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Link, now a wolf, wakes up in a cell. The lighting is weird, and he’s manacled by the leg to the floor. Why is he a wolf, or manacled to the floor? We just don’t know, but we do know that last time, instead of the forest we’re used to, we found some sort of barrier leading into a shadowy version of the area where monsters dragged us into. We also have to find Ilia and Colin, who also were attacked.
But how to do that? We uh, can’t go very far. Not to worry, though—someone is here to help us.
[picture of Midna]
This little imp-like girl with the weird helm arrives, and wastes no time mocking Link’s wary growling.
That reads very much like a threat, although what she’s actually saying is that she won’t help us if we don’t behave. Either way, this is not a good way to start off our new character.
Fuck Off, Midna: 01
Link, apprehensive but wanting help, ceases his growling.
Well, she saw us transform into a wolf back there, so I guess it’s no surprise that she’d know we’re a human and not a real animal. Doesn’t mean she had to be a bitch about it. Oh, yes, she continues mocking poor Link about not being a human anymore, but a beast.
Fuck Off, Midna: 02
This goth chick promptly puts her hands together, a spark of energy forming between them...and blasts the chain holding us to the floor, setting us free. Or, as free as we can get inside a cell. She promptly phases through the bars, not being nearly so encumbered, and says that if we can get free on our own, she’ll fill us in on where exactly we are…maybe.
This, if you couldn’t tell by the points, is Midna.
We’re handed control, and we notice our Y button has the “Dig” command on it. It doesn’t do anything except make Link paw haplessly at the ground, so we must need to find the right spot to use it in. We charge at a crate to destroy it, and the indentation in the ground underneath is all the hint we need. We get to work digging, and end up safely on the other side of the bars.
Midna leaps down out of nowhere onto our backs, riding us as if we were a horse. How very goddamn rude. You can float through the air bitch, nevermind legs, get off me. She claims that she likes us, so she’ll help us out of here, but while tugging on our ears says that in exchange, we have to do exactly as she says. Not as though we’ve got much choice in the matter, huh?
“If you need anything from me, just press Z to give me a sign!”
[sharp look]
Hang on a minute. Z?
Remember, this is coming off the heels of Wind Waker in 2003. Thus far, all 3D Zelda games prior have given us three assigned buttons to work with (C-directions West, South, and East for N64 titles, and Y, X, and Z for their Gamecube ports and Wind Waker). We are now limited to two, and I really can’t understand why. Both N64 and Gamecube titles gave you a partner/hint system much like Midna here, with Navi, Tatl, and Tetra filling the space, but all could be used contextually, without sacrificing a button (Navi and Tatl were accessible with C North, while Tetra could be spoken to with A). This is also one game in which the Wii edition is superior, because it doesn’t have this problem—but this problem didn’t need to be present to begin with. Two points.
Bad Game Design: 03
Of course, although we can ask at any time, we’re not exactly going to need Midna’s help. This little dungeon navigation sequence isn’t hard. Once we get into the next cell, Midna’s button blinks and we get a prompt, and her ponytail comes up and forms an arm. This is her overinflated way of saying we need to grab the chain dangling from the ceiling. We target it and press A to jump up and bite it, hanging from it by our teeth. Our weight pulls it down and opens the door.
I have to ask who leaves a clearly-visible, easily-reachable method of leaving a cell inside said cell.
Ill Logic: 01
We travel out through the tunnel, ending up in some sewers. At the end of the tunnel is a floating, glowing green flame. Midna directs our attention to this ‘spirit’, and tells us to use our senses, which upon doing so reveals it to be a human soldier, frightened and wondering what’s going on. She advises us, who is invisible to them, to listen in on what they have to say. This is apparently what happens to humans in this world...so what does that make us?
