The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess HD review. Is this HD remake any good.

I recorded the video footage using a capture device and my own gameplay. The freeze frames our created from the video and using photoshop to add in the text

I remember way back in the Gamecube era that the The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker caused some controversy over its cel-shaded look and it’s overly cute character design. While I did enjoy the overall look of the game with the exception of the character designs (I never did like the way Wind Waker Link looked for some reason), a lot of people didn’t. And I will admit even I was hoping we would eventually see a Zelda that was more Lord of the Rings and a little less Studio Ghibli. Nintendo tease that the next game would use the same engine and did so implying another cel-shaded Zelda was on its way. Fans were floor when Twilight Princess was announced, it was darker, grittier, and it looked like the sequel that The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time deserved. I got it a week after the launch of the Nintendo Wii because all the stores in my area were sold out of the game, yeah I didn’t know at the time I should have counted my blessing for even getting the Wii when I did because shortly afterword’s the stores would have a hard time keeping the Wii in stock, yeah a big change from Nintendo now days with the Wii U. Anyways Nintendo must have had some success updating the Wind Waker HD because they just re-released the Twilight Princess on the HD so how is it playing the new HD version.

The story in this game follows a boy from Ordon village just outside of the kingdom of Hyrule, he’s task with bringing a sword to Hyrule Castle his uncle has made. However before he can leave his girlfriend gets kidnap by some creatures and he is dragged into another realm where he gets turn into a wolf. A small imp girl helps him escape and meet Princess Zelda it seems like the entire kingdom of Hyrule is under the realm of twilight. After a few more side quests’ involving killing bugs of all things Link is finally return to human form wearing the legendary green tunic that the Hero of Time once wore. It seems that the hero of the Twili tribe will appear has a noble beast, while the hero of Hyrule wears the green. Guess what Link your both so you’re charged with saving both the light and the dark this time. Next to also having to save the village kids, and stop the evil Zant from wrecking everything. Oh and of course getting the most clichéd weapon and the Zelda arsenal the Master Sword.

Twilight Princess is probably the most cinematic Zelda game I have ever played, but does it mean the story is good. Yeah it’s ok but it’s not great and it a lot of ways makes the Zelda timeline even more confusing than the Wind Wakers ending did. Mainly because it just shoehorns in Ganon has the final boss about the half way point just to shoe horn him again, continuity and explanation be damn.

And this wouldn’t be a problem if Twilight Princess was its own standalone game but it references Ocarina of time constantly. Including you paying a visit to a now ruined temple of time in order to retrieve the master sword. And it also has a door leading back to when it was a functioning temple and its opening areas look a lot like the Temple of Time from Ocarina of time. So that shoe horn villain really makes the game a muddle mess, not helping is Zant on his own was a really cool villain. Oh and they shoe horn Gannon in but they never once mention the word Triforce despite that it pops up constantly in these cut scenes.

Oh well on the good news side is that it does have some enjoyable enough side character’s. The village kids that Link has to save and decide to make their home in Kakariko village after you do rescue them all have their own personality and growth. Including that creepy ass baby who decides to set up a shop. But they all pale in terms of Midna, since Link himself never speaks the character development falls on her. She at first cares nothing about Hyrule putting revenge on Zant on the top of her list, has far has she concerns another world lead by an incompetent leader is not her concern. But she does change has the story goes on and soften up a bit.

In the end has some great character’s, the story scenes for what they are, are put together well despite having no voice acting what so ever, but the end product is a muddle mess.

Alright for those of you who haven’t played a Zelda game it’s a dungeon crawler you main goal is to find your way into dungeons, complete there puzzles, slay a boss, get an item, and collect whatever Mcguffin the game asks for. And has far has these dungeons go while they are a little on the big side which can be a problem for two of them (fricking water temple), for the most part there fun and really clever. The items you get in this game for the dungeons you use them in are a lot of fun. The problem coming a lot of the items you collect like the gear for example collect more dust then a Pokemon in a PC after that dungeon is over. There are a lot of items that are just used in that dungeon which is a shame some of these items are very creative and it would have been nice to have more puzzles based around them then the dungeons you find them in.

