Few things can elicit a good cry like a sad video game. And Roger…’s gut-punch portrayal of living with dementia. Spiritfarer’s calming meditation on life, death, and the passage between. The Ori duology’s devastating tale about the lengths we’ll go to protect each other in a toxic, uncaring world, no matter how poisonous circumstances get.
Maybe a good cry isn’t always the reason we play games, but it springs upon us nevertheless. And one of the strongest instances actually dates back two decades, to Nintendo’s totemic 3D adventure game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Early in the adventure, after proving he has what it takes to be a hero and receiving the blessing of the dying Great Deku Tree, young Link finally prepares to say goodbye to Kokiri Forest. Before he can venture past its edge, his childhood friend catches up to him. Saria is sad to see him go, but she has a parting gift for him: the ocarina from which the game gets its name.
[Ed. note: Spoilers follow for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.]
Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s best quote is a tear-jerker
Image: Nintendo
“I knew… that you would leave the forest… someday, Link,” she says. “Because you’re different from me and my friends… But that’s OK, because we’ll be friends forever…won’t we?”
I don’t know about you, but when I stand on that bridge, looking at that last tenuous link to the childhood innocence Link once knew, sometimes it takes me a moment to pull myself away from that calm before the storm. Great adventures wait just beyond the forest’s boundary, in Hyrule Field and beyond. But that moment is a sad farewell to the innocence that came before, to the only home the boy can remember having. I can practically feel the young hero’s childhood breaking. The moment is pure and tragic, and I hope it’s not one of the things Nintendo “fixes” with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake.
As Link leaves that forest, he is on his way to sacrifice virtually everything and become the Hero of Time. The feat will consume years of his childhood. He’ll go from enjoying childlike wonder outside the borders he once knew to awakening in a grim future that no one but him can salvage. Sure, it all makes for a great game. It gives us an excuse to take a journey most of us will never forget. But I always find the transition difficult to accept, there on that rope bridge in the forest, just before it truly begins.
There are other terrific lines in the Ocarina of Time. Several of them are sad, like the moment at the end when Zelda shares a farewell of her own. But in my estimation, the saddest line in the game is the one spoken by Link’s first true friend, who can’t possibly imagine everything the lad is about to give up for the greater good.
“We’ll be friends forever,” Saria asks, “won’t we?”
