Going into Yoshi's Island I did not know what to expect. I thought this was going to be an Epstein Island type of thing, and we'd have to stop Yoshi after he's kidnapped Mario and brought him back to his island. This was...not the case. it was more of a North Sentinel Island type of situation. Which begs the question: Epstein Island VS North Sentinel Island. Who wins? I think we all know North Sentinel Island would win. Unless I was on Epstein Island. Which I wouldn't be. And have not been on. But for the sake of argument, lets say I was on Epstein Island when they went to war with North Sentinel Island. I would probably win. I've played "The Forest". So I know how to defeat the islanders pretty easily.

Anyways Yoshi's Island is very good and beautiful and funny and amazing. 10/10 Monkeys. Very nice monkeys, iconic even. I'm somewhat of a monkey fanatic. And I loved the monkeys in Yoshi's Island. This game will forever inspire me.

Can't believe I just wrote this review. This is a good ass fucking review. Upvote it NOW. This review was HELPFUL. I feel like it matters...

Long time Metroidvania fan, first time SOTN player. Yup, sure was the start of IGAvania's. It's kind of crazy to me to see all the stuff that he reuses all the way back at the start. And seeing all the SOTN callbacks in Bloodstained.

Great visuals, great vibes, great soundtrack. The voice acting and story is awesome as shit too, like that whole last talk with Dracula rules.

I was surprised there were subweapons, and even though I felt like they fell off at some point, they were pretty cool. Shield also was a nice surprise to me that I also didnt use, but neat.

My problems were too many sword weapons, enemies can be kind of fuckerish if all you have is a small horizontal swipe in front. Becomes very apparent in the second castle where they start having extremely annoying enemy encounters. I also don;t like the second castle too much cause every jump is just out of range so its just annoying to navigate. Some bosses are just extremely annoying to fight, especially the large ones because they usually don't have good platforms to jump on.


I'm not gonna say it;s my favourite cause I had plenty of gripes, but fuck its a good ass start.

Despair. Despair everywhere. Despair among us. No hope. Death. Desolation.

Well this is pretty much how it is going in DD's world. But does this dark theme (use dark reader to preserve your sight wink wink) also applies to gameplay? That's actually a good question.

I would have answered a straight forward "yes" if you had asked me this several weeks ago. But a friend of mine brought his Switch for the new year party (don't judge us) and made me play this. I was very pleasantly surprised by how "accessible" it was. I put "accessible" between quote marks because we must remember it is a rogue lite marketed as hardcore. That means it isn't accessible for 99% of videogame players. But it isn't as hardcore as I thought.

And basically that's why I liked it. It's actually cool. It takes his time to correctly explain what's important and then... The game vanishes behind its gameplay. Which is actually the best thing it could have ever do. And I'm very happy with it.

Gameplay is "aux petits oignons" as we say in french. Literally, "as sweet as onions". It's the infamous "everything matters" rule. The game's based on squads composed of 4 characters. The position of your squad members is utterly important : knights should be in front to tank and reach the enemy while mages must be backward to safely cast AOE spells. On top of this you add a little bit of randomness and a system of double health gauge (actual health & stress health) and you obtain a very addictive game loop. Of course, because XCOM exists, all the things you loot must be reinvested in your base to upgrade your buildings, which allows you to upgrade your characters, which allows you to beat greater challenges with greater rewards. And that's basically it.

I quit with no regret once the game became a little hard, just before it became "unfair" in my opinion (How are you supposed to have enough healing power in your team without a vestal?). I played... Holy moly 10 hours! I thought it was only 6h! If that's not the sign it's a good game, I don't know what it is!

It's a cheap game that supports an indie studio, go buy it and play it ;)

How do you possibly follow up the biggest adventure you’ve made thus far? Most companies would resort to trying to make something bigger; bigger map, more dungeons, elevating the formula. Not Nintendo though. They took a totally different approach and ended up making the weirdest, most creative sequel to the most critically acclaimed game of all time. When I say weird I don’t mean in a wacky way like Link’s Awakening, Majora’s Mask is more weird in a bizarre, freaky, and eerie way.

