Mother Nature reclaims what is her's. It's an oft-used motif, a beautifully visual
way of world un-building. Nature has a way of ravaging a planet that rivals our own -
in retaliation to our own, even - and seeks to undo our architecturally obsessed
need to colonize.
A verdant, green, all-consuming reclamation poring over
ruined civilizations.
There's too much post-apocalyptic media
to count all the films and games that play with this theme of a reclaimed world,
but there's one series whose consistent takes on the idea remain
interesting time and time again.
The Legend of Zelda is the brainchild of
Shigeru Miyamoto, a visionary at Nintendo who created many of the most enduring
video games of all time.
Zelda was inspired by his own adventures as a
young boy in rural Japan, and in 2017 Nintendo released one of the best games
the series had ever seen,
and in it, a wonderful new look at the end of the world.
Breath of the Wild is not the first time the Legend of Zelda has flirted with apocalypse.
In Ocarina of Time you abandon a world on the brink of
destruction so that you may return to it better prepared, and find it empty and
abandoned, the dead literally walking the streets of the once lively town square.
In Majora's Mask you must repeat the days leading up to an armageddon
event in the hopes of stopping the moon from falling.
Twilight Princess sees the titular monarch governing a land long dead,
With its corrupted denizens pouring out of alien pockets into other realms to wreak their havoc.
And of course there's the Wind Waker,
where the world has been completely flooded in an almost biblical
event that paints 95% of the map screen a vast, blue ocean, going so far as to allow
you to visit the submerged remains of Hyrule in a truly haunting moment
halfway through the game.
The Legend of Zelda isn't concerned with
the fall of these kingdoms - instead its interested in returning to them years,
decades, even centuries later - long enough for nature to wrap its tendrils once
more around what was always her's, and create a world worth exploring.
Breath of the Wild is no different: occurring 100 years after an event known
as the Great Calamity - an ambiguous end of the world to our amnesiac lead, Link.
Throughout the adventure we're given the puzzle pieces to this world ending catastrophe,
and told to fit it together ourselves as
we trek between the decimated townships, the overgrown temples and even
the inoperative husks of the Guardians - The ironically titled arbiters of Hyrule's destruction.
That destruction is far enough in the rear-view mirror that
humanity has managed to start rebuilding in earnest - little pockets of people with
only a few elderly survivors to tell tall tales of the day the world died.
A new generation has been born who have only ever known this uncomfortable peace:
idyllic life with a demon haunting the horizon.
When it comes to gameplay, Breath of the Wild's influences are obvious and diverse.
A crossbreed of of the most beloved Western games of our generation:
Minecraft, Assassin's Creed,
the Elder Scrolls and The Witcher - comparisons that read like a dream
mashup, and for the most part plays like one too. But visually and thematically,
I think Nintendo looked closer to home for inspiration -
Just a short Shinkansen ride from their offices in Kyoto
A marriage between Studio Ghibli and The Legend of Zelda is a dream I think most
fans have long wished for in the form of a genuine feature-length film.
When the prospect of an adaptation is brought up, I think most diehards would want to tap
Miyazaki and company, because in a world full of talent they're the only group
that seems up to the challenge of not only nailing the aesthetics of Zelda,
but the feel.
It's never been a series solely interested in good versus evil.
From its start in the 80s, Zelda has been more interested in nature, exploration and discovery -
a focus mirrored in Studio Ghibli's greatest works.
Up until now these resemblances could be put down to coincidence -
the intersection of great minds with similar ideals.
With the latest in their flagship series, however,
Nintendo flirted with a full-blown homage.
From the chunky, artistic Japanese logo
to its painterly, cel-shaded style, Breath of the wild immediately impressed
upon players a deep-rooted love for the works of Studio Ghibli. Playing through
it for the first time I saw so much of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,
Laputa Castle in the Sky and of course Spirited Away, and was immediately
transported back to when I first encountered those films and devoured
them, one after the other. But one film that stood out as a thoroughly mined
source of inspiration is perhaps Ghibli's finest work to date: Princess Mononoke.
Mononoke is Miyazaki's opus, as far as I'm concerned.
Released 20 years ago, it took the story of a princess and her prince
- an already overplayed theme at this point in time - and completely flipped it on its head.
The titular Mononoke is a near feral woman raised by wolves, intent on murdering any human who
encroaches upon her forest. The prince, Ashitaka, is a man whose right arm is
cursed by a hateful, writhing, murderous evil he can barely control.
