Why Twilight Princess on the GameCube is Superior to the Wii Version

Wouldn’t it be nice if the media focused on the true issues at hand? If it focused on the political agenda and moral concerns of society? Instead, the media focuses on how Justin Bieber styles his hair and the happy story of the cat that the firemen saved from the storm gutters.

Crap sells, and we’re all too familiar with that fact. Take the debate that has run rampant through Zelda communities for well over five years now: is Twilight Princess better on the GameCube or the Wii? It’s pointless, but it will grab your attention and drag you into reading this article much more than anything intellectual and well thought-out would.

This particular debate really is a non-issue, because it’s a simple truth that Twilight Princess was a GameCube game that was just ported to the Wii with a few moderations.

It’s not even really a debate, because in all ways that the two versions differ, the original GameCube title is superior. We have bills to pay you see, so we’re jumping right into this pointless debate and riding the ensuing chaos. Enjoy.

For starters, Twilight Princess on the Wii is mirrored, which means that east is west and left is right. On the Wii Kakariko Village and Death Mountain are in the west and not the east: which just simply isn’t canon. Everything is the wrong way around, including Link.

The reason the Wii port was mirrored was to make Link right-handed to fit with the standard of play with the Wii Remote in the right hand and nun-chuck in the left. Not until Skyward Sword did players truly see a legitimately right-handed Link.

The Wii version’s biggest alteration was in trying to implement the Wii motion controls, but this fell far short of its potential. While the pointer was accurate enough, its on-screen cursor was a fairy just like Navi. It made no sense and remained completely unexplained as to why a fairy was following Link.

The sword controls was merely waggling, and as it didn’t reach the accuracy of Skyward Sword, simply pressing B for swordplay as in the GameCube version was the superior style of play.

Additionally, the GameCube allowed for free camera control, which is an area where the Wii version lacked utterly. The speaker on the Wii remote was also used to play sounds such as Midna’s voice and the series trademarked chimes, but that alone adds nothing to the version.

Finally, while the GameCube version only allowed for two items to be equipped at once, the Wii version was even worse. Every item in use had to be set to the B Buttion. While three items could be placed on the directional pad for quicker access, only the item equipped to B was usable.

Even though the Wii version of Twilight Princess may have hit the shelves before the GameCube version, it is no secret what the game was originally designed for. It goes without saying that the console the title was made for has the superior version; especially when the other version has things messed up so much that they’re in reverse.

The winner of this non-debate is, without question, Twilight Princess on the GameCube.