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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
- Nintendo GameCube, Wii, WiiU
- 2006
- Adventure
- Nintendo EAD
The Nintendo Wii system couldn't have started off, or the GameCube send off, with a better game than 'The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess'. For a while the only game in the series simultaneously released across two platforms spanning two generations. Personally I got the GameCube version first, only to get the Wii version a couple months later when I got the Wii.
The game follows a familiar pattern in the series and is heavily inspired by it's most famous predecessor. That doesn't make it less of a game though, and it actually helps the fluent story. A story presented in a very stylistic way, including what is probably the best cutscene I ever saw in a video game. Like any Zelda game, the look of it serves the theme of the game perfectly, in this case the depressed story of the evil thief Ganondorf's return to a declined kingdom after being imprisoned. The environments, the tone of the visuals and the soundtrack all serve to show a Hyrule long past it's prime, with hints of a more prosperous past.
What sets the game apart though is it's gameplay design. Dungeons are important to me in any Zelda, as well as the beautiful landscapes, and this game delivers in a big way. The game is home to plenty of enormous dungeons, each more unique than the next, each with their own back-stories, realistically integrated into their environments and locations, and plenty of aspects and detail to theorize about. It also features many grand vistas to gaze upon while riding on horseback, which never gets old. It all is some of the best level-design in general among gaming actually. At the end of the day that's what's most important in a game, and that's keeps drawing me back every time.