Majora’s Mask shines through its theming. It is for sure the most thematically mature game in the franchise. They go weird places in this game that you wouldn’t expect from Nintendo. The main premise is quite simple: you’re stuck in a 3-day time loop where you have to save the world from a world-ending crashing moon. I mean what makes that so special? Hyrule has always been under threat throughout the series. Well Hyrule is not Termina. It might look similar due to all the models being ripped from Ocarina of Time’s engine, but Termina carries itself differently than Hyrule does.

I talked about how Ocarina of Time is a very welcoming game that makes sure you’re fully equipped for the journey before embarking on it. Majora’s Mask is nothing like that. You start the game with your items and horse being stolen from you, falling through a hole, being cursed into becoming a Deku Scrub, and being terrorized by a dog in your first few minutes of the game. You look up at the sky and WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? The moon has a creepy face and is slowly hurling towards you. You then realize how the NPCs are aware of their impending doom and are dealing with it in their own different ways.

Everywhere you look in Majora’s Mask gives you an overwhelming sense of stress, dread and despair. From the UI constantly showing you a countdown to the end of the world to the brooding atmosphere accompanied by the unnerving music. The atmosphere is the main thing that sets this game apart from the rest of the series for me. Majora’s Mask is a moody, dark, and occasionally introspective game. Death is around every corner in Termina and it forces all the characters to reflect on what life means for them.

The main quest is simple but doesn’t shy away from its own emotional punches. Every region you go to has a major issue happening and has you discover a member of that tribe who didn’t die in peace. With your ocarina in hand, you play them one of the most powerful melodies in the series: The Song of Healing. As you help these inhabitants swiftly move on to the other side, they leave a mask behind with all of their sorrows. Which brings me to the main gimmick of the game: Masks. Termina definitely has a thing for masks, everybody has a mask for some reason. Some masks, like the ones acquired through the main story, transform you into the person who left that mask behind for you. Allowing you to play as a Goron, Zora and Deku Scrub for the only time in the series. Each with their own unique play styles and mechanics. Not all of the masks transform you however, some have unique quirks like making your run faster or invisible to enemies and some are purely cosmetic.

While there are only four dungeons, they are all great. All four of them are some of the best dungeons in the series to be honest and have such creative gimmicks and ideas. I’ll never forget the feeling of figuring out I had to flip the entire dungeon in Stone Tower to solve some of its puzzles. They did a fantastic job designing all of these. Especially with translating the difficulty progression that would normally span across 7-10 dungeons into 4. The first dungeon is pretty simple and good at easing you into the game but they get real tricky right after.

What I love so much about Majora’s Mask is that everything in its design is intentional and is there to drive the themes of the game home. While the map is significantly smaller than its predecessor, the compact world of Termina is a lot more deliberate in its design. Every corner of that map fulfills a specific, thought-out purpose in your journey. NPCs are sprinkled all throughout the map and my oh my are these some of the best NPCs I’ve encountered in any game. Each one of them either helps you, or gives you a meaningful side quest and they all feel like real people who have things to do and worry about. The happy-go-lucky postman that’s constantly running around town? Follow him around and you’ll see him cry in his bed after his shift due to the impending world’s end. Every part of the map and every NPC in the game is vital to Majora’s Mask’s revolutionary way of storytelling.

The side quests are one of the many integral ways Majora’s Mask approaches storytelling. Everyone in Termina is going to die and they know they’re going to die. With so much character given to the NPCs, you can’t help but feel bad for everyone. Death is looming around the corner for all of these people and they’re all in despair. Most of the side quests carry the general subtext of “I need to do this one thing so I can die in peace” and my god do they all carry such emotional narrative weight. From simple things like a farmer wanting to see his chicks grow up to be roosters to the shy inn keeper wanting to get married to her missing fiancé. All the side quests perfectly tug at your heartstrings as they give the people of Termina lives with hopes, dreams, and regrets. These side quests are home to my favorite moments of Majora’s Mask and are the main reason Termina is the most immersive setting in the series by far.

