E3 2004. Possibly one of the most famous moments in E3 history occurs when the audience at Nintendo’s conference gets their first look at the next Zelda game following The Wind Waker, something completely different. Darker colors, a more “realistic” looking world, the words “Blades Will Bleed” show up on the screen, and everyone cheers because there’s BLOOD in a ZELDA game. There’s a strong focus on combat, and some text about light and darkness that hints at the story of the game, which currently has no title besides just being the new Zelda game. If there’s something gamers love to do, it's scream at a giant screen showing a new game, and this is considered to be one of the best moments of this tradition, but I could never really get into the excitement and joy of this video, mostly because of what had to precede it for this reveal to get this reaction.

E3 2002. The new Zelda is revealed and it's completely outside of what anyone would predict. About a year or so before this trailer, Nintendo showed a Zelda tech demo featuring Link and Ganondorf, modeled after their Ocarina of Time appearances, sword fighting. The demo was said to show off the power of the upcoming Gamecube, and people had it in their heads that THIS was the next step for Zelda. So when Wind Waker shows up completely unexpectedly, there’s a strong reaction. Kiddy, immature, a step back from the direction the N64 Zelda entries were headed, why does everything look like that, these are NOT next-gen graphics. The term “Celda” starts to get thrown around, which I guess is supposed to be an insult for the game since it uses cel-shaded graphics, which is bad, according to the insult. I don’t know, as someone who was like 4 when this all happened and didn’t actually play the game until around 2010, the whole backlash seemed absolutely insane to me, how are people mad about just the IDEA of cel-shaded graphics. But as I got older and looked more into it, I got a better picture of how this all happened. Not only was the Spaceworld demo on everyone’s mind, but there was also this idea, one that I honestly still come across to this day, that things from our childhood should grow up with their audience. Zelda should have more cussing and blood because IM AN ADULT NOW, Pokemon should get fucked up, Mario should have a gun. I understand why this attitude happens, but it’s honestly ridiculous to expect every single piece of media you interact with to have a “cool adult version” so you don’t feel insecure about being a fan of a children’s series. But to be fair, this trailer comes as we’re entering the era of edge, where everyone needs to get a little more brooding, start saying “damn” a little more, and those guitars need to start fucking chugging. Nintendo releasing Wind Waker to this audience at this time, well no shit it went the way it did.

Now, just because I understand why Wind Waker got the initial reception it did, doesn’t mean I think the people that reacted this way were right, in fact, they were very wrong and also stupid. And this is why the E3 2004 reveal video doesn’t sit right with me, because now these people are being rewarded. It’s Nintendo giving in to the angry mob by giving them the Gritty Violence Zelda they were crying over losing to Wind Waker. “Look, this one has cool sword fights, the horse is back, it’s adult Link, it’s basically Ocarina of Time 2, that’s what you pigs want, right?” And that was my impression of Twilight Princess for a very long time, a crowd of insecure people getting a dumb edgy Zelda where Link turns into a Wolf and says fuck, with Wind Waker having been rejected for actually being a good game. That’s why whenever someone said TP was their favorite, I reacted negatively. I had this idea in my head about the kind of person who says that. You know, the kind of person who gets really mad at someone giving their favorite game getting an 8.8.

Now, this is all some pretty heavy baggage to bring into a game. But I went into it with an open mind. I put aside all my preconceived notions of Twilight Princess and its fans, and all of my feelings about how good Wind Waker is, and just let myself experience this game. And I have to be honest, I was wrong about what this game is. First of all, describing this game as the “edgy” Zelda is somewhat foolish. It’s not really going for Hot Topic Tim Burton, which is what I thought it was, as much as it is going for, to borrow a phrase coined by PansyDragoonSaga, “cozy pastoral pseudo France/Holland Ghibli steampunk fantasy carnival vibe”. In this game about light and dark colliding, this aesthetic represents the light side while the dark side uses an angular, ancient alien technology type aesthetic, also with its own healthy dose of Ghibli-isms. It’s not really edgy, it’s just fucking weird, and I love it. The NPCs look as odd as the N64 NPCs but now made semi-realistically. I genuinely admire Nintendo for being willing to make people this weird-looking, and to make a world as alien and strange as the Twilight Realm, while never condemning it as a purely evil place. As for the color, while it is more muted than previous entries, it’s not necessarily another case of “7th gen brown game”. The game is going for “fantastical world with realistic touches”, so the color is more restrained. In terms of environments, I don’t find it to be all that interesting outside of a few of the dungeons, but it’s a valid choice. So like I said, while this game can have serious, genuinely unsettling moments, and do them well, it also has some of the goofiest and out-there shit I’ve seen in a Zelda game, to the point where calling this “the dark Zelda” is like, only kind of true. I’m just thinking about everything involving Malo, this weird baby with a cynical personality who all of a sudden starts running a business and eventually takes over the most expensive store in Hyrule Castle Town and turns it into a store where everyone inside is constantly dancing and begging to have something sold to them. This game is delightful in how strange and alien it’s willing to be, especially impressive considering how often it recalls parts of Ocarina of Time.

