Twilight Realm

Twilight Realm

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (ゼルダの伝説 トワイライトプリンセス, Zeruda no Densetsu Towairaito Purinsesu?) is an action-adventure game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development, and published by Nintendo for the GameCube and Wii video game consoles. It is the thirteenth installment in The Legend of Zelda series. Originally planned for release in November 2005, Twilight Princess was delayed by Nintendo to allow its developers to refine the game, add more content and port it to the Wii. The Wii version was also released alongside the Wii console on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 in Japan, Europe, and Australia. This made Twilight Princess the first Zelda game released at the launch of a Nintendo console. The GameCube version was released in December 2006, and was the last Nintendo-published game for the console, as well as the final official GameCube game released in Japan.

The story focuses on series protagonist Link, who tries to prevent Hyrule from being engulfed by a corrupted parallel dimension known as the Twilight Realm. To do so, he takes the forms of both a hylian and a wolf, and is assisted by a mysterious creature named Midna. The game takes place approximately 100 years after Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, in an alternate timeline from The Wind Waker.

Twilight Princess is also the first game in The Legend of Zelda series to receive a T (Teen) rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which cited fantasy violence and animated blood as reasons for the more mature rating. At the time of its release, Twilight Princess was considered to be the greatest Zelda game ever made by many critics, including writers for 1UP.com, CVG, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Informer, GamesRadar, IGN and The Washington Post. It also received several Game of the Year awards and was the most critically acclaimed game of 2006. The Wii version was re-released as part of the Nintendo Selects range.