The Symbolism of Zelda: a Textual Analysis of the Wind Waker


Book Description

It is hard to define what makes The Legend of Zelda so great. The magic of The Wind Waker is in experiencing it, not just critiquing it. This game, flawed but still great, incorporates elements of fairy tales and legend to craft something magical and mythical. The experience of playing a Zelda game is not only excitement, but enchantment. There is so much to see and do, that players cannot help but be sucked into the world and the magic of it all. These games are playgrounds where we enjoy their mystique, instead of being preoccupied with our role within them.This book can only attempt to capture and explain the magic of The Wind Waker. The sections of this book are only a stepping stone into an analysis of this great game. I think that anyone with the determination to do so will find even more to love after taking a closer look at The Wind Waker.But even so, the gameplay and narrative are wonderful and craft the game into something great. The stages of interest are built, but eventually sabotage the feeling of Flow during the third act. The theme of exploration resonates throughout every mechanic of the game, as evidenced by the telescope. The soundtrack is incredible, and its adaptive nature builds the epic feeling. The art style is timeless, and really creates an emotional response to the player. Each of the three central characters (Link, Zelda, Ganondorf) are essential to the story and the game, and are full of allusion and symbolism. The puzzles are good, but not strenuous. And the same goes for the dungeons, which are not difficult but a pleasure to explore. And this game ties into the epic genre as an interpretation of The Odyssey. With Link, the player completes this odyssey and learns more about the power of myth and storytelling within video games.




The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia


Book Description

Make sure to check out the other installments in this unparalleled collection of historical information on The Legend of Zelda franchise with the New York Times best selling The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts and The Legend of Zelda: Encyclopedia. Also look for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — Creating a Champion for an indepth look at the art, lore, and making of the best selling video game! Dark Horse Books and Nintendo team up to bring you The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia, containing an unparalleled collection of historical information on The Legend of Zelda franchise. This handsome digital book contains never-before-seen concept art, the full history of Hyrule, the official chronology of the games, and much more! Starting with an insightful introduction by the legendary producer and video-game designer of Donkey Kong, Mario, and The Legend of Zelda, Shigeru Miyamoto, this book is crammed full of information about the storied history of Link's adventures from the creators themselves! As a bonus, The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia includes an exclusive comic by the foremost creator of The Legend of Zelda manga — Akira Himekawa!




The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia Deluxe Edition


Book Description

The Legend of Zelda(TM) is one of the most successful franchises of all time with nearly twenty video games and thirty years of history, but it all started with a gold cartridge... The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia Deluxe Edition honors the game that started it all by recreating the original gold cartridge as faithfully as possible. The book comes with a black polypropylene sleeve, lined with velvet flocking, and a scale instruction booklet with fun, theme-appropriate material inside. The cover is a gold foil paper with gloss lamination and a spot gritty varnish. The details are embossed and debossed. It has gold gilding on the top and foredge, with black gilding on the bottom. This book looks and feels so much like the original cartridge you might find yourself blowing into the bottom before you open it! This 328-page book is an exhaustive guide to The Legend of Zelda, from the original The Legend of Zelda to Twilight Princess HD. A comprehensive collection of enemies and items, potions to poes, an expansion of the lore touched upon in Hyrule Historia, concept art, screencaps, maps, main characters and how they relate, languages, and much, more, including an exclusive interview with Series Producer, Eiji Aonuma! This, the last of The Goddess Collection trilogy, which includes Hyrule Historia and Art & Artifacts, is a treasure trove of explanations and information about every aspect of The Legend of Zelda universe! Celebrate over thirty years of The Legend of Zelda with a heartfelt homage to the origins of this legendary franchise!




