Afternoon of Tuesday, July 2, 2019 (plus several finicky editings through July 16 because I couldn’t leave it alone) .... (and just one note from 2023)
And that has made all the difference.
It’s been about two weeks since I’ve beaten the game.
And I guess.... I can’t help but feel a kind of letdown.
I’ve experienced it before; I’m sure many people have. You draw near the end of an epic adventure, and you can sense the finality impending somehow, and you almost don’t want to proceed.... even though the Hero in you knows he must.
You don’t want it to be over.
But I guess, for me, here and now at least, it’s not really over. Not really. There are still two shrines to get. More Koroks to find. My Compendium to fill.... And of course the faraway dread terror of the option to Start A New Game, which would overwrite the present. Dratblast it, Nintendo, why couldn’t you make multiple saves....?
But then, they’ve never really done that, not for Zelda games. You were always allotted one file, and that was it. And it sufficed. I think some other JRPGs must have spoiled me....
At any rate it doesn’t have to be really over. There are new files to play, old sequences to break, and beyond a new game.... another new game. For I have seen the new Zelda trailer. Or another old game, for there are some Zeldas I haven’t played yet. Or another different game, for I’ve been hankering after Tales of Symphonia lately for some reason. Or maybe the Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2 I picked up for Switch. Always heard good things about those ones....
So I guess this kind of adventure is never really over. But it does come in seasons. And seasons still have to sleep. And that does leave you feeling.... kind of empty. Though like a bygone feast you can still taste it on your lips, and there is great satisfaction in the memory as you finally recline to digest.
I would make a terrible Buddhist.
....
I still have not moved from where I left my saves two weeks ago, but I’ve decided.... not to go back and play from the save before I entered the Sanctum. I won’t overwrite where I’ve been. I don’t want to dishonor the very first ending of my adventure, or vanish my initial slaying of the Great Beast of Malice.
Things experienced for the first time are different. They’re special.... How did I put it....? “....Initial playthroughs are always special, because the secrets and surprises are all fresh, the twists and turns jarring....”
So long ago I said that, back at the head of this very log.
Good thing I wrote it down. The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.
And speaking of things written down, I found what I thought I had remembered—I did experience that same conundrum of choice before, at the end of Skyward Sword. The abominable saving quandary. I had journaled about it. Of course I had. Because I am the Journaling Fiend. In case you hadn’t noticed by now:
“Sunday, June 10, 2012, into the very early morning of Monday, June 11, 2012
I stood stock-still, fearful of accidentally pushing any buttons that might kill the buzz. But as everything finally faded to black, I was presented with a choice.
Do you want to play in Hero Mode?
The affirmative answer read, “Bring it on.”
The negative answer.... well, I can’t remember.
What pause this gave me.
But I never wanted to play this game again, so.... no. No thanks.
Are you sure you want to return to the start menu without saving?
Augh, but I did enjoy the feelings of those cinematics. Although they’re never as good the second time....
Um, no, not sure. Yes. Save.
Your progress up to this point will be deleted. Are you sure you want to save and do Hero Mode?
Deleted? Oh dear. Wait. No, don’t save.
Are you sure you want to return to the start menu without saving?
.... My eyes bugged in flummoxation.
Cinematics, viewed often, lose their charm. I’d negotiated the same turmoil at the first savepoint after Groose crashed my skydiving.
I couldn’t go through those again. No. The adventure I’d just survived, the shattering of my shield in some godforsaken phantom realm of turmoil and lightning.... that insistent little fairy I had forgotten....
No, I wouldn’t go back there again. Among the million different stories told for the million different players, my own version of this adventure had come to too satisfying an end.
This story needed to be saved and put to rest.”
So even then I couldn’t bring myself to erase what had already been done, I see.
Maybe it comes from a journaler’s need to record. To save. For better or worse.
Save file linearity notwithstanding, I ought to be grateful that Breath of the Wild seems to end Ocarina of Time style, rather than Skyward Sword style. That is to say, I can beat the game and have the ending under my belt, and then play the end again without having to start from the very beginning.
And still have time to play in between.