The way Majora’s Mask carries and presents itself is unlike any other game I’ve ever played. It can get really playful and witty and shift to some really depressing territory. The game never feels like too much though despite its heavy subject matter. There’s always a sense of hope you carry with you from helping Termina and its inhabitants. That’s what makes the main quest and the side quests so rewarding. You, the player, are directly responsible for making the game less stressful and less gloomy by helping as many people as you can. That is what I mean when I say every part of Majora’s Mask feels like it was created with intent. Everything just organically works into pushing the narrative and theme of the game without trying hard.

I really wasn’t planning on writing such a long review for Majora’s Mask but it’s really hard to talk about this game briefly. I always found Ocarina of Time to be the vastly superior game but playing these two back to back offered me great insight. Despite my emotional connection to Ocarina of Time, I feel like Majora’s Mask builds on its foundation in elevates on it in every way that matters to me. Bigger isn’t always better for me, I much prefer the approach the team took here into delivering such a heartfelt, meaningful, bold, and powerful game. Is it my absolute favorite Zelda game? It just might be. Majora’s Mask now sits at the top of my marathon ranking so far when pre-marathon it sat at fifth place under Ocarina of Time. I’m excited to see if favorites of mine like The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess manage to resonate with me more than Majora’s Mask did.

Ocarina of Time is a very special game to me. It’s the first Zelda game I ever played and the first single-player video game I ever owned. There’s not much to say about Ocarina of Time that hasn’t already been said in ways that would be more articulate than anything I could ever attempt. So I want to mostly talk about why Ocarina of Time is special to me personally and discuss my personal relationship with it.

I talked about Link’s Awakening’s Mabe Village giving me a “welcome home” feeling in my review of that game, the entirety of Ocarina of Time feels like that to me. I played through Ocarina of Time probably 7 times now while being at completely different places in my life and each time I find myself resonating with different parts of it. As a kid wanting to be a grown up, my favorite parts were when you’re playing as Adult Link and it felt like the entire world is dependent on you. Just like Link, it made me feel like I was still kid me but in an adult body and I was so heroic in it. I couldn’t wait to grow up and not be limited by my childish body, I couldn’t wait to be an adult that was a hero and not like other adults.

I remember finding the Adult world dungeons to be very difficult, I remember exactly what puzzles I had to look up the solutions to back then. I found myself growing into realizing how to solve those same puzzles in subsequent playthroughs. Ocarina of Time is filled with things like that for me, I have a memory attached to every corner of the map. I remember being 11 and hanging out at Lon Lon Ranch getting to know Malon. I remember being 15 when I managed to go through the Water Temple without a guide. I am now 23 and I still get freaked out jumping into the well of Kakariko Village.

Ocarina of Time wasn’t just a game I played multiple times throughout my life, it feels like my life revolved around Ocarina of Time. Saria, to me, is that childhood friend that I got distant with due to the circumstances of life. The same way she is for Link. I look back on that character and I just get a somber feeling wishing I spent more time with her while I had the chance, the same way I feel about good childhood friends of mine that I grew distant from. Kokiri Forest is the hometown I’ve moved out of and moved on from without looking back but still find myself nostalgic over how it held my hand and walked me through how to navigate the world. It was the perfect training ground for my journey not just in Ocarina of Time but with gaming in general.

Outside of what it means to me, let’s talk a bit more about Ocarina of Time. The game upped the ante for the series in every way. It had a huge world for the time which can be quite overwhelming, especially in a 3D space. Thankfully, the game is very linear and makes sure to hold your hand in every step of the way. Some people view this as a bad thing in retrospect but I really really don’t. Ocarina of Time is the first Zelda game that has an actual story happening throughout the entire game and that is thanks to its linearity. Constructing a good narrative requires sequencing, which you can’t do without linearity as we see in the new open-air Zelda games. I understand both sides have their crowds but I definitely belong in this one.

