Save the Princess, Save the World

I recently completed Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii. It was a pretty fun game and definitely sucked up a lot of time (in fact it tells you how much time you have spent playing -- over 50 hours for me.)

Before I get into the detail, I want to say that I really enjoyed playing this game. The controls are solid, with sensible use of the Wii's motion sensor. The music is catchy and the visuals are pretty terrific. There are some really fun puzzles and a handful of challenging battles. All of which made me wish there was more game in this game.

Zelda starts you out in a small village, getting you used to the controls and introducing the characters.

This sequence (call it the first level) takes far too long to accomplish and contains way too many "what the f-ck am I supposed to do?" There was one point when I was trying to physically chase a cat across the map. Needless to say, this was not the appropriate solution to the puzzle.

Anyways, after you "rescue" the cat, retrieve the baby basket from the crazy monkey, and herd the goats you get to actually get on with the game. Once they're sure you've got the whole running, jumping, riding a horse, and swinging a sword thing down they let you continue with the game. Where they promptly... turn you into a wolf.

This is perhaps the problem with the game. The game takes a long time to get a rhythm and even then it constantly breaks stride. And it's only difficult when you have no idea what you are doing.

But if you have no idea what you're doing, then the game's not fun to play. After all, this is about a hero who saves the princess, not a bumbling idiot who can't just f-ing pick up a f-ing cat, goddammit!

But there are times when everything clicks together and the game comes up with an interesting puzzle or a challenging fight. This is mostly in the middle half of the game. And when the game ends (with its incredibly unsatisfying boss-fight and cinematic) I found myself let down by the sheer potential that this game showed.

However, after the near-disaster that was Madden '08 it was a pleasure to get to play a game that embraced the spirit of the Wii. And, when it comes down to it, that's really the thing Zelda does best.

The star of the Wii show right now is not the games, it's the console itself.