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| .....Gamecube Review - Twilight Princess: Written By Marion |
Written 2-28-07
I know, you're probably wondering why I'm reviewing a game that's been out for two months ...three months, if you have the Wii version. You also might be wondering why, after the game's been out for two to three months, I'm choosing to review what some would consider an inferior version of the game. Well, because I feel like it! I'd been thinking of writing up a review for it for awhile, but wanted to wait until I'd actually finished the game to do so. Unfortunately, other stuff distracted me enough that I just now got around to finishing the last two dungeons. That, the fact Jew and I still don't have everything ready for our super-awesome, mega-spectacular extravaganza of awesomeness next article, and a desire to write something a bit different than the usual fare have all added up to me giving this a shot. If it turns out well, I may actually do this kinda thing more often. At least then, I won't have to hear about how racist and negative this site is.
WARNING: This review WILL contain spoilers, so if you haven't played the game yet and continue reading after this point, don't come bitching to me about ruining the game for you. You're the idiot that can't read. Which makes me wonder how you understood everything else to have the game spoiled for you...
Story
Ok, so you're probably not gonna find anything revolutionary here. The basic story is pretty much the same thing we've seen over and over. A boy named Link (At least by default, anyway) is living off in his little village when suddenly evil rears its ugly head, sending Link on a quest that inevitably ends with him vanquishing evil. This time around, as Link is ready to set off to deliver a sword to the Hyrule Royal Family, his village is attacked by random minions, his friends are kidnapped, and he's flung into a dark portal. Upon awakening, Link discovers he's become a wolf, one of the main new additions to gameplay in Twilight Princess. He also meets Midna, his sidekick this time around; think Navi, but less annoying and more useful. Here, he discovers that the land's being blanketed in twilight, which is responsible for his transformation. If he wants to regain his human form, he must rid the land of twilight by restoring the light spirits to the land of Hyrule. Upon restoration of each spirit, Link then reverts to human form and must traverse the nearest dungeon to find the Fused Shadows, Midna hopes will grant them the power to defeat the one responsible for causing the twilight, Van Zant.
Van Zant, the source of Hyrule's troubles.
Now this wouldn't be a Zelda game if it were that simple. We all know that once you find the Fused Shadows, that won't be the end of it. From there, Van Zant shows up, beats your ass a little bit, takes the Fused Shadows from you, turns you into a wolf again, and you get to see one of the coolest scenes in the game. So now we're wolfy again, but with no more light spirits to restore or twilight to get rid of, so what do we do now? Simple, my friend. We go visit good, old Mr. Plot Device, the Master Sword. The sword not only restores Link to human form and doubles his attack power over the Ordon sword, it also removes the twilight shard from his body, which allows Midna to transform him between human and wolf at will. Time to defeat Van Zant, right? Have you ever even played a Zelda game before?
Now that we've gotten our human form back and acquired the Master Sword, what's left to do before vanquishing Van Zant and restoring peace? Well, if this weren't Zelda, nothing. Since it is, however, we've gotta go search for pieces of the shattered Twilight Mirror, which allows travel between the realms. Second set of dungeons, here we come! This set of dungeons is far more fun than the basic original three dungeons, which we'll get into more later. Once you finally recover all the pieces of the Twilight Mirror, it's time to head into the Twilight Realm, whoop Van Zant's ass, and end this once and for all. ...Right? You never learn, do you? Of course that's not the end. So as anyone except you could have guessed, Zant isn't the ultimate evil that's been plaguing us. In the biggest videogame twist in years, the true villain in Twilight Princess is none other than MC Hammer!
The best celebrity comeback ever!
Not really. It's Ganondorf. Again. So after all that, it's finally time to head to the last dungeon, confront Ganondorf, and save Hyrule. With Ganon defeated and everything returned to order, we can kick back, relax, and watch the credits.
Like I said in the beginning, there's not much in the Twilight Princess story that's revolutionary, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Its main drawbacks come from the fact it follows the typical, Zelda formula, but if it didn't, everyone would be bitching about what a departure from the series it is. All in all, it's a solid, interesting story that no better or worse than what we've come to expect from the series.
Weapons and dungeons ...two very important elements of any Zelda game. Bad dungeon design can make it feel more like a chore to traverse them, rather than the fun and amazement of a very well-designed dungeon. The same goes for weapons ...if they're no fun to use or function poorly, then they just become a hassle to use, whereas the well-designed weapons become almost second nature, and rarely do you want them to leave your active inventory. As is usual, this game has some hits and misses in both areas. First up: Weapons and inventory.
Weapon and Inventory Design
As should be expected, this latest Zelda introduces a few new items, and throws some twists on some old ones. Wanna blow that thing over there up but there's no land to set a bomb on? Fuck it, tie one to the end of an arrow and fire that sumbitch into whatever the hell you want! Is there something off in the distance you'd like to shoot but can't see? Combine the hawkeye with your bow to make a bow with a sniper scope. Not only does it allow you to zoom in, but it fixes the slight problem of knowing where your arrow will travel by giving you a set of crosshairs indicating exactly where your arrow will hit. There's no longer just one bomb bag, with each upgrade being a separate bag, allowing you to hold up to three different types. Or, if like I do, you find Bomblings worthless, you can fill them up with regular bombs. Never again will you need to blow something to smithereens only to find you used up all 30 of your bombs on random rocks nearby. It's a good thing, too, since bombs no longer randomly drop from enemies, grass, rocks, etc.
without a doubt, the absolute best old item with a new twist is the clawshot. Well, maybe not the clawshot itself. I suppose I should explain the difference between the old grappling hook / hookshot and the new clawshot. With the grappling hook, you could just throw it up to certain attach points and swing across gaps. The hookshot shot out a hook (Gee. That was some clever naming.) that could catch into various objects and pull them to you or the other way around. The new version is sort of a cross between the two, with the hookshot's shooting hook and the grappling hook's ability to actually stay attached to whatever it's used on. With its limitations of only working on grates and vines, the clawshot by itself is kind of a downgrade. The double clawshot, however, is easily one of the coolest items in the game. It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like ...Link using two clawshots at once. This allows you to perform some Spiderman-like swinging from grate to grate to areas you could normally never go.
Of the handful of new items, only two are really very cool or fun. Unfortunately, one of them, the spinner, is practically useless. It's a shame, because it's actually a pretty cool item. The spinner is basically a top with a gear-shaped ridge around it that ...shockingly enough, spins! This enables you to easily traverse sandy areas where Link would normally sink, turn gears to activate various things, and to ride along railings in the wall to reach normally inaccessible places. The downfall of the spinner is how infrequently you actually get to use it once you beat the dungeon you get it from, amounting to one spinner rail every now and then.
The shining beacon of awesomeness in TP's inventory is the all new ball and chain. Don't get too lost in the high-tech wizardry that makes this item what it is. The ball and chain is ...a giant, heavy fucking steel ball on the end of a long chain. It hits stuff and destroys the shit out of it, not unlike its distant cousin, the cruise missile. The ball and chain makes bombs virtually obsolete, destroying just about anything bombs normally can, as well as some materials bombs can't. It can even actually deflect some attacks while being held.
Fun for kids of all ages!
As awesome as the ball and chain is, some of the other stuff tries to counter the ball and chain's awesomeness with their own massive amounts of suckitude. The first shitty item is the slingshot. The slingshot in Ocarina Of Time wasn't nearly this bad for two reasons: 1) It wasn't until the fourth dungeon that you finally got the bow, which means plenty of time stuck using the slingshot. 2) It was the only distance weapon child Link could use, as the bow was too large for him. Unfortunately for TP's slingshot, neither of those are true. You get the slingshot very early on (Before the first dungeon), but since you receive the bow halfway through the second one, the slingshot has an almost negligible period of usefulness. The horse call, used to call Epona to you, suffers from the opposite problem. You get it far too late for it to be of much use. By the time you get the horse call, you've been able to warp all over the map for like 3 whole dungeons, and are only two away from the end of the game. Besides, who wants to wait for their horse to show up and then ride where they're going when you can just teleport right there?
I don't care if he is a cowboy, he'd still teleport if he had the chance!