The transition of the series to 3D was done fantastically. At its core, Ocarina of Time takes the formula introduced in A Link to the Past and focuses on how to make that formula work in a 3D space. I’m especially impressed by how they made dungeons work in 3D. I won’t get into too much detail but this game truly is a technical feat especially for that time. To other franchises, the transition to 3D was very shaky and would take a couple of entries to be done right. How impressive is it that Ocarina of Time gets it right in its first attempt??

Ocarina of Time holds a great sentimental value in my heart. I always find myself coming back to it and I can never get sick of it. I’ve just finished it and I already can’t wait to go back and replay it again. This is one of the best games ever made and one of the most influential games ever made period. It was always my favorite game of all time and my favorite game in the Zelda series by a landslide.

However at the time of writing this review, I already finished Majora’s Mask as part of my marathon and in a shocking turn of events, I ended up ranking Majora’s Mask higher than Ocarina of Time. Was everything I know a lie? Is Ocarina of Time not my favorite Zelda game anymore? I don’t know. I never played Ocarina of Time so close to other Zelda games so maybe this marathon is going to provide much needed insight for me. This is exciting for me now because I’m curious what game ends up making it at the top after this marathon is over, but I am shocked how a game this special to me got dethroned by the entry right after. However, whether it ends up at number 1 or not, there’s no taking away the impact this game has had on my life and the gaming sphere as a whole.

This was one of the games I was most excited to revisit during this marathon as it’s the one I least remember. I have such fondness attached to The Wind Waker and always considered it to be one of my favorites despite not remembering it that well. Now that I replayed it, I can definitely see why I don't remember much of it.

My memory of The Wind Waker consisted of some story beats, the overall vibe of the game, sailing through the Great Sea, and the Wind Temple. Guess what? These are still the only things I remember even freshly after beating the game. This is not a dig at The Wind Waker in any way. I loved it and had a great time with it. After playing through the series, however, and especially playing the games In release order in my marathon now, some cracks definitely started to show.

I want to start with the most striking thing about The Wind Waker and the topic of most conversations surrounding it; the art style. The Wind Waker is so colorful and whimsical and they really picked the right art style for it. The game is just oozing with life and charm, all the characters are so stylized and expressive. The cel-shaded graphics also make The Wind Waker the most ageless game in the series.

Beyond just the art style, the overall presentation of The Wind Waker makes it stand out in every way beyond the other games. The game is a lot more cinematic than its predecessors, cutscenes are a lot more dynamic now, featuring more interesting camerawork all throughout. The soundtrack is phenomenal, the music can range from wacky to haunting all while sporting wonderful airy instrumentation. Highlights for me include: Title, Outset Island, Grandma, Great Sea, Dragon Roost Island, Forest Haven, Molgera, and the theme for a certain iconic Zelda location I won’t spoil.

There are some fantastic musical moments all throughout the game, little motifs come in and out all throughout the game providing great callbacks to the previous games. My favorite being the title theme from A Link to The Past subtly playing during one of the pivotal moments in the story. Another great use of sound design is the little musical notes that play with every slash you make during combat. Which really add a looney tunes kind of cartoony vibe to the game in a way I love. I’m surprised that concept has never returned in the series since then.

The story is one of the best in the series. I just love love love how the Great Sea serves as a giant backdrop to the story of the game. it’s my favorite contextualization of any setting in the series to be honest. There are some really great story and character moments. I do feel like, however, the story halts halfway through when you finally meet Princess Zelda. You get some major revelations and then there’s.. nothing until the end of the game. Which gets me to some of the cracks that started to show in this playthrough for me. It feels like there’s a huge chunk that’s missing from the game, thankfully it doesn’t harm the story in any way, its still a fully realized main plot but it just feels like there are some side plots that were planned that didn’t go anywhere.