We find another dangling chain nearby, but it only opens up a short dead-end tunnel in which a small, frog-like monster lurks. The same goes for another chain, which opens a tunnel with a breakable crate inside. In the sewer beyond, there’s a field of spikes that’ll hurt us if we walk on them, and a drainage wall. Hmm…
Two more chains are in this sewer. One opens up a tunnel, but the other lifts the drainage wall, filling the place with water, so we can now swim over the spikes safely. Beyond the spikes is another spirit, who is terrified of the small froggy monsters. At the end of the sewers, Midna leaves us and floats intangibly though another set of bars, beckoning us. She says we’ll have to help ourselves ‘for a change’.
Hold off on the point, hold off on the point…
More frog monsters, and more chains, and we quickly find the one that raises another drainage wall, allowing all the water to flow out. This allows us to return to the barred portal and shimmy our wolfy butt through a tiny tunnel that was hidden under the water before. It leads to a small dug-out cave, and turning on our senses to listen in to the soldier nearby also reveals sparkling black patches in the ground, which are places that we can dig. We return to Midna nearby. We come out into a huge circular tower. Chunks of the spiral stairway ringing the wall are missing, but no matter, we can make those leaps, right?
Well, apparently not. When we land, the stone crumbles underneath us. When we hit the ground, Midna raises her hands up in exasperation and squints, asking us what we’re doing. We return to the gap in the stairwell, and get hit with another Z prompt.
I beg your fucking pardon?!
Yeah, this game is really doing that. Listen, we haven’t even seen the full range of Midna’s abilities yet—but so far, it includes floating through the air unencumbered, becoming intangible, and using bolts of magic to break such things as iron chains. But this isn’t something that requires Midna’s supernatural abilities to accomplish—we’re just leaping from ledge to ledge. The game (through her) just straight-up told us we’re too dumb to do even such simple things inside our own range of abilities ourselves and thus we need Midna’s help. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the first of many points:
Just Tagging Along: 01
That’s what we call shilling. Or, in Sue terms, we call it ‘turning the main character into an idiot to let the Sue shine’. That’s going to get a point every time we get one of these leaping prompts, by the way, which is going to be often.
So we L-target this bitch and do our fancy leaps, for we are simpletons who cannot even control our own paws without her gracious help. We encounter another two Z-jump spots, and walk a tightrope.
Just Tagging Along: 03
We reach the top of the tower, where there’s finally some floor to stand on, and are harassed by monster bats. Still not having opposable thumbs, we can’t get through the door, and thus need to do another Z-jump to get through a window above it.
Just Tagging Along: 04
She teases us about where we are, and says that we’ll soon find out. Once out the window, we come across high rooftops and ramparts, atop a seeming castle. The sky is covered in the dark world’s odd aura, and rain pours down while weird digital-like flecks of darkness move upward.
“Isn’t the black cloud of twilight looking beautiful today?”
So, we’re in Hyrule, but a dark world version of it. Yeah, that’s not an idea that’s been done before…
Link Called, He Wants His Ocarina Back: 01
A Link to the Past did it before, dude.
Midna also promises to introduce us to somebody if we continue forward. We pass more spirits and come across what seem to be birds, which we realize are the beasts of Hyrule, monster-fied by the twilight world. We also find out from a nearby spirit that yes, this is Hyrule Castle. And yet another Z-jump.
Just Tagging Along: 05
Continuing across the ramparts, we finally get back inside, jumping through a window into a stairwell. Once at its top, a cutscene plays.
Inside this dingy attic is a cot, a softly burning fire in the fireplace, a window, and someone wearing a cloak and hood looking out of it. When we approach, a scene plays.
We get our name reveal for Midna as the hooded figure addresses her, and Midna answers in a mocking tone about what an honor that is. These two’ve met before, since she realizes Midna went in search of Link, who now stands before her. The cloaked figure kneels in front of Link, taking a look at the chain, and apologizes upon realizing he was imprisoned. Midna continues cheerfully mocking Link about not knowing where he is or what’s happening and denigrating his wolfy form.
[unmused face]
Midna mockingly refers to the hooded figure as the ‘Twilight Princess’, and said figure speaks.
