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Twilight Princess. There’s something in that name. Indeed, a vague subtitle may not be anything new to the Zelda series, but the hook of the latest in the canon is less apparent than others in recent memory. Previous examples of music makers and masks have given way to downright obscurity in this latest offering, piquing curiosity around what is undoubtedly to be the GameCube’s parting gift.
That all-important hook, however, was nowhere to be seen in our first hands-on with the game, though we did witness what is to be one of the main themes. Interaction with animals would appear to be at the very least a core puzzle component, while Link’s new status as a cowboy should see the organic ethos as prevalent throughout the game.
The demo comes in two flavours: Outside and Inside. Sat playing Zelda indoors on one of the hottest days of the year, we choose the game’s Outside area first. Perhaps to torture ourselves, who knows. Within seconds, however, we’re pleased with our decision. Deprived of sunlight, the visual impact of Link’s new home, Toaru Village, is rendered even more profound. Twilight Princess is, in a word, beautiful.
Characters are most obviously impressive; detailed, expressive and realistic in the same manga-esque manner adopted by the series’ first 3D outings. Eyes wide and face filled with emotion, Link himself (dressed in village gear, not his traditional green) holds more charm in subtle details than most videogame protagonists, while the environment’s rich textures and beautiful vistas increase the visual flair. This, at last, is the aesthetic progression fans have longed for.
Toaru Village
Beginning in a fenced-off field, our fist task is to herd goat-like cattle into a nearby barn. As advised by what we take to be the village mayor, we pick up some grass from a nearby outgrowing clump and, with the familiar context-sensitive action prompt on screen, press the A button to blow down the grass like a wispy green flute. This triggers the first bout of nostalgia that ties this Zelda to its series heritage, and to the N64 titles its visual style so obviously reveres: Epona’s Theme, whistling carefree through the breeze.
Riding Epona proves an equally familiar feeling. Steering with the analogue stick, the A-button once again momentarily accelerates, useful in herding our quarry to its goal but also in angering the beasts with too much aggression. On several occasions one turns red – Ocarina of Time chicken revenge squad style – and lunges at Link, sending us sprawling from our mount. Finally, we shepherd the last cow-goat (Gow? Coat?) in to the stable and then we’re challenged to jump the perimeter fence on Epona, obviously not a problem for steely Zelda stalwarts.
After this, we are treated to a cutscene for our troubles: the mayor’s daughter Llia, it seems, is none too happy about Epona’s fence-jumping antics, or Link’s impending journey to represent Toaru Village at the forthcoming Hyrule Summit. Link and the mayor share a comical stereo-rolleyes before one of the cattle suddenly bolts from the stable. Required to position Link in front of the goat and press A to stop it, we instead miss it and are trampled. Some cowboy we are.
Toaru Village at large now lies before us, waiting to be explored, replete with familiar character-filled Zelda side-quests. First, we answer the plea of a mother missing her baby, jumping in a canoe to paddle down the nearby stream in pursuit of a floating cradle. The water’s surface shimmers and sways, light refracting a glittering silvery blue-grey as we splash our way to the end of the pool. Finally catching up to the infant, we raise it from the water and traverse the grassy humps and wooden huts of the village before returning it to its mother.
In another part of the village, a cutscene shows a man throwing rocks at a beehive, only to be chased by bees. Plucking another outcrop of grass we blow with A to trigger another cutscene; the camera pans out to reveal a hawk arcing its way from air to arm, where Link can launch the bird like a projectile. Doing so in the direction of the beehive topples it to the ground, revealing some nice shiny rupees and triggering the all-familiar solved puzzle sound clip – not to mention a disgruntled look on the face of the rock-tossing villager, who insists the rupees should be his. All in all it’s a puzzle largely irrelevant, but that perfectly demonstrates the level of animal interaction new to Twilight Princess.
We continue exploring – from climbing a tree to the highest point of the village and taking in the breathtaking view, to roaming through the village in search of stray rupees. Eventually, we make our way to the next area, where some kids are bullying a small boy. Seeing Link, their attention turns as they implore him to bash the hell out of a scarecrow with a wooden stick. Deeply disturbed by one small girl’s over-excited shrieks of delight at every hit, we quickly make for a nearby hut where a downstairs room is off-limits until we buy a lantern. A quick trip back to the village shop with our collected rupees soon fixes that, and we’re soon walking about in an underground cellar, lit by a naked flame that bounces majestically across the walls, shaping shadows with every sway.
