PAX Australia is the final PAX convention of the year, taking place over the Halloween weekend in the heart of Melbourne’s business district. Overlooking the Yarra River, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre played host to the convention. Developers from all over the world flew in to represent all sectors of the gaming industry in…
PAX is the poster child for conventions that prominently feature video games. But while PAX may win the award for most well-known video game convention, never underestimate the power of video game enthusiasts to show up in spades at smaller venues, even if those venues aren’t necessarily centered around video games. Sakura-Con took place this past…
I love the CD-i Zelda games. There, I said it. Okay, wait, let me clarify a moment. I’m not talking about Zelda’s Adventure; that game can go die in a fire for all I care. But The Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamelon? Love ‘em. I almost had a small, unhealthy obsession with…
Last time on Mysteries of Hyrule, we talked about the first of two major mysteries pushed deep underwater when goddesses flooded the entire land of Hyrule. Specifically, I mentioned that it seemed entirely uncharacteristic for the goddesses to intervene in the fate of Hyrule given that their Triforce doesn’t seem to play favorites when it…
When Wind Waker was first introduced to the fans, the first reaction was wanton outrage over the graphics. However, a much more subtle debate took the stage not long after that. It was around this time when it seemed like Nintendo truly started becoming interesting in hooking all of the Zelda titles into some cohesive…
Title image courtesy of ChetRippo of DeviantArt E3 2013 was certainly a unique one as far as Nintendo went. For the first time in as far back as I can remember, Nintendo bowed out of the age-old tradition of having a pre-E3 press conference to announce their new titles and strategies. Instead they threw away…
Some of Hyrule’s mysteries are veritable founts of secret knowledge, partial truths, and manifold quotes that, while they don’t entirely spell out Nintendo’s hidden secrets, at least point in the general direction of the creators’ thought processes. Others are much more subtle and vaguely mentioned, and such conjectures require deep dives into context and some…
They made Zelda the protagonist of a game. People can say what they will about how bad the CD-i games are comparatively to the rest of the series. As much as I’d like to say something as controversial as The Faces of Evil or The Wand of Gamelon being better than, oh, say, Spirit Tracks—and…
They’re actually not that bad. No really, they’re not actually that bad. Yes, yes, I know that the cinematics are terrible. I also know what the Angry Video Game Nerd said about them. And I acknowledge that by no means are they some epitome of gaming that should be placed upon a golden pedestal somewhere. …
The world of Hyrule is, all and all, an amazing place. Over the various games, I’ve fallen in love with so many characters, places, and legends. It was the stuff that much of my adolescent and young adult dreams were made of. Hyrule, to me, wasn’t one of those things that I was content to…
As much as I loathe admitting it, 2012 has been an absolute low point when it’s come to being excited about The Legend of Zelda. The Legend of Zelda practically took over my life when A Link to the Past came out back in 1992. Up until that point, Mario had been the center of…
E3 is just getting started, but as always it always seems like a whirlwind tour as it happens. With all of the big press conferences down and just the exhibition floor yet to come, there’s still quite a good chance that there might be a surprise or two yet to eke its way out of…
In the AAA games industry, the general rule of thumb is that the games that have the best graphics, the best gameplay, the best story, the best characters, the best environments, the best personality, and the best this, that, and the other things are the ultimate winners and will become the stuff of legends that…
Back in January, we let you know about an awesome piece of “fan art” that had a slightly different flair than the normal. DeviantArt user Nelde over the course of several days revealed a custom set of playing cards that not only featured famous characters from the Zelda games on all of the face cards…
[Warning: Very vague plot details to Skyward Sword are included in this article. Read at your own risk.] When I completed my first playthrough of Skyward Sword several weeks ago, I couldn’t help but feel a rush of exhilaration as I laid waste to the final boss and watched the ending sequence. In those moments, I…
