Livin La Vida Zelda

The other day after watching me spend hours on Zelda message boards, chatrooms, and websites my cousin asked me, "Why do you like Zelda so much?" It made me stop and think for a moment. Why did I like it? Zelda's one of those things you just don't question. So I stopped and brainstormed all the things I like about Zelda. Then I wrote an essay about it. Here it is.

One of the main reasons I think people love Zelda is the fact that it is neither an Action/Adventure game or an RPG. It's a hybrid of sorts that delivers you the best of both worlds. It has all the charm and fantasy surrounding RPGs but doesn't bore you like some RPGs do. Rather than just typing in an attack you actually get to perform it yourself, so it lets Action/Adventure fans have some excitement. This adds to the difficulty and fun of the game. Also, the system in most RPGs that allows you to move up in level by getting Experience Points is replaced by actually getting better by learning new moves, getting new weapons, and finding new items. This also makes it more fun and exciting. Having both qualities of an RPG and an Action/Adventure game makes it appeal to fans of both genres. In Zelda, you still get to live your dream of being a hero with sword flashing but you get to experience it even more fully by actually making your hero interact with his environment. Having both qualities of an RPG and an Action/Adventure game make it appeal to fans of both genres.

The characters and environment in Zelda make it a great game series. You really feel like you know the people and that you're walking through the land of Hyrule. You feel a special friendship with Malon from Zelda 64 and a great annoyance towards the cranky old men in Zelda 1. Mido makes your blood boil and Saria makes you feel light at heart. You feel sympathy for the opressed people in different areas of Hyrule. You really do want to save such a beautiful place. And you feel a great sadness at the end of Zelda 64 when Navi leaves Link behind and no one remembers him. The game draws you in, you soon become addicted to it and desire to be in Hyrule. Who doesn't feel like galloping across the sunny plains of Hyrule Field or the vast desert of the Gerudo Valley after playing Zelda for a while? Shigeru Miyamoto, Zelda's creator, has told several interviewers that his goal with Zelda was to make people feel like they were in a land called Hyrule. Well Miyamoto dear friend you came pretty darn close. As close as possible with today's technology. Every Zelda game ever created (with the exception of the CD-i games, if you consider them Zelda games) is truly a work of art. Once you experience the joy of living in Hyrule you don't want to turn back.

The storylines in Zelda or exceptional. Some people say they're rather bland, but I think they're actually very good, but very simple, which is good here. The storylines in Zelda games will intrigue you, but won't keep you running around in circles trying to figure out what's going on. That is unless you try to tackle the Zelda timeline. Actually, it's kind of fun to try and figure out what happened when, and when you finally figure the whole thing out it interests you even more. You want to know what happened in between, what filled the gaps in the timeline. That was how Zelda Fan Fiction was created. The storyline gives Zelda its "replay value". You play the game and then you live it over again in your head, except you add your own ideas to it. This makes you desire a new story to build on. So you rush to the nearest store to buy whatever Zelda games you don't already own.

These are the main things (in my eyes) that make people love Zelda games. Really, the thing that keeps people coming back is Zelda's charm. You can resist it for a short time, but as soon as you hear word of some new Zelda game, or happen to stumble upon the Zelda Overworld theme on a Nintendo webpage it hits you again. An overwhelming need to run once again in the land of Hyrule...