Moments of Serendipity
Over a year after release, I finally completed The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The Legend of Zelda has been my favorite video game series since I was a kid. I might not re-read books very often, but I’ve probably played The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker front to back over a dozen times in my life. Despite having fallen out of video games a bit during my college years, I bought a Nintendo Switch expressly for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I loved that game: its minimal narrative and soundtrack, the endless exploration, and the depth created by the game’s overlapping systems. Tears of the Kingdom takes everything I loved from that game, and greatly expands on it, producing one of the best games I’ve played in years.
I advanced steadily through the main narrative, until I got to the final chapter. From there, I’d play 30, 45 minutes at a time, just random exploration or side quests; I didn’t want it to end. I’ve railed against the storytelling in most modern video games, but the narrative in Zelda has never bothered me, and these past two entries have embraced the best parts: mostly mythic, minimal narration, the game is primarily propelled through your exploration, through the dynamic ways the systems of the game (like the weather, the enemies, the terrain) interact with one another. But there’s still a stolen princess, still a demon lord.
The narrative in books has to be carefully constructed. Characters are introduced, predicaments arise, and how they navigate these shifting circumstances brings about the narrative catharsis. You read from front to back. I think films can be a bit looser: books feel like thinking to me, as I’m lead along the path of a character’s thought-process, but films can be like memories, like dreams. You still watch in one direction, but a lot of the narrative momentum comes from the cut, the gaps between shots. A shot of wind in the trees, the essential cut, a shot of a man sitting on a bench: a narrative is created, or at least suggested, simply through the juxtaposition of images. In a video game, the player has to be able to make choices: this complicates things. In open world games, often you can simply eschew the main narrative to go frolic in the fields—at least, that’s what I often do.
Most of the time, I find games want to be movies, and do it poorly. Other times, I feel the narrative, or at least the actions of the player, to be limited by the "vocabulary" of the game. When half of the inputs control the handling and firing of a gun, that's probably how the game is going to make you spend your time. Zelda pushes beyond this. There are interactions in the game that no one scripted, but leave an impact. You'll see villagers run for cover when it starts to rain, monsters fighting over control of a weapon. Lightning strikes a pool, and the now-cooked fish rise to the surface. This is what a game should be, a collection of these little moments of serendipity no other medium can provide.
Tears of the Kingdom’s version of the eponymous Zelda is perhaps my favorite yet; I deeply wanted to save her. But I feared what would happen once I reached my goal. In video games, especially open world games like these latest Zelda entries, there’s an expectation the game never really ends. Or at least, you can hit new game. These Switch Zelda games are thoughtful, beautiful masterpieces, but they still center around a fallen kingdom, at threat of final destruction at the hands of evil. What happens when that evil is vanquished?
As I neared the game’s climax, plunging into the depths of the underworld to confront the demon lord in his lair, I held out hope that once I saved the princess, I could return to the now-peaceful world, bask in the light of the Sun. But it was not to be. I slayed the great evil, caught the princess in my arms, and watched the credits roll, only to be dropped back into hell once more, at the gaping maw of the enemy. Our hero and heroine had their moment in the field, finally at rest; but it was only a moment. A game must be played, and what would there be to do in a world without enemies? So the clock is rewound, and there I am once more, in the pit of despair.
I think the best works linger on with us after we’ve closed the cover. Moments hang with us, rising up in our conscious, before fading away again. There are books, movies, games buoyed by a single scene. What is it that makes certain moments resonate with us? I’m still trying to figure that out. Some of the moments that will stick most with me from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom no one planned, but they were powerful all the same. It’s disappointing that true change, peace as a result of the hero’s actions were out of reach, but I know next time I want to go wander a field, Link will be there, waiting for me.
