[TP] Twilight Princess Initial Thoughts and Review

A few months ago I posted a question asking whether people on this sub recommended I get Twilight Princess or Wind Waker, since I didn't have much money and I could only afford one. It took me a while, but I ended up getting a gamecube and Twilight Princess, since that one ended up slightly interesting me more. I did end up getting my hands on a copy of Wind Waker, though, so I'm going to play through it shortly.

Anyways, here are my initial thoughts on Twilight Princess. I completed everything except for poe soul collecting (I only cared to get 31 of those), but I got every heart piece, the giant quiver and wallet, and the magic armor, for a total playtime of a little under 50 hours.

To start, I thought overall it was an excellent game, albeit poorly paced and not particularly unique or original. To clarify my pacing statement, the beginning and ending hours of the game I did not think were particularly good, for reasons I'll get into below.

The game doesn't pick up until the first dungeon. Before that is a few hours of dumb mini games and sidequests that seem like they're supposed to build up the characters and lore, but did not do a particularly successful job at that. I didn't really care for any of the characters in the starting village, and I was just genuinely disinterested in continuing after an hour of it. The one thing I'll say is that for the most part the starting area looks nice. In general, I loved the area designs, except for the overworld field and Hyrule Castle Town, which I'll get into in a bit.

Luckily it does get better. The Twilight was certainly a step up, though I didn't care too much for that mini dungeon either. By this point, I was really itching to get into a real dungeon. Majora's Mask suffers from a similar problem, but much to a much smaller degree.

In every way, the Forest Temple is a huge step up from the previous parts of the game. The dungeon looks amazing - it's extremely atmospheric and hugely memorable compared to the previous locales - and it functions similarly to the Woodfall Temple in that it's extremely impressive for a first dungeon. Compared to the Great Deku Tree, it really feels like a full dungeon. I'd say it's even more impressive than the Woodfall Temple in this regard, given just how long it takes the game to get there and how long and complete the dungeon is. That's not to say it's better than the Woodfall Temple, though, and both of them are by far the worst of the main dungeons in their respective games. When I was playing through the Forest Temple, I was impressed with just how good it was for a first dungeon, but in hindsight it's so much less impressive than what was to come. The mini boss was great, but the weakest part of the dungeon was the boss, which was boring and easy.

The game takes a long time before letting you get to the second dungeon, but unlike the first couple of hours, I didn't so much mind this stuff. I was worried about how long the game would take if there was this much time spent between every dungeon, but it wouldn't always be this excessive. This is so far my favorite version of Kakariko Village. I love the old west theme of it, and to me the characters here are much more memorable than at the starting village (whose name I do not remember). The worst part was collecting the Tears of Light, which I hated doing all three times the game made you.

Death Mountain was also amazing. The volcano looks phenomenal, and the locale is just so much more interesting than it had been in previous games. More importantly, though, were the Goron Mines. To make another comparison to Majora's Mask, the Goron Mines function very similarly to the Snowpeak Ruins in that they take the impressive first dungeon and blow it out of the water. Once again the boss was the weakest part of the dungeon, though it was certainly still a step up, but pretty much everything else was perfect. The design was excellent, especially in the open-air water areas and the goron elder rooms. And to think the following four dungeons would be even better.

Once again the buildup to the Lakebed Temple was long, but enjoyable (Tears of Light collecting aside). I loved flying above the river to reach Zora's Domain, and that location was once again extremely memorable. For the most part, I didn't find this game overly dark in a mature or truly atmospheric way like Majora's Mask was - it more so seemed like it was trying too hard, one of my gripes against it - but the story behind the Zora Queen was heartbreaking and a highlight of the game's story.

The Lakebed Temple was phenomenal. I mean, what a dungeon. My only complaint about it is the clearly saltwater locale in a freshwater lake. Nitpicking aside, I loved everything here. Sea locations tend to be my favorite, and the Lakebed Temple's design was, well, perfect. The boss was a step up from the other two as well. The fight itself was only okay, but the boss was massive and impressive. This is easily the highlight of the first third of the game, and perhaps my favorite water dungeon in the series so far (it might still be Great Bay, though).

I think I do like Arbiter's Grounds slightly more. Just slightly. I guess it's Twilight Princess' version of Ocarina of Time's Forest Temple, and they're pretty equal in my eyes (I'd give the slight edge to the Forest Temple). In general, the game starts to follow Ocarina of Time's pacing more than Majora's Mask at this point, and that's a good thing. Majora's Mask's pacing works extremely well for what it is, but for a more traditional Zelda game, the last 2/3rds of Ocarina of Time are pretty much perfect.

Desert locations are not my favorite. I consider the Spirit Temple to be one of the most overrated dungeons in the series, and while I do love Ikana Canyon, I do prefer the Great Bay design-wise. Arbiter's Grounds are pretty much the perfect version of a desert level. I love the undead theme. The boss, while once again pretty easy (a common theme in this game), was amazing, and probably my favorite in the game except for maybe the City in the Sky's boss.

Snowpeak Ruins is the best dungeon in the game. The boss is only okay, but the dungeon perfect. It's so unique and I love the characters. I'll leave it at that.

Temple of Time is the last dungeon in the game's excellent streak, and what a streak it was. I love this game's version of the Lost Woods, and this dungeon was just dripping with atmosphere. However, it had the least memorable boss. In that I actually had to look up what the boss was while writing this review since I didn't remember it. This dungeon was about the same as the Lakebed Temple in terms of overall quality.

Unfortunately, by this point the game had gone on for quite some time, and there were still three dungeons left. City in the Sky was okay. It had the opposite problem of the others where its highlight was the boss fight, but the rest of it was meh. I loved the design and seeing the dragon in the sky, but it was pretty boring. Still better than the first dungeon, but kind of a weak finish to the main dungeons in the game.

Then came the last two dungeons, Twilight Palace and Hyrule Castle. I did not like them. They weren't too long, but they were so boring and the game had dragged on for so long at this point that I was completely bored. I took a few long breaks to try and prevent myself from getting tired out by the game, but I still was. The story was also ceasing to hold my interest, and despite my complaints that the game dragged on too long, the final part of the story felt incredibly rushed and I had a hard time caring for anything that was happening.

As a result of all of that, the final boss fight was kind of a disappointment. Each phase was too simple and easy, but more so it's because it didn't feel built up to properly. Ganondorf wasn't nearly as threatening a presence here as he was in Ocarina of Time. That game, and Majora's Mask, also had extremely easy and short final boss fights, but the former had spent the entire game getting you invested in the fight against Ganondorf, and the latter was just dripping with bizarre atmosphere. This final fight, by comparison, was kind of boring. Similarly, I didn't really care for the ending, other than Midna breaking the mirror, which was kind of heartbreaking, though I didn't find myself caring about her character as much as the fanbase seems to.

Overall, the game was at its weakest at the beginning and the end, where it just felt tired. The story wasn't particularly interesting throughout, and I cared much more for the mini stories of the individual locations than the ones the game seemed to want you to care about.

That being said, my favorite part of a Zelda game is the dungeons, and this game did them excellently. Maybe they could've trimmed the last two, which felt kind of pointless (two final dungeons is a bit excessive), but I can't pretend like that really makes a difference when the rest of them were so excellent. Most of my thoughts here were on the dungeons because that's where the game was at its best. It easily could've been trimmed, but the overall experience was excellent.

8/10