Day 2: The 30-Day Video Game Challenge

Note: This is a series of posts based on some image floating around on Twitter. I felt I could talk more about my answers instead of just tweeting them.

Day 2: My favorite character

Link, from The Legend of Zelda series.

I like that the story of Zelda changes with each iteration of the game. It's like the story is a tale passed down after years and years, with the myth adapted to each generation's life experiences.

Just gonna leave grandma behind and save my sister. All in a day's work.

From a personality standpoint, Link doesn't say anything, except for some grunts and yelling. It allows you to fit your personality into his character. Are you happily carrying out these tasks? Are they a burden? The Zelda games, by keeping him silent, allows you to tell that part of the story.

Regardless of what kind of story you supply, I admire Link's courage. Go stop an evil wizard? Go get my sleeping father out of the castle? Burn down a mysterious bush in the middle of the woods? Link doesn't question these things, he just does them.

Sure, we shouldn't do everything people tell us to do. That'd be ridiculous. However, there's something noble about the fact that he never questions the chance to help others. He just does it. Partly because it's a video game and a Zelda game wouldn't be fun if Link sat in the house all day, but partly because he's the kind of hero most of us strive to be. Always courageous, always the first one to save the day.

This writes an interesting story in the my mind, as we're never really sure if Link truly gets what he wants in life. But that's a whole separate blog post, although I suspect there are moments of sadness throughout his venturing days, when he longs for his own dreams to come true, instead of granting the wishes, noble as they are, of others.

Morality aside, Link is a fantastic piece of walking destruction. His variety of weapons is a lot of fun to mess around with. The sword (which shot energy beams in the shape of a sword in the first two games), bombs, bow and arrow, magic wand, boomerang, and even sticks! It brings me back to childhood days when I'd imagine myself as a fierce warrior, waving around my plastic sword (swords were much cooler weapons than guns when I was a boy), defeating all evil that could harm my neighborhood!

And then, I'd go back inside and play The Legend of Zelda. Because that game, and Link, are fantastic creations.

Previous entries:
Day 1