I have a weird relationship with Twilight Princess. I don't dislike it, I grew up with it much like other Zelda titles released during this span such as Wind Waker and its DS sequels, Minish Cap, Four Swords Adventure, and even that dang Link's Crossbow Training game, I always like playing it, and there's so much to appreciate... but I continuously struggle to pick apart what makes it really special? Lemme put this in perspective: I can tell you a lot of the things that made me fell out of and started to loathe Skyward Sword, a game I don't even think is bad, yet with TP you'll only get a measly "yea, it's really good :)", along with a couple of other details that I don't entirely agree with followed by But Wells. Still, lemme go over the ones I do agree with containing no asterisks.

First, Midna is awesome, easily the best assistant companion during this time, and probably the best in the whole franchise. She encapsulates all the best attributes of the previous ones to a whimsical degree: the helpfulness of Navi, providing good insight as to what you need to do without being too handholdy or obnoxious about it; the contextual and thematical involvement regarding the narrative a la King Of Red Lions and Ezlo, really weighing on this game's sense of power regarding responsibility and upholding the grand mantle either thrust upon, born into, or outright steal from; and a sense of character growth much like Tatl and perhaps Marin from Link's Awakening, giving you a much stronger connection to your journey and the world, especially when That Moment finally happens... until the combat music starts and interrupts the tension both in the original versions, and this HD one. Whoops. Anyway, even disregarding the rather vocal NSFW side of the fandom - which hey, I Get It, but relax - there's a reason she's been a fan favorite of the series since her debut, which is shocking since she was initially for a completely separate and wholly original project. The only other assistant I can think of that can even outpace Midna is Zelda herself in Spirit Tracks, but even then I haven't replayed it since I was a teen so who knows maybe I'm wrong about that.

I also find that the kinematics of the combat and the general soundscape to be quite excellent. While this isn't much like the puzzle box playground Wind Waker and, to a lesser degree, Majora's Mask can offer, nor is it the simple elegance and Get Shit Done attitude like Ocarina Of Time, the focused aspects of maneuvering around enemies and using your sword is very stunning, especially on the Wii with the Wiimote feedback functionalities. Hell, each time I replay this I discover new moves I never even knew I could do, such as the one from two years ago where after doing a roll, if you time your attack just right, Link will do a forward stab popping out, which is great for closing the gap! I'm also glad Hidden Skills do get actual mileage the more you obtain them, instead of falling off the wayside as you progress, with the only exceptions being Mortal Draw (useful, but has very niche capabilities) and Jump Strike (not really that viable in heated encounters). Plus, as silly and meaningless as it is, I can't deny The Flourish Sheath is sick as fuck. Not to mention the music, I already think Zelda's track record with this subject is second to none, and TP props that claim up by containing great pieces like an Ennio Morricone homage, the fact that Hyrule Field's theme is a leitmotif for each boss fight advantage, and so many other examples to choose from, this is an easy contender for the best soundtrack in the series.

Other than those though... I can't say I quite share the same love as others do unfortunately. I've racked it around my brain as to why that is, and I believe I found the reason: I like these ideas and even executions more in a vacuum than in the overall scheme. Like, let's take a look at the dungeons. I've seen so many people proclaim TP has one of, if not the best dungeon sets in the series, and I'm sorry but I really don't see it. Yes, Snowpeak Ruins is a fantastic Sweet Home/Resident Evil homage and I wish this series would tackle it again. Yes, Goron Mines and Temple Of Time are linear dungeons that does a better job than most of Wind Waker's dungeon by a longshot. Yes, this version of the Hyrule Castle climb is perhaps the most daunting it's been, with a score becoming more and more ominous as you escalate higher and higher to face Ganondorf, yet I find that doesn't mean much when the rest of the dungeons are either merely good like with Forest Temple, Twilight Realm, and Arbiter's Ground, or are Lakebed Temple and City In The Sky which are two of the absolute worst in the entire series, or at the very least in the 3D line. Say what you will about WW's dungeons and their linearity, at the very least its far more consistent in the quality department, to the point the weakest dungeon there (Wind Temple) is still better than a portion of the dungeons here. Say what you will about Ocarina and Majora's Mask, those dive way deeper into the puzzle elements as well as delving into the environmental ambiance and aesthetics outclassing the similarly dressed ones found here a la Spirit Temple and Stone Tower Temple. Even Link's Awakening and Minish Cap, two handheld titles, had more enthralling and cleverly designed dungeons to pick apart here and there. I just don't see what the hubbub for this game's lineup is all about, sorry.

Tangentially connected to that, when I (re)played these games last year, I was doing 100% runs of all the entries mentioned here sans Skyward Sword, and of these, TP was easily the second-worst in this regard, just slightly better than Minish Cap's attempt. It isn't cause the world itself is "Worse Ocarina" like some often posit during discussion, cause I find this newfound expansion of the titular setting to be rather wonderful to poke around in with how many optional caverns there is to find, sometimes in more creative ways. It also boasts a number of NPC interacting with the world outside their established spots, like being able to see Agatha outside Castle Town in a flower bed, or conversing with the Gorons at Death Mountain and finding secrets amongst the rocky terrain, which again ties back into that secret find aspect being creative. The way it reinvents the "dual world" motif that's been around since Link TO The Past via the "Dusk"/Twilight Realm and "Dawn"/Real Realm is seriously great, providing ample opportunity to get the lay of the land first and see from the other perspective, and flipping back over once it's been restored from the harmful apparitions. From all this, there's a sense of kinship with each new person you come to meet, be they familiar faces or new ones. Sure, I have some qualms about Link - either in Human or Wolf form - not utilizing his kit as much as before, but I'm willing to overlook this to a fair degree cause the multiple races of each area's denizens are so charmingly esoteric and flat-out odd to witness in this lived-in world... but then I remember one of, if not the most common item you will find in this game, are Rupees, and suddenly that sense of illusion is shattered.

