Twilight Princess Is The Best Zelda Game

Yes, better than Breath of the Wild.  Yes, better than Ocarina of Time.

Now that I have your attention, allow me to present my case.

Note: I played on the gamecube version of the game instead of the Wii version.

In my opinion, not only is Twilight Princess the best Zelda game, it is the platonic ideal of what a Zelda game can be.  It is the best single Zelda game and it is what all other Zelda games should be compared to.  This is because Twilight Princess excels in three areas: Dungeons, Combat, and Narrative.

Let us begin with the dungeons of Twilight Princess.  Dungeons are arguably the most iconic parts of any Zelda game.  Childhood memories of Ocarina of Time are not of wandering around Hyrule Field or poking around Castle Town, they are instead filled with exploring Jabu-Jabu’s Belly with Princess Ruto or throwing the controller against the wall in frustration at the Water Temple.  The flow of a dungeon is split into three phases.  Phase 1: explore the dungeon and open any locked doors you can get to.  Phase 2: Collect the dungeon’s item and open more doors to find the Big Key.  Phase 3: Use the Big Key to open the boss door and fight the boss using the item you found.  This holds true for all Zelda games, with notable exceptions of the early games that lacked items beyond the bow and bombs and Breath of the Wild which lacks dungeon specific items.

However, in Twilight Princess, much of the progression is linked to items you have collected in previous dungeons.  This is made possible due to the linear nature of the game. Because Twilight Princess forces you to take the dungeons in a particular order, the designers could make puzzles that include items you have already gathered.  This was not possible in games like Link to the Past, where you could conquer dungeons in any order, so items are used only in their specific dungeons and generally discarded afterwards unless they can be used in combat like the bow.

For example, in the city in the sky dungeon, there are strong fans and wind currents that buffet Link as he explores the area.  But the iron boots, which were acquired for the second dungeon in the game, protect Link from the powerful gales and allow him to freely, if slowly, explore the area.

Not only is exploring the dungeons tied to the items of Twilight Princess, once you gain the Master Sword and the ability to freely transform into a wolf,  you gain a second set of exploratory tools to explore your environment and reach new areas.  In the Arbiter’s Grounds, you must seek out several ghosts to unlock the next major area to explore.  In wolf form, you can track their scent and follow them through the dungeon. The wolf form can more freely traverse the quicksand that covers many areas of the dungeon than human form, allowing wolf form to access areas that were previously unreachable.  Link has a freedom to explore the dungeons that he did not have previously and would not have afterwards.  While Twilight Princess’s dungeons do follow the same three phase flow, the first two phases bleed together because you are constantly switching between the items in your arsenal and not solely using the one you just found.

Combat in Zelda games has always been fairly simplistic: point your sword at the enemy and swing it.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Zelda games are more about exploration and puzzle solving than combat, but it is an essential part of the game.  Twilight Princess is the first game that has made me feel powerful.  In many Zelda games like Wind Waker and Link to the Past, the adventure of the game is Link’s first time picking up a sword and must be taught even the most rudimentary of sword skills.  In Twilight Princess, Link is already a trained swordsman and already knows the basics of combat.  But as the game progresses, and Link encounters the Hero’s Shade, he learns new sword techniques like the finishing blow, the helm splitter, and the incredibly powerful and flashy mortal draw.  While it is possible to complete the game without discovering any of these skills, they make Link exponentially more powerful in combat and grant him several new options in combat.  As I rolled behind bosses like Lord Bulblin and even in the final duel against Ganondorf, I felt like I was the superior fencer and I felt like I was the hero that the game was saying I was.  Even in Breath of the WIld, where Link is a champion of Hyrule, with no equal within the ranks of Hylian soldiers and his fellow champions, his fighting style boils down to hacking and slashing; it is the unrefined combat of a teenager roaming a mall with a katana, and not the mightiest fighter the Hylian forces has to offer.

The combat in wolf form is similarly evocative of Link’s nature.  He is a wild, feral beast and his leaping, biting attacks exhibit the raw, wild power of an animal.  The contrast between the refined swordplay of human form and the savagery of wolf form, serves to highlight Link’s power on the battlefield.  He is a strong combatant and this is the only time where the mechanics of combat reinforce the story’s claims of strength.

While the bosses of Zelda games may not be the same kind of focal point as they are in games like Dark Souls, they are still an essential part of the game experience.  The bosses of Twilight Princess follow the typical formula laid out in previous Zelda games: stun the monster using the item you found in the dungeon and then hack at the monster three times until it dies.  Twilight Princess does slightly alter this formula by giving boss fights extra phases.  In the fight against Argorok in the City in the Sky, you must remove his armor and then mount the dragon to attack the weak point directly.  Not only are the bosses stronger, the dungeons also have mini-bosses that offer another challenge to the player as they explore the dungeon.  The bosses and mini-bosses are creative and require problem solving skills to figure out how to exploit their vulnerabilities.  Usually in Zelda games, I find myself not needing to use healing items unless I’m being needlessly reckless, but the bosses and minibosses are genuine threats that require strategizing and quick thinking.  Combat is elevated to the same level as puzzle solving for the first time in a Zelda game.

And I do have to direct special attention to the battle against Zant.  When you fight Zant, the major antagonist of the game, he warps you back to previous dungeons and takes on the attack patterns of the bosses associated with those dungeons.  He tests your memory and your ability to adapt on the fly to the new situations he throws you into.  And while I was able to quickly recall the tactics because I had sprinted through the game in a week, I can see the challenge that this presents if you play the game over a longer amount of time, especially if you spend a lot of time chasing down every side quest in the game.

