Tag: Hero’s Journey

Let’s talk about stories. To those of you familiar with my article work on this site, you will know that I have a deep passion for storytelling, and specifically, story structure. I’ve written about the monomyth — or, as it is more commonly called, the “Hero’s Journey” — and how this literary phenomenon is reflected within the Zelda series. I’ve talked at length about Joseph Campbell’s theories and their pertinence to both the series and video gaming at large. It…

Joseph Campbell was one of the foremost literary critics of his time, and one of the most influential men of the 20th century. In his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Campbell outlined his unifying theory of mythology, one that has been referred to by many names – monomyth, cosmogonic cycle, the Hero’s Journey – and applied by many different artists since its publication. We’ve previously discussed how the Hero’s Journey can be seen in The Legend of Zelda….

Following the tremendous critical acclaim of Flower, its developer Thatgamecompany released Journey as a PlayStation Network exclusive earlier this year. Almost immediately, Journey was met with an even greater degree of critical acclaim, with many reviewers praising the game as a must-play experience. Having played the game myself, I agree entirely with the praise. Journey‘s gameplay amounts to one thing: movement. There is no combat, there is very limited puzzle solving (and the puzzles all revolve around moving forward), and…

The Legend of Zelda has a long history of story-driven gaming, to the point where an official timeline release has been highly controversial. While in many cases this emphasis on story is praised by the gaming media, the games have attracted a fair bit of criticism for each having the same basic story – and the criticism is right. The key point here is that this is not necessarily a criticism: The Legend of Zelda ascribes very closely to a…