IMPress Polly
02-17-2015, 12:02 PM
I was inspired to write a little on the Legend of Zelda franchise today by this thoughtful article on life lessons from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (http://www.buzzfeed.com/alannaokun/let-the-moon-fall#.tdEmZ87j3) by Alanna Okun that appeared recently on Buzz Feed. The author explains therein why Majora's Mask is her favorite video game of all time and what she's learned about life and about herself from it.
I think most of us are at least vaguely familiar the Zelda franchise. Although no Zelda game has impacted me the same way that Majora's Mask has impacted this woman (that level of emotional resonance for me is to be found in Persona 4 and Final Fantasy 6), the series has left its mark on me as well in other ways. My favorite Zelda game of all time is The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the Nintendo DS. Understanding why I think requires a bit of background on how Zelda games work:
First off, we can consider the first two Zelda games for the NES essentially one-offs, not representative of the franchise's larger trend. The first one was made to be essentially a treasure hunt game. The lead creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, said that his goal was to capture the feeling of exploring the beach in search of treasure like he did as a kid, so it was built around exploration and accordingly featured an open-world environment (i.e. essentially the game can be thought of as one big level, more or less). The story wasn't important, so it was just recycled from Super Mario Bros. basically. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was an action game. Neither of those two approaches proved to be the trend for the franchise. The trend was set by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super NES. The idea from that point forward was essentially to make Zelda a pure adventure series that balanced storytelling, cinematic presentation, puzzle-solving, exploration, and action-combat about equally. Zelda games hence are often referenced as the implicit go-to definition of pure adventure games. So that's been what we know as the Zelda formula.
Over time, the makers came to be more influenced by developments in the popular Japanese RPG genre though, so the role of storytelling, cinematic presentation, and puzzle-solving in particular became elavated more and more at the expense of exploration, and Zelda's role in her own legend progressively increased as well in an overall sense. Zelda had an active role beginning in Ocarina of Time (1998) and by The Wind Waker (2003) she was a hero in her own right in many ways, though a secondary one. And by The Wind Waker, the travel mechanism (boat rather than foot or horse) and the clear level distinctions had clearly limited the exploration factor more than earlier installments. I liked this general trend. And of this general trend, Spirit Tracks (2009) was the epitome; the zenith to date. Spirit Tracks introduced a new main villain and had Zelda's soul separated from her body. Her soul accompanies you as your companion on the journey to recover her body. As a spirit, she can inhabit the bodies of enemy characters and use them to fight and help Link cross spiky chasms and solve lots of puzzles. Most every Zelda game gives Link a female traveling companion. In Spirit Tracks, it's Zelda herself in spirit form. She makes the best companion of all, IMO. As had become the trend beginning in The Wind Waker, she was given a real, lively personality in Spirit Tracks that made it really enjoyable to have her around. That was another thing I've liked about the the anime-style visual presentation that many Zelda games have used since The Wind Waker: it offers more opportunities for a lively expressionism that just seems to fit the themes of courage and wisdom overcoming unchecked power. Anyway, you controlled Link directly and Zelda indirectly for about one-third of Spirit Tracks. In terms of play structure, Spirit Tracks is one of most linear Zelda titles. Your travel mechanism in this game is a train, and you know how those literally travel on rails. :wink: The main game play focus is puzzle-solving in Spirit Tracks, namely in co-op fashion much of the time. You often have to use both Link and Zelda to solve many of the game's puzzles. I liked that focus on brainy play and on the friendship between Link and Zelda that rarely gets explored at all. It's a special kind of thing to be a prepubescent child and have someone of the opposite sex as your best friend and closest ally because it's taboo at that age. Boys and girls that age tend to live in separate worlds. I know that from experience that it's special to have that sort of friendship and Spirit Tracks brought me back to that place emotionally, especially with its multifaceted conclusion.
Since Spirit Tracks, I think we've largely seen the franchise retrench into nostalgia mode both thematically and structurally. In general, Zelda has started to become a less important character again -- once more basically just the damsel in distress that you rescue (her role in Hyrule Warriors being the exception). Newer Zelda titles have also tended to focus less on storytelling in general and more revisiting older approaches to the franchise. For example, Hyrule Warriors revisits the action focus of Zelda II, while the upcoming Legend of Zelda game slated for release on the Wii U late this year will be an open-world game like A Link Between Worlds was, akin to, and inspired by, the original 1987 Legend of Zelda. Designer Eiji Aonuma has explained that, concerning the upcoming Zelda game for Wii U, it was his desire to change the franchise's defining game play style from a linear, set path driven by its central storyline to non-linear, open-world series with objective-based play. That doesn't sound promising to me as a fan of the previous direction! Or at least it's not the Zelda franchise I've grown up loving anyway. But this nostalgia-inspired change of direction for the series makes games like The Wind Waker and Spirit Tracks especially feel all the more special to me. MY Zelda nostalgia. :smiley:
What about you? Do you have a favorite Zelda game? And if so, why is it your favorite?
