Twilight Princess without Gravity pt01

Tell me… Do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls?

When you review a piece of art, what is the purpose of doing so? It seems like these days a lot of people try to "win" against it, picking apart plot holes or things that don't make sense, to come out as superior, either to the art in question or to others who didn't pick up on what they did.

But how does that serve the art? How does that serve other people? I don't think it does, and that's what I want to do.

In this series as I talk about different games, I don't want to focus on plot holes or inaccuracies for the sake of yucks or to appear smarter than I am. I want to ask two questions; what is this game trying to do, and how well does it do it?

I hope you join me in my studies of games, where I'll talk a lot about games, a little about life, and all of it with a passion to elevate the medium so that nothing can hold it back, not even gravity.

The Zelda series has produced some amazing games, such as what many consider the best game ever made, Ocarina of Time. But when the GameCube came out, while many people were hoping for a mature, adult and R~E~A~L~I~S~T~I~C! Zelda game, fans got Wind Waker, which was cartoony. And hey, I love Wind Waker, it's my favorite, but I can see why some folx were disappointed.

Well, the good news was the next Zelda game, Twilight Princess, was that R~E~A~L~I~S~T~I~C! Zelda game folx were asking for. Although, it was released right in the middle of the 2000's, when everything had to be dark and edgy!

And while Twilight Princess does come across that way, it still does it in a very Zelda/Nintendo style, making it still feel unique and Zeldaesque, creating one of the more memorable and epic Zelda games. This doesn't mean it doesn't have some major problems, but I'll get into those as I go along.

And lastly before we start I'm playing the original GameCube version. I've heard that some of the problems I'll mention have been corrected in later releases, such as the HD version, but I'm not going to know every fix since I haven't played it. I'll not what I can where I can, but if I miss something, feel free to point it out. Let's start talking about the game!

The opening is just superb, probably one of the best in gaming. It takes place at dusk with Link and Rusl, whose like Link's mentor/father figure. He talks about the sadness of dusk and brings up a legend about people in another world. Then he switches gears, mentioning a task the mayor wants him to do the day after tomorrow, but would like Link to do it instead, as they've never been to Hyrule

I love the way the dialogue is paced in this game. Here some words take longer to appear in a text box, but later we'll see words appearing smaller than others. It gives a great sense of how people are talking despite not having voice actors. Speaking of nothing being said, as the two of them walk back we can see them chatting along the way. That, along with the music that's playing here (Opening), we really get a feel for their relationship despite nothing being said.

Coming home to Link's house is nice too, as we see Father Figure say goodbye to Link and come home to his family and we're introduced to Link's... Uh, love interest, I guess? And Link's friend who owns goats but isn't any good with them.

After that awesome introduction we get to walk around a bit as Link to find their horse, Epona. And I gotta say, I've always loved the way the 3D Zelda games have controlled. It's easy to take for granted now, but Link is always so satisfying to control. They can move in any direction, roll around, back flip and side step, continuous rolling to make you feel like your going faster! It's just a ton of fun from such a little thing

Shout out to Wind Waker, for being the Link who's most fun to control and has one of the best cameras in gaming history

Plus it's great to see Link's movement interacting with the world, like rolling into a tree to knock rupees out of it. And look! I got a blue rupee, which is worth 5 rupees! I'm so glad the game told me that! 😆

When Link gets Epona from their... Love Interest? Whatever, her name's Ilia. Now Link rides through town and to the goat farm. It's cool cause it's a straight path through the center of town, so you get a feel for the village without being in it too long. It's some smart map design.

At the goat farm Link rounds up 10 goats, and then his friend Fado sets up some fences to jump over with Epona. He says you can jump over them for as long as you like, but you only have to jump over the one that is the exit to the area. The whole thing is a mini-tutorial for how to ride Epona, but it never expressly says so, conveying everything the player needs to know through the mechanics and making the player intuitively take action, rather than giving you a bunch of "DO THIS" infoboxes. The whole thing is rather nice, and it doesn't ware-out its welcome.

At this point the first day ends, so I think it's a good time to take a small break and discuss the aesthetics of Twilight Princess. First of all, the obvious. This game is going for an "epic" look, and we all know what that means! R~E~A~L~I~S~M!! Because of that, Twilight Princess hasn't aged as gracefully as, say, Metroid Prime or Super Mario Sunshine. But still, it does feel like a Zelda game and does have a look all its own in that lineup

But speaking of that look, I hope you're a fan of the color orange, because depending on your answer, I either have good news or bad news for you!

The color orange is used a lot in this game. It is thematic and all, being a color associated with twilight and sunsets, so it evokes the feeling of dusk rather well. But on the other hand WOW there is a lot of orange in this game!

