I wrote a book or whatever, but I think my biggest accomplishment of this year is beating Zelda 2.
“What is Zelda 2?” My only reader asks. (I’m blessed that my 1 reader is very inquisitive.)
It’s a really hard game. LIKE SUPER HARD. The other Zelda games are about exploration and discovery, but the second game, released in 1987, is really about seeing how much pain and death you can take.
For instance, you are doing fine. You’ve beaten 3 of the 7 temples and are feeling pretty cocky. Then you take your little 8-bit raft across a sort of lake or something and you encounter some new enemies. WHO ARE INVINCIBLE. You don’t have anything that can fight them, you just get shot with little light beams and have to run away. But it’s not like they’re dumb enemies. As I replayed this game I thought they would be dumb 1987 video game monsters. But they are legit from the future and have only one impulse - to kill you. It’s as if T-1000 liquidated and became a flying eyeball in this game. And then the developers of the game said “You know what. Let’s put this flying T-1000 eyeball in a room filled with lava and like one hit will knock you into the flames.”
“Good job, Developer-san! You’re promoted!”
I would be playing through these temples and sweating. Not metaphorically, but actually sweating; my heart would pound. Not only are there flying eyeballs that knock you into lava, but there are also legit duels you have to fight. These knights have swords and shields and you have to trick them and break through their shields. Then when you think you have that down, they develop the power to shoot laser swords. LASER SWORDS. These enemies are from the future!!!
Anyhoo, Zelda 2 has been a lifelong struggle for me. It takes patience. Time. Defeat. Over. And. Over. And, yes, again. Over. I would play it all the time as a kid and die repeatedly and just give up. All the other Zelda games I could beat, but 2 remained my Everest.
During the whole process of trying to beat this game (which would have been much easier had I realized you can suspend the Switch system and not play the real, old-school 1987 way), I was really traumatized. I didn’t sleep well. I had dreams about fighting the duels in the temples. Really. I’m a 34-year-old man who was rendered emotionally frozen by a 20-year-old video game. This thing was anxiety incarnate for me. It brought me to an existential crisis.
What if I can never beat this game?
What if I give up like I did all those years ago?
At this point in time, I’m just going to say that I have no idea why these feelings erupted. I don’t know why a pixelated blue night gave me nightmares or why the entire futility and pointlessness of my existence confronted me in the form of Zelda 2. I literally found no joy in playing - it was a quest for me to prove…? I have no idea.
Then one day I became even more obsessed and started looking at online articles about the game. To summarize, few people really like this game but a select few LOVE it. Most people ignore it as an entry in the Zelda series, but for others it shaped their entire childhood.
That brought me peace. I have no idea why, but for some reason Zelda 2 represented some buried part of my childhood, some anxious feeling, that at its core was about me never being good enough. It was about golden temples, swordsmen, flying eyeballs, and being just one jump away from death.
At the very end of the game, the final boss is a shadow version of the main hero, Link. You are inches away from getting the final treasure and shiz goes dark, scary music plays and your shadow form starts jumping at you with a sword. This is after you fight a giant bird who shoots fire. (I TOLD YOU IT WAS HARD.)
As I fought the final battle, I was struck by how apropo it was. It was almost literary. As a kid I always knew that the final boss was Shadow Link, but I could never get to him. And now years later I had literally fought my own anxiety to get to this point.
In a non-fiction writing class, I would say what I learned from this, but, to be honest, I have no idea what I learned, or why had years of angst and anxiousness stored up about an 8-bit pixel elf jumping with anteaters throwing boomerangs at him (yes, that happens also). The core issue remains a mystery - a shadow Tedd that is buried inside until I kill a bird that shoots fire and a dwarf offers me a golden triangle.
I did learn to find a pure joy in the experience after the anxiety wore off, after I read how much other people loved it. The temples are brilliantly designed and the music that swells when you go into them is EPIC. Leveling up fighting skills and learning new magic is super fun. I shot spiders with fire and slayed a giant blue blob with one sword move. The economy of the game dialogue is borderline genius. Somehow they convey all the game secrets by only saying WAY less than a tweet.
I AM ERROR.
That simple phrase makes sense and is super important in the game at a certain point.
And maybe that’s it. That the anxiety about accomplishing the whole diminishes the magic of the simple events that make up its parts. I was so worried about beating the game that I never took the time to get on YouTube and jam out to EDM remixes of the games’ themes until later. I didn’t shoot fire at stuff for fun until the articles made me realize the game was not just made to create anxiety but to be enjoyed.
So that’s it, lone reader. “What is Zelda 2?”
I guess now I’d have to say what ISN’T it? A life lesson, an adventure, a T-1000 eyeball and lava nightmare, an experience.
Now let’s all dubstep together like it’s 1987.