I had no idea today’s game was a controversial choice until I was chatting with a friend and he mentioned he had heard Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was one of the worst Legend of Zelda games in existence. And I was all:
Seriously! Twilight Princess is a great game for a lot of reasons. Firstly, it has my very favorite iteration of Princess Zelda. She might be in distress, but she’s no damsel fawning over the hero. It’s clear that she’s more interested in politics and the well-being of Hyrule than romance, and I thought it was a really refreshing change of pace. It definitely set apart the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom from Nintendo’s other pink-clad princess.
For more in the category of “princesses who don’t always have to be nice”, our little wolf-riding friend Midna is consistently awesome throughout the whole game. The usurped monarch of the Twilii People finally succeeded where Navi and Tatl went so wrong and managed to be a travel companion that didn’t ALWAYS make you want to throw your controller across the room (always wear your wrist strap and make sure there is plenty of room around you when you are playing).
Speaking of traveling, there’s a lot of that, because the world is huge. Normally, I actually really hate that sort of thing (I don’t like the boat in Windwaker, for instance) but for some reason, I found riding Epona around the world map kind of relaxing, especially during the night with the creepy music and yellow twilight barriers all over the place.
Of course, I would be totally remiss if I didn’t show one of my favorite parts of the whole game. I SO SO wish I had a camera shot of my face when this popped on the screen the first time; it absolutely is one of the moments where you need something to smoosh over your head to hide your pleased embarrassment. Yes, Twilight Princess certainly had one of the best looking Links at the time (and since, unless you’re counting Hyrule Warriors Link who is, of course, the best and shiniest Link and has a cool scarf too.)
If you haven’t played Twilight Princess, I think it’s absolutely worth your time to give it a playthrough. You can find it on Amazon for a pretty decent price at the time of writing, and since it’s a Wii game, instead of the Gamecube release, it can be played on your Wii U with no issues. Enjoy!
Pixel & Crown 