of time, and at its most egregious there's actually a locked gate that a character opens as the story continues.

You'll note I keep referring to the story as the main element blocking players from parts of the game, and that's because Twilight Princess is easily the most story-focused game of the series by this point. Unfortunately, it's more long-winded than anything else and typically falls back into tropes more often than not. Worse than that, the story often feels like a bigger, more bombastic, less time-efficient Ocarina of Time. Let's take a look at how the games open to show what I mean.

In Ocarina of Time, Link is awakened by his new companion Navi in order to save the Deku Tree from its infestation. The player has to navigate the small Kokiri Village in order to find a sword and gather rupees to buy a shield. After clearing the Deku Tree the players are given the Fairy Ocarina and are able to access all of Hyrule Field, though Lake Hylia, the Gerudo Valley, the Zora Village and Death Mountain are barred from entry until the items required to enter those areas are found.

The story in Twilight Princess begins without a word of backstory to contextualize the narrative, but Link and Rusl discuss the twilight and Link's upcoming visit to Hyrule Castle to present the royal family with his new sword. Before night falls, Link is asked to herd sheep. In the morning, the villagers' children appear and beg Link to play with them, so the player needs to go out and buy a slingshot. In order to buy a slingshot, a series of events need to be completed: climb a hill, knock Rusl's wife's baby carriage out of a monkey's hand using a hawk, take a fishing pole from her to catch a fish for a cat to cheer up its owner, then buy the slingshot, and finally return to the children. Rusl shows up to Link's house and gives him the wooden sword, and after using the slingshot to kill a spider blocking the way to his house the player is forced to clear a tutorial explaining how to use both the slingshot and the sword--despite the fact that the player would have just used the slingshot to knock down the spider.

I'm pretty sure I know exactly why this long string of tutorials was implemented, the reason being that Twilight Princess was postponed to be a launch title for the Nintendo Wii. Unlike the Gamecube version which used a controller setup almost identical to The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess struggles with implementing the at-the-time brand-new Wii Motion controller, and as such many of the standard Zelda functions had to be reworked to play correctly on the controller. The directional buttons can each be assigned items making it the most readily-available set of items in a Zelda game, but these items have to then be assigned to another button to actually be used.

There's no camera control unlike The Wind Waker and the Gamecube release of Twilight Princess, and since there aren't enough buttons on the controller the shield has simply been relegated to a parry on the left nunchuck, although this move has to be unlocked by the player. The sword is also changed to the extremely gimmicky Motion Controller as a waggle instead of a simple button press. That's not to say the sword follows the player's movement; rather, the waggle replaces a simple press of the B button. Players still need to manipulate the control stick in order to swing in different directions, which makes the finer control of sword combat feel horribly confusing as both hands start to work against each other.

I want to stress that the Wii port of Twilight Princess was likely created as an afterthought to get more people to buy the experimental new version of a Zelda game. Most people would list at least one Zelda as part of their top ten games of all time, and anecdotally I know more than a handful of people who buy new Nintendo consoles just to play the new Zelda. There's something of a running joke among the older game-playing crowd mocking Zelda as a stereotypical "casual gamer" game series, as most people who bark about Zelda being the best games ever made have either not played much of the series or simply don't play video games. It's a crass stereotype, but stereotypes exist for a reason. That's not to say Zelda is a bad series of video games--if you've been reading this blog you can probably guess it's one of my favorite series in video game history--but its reach among even the non-game playing public is widespread.

Naturally, more people bought Twilight Princess on the Wii and that version received a Nintendo Selects reissue; the Gamecube version, which released a month later, is commonly identified as a fairly rare game. I didn't play the Wii version until years later and found the port to be lacking, due not in small part to the flipped nature of the game world. This likely didn't disorient players who played the Wii version first, but after playing it so many times on Gamecube it was just weird to play the same game with a vertically flipped world. In case you weren't aware, the entire game was reversed in order to accommodate the fact that players would be swinging the Motion Controller with their right hand and wanted Link to match the player's movement

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Link being a left-handed character if only because it's so unorthodox, so for that reason alone I can't imagine any version of the character being legitimate without the left-handed nature. Furthermore, the HD re-release keeps the Gamecube presentation and only allows players to play the game flipped on the new Hero Mode, which is intended as a harder difficulty option. With that in mind, it's pretty evident the Gamecube version was the game Nintendo intended to play.

