The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker From ... - Douglas Wilson

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two worlds required some inventive problem solving, reemphasizing the series’ focus on virtual environment. Yet despite all the talk of “revolution,” the transition of the Zelda series into 3D represented a qualitatively different upheaval than that of the Mario series. Mario 64, which transformed a largely one-dimensional platformer into an open-ended 3D world, marked a shift between polar extremes. The Zelda series, on the other hand, had championed nonlinearity from the very beginning. Strictly speaking, the explorability and navigational freedom of Ocarina of Time signified nothing new for the franchise. Rather, the fresh new atmosphere of Ocarina of Time lay in the immersive pull inherent to its three dimensions. Because we perceive the natural world in three dimensions, 3D virtual environments more closely draw upon our everyday experiences, and therefore engender a keener feeling of presence. Like the action-heavy Mario 64, Figure 8 – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, 1998) 26
Ocarina of Time relied on the visceral qualities of 3D to convey a sense of body in space. However, the game also placed a special premium on capturing the experiential intricacies of the virtual environments themselves. Compared with its 2D predecessors – and even Mario 64 – the Hyrule of Ocarina of Time strengthened the sensation of “being there.” Borrowing from Michel de Certeau, we might explain this je ne sais quoi of 3D as an instance of “poetic experience of space.” 27 In his The Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau distinguishes between the panoptic and the everyday, in-the-thick-of-it experiences of space. As exemplified by looking out over a city from atop a skyscraper, the panoptic view – a kind of panorama – simplifies space (in de Certeau’s case, the city) with a certain super-rational legibility: “One's body is no longer clasped by the streets that turn and return it according to an anonymous law.” 28 In making the complexity of the surrounding environment “readable,” the panoptic view “immobilizes” the very protean character of everyday spatial experience. The oppositional tension between spatial perspectives precisely explains the key difference between the 3D Zelda titles and their predecessors. The overhead, map-like view of the earlier, 2D predecessors abstracts away space, allowing us “to read it, to be a solar Eye, looking down like a god.” 29 We become disembodied player-gods, guiding Link through a space mapped out from above. The 3D engines of the more recent Zelda games, however, place us within the natural perspective (or at least some approximation) of everyday life. We look out into – and not onto – the surrounding environment, even when the camera view clearly differs from Link’s own perspective. As such, we become 27
Page 1 and 2: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Page 3 and 4: Contents Acknowledgements 4 I. Intr
Page 5 and 6: shaped the reading list for this th
Page 7 and 8: A storm that needed a mountain met
Page 9 and 10: to heighten my experience of the
Page 11 and 12: II. Terminology: Place, Presence, V
Page 13 and 14: III. Early History of the Zelda Ser
Page 15 and 16: enjoyed worldwide success, and is o
Page 17 and 18: linearly forward. Although Mario co
Page 19 and 20: Figure 4 - Zelda II: The Adventure
Page 21 and 22: IV. Nintendo’s Jump to 3D “Some
Page 23 and 24: Figure 7 - To travel between worlds
Page 25: V. Poetic Experience of Space and O
Page 29 and 30: embodied in the virtual world as in
Page 31 and 32: Figure 10 - Top: Doom (id Software,
Page 33 and 34: our ability to detect sudden moveme
Page 35 and 36: our avatar (e.g. Mario) is so visua
Page 37 and 38: VII. The Controversial Arrival of W
Page 39 and 40: adult, and the entire game was rend
Page 41 and 42: Time. At least in the eyes of the m
Page 43 and 44: narrative plausibility to make cert
Page 45 and 46: Figure 15 - After using the Wind Wa
Page 47 and 48: less formalized microspaces. For ex
Page 49 and 50: Figure 18 - Through the use of a Hy
Page 51 and 52: somewhere. We want the ‘pullulati
Page 53 and 54: Figure 19 - Walking down a corridor
Page 55 and 56: Figure 20 - Hang-gliding over Outse
Page 57 and 58: More recently, hypertext authors St
Page 59 and 60: Figure 21 - Myst (Cyan Worlds, 1993
Page 61 and 62: popular appeal of World of Warcraft
Page 63 and 64: a central part of their appeal); bu
Page 65 and 66: In theory, players could simply cho
Page 67 and 68: side, or pounce forward with an ove
Page 69 and 70: cathartic nature of these reactions
Page 71 and 72: down a giant flower using the Boome
Page 73 and 74: XI. Outgrowing the Playground Metap
Page 75 and 76: The most egregious example of overd
Page 77 and 78:
canvas for us to fill with our own
Page 79 and 80:
The designers themselves seem to ac
Page 81 and 82:
44. Ibid., 120. 45. Atkins, More Th
Page 83 and 84:
Bibliography Print Abrams, M.H. The
Page 85 and 86:
Vestal, Andrew, Cliff O'Neill, Brad
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