The whole world is open to me now, all of Hyrule. And I am strong. I want to find those shrines.... and then storm the castle again....
....
Did I write down all of Skyward Sword, too? No. No I didn’t. Just bits from the ending, as they struck me so deeply.
Heh, so deeply I could feel their reverberations even here, as Fi still sang her song from a bleeding blade on the battlefield, deep in that last rainy memory....
Did you hear that soundbyte?
Hahhh!
It has always pleased me to write down that which strikes me. Or if not always, then for a very long time at least. It’s therapeutic. It’s insightful. It’s often surprising and inspiring! They say you don’t learn much when your mouth is moving. But I would dare to say it’s the opposite case when your pen is scrawling or your keys are ticky-ticking. In writing down what strikes you, you might just strike yourself in turn.
And in this case of logging down the entire video game of Breath of the Wild.... well, it’s true that it has pleased me, yes.... It has pleased me, bothered me, tickled me, TORMENTED ME, DELIGHTED me, INFURIATED ME, ENRAPTURED ME, and driven me STARK, RAVING and GIBBERING BONKERS.
The entire game.
I wrote the entire game.
I have journaled my way through an entire video game.
What an intriguing notion.
What an exciting project.
What a gargantuan undertaking.
I knew I should’ve set all my affairs in order before I started playing.
Five megabytes this document weighs now. Five megabytes!?
Have you ever written for five megabytes straight? 614 pages of solid twelve-point Times New Roman inside one-inch margins? Though there are some dregs below this down to page 630.... and a lot of material preceding this that remains unedited yet as of this writing; that’ll push this part further down.... And it’s all been slowly shoved ever lower by the ever-expanding CONTENTS section anyway.... I knew the confluences would never last whenever I remarked on what page I was on.... Where’s Revali now?
....Heh, looks like he’s been pushed to page 501.
Poor sod.
Five megabytes....
279,000 words.
[And I’m sorry to say, as of the deep waking of Thursday, May 11, 2023, that I can calculate the final size no further, due to much of the latter portions of this work being completed in segments post-computer-failure. But maybe some day.]
I wrote the entire game.
I’ve scripted a searchable Let’s Play.
I’ve birthed a mutant metafanfiction.
I actually made it through.
....
It’s been a different experience for me than for anybody else, I think.
Well, of course it has; that’s how Zelda games are, and especially this one. But.... I mean a very different experience. Very far from.... normal.
And I cannot deny that it has affected my playing.
It takes time to write. And being tied to the log.... I couldn’t move as fast as I might have otherwise done in the game.
I remember playing Twilight Princess for the first time, plunging ahead, hurtling forward through the frays, into the woods, into the darkness, breaking out of dungeons, stalking in fearful yearning through lonely shadows, running in desperation and longing for stolen friends, staying up late into the nights, losing sleep and geeking all over my friends the following days, lamenting that I COULD NOT FIND THE CHILDREN.
How invigorating, how all-consuming it was! What a RUSH!
....
But I couldn’t do that with Breath of the Wild. I couldn’t plunge ahead.
Or I didn’t let myself.
I had to move slowly.
Or I chose to.
I chose to put the game away for weeks at a time and force myself to catch up on logging when I really wanted to keep playing.
Wary of spoilers, I chose to shut myself out from certain internet groups. I chose to stop watching certain art circles—oh, that was the hardest. I chose to interact only cautiously with other Zelda fans whilst I floundered behind in the game.
For two years I shied away from the jabbering Zelda community, to keep the discoveries and twists and turns safe for me to discover on my own. And whenever I did find something incredible or unbelievable, all I could do was wonder.... Have people already talked about this? Did they discuss it all in a flurry, months ago? Were there funrowdy times of tightly localized exploration or experimentation, with bursts of forum posts and YouTube videos? ....Or am I the only one in all the world who knows about.... this? And I too isolated to ask aloud.
It felt very.... solitary, a lot of the time. Even when I’d caught up to David, and could finally relieve him from keeping his mouth so faithfully, painfully shut for me. He was heroic, really.
Do I regret any of this?
