With its Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom ad, Nintendo just made one of 2023’s best movies

It’s not a revelation to say that most modern advertising is rather flashy and rude. With limited time, companies are concerned with selling their products as quickly as possible, leaving no room for nuance or, dare I say, poetry. Video game commercials are especially outrageous; As any seasoned gamer can tell you, those awful Sega commercials from the ’90s (this one is particularly awful) still haunt many to this day.

Therefore, it is not surprising to discover a video game ad that is not loud for the sake of it, crude to appeal to the lowest common denominator or abstract just for the sake of it. Nintendo is gearing up for its biggest launch in 2023. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s clear they wanted it to stand out from the crowd. Mission Accomplished, as the game’s final commercial, a nearly wordless two-minute rant about not only Zelda, but also the power of video games, strikes such a resonant emotional chord that it already ranks as one of the best things I’ve ever seen. . . seen this year.

Ordinary life, extraordinary adventure

Rediscover your sense of adventure with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Announcement, titled Rediscover your sense of adventure with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, begins with a middle-aged man entering a crowded bus, presumably after a hard day’s work. He briefly looks out the window at the evening sky, sees nothing to excite him, and sighs. He gets home in time to say goodnight to his wife before sitting down on the couch in the living room. He looks down and sees a copy. tears of the kingdom and decided to try.

It is here that the music changes, going from solemn to playful, as the man takes Link’s avatar and literally plunges into the game, immersing himself in the golden landscapes of Hyrule. He then fights a forest creature before running into a common problem players face: how do you get from point A to point B? In his case, he must find Link on a distant island. Swimming won’t work because Link will end up drowning. He builds a simple boat out of a single log with a sail in the middle and gets the same result. He finally had an idea: a boat made of three logs with a sail at the front would take him where he needed to go.

A man is playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The commercial then shows him playing it on the bus the next morning because, in case you forgot, the Switch is portable and you can pick up the game you played on the TV at home the night before and it’s not that great. ? As Zelda, he fights some monsters, exclaiming an excited “Yeah!” when he finally defeats them.

Link is then shown gliding through a sky filled with white clouds, causing the man to look out the bus window. As a flashback to the previous shot, he sees a similar blue sky with white clouds and sighs again, but this time with satisfaction.

Video games as escapist art

Link runs onto a ledge in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The beauty of this ad is that it uses a narrative framework that has nothing to do with video games. An employee living in the suburbs is as far as you can go Zelda, but it works because it makes an interesting contrast between the relatively ordinary life of man and Link’s fantastic adventures in Hyrule. It emphasizes the escapist appeal inherent in all video games, and this one in particular. It also highlights that the appeal of this game is universal. tears of the kingdom It’s not just for video game fans; It’s also for people who haven’t played any of the previous games and can jump into it with no prior experience or franchise experience required.

It is also brave that the ad shows how heavy games can sometimes be. This is not a simple Mario game that is easy to play; More specifically, it’s a game that uses a crafting system (which Nintendo calls “merging”) that can be equally fun and frustrating. Nintendo understands that this is part of the joy of gaming. tears of the kingdom or any modern open world game for that matter. A man has been shown to succeed not once, but twice, and that’s it. Alright. That’s part of the fun of a game like this, trying to figure out how to use the abilities you’re given to complete the tasks you need to progress.

A link that flies through the air in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The ending sequence of the man who plays Link gliding through the sky and looking out the bus window and smiling at the blue sky is my favorite part and what really elevates this commercial to something more meaningful. Man is, of course, tied to the Earth; there’s no way he can zoom across the sky. But play as Link in tears of the kingdomhe can and is briefly happier than he was before.

It may be corny to say, but video games can help us achieve our dreams, in big and small ways, and make our everyday lives just a little bit better. The ad captures it, but doesn’t overdo it; instead, through the film’s beautiful use of music, editing, and composition, it speaks more of how great it is. tears of the kingdom is, and video games as a legitimate art form, than any amount of dialogue or ad copy.

One of the best movies of the year?

A man plays Switch in a Tears of the Kingdom commercial.

I’m not a Zelda fan; of link wakes up to breath of the wild, gaming has never been my cup of tea. Still, the ad does what it’s supposed to do: it makes me want to buy the game. That it achieves so much more than that is what makes it so unique. I’ve seen a lot of movies this year already, from amazingly original (infinity pool) dull pale (Super Mario Bros. movie) and few of them stuck with me like this ad.

Unlike most movies, the ad isn’t afraid to be dark and show what might be considered unsexy. Life can be hard and sad at times; what makes it valuable is the art that we interact with, whether we believe it or engage with it in some way. Most movies and TV shows have a hard time communicating this, but the ad does it succinctly and without pretension or fuss. It’s only two minutes long and yes, it’s designed to sell the product to as many people as possible, but tears of the kingdom commercial is one of the best movies I’ve seen so far in 2023.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be published on May 12, 2023.

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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn

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