Take Your Iron Boots and Stick Them Somewhere Uncomfortable

I never finished Ocarina of Time. I may never finish it. I mean shit, it's been eleven years.

It's an anomaly for me to not finish an epic game, which is why I don't feel so bad about admitting that I flat-out gave up during the Water Temple. Hundreds of carrots and rupees sacrificed in the name of horsey acquisition didn't do me in, but constant screen-switching did. I couldn't help it--the equipment screen was beginning to appear in my dreams.

Can you consider a game you never saw all the way to the end with your own gamer hands to be the greatest game of all time? Can you be in such awe of intricate puzzles that required a patience you simply didn't possess? (And by "patience" I also mean, "game guide.")

Thanks to YouTube, I get to see players far better than I do Ocarina walkthroughs. These videos swell up something inside of me, right in the gut, or the craw, just left of my druthers. I am suddenly overwhelmed with the need to revisit the game and finish that fuck. I want to fight Shadow Link. I can beat him. I can beat Ganondorf's phantom pianist ass, and I can take down Ganon. (Mild digression: that last boss battle has got to be one of the most intense of its kind in the medium. When he transforms from 'dorf to beast GANON with the swords bigger than Link himself, my sweet Jesuscakes. The only thing that would make it more undeniably epic is if the instrumental to Danger Mouse's "Change Clothes" remix off the Grey Album started playing. Think the sample, now.)

But then I remember that I just don't have the time anymore. Immersing myself in a fictional world of my own creation rather than that of someone elses is far more important these days.

If only I could have my next book come out in gold.



(Another Ocarina treat, featured on only the first two releases of the game: the original Fire Temple music, complete with Muslim prayer chanting. You can guess why it was removed from future versions.)