Speaking of feeling like there’s a huge chunk missing from the game, I wanna talk about the dungeons of The Wind Waker. Now it’s no secret that there were two dungeons cut from the game because of time constraints and I honestly think it shows. Now Majora’s Mask only had 4 dungeons but the whole story was paced around those 4 dungeons and they made sure they were all great dungeons. I wish I can say the same about this game. The game only has 5 dungeons but it really feels like the story was building up for more, it just gets really shocking when you get to the big halfway point where the game opens up and there’s just.. 2 dungeons to do and the game just ends.

Let’s get to the dungeons, hoo boy. They are not bad but they don’t do anything remarkable and are very simple to get through. They do enough to feel like Zelda dungeons but they’re the bare minimum. Which feels like a letdown coming after Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask and the Oracle games which had fantastic dungeons with really cool and challenging puzzles. All the dungeons here are a breeze to get through which I don’t hate but I never associate Zelda dungeons with being laid-back experiences. The Wind Temple is the only dungeon in the game that exudes the labyrinthian feeling of classic Zelda dungeons which is why it’s the only one I leave the game remembering. I’m writing this review the day after beating it and I can’t tell you anything about any of the other dungeons in the game. Again, nothing inherently bad about them, just very unmemorable.

The Wind Waker has a very strong and distinct identity among its contemporaries in the series and will always be a standout in the vast sea of entries in the franchise. There are just so many things that are unique to The Wind Waker and so much of it comes from the themes of the game that I never truly grasped before this playthrough.

The Wind Waker is all about letting go of the old and forging a new identity which can be seen in most aspects of the game. The presentation completely sets it apart from the rest of the series, Link has a sister now, Hyrule is a thing of the past that everyone has moved on from, Link isn’t some legendary hero chosen by the gods but just a very brave kid who wants to save his sister and ends up proving himself as a hero in his own regard. All of it hits home in the closing moments of the game where the characters realize they need to move on from trying to fulfill old standards and decide to forge their own paths. In some ways, it feels like the Zelda team always wanted to go into this step of breathing a new identity to the series and this seemed like it was the beginning of it. If I was playing this game in 2002 I would’ve definitely left with “is this their way of rebooting the series?” as my main takeaway. Little did I know I’d be leaving another entry of the franchise with that takeaway in 2017.

Despite all of its shortcomings, The Wind Waker has a lot of heart and passion put into it. It sets itself in its own little island away from most of the other games in the series in my eyes. Keep in mind that Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks are the only games I’ve never played in the series as of now. I wonder if those two would be in that same island I put The Wind Waker in. I think The Wind Waker excels in so many things and there’s a reason why it’s one of the most relevant games in the series. In some ways though, it will kind of always feel like it’s not a full experience and is kind of a watered down Zelda game to me, especially in its dungeons, and for that I can’t rank it higher than some of my favorites.

Twilight Princess is exactly the type of game you’d expect to follow up Ocarina of Time. The 6 games that released post Majora’s Mask featured a significant shift in the overall vibe of the series. Not a bad one per se but as someone that holds the vibes of the Ocarina of Time-Majora’s Mask duology near and dear to their heart, it wasn’t hard to notice that the series was trying to forge a new identity for itself. One that strays away from the occasionally creepy and dark vibes of Ocarina-Majora and leans towards a more light-hearted and cartoonish vibe like in The Wind Waker and The Minish Cap.

While I still I really like those games, I couldn’t help but feel like an ingredient of the Zelda recipe was missing from them. All the games pre-Majora’s Mask felt like they had a good balance of feel-good light-heartedness and serious, more mature undertones while the post-Majora’s Mask games seemed to lean more towards the prior. I really have no issues with this as I thoroughly enjoyed them but I can’t deny that they felt different.

This, of course, caused a lot of discourse within the fandom. Ocarina of Time was a cultural phenomenon widely regarded as a pioneer of not only 3D games but gaming as a medium. This departure in identity over the 8 following years cast a fair share of doubt on the series ever reaching the heights of Ocarina of Time again. The Wind Waker was ruthlessly scrutinized, The Minish Cap barely sold, and Four Swords Adventures came and went with no noise. Forcing Nintendo to be like “You want another Ocarina of Time? Fine, we’ll make one.”

