In a brief post-credit sequence, the sun rises over the castle of Hyrule, while ghosts of fallen heroes fade away. She then turns towards Link/the game camera, and asks: “ Do you really remember me?” before a final long shot on the two characters, a fade to black and a long credit roll. Beating Ganon triggers a cinematic sequence in which Zelda banishes the monster for good. That ending is also anticlimactic however, for what it offers by way of a conclusion. On the other hand, this easiness negates much of the efforts put in by players who sought to improve their equipment, their characters or their skills, only for these steps to be revealed as unnecessary. Though BotW can be difficult, it is also a game that never punishes failure to advance, and the easiness of the ending can be read as an extension of that philosophy. This makes sense in terms of accessibility, as it allows players to reach the end of the game and of the story, even if they do not have the experience or the skills necessary to complete its more demanding passages. For one thing, the final stages of the quest are noticeably less challenging that some of the random or planned encounters in the course of the adventure. There is a hint of absurdism in this dramatic revelation, but most of all, it invites the reader or spectator to look back on the experience of the narrative flow as being its own reward, especially so in the movie version, with its strikingly camp performances.īotW is not unlike The Maltese Falcon, in that its ending is very close to being an anticlimax. The statue in The Maltese Falcon, in Hammett’s novel and it the film version, is a classic example: the precious statue sought by the main characters is eventually revealed as a worthless plaster copy, which fails to provide any kind of closure to the narrative. In other words, early on, and for most of the experience of game, the main quest comes to feel as a MacGuffin, as characterized by Alfred Hitchcock (who did not invent the term): a device meant to provide motivation to the plot and its protagonists, but which is unimportant in itself. Although the game is ostensibly about fighting Ganon and freeing Zelda, the experience of playing it over dozens of hours is dominated by tasks, quests and discoveries which bear only a loose connection to that objective, including cooking, solving abstract puzzles, building of a house, discovering the intricate physical system which rule the world and most of all, exploring. Only in a late phase did I decide that I needed to actively seek the missing pieces and push towards an ending. In my own experience, the vagaries of my travels around the world dictated the pace and the order in which I completed the various (optional) steps of the main quest: taking control of the four divine beasts which are supposed to help defeat Ganon and recovering the Master sword, which many NPCs describe as being the right weapon to tackle the story’s final antagonist. This absolute freedom means that the game never pressures you into actively trying to complete the main quest: defeating a rather loosely defined force of evil – Ganon – which is trapped in Hyrule’s castle, in the center of the map. Although BotW does contain some linear elements, including invitations to visit certain places, and the fact that some early path choices are privileged over others (by the strength of the monsters, by their proximity to the starting point, by their immediate visibility), the player is free to ignore these nudges and invitations, to navigate the world as he or she sees fits, with the amnesiac hero Link as his or her avatar. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BotW) has been nearly universally acclaimed since it came out in 2017, for its art direction, its environmental design and most of all for the freedom it awards the player from the onset. Do you really remember me? – Breath of the Wild
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |