“kids are being priced out of new games” incorrect. Games are cheaper adjusted for inflation than they historically have been. The number gives you sticker shock because you’re old. Console games have always been expensive and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but if your parents could afford to buy you Super Mario World you don’t actually know what you’re talking about re: games being unreasonably expensive
SNES titles retailed for $60 US in 1991, which in 2023 dollars is $123. “I got my games used” yes. Good luck finding a used console game for shy of $20 in the early 90s, which is equivalent to an expensive indie title now ($45 or so), and hope you like playing russian roulette with weird seventy-in-one carts that might or might not work at all.
There were literally no games available outside of private yard sales and flea markets for less than decent, playable games cost now; the floor at retail was typically $9.99 from one end of the 90s to the other, which even treating 1999 as the benchmark would be just shy of $20 now
“What kid has $100 just lying around to buy the new Zelda game?” I could have asked the same question about the $60 you seem to assume everyone your age apparently dropped on console titles as a matter of routine, on account of the first time I had that much cash in my hands in my life was age 18, and I went consecutive years never accruing more than about $20, on account of my parents were fucking broke
I have to reblog this every time because frankly this is absolutely genius prose
“Yeah, Baby!” sais nobody, since this was not good.
Has become part of my internal monologue. Anytime something funny but bad happens, I think “yeah, baby! Said no one.”
Omg, I had Blippi on for my kid and he was at the Diamond Back baseball stadium, at one point he was on something similar to this, and said “Time to go get Dr. Evil.” before doing a turn like that and driving off.
Rather than a direct chronology with Skyward Sword set as Year Zero, I find it more helpful to think of “The Zelda Timeline,” when I have to think about it at all, as a series of stories told by different people in different times and different lands. Hence the word “legend.” You have primary characters that pop up every time, but their origins change, as do the nature of the dangers they face and the allies they meet.
If you start thinking about the games as a concrete story with Skyward Sword as Point A and Tears of the Kingdom as Point Z, that’s when the contradictions appear to be continuity errors, which the more annoying fans chalk up to like, bad writing. But they’re not really “continuity errors,” they’re variations in a story.
The Zonai didn’t “retcon” anything, they’re just a variation on the common origin myth in Hyrule of an advanced species descending from the heavens to establish a society on earth, which is a story that’s also been attributed to the Skyloftians in one version, the Oocca in another, etc.
Like, there’s always going to be a natural variation and contradiction when trying to recount the legendary exploits of a hero character, and trying to be like “This timeline makes no sense” feels not only futile but also vastly less interesting than accepting the games as a unique, local retelling of a story heard before
Like I find it way more fun to be like, “Long ago there was a battle between the sages and a demon king, but who those sages were and what happened afterwards depends on who you ask,” rather than “I can’t believe this team contradicted what earlier games said about the Imprisoning War, I can’t believe this, the timeline is terrible” It’s terrible because you’re looking at a boat and marveling at what a bad car it is, cmon
“#LoZ isn’t Star Wars #it is King Arthur or Robin Hood”
THANK YOU, EXACTLY
As with other hero myths and folk stories, the focus should not be on establishing a consistent chronology between tales but rather on the varying ways that key characters with canonical attributes/relationships inform the story
The LoZ DOES have a timeline, an official one. But BotW/TotK hasn’t been placed anywhere on it as of currently. And frankly I think it won’t be. As my wife has been playing TotK I have come to the conclusion that BotW/TotK is a new separate thing not related to any of the other games.
Nintendo had said they regret releasing the timeline to the public because it meant they had to adhere to it, and by making a game that isn’t connected to the timeline at all they can finally break away from being bound to it. So we have SS to OoT and the 3 splits, and we have BotW and TotK as something only sharing names and such between them.
Okay but honestly with the death of forums and blogs and Yahoo Answers. And the rise of discord. Reddit is the last refuge to get any kind of information about anything whatsoever.
