Miyamoto has confessed that the idea behind The Legend of Zelda It was born from the need to relive, in some way, the experiences of his childhood, exploring the fields, caves and borders around his house. That’s why, All the games in the series have that idea as their cornerstone: to create in the player the feeling of adventure and discovery, offering them the freedom to move wherever they want and live in a fantastic world with unforgettable characters.
Shigeru Miyamoto, Japanese video game creator, received the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in 2012. eloy alonso
In the mid-20th century, the American anthropologist and mythologist Joseph Campbell coined and defined the structure of the oldest myth of all time: the hero’s journey. This monomyth is present in Homer’s own Iliad, also in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, in Harry Potter or in Star Wars, to give a few examples.
All these stories have a common denominator: the hero feels a call to adventure that he ends up following, on his way he will come across different figures who will guide him and teach him to overcome the challenges and obstacles that arise, to finally win, in a literal or figurative confrontation, to death and thus returning home totally changed. This narrative structure has been subverted on many occasions, but it has become a tremendously effective framework because it allows the reader, the viewer and the player to put themselves in the shoes of that character who is forced to leave his safety zone to fight against something. unknown and emerge victorious.
Link is the name of the protagonist of this saga and he is the one who has to go through a ‘hero’s journey’ every time. Promotional image of The Legend of Zelda: a link Between Worlds
In The Legend of Zelda (each game tells a different story within the same universe, all connected in the same chronology, in which three characters, the hero Link, the princess Zelda and the demon Ganondorf, have been condemned to reincarnate cyclically throughout the history of the kingdom of hyrule) Link wakes up and is thrown into an adventure whether it’s saving Hyrule, reverse a curse unleashed on Princess Zelda, save some kidnapped children… Throughout his adventures, Link meets several mentors such as Impa, Orca, Sheik…, who help him overcome different tests and obstacles, to finally defeat the greater evil lurking behind every adventure.
Shigeru Miyamoto has explained in various interviews that he doesn’t really like complex plots in video games, because they somehow mean “cutting game time to explain a story that has already been created”, which is why he assures that he first thinks about how to make a game fun at the controls and then he already creates a small context that serves as a backdrop: “I think the important thing, especially in the Zelda saga, is that people are able to enjoy and live the story.”
This tension between narrative and interactivity He solves it by taking advantage of the famous structure of the hero’s journey, also addressing universal themes such as friendship, courage and the fight against evil in all the games in the series; making them accessible and engaging for players of all ages and backgrounds.
In this regard, Adrián Suárez, host of the Nuevebits podcast, specialized in narrative in videogames, assures that:
“What I find most interesting about The Legend of Zelda is that Hyrule is a constantly changing world; its territory changes without stopping, its races, its histories and even its politics. But what never changes is that a powerful demon, a wise princess and a valiant warrior will always be born, and the three will always be doomed to clash.”
A fact, that of this cursed loop, which at the beginning was not a decision Much thought was given by Miyamoto and his development team, “but as more and more Zelda chapters followed, and as younger generations of designers came to Nintendo, things changed. They loved those three characters: Ganondorf, Zelda and Link, and they needed to better tell their story and their feelings, “he reflects.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. promotional image nintendo
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, is the latest installment in the series so far, a direct sequel to the award-winning and applauded by both critics and players The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a true revolution in the saga and in the video game industry itself, because, among other things, It was a milestone in the way it approached the freedom offered to the player to face the adventure as they wanted; creating a new canon that has tried to be replicated by other authors in recent times and offering, on the other hand, one of the most tragic stories in the medium.
This need to count in depth the story of The Legend of Zelda, in the words of Suárez, makes “in Tears of the Kingdom [los tres personajes principales] They are no longer a mere demon, a simple princess or just another warrior. They are three individuals of flesh, bones and pixels with a single desire: to escape the curse of their destiny. Now they also want to change. And let’s hope they succeed, more than 30 years after their first confrontation.
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