Tag: Editorial

I don’t think any real Zelda fan would say that a dungeon is a dungeon is a dungeon, right? When you walk into a dungeon, you know that’s what it is, but they are always different, in every new game. How do we know, though? When you think about it, beyond a short sweeping intro shot, or a visible title, there is little that definitively indicates that you are in one of Zelda’s staple dungeons. Sure, you almost always end…

What is the Legend of Zelda to you? Is it simply a game that you enjoy to pass the time with, or is it something more meaningful? Have you been enjoying journeys through Hyrule for most of your life, or have you only recently tried you hand at your first adventure as Link, the hero in green? We all have our stories, playing these games, finding inspiration from them and always wishing for more adventures to enjoy on the latest…

Having Zelda, or any female character for that matter, playable in a mainstream Zelda game is a wish that a notable number of Zelda fans have held for quite a while. Opponents to this have a number of arguments: that Link is the main character, that he has been defined as male throughout his various incarnations, that making him female would come at the cost of Zelda as a character, that Zelda was already playable in Spirit Tracks, that the…

What is the Legend of Zelda to you? Is it simply a game that you enjoy to pass the time with, or is it something more meaningful? Have you been enjoying journeys through Hyrule for most of your life, or have you only recently tried you hand at your first adventure as Link, the hero in green? We all have our stories, playing these games, finding inspiration from them and always wishing for more adventures to enjoy on the latest…

There are an almost endless number of factors that contribute to the commercial appeal of a videogame– gameplay, functionality, developer, rating– but a game isn’t going to sell if it isn’t pleasing to the eye, at least in some capacity. We can judge by the turbulent behavior following the reveal of Wind Waker’s art style or Skyward Swords’ downgraded graphics that appearance does matter within the Zelda series. So let’s take a look at some of the varied Zelda visual…

Oh, the joys of the Fire Temple. Every Zelda game needs to have one, apparently, and Phantom Hourglass got this particular duty out of the way early. In this second installment of Revisiting Phantom Hourglass, I will be going through the Fire Temple from start to finish and commenting on anything that I see as particularly noteworthy. In addition, I’ll take a look at the basic combat system and how well the touchscreen controls hold up in that context.

For the hardened Zelda fan, Tri Force Heroes came as a surprisingly kooky light-hearted deviant from the series’ main titles. While Zelda games on the handheld systems are usually a little less pivotal to the series than the console installments, they typically follow the same formula and at the very least contain Princess Zelda– but this multiplayer jumble of quirkiness really shook things up. While quite entertaining, I’m not so sure this was a good thing. I typically welcome spin-offs,…

As a girl who grew up with a twin brother, I was typically either his player two or his backseat driver when it came to video games. In Zelda, I’d nag him if he passed mindlessly by a torch puzzle (even if it just gets you rupees, why not do it?), I’d cheer him on during boss battles, or I’d scold him for harming a poor cucco that never once did him wrong! I had some great times watching my…

Heroes are tough. Monsters, dungeons, combat, travelling, survival – a hero, especially one in Hyrule, has a lot to contend with. But what about those they leave behind? As hard as it must be to go out on an unknowable quest to save a princess, or the world, or in this specific case your sister, the people who care about you must be worried beyond belief, and sometimes, that might just be too much to handle. Few characters close to…

Few Zelda games in the Zelda series have reached the kind of emotional impact that Majora’s Mask has. It certainly has its blatant aspects that encourage you to urgently hurry through your quest (*cough* *cough* moon *cough* *cough*), but the truly emotional parts are the characters that need your help in fixing their extremely broken lives. Some, like Pamela’s father, Anju and Kafei, and Lulu, go through the worst of tragedies, and their respective quests display great emotional response through…