2008 – A Silent Zelda Year

To be totally honest, I'm writing this early 2010. I was just looking at the 2008 section and noticed, that it was very empty. And there's a reason, why it's so empty. 2008 was the most silent year for Zelda in the last decade. We didn't know anything about any future Zelda games besides the fact, that one is in the making for the Wii. There were no new Zelda games released and we didn't even see any more re-releases like on the Virtual Console. The year, where Ocarina of Time celebrated its 10th birthday, was the most silent year for the Zelda franchise since the mid-90s. At this time, this blog wasn't even focused on Zelda, because there wasn't too much to talk about Zelda anyway. Which is why this exceptional article was added at a later time.

The biggest and probably only highlight in 2008 was the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It's a great game, full of content and the Zelda franchise didn't come too short. Brawl featured five playable characters from the Zelda franchise, Link, Zelda, Shiek and Ganondorf in the style of Twilight Princess and Toon Link. Stages were the Great Bridge of Eldin from Twilight Princess, Tetra's Ship from The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass and the Temple stage from Super Smash Bros. Melee. Also, there are some Zelda items like the Deku Nut, the Bunny Hood and the Heart Container, as well as lots of collectible trophies and stickers covering all Zelda games. And that's just the Zelda part, there were lots of other videogame franchises taking place in this incredible tournament. You will easily spent more than 100 hours with this game.

Besides that, no news for Zelda. We've been spoiled over the last years full of new Zelda games and we're not used to this silence. So, I used the year to get into the Metroid series, which shares similar Action Adventure gameplay elements with Zelda, I like it a lot. Also, since there were no new Zelda games, I decided to check out the spin-off titles for the first time, Link's Crossbow Training and Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. Link's Crossbow Training is sweat, but very short, the game only lasts for about three hours until you have all Platinum Medals. Rupeeland was surprisingly entertaining, since it keeps the Action Adventure formula of the Zelda series, but just check out my review in January 2009.

So, that's the summary for 2008. Luckily the silence was broken in 2009.