A large portion of Nintendo’s booth this year is dedicated to a “fun house” sort of area showcasing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and with good reason. Fans are snaking around the booth just to get a few minutes to play the game. It’s next to impossible not to spoil story details, but let’s just say that the game is both dark & moody, and light and funny at the same time.

Twilight Princess is running on the Wind Waker engine, and before any of you smack your head on your desk, so was that fantastic trailer that many of you have seen by now. The game manages to combine both cel-shading techniques with high-res textures and fantastic lighting direction. It is very hard to tell how good the game looked on Nintendo’s plasma screens, because they don’t have any of the kiosks configured for progressive scan.

There are two, two-level demos on display. The first one (the “outside” demo) contains a village where Link has to perform some menial farm-hand tasks with his beloved steed Epona, and a horseback battle much like the ones seen in the trailers. The second (the “dungeon” demo) takes place in a single dungeon, as well as the ensuing boss battle, with help from … monkeys. (We’ll have some video of this boss battle available later, but without the ending, for those that are spoiler conscious.)

Riding Epona feels a bit jerky and not at all as smooth as I’d like, but it’s possible that there is a learning curve that I am not accustomed to. Once I managed to figure out how to maneuver her, I felt a little less clumsy. Link controls very similarly to Wind Waker, so those that have played it will be able to jump right in.

Twilight Princess should be a system seller, with people being able to pick up the game and a GameCube for about $150, and it will very likely cause people contemplating the Xbox 360 to pause for a second. Nintendo maintains that the game will be released for “Holiday 2005”, but it’s a pretty safe bet that Nintendo will counter Microsoft’s launch with a very compelling reason to save the cash.