I wanted to bring all this up because I'm almost positive players who were using Twilight Princess as their introduction to the Wii's controller almost definitely needed to become accustomed to the controls, but since the Gamecube version is the exact same game these tutorials just comes across as trite. The fact that players have to kill a spider and then show the game they know how to use the slingshot is beyond patronizing and I can't believe there's no option to skip it. One of the kids even gives Link a prompt to skip the sword tutorial, but if the player selects no the game berates them for being rude to children until they say yes.

Oh, but we're not done talking about the game's intro yet. After assuring the kids the player knows how to play the game, a monkey appears and everyone chases it. The player fights bokoblins and is given the game's lantern by an NPC in order to continue through a cave. I don't understand why the bokoblins simply couldn't have been easier than normal and the player couldn't just learn how to control the sword by fighting them. After finally reaching the end of the road, the player rescues one of the children and the monkey before returning home. Another day passes and Link has to herd goats again. Ilia, the daughter of Ordon Village's mayor and the primary romantic interest, chastises Link for not taking care of Epona. After following her to her favorite spot all the way outside the village, Link and Ilia are attacked by mounted bokoblins and their moblin leader--or something else, I don't know, apparently moblins weren't good enough for Twilight Princess and this is just some new guy.

Link is taken into the Twilight Realm and turned into a wolf, then dragged to Hyrule Castle. Midna, an imp in the Twilight, helps Link find Princess Zelda who sends him back to Ordon Village. The player then has to recover a sword and shield from Ordon Village while sneaking around the hostile villagers, who are all panicking because their children were abducted by the bokoblins. Link then has to collect bugs who absorbed the Tears of Light from Faron, one of Hyrule's Guardian Spirits, in order to return to his human form. After this, the player explores the first dungeon and is finally able to explore Hyrule Field. Mostly. After the first open and horrifically empty area of Hyrule Field, players are once again forced to enter the Twilight as a wolf and collect more Tears of Light.

This is basically the entire setup for the first half of the game: enter a new province, gain a Vessel of Light from the Guardian Spirit, kill some bugs which require exploring more or less the entirety of the province, then return and gain Link's human form to explore it a second time. Think about A Link to the Past forcing players to enter the Dark World every time they want to explore a new area of the world map, or Ocarina of Time forcing the adult character to return to the Temple of Time to scope out every new temple as a child. You could argue it already does this with the Spiritual Stones, but this serves the purpose of introducing the world as well as giving the player a new perspective when they return as an adult. In the case of Twilight Princess, it just feels like busywork.

Go back and look at how much more content is required for the player to tackle in a linear order before they're able to access a limited version of Hyrule Field when compared to Ocarina of Time. Worse, much of this could be entirely cut out; the first goat herding minigame could be cut out entirely, the player could have simply started out with the sword, Rusl's wife could have just asked Link to find her baby carriage, Rusl could have just given Link the slingshot, and the entire three-day opening could have been condensed into a single night before night fell. It would still have taken longer to get into Hyrule Field than Ocarina of Time, but every single one of these instances of forced story could have been removed entirely without damaging the integrity of the story. No really, look at all the suggestions I have that could have been cut out: were any of those necessary to understand the world, characters, or narrative any better? My response would be a resounding no.

It takes even longer to get into the world than even The Wind Waker, and when it does it's so limited and barren that it feels like a second thought. The railroading is all in service of the dark narrative, but there's hardly anything darker than Majora's Mask to the point where it seems like it's trying too hard. I know the term tryhard is going out of vogue when discussing stories, but seriously, just look at this.

