Saturday, December 24, 2022

25 Years as a Zelda Fan

25 years stylized with Zelda fonts and the palm trees from the modern Link's Awakening logo

This is the first Christmas in a couple of years that I'm spending with my family, where this brings back memories of Christmas from my childhood. And the most magical Christmas will always be 1997 for me personally, where I've gotten The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the GameBoy. I still remember how I marveled at the instruction booklet after unwrapping my gift, where it was full of colored artwork and made the game feel like a compelling mystery.

Anyway, I've written a bit about my past as a Zelda fan on my 20th Anniversary, where I'm not going to repeat this. Instead, I want to reflect on the past five years, which are right between the two newest Zelda games, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, a period of "filler".

We got a number of side releases during these years, like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and Skyward Sword HD, but the one that means the most to me is certainly the remake of Link's Awakening – the game that made me a Zelda fan for life. It makes me quite happy to have this new version to go to, where I'm hoping for the Oracle games to get remade in the same charming style at some point.

For me these remakes and remasters also became the main incentive to revisit past Zelda games. Before Breath of the Wild came out, during the 30th Anniversary of the franchise, I've replayed all the Zelda games available on Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. And with that I came to a closure with the series, where from now on I will focus mainly on "new" Zelda releases, even if these are just enhanced ports.

There simply needs to be something new to experience, which then wakes my interest. I guess, it's part of the reason why the Zelda randomizers have gotten very popular over the last years, where I'm willing to try some of those out myself at some point, starting with Link's Awakening of course. It might be the kind of different experience that I'm looking for...

But there is so much else to play and not enough time left to play it all. And after getting into games like Hollow Knight and Death's Door, I also feel a bit disillusioned about my favorite game series, because these indie titles show how you can make a challenging, but fair difficulty in an Action Adventure, while also offering good world design and a fantastic soundtrack. These are beautiful games with compelling combat and I want to replay Death's Door at the moment for its fun fights alone, while Hollow Knight has been one of my most-played games in 2022.

Breath of the Wild dared to be more challenging again, at least in the early game, where there is hope that Tears of the Kingdom will build upon that and offer a more masterful experience. It will need a good number of things to set itself apart from its predecessor, since they are re-using the same world again, which still makes it seem like an enhanced version of Breath of the Wild. But right now I really need Tears of the Kingdom to rekindle that Zelda flame inside me, which has been shining a bit dim lately.

Well, I'm sure it will manage to do so, once Nintendo starts to show more of the game, because nothing beats the excitement of getting a new Zelda for me personally. The childhood Christmas days, where I was stranded on Koholint for the first time in my life, may never come back, but there always will be new magical worlds to dive into, which are just as good and sometimes even better. So long!

1 comment:

Eduardo Jencarelli said...

For me, it's been well past 30. It was 1988/89 when I first got to play the original NES Zelda. I still remember they way it first felt: challenging and intimidating, especially the desert areas with Moldorms and Leevers popping out. Creepy, to say the least.

For 6/7 year old me, it was daunting and unbeatable. It took me years to beat a Zelda game. And it was A Link to the Past that I was able to conquer first, back in the mid 1990s.