This a great opportunity for advanced learners of English to practice their reading! This column post will use lots of idiomatic phrases and metaphors — if any of them are confusing, look at the key below to see what they mean in this context!

If you like video games and think you'd like to get better at English by talking about them, take a look at the lesson I've attached!

The Legend of Zelda: Innovating on the Wings of Nostalgia

Like many people across the world, I've been diving in to Nintendo's new Legend of Zelda title, Tears of the Kingdom, since its worldwide release on May 12th. With sales topping ten million units in the first three days alone, it's breaking records as not only the fastest-selling Zelda title, but the fastest-selling Nintendo game of all time. On the heels of 2017's smash hit Breath of the Wild — which, as of March 2023, had sold a whopping 29.8 million units — the anticipation for Tears of the Kingdom was at such a fever pitch that people in both the U.S. and Japan were taking off work to make sure they had a proper chance to really dig into what was sure to be a landmark game. With over 150 hours poured into the game, and a feeling of having only just begun to scratch the surface, I found myself asking: what is it about this game that is drawing so many millions of people in?

Story and feature spoilers below!

For starters — technically and philosophically, it is a marvel. Link’s new building-intensive Ultrahand power, for instance, not only inspires creativity by throwing prescriptive convention out the window, it pushes the boundaries of what consumers thought the Switch to be capable of by simulating the interplay between two or more independently behaving physics objects with entirely separate velocities, trajectories, weights, et cetera. This lends itself to a seemingly infinite number of building possibilities limited only by each individual player’s imagination, and dozens upon dozens of approaches to every obstacle. That’s a significant departure from tradition, a torch handed off by its predecessor and masterfully carried by Tears of the Kingdom, that flies in the face of a decades-long tradition in adventure games: that a puzzle has one solution. It’s a level of freedom that threatens to make pushing a cube around to open a path in Woodfall Temple feel like tedium.

However, to speak of Majora’s Mask: to say that Tears of the Kingdom does not feel like a classic Zelda would, in my opinion, be false. I played the game together with my girlfriend, with whom I shared a file — we took turns, passing the baton while we explored soaring heights and vast depths; tackled each of the game’s handful of temples; and puzzled over the mysteries of ancient Hyrule. She and I have played Zelda since Link was rendered in pixels, followed him through his polygonal adventures on the N64, GameCube and Wii, and we felt the echoes of those adventures all across the Hyrule of Tears of the Kingdom. We felt them in everything, from the return of Gleeoks, Gibdos and Gohma; to the Windfall Island-esque whimsy of exploring every nook and cranny of Hateno Village.

Zelda’s development team is known for its structure of many trailblazing, bright-eyed, technically capable young developers buttressing the experience and expertise of veterans like Eiji Aonuma who have worked on the series for 35 years — and they’ve confirmed that player freedom is at the heart of their design philosophy for Tears of the Kingdom. Perhaps it’s that team structure that allows the game to strive for such a vastly different Zelda experience while feeling so grounded in the culture and tradition of a decades-old creative project. Whatever the reason: it’s clear that Tears of the Kingdom soars, and that both nostalgia and innovation have crucial roles in the aviation formula.

Key:

Paragraph 1:

on the wings of (something): prepositional phrase: with something as motivation or support

to dive in (to something): verb: to begin doing something — especially a new experience — enthusiastically, and beyond the surface level. Based on the motion of the sport of diving.

smash hit: noun: a huge, widespread success, esp. films, plays, television programs, video games, books, etc.

on the heels (of something): prepositional phrase: directly following; occurring immediately after in a sequence. Based on the act of chasing someone, where one’s strides fall close to the heels of the person they are chasing.

a fever pitch: noun: a period of extreme excitement or agitation

to dig in (to something): verb: to begin to diligently work on something, usu. with the hopes of making considerable progress

landmark: adjective: of great import or significance

to pour (efforts, time, etc.) into: verb: to dedicate time, efforts, etc. toward something

to scratch the surface: verb: to just begin to find out about something; to examine only the superficial aspects of something

Paragraph 2:

to throw (something) out the window: verb: to completely disregard something

to lend (something or someone to) something: verb: to be well-suited or useful for something. e.g., “This room lends itself to bright colors.” or “Link lends himself well to cooking.”

to carry the torch: verb: to support an idea or cause or concept fervently and encourage others to do the same

to fly in the face of (something): verb: To act in clear conflict or opposition to something else.

Paragraph 3:

to pass the baton: verb: to bestow one’s responsibility or job onto someone else. An allusion to relay races wherein one runner hands a baton to the next.

soaring: adjective: reaching a level markedly higher than usual

to tackle: verb: to deal with, esp. to the point of completion or manageability

to puzzle over: verb: to think about or consider at length

echoes: noun: remnants or vestiges

Paragraph 4:

trailblazing: adjective: innovative, pioneering, willing or able to do things or go places nobody has before

bright-eyed: adjective: eager, fresh and enthusiastic

to buttress: verb: to support, uplift, or reinforce

at the heart of (a philosophy or belief system): prepositional phrase: in a position of being fundamental or integral

to be grounded in: verb: to be legitimized by, based on, and/or knowledgable about the basics of something

to soar: verb: to excel

Bonus!:

the aviation formula: This continues the metaphorical language established in the word soar, and the implied meaning in this case is “the key to their success,” or “the secret recipe,” to use another metaphor. The verb diving in the first paragraph serves a similar rhetorical function, as it also mimics a key feature in the game: skydiving! English is at its most vivid and descriptive when form mirrors content in this way.