In a world of overgrown animals, ferocious warlords, mountain sized gods and roaming demons,
these two have to find a way to bring a balance to the world.
Mononoke has countless parallels in Breath of the Wild: there are hundreds
of rattling forest spirits,
a human faced Deer God who reigns over a mountain,
and ferocious, overgrown animals.
Even the entire adrenaline-fueled tussle with
Nago that kicks off Princess Mononoke, where an erratic creature whose
overpowering out-of-control momentum sends it careening into foliage and
forestry was eerily mirrored by Breath of the Wild's debut trailer. These are
surface level similarities, however, and ones that don't take much digging to uncover.
The true beauty of Breath of the Wild's inspiration comes from its
thematic similarities.
in Mononoke there's a sickness consuming the land, tainting everything it touches
and twisting the powers of the world against each other. It's wrapped itself
around the once-proud beasts, desecrating entire tribes and reducing their godlike
deities to bleating animals or, worse still, turning them into monsters.
It's fully ingrained in the humans of the piece as well, with beloved, sympathetic
leaders turned into hungry warlords doing unspeakable things. Even our
two leads aren't deaf to its siren call. It's hatred, of course, a writhing,
poisonous embodiment of blind hatred that literally wraps its tendrils around
good, kind beings and twists them to its will.
ASHITAKA: "Look everyone, this is what hatred looks like."
ASHITAKA: "This is what it does when it catches hold of you."
ASHITAKA: "It's eating me alive and very soon now it will kill me."
Studio Ghibli had been addressing mature
themes long before they tackled Princess Mononoke but it was the first time their
visuals were surprisingly adult as the narrative. Flashes of shocking, visceral
violence coming from our protagonist of all people sours the opening of the
movie and Ashitaka's grisly display looms over the rest of the film.
He struggles with the powers and pitfalls of hatred throughout the rest of the
movie, with his arm hungering for similar bloodshed time and time again.
This all-consuming hatred is also at play in Breath of the Wild.
Since the very first installment Zelda has had a name for evil in Ganon, the pig-like
monstrosity that threatens to overpower Hyrule, only to get cut down by a hero in
the final act. In many of the series' titles Ganon is actually dead, killed by
a previous incarnation of Link, but the threat of his reincarnation or
resurrection is enough to drive the story.
The shadow of Ganon is enough to
strike fear into the hearts of Hylians and inspire a whole new generation to
take up a sword against his return. In Breath of the Wild, Calamity Ganon is an
ethereal, Smog like entity manifesting as an ever-present smoke trail in the
sky, engulfing Hyrule's capital and, in doing so, Hyrule itself.
It's an ever-ominous sight on the horizon and from most places on Breath of the Wild's
massive map you can usually see it in the distance, spurring you on towards
your goal, never letting Link forget what he's fighting for.
For every detour you take between awakening to your final confrontation -
and you'll take many - the visual reminder of your endgame taunts you in the
distance, giving weight to every extra Heart Container nabbed and high-level weapon
preserved. You're preparing for that final showdown.
Much like in Mononoke, hatred has infected Hyrule. On your quest to defeat
Ganon the world and its inhabitants take up arms against you. His beastial army,
from Bokoblins to Lynels, understandably fight you every step of
the way, but Ganon has also found devout
followers in the Yiga clan - a human tribe who longs for his return.
Civilization's own hubris even plays a part in their downfall, with the Divine Beasts and
Guardians they built to protect themselves being subverted by an inky
black ichor. Even nature fights you, be it through the deadly lightning storms or
the very rocks beneath our feet.
And the once proud dragons have succumbed to
hates cloying grasp. The world is a tainted, deadly place.
Clearly in both Mononoke and Breath of the Wild, good and evil is a muddy affair.
The Chinese philosophical ideals of Yin and Yang are at play in every beat of the movie.
Irontown is a force of destruction driven by the ambitions of a leader beloved by her people -
an equal society built in a world that is often anything but.
The tribes of Nature - the wolves the boars and the monkeys - are as misguided as the humans
driven by vengeance and strife. This unnamed evil is desecrating both sides
of the war and no one is immune to it, no one is wholly good or evil.
Duality is key to Ghibli's reading of the world.