What about the over world yeah it’s freaking huge once you unlock it all which is one of the games flaws but I’ll to that in a few minutes. But anyways yeah it’s huge you do need a horse to actually get around this thing there are so many areas to explore and it’s all so open. There is a reason why this is a lot of peoples favorite versions of Hyrule, so large and vast that you want to explore every nook and cranny.

And has far has combat goes some great upgrades to the Zelda formula. Along the way Link can use his wolf form to howl at special stones, while this is annoying to have to do it unlocks the ability to beat the Hero shade which will teach Link new moves. These all have to be perform manually but for the most part there simple to do and the techniques learn will definitely come in handy when fighting more powerful enemies and armored knights. There is a lot of fun to the combat in this game.

So what’s bad about this game? Well it takes forever to get started. The opening act from when you begin the game to when you hit the field is 5 hours. Yes 5 hours, 3 of those are for the most part in some sort of tutorial mode or another. In fact it takes 3 hours just to get the green tunic on. So the game opening takes forever and it’s boring. Yeah once you hit the field and get Epona back the game opens up and becomes quite fun but until that happens it’s pretty boring.

Then there are the twilight sections where your stuck has a wolf, now in wolf form you can’t use any items but you do have extra senses and can look around and see stuff. But in the Twilight Realm your always stuck has being this wolf. And the bug hunting missions can be tedious sometimes. But at least the Twilight Realm is a lot prettier to look at in this version, compare to the original wii version ouch that really hurts my eyes.

Has far has any Wii U differences not much from what I could see. Yeah there’s using the touch screen to equip items without pausing which I thought was a terrible idea, I have to stop and look down at a touch screen while the games not paused, what could go wrong there. Fortunately you can do this with the game pause. That said they do have a handy wolf link button that appears when you hit the 2^nd act of the game that lets you transform into the wolf just by pressing it and avoid having to have a conversation with Midna, I like that button a lot. There is an extra dungeon but this is more of an enemy rush challenge similar to the cave of ordeals. It’s not a bad extra and the figurine that comes with it is cool but it’s nothing spectacular. When you compare Twilight Princess changes from the Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time 3d, there’s not much in the way of changes it’s for the most part just a graphical rebuild of a 10 year old game.

I was impressed playing through the Wind Waker again in HD just how good they updated that game, visually the game looks like it could be for this generation of console. Not only because of the art style but in the way that HD port was done they rounded out a lot of the charecters and made things pop. I knew they would have more trouble updating some of the more realistic character designs in Twilight Princess. While Twilight Princess does look like an upgrade to a 10 year old game it’s still a great upgrade. The models hold up well and thanks to some good animation on the faces the environments they still look really good 10 years later. There are some rough edges on the character designs that say 10 year old game but for the most part it looks really good.

The best upgrade come in the twilight realm. They tone down and smooth out the yellow glow in that area. They now look really good, and other worldly which is what they should look like. Not almost painful to look at, yeah my kertoconus was in the infant stages when I first play this game on the wii 10 years ago and that was painful to look at. Yeowch I hate glare.

The music in this game is pretty good, the over world theme during the day matches perfectly when your galloping Epona around, the night sound is errie but beautiful. The only music I didn’t like would be the music in the twilight realm can be particulery grating. Yeah I get it being stuck here sucks but do you have to compound the problem with annoying music god. No real voice acting is used in the game except for Midna. (play a clip of Midna speaking)

Yeah let me explain they did get a voice actor to do some lines and then they reversed and garbled it up to make her sound other worldly. Other than that it’s just gasps and shouts typical to the Zelda formula.

I give Twilight Princess a 3.5 out of 5 if I have to give it a number. It’s got huge over world that once you unlock is fun to explore, some interesting dungeons outside of the water temple are fun. The HD upgrade is good but not perfect. On the bad side though you have dungeon items that aren’t use much outside there dungeon. Getting started takes freaking forever, and the twilight realm is just an absolute headache to play through, at least the new color schemes make it easier to look at.