E3 2005: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

"When an evil shadow stretches from the heart of Hyrule to its peaceful borderlands, a young farm boy named Link must awaken the hero within and stand tall in defense of his village. Lead Link and his beloved steed into battle against hordes of foul creatures with an incredible horseback combat system, then take on massive bosses that have to be seen to be believed. The last ray of hope for a dying realm, Link finds himself on an epic journey that will challenge him endlessly and transform him in ways unimaginable."

Source: Nintendo, Twilight Princess preview trailer synopsis.

With each new installment in the Zelda franchise we've seen the story become more and more involving for the player. We assume that this will continue for Twilight Princess and as such the story deserves just as much attention to detail as every other aspect of this game. Of course, there are certain things we know and certain things we just have no clue about yet. We could fill three Grand Canyons with what we don't know, but we don't know enough about most of it to even think about doing that. So we'll talk about what we do know. And maybe we'll throw in a little bit of old fashioned guessing for good measure.

Link: Link is our hero. Dashing, gallant, and suitably bad-ass, he begins the game as a 16-year old farmhand residing in Toaru Village. He has a fully visible Triforce crest on the back of his left hand from the onset, and it's also important to note that he once again begins the game without his trademark green tunic, instead opting to wear more reasonable farm clothing. Link has a strong bond with creatures of all kinds. He finds that he's drawn to animals and they to him, and he will be able to draw on the help of many creatures as his adventure continues. When the game begins, he is preparing to leave for a Hyrule Festival as the representative of Toaru Village. He cares greatly for the people of Toaru Village and for all his loved ones there, and needs no prompting to answer the call of the hero and protect them from harm.

Bo: Bo is the mayor of Toaru Village. Therefore, he is the village's rightful ambassador in the upcoming Hyrule Festival. However, he is unable to attend for some reason and is sending Link in his place. He seems to be quite fond of Link, in fact. He is also the father of Ilia and Colin.

Ilia: Ilia is the mayor's daughter and Colin's older sister. She keeps a close eye on Colin and appears to view it as her duty as his sister to keep him out of trouble. She is also a close friend of Link's and seems to have an almost maternal instinct towards him. Early in the demo, we see her both chastising and then looking after him, even offering to heal his horse. She definitely shares a very strong bond with him, and they are even able to share a very heartfelt goodbye right before they're ambushed by Bokoblins. The attack on her is bound to have a profound effect on Link.

Colin: Colin is a child living in Toaru Village, the younger brother of Ilia, and the son of Bo. He looks up to both Link and Ilia, seeing them as much better role models than the rest of the children in the village. He doesn't get along well with the other children. They all take a natural child's interest in things like swords and fighting, but Colin would rather tend to the animals than play with swords.

The Bokoblin King: As far as the demo goes, the Bokoblin king is our first major villain. Not just an enemy, but someone that has some power. He is King of the Bokoblins, after all. He's big, green, menacing, and has an army of Bokoblins at his disposal -- all riding Boars. He even leads that very army in the Bokoblin raid that gets Colin kidnapped and Ilia shot with an arrow. He takes the largest and most frightening of the Boars as his own mount, and carries a battle horn, which gives him the ability to summon portals to the Twilight Realm. The real question is: Who does the Bokoblin king work for? Just who does he answer to?

Twilight Princess takes place decades after Ocarina of Time, and well before Wind Waker. It begins, quite simply, with Link living in a small community known as Toaru Village. Here he is, as Nintendo puts it, a cowboy. From the demo we know he can corral goats into a barn and it's probably safe to say that is actually his occupation. On top of that he has become close friends with Bo, the mayor of Toaru Village, who is sending Link to the kingdom of Hyrule as a representative of Toaru Village to attend a festival. The specifics of this festival are not yet known, but it doesn't much matter as Link doesn't get to make this trip. Just as he is retrieving his horse from Ilia, the mayor's daughter, a horde of enemies storms the village. Ilia is shot in the back, (we don't know whether she is killed or not), and Colin, Ilia's brother, is taken captive by the Bokoblin king. Link is clubbed in the back of the head by one of the Bokoblins and left unconscious. When he wakes up he finds nothing. He is alone.

