Game Title: Legend of Zelda
Target Audience: Players 10 and up who enjoy open world exploration and puzzle-solving
Creator: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Wii U
Introduction
The Legend of Zelda is an open world adventure game that I played for the first time this week. It takes place in a land called Hyrule, and when I began, I immediately noticed how quiet and mysterious the land felt. You start off as a character called Link, who wakes up alone in a glowing chamber with no memory of what happened to him. I thought it was interesting that there was no tutorial, and the game just lets you explore right away.
In the hour that I played, I explored the plateau, met a mysterious old man, and began unlocking shrines that give special abilities. There wasn’t anything too dramatic that happened in that time, but the game made me curious and left me wanting to keep discovering the deeper meanings of the game. With this, I feel that the game invites players to care about its world through freedom and environmental details that let curiosity drive an emotional connection.
Narrative Fragments
The main narrative of the game is relatively simple in that Link was injured 100 years ago during a battle, and was placed in that chamber. Zelda has been holding Ganon back ever since and is waiting for Link to return. However, instead of delivering this to the player all at once, the game gives it to you in fragments through things like ruins and environmental clues. For example, I discovered the Oman Au Shrine early on, and there was no explanation of what it was at first, but it clearly seemed like an important part of the game because it was glowing. This type of mysterious storytelling makes you want to understand the world instead of just moving through it.
Formal Elements
From a design perspective, the game builds emotional connection through its quiet landscape, openness, and large sense of scale. The game doesn’t tell you where to go, so it lets you follow your curiosity. You are able to climb, glide, and explore in many ways, and each small discovery is unique for every player. The game is mostly quiet other than wind, footsteps, etc., which makes Hyrule feel real. When soft music does appear, it feels impactful, and even the camera angles the game uses helps reinforce how huge the empty world is. Because of the freedom you have, you care about the world not because you are told to, but because you have invested some time into understanding it.
Comparisons and Critique
Compared to a game like Gone Home, which tells its story through notes and recordings, Legend of Zelda lets you live the story more physically. You learn by doing things like climbing ruins and solving puzzles. This interaction builds emotional investment, and I think I personally enjoy games like that a bit more. I feel many similarities between Legend of Zelda and Myst in terms of the puzzle solving and exploration of secret passages, but Legend of Zelda generates a bit more curiosity in my opinion because the map is so large and there’s inherently more you can stumble upon.
One critique I have about the game that is unrelated to previous things I mentioned is the weaponry. In order to fight off enemies, you need to pick up things to fight with, and they break quite quickly. I understand that this encourages scavenging and experimentation of different weapons, but it is a bit frustrating when you find a good weapon and it breaks after a couple of uses.
Conclusion
The Legend of Zelda invites players to care about its world through freedom and mystery rather than through explicitly explaining the meaning of the game. Every ruin and puzzle adds to your understanding as a player, and even in just the first hour, I felt like I had uncovered many meaningful aspects of the game. The game builds off of your curiosity, and that’s what makes this game so popular.
Ethics
In this game, the character’s body is depicted as something that is responsive to the environment in terms of things like being adaptable, upgradeable, and fragile. Link begins the game with limited stamina, no special powers, etc. Traits like endurance and combat ability aren’t biologically given because they are developed through earned experience. This shows that the body is modifiable and situational in the game. However, Link’s body form is definitely idealized in that he is a thin, seemingly white male, which reflects some cultural assumptions about heroism. If I were to mod the game, I’d add more body diversity in playable characters through different body types, genders, and physical abilities. This would challenge the idea that heroism only looks one way.
