July 7th, 2009 by Xizor

This week, after many months of inactivity, the mailbag returns.

To start, we have from Abyss Master an interesting question:

“Alright, let’s do a question I’m sure we are all curious about; the Zelda Wii artwork. What are your own thoughts about the subtle hints from Miyamoto about there being no sword in the picture, the identity of the girl seen, and the obvious references to the Master Sword that fans managed to find before even a day had passed? What are your own thoughts on how this one piece of artwork has managed to spawn so much discussion and theorizing about this upcoming game?”

The new artwork, of course, raises a lot of questions. Whatever hints Miyamoto has given, I’m not aware of in all honesty, because the art to me didn’t stir up any ruckus. Of course, I am curious as to who/what the girlthing is, but I’m not going to find out any time soon.

I think the reason it’s created such a hullabaloo, though, is because we are starved. To insinuate that the girlthing is a sword, or even the Master Sword (I mean, the Master Sword!) is preposterous. If you examine the picture closely, you can even see that the girlthing is not on Link’s back, like assuming she is a sword would make her appear. Perhaps she is the next Midna/Navi character? We can only wonder at this point, because as I said, we are starved. As fans, we are emaciated: Twilight Princess was almost three years ago, and even at that, it was a Gamecube game ported to the Wii in order to appease us, and it barely utilized the Wii’s capabilities, both technically and graphically. It was great because it was Zelda, not because it in and of itself was necessarily great.

The reason that Spirit Tracks has, in my opinion, failed to garner any real attention is not because, being on the DS handheld, it’s not “hardcore” or anything. The thing is, we aren’t hungry for more Handheld Zelda. We had Minish Cap on the GBA in 2004, and we had Phantom Hourglass not even two years ago on the DS. And now, we have Spirit Tracks? The majority of fans, unimpressed and unsatisfied solely with TP (as Wind Waker is, though a great game in my opinion, often tossed aside due to its Cel Shading as “unappealing” or “immature” or “kiddy”) because the last TP-like game was Ocarina of Time eons ago. Zelda fans are hungry like a wolf (excuse the pun) for something other than Twilight Princess, because we’re full of Handheld titles for now.

Maybe, after this new Zelda Wii is released, we’d all be happy with another one, and then another, but if they stopped making Handheld titles, I can guarantee our hunger would again grow, and we’d all stop and say, “Why are they neglecting the handheld?” We know what we’re hungry for, and we want it.

As always, hunger inspires commotion when the idea of food comes up. It’s not just that we’re starved for another Console game, it’s that we’re starved for a console game unique for the Wii, designed solely for optimal performance and gameplay on that system, it’s that we have yet to see how Zelda and the Wii will truly interact. It is this insane hunger that drives such wild speculation and activity over one little piece of concept art. I mean, it’s concept art. If they released concept art for a new Mario game, would the Mario community go insane? Maybe, but probably not to this degree. When they released that art, they knew what it’d do, and they are probably capitalizing on it. The more excited we get, the more we’ll hang on their every word, because they know us. Our hunger won’t diminish with time like an obsessive hobby, but rather it will grow and grow like a gnawing addiction.

We MUST have new console Zelda, and we will sit here salivating, gnashing, and screaming until we get it.