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THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

there are two halves in here I have some difficulty reconciling. the first is mid-discovery zelda where you’re left on your lonesome without direction or stewardship to wander the paperback fantasy snowglobe and follow the threads of low stakes intrigue. weird little freaks hide in caves and mutter cryptic phrases, each verb and noun arrives with some amount of uncertainty, and there’s an intimacy that almost convinces you that your experience belongs to you and you alone. during much of this portion the act of notching off I-II-III-IV-V-VI-VII-VIII-IX dungeons might not be on your mind at all

the second is post-discovery zelda. you’ve become formidable interpreter of the strange and uncanny; you’re master swordsman; you’ve figured out where to use the candle, the bombs, and the raft, and scrapped your mapping half way through because you didn’t need it anymore and your cat really wanted to nap on your notepad anyway. the world shrinks and shrinks and shrinks until it becomes a linear series of events that play out with archetypal certainty. with the great fog of unknowing lifted, hyrule is revealed to be somewhat ordinary and plain

unlike metroid, which remains forever cloaked in inscrutable alien psychedelia, or simon’s quest, which boasts a gaping wound where the climax should be, there is little left of wonder or surprise in its closing hours. as I entered death mountain to destroy the villain ganon and rid this world of evil I found myself staring down perhaps the most absurd revelation of all: this is a zelda game. but how could I have known