The Legend of Zelda has been perhaps the one series Nintendo fans can always rely on through both thick and thin. For over the past fifteen years, Nintendo has forged one of gaming's most popular, memorable and successful franchises. With millions upon millions of games sold, the series has explored both top-down 2D mechanics as well as revolutionary 3D ones, not to mention a number of other areas as well, such as gorgeously beautiful cartoon-esque worlds and not-so-successful sidescrolling ones to boot. We’ve seen just about every kind of Zelda adventure we could imagine, minus a Zelda MMORPG or Zelda racing simulation.

With The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the latest game in the series for the Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo and EAD are exploring an area of the series its fans have wanted it to for a long, long time. Link’s latest adventure features dark, gritty and realistic visuals, creating what is being hyped as the hero’s most epic adventure to date. Even at this year’s annual Nintendo pre-E3 press conference, the company referred to Twilight Princess as one of the series’ darkest, most mature and epic installments. It then proceeded to show off a minute-plus trailer that highlighted a number of both new and old mechanics that seem to back up Reggie Fils-Aime’s (the company’s chief marketing officer) boast.

Twilight Princess also showed up at Nintendo’s E3 booth in full force, drawing a four-hour line of fans that wanted to play the latest Zelda game. We played with all the Zelda demos on display numerous times, and we can’t wait to get our hands on the full game when it ships later this year. But since E3, Nintendo has been as quiet as expected on Twilight Princess, and it will likely remain quiet until this fall when it ships Twilight Princess to retailers. However, that doesn’t stop us from writing everything there is to know about the game at this time. That said, be sure to enjoy our detailed write-up on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess just below.

Features

• Link is back in his darkest adventure yet. Nintendo utilizes an altered version of its Wind Waker graphics engine to create realistic visuals, wetting Zelda fan’s appetites
  
• Play as a young cowboy named Link, who must save his world as well as another
  
• Solve puzzles both by playing as Link and by playing as his alter ego, a wolf, which he transforms into while in black-and-white Twilight World
  
• Explore two different worlds, one in color, the other in mystified black-and-white, the cloud of the Twilight World
  
• Team up with unfamiliar characters, such as Midna, a cat-like creature who Link must work together with while in the Twilight World and familiar characters as well, such as the Gorons
  
• Twilight Princess features a highly evolved horseback-riding system that employs plenty of mob fighting and boss fighting
  
• A modified combat system returns now featuring a downward jump attack as well as other unannounced surprises
  
• Over 10 different dungeons and temples to traverse
  
• For the first time ever, Dolby Pro Logic II support mingles with orchestrated music in a Legend of Zelda title
  
• Coming to the Nintendo GameCube this fall
  

Link Is Back
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess stars a young cowboy named Link who lives on a ranch in a rugged, western-style town called Tauru Village. Every year, a representative from the small village must visit the famous city Hyrule for an event called Hyrule Summit. One year, however, the usual Tauru Village representative cannot travel to the city, thus the town chief asks Link to go. The young cowboy wrangler sets off for festival as soon as he steps foot into the land of Hyrule, he transforms into a wolf. Surrounding him is a colorless and a suddenly unfamiliar land of black and white.

Rather than being an alternate dimension like the dark and light worlds in A Link to the Past, the Twilight Realm is actually within the same dimension as Link’s normal world. However, something sinister is slowly blowing the curse of this black and white cloud across the world of Twilight Princess.



Princess Zelda from Twilight Princess

Upon entering this strange, unknown land, Link is captured. He is eventually rescued by a mysterious creature named Midna. This cat-like animal dons some kind of strange mask very similar to that of the Majora’s Mask from the Zelda game of the same name. However, the mask has some designs that differentiate itself from the mask seen in the Nintendo 64 adventure. While inside the Twilight Realm, Link and Midna are not separable, thus Link’s wolf self must travel around the realm with Midna riding his back. The trailer Nintendo played at its pre-E3 show showcased several clips of Link traveling with her, including scenes where he fights off enemies. The combat system, in fact, seems to feature specific mechanics to welcome the wolf and cat combo. One scene shows off what seems to be Link locking onto several enemies at once, then lunging into them all.