I find Link at the crossed waterways above Lake Hylia, surrounded by the crashing sounds of the bloated river and the delicate chiming of insects. It is possibly my favourite location in the game. There are options here; a sedate spot of fishing, a thrilling white-water boatride to the lake itself, or a pathway to the open field and the continuation of the adventure. How ever many times I load the game I never save over it. The date reads 27/01/2007. The day I thought I was finished with the game.
Due to the release of the Wii in early December, the GameCube version was delayed a couple of weeks. My first play-through of the game was therefore on the Wii. It lasted thirty hours, the game unfinished. I spent those thirty hours pining for the GameCube's chunky controller. When the GameCube version was released, I spent another thirty hours retreading the same environments (albeit, mirrored), fighting the same battles, and 're-solving' the same puzzles. Yet, I enjoyed it far more. Whether it was due to the pact I made that Twilight Princess would be the last GameCube game I would play (Wind Waker being the very first) before packing the old fellow up for good. Maybe it was just the infinitely more comfortable GameCube controller. Perhaps it was simply the vague feeling that this was how it was meant to be.
Do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls?
An unshakeable air of sadness permeates the game. The introductory scene sees Link and his stable-mate colleague, Rusl, resting beside a three-tiered watering hole near Ordon Village as the sunlight is fading. The conversation holds a melancholy tone. It seems to delicately invoke the Japanese idea of 'Mono no aware', the sadness of things passing. Rusl explains to Link how the hour of twilight allows the real world to intersect with the spirit world and that the regrets of the dead can be felt by those still living. It's only a short scene, but it colours the entire adventure. Straight away the game feels different, more mature, more grown-up. It has concerns of work, toil, longing and regret.
Although, if pushed, I would have always said that the Wind Waker was my favourite of the two games, it's Twilight Princess which lingers in my mind even now. Wind Waker, for all its charm, doesn't really lend itself to projection. Link is a happy-go-lucky child with the world at his feet and adventure in his heart. Twilight Princess' Link is a young adult who, although well-liked, lives alone, away from the other villagers. In a tree-house at that. He is seemingly troubled. His life is the not the angsty catalyst of a thousand adventures or even the child-like wonder of a world unexplored. It is more a quiet life of order and mundanity. Taking pleasure in the little things. Many have said that Twilight Princess plays like a remake of Ocarina of Time with varying mechanics. A wolf in sheep's clothes, perhaps. However, ever so slowly the differences become apparent. The main important difference being that of the character of Link himself. Shigeru Miyamoto's, Ocarina of Time's, Link is a special boy, a boy with a destiny to be fulfilled. Eiji Aonuma's, Twilight Princess', Link is an ordinary young man, likable, but nothing special. Miyamoto's Link is born into adventure. Aonuma's Link falls into it. As a favour. To someone else. He is asked to deliver a sword to Hyrule town which he uses as the only thing available to defend himself when he is attacked by a horde of goblins. He becomes hero of time by accident.
It turns out Twilight Princess is not really a game about good versus evil. It's about identity, a sense of place and the importance of belonging. Your ultimate goal is to stop the fusion of Hyrule and the Twilight Realm. As such, it's the details that are important: the picture of Epona hanging above Link's bed, the score-lines in the turf the ranch gate has carved over many years of toil, and the instantly recognisable music of Lake Hyrule fading back in as you remove the Iron boots at the entrance to the lake temple on the lakebed and slowly surface. When you finally get to take on Ganondorf it's not in a gigantic Gothic hall, not an abstract temple designed only to house him, it isn't somewhere you've never seen before. It's right there in the middle of Hyrule field. A one-on-one battle for the fate of the very world you are stood in. The trees. The river. The grass. The rocks.
And, for me, it's a battle for running through town before the shops close after a day of working in a job you hate, hoping they still have the GameCube version in stock. The welcoming feel of the GameCube controller and the orange glow of a space heater from playing the game in the dead of winter, two o'clock in the morning and the sound of the wind in the trees outside.
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