This article contains some minor spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
A Link to the Past
Zelda games have always carried an unmistakable weight. I vividly remember how I felt playing Ocarina of Time, when Link, in a nod to Arthurian legend, pulled the Master Sword free from its stone prison. It was a goal I had been working toward for hours and the capstone to the largest virtual adventure I’d ever taken part in.
So the feeling I experienced when, upon removing the sword, Link aged ten years before my eyes, was pure disbelief. The adventure wasn’t over. It was starting anew. I simply couldn’t fathom it. How could a game, or story for that matter, be so big? It’s a feeling I still search for, to this day, in the games I play. And it’s one I seldom find.
When The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was announced for the Wii-U and Switch, I knew immediately I’d be playing it on day one. No company treats their longstanding brands better than Nintendo, (insert Metroid joke here), and the release of every Zelda game is a momentous event. Now which version would I buy…
A Whole New World
I spent a good amount of time trolling the internet: reading about the open world, revamped combat mechanics, and much-hyped crafting system. It was during one of these late nights that I had an epiphany. Connor is going to be 6. He’s going to be old enough to play this with me! This is going to be his wow moment, where limits of the medium are blown away. Nothing will ever be the same for him. Ever. *Cue years of pent up nostalgia*.
Wait, isn’t it kinda violent?
Yeah, but that’s just fantasy violence, there’s no blood and… that’s not the motivation for the story. It’s an unfortunate necessity.
Oh, OK. But, aren’t there some pretty scary characters?
Well… I remember there being a few frightening moments. I’ll put them into context on the fly. He’ll be fiiiiiine.
I hope you know what you’re doing.
I… think I do.
As I’m sure you can intuit from my inner monologue, I’m a bit on the fence. I don’t know if, at 6, Connor is the right age to experience this game. He’s a pretty sensitive kid, but he doesn’t scare very easily. He’s got a logical way about him, and anything he doesn’t understand, he questions. I had a hard time deciding, but finally nostalgia won out and here we are.
Learning to Fly or: Falling with Style
Our first couple of hours in Hyrule were a learning experience. Connor was learning what it meant to be in a open world, I was remembering how badly I suck at resource management, and we both realized that the whole series is terribly misnamed. I can’t count on both hands the number of times I had to remind Connor that the main character is named Link, not Zelda. Finally he asked, “Well who’s Zelda?” I explained that she is the princess of Hyrule, and the focal point of Link’s quest. “Do we get to play as her?” No, probably not. “Well then why isn’t it The Legend of Link?” Touche.
Something I’ve always loved about the Zelda games, and something Connor instantly appreciated, is the excellent way they make use of terrain. Shortly after starting a new game, you emerge from a tomb, climb down a mountain, and explore a series of hidden underground shrines. This multi-level exploration really gives the player a sense of the geography of Hyrule.
Each of the shrines we explored, mini-dungeons dressed to look like impenetrable alien vaults, introduced us to a new puzzle-solving power. Connor’s favorite was magnetism. I imagine the shrine that introduces magnetism is designed to be completed in about 5 minutes, but I’ll never know.
Upon realizing we could rearrange giant metal plates and prop them against the dungeon walls, Connor took full control. We made stacks of metal pancakes. We made ramps for invisible cars to drive down. We even balanced a plate against the corner of a square platform and rode on it like a giant iron see-saw surfboard. 45 minutes later, we were back on the main quest.
Eventually, after completing a few more shrines and causing towers to burst forth from all around the land, we learned the fate of the infamous princess Zelda. She had been trapped while fighting Calamity Ganon, over 100 years earlier.
“Who is Calamity Ganon?” The words had barely left his lips when a menacing, diseased dragon erupted from the earth. It left trails of black smoke in it’s wake as it circled the remnants of Hyrule castle.
He was a little bit scared. At first I felt badly, maybe this was going to be too much for him, but then I explained to him that Calamity Ganon was the evil force corrupting the land. We had to conquer it in order to bring back peace and make everyone happy again. He considered this for a second, and it steeled his resolve. “We need to help them,” he said. I was impressed by his newfound sense of duty to this digital land.
Moments later, however, we received a pretty sweet paraglider from the ghost-king of Hyrule. We jumped off the tallest tower and sailed for miles before landing in a swamp. “Dad, we need to climb a mountain and do that again. Right now!” It appears that saving the kingdom will have to take a backseat to hang gliding. At least for today.
Stay tuned for Zelda: Hyrule Adventures – Part 2, in which Connor and I set out to map this strange new realm.