To the reader. This is my experience to what was going through my mind before I learned about the new realistic Zelda, and after I viewed the trailer for it. This is my story, my reflections, and my hopes. I hope you enjoy it.

 

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It was another one of those boring days. I'd boot up the old computer and see a bunch of stuff like "Microsoft talks about Halo 2" and "Sony's new PSP". I kept wondering, what happened to good old Nintendo? They were once on the top of the video game market back when they made Zelda Ocarina of time. Everyone respected them and you never ever heard stuff like "Oh, don't get that game, it was made by Nintendo so it'll be to kiddy". Yup, those were the glory days, back when Nintendo was in it's prime and gaming was good.

 

I sat there, staring at the computer, but my mind was in another place, imagining myself back in a different time, a reverie of all the memories, the fun, the excitement, the mystery. I was longing to relive those good times again.

 

I came back the reality and sighed. "Things just aren't the same anymore." Don't get me wrong, Nintendo was still coming out with some good games, I mean Double Dash was addictive and Wind Waker was fun, but I wanted that excitement, that feeling I experienced when I first played Ocarina of Time. I wanted to relive playing a game, where your were sucked into a magical world with a storyline that was mysterious and medieval. I wanted to play a game with that middle age/peagon theme, with a storyline that just blew you away. I wanted to play another game words alone can't describe, a game where your imagination is satisfied as it's taken to whole new levels of indescribable amazement.

 

Zelda: The Ocarina of time, was and will always be one of the best videogames known to man kind. I always wondered if Nintendo could top it, and recently I started having my doubts. After seeing that breathtaking footage of Link and Gannondorf fighting, when spaceworld 2000 was demonstrating the powers of the Game Cube, I really thought Nintendo was getting somewhere. Then they unveiled the Wind Waker. I personally think that this was a huge mistake on Nintendo's part. You can't plant a seed into peoples heads, causing them to believe that a brilliant, 3D, realistic Zelda game is in the making, and then suddenly reveal something from a completely different direction. People had been fantasizing about a game that would walk in the footsteps of OoT, and then suddenly there's a cartoonly looking, cell-shaded game being made. Many people were crushed, disappointed, and heart broken. Too make it even worse, this all happened right around the time of the next generation consoles, so many people, crushed that Zelda was different, and afraid that Nintendo would never again make game like OoT, decided that they were through with Nintendo, and they went on to Buy their Playstations and their X-Boxes.

 

As I continued thinking about all this, I asked myself if their were any other reasons why the WW as good as it could have been. People said it was too cell-shaded, to cartoony, and to childless. It may have been cartoony, but it defiantly wasn't a "Kiddy" game. Many people don't actually realize how serious the game was. If you remember the ending of the WW, and the speech that the King of Hyrule gives you, you'll recall that it was very un-childlike, and I bet that very few 8 and 10 year old kids kids understood it. The problem is, the Serious emotional tone, was not on the same level as it's graphics were. What I mean it, your eyes told you one thing while the game said another. It was almost contradictory. Humans are very visual, and usually, when something appears a certain way, that first impression will remain with the view for a very long time. If the WW graphics matched it's emotional tone of seriousness, things may have been a lot different.

 

These are all of the things that were going through my head on that day in May. I was kind of reflecting on everything that had happened in the past half a decade. After WW, I thought that the rest of the Zelda games would be the same thing. Cell-Shaded and distant from what I was used to. I realized that many people who really loved the WW, were new gamers who hadn't really played any of the other serious Zelda games. They didn't have this constant problem of comparing the WW to OoT, so they enjoyed WW more. After I thought about it I really began to doubt that Nintendo would ever return to the path that OoT had started. Many people, for years after OoT, begun to imagine what kind of Zelda game could be just like it but better. Many people had their own fantasies of Hyrule, Link, and Zelda. We were wondering if our imagination would ever be brought to life.

 

So, with all of this going on in my head, I decided to see what was happening at E3. I read on E-mail from Nintendo about what it was featuring. Once again I saw the same old, same old. Mario once again had another bunch of titles, and some other stuff. I noticed some stuff on the DS and I decided to look into that. I headed on over to Nintendo, and checked out the E3 page. What I saw next hit me hard, really hard. It was as though Nintendo had reached into the deepest, darkest corners of my imagination, and brought about a picture of the real, true, adult Link. I was shocked, but what I saw next hit me as an even bigger surprise' "New Zelda game planned for 2005" And there it was! The reassurance of a dwindling hope that had almost completely vanished. Nintendo still had it's touch. I gazed at all of the screenshots, and once again, I had that feeling that I had once experienced when I first played Ocarina of Time. But it wasn't over yet, there was still the movie.

 

 Once I saw that, everything changed. All of the doubt, the fear of Zelda being gone forever, and the thoughts of Nintendo falling to Sony and Microsoft were vanished. I silently waited for the movie to load, and I was experiencing this overwhelming feeling of excitement I'd never felt before. And then it started. The full glory of Hyrule came into view, and I saw before my eyes, the land of Hyrule that I had always dreamed of. This is how it was supposed to be. I watched the camerera pan around in a forest shrouded in twilight, then it changed, and there were huge sheets of rain falling down upon Hyrule, and then, there was the shadowy outline of the enemy approaching on a red horizen. This, was Zelda. Suddenly the camera changed again, and there was Link, just like in that brilliant artwork photo, riding his horse, supposedly epona, onward to meet his foes, and to protect his home. I thought that there, was a really powerfull scene. The preview then went on to show some more aspects of the game, and then ended. I sat there speechless. My hands were numb, and my mind was racing. Nintendo had brought back this game that I, and so many others, had been waiting for. I couldn't resist watching that trailer over and over and over again. I must have watched it about 15 times.

 

After that, I started to do some serious thinking. Lots of questions began to pop into my mind. "When would this game take place?" "Would the triforce be in this one?" "What would the storyline be like?" "Would Nintendo reclaim the fans it had lost?" "Would people finally come to realize that Nintendo was still an ingenious company, capable of making great games?" These are all things I have thought, and have been pondering over. This is the end of one story, and story of fear and doubt, and the beginning of another story. A story of Hope, and potential.

 

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 I hopped you enjoyed reading this. I know it was long, but it's everything that's been on my mind lately, and it feels nice to finally write it down. I really appreciate your reading it. It shows that there are still open minded people out there. (I may have made some spelling errors, please excuse them)