Twilight Princess

The only time I could be described as great at video games would have been in the early 1980s when I was in college, had very quick reflexes, and ruled the Intellivision universe.

I played Intellivision until around '91, when I first got a Nintendo system. It was then that I was introduced to the Zelda universe. And although I enjoy playing Mario, Zelda is the crown jewel of the Nintendo game systems. I actually played Zelda II before Zelda I. I can't remember why now, except I think I bought Zelda II by mistake first.

I upgraded in '94 to SNES. I still consider "A Link To The Past" to be the best Zelda game ever. Recently the young Angus bought it at a nice price, and I enjoyed watching him play it. He also got "Zelda" and "Zelda II".

Last Christmas, Santa Claus purchased a Wii and delivered it to our house. With it was a new Zelda game. New to me, that is. Having not played a Zelda game in over 10 years, I was concerned about my playing skills.



I started playing "Twilight Princess" around New Year's Day. It took me approximately 97 hours to finish playing over the past 7 1/2 months, but I have finally reached the end and completed the adventure.

Where would I rank it? A close second to "A Link To The Past". I could have done without the interruptions in play for the little movies to start and stop. That really slowed the game up for me.

I found the bosses to be a little too easy to defeat this time. One of the things I remember about the previous Zelda games was the bosses could do a lot of damage and take a lot of punishment. These bosses could do neither, with the exception of Ganondorf in the finale, who I didn't think would ever die.

The game was visually spectacular. The Hyrule world was a joy to gaze upon. But the fields were way too big for the amount of action that took place in them. Even on horseback, it took a long time to go from one end of a field to another.

I thoroughly enjoyed the new Midna character. It was good to have a travel companion and someone to turn to for help at times. I enjoyed the sarcasm and wit as well.

Some of the side quests did not seem to tie in well to the game itself. The amnesia thing- what was that about? And the Poes? Why bother? I tried a few of the other games within the game, the games of chance, the flying games at Lake Hylia, but was unsuccessful and really didn't want to waste too much time on them. Perhaps if I play again.

Although the bosses were easier to defeat, playing the game required more help. I got stuck more in this game than on any of the previous games. I had to go online to figure out what to do next. I think that is partly due to the fact I'm not as patient as I once was, that I don't have as much time to play as I once did, and that the worlds are so big it just takes forever to explore.

The most enjoyable dungeon to me was in Lake Hylia- lots of puzzles to figure out. The least enjoyable I thought was the Goron Mines. Which is all relative anyway- they were all likable.

I liked the snowboarding and horseback riding. The fishing was something I didn't get into at all. I only caught a few fish.

The music was great. Right on par with "A Link To The Past's" soundtrack.

I found the most frustrating part of the whole game was trying to escort the covered wagon and keep it from burning up. I don't know how many times I did this part of the game until I finally figured out what to do to keep the wagon from turning away and going in circles.

I didn't enjoy the Twilight world as much, either. It has been written that the Twilight world is taken directly from "A Link To The Past". But only the idea, not the execution, due to the fact Link becomes a wolf in this world in this game version. I didn't enjoy playing as a wolf as much as playing as Link, due to not having any weapons.

I didn't find all of the howling stones, either, something I shall try to rectify should I choose to play again.

Which is most certain to occur should I live long enough. Heck, I even started playing Zelda I again earlier this summer. I just need to wait until I forget how to get through everything. I mean, what's the point of playing a game you already know how to get through?

Final grade of this game- "A".