You creeped out yet? This is what you guys wanted isn't it?

I've never seen a game fall headfirst so horribly as Twilight Princess, and part of that is it failing so spectacularly to capture the darker tone the developers were going for. Twilight Princess was made in part due to the backlash of The Wind Waker's colorful and cheery tone, but in trying to create a dark story similar to Majora's Mask they fail entirely. Horror is subjective, but most of the time when a creator tries to be scary they often end up accomplishing the opposite. The Twilight Realm story is one of the most embarrassing scenes I've ever watched in a video game and that's mostly because it tries so hard to be creepy without any rhyme or reason. The dark and unsettling tone of Majora's Mask attempted a few of these horror moments, but part of that was the reuse of character assets and a clever implementation of the apocalyptic doomsday scenario. Without even trying, I felt Ganon's reveal in The Wind Waker regarding the true nature of the flooded Hyrule was far darker and more unsettling than anything in Twilight Princess, and that game went out of its way to be relaxed and comfortable.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the mood that I always think of positively in relation to Twilight Princess is that of melancholy, but it attempts this so rarely that I can't think of many times it actually works. The opening with Rusl talking to Link about the sadness of twilight is one of the best examples, but after that is an equally memorable scene where Link simply watches Ilia play with Epona. The scene is brief and even a bit lonely, and if it focused on that rather than attempting a dark and serious story I'd be far less harsh. Even worse, the dark tone clashes completely with many of the NPC designs.

Pictured: Looneytunes McDipshit

Many of the NPCs act exaggeratedly and have cartoonish features, to the point where I genuinely started to wonder if these were scrapped Wind Waker designs. All of these characters mesh poorly with the world, but worse than that they mesh poorly with each other. The character pictured above scoots around on his hands and knees when he's scared and bites his nails in a ridiculous Scooby Doo pantomime, but he's paired up with a stone-faced native from Kakariko Village. The scenario is of the characters horrified by the Twilight surrounding them and then you have this stupid asshole on the verge of shouting "Zoinks!" and running with those stupid Sonic legs.

If the tone had simply been of a lonely hero attempting to fight an alien force, I'd have been completely fine with that. Having ridiculous moments meshes in fine when the game is attempting to be forlorn, but when eyeless spooky ghost characters are killing each other it's just out of place entirely.

Silly, fun Zelda. You told us you hated this though.

What seriously disappoints me is that we would have gotten a different game if people hadn't gotten so distraught over The Wind Waker before actually playing it. Game development takes a long time and I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo started to develop Twilight Princess almost immediately after learning that the initial reaction to The Wind Waker was primarily negative, but given this was the new flagship Zelda Nintendo would never concentrate solely on a dark, edgy game. Instead, what we get is a story that tries too hard without ever committing to anything. As an aside, because Twilight Princess attempts to convey a more realistic setting, the game looked markedly worse than The Wind Waker the moment it released; the cartoon style of The Wind Waker masked some of the Gamecube's faults, but now they're all shown in full force with Twilight Princess as the geometry and some models are far uglier simply because of limitations of the console. Congratulations, idiots: your insistence on a realistic style revealed exactly why Nintendo went with stylized graphics in the first place.

Twilight Princess uses the same engine as The Wind Waker, but it takes a few cues from The Minish Cap in that many of Link's sword techniques must be discovered and learned by a skeletal tutor. What's really annoying about this is that many of the techniques are just elaborate versions of Link's parry moveset from The Wind Waker, though rather than a simple press of the A button players need to input commands. Here's a brief example: one of the parries from The Wind Waker involved Link rolling to the side of an enemy and striking them from behind. In Twilight Princess, this same move needs to be learned and in order to execute it, the player has to double-tap the A button and end with a sword attack.

