| System: | Nintendo Wii |
| Score: |  4 (Good) |
This game is, in my opinion, one of the best Zelda games since Link to the Past. If the art style in Wind Waker made you upset, you'll be glad to know that the graphics in Twilight Princess are in the Ocarina of Time style. I'm also glad to report that Link has been restored to his original Legend of Zelda age as a young teenager (I'm guessing about 15) and is no longer 8.
The graphics are good, the environment is engrossing, most of the characters are well designed, and the various dungeons that Link travels to are fairly well designed. There were moments when I had no direction in the dungeon, but overall it's usually fairly obvious what the next puzzle is and how to continue.
If you've heard about the use of the Wiimote to swing the sword, you might be concerned that this is just a pointless gimmick. I'm here to assure you that it is, in fact, just a pointless gimmick. Worse, it's annoying - moving the controller for any reason (say, to get more comfortable) can cause unwanted sword swings, and swinging the sword can be unwieldy. Some moves are executed by shaking the numchuck attachment, and this is also annoying as it's easy to accidentally execute the wrong move when using the numchuck.
Fortunately it's not terribly annoying in that while Twilight Princess does involve combat, most of the game is puzzle solving and that doesn't (generally) require sword swings. Plus, the Wiimote makes aiming the various traditional Zelda weapons (such as the bow and arrow) more natural and quicker.
With the exception of attacking with the sword, the controls are very similar to previous Zelda games. As in previous Zelda, several commands are "context sensitive" but unfortunately not quite sensitive enough. As before, there's no jump button, with jumping being done automatically when running off the edge of things. This makes aiming jumps a matter of carefully adjusting the camera to ensure that Link will, in fact, jump to the next platform and not straight into the lava, or off a cliff, or whatever the context may be.
Many traditional items return (for example, bombs, the Master Sword, the Hylian shield), there are several new items as well, as well as some differences to older items. Overall the familiar Zelda gameplay is back, but with some minor tweaks that prevent the game from simply being a repeat of previous games.
One of the new features is the wolf form that Link can take. Early in the game Link is transformed into a wolf. Several puzzles can only be solved while a wolf. Unfortunately the wolf form also attacks by swinging the Wiimote as a sword despite the fact that the wolf has no sword, which makes controlling it seem somewhat strange.
Overall, the game plays well on the Wii, even though the only advantage the Wii version has is in aiming, but with Z-targetting, the ease of aiming is almost entirely a moot point. I'd rather use a button press to activate the sword than deal with swinging the controller.
While the control is overly gimmicky, the game is a fresh return to the land of Hyrule and well worth playing, even though it's not without annoying flaws.