Here we are, the fourth Zelda game on this list and one that I have heard many people call one of the best from their childhood, and while I didn’t get a chance to play it until much later in my life, when I did play it, I can definitely see why this one was considered a classic by many at the time. Cause damn, Twilight Princess is something else.
Twilight Princess follows Link as he goes on a quest to search items dropped by the gods of the kingdom, and then later, shards of the Mirror of Twilight, to stop the evil king Zant and something about Ganondorf, because he can just never leave well enough alone. One thing that a lot of people talked about in Twilight Princess was the darker atmosphere. People said that Wind Waker was too much of a cartoony kids game and hated it as a result, so Nintendo made Twilight Princess a more serious game. And people hated it cause it was too dark (Goddamnit). But personally, I loved it a lot. The areas you explore are a lot more interesting to me now, from the almost western style of Kakariko Village to the very busy Hyrule Castle Town, all areas in the world seem to have more life in them than in previous Zelda games. And the dungeons are so much more interesting than in any other Zelda game. Some of my favorite dungeons are the Arbiter's Ground for it’s creepy lore, the manor in the snowy mountains for how non-dungeoney it feels, the Sky Temple for being so…. Odd, and that’s just my favorites. All the other dungeons are a lot of fun too (Except Lakebed Temple). But what’s a good Zelda game without good characters, and I think Twilight Princess has the best cast of them. While some characters like Ilia get the short end of the stick when it comes to development, the main cast of characters really get a lot of time to shine. Zant is a really creepy villain, and when you soon realize that he’s just some jobber who was lucky enough to run into Gannon makes him more interesting to me. I know a lot of people were disappointed that he just started screaming and jumping around, but I think it’s really interesting. Oh, and Midna, the fucking best companion in a Zelda game, don’t even try to deny it. You know it’s true, I know it’s true, it’s a goddamn fact of life and don’t you tell me otherwise. And the main gimmick of Twilight Princess is the ability to turn Link into wolf form, where he can see Twilight monsters, talk to animals, and go through crawl spaces, allowing you to use this form to solve a plethora of puzzles. It’s not my favorite of the Zelda gimmicks, but it’s perfectly fine.
Twilight Princess does what all Zelda games does, it changes the formula, it tries to do something new, and sometimes that doesn’t always work, but I can admire it for that. That being said, Twilight Princess totally works and I love every second of it. I loved play through the story, I loved doing the side stuff, and I loved exploring the world and looking at all the designs of this game. Twilight Princess is a classic of a game, and is easily in my top twenty and my second favorite Zelda game ever.