This is another part of the game I thought I wouldn’t enjoy, the number of different references and similarities to Ocarina of Time. Several sections of the world share names with famous OOT locations, some of them even geographically in similar places, horse riding is back in the game, it takes place in Hyrule Field again, Gorons and Zoras play a big role as they did in OOT, it intentionally parallels OOT a lot. This is a pretty big difference from Wind Waker’s approach to referencing OOT, which was to drown the whole world of that game and build on top of it. WW felt like a big leap into something completely different, centuries removed from the events of previous games to the point where most of these events are considered old myths, and the traditions inspired by them have become so old no one bothers asking why they’re traditions. Twilight Princess’s approach to OOT is different but just as interesting. There are a lot of similarities, but it doesn’t line up completely. Locations are very different in appearance and structure from their equivalents in OOT, and while it has similarities in world-building like the three goddesses and Ganondorf, the events around them aren’t close enough to OOT to make this a direct sequel. The village that Impa built for the Sheikah tribe is shown, and it could be inferred that it's the same one from OOT, but it’s just off enough that you can’t be completely sure. I think this is ideal for a Zelda game, where it can carry the weight of the series' history and iconography while also not worrying about where exactly it fits in the timeline or in relation to any other game.
While I’m talking about story generally, the cast here is pretty decent, I don’t think any of the village kids outside of Malo are that strong, Ilia and most of your allies throughout the game are okay, but the big standout is Midna, who may be the best character to be in any Zelda game. I love this piece of shit creature who puts on an image of being above everything around her and seems to enjoy mocking other characters as weaklings, only to end up a big softy who obviously and deeply cares for everyone in her journey while carrying a shitton of baggage as someone from the Twilight Realm seeing the world that cast her people out. She’s so well animated and expressive, the made-up language she speaks in is cute, and she’s got a big fucking hat, I couldn’t get enough of her in this game. Also, unlike Navi, she often had some actual advice I could use when I asked her for it. I don’t think any companion in the series is going to surpass her.

One thing I want to touch on is this game’s combat. It’s heavily emphasized in that first trailer at E3, and there is more going on there than in previous entries. There are 7 sword skills to learn in the game on top of previous moves from Ocarina of Time. The parry attack from Wind Waker is absent, probably in favor of allowing the player to have more direct control. Obviously, this doesn’t turn combat into a character action game or anything, but there are more options than ever. However, I don’t think this choice pays off that much. Combat in previous games was definitely simple but was capable of generating great moments of quick thinking and reaction. Here, sometimes combat feels a little too much like “if this move doesn’t work, do this one, and if that doesn’t work, try this one, and so on”. Despite having more options, combat doesn’t feel more free form so much as just offering slightly different ways to kill what are still relatively simple enemies. Emphasizing combat also means that a lot of enemies feel like they take a bit longer to defeat. Having to use a finishing move on certain enemies to avoid them getting back up is cool, but significantly less so when there are multiple of them in one place because in those situations I can’t help but fall back on just using the basic swing, which means they’re all getting back up and taking several more hits. Sometimes it hits a sweet spot, but I never felt it surpassed what was going on in Wind Waker. WW also had additional things like the boomerang which could stun all enemies and not just certain ones, the grappling hook to rob enemies of spoils, and the ability to pick up other enemy weapons. There were more layers when it came to figuring out how to handle combat with multiple enemies, and those layers not being present made this game’s equivalent of the Savage Labyrinth from WW a lot more boring.

As a big Wind Waker fan, I don’t just want to sit here and say this game should be more like that one, but I do miss mechanics like picking up weapons and stealing spoils from enemies. The spoils bag was fun because each item became its own sidequest you could follow, and as I said earlier, spoils added a layer to fighting large waves of enemies. I guess when it comes to picking up weapons, they thought it would disrupt the combat system they set up, but I still miss it. Another thing about spoils in WW is that the items in it served as alternate rewards to just getting rupees, and I think this game needed something like that because nearly every treasure chest in the game is more rupees. The economy is in fucking shambles in this game, in no time you’ve overfilled your wallet and have to leave every chest with rupees in it behind. Getting the first upgrade isn’t bad at all, but getting the 1000 rupee wallet is easy to miss if you’re not paying complete attention to the collectible needed to get it. Say what you will about the Triforce shards section of Wind Waker, it was an effective way to not constantly be holding the max amount of rupees. It just kills me to have to leave treasure chests behind constantly, this game needed something else it could give players, which you think wouldn’t be as much of a problem given that hearts are now made up of 5 heart pieces.

Another criticism I have of the game, one that I think a lot of people share, is the way dungeon items are utilized in the game. Items are often at their most useful in the dungeon you find them, and very rarely find a use later on in the game. And the thing is that a lot of the new dungeon items rule in this game, and they make the dungeons in this game some of the best in the series. The spinner is fun as hell, but it deserves so much more utility in the game (and also should be faster when not on rails). The ball and chain is a fun weapon but also barely ever finds use outside of the dungeon it is found in. The dominion rod is basically a more fun version of the Command Melody from Wind Waker, and the dungeon for it is maybe the highlight for dungeons in the game, and this item definitely doesn’t completely disappear after you get it, but it deserves so much more time. In a way, it feels like the devs of this game really wanted to make unique items and scenarios for a Zelda dungeon, but ran into the problem of not being able to integrate them into the structure of a Zelda game. Thankfully, the double hookshot, up there in terms of the best all-time Zelda items, gets plenty of utility and never gets stale. I’m also not in love with Hyrule Field in this game. It’s got good music and horse riding is a good time, but I feel like it doesn’t have much in terms of out-of-the-way sections and pockets like Wind Waker. I understand why they sort of reign in the open world to be more reminiscent of Ocarina of Time, and to cut out the slow in-between travel that was a complaint from Wind Waker players, but the trade-off wasn’t worth it.

But I finished the game, with most of the side quests done. This game was a very pleasant surprise, I was very happy to be proven wrong in this instance. I forgive you, Twilight Princess fans, you are no longer cringe. In fact, I think it’s kind of baller to say this is your favorite Zelda. Skyward Sword is up next, gonna wait a bit before jumping into that one considering this game took me THIS long for some reason. Looking forward to seeing that, I never really understood why that game, in particular, has to bear the title of Worst Zelda Game, but I would love to find out whether that’s true or not.