The Eternal Argument for Zelda U: Quality vs. Crass Consumerism?

It would be an enormous understatement to say that Nintendo

depends on

Zelda U.

This is going to be the biggest project the company’s ever

made. This game is one of the only chances the Wii U has left of ever

recovering. This is the kind of game that could literally make or break a whole

generation, a game that could spell the life or death of Nintendo’s reputation.

And, obviously, we all want it to be amazing; when don’t we?

For a game this huge, a game this important, we all want it to be the greatest

we’ve ever played. It’s hard to put into

words how excited we all are for

Zelda U,

how much of a role it plays in our lives months, maybe even years before it’s

even released. My friends make fun of me all the time for loving and discussing

a game whose name I don’t even know, but to tell the truth of it, I wouldn’t

have it any other way. After being in love with a series for as long as we’ve

loved

Zelda, after crying along with

its tragedies and celebrating its victories (and there have been many), it’s

hard not to desire

Zelda U. It’s

nearly impossible for us not to love it already, hanging on to every little

leaked detail and each and every tiny statement from Aonuma.

After all of that, it just leaves me mortified. Mortified,

because I’ve been on this train before, and I know it could end poorly. I know

that Nintendo needs this game to sell, more than they’ve ever needed anything,

and that they might just go ahead and make it the most generic and heartless

game we’ve seen. Another

Ocarina of Time clone

would garner millions of sales, precious numbers we’ve been anxious to see.

After all, didn’t

Twilight Princess

sell the most out of any Zelda game to

date?

While I do love Twilight

Princess

, it’s hard not to admit that it disappointed me. That I wanted

something new and unique, another

Majora

or Wind Waker, a story that made me

laugh and cry, and I got a product that failed to deliver. And should

Zelda U take this path as well?

I could just sputter some more fanboy bullshit towards

this, about how Nintendo needs the quality title, how the fans want it more

than anything, how the best game always wins in the end, but I won’t. This is

an issue to which I honestly don’t know the answer. Does Nintendo need this? Do

I have to choose the virtuous path, and accept what will benefit Nintendo in

the end, what could possibly carve the path for more

Zelda games like the ones I love? Or should I fight for the quality

title, the one we all want, the one that’ll be special and unique, the one game

that’s be unlike anything any of us have ever seen?

None of this is meant to discredit the value of a game like Twilight Princess. As I’ve mentioned, I

love this game to death. Some games don’t have to be innovative or different

simply for the sake of it, as with countless things I’ve seen in my life that

have done so unsuccessfully.

Majora’s

Mask

doesn’t hold a place in my heart just because it takes place in

Termina, just because it’s weird and creepy and sad. It’s special to me because

its characters are moving, its stories unique and heartwarming, and its world

wonderful in a way nobody can ever truly describe. At the end of the day, I

don’t really care if a game has Ganondorf and Hyrule, the Triforce and the

Goddesses, as long as it manages to move me and make me think, hanging on to

every word as if from holy script.

It’s just that games constructed that way sell much worse,

for reasons I’ll never fully understand. Games that take on a revolutionary art

style, simply because it better fit the philosophy and feel of what the

experience was attempting to achieve, are seen as “childish,” “stupid,” and

“weird.” Games that promise broader questions and more unique stories are

thought to be boring and annoying by the general public, as not everybody can

understand them and be entranced by them. A more mainstream

Zelda game is just easier to market,

easier to sell, and easier to make.

But would a more artful and beautiful Zelda really sell that badly in comparison? Obviously, it’s

important to have a large install base for any console if you’re planning on

selling a game, but looking at it from a more streamlined perspective, it makes

a lot of sense to have a title that appeals more to the “hardcore” fans of the

series. Honestly speaking, anybody who owns a Wii U right now is probably a

huge Nintendo fanatic; hell, there are roughly 5.68 million Wii U units right

now, and

Wind Waker HD, a remake of a

decade-old GameCube game, has sold over a million copies. That may seem a tad

bit small, but to think that a quick HD remake of an old title has an attach

rate of over 20% is absolutely amazing. The Wii U fans are so passionate that

their buys are practically ensured for

Zelda

U

, especially if it was the unique cult classic we hope for it to be.

