The first Zelda game I ever really finished. I got it for my birthday a long time ago, but I only ever really finished it about a year later because I was a kid and had some other things to do I guess. My review might be biased due to my history with it, but I really love this game, and Midna is still one of my most favorite characters in gaming. Definitely one of the, if not most, best companions within the Zelda franchise. I'd say some more things that I love about it (and probably dislike, because nothing is really perfect even if you do love it), but I haven't played this game in a while sadly. Maybe I'll get the chance to one day.

twilight princess is a hell of a fucking game; it does close to everything pretty much right if you ignore the dog sections. that said, it really suffers from a plethora of structural and mechanical problems that hold it back from true greatness, the most prominent of which is its pacing

it has some of the best dungeons in the series, but have fun getting to them as the connective tissue between them often takes a lot longer than it should. and even once you get to the dungeons, things just take a lot longer than they should! i can't really figure out what it is, but i assume it's just a lot of mechanical things compounding on each other

i still love this game and midna is one of my favorite characters in the series, but a lot of the time i'd rather just replay ocarina of time to scratch a similar itch with more content in half the playtime

After releasing one of the greatest sequels ever made in Majora's Mask and a bold entry in Wind Waker, it feels like Nintendo reined it in a bit and played it super safe by rehashing Ocarina of Time. But everything is worse than in Ocarina of Time.

The dungeons have a great sense of mood but they're quite linear and simple. The bosses are fairly interesting but also very simple. I like a challenge and while I don't need these games to be super hard, Zelda games for a long time were my ideal level of difficulty. Ever since Wind Waker it seems like these games are getting easier and easier. The combat is pretty good once you upgrade Link's abilities, but those upgrades are optional so they have to tune every combat encounter as though you only have his basic abilities. So everything is dead easy.

I don't care at all about the narrative in Zelda games, but I need to call out how they handled Zant here. He's a fairly interesting and imposing villain, and I appreciated that it wasn't Ganon. Except it is actually Ganon the whole time, and the cutscene where Zant is revealed to be a sniveling bitch totally ruined any respect I had for the narrative here.

Final complaint: the early hours of this game are trash. I'm not a BotW fanboy, but I at least appreciate the openness and trust in the player that it gives you. This game constantly slams on the brakes, explains things to you, and prevents you from having fun in a way that I think was only topped by Skyward Sword.

The latter half of the game is a blast though, and it truly is a solid entry in the series. This is the last one I hadn't played prior to TotK and I'm glad to have played it. It just feels like a strictly worse Ocarina of Time and I have no interest in playing it again.