The first 24 minutes of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD are the same beautiful game you remember, just ineffably better . Sharper. Crisper. Clearer. The lighting is more beautiful, the colors (already lush) more vivid. While the detail is not so incredible that every hair on Epona’s mane moves individually, Twilight Princess HD keeps to the game’s original art style faithfully while improving almost every aspect of it that can be improved with an HD remaster.
Unfortunately, your satisfaction with the look of it will depend on your fondness for Twilight Princess ’s original art style in the first place. While Link is as pretty a forest boy as he’s ever been, the strange faces of the rest of Ordona’s residents just get stranger with added detail.
Alas for Ilia - HD doesn’t do her any favors, with her mouth smushed up too close under her pointy nose and her space-alien eyes practically at her temples. Likewise, that fellow at the goat ranch doesn’t get any prettier in HD. And the passel of brats in Ordon Village all look like there’s something pretty seriously wrong with their skulls.
Luckily, you’ll spend most of your time looking at beautiful Link, stylish Midna and that cool as hell wolf, so if you were able to ignore the uggos the first time around, the second time shouldn’t prove chore.
As for the controls, they appear as easy and simple as they were in the original Twilight Princess . A map of the controls on the upper right corner of the screen reminds you of what the buttons do when you press them, changing with the environment. On the left is another simple control scheme reminding you to use the directional arrows for your minimap.
The location pans when you enter a new area are prettier than ever. Ordon Village’s gentle river flowing, the flowers in a patch of soil, and especially the golden quality of the setting sun - all of it looks radiant. The grass textures themselves are nothing revolutionary, but the quality of light and the way flowers bend and wave are pleasing.
The base game does remain the same, as this is no Final Fantasy 7 ground-up remake but instead a loving and careful remaster. So if you hated the goat herding minigame when you first played Twilight Princess, you’re not likely to love it now. If the lengthy tutorial is something that annoyed you the first time, it will still be annoying now. But at least the sun never shone with such soft brilliance before.
There are notable gameplay additions to this new version of Twilight Princess :
Hero Mode doubles all damage you receive and eliminates heart drops. It’s available as an option when you start a new game
Link has access to the “Ghost Lantern” item which makes it easier to identify and collect ghastly souls for that one quest
Link’s wallet can now hold more rupees
All physical copies of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD will come with a new Wolf Link and Midna Amiibo:
These Amiibo add new gameplay elements to Twilight Princess , like access to exclusive dungeons. A new Ganondorf Amiibo (purchased separately) increases difficulty even further, meaning that when used in Hero Mode, Link takes quadruple damage. Check out more Twilight Princess Amiibo details here .
You can watch the video of Polygon’s 24-minute preview of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD below:
