GenGAME – Wii in Review: Twilight Princess

Marking the start of a new series at our sister site, GenGAME, Twilight Princess is posthumously  tested against its pre-release hype and how it stands within the library of Zelda games. The series, “Wii in Review” will tackle some popular Wii games now that the console’s six year life is coming to a close.

The ultimate question in this review, however, is whether Twilight Princess was the legendary game that it should have been, or did its shortcomings prevent it from accomplishing that goal? Hit the jump to find out what GenGAME has to say!

The article states for the most part that one of the biggest problems that plagued the entire game was the excessive padding between actual adventure. Although Twilight Princess was built on a foundation as strong as you should expect from a Nintendo title, the bits and pieces of time spent in between the main quest got to be quite boring, and these small issues eventually added up by the end of the experience. Even though this is “Zelda padding”, wherein the charm of Zelda makes these moments slightly better to endure, the padding was still a drag on the gameplay.

The post goes on to talk about the art style and music, where there are fewer issues. As far as art style, Twilight Princess suffered virtually no issues. Though it didn’t fully show the capabilities of its original console, the GameCube, the visuals were not something Nintendo took shortcuts on.

Aonuma & Co. didn’t mess around with niche art styles, instead focusing exclusively on making the game look as good as they possibly could.

The music was also one of the game’s strong points, as Twilight Princess touted a superb soundtrack full of rich music to accompany the game, however it also had flaws. Individually, the tracks are spectacular, but the dungeon themes seemed to become flatter the longer the player spent in the dungeon, and the interjection of the battle music was simply awkward.

Although I don’t agree with the entire review, such as the last part covering Twilight Princess’ control scheme and responsiveness, I really liked the article because it brought some new points to the table that I had not thought about before. Having only played the game once, I cannot fully understand how annoying the slow parts of the game were, but in hindsight I believe Nintendo could have done a better job to maintain a more intense pace throughout the game.

If you’d like to check out the full review, as well as where to access the future reviews, head on over to the GenGAME article. I strongly suggest reading the evaluation of Twilight Princess because it is perhaps the only one of its kind, coming so late after this game’s release.

What are your opinions of Twilight Princess and the review? Tell us in the comments below!