The screen fades to black and a scene plays. In a grand hall, the soldiers of Hyrule stand armed, the Princess Zelda on a throne behind them. Heralded by a wall of smoke, large, black, shield-faced monsters with manes of tendrils rush the hall, taking down the soldiers with ease. With an awful sound cue somewhere between a screech and a wail, a figure slowly ascends the steps into the hall. It’s a tall man, wearing baffling get-up that includes tasseled sleeves long enough to hide his arms and a towering, tapered mask that blocks the lower face with a tongue-carved piece and whose eyeballs sag out of their sockets. Flanking him on either side are beasts with irregular shield faces, and he approaches Zelda silently…at first.
He demands her surrender, or her death, and makes clear that this option extends to every citizen in Hyrule. Left with no soldiers to face the tyrant, and incapable of doing anything more to fend him off, Zelda lets her sword clatter to the ground, surrendering. Man, this dude doesn’t play around.
What Villain?: +01
Side note, if this abuse of the ellipsis continues on like this, I’ll start having Persona 3 flashbacks.
So how come you haven’t been turned into a spirit? Or a monster? Or a wolf?
The stranger lowers her hood, revealing a face no one could mistake, even if she’s a brunette: Princess Zelda of Hyrule. So, Midna just mocked the sovereign of Hyrule and blamed a lost, unwinnable fight on her. Okay.
Fuck Off, Midna: 03
This doesn’t come from a citizen of the winning side (although yes, Midna is a resident of the Twilight) to a losing ruler, by the way. We’ll soon find out just how much Midna despises the man in the mask, too.
The familiar notes of Zelda’s Lullaby play as she introduces herself. Midna, still grinning, says she doesn’t have to look so sad about it. Her people happen to find the twilight quite livable, ya know. Zelda says this is no time for levity, as she’s (Midna) being hunted by the shadow beasts and wants to know why. Midna is unconcerned as she floats up in the air, and gives a non-answer. Zelda says that we need to leave quickly, because the guard will make his rounds soon—I’m going to guess it’s a monster guard and that Zelda’s being held prisoner.
We’re handed control again long enough to go downstairs, before a scene plays just so we can get back out the window we arrived through.
Bad Game Design: 04
Midna floats lazily through the rain to the other side of the rooftop, turning to Link to ask if he now realizes where we are. Dude, we figured that out five minutes ago, get with the program. A promise is a promise, she says, so she’ll take us back to where we first entered the twilight. She then asks if he’s really sure he wants to go back, and if he isn’t forgetting something. A sinister smile on her face, Midna twists, morphing herself first into a screaming Colin, then a screaming Ilia.
[gif of this happening]
[rage face]
THAT BITCH!!!
Put to one side for now the fact that this arguably means she knows where those two are and won’t tell us, and that we should be tearing her throat out to find their whereabouts from her. The fucking emotional manipulation this chick just pulled, essentially dangling more innocent victims over Link’s head, his friends, to get him to do what she wants—I just—how can—
[explosion]
TEN GODDAMN POINTS.
Fuck Off, Midna: 13
Wearing Ilia’s face, she says she’d be happy to help us find them,
God, I hate her.
This is going above and beyond Tatl from Majora’s Mask, who was bratty and bossy but wouldn’t actually hurt anyone, and quickly became much more helpful than she let on.
Midna then dissolves Link into digital squares and sends him into the sky, whereupon he re-arranges after coming down through a portal, right in front of the Ordon spirit spring. We hear her taunting voice saying that just because we’re back in the light world now, doesn’t mean we’ll turn back into a human…And she leaves us with a cackle.
Or so we thought. It’s not too long after that we hear her voice again, and she reveals she’s come with us—but unable to exist in the light world, is hiding in our shadow.
Yeah, I guessed that much. Don’t really see what’s stopping you, though.
Just Tagging Along: 06
Remember, this count also goes up whenever Midna’s role and abilities outstrip ours to the point of irrelevance.
Midna says that you can only get back into the twilight with a twilighter’s help, and that last time, we were pulled through. So, we’ll be needing her help. Again. Or, as she puts it, we really have no choice but to do what she says.
“Saving your friends and all that…Well, that’ll depend on your actions…Because you can never trust words, you know.”
