The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess review

For all the heaping praise that can be said, there are still a few, minute things that tug at our nerves. The fundamental gameplay hasn't changed at all, so from that viewpoint Nintendo had eight years to change something and it didn't. Link still has to be squarely lined up with ladders and doors to interact with them, a necessity that often makes him feel clunky and robotic. And still no jumping? Okami plays just like Zelda and its canine protagonist can jump to no end. What's the deal?

One of our issues with 2003's Wind Waker resurfaces here too. At times, the game feels like the same story told by a different person. You still find the same items in roughly the same type of place, use them against the first boss you see and then practically never again. Nonsensical puzzles also crop up occasionally, usually involving tiles or pushing blocks. If Midna can teleport and the world is in danger, why doesn't she just, you know, teleport the blocks where they need to be? True, Zelda is all about puzzles, but here's hoping block-and-tile showstoppers stop interfering with heroes chosen by the gods.

Savvy gamers will know that Princess was initially a GameCube game, and was only announced this year for Wii. Early hands-on reports suggested that the gesture-based controls were horrid (ours included) and that the GameCube version would be the one to get. Not quite.

Item selection and freehand aiming have been improved since those early days, and within a few moments of gameplay you'll be ready to save the world. But, that doesn't mean they're perfect. Having to keep one hand relatively free to point at the screen for certain things is a slight nuisance, and on the whole, the game doesn't benefit from swinging the remote like a sword. A regular controller would have sufficed.