I have already made previous mention of my problem with certain types of games on a previous post. It seems however that I overlooked something: Adventure games. I like adventure games. I enjoy the acquisition of new items and the implementation of them against my foes and or fiendishly clever puzzle rooms. Not that most of them end up fiendishly clever, but I digress. One of the most iconic adventure game stars when I was a kid....Heck to present day even....Is Link, of Legend of Zelda fame? I think he's been in one or two other games as well. I like this guy, I sympathize with his plight. He is a character stripped of choice and control of or over his destiny, and thrust into a quest not of his own choosing. What's that you say? Link is a hero? Link does what's right despite all consequence? Or maybe, MAYBE he is a beleaguered village youth.
In his first game, The Legend of Zelda, Link see a woman being beset upon by nefariously pixellated scum, and dispatches them. After all, he'd already seen it happening...And he felt uncomfortable with just strolling on by. He felt guilty. And there's the question of common decency. And hey....Maybe she knew where he could find that pesky bow. This was not the case, as the young lady...Who's name was imp, well it just so turns out that she's the PRINCESS'S handmaiden! Good stuff! At this point Link is certain she'll know where he can find a bow, courts are FULL of bows....And yet...She seemed to be looking into his eyes...And telling him something about being Anon. No....No that's not quite right. Something about Ganon. Impa was telling him he needed to find all these pieces of something called the Triforce of Wisdom. Because apparently this Zelda thought'd be a good idea to smash it and hide the pieces. At this point our man Link gets excited. He inquires if Impa has one of these pieces. That'd be something to show the village! She says no.....But starts to direct him vaguely to one of the pieces. It is at this point that Link becomes alarmed. Why was she telling him this? He did her a favor. So to repay him, Impa charges him with some sort of QUEST? Link found that this really chafed. Impa was saying something else now though....Something about.....how pretty the Princess was. Yes, that's right, Pretty and Grateful entered the conversation. Link reluctantly started to cave at this point. Those were two of his favorite words...and she was giving him a small bit of money. She was also telling him something about an old wise man. And something called heart containers. How ludicrous. Impa is ecstatic with the agreement of Link to help the kingdom of Hyrule to defeat Ganon, and bids him luck. Our hero nods, and with reluctant vigilance, sets out on his path to glory.
This is a theme post. Further installments of my takes on Link's adventures will arrive at my discretion. So, tough titty.
8 comments:
There are several spelling errors on this post, of some note. The author apologizes, but must shrug by way of explanation, as spellcheck was apparently not holding up its end of the deal. Good day.
Totally! Did the Legend of Zelda give you dialog options? NO! Just "Welcome to Hyrule" type dialog until you did what they wanted! If everyone in the world would only say one sentence to me until I did something...well, after the first week, I'd probably cave too. And, to be fair, he did get some nifty items in later games. I'd probably brave a dank dungeon to find a glove that would allow me to lift huge boulders with little to no effort. Too bad the strength boost only applied to rocks...
I never really got into Zelda. Does anybody remember Contra, or Castlevania, for the original Nintendo? Good times.
After a few hours of roaming the mapless Castlevania, even the tedium-seeking part of my brain gave a puzzled expression, shrugged, and gave up; never to return to that universe. But, I loved Contra. When I was young, I wanted to run flips on walls like Cosmo in Singing in the Rain; of course, I never did the complete flipparoo, but if I ran up the wall over and over again, I could get pretty far up. That's what Contra was like...I could never beat it, but if I just played it over and over and over, I could sometimes get pretty far on pure luck. :)
Ooooo! I also remembered a game called Trojan. It was another action-adventure game, but it also had a two player feature, where you could square off against one another in a sword duel, i believe it was. my four year old brother kicked my ass every single time.
Yeah, little brothers suck like that. I don't like Zelda, but I must say, Joe's right, Dave, you are on FIRE recently!
I can't wait til you get to "A Link to the Past." I'll let you know how much of one summer I wasted on that fucking game, when you do.
the first zelda game is hard. i mean i know i suck, but it's still hard. i have it on my comp right now. i'm going to find a walkthrough for it. i'm going to set my feet in concrete and sink myself to the bottom of geek river.
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