Tech: "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" Review

As I've posted before, I wasn't really enthralled by Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker. Now, however, there is a 3D Zelda I can cheer for. Twilight Princess is easily the best game I've played all year, and I think it's the best Zelda since Link to the Past.

I never thought I'd say it, but this might be the first time a Zelda game actually has a better story than the current Final Fantasy, FFXII. There's tragedy, romance (Link is mackin' on three ladies in this one), comedy, and mystery woven all through the game. Your sidekick, Midna, starts out appropriately morally ambiguous; her character arc really defines the game right up to the end.

The dungeons are fantastic in this one. There are some tricky, "what the heck am I supposed to do?" kind of puzzles in the game, along with some neat bosses. In terms of difficulty, I still think the combat in the game is too easy, but the puzzles are just about right.

The Wii motion controls work fairly well. I'd be lying if I said the sword swings were as responsive as pushing a button, but they're about 90 percent of the way there. The cursor aiming is pin-point precise and basically flawless.

People have pooh-poohed the graphics and sound. Honestly, there are some very ugly textures in the game, and most everything has fewer polys than you'd like, but the various special effects (water and sunlight, for example) are quite good, and there are many moments where the game is beautiful. The music is the standard MIDI everyone's used to, and while orchestrated music would be nice, the game still sounds great and even awesome at points.

Twilight Princess took me an honest 30 hours to beat - and I'm practically a Zelda savant by now. Many gamers will likely clock in 40 hours just beating the game. Besides the main quest, there's a ton of different nooks and crannies to explore, including several "mini-dungeons" that are sure to entertain. There's no grinding, no leveling up, no long backtracking, and practically no "filler."

I don't see how anyone could play the game, all the way through to the end, and not be satisfied. Twilight Princess has got everything you'd ever want in an action-adventure, and it deserves to sell like crazy this holiday season.

Rating: 94 out of 100