The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess offers a much more complex and cinematic version of the formula adopted by the series after A Link to the Past. With a story marked by melancholy, and with more elaborate dungeons than its predecessor, the game impresses with its epic scope, although, for that, it gives up the element of mystery that surrounded the exploration of the series’ fantastical worlds.

Twilight Princess introduces its protagonist, Link, as a village kid, living in the bucolic Ordon, concerned only with the tasks of catering for the local cattle and his horse, Epona. When he is assigned the task of carrying a shield for a ceremony in Hyrule, however, the young man is attacked by monsters, who hit Epona and kidnap his friends. After waking up, Link finds himself trapped in a dungeon and, with astonishment, realizes that he’s not only in another world but has also been transformed into a wolf. His only chance to escape is with the aid of a mysterious being called Midna.

The story of the game is loaded with a melancholy tone, established early on by Link’s mentor (“Tell me … Do you ever feel a strange sadness when dusk falls?” the game starts) And from there on, it is reinforced by the characters’ constant lamentations by the setting, which is deserted and devoid of life: if the Kakariko village in Ocarina of Time, even in its future version, had its share of people, here it emerges as a ghost town, inhabited only by two adults and a tiny group of children, who are at first even locked inside a house for fear of leaving. The other world visited by Link reinforces this grim atmosphere, suggested by its particular, desaturated color palette.

Link’s narrative arc in Twilight Princess involves the typical hero’s journey, with the character being forced out of his quiet life by an event of disruption of order, and gradually becoming aware of his abilities to transform the world, while saving his friends and defeating the villain.

That way, it’s no wonder that the most fascinating character in Twilight Princess is not him, but Midna. Her sinister appearance, which mixes childish and sexual traits in a monstrous outline, is in direct contrast to her narrative function of serving as Link’s companion – reflecting the player’s doubt about whether she is friend or foe. After all, if Midna guides Link initially, she does it for her own interests, making this clear to the character. It’s impossible, for example, to not notice her lack of sadness that the world of shadows is taking Hyrule, since she considers her universe more beautiful and inviting than that of the protagonist.

The other side characters, however, are just slightly developed. Kakariko’s village leader, for example, has a suggested romance with the owner of a bar at the beginning of the story, but that element is then simply forgotten by the story. One of Link’s childhood friends also spends too much time away to make a big impression, and only one of the four major “adventurers” that Link finds in a bar has any personality.

Twilight Princess, however, goes back to showing special care with language, which was not present in the previous title, marking characters’ personalities and cultures. One of the inhabitants of Ordon village, for example, speaks with an appropriate heavy accent (“Oh, an ‘if y’all get tired of ridin’ just go ahead an ‘jump the gate to head back to the village“), and even an older Goron, instead of talking with the usual “brother”, refers to Link as “brudda:” it’s not subtle but it’s effective.

Twilight Princess is a game structured to alternate the exploration of dungeons full of puzzles and mysteries with exciting set pieces: between each dungeon, there is always a remarkable event that gives continuity to the story during an action sequence. Between the Forest Temple and the Goron Mines, for example, some of Link’s colleagues are kidnapped and the rescue culminates in a horseback duel on a bridge. Sequences like that, accompanied by epic cut scenes – like the silhouette of monsters slowly rising at sunset in slow motion – are new to the franchise and give a cinematic tone to the story.

The game succeeds in its variety, too, punctuating the adventure with many unique moments. Unlike Ocarina of Time, which re-used various environments and not always in a different way, in Twilight Princess we always visit new areas that offer a particular and eccentric activity: be it entering a ski competition with the Abominable Snowman, or a sumo fight with a Goron, or flying in the claws of a winged creature, we’ll always be finding some new exciting set piece.

Even the dungeons are varied, with each one boasting creative and unique mechanics, themes, and even design: one of them is a mansion where Link must talk to the mysterious inhabitants to get some necessary tips to proceed, for example. The dungeons in the game are among the best of the series, proving to be much more elegant than those present in The Wind Waker.

While the first one visited in the previous title was hampered by its excessive linearity, the Forest Temple that opens this section in Twilight Princess allows us to explore the place more freely by visiting rooms outside a defined order – which leads us to memorize certain features in the rooms to get back to them when we get the right equipment. That is, while in The Wind Waker we were taken straight to the right place after getting what we needed, here we need to go back to… well, thinking again.

The Forest Temple, in particular, also stands out by the way in which it builds up the confrontation against its mini-boss. The baboon that Link fights at a certain point is not only mentioned earlier by monkeys roaming the place but also suddenly comes up to destroy a passage inside the temple, forcing us to take a large detour to get to where we need to be – which increases our animosity against the creature. In addition, the battle is the culmination of the logic of one of the puzzles so far: first, we learn that we must hit a pillar to save a caged monkey; then to knock down a chest; and, finally, the action becomes the technique to overthrow the baboon. Before the end, the creature still appears again, completing the logic of the temple’s design, where Link keeps interacting positively and negatively with the monkeys.