Mononoke understands this best in its
idyllic vision of godliness - the Great Forest Spirit is made up of paradoxes:
during the day it whispers through the forest as a proud deer with a crown of
magnificent antlers, and when night falls it rises up to become a mountain-sized
Daidarabotchi - a giant, ethereal yokai that roams the land in humanoid form.
It seems to represent both humans and animals alike,
and is both life and death at once.
MORO: "The Forest Spirit gives life and takes life away."
MORO: "Life and death are his alone."
Beautiful plants sprout underneath its feet only
to die a second later, and leave the earth scorched and barren.
The Deer Deity is Taijitu complete.
There's a duality of the heart of Breath of the Wild as well - the end of the world
brings new life, and the powers of nature and technology uncomfortably coexist,
constantly butting heads. This juxtaposition extends to the game's
visuals as well, with gaudy ugly and out of place shrines and
mechanized enemies spoiling the lush rolling hills of Hyrule, and it's this
theme of nature versus industry that is at the heart of both titles.
Even the game itself seeks to balance the old with the new,
marrying the fundamentals and direction of the very first Zelda title whilst
also carrying the series into an unrecognizable future - a trail that
Nintendo themselves are blazing.
Much like Mononoke's shockingly violent turns,
likely stunning a few parents who brought their children along to
'yet another Ghibli classic', Breath of the Wild feels relatively grown-up compared
to its predecessors.
Following the uproar over Wind Waker's
supposedly childish aesthetics, there was an almost enforced adolescence for the
series in Twilight Princess. This somewhat awkward evolution never
actually matched some of the most brutal moments of the deceptive Wind Waker, but
it satisfied the cry for a grown-up Link.
Following this overly dark outing into
Hyrule and Twilight Realm, the series was allowed to mature at its own pace,
resulting in the phenomenal Breath of the Wild. It's a game that feels like a
coming-of-age both in its open-ended exploration and its trust in its player base.
Because whilst Breath of the Wild never has the stark violence of Mononoke's
opening battles, it instead presents a surprising difficulty curve. For the
first time since the 3d era began, Nintendo throw a demanding challenge your
way in Breath of the Wild, and expect you to use the various tools at your
disposal to overcome significant odds - especially in the early game.
Mononoke's was one you desperately wanted to explore, from the serenity of
its divine forests to the mountainside surrounding Irontown.
I wanted to find out more about Ashitaka's hometown, and explore the rolling,
verdant fields surrounding it. I wanted to walk the trail he takes on the back of Yakul,
and meet the less dangerous inhabitants he comes across.
Breath of the Wild's greatest trick is delivering exactly that.
Hyrule was a world worth exploring:
for the first time since the NES Games I felt I had to take notes.
Breath of the Wild runs on an economy of secrets and riddles, of whispered rumors and vague
and vague clues.
I began jotting these down as I played, and sketching the monoliths
I encountered, and the terrifying beasts I faced.
I scribbled the brilliant, incidental lines of dialogue I heard,
from the helpful to the hilarious,
and charted my own version of Hyrule and the twisting path I cut through it.
In climbing the highest peaks and poking around in the darkest valleys I was
never left disappointed with the time I invested getting there.
Nintendo was always one step ahead of me, preparing a breadcrumb trail of rewards -
whether they be in the form of a treasure chest or an unexpected emergent
moment of fun. Despite all the cues Nintendo clearly took from Ghibli with
Breath of the Wild, they delivered on something that animation giant never could -
a way to interact with such a stunning creation.
A way to plot your own course,
be it on the back of Yakul,
or on the top of a giant flying Boulder.
As always thank you so much for watching. This project was a mammoth undertaking
but the lovely folks over at my Patreon voted it in, and I'm really grateful they did.
I had an absolute blast talking about my favorite game series and the
best Ghibli film ever made. I want to say a big thank you to Matt Vince who
allowed me to use his awesome art for this video and my good friend Patrick Henaghan,
for the music you're listening to now - a jaunty rendition of the Legend
of Zelda's best music to date. In other cool, Patreon related news my campaign
hit his first stretch goal so I'll be making a video about the incomparable
Akira next - I can't wait to share that with you guys. If you want to know
exactly when it drops or how the project is coming along,
consider subscribing or follow me on Twitter. If you want early access and a
whole host of extra goodies head on over to the patreon and pledge a buck.
If, instead, you want to punish me for this video hit the like button and I'll play
Zelda II Adventure of Link
On a serious note, Zelda II is the best videogame ever made.