I’m very behind when it comes to your more traditional horror games. Growing up, I had what may as well have been a mildly traumatic experience when I watched my older brother play the original Resident Evil on the PlayStation, which created a pretty powerful fear of hallways for days as well as a fear of zombies that hasn’t quite died out yet.
Finally, I steeled myself one year and said, “This is it. This year, I’m going to play an actual horror game and beat it!” My first choice was Fatal Frame and I adored it despite wanting to soil my pants at times — or most of the time really. After that, I decided to go back and play a bunch of horror games since I finally discovered their appeal, and to the surprise of no one, Resident Evil 4 is a game that stuck out to me and one that I love.
In addition to October being a spooky month, it’s also a month where a lot of artists partake in a monthly event called “Inktober”. In this event, artists are given a prompt for the next 31 days and have to draw something based on said prompt, whether it’s a sketch or a full-blown, fully colored art piece. It’s a great month, filled with lots of amazing art and spectacular growth by a lot of artists.
One variant that some Legend of Zelda fans started doing is known as “Linktober”, which as you might guess, is Inktober with a Zelda spin. There have been some amazing pieces crafted as a result, and for today’s Yuga’s Art Gallery, I’d like to share one such piece.
Instagram user and artist Jeff Duck gives us a very simple illustration of Link purchasing his tools from the merchant in Resident Evil 4 with a very angry and jealous Ravio watching from behind. It may be biased since I recently completed a couple of playthroughs of Resident Evil 4, but this is easily one of my favorite illustrations. The idea of Link being in the same world as the merchant and choosing to buy from him instead of Ravio is priceless.
Imagine instead of Ravio, Link walks into his home from A Link Between Worlds and is instead greeted by the merchant, with that wonderful and gravely voice coming from your Nintendo 3DS speakers; “What’re ya buyin’?” “Ahh, the Sand Rod! That one is sure to come in handy, stranger!”
What I love about Inktober is how a lot of fantastic ideas can come to fruition based on both a time limit as well as a restriction of a prompt. Jeff Duck has proven not just with this image but all of his Inktober drawings on his Instagram his incredible creativity. Not to mention, he showed me a cross-over I never knew I wanted, to which I have to tip my hat to him and say, “Heheheh. Thank ya!”
