It’s June of 2011, and I’m sitting in front of a computer with a blank white page and a cursor flashing. Nintendo’s webform sits there waiting for me to input some words into the Wii>General Questions/Feedback section and yet my fingers are hesitating on the keyboard. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and it’s been over five years in the making. I was finally going to do it.
I was finally going to break up with Nintendo and The Legend of Zelda.
Am I being a bit overdramatic? Absolutely. But you have to remember, I had been on board the Nintendo hype train since the fall of 1986. Every release of a Zelda title from that time onward was a huge deal to me. Did I have some lapses? Sure. My family never bought a Super Nintendo (insert ‘We have Nintendo at home’ meme here), so I never had a chance to experience A Link to the Past when it was released. That, and my neighbor never got it either. Fast forward a number of years, and I too was another Zelda fan disappointed by the Nintendo Space World 2001 reveal of The Wind Waker (much to my own personal shame after trying the demo).
The GameCube era comprised a boom of Zelda content not equaled until the Switch. It was also the first (and only) time that I owned all three consoles at once, so I was beginning to expand my gaming horizons as well. Nintendo didn’t fare so well during this generation, but that never really mattered to me…especially once E3 2004 hit.
Yes, that one. The one where they finally revealed the first trailer for Twilight Princess. The one where Shigeru Miyamoto came out with replicas of the Master Sword and Hylian shield; the one so good that I actually bought the ‘GameSpot To-Go E3 2004’ DVD set so I could watch E3 in its entirety.
But this was the beginning of the end for me.
As most readers know, Twilight Princess was set to release in 2005 for the GameCube but was delayed so it could be ported as a launch title for the Wii. E3 2006 gave us gameplay footage on the Wii hardware, and I was moderately intrigued, but wanted to wait until I could get my hands on a demo to try out motion controls. Then a few months before launch, the penny dropped. They had inverted the world.
Now, I’m not going to sit here and blow up at Link’s handedness, but at the time, it was pretty jarring. Even for most right-handed Zelda fans, people noticed that he no longer was wielding his sword with his left hand. Reports came in that during E3 2006, many that played the demo were lamenting the fact that it felt odd to swing the Wii Remote with your right hand and watch Link swing with his left. Welcome to my world 99% of the time, but I digress. In order to alleviate this problem, the development team inverted the horizontal plane of the game rather than reprogram Link’s handedness in the world. Due to time constraints, this makes perfect business sense.
But for me, that only served to solidify my original plan of picking up a copy for the GameCube, which was delayed by three weeks after the launch on Wii. To be absolutely clear though, I loved that game. While not the best as far as gameplay is concerned, it is my top pick for story, mostly due to Midna’s well developed character arc.
From there, I waited a while before I took a chance on the Wii. First of all, it was nearly impossible to find at launch and in the months that followed. Second, I wanted to see if the motion controls held up. After multiple house parties with friends that had gotten a hold of the console, I decided to pick one up. And no lie, it was a blast with friends and family for a while.
As the years passed, my patience began to wear thin. I picked up a used copy of the Wii version of Twilight Princess, but that was a hard pass for me. There were other platformers that required the use of waggle, when a controller would do just fine. The continuation of the Punch-Out!! series didn’t allow for handedness changes in a game that relied on timing and movement. I ended up playing Mario Kart Wii with a WaveBird controller to avoid the hassle of tilt play. Basically, if it wasn’t a game that involved Miis (Wii Sports/Resort, Wii Fit/Plus), then left-handed play wasn’t an option. Even the Skyward Sword teaser image from E3 2009 continued to push me toward the inevitable conclusion — I might need to step away from Nintendo.
At E3 2011, Nintendo doubled down on motion controls with the reveal of the Wii U. I had already let my Wii library begin to dry up, and then this announcement dropped in our laps. Considering that my gaming had already begun to taper off; considering that they were soon to launch their first right-handed Link that fall; considering they’d just shown me another motion controlled, right-handed Link on a new system; and, most importantly, considering that I was a husband and father of two little girls with another on the way; considering all of those things, I had a letter to write.
That’s what led me to sitting in front of a computer on the night of the Wii U announcement, with a blank web form staring at me. I let the words flow out. The past, the present, and how I might not be joining them in the future. I allowed for the fact that I would probably pick up their consoles for my children at some point. Me, though? I was done for now. Given that Nintendo was dealing with the gradual loss of attention from general gamers, I had no interest in being a troll. I wrote a thoughtful letter of my own history with the company, thanked them for the memories, and said that it might be time to put that part of me aside. I clicked send on the form and breathed a sigh of relief. I truly hoped that they didn’t force interns or anyone else to sift through those comments as I just wanted it to be a final cathartic release for me.
Then, two days later, this popped into my inbox.
I wasn’t floored that I received a response. I was surprised that I didn’t receive a canned response. This person took the time to read my thoughts, process what I might be going through, and then respond in a kind and understanding way. At the time, it reinforced to me the kind of company that I believed Nintendo to be. Now? Well, I still have this email in a separate mailbox and PDF copies so that I never lose it. What do you think?
Despite everything, I meant what I said. I didn’t invest any more of my own time on the Wii, aside from helping my children with the motions if they wanted to play. I didn’t pick up Skyward Sword at launch but was happy for those who played it and enjoyed it. I watched the Wii U launch come and go, and was sad to see how it didn’t really catch on, but understood why. I stayed away from Nintendo products for three more years. Maybe I simply needed to separate myself from my fandom so that when something happened that I didn’t particularly care for, I could simply shrug and move on. To learn how to recontextualize this part of my youth into something that fit into my adult life and mindset. That turned out to be enough.
The fall of 2014 saw the release of the Wii U Deluxe Edition (with Mario Kart 8 and Nintendo Land included) and my children were old enough to want it for Christmas. That’s what brought us back together. My kids…that, and the biggest fan service release of all time.