The next area is the last playable one of the Toaru Village sequence, and involves Link following the bullied boy from earlier on. Initially in a dense darkened forest area, Link is shown a secret entrance to a pool of water more than reminiscent of the Fairy Fountains from Ocarina of Time. Here he finds Llia nursing Epona’s wounds and the two have time for a brief dialogue before all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, a warrior on a wild boar crashes through the oasis gate, shooting Llia with an arrow, attacking Link and rendering him unconscious. We see the boy and Llia being taken by the rider, who opens a dark portal with a blow of what, in Zelda logic, can only be a mystical horn, and soon after waking Link can do nothing but follow – a mutated hand reaching from the portal and pulling our startled hero into the blackness beyond.
Horseback Battle
The next sequence sees us jump some way forward in the game’s narrative and in chase of the marauding rider from the earlier cutscene. Now in familiar green garb and with a sword and shield, Link must steer Epona across a vast grassy plain in pursuit of the demon that has the kidnapped boy proudly tied to a spear on his stead. Be sure to check out our exclusive (cammed) footage of this exciting section.
Of course, there’s always a catch, and here it comes in the form of the marauder’s henchmen, chasing Link atop their own wild boar and generally making the life of a hero anything but easy. The temporary speed burst afforded to Link on Epona also makes things difficult, the lash icons representing each burst taking a good five to ten seconds to renew, and easily double that if all are greedily used up.
The objective of this boss battle, however, despite these catches, is still very straightforward: hit the chieftain enough times and nothing else will matter. Endeavouring to do this and ignoring his henchmen we race after our prey and, after a long protracted horseback battle over Hyrule’s undulating planes, finally topple him from his seat, leaving him hanging limply from his mount.
This isn’t the end of it though – far from it, in fact. The boar carrying the chief rider bolts through a stone archway and onto a long, open and very, very high-up stone bridge. The elongated cutscene sees Link follow and each rider take their place at opposite ends of the runway. With the archway boarded up with flaming wooden planks, there’s no way out except to win a perilous game of chicken.
Steadying our nerves we advance, accelerate, and as we are about to meet in the middle, at the last second we veer to the side and thump A in a bid to knock the villain from his ride. Unfortunately we’re a little slow the first time and see Link sprawling off the bridge for our troubles. Second go, however, and we stand victorious, a swift slash of Link’s sword sending the chief marauder plummeting to his doom. The boar trots harmlessly by, the boy safe. We’re left with a nice little cutscene of Link on Epona, reared up on her hind legs and that warm fuzzy feeling that we’ve done the right thing. Altogether now: “ahh”.
Forest Temple
The first of the Indoor sections of the demo, the Forest Temple gave the biggest indication yet of how the dungeons – traditionally the core of the Zelda experience – will function in Twilight Princess. And it will probably come as no surprise to fans that any true innovation has been stifled in favour of refinement of familiar puzzle forms.
We begin by fighting and killing two Lizalfos warriors, Wind Waker’s L-Targeting once again back in effect and now working with an added finishing move that sees Link plunge his sword into downed foes.
The next room of note is where the dungeon begins proper. Acting as a hub, there is a treasure chest in the middle on a raised platform, with a door behind it. This middle platform has overhead rope going to platforms in the walls to the left and right of it. Each houses doors but are too far away for us to reach, and the rope too high up to grab.
We first dispatch two huge spider demons before opening the chest – that ever nostalgic puzzle solved tune playing in the background – to reveal the Gale Boomerang. Initially a little thrown, we soon remember Zelda puzzle discourse: a room bearing a new weapon will almost always house the first of the game’s puzzles based around it. Looking above the door, we see a rotor and assigning the boomerang to Y, target and throw repeatedly until the door’s barring grill lifts open.
In the next room we see a cutscene. Across a large rope bridge crosses a small monkey. On the far side appears a hairy white baboon and cuts the bridge – the monkey scampering back to Link’s side for safety, the baboon taunting us by manically tapping its behind before exiting. Amused, we exit and immediately see the game’s intrinsic puzzle hook: the monkey has followed us, and now hangs itself from the overhead rope on the right side of the room like a trapeze artist, affording Link access to that side of the dungeon.
