The Legend of Zelda
May 2nd, 2008 scify_rd
So I was thinking earlier about the Legend of Zelda. It suddenly hit me just how many official games there are in the story canon, and how it is perhaps the largest series of games with what is, technically, a continuous story. Sure, I think that there are, grand total, a larger number of Mario games, but they don’t have any sort of continuous plot line–the games only occasionally reference earlier games (especially recently, with it being sort of a running joke in the Paper Mario games and Super Mario Galaxy that Bowser always tries to kidnap Princess Peach and always fails). The Legend of Zelda games, on the other hand, actually have a defined timeline that all of the canon games fall into, even if how exactly they do so is a mystery to most of the fans. (There is quite a bit of speculation on the subject, and interviews with the creative team have revealed that there is, in fact, a master timeline that all of the games are required to fit into, and that there are two actual timelines existent in the series, which split apart after the first Nintendo 64 Zelda game, the Ocarina of Time.)
One of the things that caught my interest in this subject, though, is the fact that there are currently fourteen full-fledged canon games in the series, yet each new game is greeted with fervent anticipation and high expectations. This is really quite amazing, when contrasted with other long running series, like the Final Fantasy series, which has lost a significant portion of it’s fan base over the last three or four games (not to mention the spin-offs, which are generally considered to be badly made games). I have begun to wonder if, in fact, this is due to the naming conventions in each series. The Legend of Zelda games have “The Legend of Zelda” as the first part of the title, but always have a secondary half of the title which is unique to each game and describes what is going to happen. The Final Fantasy games, by contrast, are simply named by number, with nothing to differentiate each game but a roman numeral and a picture.
Entry Filed under: Game Log