I think most of us are at least vaguely familiar the Zelda franchise. Although no Zelda game has impacted me the same way that Majora's Mask has impacted this woman (that level of emotional resonance for me is to be found in Persona 4 and Final Fantasy 6), the series has left its mark on me as well in other ways. My favorite Zelda game of all time is The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the Nintendo DS. Understanding why I think requires a bit of background on how Zelda games work:
First off, we can consider the first two Zelda games for the NES essentially one-offs, not representative of the franchise's larger trend. The first one was made to be essentially a treasure hunt game. The lead creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, said that his goal was to capture the feeling of exploring the beach in search of treasure like he did as a kid, so it was built around exploration and accordingly featured an open-world environment (i.e. essentially the game can be thought of as one big level, more or less). The story wasn't important, so it was just recycled from Super Mario Bros. basically. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was an action game. Neither of those two approaches proved to be the trend for the franchise. The trend was set by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super NES. The idea from that point forward was essentially to make Zelda a pure adventure series that balanced storytelling, cinematic presentation, puzzle-solving, exploration, and action-combat about equally. Zelda games hence are often referenced as the implicit go-to definition of pure adventure games. So that's been what we know as the Zelda formula.
Over time, the makers came to be more influenced by developments in the popular Japanese RPG genre though, so the role of storytelling, cinematic presentation, and puzzle-solving in particular became elavated more and more at the expense of exploration, and Zelda's role in her own legend progressively increased as well in an overall sense. Zelda had an active role beginning in Ocarina of Time (1998) and by The Wind Waker (2003) she was a hero in her own right in many ways, though a secondary one. And by The Wind Waker, the travel mechanism (boat rather than foot or horse) and the clear level distinctions had clearly limited the exploration factor more than earlier installments. I liked this general trend. And of this general trend, Spirit Tracks (2009) was the epitome; the zenith to date. Spirit Tracks introduced a new main villain and had Zelda's soul separated from her body. Her soul accompanies you as your companion on the journey to recover her body. As a spirit, she can inhabit the bodies of enemy characters and use them to fight and help Link cross spiky chasms and solve lots of puzzles. Most every Zelda game gives Link a female traveling companion. In Spirit Tracks, it's Zelda herself in spirit form. She makes the best companion of all, IMO. As had become the trend beginning in The Wind Waker, she was given a real, lively personality in Spirit Tracks that made it really enjoyable to have her around. That was another thing I've liked about the the anime-style visual presentation that many Zelda games have used since The Wind Waker: it offers more opportunities for a lively expressionism that just seems to fit the themes of courage and wisdom overcoming unchecked power. Anyway, you controlled Link directly and Zelda indirectly for about one-third of Spirit Tracks. In terms of play structure, Spirit Tracks is one of most linear Zelda titles. Your travel mechanism in this game is a train, and you know how those literally travel on rails. :wink: The main game play focus is puzzle-solving in Spirit Tracks, namely in co-op fashion much of the time. You often have to use both Link and Zelda to solve many of the game's puzzles. I liked that focus on brainy play and on the friendship between Link and Zelda that rarely gets explored at all. It's a special kind of thing to be a prepubescent child and have someone of the opposite sex as your best friend and closest ally because it's taboo at that age. Boys and girls that age tend to live in separate worlds. I know that from experience that it's special to have that sort of friendship and Spirit Tracks brought me back to that place emotionally, especially with its multifaceted conclusion.
Since Spirit Tracks, I think we've largely seen the franchise retrench into nostalgia mode both thematically and structurally. In general, Zelda has started to become a less important character again -- once more basically just the damsel in distress that you rescue (her role in Hyrule Warriors being the exception). Newer Zelda titles have also tended to focus less on storytelling in general and more revisiting older approaches to the franchise. For example, Hyrule Warriors revisits the action focus of Zelda II, while the upcoming Legend of Zelda game slated for release on the Wii U late this year will be an open-world game like A Link Between Worlds was, akin to, and inspired by, the original 1987 Legend of Zelda. Designer Eiji Aonuma has explained that, concerning the upcoming Zelda game for Wii U, it was his desire to change the franchise's defining game play style from a linear, set path driven by its central storyline to non-linear, open-world series with objective-based play. That doesn't sound promising to me as a fan of the previous direction! Or at least it's not the Zelda franchise I've grown up loving anyway. But this nostalgia-inspired change of direction for the series makes games like The Wind Waker and Spirit Tracks especially feel all the more special to me. MY Zelda nostalgia. :smiley:
What about you? Do you have a favorite Zelda game? And if so, why is it your favorite?