Official Nintendo Power The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Player's Guide
By Nintendo Power
The ONLY official guide from the insiders at Nintendo!
"Unleash the Beast!" The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is a huge game! By far the biggest one in the series, and without a doubt the most absorbing. A game as big as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess may be hard for a gamer to traverse without some help. This is where Nintendo's Official Strategy Guide comes into play. This tome is jampacked with everything you need to know about conquering the twilight. Rest assured, you're getting your money's worth with this guide. The guide begins with a short introduction to the storyline. Its more or less what you already get from the instruction manual in less detail. It spans a mere two pages, and then it goes into all the game basics stuff. Things like the controls which can easily be learned on your own, or through the games short and sweet tutorials. Still, you can never go wrong with having this information in the guide. You probably won't need these basic things, but they're there... just in case. After that is a list of all the items you'll collect throughout your adventure, and a description of them. All these things are pretty basic for a strategy guide. Most (if not, every) strategy guide has them. So if you're having trouble adjusting to the game and the manual isn't helping, this guide will with its helpful diagrams and clear high rez screenshots. The walkthrough is one of the areas where the guide shines the most. The maps, unfortunately, are pulled straight from the game. They're not extremely detailed, but can easily be used to navigate through the game, and they do point out the location of hearts and other items on them. Just don't be expecting rendered 3D maps or anything like that. The walkthrough is written in the same style as most every Nintendo Power guide. That is to say, you must use the maps along with the text. On the map you'll see numbers strewn about. These correspond to the objectives in the text. So if you see "1" on the map, it means you'll have to look for section "1" in the objectives list. As with most Nintendo Power guides this makes the walkthrough extremely organized and easy to use. Unlike most other guides where you have to read most of the walkthrough first. Nintendo Power doesn't force you to do that. It works especially well because you can easily look to the guide only when you need to. Say you've done everything and you're stuck at one specific point. Look on the map in the game, match it up with the map in the guide and then you can read your objective. It helps you spend more time actually playing the game than reading the walkthrough. The walkthrough also contains several crystal clear screenshots and special call outs to new items and events. When it calls out to events, do not be alarmed. There are no plot spoilers in this guide. You will not find any here. Boss strategies are pretty basic. They tell you how to attack a boss and open up its weakness but that's about it. Nothing much on how to dodge attacks or what to watch out for. Some of the later boss strategies get this detail, but for the most part, several of them are devoid of this stuff. Even just telling me to roll or jump to the side would've helped. So while they're helpful on offense, they do not provide a great defense. After the walkthrough we've got the appendices. Here they've listed where all the Pieces of Hearts are, Poe Souls, Golden Bugs, Howling Stones and Upgrades. With the exception of upgrades, each of these appendices provides a map of the overworld for you to find these things. The Pieces of Hearts section even has a checklist and detailed information for you. Next they give some great information on the Cave of Ordeals as well as providing you with some nifty secrets in a section they simply called "Diversions" (most of this section, however, is spent on fishing). Afterwards, we get into the Gamecube section of the guide. This is almost like a mini-instruction manual. It just goes through all the basics of the Gamecube controls, shows you all the dungeons and maps and then where all the Poe Souls and Golden Bugs. It's alright and all, and they mention there are a few differences in the maps, but there's hardly any mention of the differences in the main walkthrough itself. So far by flipping back and forth through the maps, its safe to say the main walkthrough could just as easily be used or the Gamecube version. Finally, at the very back of the guide we have a map appendix... why at the back of the guide? Convenient? Certainly. After all, it's the very last page so flipping back and forth through it is no problem if you use your finger as a bookmark, and its easy to memorize. You actually probably won't even need it. The maps are simple enough to figure out for yourself. Do I really have hardfelt complaints about the guide? No, not really. If anything its merely the boss strategies and the little detail given to the