There have been criticisms raised that Twilight Princess’ story is bad because it’s too dark or edgy.  I disagree, I think that the more serious, dramatic tone works for this game.  The tone backs up the claims of the narrative that the world is at risk of being swallowed up by the darkness.  This raises the stakes and gives an intrinsic motivation to the player and a compelling reason for Link to keep pushing forward on the adventure.  The player never asks why they are doing what they are doing because there is always a reason readily available.  And Twilight Princess offers the player several motivations for the player to pick.  You could be going on the adventure because Midna helped you escape the dungeon and you feel indebted to her.  Or maybe you think Midna is coercing you to help her and you just want to get rid of her.  And as always, there is the altruistic choice of saving your friends, Princess Zelda, and the world.

Twilight Princess does not pull any punches when showing the player the destruction brought by Zant’s attacks and the constant threat that poses to Hyrule.  The very first introduction you get to danger is when your friends get abducted by monsters that serve Zant and you are forced to watch, powerless to stop them.  As you progress, you must free each area from the twilight that holds it and while exploring the twilight, you see that every person within it has been reduced to a spirit that is tormented by the monsters that inhabit it.  Evil is a constant threat that hangs over the world.  Each region you take back from the twilight not only restores peace and safety to Hyrule, but shows the player that evil can be beaten.  That they are a hero who can save Hyrule from the forces of darkness.  It is a tangible indicator of the progress you’ve made in saving the world.

And it is not as if Twilight Princess lacks comedy or light moments.  In fact, all dramas and tragedies need those light moments to relieve the tension in the narrative and give the audience a chance to relax and collect themselves.  Without those chances to relax, the audience will quickly get burnt out and be unable to continue watching.  Twilight Princess is full of humor and comic relief and even if it may not be your particular sense of humor, these moments are essential to the story.  And more important than if they play directly to the player’s particular sense of humor, is that the humor of the games is not so jarring as to break immersion and jolt the player out of the world.  These are the kinds of jokes that people in Hyrule would make and not the jokes that were popular in 2006, which would be incredibly jarring to hear come out of the mouth of a Goron.

The tone of the story is further served by the aesthetics of the game.  Link is expressive but not cartoonishly so.  Twilight Princess could not work with the Toon Link aesthetics of Wind Waker or Spirit Tracks because it would undercut the weight of the narrative.  The same can be said for the graphical limitations that were present in Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.  The Nintendo 64’s graphical power was such that Link only had a few poses and faceplates with which to express emotion.  But because Twilight Princess came out on the GameCube and the Wii, those systems were capable of rendering Link’s emotions with detail and acuity.  Which is made doubly impressive by the fact that most, if not all, of the cutscenes were rendered in the game engine and not pre-rendered drop in cutscenes.  While Twilight Princess may not be as expressive as Breath of the Wild, its aesthetics and art style means that it does not age nearly as poorly as games like Ocarina or Majora’s.  

Now I can state all these reasons why Twilight Princess is good, but to really prove my claim that it’s the best game, I must argue specifically how it is superior to other Zelda games.  Let’s start with Ocarina of Time.  Ocarina of Time is a good game, that is an undeniable fact.  However, there are a few aspects that Twilight Princess gets better than Ocarina of Time.  First, the narrative feels incredibly railroaded.  You are told where to go in long speeches that slide off the player.  The Great Deku Tree, Impa, The Sages, and Princess Zelda herself monologue at the player.  You are told why it’s important that Link saves the world, but Link, and by extension the player, is never given a meaningful intrinsic motivation to save the world other than destiny.  And destiny is not a great motivator, but this is not the platform for a discussion on predestination.  Twilight Princess gives Link a selection of reasons for why he goes on his quest, which I have spoken on already so I will not repeat myself.

Second, it does not feel like it should come down to Link to save Hyrule.  Link is just a child and his swordplay reinforces this.  He essentially flails his sword around with little skill.  It feels like Link barely manages to triumph over evil because of his fate as the legendary hero.  But in Twilight Princess, Link is an accomplished swordsman who is repeatedly shown to be better than the average Hylian soldier.  It is his skill that allows him to conquer over Zant and Ganon in the end, not just fate.

The other great Zelda game is Breath of the Wild.  However, I feel like it is not appropriate to compare these games because they are so different.  Breath of the Wild has more in common with games like Skyrim than it does with Twilight Princess.  However the points I brought up earlier are worth repeating.  The combat does not mesh well with the narrative thread of Link being a skilled warrior.  There are no items other than the runes you earn at the start of the game.  And while the Zelda team did do a great job designing their dungeons around those runes, there are only so many ways a bomb can explode or a magnetic door can open.  I think that doing away with specialized items limits the ways a dungeon can be explored.  Without a Hookshot, my vertical range is limited to the stairs I can climb.  No Iron Boots and changing the Zora Armor means that it is impossible to dive underwater.  And cutting the Dominion Rod means that any part of the environment that is not immediately actionable will be merely set dressing and cannot help you explore the dungeon.

Twilight Princess is the best game in the Legend of Zelda series because it perfected the main three aspects of any Zelda game: Dungeons, Combat, and Narrative.  The dungeons are fantastically designed around their specific items and include items from previous dungeons as well.  This is accomplished because the designers knew the specific order the items would be acquired and could build the dungeons around that knowledge.  For the first time in a Zelda game, Link is a powerful swordsman.  The stories constantly speak of Link’s skill, but it was not until Twilight Princess that this was backed up mechanically.  Link learns sword skills that make him a formidable hero capable of vanquishing evil.  Finally, the darker tone of the narrative gives the player strong motivation to play the game and push forward on Link’s quest.  The stakes are tangible and your progress against the darkness.  And the seriousness of the game is perfectly balanced with lighter moments and humor.

Final Score: 93%