Another dungeon that serves as a contrast to The Wind Waker is the Temple of Time. Here, the developers take up one of the main concepts of the Tower of the Gods present in the previous title – the control of statues – and develop it exceptionally better. The action became more practical, taking less time from the player: if before it was necessary to play a specific song every single time we wanted to control the objects, now we can just hit them with an item for them to follow Link around. Not only that but the puzzles that surround the idea are also more elaborate: instead of taking the statues only to the switch on the other side of the room or to the next room, here it is necessary to escort one of them from the end to the beginning of the temple, in an exquisite example of folded level design.

Worthy of praise is also the attempt to renew classic items, either by incorporating new functions to them, such as the gust of wind that the boomerang now causes, or using them in unusual ways: the iron boots not only make Link sink as they used to, but are now also used to steady the character in sumo battles and move him around with magnets. It is only a shame that, just as in Ocarina of Time, these items are promptly discarded when their respective dungeons are completed. The ball and chain used to break and defeat ice enemies, for example, is only used in a single cave, while the spinner can be connected to only two sequences of rails in Hyrule Field.

The Hyrule map, in turn, is re-split into segments, resembling Ocarina of Time’s field much more than the ocean of The Wind Waker: its purpose is to function as a link between the regions and not serve as a proper setting for exploration. Yes, there are puzzles scattered along the roads, but they are few and far between and, in some cases, very artificial. The exploration element is secondary, taking the form of a mechanical habit: after each dungeon, players will cycle through Hyrule Field in search of the scarce possibilities of using their new equipment.

While Ocarina of Time had its mystical element around using music to solve puzzles, exploration here is a basic process of acquiring an item and using it at a given place. There is no need for deduction and no mystery inserted into the proceedings, but a mere action of finding the right key (the equipment) for each lock (the place to use it). In addition, the inclusion of these puzzles in Hyrule is not organic, failing to appear to be a natural extension of the environment. Rails to use the Spinner are on the side of a hill for no reason whatsoever, for example, whereas the only one cave in the entire Hyrule Field that is covered with ice is unlike the rest of the scenery, which fails to contain a single trace of the element.

In its overall structure, the game also falters with unnecessary linearity. There is no reason for the fifth, sixth, and seventh dungeons to be solved in that order, for example. If the game had opened its structure after the fourth dungeon – which marks an important point in the story – it would have benefited greatly, giving players freedom and encouraging exploration. Instead, it prefers to force a particular order, taking us by the hand once again.

Besides that, the ability to turn into a wolf turns out to be increasingly useless throughout the game, serving only to kill a certain type of enemy more easily; smell certain scents; reveal ghosts in the environment – once done with the Lens of Truth –, and dig holes in the ground – which was once done with bombs and could have very well continued to be. The franchise’s typical musical instrument has also been relegated to the wolf – to its howling more specifically – but instead of being used on the exploration part, it’s just a minigame activated at a specific time.

Finally, the game’s most serious art style, with desaturated colors and slightly more realistic body characters, has not aged nearly as well as the one used in The Wind Waker, especially regarding the characters’ faces. On the other hand, the soundtrack remains as efficient as before, ranging from the epic tone, such as the great Hyrule Field theme, to the melancholic, like Midna’s, even flirting with the western in Kakariko Village.

As for the Wii U version, in addition to the visible graphical improvements, several rewards in rupees have been replaced by special stamps with certain images or letters of the Hylian alphabet – making it possible, by the time Miiverse was online, for example, to write “Let’s punch fascists in the face” in Hylian – which made the rewards more varied and socially important. The repeated message informing how much certain rupees are worth was also removed, only appearing once during the whole game and not during each play session, as it was before. And, more importantly, we can also increase the difficulty, which fixes a major problem of the original, in which the epic scope of the adventure was sabotaged by a lack of punishment in combat, taking away the urgency of the fights. Here, being unable to regain life with hearts obtained from pots and grass or by eliminating enemies makes every damage received – which can be doubled or even quadrupled with the Ganondorf amiibo – more significant, increasing the tension.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is not the best title in the series but, until today, it’s certainly the one that has the most cinematic narrative. Offering engaging dungeons, a decent story, and a powerfully melancholic tone, the game only falters when it’s time to structure its moments of exploration and make use of the arsenal it gives us. In the end, Twilight Princess is a memorable, even if imperfect, adventure.

February 07, 2025.

Review originally published in Portuguese on November 07, 2014.