The Important Stuff
OK, this post will be a radical departure from normal, but hey, I blog freely about all kinds of stuff in my life so might as well tackle this weighty issue:
Yes, I'm talking about The Legend of Zelda, a video game franchise that I discovered (to my joy) as an elementary school kid. This was one of my favorite games on our old classic Nintendo Entertainment System. Not long after that they came out with a sequel, Zelda II: Adventure of Link. These two games were a major part of my childhood. But as I moved into high school and then college (and our NES had long since been boxed away somewhere) I forgot all about the "chosen hero" Link with his master sword and his quest to rescue Princess Zelda. You understand, right? (Admitting this would be heresy on some of the Zelda fansites.)
Fast forward several years and as a young married couple with no cable and no money to get out and do stuff, Terence bought somebody's old Nintendo and a wide collection of games off eBay so we could have something fun to do together while we sat at home with our baby. Shortly thereafter, he learned that my mom still had all our old Nintendo games and system and retrieved them, making note of my rapture at playing the Zelda games again.
Fast forward several years again. One Christmas my sweetheart decided that I just didn't have enough fun in my life (having watched me struggle back to sanity from postpartum depression) and remembered my love for the Zelda games. Now he actually keeps up on gaming so he knew what I had never figured out. The Zelda video game series had not ended with Zelda II. So he bought me a GameCube for Christmas as well as three (yes, three) Zelda games that he had managed to snag used copies of. One of them was only OK (and shortly thereafter became intractably connected to the sensation of morning sickness) but two of them, The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess were beautifully designed and tons of fun!! I was hooked again. So hooked that when the newest Zelda game came out in 2011 only for the Wii console, we gave the kids a Wii for Christmas and Santa got me The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
I'll admit, my expectations were high. Twilight Princess had been released right before it and it was a masterful work of art for a video game and a treat to play. (My kids would literally watch open-mouthed while I would play-- for hours. We did that a lot when I was on bedrest with the last two pregnancies.) Besides, this was the first game where it was supposed to be like I was "really" swinging a sword around, using the Wii controller. Doesn't that just sound cool?
Too cool to be real. Too good to be true.
I've been trying to play this game for ten months now. Admittedly, I don't have a lot of free time for video games nowadays. But the kids often choose to watch me play as a reward for getting chores done (odd!) and even still, I'm struggling to get anywhere in the game. Is it because it is too difficult? No. (Not for a veteran Zelda player, anyway). Is it because it makes me start over every time? No. (It saves my progress, though not as often as I'd like.) Is it because I'm just getting too old to play video games? Maybe.
The Wii controller issue makes me want to scream. So often I end up with the controller not responding to me at all (as Link runs off a cliff). Or I try to swing my sword up and the sword goes sideways. A few memorable times we've managed to get the remote responding completely backwards (I swing to the right and the cursor goes left). The solution to all these nightmares is supposed to be recalibration, but most times I try to do this, our cursor disappears from the screen and we're just stuck, unable to fix the problem, and unable to go back to the game. (I have to do this calibration trick every time the game starts, too, and that means that sometimes we can't even get started long enough to get frustrated with a poorly responding controller.)
I did what I always do when I get stuck with a video game-- consult the experts. First I tried my children (they are my first resource). But though they are Wii pros, they couldn't figure out what the problem was, so I had to turn to internet help from the pro gamers. (There are large websites devoted just to Zelda games for their hardcore fans.) I found posts from lots of other people who had had similar problems, but no useful advice to solve it. Instead, I read lots of rude comments by gamers who were tired of those "grandmas" who give Skyward Sword a bad name because they're too stupid to figure out the controller.
Ugh! Seriously, guys? In a help forum you're calling people stupid for asking for help? And since when is Grandma giving Zelda a bad rep?
I like Zelda too much to give up on the game just yet. I still have hope that I may conquer the controller problem yet. But if it keeps going like this I may just have to resort to calling Nintendo's help line (*gulp!*) or give up on the game altogether. Not what I want to do. . . especially since I paid $65 for this game!
Yes, I'm talking about The Legend of Zelda, a video game franchise that I discovered (to my joy) as an elementary school kid. This was one of my favorite games on our old classic Nintendo Entertainment System. Not long after that they came out with a sequel, Zelda II: Adventure of Link. These two games were a major part of my childhood. But as I moved into high school and then college (and our NES had long since been boxed away somewhere) I forgot all about the "chosen hero" Link with his master sword and his quest to rescue Princess Zelda. You understand, right? (Admitting this would be heresy on some of the Zelda fansites.)
Fast forward several years and as a young married couple with no cable and no money to get out and do stuff, Terence bought somebody's old Nintendo and a wide collection of games off eBay so we could have something fun to do together while we sat at home with our baby. Shortly thereafter, he learned that my mom still had all our old Nintendo games and system and retrieved them, making note of my rapture at playing the Zelda games again.
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| Super Old School Zelda Fun! |
I'll admit, my expectations were high. Twilight Princess had been released right before it and it was a masterful work of art for a video game and a treat to play. (My kids would literally watch open-mouthed while I would play-- for hours. We did that a lot when I was on bedrest with the last two pregnancies.) Besides, this was the first game where it was supposed to be like I was "really" swinging a sword around, using the Wii controller. Doesn't that just sound cool?
Too cool to be real. Too good to be true.
I've been trying to play this game for ten months now. Admittedly, I don't have a lot of free time for video games nowadays. But the kids often choose to watch me play as a reward for getting chores done (odd!) and even still, I'm struggling to get anywhere in the game. Is it because it is too difficult? No. (Not for a veteran Zelda player, anyway). Is it because it makes me start over every time? No. (It saves my progress, though not as often as I'd like.) Is it because I'm just getting too old to play video games? Maybe.
The Wii controller issue makes me want to scream. So often I end up with the controller not responding to me at all (as Link runs off a cliff). Or I try to swing my sword up and the sword goes sideways. A few memorable times we've managed to get the remote responding completely backwards (I swing to the right and the cursor goes left). The solution to all these nightmares is supposed to be recalibration, but most times I try to do this, our cursor disappears from the screen and we're just stuck, unable to fix the problem, and unable to go back to the game. (I have to do this calibration trick every time the game starts, too, and that means that sometimes we can't even get started long enough to get frustrated with a poorly responding controller.)
I did what I always do when I get stuck with a video game-- consult the experts. First I tried my children (they are my first resource). But though they are Wii pros, they couldn't figure out what the problem was, so I had to turn to internet help from the pro gamers. (There are large websites devoted just to Zelda games for their hardcore fans.) I found posts from lots of other people who had had similar problems, but no useful advice to solve it. Instead, I read lots of rude comments by gamers who were tired of those "grandmas" who give Skyward Sword a bad name because they're too stupid to figure out the controller.
Ugh! Seriously, guys? In a help forum you're calling people stupid for asking for help? And since when is Grandma giving Zelda a bad rep?
I like Zelda too much to give up on the game just yet. I still have hope that I may conquer the controller problem yet. But if it keeps going like this I may just have to resort to calling Nintendo's help line (*gulp!*) or give up on the game altogether. Not what I want to do. . . especially since I paid $65 for this game!
Comments
Good ol Zelda
Good luck