All the involved sword mechanics in the world mean nothing if the game is made easier to accommodate the controls. Since there's no way to actively raise the shield, Link simply has it raised at all times. Since the advanced sword techniques are optional, the game is balanced in a way that players can still win combat without them; with this in mind, Twilight Princess has a combat system which automatically blocks most enemy attacks, a sidestep which avoids all attacks the shield can't block, and a hidden pool of techniques that utterly decimate most enemies. For a game that strives so hard to be the dark, edgy flipside to The Wind Waker, it's baffling that it could be so much easier.

Since I've already compared the gameplay to its prior entry, I want to point out why the passive shield is a step down from even Ocarina of Time. In Ocarina, players needed to raise their shield in order to avoid attacks, but since enemies would attack at random and raise shields of their own there was a real sense of tension in combat. Looking at Stalfos in particular, players needed to watch their enemy's movement and take advantage of weaknesses when possible. Twilight Princess's approach is closer to A Link to the Past in that the shield is raised by default, but even the top-down games in the series after that game featured a shield that needed to be raised with a button press. Twilight Princess in turn takes steps backward from innovations in both the overhead and 3D Zelda games to the point where everything is trivialized for the player. If you thought The Wind Waker was too simplistic, then I would hate to learn what hoops you'd jump through to justify Twilight Princess's dumbing down of mechanics that already worked fine.

Even though it looks more complex, the fact of the matter is that combat is simply more convoluted. That's what I'd have to say is the biggest flaw of Twilight Princess: the developers knew what they wanted to avoid, but didn't know how to replace the controversial aspects of the series with something all fans would enjoy. The combat is simplified even with new mechanics and the story, despite having so much expository dialogue, does very little more than Ocarina of Time despite wasting so much of the player's time.

Different factions are introduced throughout the game, though their importance is highly inflated. The Gorons are Zora return from Ocarina of Time, though they're both largely unchanged aside from more busy design elements. There's a league of adventurers who later become the resistance to the Twilight invasion, but they're only shown to be actively resisting anybody once or twice throughout the story. If you're not going to utilize an established organization, maybe that organization doesn't deserve to exist.

Zant is an extremely interesting villain and I love his portrayal, but because this game was made by cowards he's quickly overshadowed and replaced once again by Ganon. Ganon appears closer to the end of the game and accomplishes very little, but at least two of his four boss phases are complete nostalgia grabs for previous games. The fact that the final battle is a repeat of the final boss of The Wind Waker further makes me think of this game as a half-hearted apology for The Wind Waker, but that just makes me hate the game more. Yeah, Twilight Princess has more dungeons and the game is less colorful and it's more grim just how everyone wanted, but the polish is simply not there.

Speaking of dungeons, I need to make one final complaint about the linear design of Twilight Princess. In previous games, each dungeon would give Link an item which would help the player explore the world and open access to more of the world. Many of the items in Twilight Princess are almost completely forgotten about after the dungeon they're required in; the dungeons are also completely linear this time around, only allowing Link to carry one key at a time so the player doesn't get lost. It's not like these dungeons are intricate mazes, so to force players down one path is a hideous design choice and it's made all the worse by the formulaic approach to new items.

I mentioned this in an earlier review, but as each Zelda comes along the developers seem to lose more of what makes the series so unique. By the time of Twilight Princess, players are literally going through the motions and completing each dungeon in a set pattern that gets old quickly--as an aside, this game doesn't even attempt to give players an option to explore dungeons out of order. Even The Wind Waker, with its six main dungeons, gives players an option to approach two of the later dungeons in either order.

Each item should legitimize itself as both a tool for combat as well as exploration--the main tenets of a Zelda game. Twilight Princess marks an era of the Zelda games losing the plot and the approach to dungeons encapsulates this by shoving an item carelessly into the player's hands and forgetting about it as soon as the dungeon is over. Many of these items are fairly unique and I would have loved to play around with them more, but there simply aren't enough uses for them after

Truth will out, as the saying goes, and most of the naysayers of The Wind Waker shut their mouths the moment they either tried the game or matured a little. I don't fault them for that if they made the judgment as a child because I did the same when I first saw The Wind Waker, but after playing the game I quickly appreciated what it was setting out to do and felt ashamed that I ever doubted it. With Twilight Princess, all I can see is a pathetic attempt to capture the nostalgia for a game that didn't need it.

