COMMENTARY – The Legend of Zelda: A cel-shady future

Nintendo got me. They got their hookshot in my wallet and I was forced to fork over my hard earned rupees to preorder a game that by all appearances will do nothing more than piss me off. That’s right, I already reserved a copy of Windwaker. Just a few weeks ago I swore I would never even play it, much less buy the game, and here I am reserving a copy before it’s even released. What could have caused such a drastic turnaround? Because Nintendo is crafty, and while it may not appear that they are on top in the console race right now, they know what they are doing. Look at the Pokemon craze. That was all Nintendo’s doing. The marketing genius behind Nintendo managed to captivate the minds of practically every child under the age of 14 worldwide with the stupid little critters for years. Their same tactics which can be seen so strongly in the Pokemon franchise are also making them a fortune in other channels. For example, and the point of this article, their popular Zelda game series. I remember the footage from Spaceworld 2000 of the new Zelda they were working on for the Gamecube at the time, prior to the decision to go cel shaded. (Sorry if this post is rather devoid of links, I don’t have time to hunt down the pics right now, so you’ll just have to take my word for it, go find them yourself, or wait until I have a little more time and update this post with them.) It was absolutely amazing. There was Link and Ganon, beautifully rendered and big as life, locked in yet another legendary epic battle. I almost cried. I eagerly awaited news of when this game would be released. I could hardly contain my anticipation. But alas, my dreams were shattered and all hopes of ever seeing this game in my hands vanished as they made the announcement: The project had been scrapped in favor of a cel shaded version. I don’t know what prompted them to try something as new and different and stupid with the series as turning it into a cel shaded cartoon. I don’t know anybody who actually likes cel shading. I can’t think of a single cel shaded game that sold well either. But that doesn’t matter to Nintendo. Nintendo knows of the fanatic following the series has. They know we will buy anything with the Zelda name on it, no matter how badly they crap it up. We may whine and complain about it, but the fact remains we still bought it and Nintendo is still making money off of it. My guess is they went with the cel shading to see if the new style would bring in some new players, since they already know they can rely on their old customers to buy it, no matter what they do to it. But that’s not the end of it. Nintendo knew there would be some of us old hardcore fans who would put our foot down at this abomination, and say cel shading is taking it too far. So they employed a tactic to not only ensnare these rebels and bring them back to the franchise, but to also ensure a successful product launch, by offering a bonus disc with preordered copies of the game. This bonus disc includes a complete copy of the N64’s Ocarina of Time, as well as the “Master Quest”, another full version of Ocarina of Time with new and more challenging dungeons. Wow. You get three games for the price of one, and if you don’t like Windwaker you have the N64 classic along with it’s remix to keep you entertained. If you think about it though, this bonus disc is costing Nintendo next to nothing. They merely had to alter the existing game for the new platform and they were done. They didn’t even make the Master Quest with the Gamecube release in mind. It was actually previously developed for release with the 64DD, a disc drive add-on for the N64 which they were working on late in the console’s life cycle in hopes of capturing a few more game developers with the prospect of making games on cheap discs as opposed to the expensive cartridges. Obviously the accessory never caught on, so the Master Quest has just been sitting in a closet until someone got the bright idea of dusting it off and bolstering Windwaker sales with it. So with little additional investment of time, money, or resources, Nintendo has already ensured this radically redesigned addition to the Zelda series will be an instant success. I can see you thinking already. Three games for the price of one, not a bad idea… maybe I should reserve a copy… And there you have it. You don’t play Nintendo. Nintendo plays you.