Overview:

What fans had been clamoring for since the release of “Cel-da”, Twilight Princess adds realism to the Legend of Zelda franchise.  You take control of farmer Link as he is going through his daily mundane life when all of a sudden people die while others get kidnapped.  All the while this is happening, our boy gets turned into a wolf.  But I get ahead of myself, you have to do a shitload of chores at the beginning of the game which function as the tutorial of the game.  I hope you like herding goats, talking to cats, fishing, and other boring stuff because that’s about the first hour.  The rest is a traditional Zelda game so at least it does have that going for it.  

Visuals:

This game is muddy.  When people were talking about realism back in the early 2000s apparently everything was supposed to be brown, overtly detailed, and light bloom everywhere.  This game is rife with that.  Not to mention the characters also look so disturbing they don’t really fit in a Zelda game.  Gone is the whimsy you were used to seeing and instead you have chicken that look like they have boobs, a mafia looking baby, and a lady with the biggest pair on her, it’s obscene.  The overworld is split up into zones so you lose the open world that you were clamoring for and in those zones there is very little to do and are sparsely populated.  I wish I could say the game was beautiful but it really isn’t.  It’s just brown.

Audio:

Nintendo was doing something weird during this time period.  They had the ability to put crisp CD audio but they chose not to.  Everything is still stuck with midi tracks and it really does show.  That’s not to say some of the tracks aren’t bangers because they really are.  I just wish they were more vibrant than what we got.  The characters do their typical grunts and noises but you don’t get any real voice acting.  

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME!  Back during Christmas of 2006 when I got it from Hastings while on a date.  I can’t say this game really stuck with me and it seems like I was going through the motions with it.  It did take me about 30 hours and I was satisfied with the ending but I think around this time the Zelda formula was getting quite stale and we were ready for something new.  It would take another outing until Breath, but they got there.  You can see the inklings of a greater game with this middle of the road entry.