Fuck Off, Midna: 14
“Right now, I want a sword and shield that’ll suit me.”
And what exactly would you do with them? You’re a shadow and I’m a wolf, neither of us can use them. Not that it matters to you. I’m asking more for the fact that you can break iron chains with a snap of your fingers and become intangible, I can’t really imagine you needing a blade or a defense.
Ill Logic: 02
Just Tagging Along: 07
We have just started the game, my dudes. Counts should not be this high.
Midna sends us on our way, so it’s time to head into Ordon village. The spirit spring is for some reason not healing us like it usually does, so no need to dawdle. Before we actually get very far, we see a monster we need to kill. We lunge, sending it sprawling on its back, but we have no way to attack it when it’s on the ground, we just go sailing right over it. So we have no choice but to wait until it gets back up, and rinse and repeat. Yes, this will remain the case for the whole game.
Bad Game Design: 05
We kill the two Bulbins hanging around outside our house before proceeding into the village proper. However, before we pass the gate, we hear a...voice? Or something like it. We growl, but it’s just a squirrel...that is talking to us.
The tiny squirrel thanks us for ripping those Bulbins’ throats out and ridding the village of them, and says they kidnapped the village children. We, however, are just a wolf and not a monster, which this squirrel has divined because we smell like the trees or Ordon, and not because we look like an everyday wolf. The little squirrel advises us to talk to other animals if we need help or advice.
That in mind, we head off to the village. It’s night time, but torches are lit, and everyone is on guard. Up on the pillar, the layabout husband begs his children to forgive him for not being able to save them. So where to find a sword and shield?
Over nearby, we’re able to eavesdrop on a conversation. Mayor Bo is talking to the man who directed us to hawk grass before, whose name is either Jaggle or Pergie. We hear mention of a shield, so we trod a little closer. Peaking up our furry ears, we hear mention that a shield is in the house next to them, in a storage loft. Mayor Bo intends to take it, since Rusl’s been pretty badly hurt and someone needs to search for the kids in his stead. Jagglepergie voices his doubt, since Rusl had a sword and still got beaten, and Bo’s unarmed. However, Bo knows of another sword: the one that was going to be presented to the royal family. So that’s what that gift was!
They then spot Link, and go running. Midna then directs our attention to an open window, and claims the village is full of idiots, and then the waterwheel, which we should be able to climb. Well, we try to get into the house, but this do-nothing husband suddenly does something and, spotting a wolf who is just trying to do wolf things and is definitely not a monster, calls down a damn hawk and sends it at us, demanding the return of his daughter. Fucking rude.
Talking to a nearby puppy reminds us to try digging and using our senses. Talking to a nearby cat nudges us towards sneaking up behind him and scaring him. We use a Z-Jump to get on top of Sera’s Sundries—
Just Tagging Along: 08
—and Midna can’t wait to scare the balls off this already terrified, desperate man. I’m barely holding back another point, because we do have to do this.
Once we get behind him, he jumps out of his skin, and gets to scurrying. This leaves our path open to Z-jump—
Just Tagging Along: 09
From the waterwheel up into the open window. Once inside the house, we climb up onto the table, from where we can again Z-jump—
Just Tagging Along: 10
—up onto the loft and where we can jump against the wall to knock the shield down. Our item-get plays as we receive the wooden Ordon shield. Midna promptly comments on it looking cheap. Now, to find a sword.
We climb out the window, and spot an injured and bandaged Rusl speaking to his wife. He’s immediately urgent, wondering if the children might’ve come back and wanting to go out to search for them. He tells Uli to keep an eye on the sword inside their house, and to give it to the mayor when he comes by for it.
We keep off the path while Rusl limps his way across the village, hoping not to scare him. We circle around his house, turning on our senses to locate a patch of dirt where we can dig under the foundations. Once we’re in, the sword is laying right on the couch where he said it’d be. Our item-get plays as we steal the sword Rusl was hoping to take to the royal family.
Midna promptly denigrates us some more, and intends on taking us back into the twilight. We head back to the area of the woods where the curtain of twilight hangs, but before we can get there, we hear a voice. The text is glowing, so I sense some magical shit about to go down.
