25 hours into Twilight Princess I had accepted the fact that this game wouldn't bring anything new to the series, but then I had to go to this cold place called Snowpeak…
(Minor spoilers)
I've played a couple of Zelda games, some of the GameBoy-versions and especially Ocarina of Time, and so far most of the gear, temples and so on in TP, is just as in the old games, and I haven't even played Wind Waker. Forest Temple, Fire Temple, Water Temple, it's all there. Running around Hyrule Castle Town the other day, slapping the sillyness out of annoying dogs, I got a new mission where I was to investigate the "snowy mountains to the north" because the Zoras were annoyed by some Yeti-like monster with a reeking fish. Off I go, the scenery is cool, snow and blizzards, never seen that in a Zelda-game before (afaik), you have to follow the scent of the socalled Reekfish to get through it and then you meet Yoti, a huge, friendly yeti who screams stuff like "I LIKE FISH!" and "UH UH! YOU LOOK TASTY BUT I GOT FISH!", hilarious fella, he invites you to his house and you have to complete a cool little snowboarding game to get there (complete with jumps and everything), you arrive at his house, which is actually a gigantic mansion, go inside, meet his sick wife, and start investigating the place to find a key for the yetis' bedroom (in which the mission objective, a mirror shard, is located). The atmosphere in this place is amazing, the cozyness in the living room, with an open fire, and kitchen (in which Yoti is making a soup for his wife), stands in stark contrast to the freezy courtyards and creepy hallways in the rest of the house. So far, this level has been the coolest in the entire game, you run around looking for the key, blasting away icewalls with cannons and a big wrecking-ball, stumbling upon ingredients for the soup and eventually fighting against the yeti wife (Yota), who, because of an Lord of the Rings-like obsession, turns into a demon. Also, before getting this mission, you see a cutscene with Ganondorf (!) who hadn't been mentioned in the game until that point. Twilight Princess just got a hell of a lot better.