No. I don’t. I can’t. I chose this.
And besides, the experience was not without its own kind of reward and fulfillment. Chewing and stewing for so long over every point in the game, giving myself time enough for writing, time enough for deepest thought upon every last person and creature and bug that stepped into my path, has granted me a finer and more flavorful vision of the myriad denizens of Hyrule than I could ever have expected. Like Pi drifting slowly over the ocean, seeing and knowing every fish and turtle and whale, instead of only the spray of a rapid wake.
I really did care for Leekah and her poor unlucky happenstance. How could I not, when I barred myself from leaping headlong into so many other multitudes of things to worry about? I really rooted for tender young Kabetta, and seeing his efforts made me both proud and worried. It was heartening and encouraging to see Mils and Mina standing their ground so bravely. Calyban’s turn to generosity truly warmed my heart. Benny’s brave curiosity was endearing and inspiring. I wished Tye and Sorelia all the happiness in the world. I couldn’t bring myself to blame Jerrin.... too much. But I could Zyle; OH who raised that man....? I sometimes felt sorry for murdering hapless red Bokoblins far below my level, while I was under the guise of my Mask. Fronk’s bowed and weeping gratitude made every second of the outlandish pains I took to find and bring back his wife Mei absolutely worth it. Seeing Kass come home to be with his family and make beautiful music with his daughters was so utterly fulfilling, especially to my musician’s heart. And hearing lessons from Sesami’s friend Palme—the man with the unflattering haircut, the poor lost wanderer, the softest and most unable man in a fight—as he delivered the truest, deepest, and most unexpectedly powerful words of wisdom for a meaningful life... is an instance I will treasure.
It’s been a different experience for me, playing this game. Different than it otherwise might have been.
But I don’t regret it.
....
There’s a strange catch there, though. When you think about it, I really can’t regret it. If it was a choice between playing it through for the first time normally, and playing it through for the first time with a journal in tow.... there is no way I would be able to experience both of those. I can play it through for the first time only once.
And so unable to compare the two, how could I know which would have been better or more enjoyable?
I couldn’t.
It’s like that Robert Frost poem about two roads. You are only one traveler; you can’t walk them both.
But I suppose such fractaled pathways are what make life interesting. It’s all right to favor one horizon over another; there are enough to go around.
And from what I have observed, in myself and in others, I think I can rest on that.... as far as The Legend of Zelda ~ Breath of the Wild goes.... I think any pathway would have proven to be good, beautiful, beloved and fulfilling.
But I think I really did take the road less traveled.
I can’t know what it’s like to play Breath of the Wild like I’ve played other Zelda games. And that’s all right. But maybe.... if I’ve wielded my words right.... you reading this can glean some small taste of what it’s like to play the game with Contraltissimo’s very fine-toothed comb. Maybe the experiences are similar after all. I wouldn’t know.
But you might.
Looks like you have the advantage here.
And in truth.... I am glad to offer it, if you’re willing to take it.
After all, it’s dangerous to go alone.
Now, I think I’ll finally have a listen to that Breath of the Wild ~ Sound Selection disc that came with the statue and the Switch case and everything else in that super-mega-deluxe-or-whatever-it-was version of the game I bought.
Hey, music can be spoilerish too! Of course I put it away for later. It was only recently that I actually took off the shrinkrap and loaded the tracks onto my original black iPod Nano, Sylphie. Named for a mermaid.
And now.... I think I’ll finally let myself enjoy it.
As well as the complete soundtrack I bought more recently. Hm, which includes music from the DLC....
Guess I’d better play that, too. I did purchase it, two years ago. I’ve just never booted it up. But in the sparse visits I allowed myself into the Zelda circles of the internet in the meanwhile, I received some very high recommendations for it.
Think I’ll play with my amiibos too at some point. And maybe.... see how the game feels on the Switch.
Man. I’ve put off a lot these past two years.
I just wanted the pure experience first.
Well, I got it.
Boy did I get it.
Turns out anything worth doing.... really is worth overdoing.
That’s why all Heroes are called Fools.
This is Contraltissimo, signing off.