It’s not like it’ll remain that way forever; the release of

Smash 4 and Mario Kart 8, the biggest titles the Wii U is likely to obtain for

quite some time, will probably sell a few million more Wii U consoles with

their release. With millions and millions of new buys, it only makes financial

sense to construct a product that everybody can play and everybody can be satisfied

with. If marketed the way

Twilight

Princess

was, if built to be Ocarina

of Time 3.0

, this game could easily become one of the most highly

anticipated video games of all time. With a kickass E3 trailer (benefiting even

more than that of

Twilight Princess, as

Zelda U is likely much farther in

development at this point), maybe showcased right after the announcement of

Majora’s Mask 3D, this could be the year of

Zelda.

But we fans don’t want Nintendo to make financial sense. I’ve

made this case before, but never has it been more important than now. A

masterpiece remains a masterpiece forever, but a passing fad slowly fades away

from memory. If

Zelda U made today’s

kids feel what we did years ago, playing through

Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker

and Ocarina, the fan base would grow,

more than it ever has before. This game could become the stuff of legend, the

Ocarina of our time (see what I did

there?), the one thing that manages to save the Wii U, after thousands and

thousands play it, and fall in love with every moment in a way they never had

before.

And even despite that, I feel like it’s gotten to the point

that making generic

Ocarina clones

would just be counter-productive. Selling millions and millions of copies, more

than any other

Zelda game ever had, and

getting Wii Us out the door for the first time; all that would be wonderful,

yes. But if those sales, ultimately, spell the name for an even worse

reputation for the series, if our beloved

Zelda

is seen as repetitive and dull, it may, in the end, just ruin everything our

love had going for it. Faithful fans would disappear; the public image of some

aspects of the series would go down even further, and the greatness of the

franchise will be rained upon by a game that was meant to save it.

Worse than this, even, is a fear I’ve had with me ever since I

played

Twilight Princess for the

first time; with that game receiving such amazingly high sales numbers, what’s

to stop Nintendo from doing it all again? They need the money, after all, and

making a unique and enormous game is about a million times harder than copying

a set formula. If

Zelda became a

strict progression of the same elements, if it lost all of its originality and

charm, the meaning this franchise holds in my heart would disappear.

And this is in the perfect scenario, where Zelda U is a great game, but a carbon

copy of

Ocarina. What if it’s

terrible? What if Nintendo fails to deliver and we’re left with a bland,

repetitive, and dull experience that not even the most avid fanatic will

recognize as his favorite? That would be tragic, yes, but I don’t think it’ll

ever happen. With so many resources, so many people, men like Aonuma and

Miyamoto, it’s hard to believe there’s even a slight chance of this being a

train wreck.

And the game could spell the complete opposite reaction than

the one I just described. In the end, if this game makes the top of the charts,

outsells

Call of Duty and all that

nonsense, it could just make the way for more. Not more crass-consumerism or

cheap remakes, not more unoriginality, but more

Zelda. More of what we love. If Nintendo’s longest and most invested project in history is a successful one, as we all hope it might be, it could just mean more money

to the company, more resources on the next game, more Wii Us being bought each

day, and a complete rebirth of the series we’ve loved for so long. In the grand

scheme of things, how big of a price is one slightly irksome game, if it spells

a new age of prosperity?

But in the end, I’m going to have to vote for the

non-traditional route.

Why? Because, sometimes, I’m entitled to want nothing more

than a perfect game. We fans can wish for what we want, regardless of whether

it’ll come to fruition. I’d love nothing more than a

Zelda U I can look at proudly, reminding myself why it is I write

for Zelda Informer, and why I’ve been fascinated with this franchise since I was a

toddler. Will it mean the death of Nintendo? I doubt it. Hell, it could even

end up selling better for it.

Sure, I’ll try not to be as pissed off as I normally would

be if the game ends up as I most fear it will, because it might have been the

right choice from Nintendo. I’m not one to tell; nobody is, really. Ultimately,

more than a single exceptional game, I want the survival of my franchise. I don’t

know what that entails. Hopefully, it means something good.

There’s only one real question to ask of you commenters at

this point; what exactly do you want from

Zelda

U

?