Email: My girlfriend gave up on Zelda

Hello Master Malstrom,

After Reading “”Classic Zelda is the only reason why Aonuma Zelda sells.””  I can fully agree because my girlfriend has given up the series for the Elder Scroll series.Now she is (or was) a huge Zelda fan.  She owns the art books, the CD’s, the game and watch version, the gameboy, consoles, figures, posters, even untranslated manga.  Zelda inspired her to get a career in graphic design which she enjoys very much.

Then one Christmas I made the grim mistake of buying Spirit Tracks.  I had no interest in it I carelessly thought “”She’ll like it, she loves Zelda.””  Oh boy, I’ve never heard a woman swear so much in my life.  “”Tanks?  They put TANKS in ZELDA?””
“”Why can’t I walk around the over world?””
“”Oh HAHA the main villain wears two hats to cover his horns, even though his the ONLY character in the game that wears two hats, real bright thinking there Nintendo.””

We traded the game in asap.  I apologized as much as possible.   Also with Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess because she didn’t play or want to anymore.   “”There taking up space.””

Recently we were doing some early Christmas shopping when I noticed Skyrim on the shelf.  I thought “”Maybe its time she tried the Elder Scroll series?  She enjoyed Dragonage…why not?””  So I decided to get her an early Christmas present.All week I have heard nothing but praise for this game, you know when a game is good when someone is willing to grab you to say “”Hey check this out!””  She loves the massive Over world, shes loves she can cast two magic spells at the same time, she loves dragon encounters are random, she loves she can buy a horse and just explore, she talks about how each action effects the world and she just wants to play it more! 

Then I ask “”So what about Skyward Sword that’s out soon?””  her response “”Why would I want that?  This is what I want from Zelda games.  I know Nintendo are not going to give me this, ever.  So why should I support them?”” She then asked me to find a NES with Zelda 1 and 2 to complete her 2D Zelda collection and Zelda buying all together, which I gladly did.

This email has told us many things. It gives proof to something you always suspected, reader.

“What’s that?” asks the reader wide-eyed.

It is that readers of this website have girlfriends. This is quite remarkable because it is unlike readers of every other gaming website. It is well documented that readers of this site become more attractive to the opposite sex the longer they read.

The reader is in awe. “Wow! I need to read the website all the time!” Indeed.

Your girlfriend’s complaint about the tanks in Zelda or about the lack of a world are all content orientated complaints. When we used to think of Zelda, we used to think of Hyrule. Hyrule was this epic overworld full of dangerous enemies and exciting dungeons. In the same way, when we think of Mario we think of the Mushroom Kingdom and of Metroid we think of Planet Zebes or SR388. Nintendo does not understand, or choose not to understand, that their main ‘escape’ games are based primarily about the content.

“But content is very expensive,” says Iwata. They think of content only in terms of art assets or in levels. But it is far more than that. It is about imagination. While Nintendo acknowledges imagination is very important, they fail to recognize who’s imagination is important. It isn’t the developer who dreams of maternal instincts and tanks in Zelda. It is the player. The entire game universe exists in the player’s head, not in the developer’s head.

Anyway, emailer, I am glad your girlfriend found a game that satisfies her. Nintendo should be concerned that their games no longer satisfy but the company seems to be populated with a bunch of ‘fans’ where it is not permitted to contradict Miyamoto-san or Aonuma-san.