Twilight Princess isn’t just a modern version of Ocarina of Time like some people like to say, it is a full blown spiritual successor. Everything from the art style, to the music, to the world and dungeon design feels like a proper evolution of Ocarina of Time. It just feels like the obvious direction they would’ve went with with the series. Twilight Princess relies on the foundations of Ocarina of Time while forging its own unique identity.

The game goes for a grounded and more mature vibe overall, completely contrasting The Wind Waker. I love The Wind Waker’s vibe a lot but playing it after what came before brings a feeling of unfamiliarity, I know most of us had to readjust ourselves for The Wind Waker in the beginning of it and said “oh okay this is different!” That readjustment wasn’t as present in Twilight Princess. As soon as you boot the game up you get an overwhelming “oh we are so back!” feeling as it exudes the same aura as the pre-Wind Waker games. That familiarity to me is very comforting which is why I find myself gravitating towards Twilight Princess more, even though I think The Wind Waker is the much bolder and more adventurous game.

Twilight Princess is often criticized for its linearity. While it sports a big map, it’s not really an open-world experience like The Wind Waker’s. Frankly, I don’t really care about that. A lot of people say that exploration is a huge standard of the Zelda series and it is often used as a tool to gauge how good some of these games are. I don’t really agree with that, Zelda isn’t a series that thrives on openness and exploration for me. Instead I think Zelda thrives on the sense of discovery more. You’re discovering new areas, overworld secrets, dungeons, towns, etc. Linearity doesn’t stop that sense of discovery, it just guides it. I can see how that can be a problem if you’re looking for a sense of unguided discovery, but that’s not what I play these games for. I’ll get into what I do play these games for later in the review. But for now I just really want to establish how I don’t have any issue with the linearity of Twilight Princess. I think it’s the reason why the game works, the linearity allows for a tighter and more planned out narrative-driven hero’s journey take place.

The overall story of Twilight Princess is alright. It’s nothing really revolutionary, I prefer the story of The Wind Waker as an overall narrative, but Twilight Princess shines through its fantastic story moments. It’s very cinematic in the sense that the scenes feel like they were directed like they’re for a movie. There’s a lot of framing techniques, musical cues, and moody lighting used. Characters are very grounded with their movements and express themselves like normal humans do in the real world. Scenes like the attack in Kakariko, the vision in Lanayru, Midna’s lament, and Illia’s memory are wonderfully directed and are some of my favorite scenes in the series. If Twilight Princess was a movie it would definitely be a big blockbuster. It’s just so grand and epic in every way with massive set pieces sprinkled throughout.

My first criticism about Twilight Princess is the pacing of the first half of the game. I know people usually complain about the opening hours of the game but I really have no problem with the opening. I feel like it’s a great tone-setter and shows you what normal life for Link look’s like before the main inciting incident happens. It’s a literary tool that is used in most movies, books, and other forms of narratives we see today. My issue actually starts after the inciting incident happens. The the world is now engulfed in twilight and every time you go to a new area you have to first go through the twilight realm version of that area and free it. This is the worst thing in the game for me and not because of the Tears of Light quest.

A lot of the previous Zelda games featured a dual-world mechanic with one being the normal world and the other being a distorted version of that world. Seeing the normal versions of those areas first and then seeing how the distortion makes them look is cool, but doing that order in reverse doesn’t work for me for several reasons. First, it's about the first impression you get of the new areas, the Twilight realm feels the same in every region of Hyrule, so having the excitement of going to a new location be met with an oppressive atmosphere that is shared by every other area in the game, even when that atmosphere is done masterfully, just doesn’t give a good first impression to any area in Hyrule. It doesn’t help that the most notable change that happens after freeing these areas from the twilight realm is that they’re now brighter and have their own musical theme. The areas just feel the same but with a different filter on now so it doesn’t feel that satisfying to free them.

