Wi-Philes

Note: This isn't a review, a step-by-step walkthrough, or anything like that. It's just my thoughts on the latest Zelda chronicled as they come to me, day-by-day.

 

November 26th, 2006: Day One

I finally decide to start my Zelda adventure after a week of putting it off due to fear of it taking over my life. As the chorus erupts out of the Wii gaming channel, my jaw drops and remains in place throughout the starting intro. At this point I remember that this was essentially made as an Ocarina tribute game. The emotion I feel at finally playing this game after so long could be equated to the final "It's a boy!" after months of knowing that a baby was on its way.

A half hour into the journey I note with some dismay that the game has a very hokey-adventure-title beginning, a sharp contrast to most Zelda games' near-instant drop into danger and questing. It doesn't help that I spent nearly an hour fishing because despite all the obvious parts that the game walks you through, the instructions on how to fish are unclear at best and more accurately are just misleading. I sat there bobbing the hook up and down waiting for a bite, not realizing that I had to forcefully snap the line out of the water to actually catch a fish. This is embarrassing and marks by far the earliest into a game that I've requested help from the internet.

Just as I complete the first fairly boring chapter and prepare for heading out to Hyrule, I quit earlier than I'd like to because my roommates come over and it's uncomfortable to play a game like Zelda around substance abusers. I pine for 1998 when I was in a new high school with almost no friends and very little to distract me from playing Ocarina nearly every available hour.

Finishing point: Ordon Villiage

 

November 27th: Day Two

I begin my second try at Zelda at Desiré's house rather than mine for privacy. I'm eager for the game to pick up the pace and so getting my horse stolen and the neighborhood children kidnapped is a very welcome sight. Sorry, kids.

Even though Wolf Link is nearly as versatile as Human Link, he feels very limiting due to clever psychological slants like starting me off in prison and having Midna treat me as a helpless clod. I decide I don't care for her demeanor. (But she is very pretty. Like she's made of like a million fucking polygons).

Desiré mentions that when Wolf Link dashes, Midna's abrupt gasp of turbulence sounds like the sharp sexual moan of a young Asian woman being penetrated. I dismiss this notion as ridiculous and resolve to use the dash whenever it's even remotely applicable.

I die for the first time in the game which is actually almost a relief seeing as I didn't come close to dying even once in Wind Waker. I didn't realize at the time that the sound and light effect that follows a second after completing a Spin Attack is the move resetting, to prevent you from using it over and over again. It must have been really funny for those shadow beasts to watch me just stand there stupidly as they beat me senseless.

Green tunic. Huzzah! Desiré makes her triumphant 50th comment about whether I need to change my pants at this point. Or maybe something about be getting a boner.

I'm only a few hours into the game, but I'm already wondering what this jackass meant when he claimed that Zelda is all brown. Inevitably, it's less saturated with color than Wind Waker, but muted through they may be I swear I'm seeing colors I've never seen before, especially in the LSD-laced Faron Woods and whenever I use Wolf Link's super-sense. It's crazy. Maybe he forgot about these parts of the game and was only focusing on whatever town he was in at the moment, or maybe Vladamir Cole is just a mock character joystiq keeps around as a kind of round-the-year April Fools for people who check their website expecting intelligent opinions by people who know what they're talking about.

The Forest Temple's design is reminding me of its namesake in Ocarina: one central room where you gather four entities from branching areas to gain access to the final area. And seeing as these entities (ghosts in Ocarina) are Majora's Mask's monkeys, and the item that aids your rescue of them is Wind Waker's multi-hit boomerang, I realize that my long-held hopes that this game is an amalgam of the three biggest adventures is looking to be true. The template – Link himself, the music, the world he lives in – are reminiscient of Ocarina, the Twilight Realm is creepy and ominous in a way that only Majora's Mask has conveyed to me, and the finesse, cel-shading, and many of the more unassuming sounds like the jingle of a collected rupee all hark back to Wind Waker. I feel like Willie Wonka forged an ambitious new confectionary out of all my favorite sweets and made a candy forest out of it, all for me.

Finishing point: Faron Woods, Forest Temple complete

November 30: Day Three

The calendar is lying. I can tell because it says its only been two days since I've played Zelda but my remission says different.

I'm urged to go "West" by Midna but I have no idea what she's talking about because I don't know of any outlets in any area I've been in that I haven't taken already. I note that I'm having to check the map a lot, but I can't decide if it's because the game is new and I'm unfamiliar with it or because it's just designed weirdly and complexly. Eventually I find my way to Hyrule Field, and apparently that's where Happiness has been waiting for me all along. I love this game dearly.

I decide that I really like being a wolf. He moves so much like a real dog that I wouldn't mind playing a game when I'm a dog the whole time. He moves so much like a real dog that I don't think I'd mind actually being a dog. I'm having a lot of fun spotting a group of shadow beasts in the foreground, holding Z to widen the screen and lock my view, and slowly stalking up to them just for the visual effect it creates. Zelda games are the only games that look cinematic enough to me to reward the patience of walking rather than running. I walk a lot in Zelda games.

Kakariko is disappointing with its three inhabitants and Western/Native American look. I should mention now that in all respect to Native Americans I really don't care for their culture in terms of aesthetics. I'm glad they tried to take a new direction rather than rehash, but I miss my happy Japanese pseudo-Medieval villiage. Maybe this is the town Cole was talking about when he blanketed the entire game with his idiotic sentiment.

I realize that Hyrule Field is much larger than I'd thought and now that I'm trucking it horseback-style I decide I just want to play Zelda for the rest of my life. Also: shooting away flying monsters while riding horseback is more fun with a Wiimote than Z-targeting, according to me.

Link walks like a pimp in Iron Boots.

Somewhere in the Goron Mines, probably because I reach a point that's heavily-referenced in E3 media and trailers, I remember that this isn't a Wii title. Up until now I've been thinking almost constantly about how much smoother and "smarter" the control is than in past 3D Zeldas, especially with aiming long-distance items. Any gaming journalist who harped on how the controls feel "tacked on" can go fuck themselves. Not because I love this game and hate bad things being said about it, but because I very literally forgot that this wasn't built from the ground up for Wii.

Magnetic Iron Boots remind me heavily of Stone Tower from Majora's Mask and I'm thankful that I live in a time when I can experience this game.

Finishing point: Kakariko, Goron Mines complete

 

I might bundle days together like this in the future to avoid monopolizing the blogs. Or I might not make any further entries if it turns out nobody feels like reading this stuff. It's mostly written for people who already have Zelda and are further than me in the game (probably everyone who has it) and can identify with any of the weirdness that occurs to me when I play this game.