A shockingly solid videogame adaptation!
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Akira Himekawa
Translation: John Werry
What They Say
Link must defeat evil at every turn in his perilous quest to help Princess Zelda!
Once upon a time, wizards tried to conquer the Sacred Realm of Hyrule. The Spirits of Light sealed the wizards’ power within the Shadow Crystal and banished them to the Twilight Realm beyond the Mirror of Twilight. Now, an evil menace is trying to find Midna, Princess of the Twilight Realm, and the fragments of the Shadow Crystal to gain the power to rule over both the Twilight Realm and the World of Light.
Link once trained in swordsmanship, hoping to protect the world of Hyrule. After a fateful meeting, he sought out the anonymity and peace of life in a small village. But danger and adventure always find heroes to set things right, and when the dark minions of the King of Shadows threaten his new home, Link answers the call!
Technical:
The front cover here is a rather nice image of Link and the wolf, staring down the reader head on. Though I will say the fadeout to black to dedicate the top third to the logo looks a bit on the sloppy side. The back cover, meanwhile, goes for a minimalist look, with Zant standing in the center above your normal synopsis and the like. There are no extras here, honorifics are not used, paper quality feels solid, text reads smoothly, and sound effects are translated with stylized text.
I’m actually quite fond of the art style used in this book. It of course takes a good number of cues from the game itself, but it smoothes out some of the roughness seen there, and I’d say the results are quite nice. Just as a quick example, some rather terrifyingly ugly character designs from there (Malo in particular comes to mind) look largely fine here, which is nice to see. Though if the Oocca make an appearance in later volumes, even that sort of effort may not be able to any effect… Anyway, the other really great touch is that the twilight monsters are given some real heavy shading, and it works as a real striking way to help them pop and stand out, showing their more alien nature perfectly. Backgrounds also appear frequently and look rather nice.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As the curtain opens on this tale, we learn a rather large amount of backstory as to the history of the Twilight Realm and its relation to the world of Hyrule. While the realm seems peaceful enough under the rule of Midna, the revolt by Zant throws things into utter chaos and sets the stage for what’s to come. It’s most certainly a different way to kick things off than in the game, and I’m of two minds on the matter. On the one hand, I’m definitely glad to see that this adaptation is striving to seek its own path from the very beginning. But it’s also a tad much of a text dump, and also feels like it removes a tad more mystery from things than it probably should have.
Anyway, once that’s done with, we join a young man named Link in the peaceful village of Ordin. It’s surprising to see how long the book spends on our hero’s tranquil days there, as that actually takes up most of the volume. But it’s pretty interesting in its own right, and really does a nice job of establishing what’s at stake for when tragedy inevitably approaches. And fortunately this time is also used to build things up in the background, such as the steadily encroaching darkness. The most intriguing element, though, is that Link himself actually has a mysterious past this time around. It’s nothing too amazing, but it’s a nice way to thrust some personality and character onto someone who has generally been little more than a blank slate in the games.
And when the time comes for action, it straight up explodes off the page, with some really great flow and layouts! It certainly makes for a thrilling encounter, but will Link be able to overcome his dangerous foe and fight back the darkness?
In Summary
While it’s not flawless or a masterpiece by any means, this first volume really surprised me in how well put together it was. Despite being an adaptation of a game I wouldn’t exactly praise for its plot, it actually manages to be pretty engaging, and definitely makes for an enjoyable ride. By fleshing things out and making some tweaks here and there, it really manages to make the world and characters feel like they have more of a depth and presence than they did back in the game. Combine this with a rather solid flow and some great action, and you get a real nice little book. For fans of the series, or even someone just looking for a nice little bit of fantasy action, this is definitely worth at least a look.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: March 14th, 2017
MSRP: $9.99