Verdict

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is an ugly, patronizing game that fails to convey both the tone it's attempting to capture and the melancholic mood it fails to utilize. It's bloated to all hell with an ugly, empty and enormous overworld full of generic caves. There are way too many Pieces of Heart, too many dungeon items lose their utility as soon as Link leaves the dungeon, the sheer volume of nostalgia grabbing is embarrassing, and for the first time in the series (unless you're like me and feel this way about the Oracles) it finally feels like the Zelda formula is unraveling. Like the Oracle games, this is the perfect example of a game that exists if you need a new Zelda game to play, but it's far from a memorable experience and feels cobbled together more often than not.

If you absolutely have to play Twilight Princess, go for the Wii U HD Remaster. Unlike The Wind Waker HD, this version adds no irritating element like extra bloom but it does fix most of the annoyances that actually could be fixed. There are fewer Tears of Light to collect, players don't bang their sword on walls, and the hard mode allows masochistic players to play the game in the Wii's vertically flipped mode. It completely eclipses the Gamecube original, but in my estimation it's little more than polishing a turd.


Zelda 3D remaster mini-reviews:
http://subjective-objective.blogspot.com/2016/03/mini-review-zelda-remasters.html

Social media:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Cdepineda
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EssoReviews/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/essoreviews

Mini-reviews: Zelda Remasters

The Zelda franchise is one of the most revered series of video games, and the first game was my personal entry into video games as a whole. The series has suffered from some mixed feelings due to a seeming need to innovate, but even a bad Zelda is a pretty good video game. I didn't really want to spend too much time on reviews for these remasters, but enough has been changed that I think a quick overview of them would be useful. These are not reviews for the original games, so if you want to hear a more detailed overview of one in particular let me know. Or don't. Who cares?


Ocarina of Time 3D

The first of Nintendo's 3D Zelda fix-ups and arguably the best, Ocarina of Time 3D fixes many issues of the original while retaining the timeless feel of the Nintendo 64 release. Many of the main character models have been completely revamped, although a negative consequence of this is that many NPC models look badly dated in comparison. Don't let this defer you, though: Ocarina of Time is the game which defined 3D gaming for many people and it is as good today as it was then. The game also implements many improvements seen in later games, a notable example being that the player can now assign the two boot items to a quick select. The touch screen allows for more items to be assigned to buttons than before; as an added bonus, the ocarina has its own dedicated slot. Including this, the player is allowed five items to be equipped at once compared to the original's three. When using the ocarina players are also able to take a look at all the songs collected so far, saving time for those who don't feel like memorizing the buttons. And, most important of all, the framerate has been improved from capped 20 frames per second to a solid 30. If you have a chance to play any version of Ocarina, this is it. If you have a 3DS, this game is essential.

You might want to take note of two specific complaints some players have with this release. I personally don't see these as issues, but it's enough for others to view as detracting from the original. The first criticism is aimed at the new lighting system present across the entire game. Some believe the new lighting detracts from the atmosphere of the original; while I agree somewhat, I don't know that it's as big a deal as is presented. This isn't Silent Hill, the brown fog in many areas of Ocarina is simply a relic of low draw distances and, personally, I didn't even notice it was gone until someone pointed it out. Another complaint is that the Gamecube version's Master Quest mode has been toned down dramatically, although I would argue that it is a bit less frustrating while still presenting a better challenge than the original game. The new Master Quest flips the entire world similar to Twilight Princess on the Wii, and this is going to come up a bit later but in all honesty, just trying to go through Ocarina in a flipped version of what I've grown used to for two decades now is a challenge of its own. Given that these are the only two complaints I can think of and how heavily subjective they are, I don't think many people are going to mind.

