Spirit Tracks will be in my hands tomorrow. That's a big deal. It makes me feel nostalgiac. Makes me want to play some Zelda.
It occurred to me that I only played Twilight Princess once, back when it came out. It was a good playthrough, took me fifty or sixty hours, but I devoured that game. I do not think I took the time to stop and smell the roses, to let myself experience the game like I should have. So, I told myself, I would come back and experience it again. My wife ad I were supposed to get here in our playthrough of the Zelda series, but we stopped just before the end of Wind Waker (I intend to finish that too).
So I started up a new game today. Erased my old file, named the hero after myself, named the horse Agro. And I played.
Four hours later I had completed the first dungeon. A few things occurred to me that may not have occurred to me the first time.
Firstly, the Faron Woods are a Hell of a first dungeon. It almost gives the impression that it's expected that you would be familiar with the mechanics of Zelda before coming in. It's long, it's complicated, and it has some very satisfying puzzles. The use of the boomerang is just great. More, Diababa is probably the most itnimidating first boss in the series except maybe Wind Waker's fiery Gohma. Faron Woods is great, great, great, and reminds me of how much I loved this game's dungeons.
Second, it's interesting how Link's character is established through subtle means, most typically the ways in which he makes eye contact with different characters. The way he and the mayor exchange looks while Ilia yells at them, the way Wolf Link first looks at Midna... it's all interesting.
Other modes of characterization are interesting too. In most games, Link is defined either in relation to his family (uncle in LttP or grandma in Wind Waker) or his lack thereof (his mother in Ocarina of Time), but in Twilight Princess that just isn't the case. It's as if Link has always been Link, as much a staple of the community he lives in as any of the families living there - even though his is one of only two houses without any children under the roof, as if he's only recently come into adulthood. More, Colin's family actually treats him as if he were a member of it - Colin looks up to him as a brother, and (perhaps because of this) Colin's parents look at him as something of a son of their own. Colin's father acts very paternally toward Link, and Colin's mother very maternally, and that's interesting because Link has never had any living parental figures in these games.
Also, Link is sort of a bad-ass in this one. How does he stop a goat? Let it hit him in the chest and throw it like a doll. Damn. And what does he do when a one-eyed wolf shining with golden light growls at him? He gets pissed! And he himself is a wolf at heart, sort of in contrast to the bunny Link of yesteryear - he's a warrior underneath his kindness, which isn't really typical of Link.
There are a lot of little touches I didn't notice the first time through - Link walks at different top speeds when holding different sizes of stones. Did you know? And when he climbs out of water, his hair and clothing are darker for several seconds, as if he is wet and in the process of drying off. When he's in his first outfit at the start of the game, the stitching on his sleeve suggests that he takes care of his own clothes - poorly.
The opening is long, yes. That is true. I can't deny that. But it's not bad, either. I took my time. I relaxed. I went fishing a little. It was fun.
You don't really get many games that are better than this.