We head into the Ordon spirit spring, as the voice directs us, and some sort of invisible being declares us to have been transformed by the power of shadow. Come closer, it says, and we do, only for pillars to slam down around us! The voice tells us to beware, as "a shadow being approaches". Red energy fields form barriers inbetween the pillars as a portal opens above, and drops a shadow beast much like the one that dragged us into the twilight right on top of us.
Not that it proves that difficult to kill. We lunge at it, latching onto its neck, and start biting away. Two rounds of this, and it’s dead before it can fight back. It bursts into digital-esque fragments, which fly into the sky and re-create the portal, but green instead of red this time.
The spirit spring glows gold, the water shining as a droplet rises up, falls back down, and sends a glowing, brilliant orb into the air. Forming into being around it is a monstrous being made of light, with a large fan tail and too big a mouth, but resembling one of the Ordon goats, the ringed horns surrounding the orb of light.
“O brave youth…”
It introduces itself as Ordona, one of the four light spirits that protect Hyrule at the behest of the gods. The monster we just tore the throat out of, it says, was a shadow being intent on stealing the power of light at the spring. The screen fades to black.
We see the springs throughout Hyrule, as Ordona shows us the other three spirits having already had their light stolen, thus casting their provinces into the twilight. The twilight, Ordona warns, won’t stop at Hyrule, and will cover the world if no one puts an end to it. Back in the Ordon spring, the goat spirit tells us that to save Hyrule, that lost light has to be recovered.
Which, of course, falls to us. We still haven’t discovered our “true power”, Ordona says.
“Those transformed by twilight usually cannot recover their original forms… Unless… If you were to return to Faron Woods where you were first transformed… If you were to revive the light spirit…”
Understood, ellipsis abuse aside. Something we do there will get us back to human form. However, Ordona then clarifies that it’ll be the light spirit putting us back in our true shape. Why, may I ask, can Ordona not do that his/her/theirself? She’s got light that ain’t been stolen, thanks to me.
Ill Logic: 03
Ordona dissipates, and bids us farewell. The spring ceases its glow, and we’re handed control. Nothing to do now but go back into the twilight.
Upon drawing close to it, Midna warns us that we may not be able to get back out of the Faron woods for a while if we do this, then passes through the curtain with ease, a ripple in her wake. After a moment of silence, a glowing hair arm violently seizes us and drags us through.
Once we’re through, we see Midna again with a physical form, holding the sword wrong and wearing the shield on her face like a mask.
“Hmm! So these are the weapons you use in your world?”
Midna then tests out the sword by swinging the damn thing at us holy shit why—
Fuck Off, Midna: 15
—and asks if we really think it can slay the creatures of twilight. She then deposits the shield over our face and lets the sword drop into the ground, just oozing ‘bitch’, and says that she won’t use them herself, but will hold onto them for us until we can get that spirit revived. She then snaps her fingers and they disappear, into a pocket dimension I guess.
Midna then finally lets us in on why she’s bothered to drag some poor wolf around and what she could possibly need with us. She needs help gathering ‘some things’. As capable as she is, far more so than we, I can’t understand why on earth she needs our help to do it.
Just Tagging Along: 11
She says she can’t tell us all the details now, but it’ll be easy. Spoiler alert, she absolutely could tell us now if she wanted and it absolutely will not be easy. Lying bitch.
She then directs us to that spirit spring that’s like twenty feet away from the one we just left. On the way there, another set of pillars slams down, and another portal forms, sending down another three shadow beasts. Midna lets us handle it. Not for long, though.
We successfully kill all three with a spinning bite, or at least we should have. One inexplicably remains alive purely so it can use its shriek to bring the other two back, so Midna can deign to help us out of our own idiocy again. She hops onto our back again, and tells us to do what she says. If we hold B, she’ll expand an energy field that catches the monsters in it. When we release, Link will lunge from one beast to another, tearing throats out in one go.
