3D Dot Game Heroes: More Zelda than Zelda?

An Article by The Missing Link

Living in this thing called “real life” can be somewhat disconcerting sometimes. I mean, looking back to the days of college and high school, I now realize and miss the absolutely obscene amounts of free time I had before I entered the world of adulthood. The days where I could sit and play videogames many hours a week are long past gone, and now I have to all but schedule my videogame time amongst my full-time job (plus overtime), my volunteerism, time with friends, and the handful of other hobbies that I have. I really can’t afford to stay up till 4am (even though I still let it happen from time to time) to play games anymore because, if I do, going to work the next morning will cause the day to go by in a sleepy haze. I mean, I’m 29 years old; I’m not physically able to pull all-nighters with much success anymore.

So, I’ve had to adapt pretty heavily. These days, there are good games getting churned out several times a month, a problem made much worse by my ownership of a DS, a Wii, an Xbox 360, and a Playstation 3 (not to mention—finally!—a rather capable PC). I can’t just afford to buy every game that remotely interests me and expect to find the 10 to 40 hours it’ll take to slam through it; I have to be selective now, a fact I realized ever since I discovered at the turn of the year that I had a stack of games that I had purchased but never actually played that was about a dozen high! There are some gems in there too: Assassin’s Creed II, Skies of Arcadia Legends, Valkyria Chronicles, Odin Sphere, among others. But there are also some games in that stack that just haven’t held my interest—Halo 3: ODST and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. And so with these latter games, I had to make the call; I had to let go, stop playing them, and instead play through the games that really called out to me.

a part of The Missing Link series of articles
Article By Bastian

In nearly every The Legend of Zelda video game we explore a vast landscape, usually called “Hyrule”, and yet no two Hyrules are ever identical.

Are we meant to believe that Hyrule is constantly suffering cataclysmic natural disasters which are dramatically changing its features? Or are we to assume that there are many different lands all called Hyrule within the same world? Or possibly worlds? Or should we believe that somehow all of these lands called Hyrule are in fact one in the same?

I fancy the latter, myself, and my aim is to show how this can be possible, despite the contrasting popular opinion.

A five-part article for The Missing Link series
by Hylian Dan

In this brand new, five-part article series for The Missing Link, renowned Zelda theorist Hylian Dan discusses The Wind Waker’s deepest themes and philosophical connections. Read the entire article below.

A five-part article for The Missing Link series
by Hylian Dan

In this brand new, five-part article series for The Missing Link, renowned Zelda theorist Hylian Dan discusses The Wind Waker’s deepest themes and philosophical connections. Read the entire article below.

A five-part article for The Missing Link series
by Hylian Dan

In this brand new, five-part article series for The Missing Link, renowned Zelda theorist Hylian Dan discusses The Wind Waker‘s deepest themes and philosophical connections. Read the entire article below.

A five-part article for The Missing Link series
by Hylian Dan

In this brand new, five-part article series for The Missing Link, renowned Zelda theorist Hylian Dan discusses The Wind Waker‘s deepest themes and philosophical connections. Read the entire article below.

A five-part article for The Missing Link series
by Hylian Dan

In this brand new, five-part article series for The Missing Link, renowned Zelda theorist Hylian Dan discusses The Wind Waker‘s deepest themes and philosophical connections. Read the entire article below.

Roundtable: It’s the Final Countdown!

A part of The Missing Link series of articles

Crab Helmet:

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So, this is it. Within less than one day, Spirit Tracks will be released to the world. As a Zelda community, we’ve received probably the vast majority of the information we are going to receive prior to the release, in the form of trailers, commercials, interviews, and reviews. It’s time for the roundtable crew to provide you with a final summation of our hopes and fears for the upcoming title.

The Soul of a Game

a part of The Missing Link series of articles

Article By Hylian Dan

Will video games as a medium be forever relegated to the pop cultural ghetto? Or will they establish themselves alongside such revered media as film, literature, and music? Designer Chris Hecker tackled this question in a keynote address covered by Gamasutra. As I reviewed his points, they strengthened my conviction that the game industry could learn a lot through a closer examination of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series.

Linearism Is Alive and Well

An Article by The Missing Link

Timeline “enthusiasts” (y’all know who you are!) may be looking at the title of this article with some amount of shock, disbelief, perhaps even disgust. The very thought is probably absurd to nearly all of you, and already you are probably dividing yourselves into two different camps. On one side, some may have already decided that I, in my many months of hiding, have somehow had my head stuck in the sand and haven’t heard about the confirmation of the Split Timeline. (I assure you that you are all dead wrong on that one.) And then, in the other corner of the ring, others would believe me to be some raving lunatic that is either delusional, mad, or simply desperately trying to hold onto the way things were years ago. (Mad? Me? Mad, you say? Hahaha! Hardly! You haven’t seen me get going yet!)

The History of Zelda Combat

a part of The Missing Link series of articles

Article By Demo

Combat has been the bread and butter of every Legend of Zelda game since their humble beginnings in 1986. The gameplay of the series has been, and always will be, centered around action-filled encounters between Link and his adversaries. Although Link’s adventures may also include puzzle-solving from time to time, from a gameplay point of view combat always takes a front seat, and has evolved with each new installment to the series. The intention behind this article is to analyze and explore these combat mechanics, and to realize how they have changed over time.

A Two-Faced Legend

a part of The Missing Link series of articles

Guest Article By Jeff

When someone thinks of the Legend of Zelda, it’s hard to believe that they have one definitive image in their head. When you envision the franchise, do you really see an individual representation of it? More than likely, you imagine a wide range of depictions, being that the series has grown to a grand level with over a dozen titles. A second reason, and arguably the greatest one, is something that a lot of fans probably haven’t given much thought to over the course of the series; Zelda doesn’t adhere to just one style, in any regard. To say the least, the world you see in one game is going to be completely different from another game.

The 100-Year Itch

a part of The Missing Link series of articles

Guest Article By pipking

Spirit Tracks, the sequel to 2007’s Phantom Hourglass, reportedly takes place 100 years after Link bested Bellum on the Great Sea. Phantom was an immediate successor to The Wind Waker, but for our next trip into Toon Link’s world we’re going to the far flung future. Again.

Immortal Childhood

a part of The Missing Link series of articles

By Hylian Dan

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Home, Sweet Home…
3. Good-bye, Great Deku Tree
4. Transformation
5. The Playground
6. Mortal Life
7. The Child’s Wrath
8. The Guardian Tree
9. The Seeds of the Future
10. Immortal Childhood

Introduction

Restless souls wander where they don’t belong…
—Ocarina of Time

As Link roams across the mysterious Koholint Island, a ghost begins to follow behind him. It whispers, “…The house… …take me… …the house… …at the bay…” Link brings the ghost to its former home. The floors are cracked, the lights have dimmed. The spirit sadly drifts across the room. “…Nostalgia… …unchanged… …boo hoo…”

“…Enough… …cemetery… …take me… …my grave…”

There is a common theme that runs through Link’s Awakening and Ocarina of Time. It is expressed more fully in Majora’s Mask, and summarized at the end of The Wind Waker. These four stories express what it means to live bound to the flow of time. They are stories about the beauty of mortality, the journey from childhood to adulthood and from life to death. They are about growing up and leaving behind the immortal playground of childhood, letting go of the familiar to venture out into the world that lies beyond.

Hello, everyone – Crab Helmet here, to introduce something big coming to ZU very soon. I speak of The Missing Link, a brand new article series from Zelda Universe. The Missing Link is, in essence, a revival of the old Behind the Rupees series. Many of you might remember a select few top writers from around ZU gathering together to write insightful articles about every aspect of the Zelda series. After an incredibly long wait, we’re ready to do it again – and better than ever before.

To get everyone acquainted with the new writers in The Missing Link, we’ve prepared a roundtable article, in which certain site staff bounce opinions of each other in a general debate and discussion about a subject. This is more of a teaser than anything else, as I want to show you how these things work. Plus, I’m itching to get an article on Spirit Tracks out.

Today The Missing Link team will be discussing their first thoughts on the Spirit Tracks trailer. As you probably know, a new Zelda for DS has been announced, and while we know little about it, we are more than ready to discuss it. Here we go!