Category: Game Review

My first Zelda game, at nine years old, was Ocarina of Time. I was hooked immediately and determined to fall in love with the series. After playing Majora’s Mask (which remains to this day my favorite game of all time) and Link’s Awakening DX, I eagerly anticipated what new Zelda awaited me on the next console, the Nintendo GameCube. This anticipation reached a boiling point with the release of this teaser video from Space World 2000 showing what we might…

Warning: This article contains light spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Since its release in 2013, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds has been my favorite Zelda game. Elegantly bridging the gap between Zelda‘s rigid past and its freeform future, A Link Between Worlds, to me, struck the perfect balance between old and new. It marked the Zelda series’ evolution toward “open-air” design, while at the same time preserving the formula that many fans had come…

Back in 1990, Nintendo held the very first Nintendo World Championships, a video game competition that toured 29 American cities and captured the hearts of gamers young and old, nationwide. Now, fans have the opportunity to play like it’s 1990 once more, with Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. The Nintendo Switch title boasts 156 speedrunning minigame trials from 13 beloved NES (and Famicom) games. To our delight, this collection includes the one and only original The Legend of Zelda, and…

The year is 2024. Video games are pushing graphical and technological boundaries, constantly broadening our perspective on what the medium is capable of. New hardware and AI technology open the door for new possibilities as we creep ever closer to games that are indistinguishable from real life. Amidst this sea of innovation, a new Game Boy game was released. No, I didn’t say a Game Boy-inspired game, but a real, bona fide Game Boy game. Developed by Pie For Breakfast…

In the current climate of the video game industry, it isn’t uncommon to see a litany of remakes, remasters, and spiritual successors flooding the market. Bringing beloved classics into the modern age keeps them relevant to newer audiences and broadens their appeal. What most of these games have in common, though, is that they draw inspiration from games that are revered, games that are considered cult classics, or games that were praised at the time of their release but have…

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom released May 2023, much to the delight of ever-patient fans the world over. Since its announcement in 2019, speculation was rife as to whether it would – or even could – improve upon the foundations its predecessor had set. Nintendo clarified that the series’ latest instalment would indeed take place on the same map that appeared in Breath of the Wild, which begged the question of what they could possibly do to…

When it launched back in 2017 for the Nintendo Switch, Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King quickly became one of my favorite titles of the year. There was something about it that, in a year full of reinvention and new concepts for Zelda with Breath of the Wild, felt so familiar and charming to me. Nostalgic even. This was an adventure that wore its inspiration on its sleeve and fit right in with the classic 2D, top-down Zelda games of years…

After its first official showing at E3 2017’s PC Gaming Show, Tunic (developed by Andrew Shouldice and published by Finji) found itself on the radar of many game fans who thought the title could be the Xbox’s answer to The Legend of Zelda. The similarities were immediately apparent, as Tunic wore its Zelda influence loud and proud. But now, five years after that intriguing debut, Tunic has proven itself to be more than just another Zelda imitator; it’s one of the…

As we all know, The Legend of Zelda celebrated a milestone birthday this year, as 35 years have passed since the first Zelda game released way back when on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Many Zelda fans had hoped, based on expectations set by last year’s Super Mario Bros. 35th anniversary celebration, that Link and company would be in for a big year full of announcements, games, and other celebratory merchandise. While it’s debatable whether or not the year lived up to the…

In 2011, Nintendo introduced the highly controversial official timeline which would map out the position of each Zelda game in a linear fashion. The star of this show was The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which stands out as one of the best story-telling games in the Zelda franchise. This is saying something, considering the games in this series are built upon divine foundations of lore and legend. On top of a fantastical plot, the game introduced motion controls, a…