The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Hands-On

Nintendo finds the missing Link

Tags: Categories: Game Cube Previews, Previews

Posted by Jake McNeill on May 23rd, 2005


Years ago, when Nintendo unveiled the cel-shaded style of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, I think it would be fair to say that the general reaction was one of shock and disappointment. Last E3, Nintendo unveiled the latest Zelda game, and this time around seemed to hit right on the mark of what fans wanted. This year, we got our hands on the game, now titled The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

In addition, Nintendo revealed new footage showing one of the game’s central themes: Link’s transformation into a vicious werewolf. Also revealed were some new characters, like an enigmatic catlike character who rides on Link in his wolf form and assists him in battle, and a dark, robed woman (the twilight princess herself, perhaps?). But of course, the thing everyone was itching to get their hands on (as evidenced by the longest line at E3) was the playable demo.



For those of you that missed it, here’s the rundown. Link is leaving his hometown of Toaru for the kingdom of Hyrule to participate in a friendly competition and extend the village’s diplomatic hand. Before this, however, Link is asked to help with a little goat-herding. Picking a wishbone-shaped piece of horse grass, Link blows through it (making a tune that should be familiar to fans of the series), and out of the stables charges his trusty steed, Epona. Yep, the very same horse that was in Ocarina of Time. Uhh… or its descendant or reincarnation or… well, the Zelda timeline has always been kinda’ sketchy, hasn’t it?


Anyways, riding Epona controls the same now as it did then, complete with about a half-dozen or so short speed boosts (now represented by riding crop icons rather than carrots). After herding the goats, Link hops a few fences and heads into town to meet up with the Mayor and his daughter, Ilia. Link’s relationship with Ilia seems vaguely similar to his friendship with Saria from Ocarina of Time, with some of Malon’s character traits. You can tell they’ve grown up together, and are good friends (with the vague potential for “something more”), and like Malon, Ilia is very protective of Epona.

What’s interesting is, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has about the same extent of voice acting as all the other 3D Zelda games, which is to say, not much beyond a few canned expressions every now and then. Much of the emotion, then, is seen in the characters’ actions and expressions. Simply by the way these characters act, you can tell Link is close to Ilia but doesn’t really understand her, that he’s very buddy-buddy with the mayor, who seems to treat Link like a football coach treats his star quarterback, and that Ilia’s assertive nature is so strong, even her own father dares not argue with her.


And so, when Ilia notices that Epona’s leg is injured, she scolds Link for jumping fences and riding the horse too hard, and proceeds to escort the animal away and forbids Link from riding again until the injury is healed. All the while, Link and the mayor watch with complete shock (evidenced by their gaping jaws), as this will surely make Link late for his trip. Still, this delay gives you the chance to meet some of the townspeople and refamilliarize yourself with the good ol’ Zelda controls (as not much has changed). You’ll fetch a cradle for a pregnant woman, sneak up on a swordsman to snatch his weapon, and undoubtedly throw countless pots and pumpkins. Furthermore, you’ll find the lock-on, swimming, cuckoo-harassing, and sword fighting abilities all still intact from previous games. Link can still perform a spin attack with either a charge or 360 control stick motion, still does back flips, rolls and charges when locked-on, and will still tumble headfirst into a wall if you want him to. Okay, maybe I’m the only one that does that.

In the second part of the demo, you get a taste at one of the new features added to the Zelda series, and one that was very prominent in last year’s E3 video: fighting on horseback. It seems a big, armored, nasty critter on the back of a giant, rabid boar, has strung up one of the children from Taoru to a pole and means to ride off with him (for purposes unknown). Link hops on Epona and takes up pursuit, but not before the villain blows a horn to call for backup (smaller baddies on smaller boars) that swarm Link as he tries to chase down their leader.



The controls for horseback combat are so simple they’re not even really worth talking about. You simply hold left or right on the control stick while pressing the attack button to swing in that direction. It just could not be more simple, which is probably as it should be. Anyways, after swatting off the enemy leader’s armor, he makes a break for a nearby bridge. Following suit, the path behind you is blocked by a flaming doorway, as is the other side, and you and this villain are now locked in what essentially amounts to a jousting match on a bridge hanging over a dark chasm.

The next part of the demo has Link exploring a dungeon, something that should be familiar territory for fans of the series. Throughout the dungeon, Link encounters a few familiar enemies, like voracious deku sprouts and large-fanged skulltulas, as well as some new creatures like the… um… butt monkeys. At least at first, these small monkeys with bare bottoms are mostly harmless, but eventually you’ll meet up with a larger one who’ll generally be cause for mischief, using a boomerang to cut down a bridge, terrorizing the other butt monkeys… and then following it up by thrusting his rump in your direction and slapping it, mockingly.

This dungeon also has the return of an oldie but goodie, the boomerang. Called the Gale Boomerang in this game, it functions similarly to the boomerang in The Wind Waker, albeit with a new upgrade: it can be charged to throw a miniature whirlwind that moves objects, solves puzzles, and blows tiles off the floor when you throw it (which is an impressive sight to see).



Eventually, the small butt monkeys come to your aid, and walk with you through the level (in a similar fashion to Wind Waker’s helper characters, but with less talking). Upon reaching ropes that hang over portions of the area, the monkeys will hang on them, allowing you to grab their hands and swing across. By this process, you’ll essentially be swinging over the entire dungeon you just walked through.

Upon reaching the boss (the final part of the demo), it appears to be two giant deku sprouts reaching over and attacking you from behind a river of bubbling acid. Nothing seems to penetrate their tough skin, but you can spot a few bombs on the other bank. Being unable to reach them yourself, you pull out the Gale Boomerang and charge it up, and the resulting whirlwind pulls the bomb back towards you, so you can then toss it in the giant sprouts’ mouths. After giving both giant sprouts a good old-fashioned case of indigestion, however, you find that like any good boss, they have a second form.

Now they rise up again with a third, even bigger sprout in between them. Easy enough, right? Just get some more bombs and… hey, where’d the bombs go? As you frantically try to search for some other way to fight back, out of nowhere appears… the butt-slapping monkey. Swinging overhead from one hole in the wall to another, he turns away from you, thrusts his buttocks into the air, and then… pulls a bomb out of the wall. Swinging back and forth over the battle with bombs now, you can lock on and grab some bombs to destroy the smaller deku sprouts, but the largest one is satisfied with waiting you out on the other bank rather than falling for your bomb-feeding antics.



As it turns out, you need to make use of a trick you may recall from Wind Waker. Using multi-targeting, after charging up the boomerang, you need to lock on to the bomb, and then the giant deku sprout, and the whirlwind that results carries one to the other. Really, it’s boss fights and puzzles like these that epitomize the series, and it’s good to see Twilight Princess following suit.

The demo didn’t include any play time or further details on Link’s wolf form, but we’ll find out soon enough when the game is released later this year. Until then, we can safely say this game is shaping up to be a fine entry in the series, and one that should more than satisfy those fans who still scoff “Zelda? More like CEL-da!”

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