In 1998, one of the most influential video games in history went on sale, that game would mark a before and after, I´m talking about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The formula of the game was so successful that it was repeated on numerous occasions with other games in the franchise, having a fairly high success. One of these games that followed the formula was The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
This one is one of the darkest entries of the saga, alongside with Majora's Mask. The Legend of Zelda Twilight princess is one of those games that in its time divided the fanbase a little bit, but that today is praised and recognized as one of the best Zelda games. I want to talk about this game in particular, making a review and remembering why it's such an influential game.
Link is a young peasant descendant of the hero of time (Ocarina of time), he works as an assistant on the Ordon village farm.
One day, the children of the town, go out chasing a monkey that was causing havoc, towards the forest, the children get in some trouble but Link rescues them without a problem. One day later, he is in charge to send some gifts to the Royal Family in Hyrule, when he heads to Hyrule to carry the gifts, he is attacked by a monster that kidnaps the children of the town.
Link breaks through a mysterious wall, thanks to a hand from the Twilight Kingdom. Soon after, he learns that this place is known as the Twilight Kingdom, and that every creature and place that exists in it constitutes a dark and corrupt version of what is the peaceful Hyrule. Once Link breaks through the wall, he falls to his knees and mysteriously, for no reason, transforms into a wolf.
Upon awakening, a wolf-shaped Link is imprisoned in Hyrule Castle, he is released by a strange being named Midna, who leads him to where Princess Zelda is. She explains to Link that Zant, king of the Twili race, has conquered Hyrule after defeating the "spirits of light." To restore the kingdom to normality, Link must retrieve the "Tears of Light" from these spirits, in order to return light to the different corners of Hyrule, now shadowed by the effects of twilight.
As Link fulfills his mission, the spirits restore his human form. Also, another of his main missions is to help Midna to recover the "fused shadows", objects with powerful magic that Midna seeks to defeat Zant. What I just mentioned is simply a small part of the plot, I did not want to get further to not spoil the game, if you want to know more about the plot of the game I recommend that you play it, since what I mentioned is only the tip of the iceberg.
Zelda Twilight Princess is mechanically divided into two sections, the first section is when we are Wolf Link and we have to get the tears of light to return the light to Hyrule, the second is when we are Human Link and here we will play as our traditional The Legend of Zelda game: talking to the npc, doing side missions, mini-games, exploring dungeons, etcetera.
Our human form is different from the wolf form, since in both forms we will have different abilities that can help us solving some puzzles in the game, and thus, can also help us to explore the world.
When we are in our wolf form, we will be able to track different smells of certain characters, this will help us to advance in the story, this is not just about characters, we will also be able to track animal and object smells, this ability is very useful since this way the task of finding certain objects and people that could be key to the development of the plot will be easier to us.
In our wolf form we can also fight, we will have our own set of blows which, we will not have a sword or shield, so we will have to fight using our claws. In this way, we will have Midna as an assistant who can give us clues and can also be an assistant in combat, since she is in our back, we will be able to launch a fierce attack in which we can defeat many enemies at once.
We can also dig different holes that we will find throughout the game, digging these holes can give us a heart, rupees or some other item, also it can lead us to some secret tunnel where there will be more rupees or who knows, maybe even a heart container.
When we are in our wolf form we can teleport thanks to Midna's help, we will teleport through the use of a Twilight Portal. Link in his wolf form usually runs quite fast but even so, being able to teleport makes it much easier to go from one point to another, so the detail is appreciated.
Finally, in our human form, we will follow a classic Zelda style in three dimensions, our main objective will be to collect clues by exploring the world in order to explore a certain dungeon. In dungeons, we will be able to get a new item that will be useful in solving dungeon puzzles. This time, the dungeons are quite large, so if this is your first time in a Zelda, you could get lost, it is recommended to use the map on these occasions.
At the end of each dungeon we will face a boss respectively, we will have to be resourceful and find his weak point and exploit it to the fullest with the new item that we get, these boss fights are usually visually spectacular but kinda easy, they do not present a very big challenge for the player.
In battles, Link will have a set of moves similar to other installments such as Ocarina of time, in which we will move the sword that we are using, horizontally or vertically, but with but with improved animations. We will also be able to obtain new skills to perform with our sword, they are optional and we will be able to obtain them through the course of the story.
When we are out of a dungeon, we can explore the world with certain limitations and get to know secondary plots of certain characters in the game. Likewise, we can use our mare Epona that from the beginning of the game we can change her name. A new feature when using Epona is that we will be able to use the sword to attack our nearby enemies, also using different objects.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is a installment that I recommend playing, although it is somewhat slow, it has that spirit that characterizes so much a Zelda game, it is a sublime video game with many pros but with some cons that alienate some people, such as the wolf section. If you're not a big fan of handling Link when he's a wolf, don't worry, as these sections are pretty short overall. If you still do not play it, I recommend doing so, it is mandatory to give it a try if you have a Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo Wii or Wii u. In the Wii U, you can play its remaster in HD.