You start the game off, and it's orange because it's sunset. You go to the twilight realm, it's orange! You go into a canyon and it's orange! Fire temple, orange! Then you go to ORANGE! Then you go to ORANGE! Then Orange Orange Orange Orange ORANGE!

It's a lot. I wish the game had paced itself out with the orange, because honestly there are a lot of places the orange really does work. They should have made it a bit more like, say, Final Fantasy X, where water was used in special moments of the plot

If they had used it sparingly, it would have been great. As it is? ORANGE!

Link's villager clothes are nice, too. They're detailed enough that you know it's Link, but they still feel very common, so you won't miss them when they go away later. I do wish you had an option to get them again, though, but it's not that big of a deal

The last thing to mention right now is that this intro is really slow, which I honestly love. It reminds me of Fellowship of the Ring, which also had a slow intro. And... That's all the justification I need; it reminds me of Lord of the Rings in a good way.

It's the next morning, and we meet Talo, Malo and Beth. And... Uh, well I appreciate what the game's trying to do. It's setting up what Link's day to day is like and how he's a friend to all the children in the village. It's a classic trope, and it should be effective in setting up the emotional stakes that will appear not that much later in the game. But the problem is these three characters are... well... SNORE!!!

They're not interesting! There's literally nothing unique about these charters that makes me want to care about them (except for Malo but... Oh, god.)  We'll get into that later).

Honestly the worst offender of this is Colin, Rusl's kid who we haven't properly met yet because he's supposed to have an arc but doesn't really so it ends up being... well... SNORE!!!

I appreciate what the game's trying to do more then what it actually does, which spoiler alert, is going to be a running theme throughout the game 😒

So there's a rather nice conversation with this guy named Jaggle. He yells to you about how you can Z-target with L (I still call it Z Targeting, idgaf) to talk with people from afar, that the shop keeper's cat is by the lake looking for fish, tells you about a helpful plant that can call hawks (which you need to use to get past this part in the game) and how to jump over ledges. The whole thing is a quick conversation that feels like you're talking to a normal human being, and tells you everything you needa know to get past this next part of the game in a way that's simple to understand

Ok, remember how I said the slow start here was a good thing? Well, I still stand by that, but there are two things that actually do ruin the mood. The first is you need to get a slingshot from the shopkeep, but she's sad because her cat's gone. But hang on there, slick! Didn't Jaggle just tell us the cat is by the river looking at fish? Why, yes he did! And when we give the expecting mother her cradle back, she gives us the fishing rod! So this should be simple, right? What's the problem?

The game is stupid, that's what!!

So as you might have guessed you have to go over and fish near the cat to get him back to the shop. But catching a fish actually doesn't do anything! I mean, sure, the cat walks near to you now, but you can't pick him up; he just runs away. And I can't select the fish I just caught from my inventory at all, nor can I lead him back to the house because he goes back to the pond if I get to far away! So what am I doing wrong?

Well, the answer is, catch a second fish.

Credit where credit is due, it's not that difficult to figure out, but it ain't intuitive at all, if that weren't made obvious by the fact I came up with 3 or 4 different plans before I thought to catch a second fish, which he just yanks and runs back home with.

The next problem with this game is you have to buy the slingshot, which is 30 rupees, and that can kill the pacing here. Now I know what you're thinking, gubert "in Ocarina of Time you had to get a shield that was worth 40 Rupees, so why does that make a big deal here?" Well the difference is that in Ocarina it was meant as a way to get you to explore the area

Kokiri Forest was a pretty big place, and in it you could find grass and rocks with rupees under them, there were hidden rupees behind houses or in tall grass, there were even invisible rupees scattered you could find by experimenting and jumping off of and through stuff. And that's to say nothing of the Lost Woods, which is another compete area that you could explore and get lost in!

But Ordon is relatively small, or at least it feels smaller because there isn't as much to find and there's not a second area to explore like in Kokiri Forest. Plus there are basically no cashes of 5 rupees to find, so you're stuck just getting a bunch of green rups until you hit 30. This is one of those things where if feels like Ocarina, but it doesn't have the proper execution to be it.

Hey, everybody! It's the TWILIGHT PRINCESS DRINKING GAME!! Every time this game has a great idea but then executes it poorly, take a shot!If that terribly executed idea is also an homage to Ocarina of Time, take 2 shots! This aught'ta be fun

So with slingshot in hand I go back to my house to show to the kids. As I return Rusl meets me and says he left something in my house, and as I go to get it we learn why you need to get the slingshot; there's a walltula on the ladder to my house!

