The Legend of Zelda

This will be the first of a few posts about 'Legend of Zelda' games. That's because I've played a handful of them. As far as gaming goes for me, this series is a holdover from childhood.

A link to the past. Ha!

Bad puns aside, the old one still holds strong, happy memories of sitting up late at night in my room, sitting cross-legged in front of my tiny TV, playing NES games into the wee hour of the morning during summer vacation.

Thanks to that, I still get "cravings" to play video games into the wee hours of the morning when the weather turns warm.

The Legend of Zelda--the original, in that deviant gold casing--was one of the games I played the most. Over and over. I'm not sure why; nothing ever changed. You always killed monsters, stabbed the crap out of Ganon, and saved the princess. It is like many, many other games, and a myriad of folktales.

And yet this game was exceptionally fun. There was a challenge in killing the monsters; you could shoot projectile swords; the elderly hang out in caves and dungeons to dispense advice, hand out weaponry, and oversee gambling games.

Originally, when I made the up-top graphic for this entry, I thought that I would be musing about the fact that you could shoot with the sword, because the sword is obviously not a projectile weapon unless you have the strength to chuck it at someone--and hit them. But this is all easily explained away by the fact that there is magic all over the game, and the sword must therefore be magic. End of story.

I am more interested, at the moment, in the old people who are scattered about the game. Now, when I worked in West Branch, my coworkers and I would sometimes go to a fast food restaurant. At this restaurant, there was always a nasty old woman behind the counter, and I would joke that the restaurant used an "enslave the elderly" program to recruit staff members.

I believe the Powers that Be of Hyrule use the same program.

Think about it: You've lived well beyond everyone you've ever known. I make this assumption because there's a medieval feeling attached to everything, what with it being a fantasy game and all. And in the medieval era, people made it to about 30 and died somehow. So these old people, they're something special just by virtue of their ability to remain alive.

And here we find them hanging around in dank caves and dark rooms, always between two bonfires. And it would seem their only purpose is to hang around, waiting for some plucky adolescent in a ridiculous green hat to show up, waving a sword and various other magical/sacred artifacts around like they're nothing.

That has got to suck.

How would the posting for that job ad read? Well, here's my idea:

"WANT TO SERVE YOUR KINGDOM? No manual labor, plenty of cooking fire. Training provided. Must have ability to wait long periods of time. Send inquiries by carrier pigeon to GUY IN CAVE, S.E. HYRULE. Great position for retirees!"

And, of course, Hyrule's few elderly folk fell for the trap. Only a couple of old women had the foresight to make any kind of profit from the deal. One of them sells red and blue liquids which she claims are potions, but I personally think they're some kind of energy drink that makes the little green gelfling on screen so hyper that he only thinks his life energy has been restored, but really he's just hopped up on guarana and caffeine and berserking on squirrels that he thinks are peahats.

Imagine that sight for the old guy's who's waiting for some kid to arrive so he can tell said kid that Dodongo hates smoke, but finds some little turd hopped up on roofies (here to mean, guarana and caffeine) who, as previously mentioned, is swinging a sword around.