I get that not everybody liked Skyward Sword, the latest Zelda game, but at the same time, I do find myself wondering what they were expecting from a company that has now, and always will, see itself as a toy company. Tevis Thompson’s essay in particular was essentially missing the point. When Thompson grouches about the games being “a series of interconnected locks”, it kind of makes you wonder what game he thought he was playing, and why that particular type of gameplay is bad. Way too many people whale on Zelda for not being the game they want it to be, which is pretty unproductive since a lot of people like the game the way it is.
That said, even if I think Thompson’s thesis is fundamentally busted before he starts, I also think he managed to turn overthinking a simplified RPG into something much, much better: A graphic novel called Second Quest.
Working with David Hellman, Thompson has written about what happens after Link supposedly saves the world.
As much as he goes on about how it’s video game criticism in graphic novel form, what caught my attention was the crux of the story: A young woman has the power to see the “memories” of objects… and those memories do not jibe with the legends of how this time of peace and prosperity got started.
I disagree with Thompson pretty much completely about Zelda, but I love that he took that frustration and turned it into something we haven’t seen before. That’s a comic that sounds like it’s worth reading, and since it’s fairly close to its $50,000 goal, it’s worth looking at.