Twilight Princess adds enough unique additions to keep the Zelda formula going strong.
Interesting storyline
Great graphics
Great (and nostalgic) soundtrack
Challenging dungeon designs
Fun boss battles
Very lengthy
Keeps you playing for hours
The Bad:
It's a game you'll only want to play through once
Some of the motion controls don't respond properly at times, but this rarely occurs
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess received positive reactions from most critics, but some didn't like it for being "stuck in the past" along with other stupid little complaints. I will first address those complaints before proceeding with the main part of the reivew.
One of the major complaints was: "It adds nothing new to the Zelda series" and I think that's not true at all. Twilight Princess adds plenty of new things to the standard Zelda formula such as the "twilight" aspects of the game along with Wolf Link and many new weapons and other various additions. Most of this stuff is new to the Zelda series, so you really can't say it adds nothing new.
Another complaint is "the motion controls in this game suck." That complaint irritates me quite a bit. Sure you have to shake the Wii remote to swing your sword, but let's face it guys: it's not going to kill you to get the extra exercise. If you have a ton of arm fat and shaking the Wii remote is going to hurt your dignity by jiggling your arm fat, just go buy the GameCube version to save yourself the exercise.
Now onto the review:
The story of this game is actually quite interesting, but I'm not going to get into it because it takes forever to explain.
The graphics of this game look fantastic. Many people think they are "bad" when compared to other Wii games, but keep in mind this is a direct port of the GameCube version, and the GameCube didn't have the same graphical capabilities as the Wii. Sure the graphics could've been better, but like I said, it's a direct port of the GameCube version so you can't complain too much.
The audio/sound of this game is pretty good. Some of the sound effects may sound a bit like the ones from The Wind Waker, but that's fine because they still sound fine. The music is excellent; sure there are a ton of remixes of songs from Ocarina of Time, but at least they picked the good songs for remixing. The songs that are original to Twilight Princess sound excellent too; I especially liked the "Hyrule at Night" song.
The controls work fairly well for this game. You use the control stick to move Link, shake the Wii remote to swing your sword, press/hold Z to lock-on and equip your shield, and the D-pad to equip items to the B button. The controls work just fine, but they do suffer form their fare share of problems form time to time. Sometimes the shield attack will incorrectly respond as the sword-spin attack, and sometimes the sword won't respond when you're shaking the Wii remote. These problems occur rarely, but when they do occur they can be quite cumbersome.
In terms of entertainment value, this game is really fun. It will keep you playing for hours, and it's quite lengthy. It takes around 40-50 hours to complete, and if anyone tells you it's too short, ignore them becuase they've probably been playing too much Final Fantasy. Anyways, there's plenty to do in this game, and it will keep you busy for a few weeks. It's challenging too, and that's always nice.
Overall:
Story - 9
Graphics - 9
Sound - 9
Controls - 8.7
Gameplay - 9
Overall score: 9.0
Bottom line: If you're a Zelda fan, then go buy it. It definitely gives you your money's worth.