It's been quite a while since my last post. For anyone following my on Twitter, you will know that I have been extremely busy working on "Deepak Chopra's Leela" during the last 18 months. Since that has been such a large part of my life recently I'd like to blog about it, however the game is not yet finished and I need a little more time to reflect on that experience before sharing that with you.
Last month I bought a 3DS for the sole purpose of playing the rerelease of "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time." Ocarina is actually my favorite game of all time. That might seem surprising to you considering how much Super Mario art I create. The Zelda series doesn't need a parody. This series is perfect to me and stands alone without artistic interpretation.
At any rate, I've been replaying the game again recently so I thought I would share some of my personal feelings regarding Ocarina. This was not the first Zelda game I played, although it's the first one that I owned and finished. My relatives and neighbors had the previous titles but I didn't spend more than an hour with them. I did however watch the TV series growing up, so I had a general idea of what Zelda was about. I understood that it was about Link, a teenage boy from the fantasy land of Hyrule, that must rescue Princess Zelda from the evil Gannon. Armed with a sword, shield, and bow, Link fights his way through a bunch of creatures, some castles, and ultimately Gannon to reclaim Zelda.
Ocarina came out on the Nintendo 64 when I was in 8th grade. Pretty much all of my friends were playing it as soon as it was out. For whatever reason I was late to the game. At the time 007: Goldeneye and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron were the two big titles for me. After hearing about it for a year, general curiosity made me interested in Zelda.
I had never played an RPG before Zelda. My understanding of games were very limited at the time. I played arcade games, shooters, flight sims, racing, and fighting games, and platformers. I had no idea what a role playing game was. I was very shocked the first time I turned on the game. The first thing that was odd was being asked a named when I started. I figured this would be the game of my saved profile, so I entered "Dennis." To my surprise that ended up being my character's name!
Before I was able to play the game, a lengthy movie played introducing me to the story. Later I would learn to call these "cinematics," and they would become one of my favorite parts of video games.
Once I did have control of my character and figured out how to walk around Kokiri Forest, I was amazed to learn that I didn't have to follow a set path. Although I was told to go see the Great Deku Tree by my fairy Navi, I didn't have to. I could walk around and talk to the other child-like Kokiri. I was free to walk into their houses and break their jars. I could steal their money or their hearts. I could wander anywhere I wanted in the forest and make up my own games...like doing back flips off of a fence.
Frankly I was intimated by the vastness of an open world that didn't force me into a liner progression. It was completely freeing and oddly terrifying. What if I got lost? Or stuck not know what do to? Would my actions or inactions have a consequence? I felt as if I was some how going to break the game. After a few hours of playing I put down the game and got a strategy guide.
I've reflected on that decision heavily throughout my life. I wonder if I would have enjoyed the game more having to discover everything myself. But theres a part of me that was happy I did that because I was free to just walk through the game and enjoy it without being scared or frustrated at my progression. Even now I get frustrated at a game's puzzle or difficulty, often putting it down for days or weeks, dreading revisiting that particular challenge. And if it's a poorly designed challenge, it skews my confidence of the overall game design and warps my opinion of the experience. I think I'm glad I did this. After all, I didn't know how to play an RPG. I had to learn how to play the game.
This was my first experience with The Elements. Forest, Fire, Water, Light, Shadow, and Spirit. Not only were they talked about in a mythological sense, but I experienced them first hand. My character had to go into Temple for each element and defeat a boss that represented the element. It was the first time that I noticed that the world, our Earth in fact, was symbolically made of these elements. Not only that, but also noticing that mythological stories throughout time used this same elemental archetype. That was a pretty deep realization to have made while playing the game. That was the spark that actually made me interested in studying mythology, not Star Wars.
Time Travel. When I started the game I had no idea that I would travel through time, although the title suggests it. Or rather, I did not think that time travel would be as "epic" was it turned out to be. As a child, Link is told to go to the Temple of Time and retrieve The Master Sword. You assume this is going to help you defeat Gannon, who is after Zelda. Once you find the sword and take it out the stone, you are "frozen" for 7 years. During this time you mature into a teenager while Gannon destroyed Hyrule in your absence. Whats really powerful about this is that the world really is completely destroyed when you arrive back after 7 years. Everything is crushed and burning, zombies roam the old market place. Hyrule castle is gone and Gannon's floating fortress hovers over a chasm of swirling lava.
To me, this felt like my fault. I left the world and because I didn't stop it Hyrule is gone. It's explained that this needed to happen but you really don't want this to. So in a sense, you are even emotionally engaged in the world because it's your responsibility to correct it.
The characters are sad. Not all of the characters are sad. In fact they are mostly happy. But as you play through the game, most characters only have one animation and three lines of dialogue. So they do the same thing over and over again though your 40+ hour play though. It's a little sad to see them always in the same place, never really doing anything differently, unless you time travel. In that case, they are either the same, dead, missing, or their futures have dramatically altered...usually for the worse. To me, it's like seeing someone you knew from high school 7 years later working in the same fast food place, still living with their parents. Its sad that they're unable to change. It's also unfortunate that theres probably not much you can do to help them.
With a game as big as Ocarina, there's a ton to talk about, but for now that's what I'm thinking about during my 20-somethingth play through. Maybe I'll drop a few more random thoughts on here as I think of them.