My other big complaint about these sections is how they bring some of the narrative conflicts to a halt and ruin some story moments that would have otherwise been much better done. This comes with the fact that in the twilight realm, you can see what’s happening in the real world but you can’t really interact with anything from it. A big example is the kidnapped kids from Ordon Village. When you see them get kidnapped you naturally worry about where they’ve been taken and want to save them. What is the next thing the game does with that sub plot? Have you stumble on them while you’re in the twilight realm, finding out that they are safe with adults while not being able to interact with them until you finish releasing the area from the twilight. I don’t like these sections at all. I will say though that the sound design in the twilight realm is fantastic. As it is with the rest of the game.

What I love about Twilight Princess is that it’s very atmospheric and that comes in large part from the music. The music is spacious, triumphant, and nostalgic, even if you’re hearing these tracks for the first time. There are so many highlights including: Title Theme, Ordon Village, Midna’s theme, Twilight, Meeting Zelda, Light Spirit’s Elegy, Faron Woods, Forest Temple, Hyrule Field, Kakariko Village, King Bulblin Battle, Queen Rutela’s Theme, Lake Hylia, Zant’s Theme, Midna’s Lament, Sacred Grove, Arbiter’s Grounds, Snowpeak, Hidden Village, City in the Sky, and Final Battle. I didn’t realize how many favorites I had until I started listing them out. This might be one of my favorite soundtracks in the series. The only criticism I have with it is that I wish it wasn’t MIDI. These melodies are mesmerizing and deserve a lot better. I hope if the game gets another rerelease, they remake the soundtrack to be orchestral.

An area where Twilight Princess shines for me is through its characters. Not counting Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess takes a massive leap in terms of character writing. The people of this world feel real with real struggles, and complex motivations. Link himself is one of my favorite incarnations, he is just so expressive and responsive to what’s happening around him. He shows a wide range of emotions throughout the game: he gets passionately angry sometimes, remorseful, cheery, relieved, etc. He’s not as stoic and serious as all the promotional art of the game depict him. He’s just a simple farm guy with a big heart and wants to help out however he can and the game sells that through his characterization. He also works especially well with Midna, who is probably my favorite character in the franchise.

Midna’s the first character in the series that gets a proper arc. Midna is mischievous, sassy, charismatic, and just wants to use Link for her own selfish gains but as the game goes on, she grows a sense of admiration for Link and the sense of camaraderie that builds up between the two really carries the game. They are a great dynamic duo that really give the game its own sense of identity. Midna actually in many ways feels like the protagonist of the game with Link being the deuteragonist. She is the driving force behind the narrative, the stakes are much higher for her than they are for any other character, and she’s the one that has personal beef with main antagonist. This is Midna’s game and Link is just a vessel for her story to be told. The closest thing we got to a character this dynamic before was Tetra in the Wind Waker but the way she was handled in the back-half of that game kinda fizzled her out for me. God, I love Midna. Most of the emotional punches of the game for me come from her. There’s obviously the big Midna’s Lament sequence but that doesn’t come close to her agency and involvement during the final section of the game. All for it to lead to one of the most beautiful endings of the series which wouldn’t have hit at all if her character didn’t work.

Twilight Princess also has other characters that are really compelling! Zant and Colin come to mind as other stand out characters. Some characters do leave some to be desired though. Illia’s treatment is just weird to me, she’s Link’s childhood friend/potential love interest. I’m gonna go over minor spoilers Illia as a character so feel free to skip this paragraph if you haven’t played the game. I just don’t understand what they were even going for with Illia, she’s introduced in the beginning as someone that Link really cares about, then gets kidnapped and disappears for a while. At that point she’s used as a main motivator for Link to go through his journey. You don’t find her with the rest of the kidnapped kids, so you’d think they’re delaying that moment to do something interesting with her. Once you do end up finding her you find out she has amnesia? Interesting choice but nothing is done with that plot line at all. She just disappears for the rest of the game until close to the end where you help her get her memory back in a wonderful scene.. only for her to just stand there doing nothing for the remainder of the game. Just a very weird way to handle the character which is why she never worked for me.