I mean, really? This is Nintendo's way to strong-arm me into getting a slingshot? A bug's in my way? I mean, now I got a ton of questions about this! Like, has this happened before? What did Link do then? Did they just wait for it to move? How long does it usually take? Have they ever had to sleep outside because the spider just wouldn't move for hours? Rusl was just in my house, though, so how'd he get past it? Did the spider just decide to take up residency the second Rusl left? Why is this in the game and why am I still questioning it?! Moving on!

You can talk to the kids and show them your slingshot for a tutorial on how to use it. It's optional, but I did it anyway because I love the range weapons in Zelda, so I did it for a bit of fun. And it is sorta cute when all the kids who are trying to be better than each other all drop their facades when you do something cool, which is cute. But it turns out that slingshots come with manuals in this world? What? I just went on a lengthy spider rant, so I'll just let this one go.

Turns out the thing Rusl left us in our house was a wooden sword. And he left it in this big, ornate chest when he could have just put it on a shelf... NO! FOCUS! Ugh. Anyway, we have to talk to the kids again to do a not-optional tutorial on how the sword works. There are a whole bunch of moves, as usual, but unlike Wind Waker there's nothing added to the set... Well, yet, anyway.

However, while the game doesn't tell you this, I've been studying the 3D Zelda mechanics for years, and there is a new feature; when your sword lands its final hit, it'll do double damage, just like a jump attack!

So the wooden sword does half of what our first real sword will do, so three hits in a row will inflict 1.5 damage, but chain all of them together and it will do 2.5 damage! Woot! And same goes for when we get our first real sword; three hits equals 3 damage, but the final 4th hit makes combo attacks worth 5 damage! That's cool! But it's also difficult to really pin down how much health enemies actually have, which I'll get into as we fight more and more bosses

Also while watching my sibling play, she apparently had a lot more trouble getting the quick spin to work than she does in Ocarina of Time. I don't know how relevant that is, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

As soon as you finish up the tutorial, one of the kids, Talo, notices a monkey! They've apparently been causing the town problems, and he immediately runs after it! And, mate, can he book it! Even on horseback I can't keep up with the little fool! It's almost as if he just teleported to a plot-convenient spot! Weird...

On our way we meet a friendly lantern seller who gives us one for free. How nice of him! Also, I really do love the lantern in this game. It shows you how much oil you got right under your hearts, and Link can put it on their belt so they can use other items while keeping the lights on, as well as puts it next to chests when they open one. But the main reason I love it is because I love the dark caves you have to use it in. You go through a small one here when rescuing Talo, but there are quite a few of them in the game and they're super cool to go through. I'll talk about them in more detail when I actually find them.

But do you know what else is good? The creature design! Yeah, as much as I'll harp on the R~E~A~L~I~S~T~I~C! designs here on out, every single enemy in this game has a top notch design. For now, I'm just going to give major credit to the Deku Babas, because the design is much closer to the original art work from Ocarina, and it makes these weak enemies look fearsome.

You keep running into the woods, running across a cool shop with a bird where you get to chose what you pay for his wares, which is a neat concept I wish more games would uses. If you overpay he compliments you, or he'll call you a cheapsake if you underpay. OR he'll try to peck your eyes out if you don't pay him at all! He'll also attack you if you try to enter his shop before killing the bokoblin nearby, thinking you're a bad guy, too. Something I learn on this playthrough!

Anyway, you find Talo who both he and the monkey were taken prisoner by the wild Bokoblins from the forest. Turns out the monkey ain't so bad, after all. Talo asks you not to tell his dad, but oops! Rustle arrives right after and said his kid, Colin, had told the adults right after we all ran off. Rustle thanks Link for saving Talo, but I don't think that kid is going to have an allowance for the next month.

Rustle reminds you that tomorrow you leave for Hyrule, to which we immediately cut to the next day. Before we leave, we needa do more goat herding, but two things are different this time; first the number of goats have doubled to 20, and now there's a timer. The timer doesn't really mean anything right now, it's just so when you finish Fado can say "that was X faster than usual!", where X is set against 3 minutes (this time I did it in 1:13, so he said it was 1:47 faster than usual.) This is a hint for later in the game, so you know what time you gotta beat to get a heart piece from him. That's some rather nice hinting right there

Why do I get the feeling that if I don't deliever this thing properly,
the mayor's going to get my knees acquainted with a crowbar?