This is, again, literally the game forcing Midna on us because we apparently can’t do anything ourselves. To say nothing of how that doesn’t really qualify any more for “all at once” than what I was doing earlier.
Just Tagging Along: 12
Ill Logic: 04
I’m about sick of this brat.
Successfully slain all at once, the beasts dissipate into pixels and reform the portal. We’re hurt, so we’d better hurry to that spring. The spirit here has been reduced to a bunch of floating wisps, and can only beg us for help. The light it once held has been stolen and contained in shadow bugs, invisible little beasties that contain the “Tears of Light”, which is astoundingly emo, and we need to kill them and bring back the Tears in a special vessel the spirit gives us. Our map is updated so we can track the bugs through Faron province. Looks like we need sixteen Tears.
Anyone else sensing some familiarity? Some deja vu? Yeah, this is just the quest to track down the fairies in the temples from Majora’s Mask over again.
Link Called, He Wants His Ocarina Back: 02
Almost immediately, we come across sparks of electricity that seem to be fleeing from us. We turn on our senses, revealing the bugs, but before that we have to deal with a twilight-ified Deku Baba that looks like it’s wearing lipstick. That done, we kill the first two bugs and collect the Tears, which float to us and fill two spots on our containers, and also heal us of damage.
Over at the lantern salesman’s house, we find a bug sitting on a wall, so we bump against it to knock it off. These things are fast, but they die in one hit, so it’s not much of a challenge. There’s another one inside his house, requiring a Z-jump to get into—
Just Tagging Along: 13
—and in which we find the man himself cowering away from the bugs, which we promptly kill. That’s five. Off into the deep woods we go.
We dig our way around a gate and kill the two bugs on the other side before heading to the dried swamp. Which is no longer dried, actually—it’s now flooded with a thick, purple, poisonous fog. Good thing we have treetops we can climb on, though! We kill two more bugs on a wall, bringing our total to nine, and then Z-jump no less than six times while killing three more bugs.
Just Tagging Along: 19
The next two bugs quickly go down at the other end of the swamp, after being dug up out of the ground. The last two bugs are at the very northwestern-most end of the area, so we head in that direction, killing another few shadow beasts on the way to create another portal.
Just Tagging Along: 20
We cross the elevated path towards the Forest Temple, and discover another flickering flame spirit that is in fact the monkey girl from earlier in the game, cowering in fear. We slay the bugs, and she runs off, declaring how ‘the boss’ went funny in the head recently and there’s been monsters around the Forest Temple ever since. With all the Tears of Light collected, the spirit Faron is restored, we’re teleported to his spring, and the twilight is banished from the region!
Midna complains about a world of light, and when Faron’s spirit spring glows gold and he shows himself, he’s a monkey with horns, and an enormously long tail that spirals around him. He clings to his light orb in midair, and introduces himself. Then, we get the confusing explanation.
Turning into a wolf when exposed to the twilight, Faron explains, is not supposed to be some sort of metamorphic curse. No, this is a sign that we have divine power of the ‘chosen one’ and that it’s awakening. Sure enough, if we recall correctly, a Triforce mark was glowing on the back of Link’s hand when he first got furry. Which…makes almost no sense whatsoever, but I’ll remark on it in a minute. Faron tells us to look at ourself.
Sure enough, our attire has changed. We’re now wearing the iconic green tunic and hood with white tights with boots, attire Faron specifically calls the same as the one worn by the hero chosen by the gods, and his power is our power. Heroic music plays as Faron calls us brave, before referring to a ‘dark power’ that rests in the Forest Temple, and explains that it’s a forbidden power he and the other light spirits locked away a long time ago.
“Because of its nature, it is a power that should never be touched by any who dwell in the light. But this world weeps beneath a mantle of shadows, and so you have no choice…You must match the power of the king of shadows.”
As he disappears back into the spring, Faron directs us to the Forest Temple one more time, and then we’re handed control. Midna arrives, commenting on why we turned into a wolf (and seemingly confirming my suspicion that no, she had no idea we were some sort of destined hero and muddling the issue of why she decided we should be the ones to help her on this quest even further—but that’s for later). I mean, Zelda’s also been chosen by the gods. What exactly stops her from trotting around with Midna?