Other characters that kind of fall short for me are Zelda and Ganondorf. Their designs do all of the heavy lifting for their characters, these two never looked this good before (or since to be honest). But other than that, they’re a bunch of nothing. Zelda gets a total of 3 minutes of screen time in the whole game and is only challenged by Ganondorf’s 3.5 minutes. Did these two really need to be in this game? Zelda and Ganondorf’s inclusion just feels like it happens out of necessity to the series traditions. Part of me wishes for a version of Twilight Princess that fully skips on including these two and instead makes Midna and Zant the Triforce wielders of the game. You could even change their names to Zelda and Ganondorf to offer a cute twist of expectations having the incarnations of those two be from the same tribe this time. I know the manga adaptation gives Zelda and Ganondorf some cool stuff so all I can hope for is for that to be added if we ever get a proper remake on the same level as Final Fantasy VII Remake. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening so I guess I have to live on with these incarnations that feel like nothing.

My favorite thing about Twilight Princess and what I think sets it apart from the rest of the series is its dungeons. This is the best dungeon lineup in any 3D Zelda game. Every single dungeon in the game ranges from great to fantastic. Forest Temple, Lakebed Temple, Arbiter’s Grounds, Snowpeak Ruins, City in the Sky, and Palace of Twilight are among my favorite dungeons in the entire series. Each dungeon has a visually and sonically distinct atmosphere that sets it apart from the others, some dungeons are spacious vistas of nature like the forest temple, some are ancient locations with cultural impact like the Arbiter’s Grounds and City in the Sky, and then there’s Snowpeak Ruins which is a fancy and sprawling mansion. I also love them all from a game design perspective, they serve a great balance of the simplicity of The Wind Waker’s dungeons and the labyrinthine design of Ocarina of Time’s dungeons. To me, these serve as the perfect level of challenge where they’re designed well enough for players to be able to figure out how the puzzles work without taking mental leaps to do so. They really are a highlight and the most fun part of the game for me, everytime I finish from a dungeon, I’d be so excited to get to the next one. Contrasting the sense of dread I get from some of the dungeons in some other Zelda games.

All of these dungeons are capped off with boss fights that I can’t describe in any word other than epic. Mechanically, they all function like regular Zelda bosses where you have to use the item you acquired in the dungeon to defeat them, but in every other way, these bosses are leagues above everything that came before. The sense of scale has been upped significantly, these bosses are big and they do a great job of making you feel like the most badass guy in Hyrule. I talked earlier about how Twilight Princess feels like a blockbuster movie with its set pieces, these bosses are what come to mind. Something really great is that each boss has their own distinct theme this time. Actually there are some really cool musical moments that happen with the bosses, mainly the triumphant tune that comes in as you get the upper hand on these bosses just fills you with so much adrenaline. Highlights for me are: Morpheel, Stallord, Blizzeta, Argarok, Zant, and of course Ganondorf.

Everything in Twilight Princess culminates in the climactic final part. Arguably the best final section of any Zelda game (only to be contested recently by Tears of the Kingdom). Only to be topped off by the best final boss fight of the series thus far, again only to be contested by Tears of the Kingdom. Ganondorf might only have 3.5 minutes of screen time but he makes them count! Fantastic final boss in every way and a fantastic ending to go along with it. I will never forget the first time I finished this game and how much I was in awe over this ending sequence. Top 3 favorite endings in the series by far.

Twilight Princess is not a perfect Zelda game but it sure comes close. It has every element that I look for in a Zelda game. I said earlier in the review that I will get into what I look for when I play Zelda games. What’s most important in a Zelda game for me is atmosphere, story, characters, music, dungeons, and bosses. Moving forward, I will be focusing on these 6 elements with each Zelda game I review as these categories are what’s most important to me. Twilight Princess excels in all of these categories which solidifies it as an S-Tier game for me and one of my favorite games in the series. I freaking love this game and I’m obsessed with it. I wasn’t planning on writing this much but I really love Twilight Princess so much that I just can’t stop talking about it.