There were other disappointments, too. Throughout this article, I have been talking about the way that Twilight Princess’ characters showed more involvement than the characters of previous Zelda games. The way that Nintendo managed to use the events that were happening to give added depth to even minor characters like Beth’s father. There are many examples of this, some of which I have already named, some not. This sort of thing greatly enriches the game and its characters, making it more immersive, giving us the sense that Hyrule and its people make up a living, breathing world… but it only does so for the first part of the game.

Twilight Princess suffers from one of the same problems that the Wind Waker had – it’s absolutely amazing until you reach a certain point, and then the quality suddenly drops off. In the Wind Waker, the whole game took a turn from masterpiece to average as soon as you finished visiting Hyrule Castle for the first time, and didn’t pick up again until the grand finale. Twilight Princess’ drop wasn’t nearly as drastic or damaging… but it was still disappointing to see its handling of NPCs take a turn for the worse as soon as you got the Master Sword or so. Past that point, the new areas suddenly become barren and lifeless – there is not a single person to talk to in the desert, let alone a bunch of characters to interact with. Snowpeak? Please. It’s a single linear path that leads straight to the dungeon. Aside from the two Yetis, there isn’t any character interaction there. No new characters are introduced, very few new events featuring characters you’ve already met happen, and on the supporting character front the game pretty much dies off.

The first three or four dungeons are spaced out by tons of stuff you can do with different characters, locales, and smaller quests. You have events like escorting Telma’s wagon, you get to see Renado and Barnes deal with the children at Kakariko Village, you rescue Colin from the Moblin lord, you free the Zora from the ice; the list goes on and on. All of this shows us other characters being involved in the game world… and it all stops after the Master Sword. You still get a little bit here and there, mostly during the sequence where you finally restore Ilia’s memory, but compared to the first half of the game it is miniscule. Which is really too bad.

On top of the poor pacing during the second half of the game, there were character-related problems elsewhere. As I said, Twilight Princess’ supporting cast is brilliant… what there is of it. Sadly, I found a distinct lack of interesting people in places like Kakariko Village and Hyrule Castle Town, despite the fact that cities and towns should have the greatest concentration of NPCs. Traditionally, Zelda games have always featured their strongest groups of minor characters in the villages. AoL’s characters were all in villages. Kakariko Village in LttP was the foundation that the series has built on ever since. OoT took that even further, and Hyrule Castle Town and Kakariko Village were packed with interesting people, nooks and crannies, minigames, shops, and buildings we could go into. We all remember the Skulltula house, Dampè the Gravekeeper, the Windmill guy, the woman and her dog Richard, the wounded soldier… the list goes on and on. The Wind Waker one-upped even that, in many areas; I never ran out of things to do and people to interact with in Windfall Island. The Minish Cap’s central town was simply amazing. And Majora’s Mask? Clock Town was the greatest town in any video game, period. A masterpiece. I certainly never expected Twilight Princess’ towns to compare to Clock Town, but I at least expected them to equal Windfall Island. What a surprise these developers had in store for me!

Kakariko Village was desolate. Empty. Devoid of life. There were a grand total of three characters living there. This is partially masked by the Gorons and Ordon children who are temporarily occupying the space, but they fail to truly hide the emptiness of this Kakariko. When you first arrive you overhear Barnes talking about how a woman is killed by the Twilight monsters, and how a bunch of the other villagers rush forward to try to save her – too late, of course. There’s a partial explanation right there; that the Twilight monsters killed off most of the population. But that doesn’t cut it. If that’s what happened, then why are there not more signs of it, more mention of the catastrophe that has befallen the town? Why don’t the surviving characters offer us some show of grief?

If Nintendo had depicted it as a small outpost, then it wouldn’t matter. But it is clearly depicted as a village, complete with multiple buildings, Barnes talking of other inhabitants, mention elsewhere in the world, a “village shaman,” a sanctuary with an ancient statue in the basement, and a graveyard that suggests a long history.

At least Kakariko Village had Renado and the Ordon children to tide us over and mask its emptiness. Hyrule Market had no such luck. It would be a mistake to call it empty, or desolate; it was actually teeming with more people than any village or town in Zelda history. But there is a catch: you can only talk to a small fraction of them. No, the Market was not empty, but it was soulless. Where are the interesting NPCs in every corner? The minigames? The sense of bustle… but with characters I can interact with? Where are my sidequests involving gossiping mothers, or the Elvis impersonator, or an awesome pictograph guy? Why am I stuck with only two alleys and a few buildings to go into? Hyrule Market is designed and presented to us as if it is a large town, but it is really the narrowest, smallest, emptiest town the series has ever had. Even the residents of LttP’s Kakariko were more memorable and enjoyable than this town’s selection.

And then there is the lack of public awareness in the town. Remember when you first meet Zelda in Twilight Princess, and there is a flashback to the invasion of Hyrule Castle? We see Zelda with her knights arrayed before her, ready to fight for the future of Hyrule. Then Zant and his monsters come in, crush the resistance, and force Zelda to surrender. Here, at last, was a sight of the Knights of Hyrule fighting or their Princess and their Kingdom. Here is our first glimpse of a Hyrule that is at war.

We never see that again. Throughout the game, as I traveled through the different areas and saw all the different denizens of Hyrule, I noticed that nobody seemed to remember that there was actually an invasion of Hyrule Castle, before the land was covered in Twilight. It didn’t bother me, because these people were either isolated and not really the sort of characters who would be concerned, or they had problems of their own. But the people of Hyrule Market lacked that excuse. Zant must have fought his way through Hyrule Market to reach the castle. Judging from the flashback, the Knights of Hyrule would have put up a fight at every step, before finally being forced back to their innermost sanctum. But where are the signs? Where is the talk? The NPCs in the market fall back to the old problems of being completely oblivious to the dangers that are befalling their kingdom. Not only is there no apparent memory of any attack amongst the populace, but even the soldiers that guard the Town act as if nothing has happened.

The pinnacle of this obliviousness comes a bit later, when Hyrule Castle is encased in Zant’s twilight barrier. You can see this barrier from miles off; it’s visible from almost anywhere in Hyrule field, in Zora’s Domain, on Death Mountain… and in Hyrule Market. But there is no mention of it. The people of the market are completely unaware of the fact that there is a barrier a mile high around the castle that overlooks their town. The castle that should be the center of their town, and a source of pride for them. There are exactly three people that notice, as far as I am aware. Two of them are the guards at the castle gates… and their reactions are hardly authentic, just puzzlement and the vague idea that they should keep it a secret. The third is a Goron, who expresses a bit of worry; a Goron who doesn’t even live in the town, and is just there to sell some things.

You almost wonder whether such absent-minded buffoons deserve to be saved from Zant and Ganon.