Two features make the wolf sequences shine, the most important being the curious dynamic that exists between Link and nature. As Link, he interacts with fellow elves, carrying spirited conversations and assisting them with chores, all the while animals roam about, unconcerned with their masters' lives. However, as soon as he transforms into a wolf, his friends (unaware of who he is) run away from him, and in some cases attempt to kill him. Meanwhile, he gains the ability to speak to the animals and get their opinions of the goings on surrounding them. In some cases, they offer advice on how to complete a quest or flatter him with compliments. Of course, as soon as he becomes an elf again, the animals want nothing to do with him.
The second feature, the ability to howl and affect events through howling, greatly enhances the game by adding harmonious melodies that offset the violence. Similar to using the baton to create music in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, players must follow and mimic a tune, or in this case, a howl, to unlock a series of events. The wolf's howl is spread across three distinct pitches (high, medium, low), and using the analog stick, players move a cursor up and down to recreate patterns. Fun, peaceful, and incredibly cool, the howling keeps things varied.
Twilight Princess contains several entertaining features including horseback riding, sumo wrestling and fishing. However, the dungeons, while polished, well designed and generally fun, follow the same crusty design used to create the dungeons in The Wind Waker (enter dungeon, solve puzzles, defeat mid boss, acquire special item, use item to unlock the giant boss key, defeat boss, rinse and repeat.) Fans will eat this stuff up because they always do and newcomers that have never played a Zelda will delight in the many puzzles and pitfalls. However, Nintendo's tried and true formula feels worn out, despite the varied scenery and monsters.
The same goes for the audio. The synthesized soundtrack (while catchy) feels too 1998 to be cool and the lack of voice acting and cheesy dialogue wrecks havoc on the character development. With all of the work put into body language and facial expressions, Nintendo should have added that extra something by hiring voice actors. Instead, well-animated characters choke to death on lines upon lines of scrolling text.
Zelda's graphics provide another flaw. While the game looked outstanding a couple of years ago, its jagged edges, blurry ground textures and horrific looking trees keep it from being a visual showpiece for the Wii, especially running in standard definition. Of course, Twilight Princess started out as a GameCube-only adventure. Had it been built from the ground up to take advantage of whatever processing muscle the Wii possesses, it may have been more aesthetically pleasing.
Still Twilight Princess stands out as one of Nintendo's more attractive games, thanks to its fabulous draw distances, breath-taking imagery, life-like animations, imaginative character designs and dramatic action sequences. Like the main character on Ugly Betty, its personality outshines its physical appearance, making it a soon to be beloved classic that everyone should play. On the flip side, an old school Ricky Lake-style makeover would do wonders.
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