Which brings us to our next point: the Twilight Realm. As Link regains consciousness and wanders out of the spring, he stumbles upon a strange portal -- a murky cloud of darkness leading to somewhere terrible. A hand juts out of the blackness and pulls him into the Twilight Realm. Sometime after leaving the Twilight Realm, Link goes after the Bokoblin king, dueling him for Colin's life. And that's about all the demo gives us. As for the events that follow immediately, very little has been said or shown about the Twilight Realm. But here's what we do know: the Twilight Realm, for those worrying, is not the Dark World (from A Link to the Past). The Dark World was parallel to the light world (our dimension). In any given area both a Light and Dark world version existed, often different. The Twilight Realm is simply a darkness which absorbs the area it covers. That area is now a dead realm, and only the one dead version of it exists. This darkness is spreading from Hyrule outward and our adventure begins when it reaches peaceful Toaru Village and sucks Link in through one of its many portals. (Interestingly enough, this Twilight Realm seems to incorporate a fair amount of cel-shading -- a small throwback to the glorious art style we saw in Wind Waker, without the entirety of the cartoonish stylings that so many people could never get beyond.)

As soon as Link enters this Twilight Realm, he is transformed into a wolf. This is apparently because, in the Twilight Realm, nothing from the normal world can exist in its standard state. We talked earlier about Twilight Princess being darker, and here it is. This isn't just Link in the form of a wolf. This is something we've never seen in Link before. As a wolf he's feral, vicious, and brutal. He rampages through this terrible new world, destructive and terrifying, and is captured as a result. You've all seen him chained in the trailer. His actions in the Twilight Realm lead to him getting captured and chained up in some kind of castle. Why? Because he's dangerous. In addition, the cloaked figure in the beginning of the E3 trailer has been confirmed by Aonuma himself to be Princess Zelda, in mourning for the dying world of Hyrule. Aonuma has said that she has some role in Link's transformation to the wolf, but has remained tight-lipped as to just what that role is. And that strange creature you've seen riding the wolf in the trailers? That's Midna. The ever present cel-shading in this dead realm is most apparent here, especially in the strange headgear she wears. She frees wolf-Link from the castle after he's been imprisoned, and from that point on, Midna will always ride Link whenever you enter the Twilight Realm. And as soon as you exit? You're back to Link, and Midna vanishes without a trace. A dark realm absorbing Hyrule, a werewolf curse, and a strange imp that befriends your wolf form. It's all a lot to digest at once and Nintendo hasn't helped any. The company has given no word on what any of it really means or what it all has to do with the larger story, but one thing is for sure: this Zelda is like nothing we've ever seen before.

So, thanks in part to our intelligence agencies, but mostly thanks to playing the crap out of the demos, we have learned a lot of things about Twilight Princess. The daunting size of this very article is proof enough of that. But we crave knowledge, so we'd like to take some time to offer our speculation regarding the areas of the story Nintendo's been tight-lipped on. For instance, Link, the young farmhand from Toaru Village, is someone we know quite a bit about. But, as with most everything to do with this game, he's definitely surrounded by some mystery of his own...

Do we really know anything about this Link? He's not the same person we knew from Ocarina of Time and he's certainly long gone before the Link in The Wind Waker has his adventure. This Link is new and he's already considered an adult when the adventure starts. Yet, what's most interesting about him is the Triforce crest imprinted on his left hand. As any avid Zelda fan would know, this is the same crest found on the Hero of Time in OoT. Of course, he had a piece of the Triforce directly given to him when Ganondorf touched and split it into pieces. In Twilight Princess, no reason is given for why our new Link has the mark. We can only surmise that either Nintendo hasn't told us something yet or that it is simply the mark of the "chosen one" for any Zelda adventure. In the game manual for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link it says, "One day a strange mark, exactly like the crest of the kingdom, appeared on the back of Link's hand as he approached his 16th birthday." We suppose that the game will begin with either the mark appearing on Link's hand or a mentioning of it being like a birth mark until our hero finds out its true meaning.

