Features

With all the talk about violence in America, I am beginning to understand why politicians have such a strong stance against violence in video games. Bringing companies like Nintendo into the gun debate shows that politicians care about the people and want to find the truth rather than pass blame like everyone else. These violent…

Recently, we had the opportunity to interview the people from With a Terrible Fate, a group of video game analysts who delve deeply into video game history and storytelling to make sense of how video games manage and portray storytelling. They had a lot of interesting answers, many of which give great insight into video games…

Since early gameplay footage of Breath of the Wild showed us our first glimpse of the Stone Talus mini-boss, I wondered what kind of lore-based explanation we would get for the existence of giant, living rock monsters. Unfortunately for me, and others wondering the same, there was no such explanation. The question lingered and inevitably…

Breath of the Wild can easily be summed up in a single word. Like all the Zelda games before it, it is an adventure: a journey that takes you to the farthest reaches of your imagination and, in this case, your ability to overcome it. It’s a familiar theme, one that is colored by the…

Open your eyes. Zelda fans have heard those three words a lot recently. They were the first words spoken in the first trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at E3 2016. They were also the last words spoken in the last trailer for Breath of the Wild. They are the first…

Throughout our lives, we discover things that truly touch us — items and ideas that spark our imaginations, drive our passions, and inspire us on a level beyond mere interest. They open our minds to possibilities we had never before conceived. Whether it’s a person, a movement, or a creative work, these gleaming stars in an…

More and more, fans have turned towards their favorite video games in order to pen their own thoughts and analyses of their beloved franchises. Author Jared Hansen has created a book analyzing fan-favorite Zelda: The Wind Waker. The book is titled The Symbolism of Zelda: A Textual Analysis of The Wind Waker, and it analyzes every aspect of The Wind…

Recently, we ran a contest for a chance to win a rare collector’s item: one of three copies of Zelda: Breath of the Wild signed by Eiji Aonuma, courtesy of Nintendo Australia. It’s now time to announce the three winners. In order to win, you needed to send in a 25-word-or-less message that you would…

It is difficult to find good adventure games that focus on exploration and puzzles. I cling to The Legend of Zelda series, in part, because there are not many games like it. It is more common to find adventure games that focus on action. So I pay close attention any time I see a new adventure…

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was my first taste of open-world gaming. It featured a vast, new world to explore and so many options for what I could do. I didn’t have to follow a structured storyline and could do as I pleased. This idea, once so foreign to me, had swiftly become…

On Sunday, November 5, I got to experience one of the most mesmerizing magical times of my life: The Symphony of the Goddesses. Around 2 p.m. my dad and I started our three-hour-long trek to Columbus, Ohio from our small town in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia. Having only been to Columbus once before, just…

After the Windwaker HD remake, people were curious to see what they would remake next. Excitement exploded when Nintendo announced it was Twilight Princess, because it is a true fan favorite. They didn’t just remake the same game, they enhanced the graphics, added new visuals, added new features, and took some gamer feedback to heart and made minor story and game play changes.

To sum up its design aesthetic in one word, Super Mario Odyssey is a game about density. Other open-world games tend to focus on sheer size — how many mountains you can climb or how many caves there are to find, but Odyssey instead takes some relatively small spaces and crams them full of interesting…

Yuga’s Art Gallery is a series in which we highlight our favourite artwork and crafts from the Zelda community, as well as some official artwork from the franchise from time to time. Zelda is a series that is constantly changing its style, and after over 30 years of evolving and shifting its visuals, it continues…

Realm of Memories is a series where we reflect on our absolute favorite moments in Zelda games. These could be the times we first fell in love with a game, were moved by the events of the story or actions of a character, felt triumphant when overcoming a tough boss or challenge, or we had…