Who are Zelda Elders?
Long ago, but not so long ago as the Great Calamity, two friends –let’s call them Itzal and Demelza, because why not? – began playing Nintendo together.
Before we two Zelda Elders met, we each had done some gaming, including the original Legend of Zelda back in the 1980s, on our own. We were not elders in those days, so perhaps we were more willing to be out in Hyrule alone, without the safety net of a friend who can, in a sense, still drive at night.
But over time it became clear, at least to us, that Nintendo is better with a friend.
And so we’ve been playing Nintendo together for over 20 years, off and on. Mostly off, because we did, after all, have obligations to employers and family and the real world at large for that score of years. But as time and geographical proximity permitted, we played.
From the beginning, it was all about Zelda. Yes, there were brief forays into the worlds of Luigi and Mario, Donkey Kong, and the poor sacrificial Pikmin. But fundamentally, we were like Link and Zelda themselves: obsessed with Hyrule, with one to fight the battles, brave and true, and one to offer encouragement, sage advice, and no small amount of nagging.
Our first game together was Ocarina of Time. We haven’t revisited Ocarina since our initial foray – indeed, we would have to dust off the old Nintendo 64 in the storage unit and buy an adapter to connect it to our more modern televisions – but we still have fond memories of the wonder and excitement of a game that was nothing short of captivating in its day. Perhaps now the improvements to consoles and game design would leave us jaded and unimpressed were we to fire it up again. Perhaps it’s best to keep our memories. Which, truth be told, is harder to do than it was 20 years ago.
We later donned Majora’s Mask and sailed the seas with Wind Waker. We were not particularly skilled at the latter, and neither did we warm up to “toon” graphics.
Then came Twilight Princess and, finally, Skyward Sword – the Wii original, not the Switch remaster. One of us can’t even remember Twilight Princess, and the Skyward Sword memories are mostly of poor Itzal being shouted at. (Demelza disputes this, naturally.)
There were dry periods when the games gathered dust, and happier times when there were new consoles to learn and games to challenge. There were hairs lost and wrinkles found. There were job changes, new relationships, cross-country moves, and even some grandchildren along the way.
After sheathing Skyward Sword, the longest drought, brought on by work demands and geographical distance, ensued. During this time a new console, the Switch, was introduced, with Breath of the Wild as its launch game. But although we had eagerly begun all previous Zelda titles within weeks if not days of their release, we didn’t commence our journey into the Wild until three years after the game’s debut.
And how did we get there? To begin with, we were once again in the same city. And it was 2020, and all that that implied – or rather, all that it didn’t. No work outside the home. No movie theaters. No parties. Not much of anything really, except too much food, alcohol, and time on our hands.
Enter the Nintendo Switch – once we were able to get our hands on it, during a year in which entertainment was in short supply – and Breath of the Wild.
Suffice it to say, the game made the monotony of the pandemic easier to bear, within our small quarantine bubble. In the beginning, we played only sporadically, once every two or three weeks. But it wasn’t long before we were hooked, wondering what was next in Link’s adventure, an adventure that was also ours, because we choose where to go, what to do, and how to do it. It was a freedom we sorely missed. And we celebrated the reunion by steadily increasing the number and variety of cocktails we thought went nicely with our quest. It was, after all, 2020.
We ended our first journey into the Wild in nine months, and lo, guess what was subsequently born? A blog. Recently, we have decided to raise our sword and our cocktail glasses upward once more with the Switch version of Skyward Sword. (Without conceding there was cause for complaint, Demelza promises there will be less shouting than there was in 2011.)
This is our story. We hope you enjoy your own adventure with a friend. But even if you explore Hyrule on your own, know that you do not go alone (which, as we know, is dangerous!)
Because we are all Zelda Elders.