It's enough to give you goosebumps, even today. There's an endearing nuttiness to the shrill enthusiasm that met The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' reveal at E3 in 2004, the excitement building to a crescendo of raw hysteria by the time Shigeru Miyamoto stood proud on stage mimicking Link's heroic pose, shield in one hand and sword in another with his smile as wide as it's ever been. It's a snapshot of fandom at its most intoxicating, and its most powerful; this is what happens when you give the faithful what they want.
Twilight Princess has always had its own strange place in the Zelda canon, a multi-million dollar apology to the vocal critics of its immediate predecessor on Nintendo's GameCube. Following an understated reception for The Wind Waker, work on a direct sequel to that game was halted, its colourful vibrancy swapped out for the same gritty read of Tolkien that Peter Jackson was making fashionable with the Lord of the Rings films at the time. Here was the darker, more physical take on The Legend of Zelda that was briefly glimpsed when the GameCube was first properly unveiled in 2000; here was the spiritual successor to Ocarina of Time that people had been clamouring for.
After the heady expanse of the open sea and the invigorating lungfuls of salty air offered by Wind Waker, director Eiji Aonuma returned to familiar terra firma with Twilight Princess. Playing Twilight Princess today via Australian developer Tantalus' handsome HD remaster for the Wii U - especially so soon after Nintendo's own Wind Waker remaster - can be enlightening. The contrast between the two is stark; if those rolling oceans and all that wild-eyed wonder saw the series at its brightest, then Twilight Princess is Zelda at its most gloomy. It's a world painted in Stygian tones, where the themes of corruption that have long been the mainstay of the series are now played with a more sinister edge. It's a fairytale told with a snarl on its lips.
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