So finally the day is here! The mayor gives us a "pep talk" and sends us on our way, but uh oh! Ilia notices Epona's hurt! So she scolds Link and takes Epona to the healing spring to heal her. What?! We needa go to Hyrule ASAP and she took our horse from us because she thinks we mishandled her and wants to make sure she's in proper condition for the trip?! How dare she! This is unacceptable behaviour to scald me on my possible bad behaviour! Who does she think she is? A character with agency? HA! (this has all been a joke at the expense of dullards who actually dislike Ilia for this scene).

After Ilia pimps off with your horse, you can talk to the godmayor, and each time will trigger a scene with a goat escaping from the barn. You do a quick mini-game which either the goat will escape or Link knocks it out and it solemnly walks back into the barn

It doesn't matter how many goats escape or how many you wrangle back. Heck, you don't even have to try once. It's pretty much superfluous to the entire narrative. So, why is it here? Because it's secretly teaching you how to defeat the final boss!

When I first realized this my mind practically exploded. I love this idea. Can you imagine if vacuuming your room and doing the dishes was all secretly a tutorial on how to end capitalism forever? That's be nuts, and fun, and funny!

As you leave the village you run into Colin again who wants to talk to Ilia, but Talo won't let Colin pass because he had the nerve to tell the grownups he was in danger, and he won't let you pass either until you give him your sword. Uh, are you serious kid?

Hey, remember how I said a lot of people hate Ilia for no reason. Yeah, screw that. You know what character deserves some hate? Talo. I mean, really; he's obnoxious, bullies Colin constantly, forces you into tutorials, runs into the woods he's been told by his parents not to run into, forces you to rescue him, and now he won't let you pass to get your horse so you can get on your important job for the Ordon Mafia, unless you give him your sword, effectively unarming you. Yeah, sure kid. Whatever. I sure hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the butt in less than 5 minutes.

Colin has a nice moment here, too, saying he wants to be like Link. But not in the fighty way, but more in the taking care of animals way, which I think is really sweet.

Finally, you talk to Ilia. Colin has been speaking to her and she admits she didn't know about Talo's escapade into the woods. She apologies (she didn't really have to) and asks you to promise her one thing; don't do anything reckless. She doesn't want anything bad to happen, so she asks you to please come home safe.

... And then like a freaking train derailing, something bad immediately happens.

Suddenly a group of bulblin bandit break in riding warthogs! They shoot Ilia in the back and knock Link out before kidnapping Ilia, Colin and the rest of the children! With Link unconscious, their leader walks in and blows a horn which causes a portal to open up in the sky. This causes the leader to break out an evil smile, then the bandits ride off, leaving Link behind and the kids their prisoners!

WOAH

Here's the thing about the Zelda series that frustrates me, and a lot of others; it doesn't really like breaking from formula. It likes to stay in its neat little packaging, and it does so in this game in a lot of places, too. But what makes it so frustrating is that it doesn't even need to change that much to breath new life into the series and make each game unique

Here's a great example; What really happened here? The destroyed home town trope, basically, but the town isn't really destroyed, so that shouldn't mean much. Heck, we've seen a child that Link deeply cares about get kidnapped before in Wind Waker, so the kidnapping thing isn't new? So why does it work here?

Three words; setting, pacing and tone. So far it's just been a peaceful village and Link's "destiny" is to delivery some mail to Hyrule. But what happens in this scene?

1. Peaceful moment, then suddenly villains show up
2. They knock out Link, preventing them from doing anything
3. They open a portal in the sky, creating intrigue
4. Ride of with the kids in tow, who we've establish Link cares deeply for

This scene is so great, and it sets up what Link's motivation for questing is so well that I don't even care about some of the plot points later. Like, why did they kidnap the kids? We never find out and I don't care, cause that scene was SO AWESOME!

Oh, but the scene's not over yet! Link finally comes to and immediately rushes off after the kids. The sky changes orange (see what I mean about special moments and color?) They get to the woods again, but suddenly they're utterly shocked but what they see...

Where the Faron Woods once was, is now nothing but an eerie blackness outlined by an orange aura. What on earth is going on?

And then a hand comes through the darkness and grabs Link

And then, because they're exposed to the darkness like in Link to the Past, they transform into a being reflective of their heart. But this time instead of a cute wittwe bunny, Link becomes a wolf!

As cool as this is, I'd like to get off the ride now, please

Link passes out again, and the shadow being carries them off. But from a short distance away, we can see this whole scene has been watched by someone...

And now it gives you a chance to save, so I feel like this is a good place to end this first article off on. So what happened to the kids? What happened to the forest? Who is this person watching us? Hopefully we'll get answers next time!

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you'll stick with us to study more about Twilight Princess, as well as a few other games, including Bioshcok Infinite. Until then, take care 💜

Part 01 || Part 02 || Part 03