Unfortunately, the slingshot wasn't the only weapon to have its testicles chopped off and sent to school as a little girl named Tiffani. The classic, invaluable boomerang we all knew and loved is no more in this game, replaced by a bastard cousin known as the gale boomerang. If the only change was the addition of wind, it'd have been fine, but the awesome stun power of the boomerang was almost completely removed. Gone are the days of whacking things with your boomerang and just running up and annihilating them. You're pretty much better off not even bothering, maybe just bashing them with your ball and chain. Also of note for its uselessness is the Dominion Rod, an item that allows you to give life to statues, in a somewhat similar manner as the control melody from Wind Waker. Unlike in that game, however, you don't actually control the statues ...they just mimic your movements. Even so, that's not really all that bad a change, and not the reason the item sucks. It's gotten late in the game, not used very often, and not very fun to use even. It does, however, lend itself to somewhat fun and unique boss battle.
Dungeon Design
Another of the more important aspects of a Zelda game is dungeon design. Fortunately for us, most of the dungeons are well designed and fun to play without being too frustrating or overwhelming. While the first set of dungeons are your kind of typical forest, fire, and water trio, they're done without being too familiar and formulaic. Well, except for the first one. The forest dungeon is pretty simple and basic, designed to get you used to the dungeons of Twilight Princess. Sure, Death Mountain is another fire dungeon, but unique uses of the iron boots add a bit of freshness to the whole thing. It's one of the only times in the game you even get to use the iron boots with magnetic floors or walls. Even the Lakebed Temple wasn't nearly as confusing as the original Ocarina Of Time water temple.
The Arbiter's Grounds (Desert dungeon) takes advantage of wolf Link's sense of smell, forcing you to track down poes to progress, and also introduces the source of many games frustrations and false bug complaints, the twilight rats. These little rats are only visible to wolf Link's senses. They latch onto him and slow him down, as if you he were wearing the iron boots. To someone not knowing about them beforehand or having common sense at all, this looks like about eight million threads on the GameFaqs forums about how your game is broke and there's a huge bug in the Arbiter's Grounds. a strange glitch. The real fun of this dungeon comes once you get the spinner, allowing you to zip around from wall to wall, up huge, twisting railings, and being able to use your momentum to make leaps Link couldn't have even fathomed when taking that wooden sword from the old man 20+ years ago. The dungeon's boss battle makes excellent use of the spinner, with the first form almost becoming a type of giant, human pinball game.
The Temple Of Time could probably have used some work. It's basically one giant statue puzzle, having very little to do with time at all. It's like naming something the Temple Of Barbecued Ribs and then being nothing but block puzzles, with no food in sight. Shit. Now I want ribs. Or at least barbecued chicken. But not this chicken. Although the Jell-O looks oka ...and he just put the Salmonella-covered fruit in there. Nevermind.
Too bad it was cut from the final game. Damn Jewish publishers.
Anyway ...while the temple could have made better use of time as a theme, the puzzle aspect of it is fairly well done. It'll take a nice little chunk of your time just to work through the temple's rooms, despite the fact it seemed to have less of an enemy presence in it than most of the other dungeons. When you've finally reached the end, you're treated to a battle with a giant, one-eyed spider. I fucking hate spiders. I guess that's good though, since this overgrown arachnid is for killing, not keeping as a pet. The fun thing about this battle is the use of the otherwise useless Dominion Rod, allowing you control of really big statues with really big hammers, which, you guessed it, you get to use to squash the really big spider. After bashing the spider three times, he splits into a ton of little spiders carrying around his eye. What the fuck? At any rate, just mow the little fuckers down and you're done.
Maybe he's just pissed about losing a contact.
Next up is the sky temple. This is one of the cooler levels of the game, taking place in a floating city / temple high above Hyrule. At first glance, this place seems overwhelming, presenting numerous paths (only some of which can actually be traversed to begin with), intimidating chasms that can only be crossed with the clawshot / double clawshot, and gusts of wind threatening to blow you off of the temple. As you find your way to the double clawshot and continue your navigation of this place, you get to swing from target to target, re-enacting some of your favorite Spiderman scenes that never actually happened. Seriously, you're playing Zelda. If you're so interested in Spiderman, go play that game and close this review, ingrate. All you ever do is bitch!