What Zelda?: 01
Speaking of...
If we’re ‘the chosen one’, why is this supposed protection against the twilight such a downgrade? A person who’s used to being a person and not a wolf probably won’t function well as a wolf! All we have is our agility and our teeth, and we can’t use any of the tools that human Link can! We’re going to hear a lot of people refer to us on this journey as a “divine beast”. If the gods really wanted to protect us, why not actually let us just stay as a human?
Ill Logic: 05
Zelda gets to stay as a human! Why her, and not Link?
Ill Logic: 06
And again, why a wolf? Why that, and not any other animal or variety of being?
Ill Logic: 07
This whole thing is nothing but one big excuse! When I first played this game, I figured I’d get an actual explanation as to why Link turns into a wolf. In fact, I was excited for it! I was waiting to see what sort of malign force shifted the heroic knight we all knew into a shadowy wolf. As it turns out, there isn’t one, it’s just more mystical ‘gods doing shit for no good reason’ bullshit.
And you know what? We’re gonna have to add another two points.
Link Called, He Wants His Ocarina Back: 04
Because at the end of the day, this is just another rip from Majora’s Mask, in which Link gets turned into another form against his will (spoiler—and later gets the power to control it), only this time, it’s been dumbed down. Not only does Twilight Princess offer only one alternate form for Link in comparison to Majora’s Mask’s four, but it’s an ordinary wolf he turns into. An ordinary wolf, with no special abilities.
In Majora’s Mask, the exotic races of the Deku, Gorons, and Zora that you could change into offered a lot more towards your abilities than a standard animal would, and the higher number of forms offered even more versatility towards Link’s already versatile skillset and toolset than were available before. If they were going to bring only one transform-able animal to the table, they really should’ve done at least something to spice things up.
You can tell that they tried to give Wolf Link some utility, what with the enhanced senses and the digging around…but I’m leaning on a really obvious solution that would’ve made Wolf Link much more fun to play as instead of just an extended wait until Human Link becomes available: a magic meter.
I happen to know that there was a magic meter in early betas and drafts of the game that didn’t make it into the final product—and as one of the first Zelda games from the modern era not to have a magic meter, I have to ask: why the hell was it removed? Not only does Wolf Link need something else to do to be more fun, but it’d make for a good gameplay balance too: Human Link can’t use magic, but he can use all sorts of tools and weapons. Wolf Link can’t use any tools or weapons, but makes up for it with the ability to use several types of magic. Magic is another variety mixer in Zelda games—Ocarina of Time gave you three different spells to use in addition to three different magic arrows, Majora’s Mask allowed you a different use of magic for each of your alt forms, and Wind Waker just gave you a dozen things to do with magic including arrows, magic armor, and using a damn giant leaf as a parasail. Think of all the different ways you could’ve used magic just as Wolf Link in this game. Each of the light spirits could’ve given you a different spell. Think about it! And I’m saying that right here because we just met our second light spirit of four and we only just barely got the game started!
I'm awarding the missed opportunity points, two when considering the nerfing aspect. And you know what, have a BGD point, too.
The Hero of Wasting Time: 02
Bad Game Design: 06
That’s a real problem with this game, and it's there consistently. In the ways it’s different, it’s worse, and in the ways it remains similar, it dumbs things down rather than improve on them.
Oh, by the way, Midna’s manipulating us again, saying maybe the kidnapped kids or our friends got taken to the Forest Temple, which just happens to be a place she also wants to go.
Fuck Off, Midna: 16
With that rant over, we’re gonna end the post here. Next time, we’re going to make our way over to the Forest Temple and kill us some monsters until we have some idea of what the fuck is going on.
Counts:
- Hollywood Profound: 01
- Link Called, He Wants His Ocarina Back: 04
- Fuck Off, Midna: 16
- What Villain?: +01,
- What Zelda?: 01
- Just Tagging Along: 20
- The Hero of Wasting Time: 02
- Bad Game Design: 06
- Ill Logic: 07