I'm assuming this was the team answering a criticism regarding the Tingle Tower pays WW had, cause it's the only way to explain why a majority of the chests in a dungeon, even by Zelda standards, are just the various pays of the currency. This was to such a degree TPHD had to tout a QoL update that, when you open a Rupee chest while your wallet is full, it automatically discards it since the original game placed it back into the chest, which outright fucked with the completion. TPHD, much like WWHD, also dabbled with replacing a chunk of the chests with a new reward, this time being about Miiverse Stamps... which is now fucking worthless since the service for it has been shut down for years. Add on top the Wolf Link Amiibo adding a new dungeon where the main reward is a damn Wallet upgrade, and this becomes a case much like SM64DS and the previously mentioned WWHD where instead of fixing issues, a Nintendo remake/remaster/whatever instead circumvents that and inadvertently "adds" to it, which snowballs into an even bigger problem. It's not like fun activities and quests aren't in this game, I quite like the Golden Bug Hunt, some activities like fishing and snowboarding are relaxing and enjoyable, and the redone Poe Souls questline is about as adequate as it was in OoT(3D), but like, if the core exploration is just being handed so many of the currency I can find elsewhere or a now effectively useless item, that just diminishes the reward factor. Much like before, I find that the other games simply did a better job in this department, even if they each have their own issue, something I even highlighted a fair bit in regard to WW.

The biggest thing that really drives this individual pickings than overall execution though, is the story. To reiterate, Twilight Princess is a story regarding the immense weight responsibility can have on not only a person, but the fate of a kingdom you inhabit. It does this by following the other route with this iteration of Link; if Hero Of Time was forcefully given the whole which robbed him of his free will and adolescence, and Toon Link was using his more as a way to explore the world he's content and enamored with, then this Link takes up the mantle solely cause he felt it was the right thing to do, especially since his humble village was the victim of the assaults the rampant Shadow Beasts. Each new area cleared is a step forward to righting the wrongs that the diabolic tyrant Ganondorf has heavily influenced within this game's plot, which is also why the treatment of Zant is ACTUALLY GOOD because this egocentric dork-a-doofus being harpooned into a demigod to be used as a pawn of Ganon's master plan just ties back into the whole theme (they also literally spell this out in the Twilight Realm, so). Yet, before that dungeon and after Arbiter's Ground, the game has you railroaded on a subplot about a group of resistance fighters that doesn't really contribute much of anything? Aside from Rusl the Ordon villager and Telma who was already an involved figure within the advancements of the plot, I genuinely forget these people and this whole thing even exist cause they don't... do any resisting. Even their inclusion in Hyrule Castle feels rather forced, like there was gonna be nothing else but then someone at the team was like "aw fuck we forgot to resolve this group" and hastily incorporated them a little under 3/4 of the way in. Plus, I dunno if this was the intention or not, but Zelda here feels very undercooked, not really doing much of anything and going on about Prophecies and Legends and all that jazz. An erroneous criticism this franchise tends to face is how they characterize Zelda as they start to experiment and grow larger in scale, since it only applies to TP, the Vaati games, and maybe BOTW but it's been a while since I played that so I'm not certain. I'm very down with Zelda here being a more inactive support than a reactive trooper, it's a fantastic juxtaposition of how OoT and WW characterize her and there's a semblance that's what they were aiming for here, but she doesn't have the depth to really stick the landing unfortunately. TP gets brought up as a victim of haphazard pacing, when really it's more that the game's script seemingly expunged some of the details to highlight the importance of these events and why they matter, cause the throughline of these events and how the dungeons are structured are justly spanned for each beat.

So... yea. I guess that's where I land with TP. It doesn't have the thematic richness of OoT and Link's Awakening, I much prefer the brood and downtrodden atmosphere of MM, and its sense of mysticism and adventure isn't quite to the grand epic WW can provide, but it's still really good overall, especially whenever the ball rolls onto the peaks, and sometimes, that's more than enough for a game to be good. As for which version, that's rather tough to say. Despite the shit I gave it in this review, there are some legitimate positive changes HD made to make the venture easier to swallow, such as speeding up most of the animation, cutting down the Tears Of Light objective to 12 pellets instead of 16, gyroscope functionality which is better for stuff like the Boomerang and Bow, makes Epona and swimming a little easier to control, has Ghost Lantern which makes the Poe sidequest even easier to do, it smartly envelops the GC and Wii version by having the former be the main mode and the latter's reflected world be the the Hero mode, and more. I also think the changes to graphics are more in-line with how OoT3D was handled, in that it majorly contains the artstyle during overhaul, even if some aspects became diluted in the transition. However, it is trapped on the Wii U, which means that system's eShop feature isn't gonna be viable for that much longer, and since it was amiibo-bundled, that means it got a price hike even if you're looking for just the game itself. There is the emulator Cemu of course, which is what I used when I replayed it, but the specs in order to run that properly are a bit more than you'd find with Dolphin where an early-2010 potato can be just fine for it. I'd say just pick whichever is more accessible to you, physical or emulation wise.