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If Wii Sports is for the non-gamers, Twilight Princess is for the hardcore. After I spent 10 hours with the game, I barely managed to squeak by two temples, with the third so far off that I could scarcely imagine getting there, let alone approach the objective. (For the record, out of 30 or so journalists, nobody came close to the third temple.) I asked how long it took Nintendo's testers to complete the entire game the first time through. The answer is a whopping 70-plus hours. Adding insult to injury, diabolical Nintendo translator and localization manager Bill Trinen told me that he was working on his second play-through of the game. Knowing what to do and where to go, and skipping cut-scenes, Trinen said that he had logged about 27 hours to make it about two thirds of the way through the temples themselves - and that doesn't account for any of the side quests or time sucks like fishing, a single operation that could easily add hours upon hours to Zelda's depth. .


When publishers claim that their games are 50 hours long, seasoned players usually half that number for the truth. But with Twilight Princess, I think we can really look forward to a 50-plus-hour adventure, bare minimum. This quest will keep you busy through the holidays and beyond. So, I'm pondering this revelation a lot as I try to imagine how in the hell I'm going to find the time to beat Zelda and still review 30 other games for the Wii launch. Of course, that's more than a little terrifying, but at the same time I am absolutely thrilled by the prospect of spending some quality time with Link, Epona, and Zelda again. Oh yeah, and Midna, too.

There's no way to know for sure how it'll all turn out yet, as even with 10 hours under my belt I've only scratched the surface. However, if the game keeps up or gets better - as Nintendo's people promise that it does - there is simply no way that the adventure will remembered as anything but a masterful classic and quite possibly the best launch title in the history of the business.

Twilight Princess may have started as a GameCube title, but it finished a Wii one. There remains this faction of gamers that refuses to accept the possibility. You know who you are. You continue to argue that because the controls were originally designed for the GameCube pad there is no hope for the Wii build. You say that your arms will get tired using the Wii remote. You speak of mirrored worlds and right-handed Link. And you know what? It's all crap. If you buy Twilight Princess for GameCube and not Wii, you are a fool. And I state that without meaning to suggest that the GCN iteration is flawed - it isn't. It's an amazing swan song for Nintendo's older system. But neither is it as good as the Wii incarnation. In fact, were it up to me and not Nintendo (and in my dreams, it is), I'd have scrapped the GCN build altogether, forcing everyone to exclusively buy the Wii version. Honestly, Nintendo gave you five good years with GameCube; it doesn't owe you a damned thing.

There is every reason to get Zelda on Wii, but if you're still not convinced that the controls work just fine, consider that I was just as skeptical as you are now before I put some serious play time into the game. So were the other 30 or so journalists who played alongside me. And when the gameplay session came to its too-early end, everybody in attendance agreed that the Wii remote and nunchuk combo performed beautifully. Nobody's arms were tired. Nobody felt that the continuity of the game universe had been sacrificed because the landscapes and items had been mirrored. And nobody complained that Link was a right-hander. In fact, we had a couple lefties who said playing with the game on Wii felt very natural.

Today's 1up Show featured Nate Bihldorff and Bill Trinen from Nintendo of America's game localization department, who revealed some new details on Zelda: Twilight Princess, mostly regarding its length.

Those wondering about the number of dungeons should be happy to hear that TP is full of them. There are nine main dungeons - so, as many as Ocarina of Time - as well as lots of smaller areas that could be considered mini-dungeons. The guys also noted that there's tons of stuff to do in between dungeons, so it's not just this repetitive, "Go to this dungeon; alright, now go to the next dungeon, etc." They're spaced pretty far apart time-wise.

Talking about Hyrule Field, Trinen said that TP's main field, not including all the side areas, is at least five times as big as Ocarina of Time's. He also mentioned that the horse battle area in the E3 2005 demo is actually as large as OoT's whole Hyrule Field.

Trinen went on to say that Nintendo of Japan's testing team's first playthrough of the game clocked in at 70 hours. And, he added, that was without getting 100% of the collectibles and such. The main collectibles in Twilight Princess are golden bugs that can be found all throughout the game. Trinen mentioned that they come in pairs, so if you find, say, a male ladybug in a tree, the female one's gonna be around there somewhere. Trinen also noted that most of the collectible items in Twilight Princess will actually prove useful at some point in the game.

weemadando wrote:The main question is - is this 70 hours of actual GAMEPLAY? Or 70 hours of repetitive cut and paste level design and filler gameplay?

weemadando wrote:The main question is - is this 70 hours of actual GAMEPLAY? Or 70 hours of repetitive cut and paste level design and filler gameplay?

weemadando wrote:The main question is - is this 70 hours of actual GAMEPLAY? Or 70 hours of repetitive cut and paste level design and filler gameplay?

Trinen went on to say that Nintendo of Japan's testing team's first playthrough of the game clocked in at 70 hours. And, he added, that was without getting 100% of the collectibles and such.

DPDarkPrimus wrote:

weemadando wrote:The main question is - is this 70 hours of actual GAMEPLAY? Or 70 hours of repetitive cut and paste level design and filler gameplay?

Boy, if you think Zelda has "cut and paste level design", you've never played a Zelda game. Or just the NES one.

weemadando wrote:

DPDarkPrimus wrote:

weemadando wrote:The main question is - is this 70 hours of actual GAMEPLAY? Or 70 hours of repetitive cut and paste level design and filler gameplay?

Boy, if you think Zelda has "cut and paste level design", you've never played a Zelda game. Or just the NES one.

To be fair, I haven't played ANY Zelda, but I know that far too many of the "action adventure" games of its type rely on hideous amounts of time spent trudging to and fro, back tracking or dungeon crawling without actually having any GAME component to what you are doing.

Wind Waker's triforce hunt is an exception to the rule. A terrible, terrible exception. One that has caused Tingle to be arguably the most hated character in all of videogame history (the little jerk charges you a total of 3200 rupees to decode 8 maps that send you on the darn treasure hunt sailing all over the place; it takes you the entire game to make that much cash, even the largest wallet holds 9999 and most people don't get the largest wallet, I had to pay off Tingle in increments of 999 rupees the first time).