Fictional Practices of Spirituality I


Book Description

»Fictional Practices of Spirituality« provides critical insight into the implementation of belief, mysticism, religion, and spirituality into worlds of fiction, be it interactive or non-interactive. This first volume focuses on interactive, virtual worlds - may that be the digital realms of video games and VR applications or the imaginary spaces of life action role-playing and soul-searching practices. It features analyses of spirituality as gameplay facilitator, sacred spaces and architecture in video game geography, religion in video games and spiritual acts and their dramaturgic function in video games, tabletop, or LARP, among other topics. The contributors offer a first-time ever comprehensive overview of play-rites as spiritual incentives and playful spirituality in various medial incarnations.




Understanding Relations Between Scripts II


Book Description

Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. Understanding Relations Between Scripts II: Early Alphabets is the first volume in this series, bringing together ten experts on ancient writing, languages and archaeology to present a set of diverse studies on the early development of alphabetic writing systems and their spread across the Levant and Mediterranean during the second and first millennia BC. By taking an interdisciplinary perspective, it sheds new light on alphabetic writing not just as a tool for recording language but also as an element of culture.




The Legend of Zelda and Theology


Book Description

The level of interactive adventure, exploration, immersion and storytelling The Legend of Zelda brought to television screens across the world was unheard of and it planted an integral seed in the garden that one day would grow into the diverse gaming landscape we know today. Far from stopping there, The Legend of Zelda series has continued to release top-shelf games adored by critics and fans alike. Zelda, like all of our greatest fairy tales, legends and myths, presents that elusive and exclusive kind of enlightenment that only the fantastic can provide. In this collection, various contributors explore the connections between this cultural zeitgeist and theology.




The Psychology of Zelda


Book Description

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this (book). For more than 30 years, The Legend of Zelda—which immerses players in a courageous struggle against the shadowy forces of evil in a world of high fantasy—has spanned more than 30 different installments, selling over 75 million copies. Today, it is one of the most beloved video game franchises around the globe. Video game sales as a whole have continued to grow, now raking in twice as much money per year as the entire film industry, and countless psychologists have turned their attention to the effects gaming has on us: our confidence, our identity, and our personal growth. The Psychology of Zelda applies the latest psychological findings, plus insights from classic psychology theory, to Link, Zelda, Hyrule, and the players who choose to wield the Master Sword. In The Psychology of Zelda, psychologists who love the games ask: • How do Link's battles in Ocarina of Time against Dark Link, his monstrous doppelganger, mirror the difficulty of confronting our personal demons and the tendency to be our own worst enemies? • What lessons about pursuing life's greater meaning can we take away from Link's quests through Hyrule and beyond the stereotypical video game scenario of rescuing a Princess (Zelda)? • What do we experience as players when we hear that familiar royal lullaby on the ocarina, Saria's spirited melody in the Lost Woods, or the iconic main theme on the title screen? • How do the obstacles throughout Majora's Mask represent the Five Stages of Grief? • What can Link's journey to overcome the loss of the fairy Navi teach us about understanding our own grief and depression? • Why are we psychologically drawn to the game each and every time a new version becomes available even when they all have a similar storyline? Think you've completed the quest? The Psychology of Zelda gives you new, thrilling dungeons to explore and even more puzzles to solve.




Well Played 1.0


Book Description

Video games can be "well played" in two senses. On the one hand, well played is to games as well read is to books. On the other hand, well played as in well done. This book is full of in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. 22 contributors (developers, scholars, reviewers and bloggers) look at video games through both senses of "well played." The goal is to help develop and define a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis




Critical Theory Today


Book Description

Critical Theory Today is the essential introduction to contemporary criticial theory. It provides clear, simple explanations and concrete examples of complex concepts, making a wide variety of commonly used critical theories accessible to novices without sacrificing any theoretical rigor or thoroughness. This new edition provides in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today: feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, reader-response theory, new criticism, structuralism and semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, cultural criticism, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African American criticism, and postcolonial criticism. The chapters provide an extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and literary texts; a list of specific questions critics who use that theory ask about literary texts; an interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory; a list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works; and a bibliography of primary and secondary works for further reading.




The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy


Book Description

"Chapters address philosophical aspects of the video game The Legend of Zelda and video game culture in general"--Provided by publisher.