Live Magazine - Video Games, Cosplay and Pop Culture

REVIEW
the legend of zelda:
twilight princess
It’s been thirty years since the
first Legend of Zelda game came
out, and nearly ten years since
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight
Princess was released on the
Wii and GameCube. What better
way to celebrate the Zelda
franchise with a remake then?
Brought to us by Nintendo and in
collaboration with Australian developers
Tantalus, The Legend
of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD
is a remake, plain and simple.
There’s less changes compared
to The Legend of Zelda: The
Wind Waker HD, but it mostly
still holds up today.
In a franchise of cliché after cliché,
Twilight Princess dared to
be different, and after various
Zelda titles released after 2006,
it still holds its title as the black
sheep. Or wolf, in this case. Link
lives off in Ordon Village with a
cast of characters, when one day,
everything falls to pieces. Bulbins
come crashing in, stealing
away the village’s children, Link
gets clobbered over the head
with a club, gets dragged off,
and gets turned into a wolf. He
finds himself with Midna, a little
imp-like lady, and the two go on
a grand adventure. While some
original direction was taken with
trying to find the lost children, it
eventually falls back on clichés;
interactions with Princess Zelda
and the evil Ganondorf. The plot
plays out exactly as it did back in
the day.
Most of the gameplay has been
lifted straight from the Game-
Cube version, the only available
controllers are the GamePad, or
the Wii U Pro Controller. In the
Wii version, the entire world of
Hyrule and Link himself were
flipped, as the iconic swordsman
is portrayed to be left handed,
so for motion controls to conform
with the majority, Link had
to be right-handed, and waggling
the Wii Remote caused Link to
swing his sword. There’s none
of that here, with a simple button
used to swing the sword in Link’s
left hand.
The changes to be found are little
quality of life adjustments, much
like those found in The Wind
Waker HD. One of the more
obvious changes is that item
management can be accessed
from the GamePad screen, so
items can be swapped out from
the inventory without pausing.
While neat, I still found myself
looking down, or taking the time
to pause, and then change my
items, so it’s only a minor convenience
at best. There’s also
the introduction of Hero Mode
to Twilight Princess HD, which
was previously seen in The Legend
of Zelda: Skyward Sword, A
Link Between Worlds, and The
Wind Waker HD. When making
a file, players can opt in, which
results in enemies dealing double
damage, heart items don’t
appear, and the game is flipped,
much like the Wii version of Twilight
Princess, right handed Link
and all. There’s also little things,
like swimming and horse riding
having improved controls, more
Rupees can be held, less tears
of light per province to collect,
and the introduction of the Ghost
Lantern to make Poe hunting
quicker. There’s also 50 Miiverse
stamps to collect, which can be
added to posts to Miiverse. 26
of these are letters of the Hylian
alphabet, so it’s a cool little addition
for the big Zelda fans.
amiibo of characters from the
Legend of Zelda also have quite
a bit of usage. The most interesting
amiibo is the Wolf Link amiibo.
When tapped from the collection
screen, Link gets taken
to Cave of Shadows, which is a
40 level dungeon full of enemies
that must be done with Wolf Link.
It takes the level of Link’s hearts