Link's adventure truly begins when Colin is kidnapped. As we've said, we are still unsure of exactly what happened to Ilia after the kidnapping or even if she is still alive. Furthermore, this dark being that was summoned by the Bokoblin king from the Twilight Realm intrigues us. Is this creature the same one or type that eventually winds up on the Baboon's head in the Forest Temple demo? If not, then what havoc does this one unleash? When Link awakens, after being knocked unconscious, he is sucked into the Twilight Realm and we do not find out what happened to this creature as it went on unabated.

The Hyrule Festival Link is to be sent to as a representative of Toaru Village does not, as far as we know, actually occur. After the devastation Link suffers from watching Colin being kidnapped and sucked into the Twilight Realm himself we find doubt that the rest of the world is unaware of this, considering the fact that the Twilight Realm is supposedly spreading out from Hyrule. Village leaders can't very well attend a festival when they all become animals before entering. One thing is for certain though: Link's adventure could just as easily have started without the mentioning of a festival. He could have just been strolling around the village when the Bokoblins decided to take Colin, giving Link all the motivation he'd ever need to embark on a quest while he gets tangled up in the mystery that is the Twilight Realm. As a result, we feel that the festival will still figure into the game. Maybe it will finally take place at the end of the game as a celebration or maybe as a result of the festival not taking place, the neighboring civilizations near Hyrule will become unpeaceful as they bicker about the increasing threat of the Twilight Realm. In an early gameplay trailer we saw Link fighting a Goron. It is certainly possible that Goron relations are crushed during the spreading of the Twilight Realm. Of course, it's equally possible that this warring Goron is of a unique brand and part of a side quest. Still, it is interesting to ponder.

Eiji Aonuma has said that the Twilight Realm is fueled by an evil magic power. As Link defeats its minions, it will gradually be pushed back and light will return until finally Link reaches the heart of the Twilight's evil power and destroys it. If the Twilight Realm is fueled by some sort of dark force, it needs a source. If this game takes place after Ocarina of Time -- after the Imprisoning War -- perhaps the dark force is Ganon's power beginning to reach out into Hyrule as he frees himself. (Also, if it takes place after OoT and before TWW, and this is an absolute shot in the dark, perhaps it will lead up to the flooding.) And as for Ganondorf, we're willing to bet, after being denied his massive demonic form in The Wind Waker, that Twilight Princess has Ganon back in store for us.

Helping Link to push back the Twilight Realm will be Midna, who rescuse him in his wolf form and then fights alongside him. Midna, however, is not technically an ally. She is an inhabitant of the Twilight world, and for whatever reason her agenda clashes with the evil inhabitants of it, so she may merely ally herself with Link to fight a common foe. Though, while she could indeed be a foe who forms a begrudging alliance in the Twilight Realm, that does not necessarily make her normal world counterpart an enemy. Still, one wonders who Midna really is. Her strange headgear, especially the eye pattern on its left side, has drawn a lot of attention for being similar in design to the eye on Majora's Mask. That, on the other hand, is a fairly arbitrary way of thinking. Termina was too separated from Hyrule to reasonably bring back for a game like this, and there really isn't a reason to do it. The eye on the mask is similar, but only slightly. The other eye it bears resemblance to, though (and no more strongly this time, but at least this one has more logic behind it), you'll see on the back of Zelda's cloak in the trailer. Midna may even just be evil, manipulating Link by seeming to join him. But perhaps Midna is Zelda. The Princess is expected to have a more active role this time around anyway, and Nintendo's been all over hidden identities for her lately. An identity that, beyond her own control, really isn't on Link's side would be a really cool angle, we feel. Either way, we have faith that whatever Nintendo does do will be great.