On Horseback We Ride

The next section of the Twilight Princess demo focused on one of the game's most anticipated new features: combat on horseback. This level picked up not long after the Toaru Village section left off, with Link having undergone a costume change into his traditional green tunic-and-hat outfit. He'd also gained his trusty sword and shield by this time, which was fortunate, considering he was up against a marauding band of angry orclike creatures riding beefy battle boars. Link's target was the band's leader, a big green armored guy who carried the kidnapped child tied to a large pole.

Mere minions or not, these guys seriously stymied our efforts to get to the big boss.

Riding Epona in combat was similar to the goat-herding section, but it afforded us more control of our speed in the interest of catching up to our quarry. You have a limited number of dashes to use, represented by a row of icons on the bottom of the screen, that will replenish slowly over time. These dashes were entirely necessary, for a couple of reasons. That armored boss guy we mentioned earlier apparently picked the fastest boar in the litter, because without dashing consistently and maneuvering to cut him off, it was nearly impossible to get in range to hit him. His minions caused us some major trouble, too, as they had a habit of bunching up around us and keeping us away from the boss. They were quite sturdy themselves, so it wasn't a simple matter to just brush past them and barrel onward toward the prize.

Even while engaged in this new gameplay style, the control was as easy to use as in the rest of the demo (and indeed, in the other 3D Zeldas, too). The lock-on feature was especially handy in fixing the camera on a particular enemy so we could ride up alongside him and take him out. We could knock one of these smarmy bastards right off his mount if we managed to connect with our sword, though it didn't seem possible to actually kill any of them, because they'd keep getting back up, remounting, and continuing to make our life difficult. The only way to actually get through this sequence, we found, was to go after the boss. So that's what we did.

Controlling Link in Mounted Combat

The mounted controls in Twilight Princess aren't the most forgiving we've ever used, though that's not to say they're stiff, or bad, or anything like that. Rather, they seem to approximate what it would be like to actually ride a horse in combat, since you have a very wide turning radius and can't make changes of direction in just an instant. After we got a feel for this section, it became easier to cut the boss off and actually score a hit here and there. Every time we did so, he lost a piece of his armor, until finally he was hurting so badly that he abandoned his crew and tried to take refuge on a long bridge inside the walls of an old, seemingly abandoned castle.

At this point, Link and Epona entered the ruins to both dispatch the dastardly fiend once and for all and rescue the kidnapped child. Fortunately, he set the wooden barricade at the entrance on fire, keeping his posse out; this was not so fortunate for us, as that meant we had to square off with him on the bridge in a joust to the death. The controls in this section were basically the same as in the open field: We started at one end of the bridge, and then we began to run to meet our foe. We hit dash as we picked up speed to hurtle ever faster toward the confrontation. At the last second, the game popped up controls onscreen that instructed us to hit left or right to dodge while simultaneously hitting B to slash with our sword. Easy as that might sound, the timing was crucial and unforgiving. If we were too early, we would veer too far to the side and would miss the swing entirely; if we were too late, we would run right into the orc boss, who would send us plummeting into the deep chasm.

Hand over that child, knave!

Once we got the timing down just right, we picked up a good rhythm and managed to teach that damn orc king a thing or two, slicing him up good without ever taking a hit ourselves. While the fundamental gameplay here wasn't much different from what we saw out in the open field, it had a sort of minigame-like feel to it that was both unexpected and a nice change of pace. We can't wait to see what other such variations on the standard Zelda theme Twilight Princess has in store for us.