The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Member Review for the Wii

    I would call myself a Zelda fan. In fact, I got my Wii three weeks ago, purchased Twilight Princess, and before I even opened it, I downloaded the original Legend of Zelda for NES, SNES and N64. Memories of my childhood flooded back into my life as I warped in and out of the Dark World, tried to remember what I had to do to get the Quake Medallion, and reacquainted myself with the top-view screen switching games. I haven't got a chance to play Ocarina yet, because after beating the Zelda's for NES and SNES in two weeks, I couldn't wait any longer to play Twilight Princess. When I opened this game from its factory fresh sealing and popped it into my Wii, I was impressed, but I realized that I had seen what I was playing somewhere before. As much as everybody out there thinks this game is a perfect A+, it's not. I'm not saying it's not good, but it's not an A+. Or even an A. Or an A-.
    Twilight Princess is a game that plays very much like its predecessors. You go around and dungeon-dive, solve puzzles, light torches, hunt for keys, and ride around on Epona. All of these features are back, and they evoke the nostalgic days of my childhood, growing up and playing Link to the Past over and over and over. With the addition of the functions of the Wii remote, it makes this game that much more intriguing. Shaking my nunchuck left and right to do the big spin attack doesn't seem to get old after thirty hours of gameplay.
    As far as graphically, this game isn't anything special like the graphics on other next-gen systems, but they were never supposed to be. The Wii is all about the gameplay aspect and essentially letting the gamer have more fun by including the interactive element. It is neat, never having played Windwaker on the Gamecube, to see a Zelda game in Xbox-calibur graphics. After being so used to seeing the overhead views that were Link to the Past and the original Legend of Zelda, and the blotchy graphics that were in Ocarina, this game is fine graphically with me. The graphics don't blow me away, but I don't expect them to, and they are fine the way they are.
    The thing that holds this game back from being an A calibur game is the originality factor. This game plays so much like Ocarina that it seems like almost the same game, just with different characters and placenames and plot. These were all phenomenal in Ocarina, but it just feels a little old hat in this game. There is still a Kakariko Village, a Death Mountain and a Hyrule Castle, and your horse's name is still Epona. This was all fine and well the first time around, and it still works for me this time through because it was so marvelous in the older games, but it would have been nice to see some other significant element of plot introduced, or to see how this game is somehow tied into all of the other games. On a side note, am I the only person who is waiting for a Zelda game to tell me where this particular story fits into the grand scheme of stories that encompassed the other games?
    If you are debating buying Twilight Princess, I wouldn't deliberate any further. Go out and buy it. It brings back some seriously nostalgic memories of my childhood, and if you haven't played the older games, you'll see what made them so good to begin with.