...moving on. After the Sky Temple is the Twilight Palace or whatever you wanna call it. I'm calling it that because I'm the one writing this damn review, and if I wanna call it the Barbecued Rib Temple, I will, dammit! Before actually navigating the dungeon like normal, you've gotta track down the two "Sols" in the side entrances of the temple. It's not as simple as finding the Sols and heading off to kill Van Zant. This is Zelda, you should know that by now. Upon locating each one, we get to defeat a Van Zant phantom. So that's it, right? We just beat that thing and then we get to go kill Van Zant, right? You never learn, do you? Once you grab each Sol, you get to play a game of "Outrun the giant, creepy, pissed-off hand." It's not as fun as it used to be when we were kids. Now, once we've killed both phantom Van Zants, outrun both creepy hands, and gotten both Sols to the main area, we can finally charge up our Master Sword and move on to finally kill Van Zant. The kind of neat thing about this part is that now that the Master Sword is charged up, you're able to swing it to disperse the clouds of twilight scattered throughout the dungeon ...but not for good. It just floats back after a moment. Stupid intangible, non-living stuff that can't be killed! Once you make it to the end, you're rewarded with the final battle with Van Zant. Fortunately for you, he wasn't paying attention when you went through all the previous dungeons and killed all the bosses, because he fights you in identical environments as some of the earlier bosses, with his only weakness being the weapon you got in that dungeon. Talk about being lucky ...what are the odds of that? I mean, who could have predicted the enemy you've been after all game could only be harmed by the exact weapons you acquired in your quest to find him?
The Master Sword. Since there's no crashing planes nearby, it's your best hope to kill Van Zant.
Finally, the last dungeon ...the moment you've been playing the whole game for. Unfortunately for you, this review's already too fucking long and the last level's rather straightforward, so I'm skipping it and moving on. If you wanna know more, play the thing for yourself, you lazy bastard!
Controls
While it's probably more fun to swing around a Wiimote to control things, you're playing the Gamecube version because the Wii version wasn't an option for one reason or another. That, or you're an idiot and got the Gamecube version despite having the means to buy and play the Wii version. Either way, you've resigned yourself to no motion controlling. So is the game still fun to play? Does Link still move how you want him to? Yes and probably. Unless you want him to move in a way he's not programmed to, but that's just stupid. The controls are pretty much perfect. TP plays pretty much exactly like Ocarina Of Time, Majora's Mask, and The Wind Waker. Hey, if it ain't broke, don't ...wait. Didn't I use that logic on this game once already? Regardless, I never found myself getting hit or doing something detrimental to Link's health as a result of unresponsive or badly laid out controls. In fact, the only things I can complain about in regards to the controls are the missing item slot (The Wii version gets three item slots. The GC version gets two and a button for talking to Midna), and the camera. As is usual with almost any 3D, third-person videogame, the camera can be stubborn at times, but rarely anything major. The best part of the Gamecube controls is the fact you can pretty much do the spin attack infinitely, unlike in the Wii version. That is, assuming you've used the previous games to master spinning the analog stick and hitting the attack button. This is incredibly valuable, as the charge time on a normal spin attack generally leads to you getting beaten like Tina Turner (I really need to find a more recent battered wife reference).
Overall
Phew. Finally at the end of this thing. Time to wind it all down, bring it home, and various other clichés. Obviously, I can't fit everything that needs to be said about the game into this review, no matter how large I make it, so I really have to recommend buying it. All in all, this game's worth it, regardless of what a certain aerial Jew would lead you to believe about the 3D Zelda games. If you have the money, go buy it, whether for the Wii or Gamecube. If you don't have the money, trade in some of your old, shitty games and buy it. It's an amazing, epic game, more than worthy of years spent in development and the typical Nintendo delays. My biggest gripe about the game is a lack of a way to make time pass other than sitting around pointlessly like an idiot. If that's the biggest complaint, the game must have done something right. Go buy it, and while you're at it, pick up Okami, too. Also, feel free to drop me a line via the forums or the email address at the end of the article if you wanna express your opinion on the matter. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play Guitar Hero 2 till whenever I gotta write the next article.
Marion
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