The Wind Waker HD

The Wind Waker HD is the second of Nintendo's remasters of 3D Zelda games, this time on the Wii U. Like Ocarina this HD re-release presents substantial improvements over the original with a few caveats. Wind Waker was always one of the more contentious games of the series; while I personally believe it is easily the best 3D Zelda, many were put off by the games cel-shaded art style, proving once and for all that style can be wasted on the masses. This version of the game offers improvements of its own that are equally as massive as changing boots to quick items in Ocarina of Time 3D: the player can now buy a sail that dramatically increases speed while sailing from island to island while cutting out the need to change directions of the wind, although this trivializes some timed events that require precise sailing. The infamous Triforce hunt at the end of the game has been massively overhauled, giving a far better and less time-consuming experience than the original. As an added bonus, Nintendo even fixed the original game's inverted camera. I hate inverted cameras and you should too.

Like Ocarina, Wind Waker HD "corrects" the visuals of the original release, although this time I'm not quite as enamored with the visuals as I was with Ocarina of Time 3D. The original's distinct, flat cel-shading has been replaced with a global, realistic lighting system that is a bit less appealing than the original. HD Bloom effects are in place and it's some of the most egregious use of this lighting that I've ever seen, even worse than the Xbox 360 version of The Elders Scrolls IV: Oblivion. However, this is a heavily subjective complaint and given all the improvements, it's not worth it to look over this version. I have to admit though, unlike Ocarina 3D not much has been done in terms of framerate; in fact, in some areas framerate is dramatically worse as visual effects begin filling the screen. The original wasn't perfect either, but given that so much work was put into this game I'm surprised Nintendo didn't try a bit harder to touch up the framerate. All in all though, if you haven't picked up Wind Waker this, like Ocarina 3D, is the version to get.

Majora's Mask 3D

Here we have a game that's not quite as impressive as the rest, and while I'd also say this game is improved over the original it's not by very much. Majora's Mask 3D adds several new features, such as a much streamlined Bomber's Notebook which makes many of the game's sidequests easier to handle--if you haven't played Majora's Mask before, this is definitely an improvement. Sidequests are the majority of the game, so being able to track them down with better frequency is a plus. This game also adds a tutorial stone like Skyward Sword, the rightfully-maligned most recent console game in the series. I used it myself for a few of the peskier hidden items in the game, but it's out of the way and you can avoid it completely if you want. Another improvement over the original is that the player can now save at any of the owl statues in the game; in the original these were presented as quick saves which were erased when you picked up the game again but in the 3DS release these statues are the primary method of saving, which is far better than having to reset to the first day every time you wanted to permanently save your file. The updates from Ocarina 3D are all present, and if you're playing with a New 3DS you can even use a brand new third-person camera. 

With that comes a few complaints that are much more present here than in Ocarina 3D. First off, that game's lighting really does affect the atmosphere of Majora's Mask. Notably the tonally darkest game in the entire franchise, Majora's Mask is actually hurt by the inclusion of brighter colors. Fewer characters were given radical model overhauls as Ocarina 3D, which means you'll see far more dated characters than in that game. Majora's Mask 3D is something of a less creepy game than its original release, which is kind of a bummer for people who are only going to play this version. Boss fights are tweaked in very weird ways, especially the third dungeon's Gyorg. The third dungeon, as well as the area around it, show off two of the more annoying changes in the game: in the original release, the player could use ice arrows to create a makeshift bridge across bodies of water. It was kind of a novelty gimmick, but players (specifically speedrunners) could use that feature to skip huge portions of water-based puzzles. In the 3D remake, players can only create ice bridges on designated sparkling areas in water for seemingly no reason at all. An even more annoying change that has absolutely no bearing on the game at all is that Zora Link could hop above water like a dolphin--you can still do that, but only by using precious magic to speed up while swimming. Why was this even deemed worthy to tweak?

