by Jed Pressgrove
For a name associated with greatness, Zelda isn’t the sharpest tack at the start of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The scenario begins with Zelda and Link investigating a cavern under Hyrule Castle. The obvious question—why the hell would only two people, including the kingdom’s most important person whose life was recently in grave danger, delve into an unexplored dark place suspected as the source of new evil?—is never answered.
Atmospheric, creepy music attempts to set a serious tone, but I’m more immersed in my own impatience listening to Zelda’s gratuitous gasps and digesting her monotonous, incredulous comments about how deep the cavern goes.
“People have been falling ill after coming into contact with the gloom drifting from these caverns,” Zelda observes as she continues the inadvisable descent with Link, who, in line with tradition, remains speechless like the story pawn that he is. “Though here it seems almost misty and not concentrated enough to harm us.”
This last optimistic observation comes about a minute after her more worrying line, “This strange gloom keeps getting thicker.” Either the script team can’t understand basic contradictions in writing, or Zelda is a bonafide dullard.
An on-screen message instructs me to swing Link’s sword with the Y button. Conspicuously, this text prompt stays up for a while. I feel teased, as though the game makers know Zelda is irritating and would make an attractive target, but no amount of hacking can stop this NPC damsel in her tracks.
I see three one-eyed bats. At last the game offers a distraction from Zelda’s grating dialogue. I annihilate the vermin. Before I can congratulate myself for conquering this trio of winged dummies, a cutscene initiates. Zelda runs to the hero and says, “You’re not hurt, are you, Link?” No, he just completed the simplest tutorial sequence in the world with a high-powered sword and myriad heart containers.
After this less-than-minor brush with danger, Zelda has a series of Da Vinci Code moments, connecting the dots between images on the walls of the cavern and her knowledge of Hylian history. Soon she whips out a Switch-shaped device and takes pictures of her discoveries. “It’s so easy to record,” she says, channeling her inner tech bro. “You point it and click.” (How despicable that Nintendo markets itself within a game destined to sell millions.)
The princess tells Link to keep going deeper—something she has said ad nauseam, as if the writers intend a perverted metaphor. I run ahead as Link. An ominous red substance marks the air. Another cutscene triggers: The two approach a horrifying green spiral. Zelda, in patented clueless fashion, says, “Let’s continue, Link. But we must be extremely careful.”
On cue like a silly horror movie, bad things start happening—the corpse of Ganon reanimates, shoots red junk at Link’s arm and sword, and proclaims his power while calling out to Zelda and Link.
And Zelda, showing a level of stereotypical obliviousness only rivaled by Mila Kunis’ character in the risible 2015 film Jupiter Ascending, asks, “How do you … know our names?”
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I expect more intelligence from the introduction of the one zillionth entry of a franchise that its creators and fans treat as sacred entertainment. (Say what you will about the less advanced Zelda II: The Adventure of Link or A Link to the Past—they had smarter openings.) When Breath of the Wild graced our lives seven years ago, I thought the Second Coming had occurred judging by people’s enraptured responses. And if one didn’t know any better, the responses this month would indicate a Third Coming has transpired. Yet even a casual analysis of Tears of the Kingdom’s intro can underline the mind-numbing potential of its regurgitated plot. Zelda hasn’t learned anything. Link can’t say anything. And we, as players, dare not denounce this exercise in arrested development. We are expected to welcome the stupidity of this badly written, lazily designed initial salvo. Save the ostensibly birdbrained princess, Nintendo says. So I kick off my individual journey in the open world environment, hoping for better things to come.
TO BE CONTINUED …
Game Bias 