Some may consider it blasphemy and ask me to turn in my card as a video gamer, but in all my years of playing games (and I’m old school, back to the Intellivision days), I have never played anything with the word ‘Zelda’ in the title.

Actually, that may a good thing for my purposes here, because in reviewing the Wii version of The Legend of Zelda – Twilight Princess, I’m coming in with no preconceived notions and no prejudices if a certain character doesn’t act a certain way or if the story screws up some sacred piece of continuity. I’m comin’ in clean, and if I can sum up this review in one statement, it’s that after playing this game, I actually hit the mall to pick up the Gamecube versions of Ocarina of Time and the Wind Waker so I can continue exploring a series I am ashamed to have neglected for this long.

Simply put, and I’ve seen other reviewers put it the same way, Twilight Princess reminds you why you began playing games in the first place. Let’s face it, the graphics here are not groundbreaking, being serviceable at best; I’m sure the music has its legion of fans, but I’m not one of them; there is no voice acting, only various sounds and blurts from characters that border on the bizarre facially; and the story is your typical fantasy romp of saving the land from an unspeakable evil.

But in the hands of the team headed by director Eiji Aonuma, these parts are taken apart, put together and mixed into a gaming experience you won’t soon forget. From the opening sequences, you’re tossed into a world where there is no much to do and so many ways to do it, that it seems overwhelming as you learn each successive gameplay element, from sword fighting and fishing to shooting a slingshot and using a lantern. But as you progress, you realize that most of the actions (even with the Wii remote and nunchuck involved) are intuitive at heart. Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I must say this review was delayed a bit by the fact that it took me over an hour to get the hang of fishing, when it was actually an easy maneuver if done correctly.

But I digress.

Playing as Link, you are a simple ranch hand whose daily tasks mainly involve herding goats. Soon though, after being given a mission to deliver a gift to Hyrule’s royal family, all hell breaks loose and not only are two of your friends kidnapped, but you turn into a wolf and a darkness settles over the land. Guess what? You’ve got to save the world. But as hokey as that sounds, the story is well done and epic in scope (we’re talking 40-50 hours of gameplay – probably around 75 if you’re coordination challenged like me). And the best part of the whole deal is that the gameplay on display here is so diverse that you can get lost in just playing the game, figuring out the puzzles, beating the minigames and the impressive boss characters, and – dare I say it – having fun.

Unfortunately, fun is what’s lost in a lot of games these days. We’ve gotten so used to: shoot the enemy, push the button, blow up the trash can, move the crate, that we’ve forgotten what a truly well designed game is like. And here, just when you’re totally engrossed in figuring out how to get to the next dungeon or area, you get hit with a cut scene or some dialogue that moves along the story and gets you involved in that aspect of the game again. It’s an amazing mix.