‘The Legend of Zelda’ changed my life. (2024)

I talk about games a lot on medium. After all, gaming and reading books are my favorite pastimes.

But my favorite game series will always and forever be ‘The Legend of Zelda’.

I’ve wanted to write about the Zelda series for so long, but I never could find the words to do it justice. No review, or analysis of the themes or characters of the series would ever cut it for what I wanted to say.

So instead I’m doing this. The closest I can come to expressing my love for this series will be talking about how it empowered me to be the person I am today.

My mother passed away when I was six years old, almost seven. I loved her with all my heart and my dad was not ready to be a single parent. Not that he was a bad dad, it’s just that he couldn’t imagine life without her. I felt all my connections to my previous life slip away. My aunt, uncle, and grandparents moved away to pursue a new job, and I was left in the dust. I come from a mixed family, being half white and half Vietnamese, and without my mom’s Vietnamese relatives I could no longer tap into whatever I had left of my mom and her culture.

It felt like someone had taken me out of my body and placed me into a new one where nothing was the same.

I was a frail kid, both physically and mentally. Everything got me either scared or angry, and I couldn’t find the courage to do anything.

I had a some games in my room that I used to try to keep my mind off things and played those for a while, but I soon ran out of ones I had been gifted. After scrounging around a bit, I had enough money to purchase a new titleformyself: ‘The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask’.

This game kind of scared me when I first popped it in. It was dark, brooding, and mysterious, but there was this color and sense of adventure I just really dug. I found a players guide somewhere and used it to navigate through some of the more difficult dungeons, and enjoyed the gameplay as much as I could at that age, solving puzzles, fighting ChuChus, and just running around the large land of Termina.

But something about ‘Majora’s Mask’ stood out to me. There is this universal theme of loss throughout the game, this sense of death that permeates through the game and tells you there is just nothing you can do, death is inevitable.

A Zora man dies protecting his lover and his eggs.

A Goron elder dies attempting to save his village from a massive threat.

The entire kingdom of Ikana is dead, forced to live on as ghosts.

But Majora’s Mask takes this deathin stride, these people become tools through masks that Link uses to carry on. Each death in the game means something, each one being a peaceful send-off that reminds you to keep going, to live on in their memory.

I was enraptured. To see grief so raw yet result in something so beautiful changed something within me.

But what stood out to me the most was the protagonist, the boy clad in green, Link himself.

He was so brave. SO brave. He pushed on with the courage I didn’t even know someone had. Fighting, making sure to go on for the sake of the kingdom on his back, never crumbling or folding.

I finished ‘Majora’s Mask’ and was blown away. It sounds childish now, but Link was who I wanted to be, strong, fast and most of all, courageous.

I wanted to be brave and stand up to the world.

I played every Zelda title I could get my hands on from then on out. I played Ocarina of Time, the Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, A Link to the Past, all of them.

But Link stayed consistent. He was bravely saving his sister from the Helmaroc King. He was courageously leading Midna through the TwilightRealm. He was soaring through the skies on a Loftwing with swagger, style, and the fearlessness and ferocity of a lion.

Link helped me be brave more than anything I’d ever experienced. This fantasy video game series was my light in the tunnel, what gave me courage while sailing the stormy seas.

Even today, when things get rough, I look back on these titles. It’s characters have moved and pushed me to who I am today, and I’m confident that the profound impact this series has left on me will forever linger.