All of this and they didn't even include a Master Quest or Hero Mode--yeah, once you beat the base game that's it. For the rest of these releases to have one of these two additional modes (even Skyward Sword and the absolute perfection of A Link Between Worlds had Hero Mode!) and Majora's Mask 3D to be missing it is a disappointing oversight that harms the remaster's appeal. If these changes to the game seem like a drastic overhaul then take note that they are, and in many ways it's less impressive than the original. However, the improvements to framerate and ease of use might be all you're looking for, so please keep all that in mind when deciding on playing this or the original version. If you want the original, do keep in mind there's a fairly rare Gamecube disc and if you're too lazy for that and don't want to dig up a Nintendo 64, that version is also available on the Wii (not Wii U) Virtual Console. Of all the re-releases, this is the one you might want to seriously think about before deciding on a version.

Twilight Princess HD

The most recent release in the Zelda 3D touch-ups, Twilight Princess HD is something of an anomaly as it adds very little to the original game. If you have forgotten, the Wii version of Twilight Princess was flipped on its vertical axis, making Link left-handed--if you couldn't tell, this is an HD re-release of the Gamecube version with minimal improvements. Textures appear to have been reworked all over the place and it's nice to see Twilight Princess in its intended form and in widescreen, but compared to the other titles there aren't a whole lot of improvements. The Tears of Light moments in the game have been reduced, but that's not nearly the same as Wind Waker's Triforce hunt. The rupee wallet has been increased in size and the game doesn't patronizingly remind you rupee size every single time you load your file, nor does it make you close rupee chests if you can't hold anymore in your wallet. A new item has been added to streamline the Poe hunting sidequest in the game, if you're into that.

All that aside, the game's framerate isn't quite as stable as the Gamecube or Wii versions. Some areas in the game have notable dips, although they're typically only in areas with a large amount of fog. They're not as bad as some of the framerate problems seen in Wind Waker HD, but they're curiously still present. This game is simply a case of whether or not you really want to play Twilight Princess again, as it's not exactly the best game in the franchise--it's not the worst either, just very by-the-numbers. Like I said, a mediocre Zelda game is still a very phenomenal video game, so if you want your fix this is as good a game as any. If you have the original version or if you're a masochist who has grown used to the Wii controls, I don't think it's a necessary upgrade. With its new textures, though, you might notice just how jarring the cartoonish character designs are as opposed to the overwrought dark new Hyrule. Wind Waker might have a cartoon art style, but characters in Twilight Princess look like cartoon characters dropped into a Lord of the Rings knockoff and it's frankly a bit ugly. Should have just keep the Wind Waker style and told the naysayers to deal with it.

I personally think it's a better version simply due to the unobtrusive HD remastering (as opposed to Wind Waker HD) and that, curiously, I have never been able to play the game without severe audio crackling. Thankfully, that's not present here. I hinted at this when discussing the earlier games but Twilight Princess HD has its own Hero Mode; however, much like the game's design it heavily borrows from Ocarina of Time in this respect. This game's Hero Mode is vertically flipped, so if you're used to the Wii version or if you want a challenge then it's available from the beginning. There's also some meaningless amiibo support, although the Ganondorf amiibo allows you to take double damage if you really want a challenge. The thing is, so little has been changed here that I would only recommend it for people who had gripes with technical issues of the Gamecube release--if you're fine with that version, this isn't going to do much for you. Unless you're picky about fine details, you can take this one or leave it.

The Verdict(s)

Nintendo has painstakingly tweaked every single entry in the series, although in some places they fixed what wasn't broken or went backwards in some respects. Ocarina of Time 3D and Wind Waker HD are dramatic improvements to games that were great to begin with, but Majora's Mask 3D trades nearly every positive for minor, though persistent, annoyances. Twilight Princess HD adds almost nothing to a game that really needed a few ounces of personality that would require a complete overhaul. Each case is different and almost all of them take away something from the original release, but Nintendo did their best with what they had and if want to revisit these amazing games or haven't played any of the originals, I'd say the remastered versions are the way to go.