The rest of the dungeon proceeds to be about freeing further monkeys. The first puzzle involves a monkey trapped in a wooden cage atop a stone pillar. Our free monkey chum shows us what to do by rolling into the pillar, and when the much larger Link copies him repeatedly, the cage falls and breaks and his primate pal is free.
The two monkeys now give us access to the left side of the temple. One jumps onto the rope overhead, the other swings from him and then lands further along the rope. Running off the edge towards them then sees Link auto-jump into the waiting arms of the first monkey and be thrown along in sequence.
The left side of the temple is much bigger, and sees us free two more monkeys. One puzzle here has us fighting a giant Deku plant, hitting smaller bomb plants and throwing them into its mouth until it finally dies, revealing a key to free one of our caged monkey friends. Another room has a tiled floor with items hidden beneath each tile. We use the Gale Boomerang to lift the tiles until we find another dungeon key, and then solve the simple puzzle of raising four platforms by standing on certain floor buttons. This allows us access to the final imprisoned primate.
With four monkeys in tow, we finally have a way to get across the large rope bridge which had been cut by the baboon earlier on. Using the hand-over-hand technique our little friends pass each other, and then Link, along the rope until we stand at the other side where a mini boss encounter with the baboon awaits.
The baboon stands atop a central pillar of a stone circle of pillars and bounces between them. Link must use the same technique as he did in freeing the first monkey, all the while avoiding the baboon’s projectiles and trying to knock the baboon from his perch. After a minute of getting adjusted, we have our first success: rolling into the pillar the baboon is on to topple him and leave him exposed for sword slashes. Eventually we are victorious; the baboon stands up dazed, a black parasite rolling from his crown and fizzling out in the ground. Without its possessor the ape bounds freely from a nearby skylight and the demo ends.
Forest Temple Boss
As with the Outdoor section, the Indoor area has a boss – and what a boss it is. As impressive in size as the horseback battle was in distance and scale, the Forest Temple boss is a fittingly inspiring conclusion to an already exceptional demo.
Located in a muddy bog in the heart of the dungeon, the boss’ twin tentacles with snapping heads sit totally unreachable to Link, who must use the Gale Boomerang to get nearby bombs into the monster’s two mouths. We do this by using the boomerang’s new dual lock-on, the first raising the bomb into the air, the second directing it towards the boss. Avoiding the lunging attacks, we eventually prevail, only for the boss’ second form to emerge, a gigantic central head surfacing between the two tentacles.
Luckily, our previously rescued baboon buddy is also on hand, swinging Tarzan-style from a vine in front of the boss and carrying a bomb of his own, we again use the Gale Boomerang to send the explosion straight to the creature’s eye. Toppling it, we finally get our chance to sword slash to our heart’s content, damaging the creature severely before it retreats back to the bog. Two more of these instances and it oozes back into the bog from whence it came, shrivels up and dies. Damn that feels good.
Overall, what we gleaned from the Indoor section was more telling than the Outdoor one. The new multiple lock-on of the Gale Boomerang will surely allow for more complex puzzle mechanics throughout the game, while the key theme of animal interaction was clearly represented by the Link-monkey puzzle dynamic. Not only that but the area looked incredible – wonderful particle effects, rich wooden and floral textures, dynamic lighting and silky smooth animation- and sounded as good as any Zelda yet.
In conclusion, Twilight Princess is shaping up to meet the hype, and then possibly go beyond. The visual flair makes the game seem at times very Lord of The Rings (the films, not the games) and that Tolkien-Jackson influence is very apparent in the title’s scale, scenes and cinematic ambition. Gameplay is typical Zelda fare, which is no bad thing, especially when the game looks this good and runs so smoothly. Control is as tight as a Kokiri’s tunic, and sound, from the little we heard at a busy press event, never less than fittingly epic.
Unfortunately, we are still left to guess at how the core dynamic – the promised transformation of Link to Werewolf – will integrate into the game. Yet even at this early stage it seems that Twilight princess could prove to be one of the best in the series, and certainly one of the finest titles on GameCube : a promisingly majestic adventure before the final curtain falls.