Gamecube version. And by little detail I'm referring to the maps for the dungeons but no detailed description of differences. If you've got the Gamecube version a question you might be asking is if the guide can be used for the Gamecube version. The simple answer is that it can be. The problem is that you'll have to work to use it for the Gamecube version. The good news is the puzzles and such are the same. So are the item placements. The bad news is that in the Gamecube versions mirrors the the Wii version. Link's sword is in his left hand instead of his right. Also, environments are mirrored. A path on the left in the Wii version will be on the right in the Gamecube version. The walkthrough can be used, if you're willing to do some page flipping. You could even use the main walkthrough if you remember that when the guide says "To the left" for Gamecube owners it'll be "To the right." So it can be used, although some consumers might have some difficulty doing it like that. Nonetheless, the guide is still good. It's obviously better suited for the Wii version, but for Gamecube owners, it's not obsolete. Praise +Good game basics section, diagrams are really useful +Detailed walkthrough +Well organized walkthrough +Clear Screenshots +Basic, yet helpful maps +All Heart Pieces, Poe Souls, Golden Bugs and Howl Stones Revealed +Map differences for the Gamecube and Wii versions +Play control for Gamecube version described +No Spoilers Criticisms -Boss strategies are helpful in providing you with a good offense, but not always a good defense -Maps are helpful, but pulled straight from the game so they're fairly generic -If you do have the Gamecube version you may or may not be doing some page flipping between maps and the actual walkthrough Avoid if you're using the Gamecube version This strategy guide was written specifically for the Wii. It claims covering the Gamecube version, but that is very minimal and consists of few pages at the end (mostly incomplete symmetric maps). The difference between the Gamecube and Wii versions (in addition to the controls of course) is that Link is left-handed in the GC version while being right-handed in the Wii version. To compensate for that, the designers flipped the world, so the maps in the GC are symmetric to those in the Wii. While following the walkthroughs, you have to constantly flip to the end of the guide - which is very annoying. Also, you have to translate all the "to your left" or "to your right" directions in the body text in your mind when playing the GC version (which is very confusing). Prima is planning on releasing 2 versions of their guide (one for each platform). I recommend lookig at that option if you're a Gamecube owner. Overall its great, one TINY problem (but hopefully you can live with it ^_^) Basically here is how the guide is set up. It has a holographic cover so it's "halfway" between hardback and paperback. It starts of as any normal guide would, giving you the table of contents, controls, special items in the game, and collectables. Now, the real part of purchasing the guide is the walk through section. Unlike many other guides I have purchased this one goes about walking you through the game differently. At the beginning of each section they give you a map with little numbers on it. Following the map each dot is presented with a paragraph describing what you need to do at each "numbered station." Because they include many pictures (don't get me wrong, the pictures are EXTREMELY helpful) you are never going to get one section where all the dots are explained on the same page. So naturally, page flipping is a problem. When I am playing, i constantly have to flip back, to the map to see where the next dot is, and forth, to see what you have to do at each dot, between pages which kind of slows down the process of reading the guide. In between telling which number corresponds to which paragraph, Nintendo decided to place other tid bits of information. For example, the very first "optional" information talks about how to make Epona jump over a fence (just in case you don't know). This proves to be pretty helpful through out the game. Remember the collections that I had talked about in the beginning of the guide? Well after the main walk through, Nintendo gives you walkthroughs on where you can collect each item for each collection.....the only problem is that some of the items (if you miss them) will not be available later, so CONSTANTLY check the "collection guides" to see if you can get a piece of heart etc. (so that YOU don't miss it like I did.) After the mini guides, there is a section of upgrades for your weapons/money as well as side quest walkthroughs. Following these, there is a TINY section on how to play the game for the gamecube. However, after reading everybody else's reviews: DO NOT PURCHASE THIS GUIDE FOR THE GAMECUBE. At the VERY back of the book there is a page titled "Map Key." It can be a little bit annoying to have to flip back there when you don't know what something means, but hey! they had to put it somewhere i guess.
