Thanks to the end of semester rush combined with wanting to go to Festival, I haven’t quite gotten through the end of the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. However, I’ve still played through what I’d estimate is about 80 percent of it, and I can tell you: It’s awesome.

First, though, I need to plug what sounds like it’ll be a cool exhibition relating to video games, iDiDx (International Digital In-Development Expo). It’ll apparently allow students to showcase any kind of game (and other digital media) they are currently working on. Also, there’s a Halo 2 tourney at CyborLAN that will coincide with the expo; feel free to show up and beat me. More info at www.ididx.com.

Anyway, Twilight Princess. This is one of the more complete single-player experiences to come out of the industry in some time. Not many games can really get the epic feel right and still be as long as this title. I’ve played for about 40 hours, and am nearly finished (I think) but haven’t really dabbled in any of the side quests.

However, it should be noted that Twilight Princess is rather derivative of older Zelda titles, but also isn’t merely a shiny-graphics version of Ocarina of Time. There are a lot more new items, as well as significant changes in tone and plot and additions like horseback combat. However, if older Zelda titles weren’t your thing (heresy!), this one isn’t going to change your mind.

This is the part where I talk about Wii controls. The rest of the column applies to the Gamecube version as well. Swinging the remote swings the sword, pointing aims things like the bow and hookshot. Directions on the D-pad serve as shortcuts to items. It all works really fluidly.

The controls do have small problems, though. The sword swinging is far from direct motion mapping. Pretty much any motion becomes a sword swing, and directions don’t even come through on-screen. This is particularly annoying in the otherwise-amazing horse combat sequences.

The Wii controls, though not completely perfect, are definitely proof that the Wii remote and nunchuck are up to snuff for more than silly party games; it can be perfectly suitable for big, epic single player games. (A side note: The separate nature of the two sides of the controller really lends Wii games like this to an extremely lazy game-playing position, as you can have both of your hands lazily at your side, raising an arm occasionally to aim an arrow. It’s sublime and I wouldn’t be surprised if game controllers in future generations can be separated in this fashion, motion controls or not.)

The game itself is a much more plot-heavy Zelda game than titles past. The world is also massive. Fortunately, this massive world does not contain Tingle in a realistic art style. I don’t have the space to go into it heavily, nor would I want to spoil it, but I have about three gripes. One: It starts off rather slow, and it takes a while to get into some real action. Two: There’s no voice acting. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Three: I can’t really think of anything to go here. One good thing of note is that the game doesn’t coddle you like many recent titles developed by Nintendo. Hints are not forcibly dispatched.

If, for some reason, you have avoided buying the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in the months between its release and this column, go now. The only reason I wasn’t able to give it a look here in the past is that I haven’t finished it, in part because of its impressive length, but also because I just don’t want it to end. That is the sign of a good game.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 12:27 pm and is filed under games, reviews.