by Nelson
I’m old enough to have owned the legendary Nintendo Entertainment System, but I was pretty young when I got one. I could handle the old school sidescrollers just fine, but a game like The Legend of Zelda was totally beyond my kindergarten capabilities. I didn’t really know what to do with a game that plopped you in the middle of a massive map full of enemies and let you go and do whatever you wanted. I managed to go into the first cave and get the wooden sword, but that was pretty much it. I think I may have made it up two screens, tops, before giving up in frustration. I didn’t fare any better with Zelda 2. It kicked my ass so hard that I figured the series just wasn’t for me. So, when the NES became the Super NES, I didn’t give A Link to the Past so much as a passing glance. It was a Zelda game, and I didn’t do Zelda games.
Things changed in 1997. The SNES was replaced by the Nintendo 64, and a game called Ocarina of Time modernized the series and received overwhelming amounts of “greatest game of all time” praise. It was so heralded that even a kid who didn’t care for the series couldn’t help but take notice. It was a revolutionary title – a game that I’ve got such an emotional connection to that I sometimes get a little misty eyed during my annual playthroughs. I went from having an aversion to all things Triforce related to being a full-on fan.
But I was a bandwagoner, of course. I wasn’t a series vet who first clashed with the porcine beast known as Ganon way back in the 80s. I got into Ocarina because everyone and their brother and their brother’s best friend was talking about it; even the family cat was giving it the thumbs up.
Players who were invested since day one seemed to go on and on about the brilliance of Zelda’s Super Nintendo chapter. I wasn’t sure how I’d fare in a 2D environment without a shield button and an enemy targeting system, but A Link to the Past started to look appealing to me. It was bright and colorful, and it featured a punk rock version of Link that loudly and proudly sported pink hair. I had to give it a shot.
The game reminded me of how I felt as a six-year-old trying to maneuver around enemies and spinning in circles before I died. It didn’t just kick my ass; it escorted me from the building and told me not to come back until I’d learned how to play video games.
But it was Zelda. I liked Zelda now. Timeline wise, A Link to the Past takes place several generations after Ocarina of Time, so it was essentially a follow-up, story wise, to a game that I was completely enamored with. And I was no six-year-old. I was an immortal untouchable teen who was smarter than everyone else in the whole world. No Super Nintendo game was going to shake me.
At school, I made a point to be in the computer lab and the library as much as possible. Thanks to the magic of emulation, I could play the game there and devote more time to Link’s righteous quest to bring peace to the land. I started making progress, too. Of course by “progress” I mean that I was slowly learning how to maneuver around enemies and not be killed in a matter of minutes. It would take a few more months to manage to make it through the opening chapter in Hyrule Castle. After that milestone, I got frustrated en-route to the first dungeon and gave up. I’d played the game. I could just say I beat it. I’d be a card carrying “true” fan, and no one would ever know that I couldn’t even manage to make it to the Desert Palace.
I couldn’t let it go. I wanted to. But I kept on picking the game up every few months. Sometimes I’d get a little further, and sometimes I’d quit before making it through the castle. By the time I graduated high school, I could walk right into the Desert Palace like a boss and struggle my way through it like a bottom rung employee. It wasn’t great, but it was progress.
I just couldn’t commit to it. I’d make it to a certain point before angrily declaring that I’d never beat the game and resolving to never try again. I graduated college. I made it through grad school. I got a full-time job. I became a tenured employee. I even managed to get married, but I still could not beat A Link to the Past. I would always be an amateur, a Johnny-come-lately to Zelda who needed z-targeting and Navi the fairy’s handholding because I couldn’t handle the rigor of the real games. I’d one day find myself at the pearly gates being assigned the room next to the noisy ice machine as an eternal punishment for my video game shortcomings.
Eventually, Nintendo released miniaturized versions of the NES and SNES pre-loaded with each system’s most iconic titles. I didn’t even look at the Super Nintendo’s game selection screen. I jumped right into the one that plagued me for years.
But the controller cords were stupidly short. I had to sit on the floor and strain my neck looking up at the screen. It was cool to have the mini-systems (especially since they were nearly impossible to get), but I was ready to accept defeat. I couldn’t play it comfortably. I wouldn’t beat A Link to the Past. Not ever.
Then one morning, out of nowhere, I woke up with an idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? I wasn’t the only person in the world who loved the nostalgia of playing old video games but hated the nostalgia of sitting on the floor to do it. I bought a set of extension cables, and, all of a sudden, I could finally sit on my couch and relive the 16-bit glory of the games I grew up playing.
I really intended to pull up Super Mario RPG – a game I loved and actually could beat. But something pushed me to scroll past Mario and boot up Zelda. I knew that I’d hit a stopping point around the second Dark World dungeon and give up in frustration, but I figured I’d give it one more shot – just for old times’ sake.
Slowly making your way through the first half of a game for over twenty years certainly breeds familiarity, so I wound up beating the first two dungeons in one sitting. And then, for no reason in the world, I committed to beating the game. I first told my wife of my mission. She was so inspired by my courage that she quickly wrote a poem celebrating it. I told the three dogs – inspiring them to suddenly start vacuuming all the fur off the furniture. I even told the cats, who, true to form, didn’t care.
Then I did it.
I died. A lot. So many times. I learned the hazards of controller throwing as a young man, so I gingerly placed it on the coffee table before stomping the floor and loudly experimenting with new combinations of curse words more times than I care to admit.
But I did it.
Helmasaur King? Dethroned. Mothula? Destroyed. Stupid stupid evil evil Trinexx? Stomped a mudhole in him and walked it dry. And Ganon? I stuck an apple in his mouth and cooked him over an open flame.
At 3:50pm on October 22nd, 2021, I finally saved Hyrule after 22 years of trying. I snapped a picture to prove it was real, and then danced my way through life for an entire week, confusing and amusing my family and coworkers. It was the most fulfilling achievement I’ve experienced in video games since getting the third warp whistle in Mario 3.
I finally, finally, finally did it.
Doubtfire 