Gamer Grow

Everyone has a firm grasp on the general story in the Zelda series: A young boy ventures forth lead by the tip of his sword and his sense of duty. With the help of people he meets along the way and by using unique items he acquires, this boy is able to overcome every obstacle in his way up and through the final battle with the embodiment of the opposite of our main characters very being; evil. Upon winning this battle, the adventure is over and life for our hero returns to normal. But this is simply a template for any adventure. And Zelda being an adventure game, has hardly deviated from this formula. Though many have claimed that the formula needs to be abandoned or dramatically reinvented, I feel that there is nothing wrong with its place in the Zelda series. In the grand spectrum of literature, there are too many stories to count that share the same formula. And without being unnecessarily reductive, some literary critics categorize stories as being either a tragedy, romance, comedy...

For those who aren’t careful, a Psychoanalytic critique of a game appears to only be concerned with the fiction of a game and the relationship of the characters. Unless the game is Psychonauts, most games seem to have little to nothing to do with the human psyche. Neglecting how the game fiction and the gameplay (or game rules) come together to create the Psychological work in a game is a common pitfall. Another easy pitfall is to get wrapped up in Psychoanalyzing the developers of the game, or what may be infinitely more embarrassing, accidentally analyzing one’s own psychological state while trying to pass it off as an analysis of the game. Though it is true that the fiction of a game is an important part of any Psychoanalytic analysis, the gameplay is where the most profound sources of material because the interactivity of the game can influence and transform the player in more powerfully subtle ways than a passive medium. In the following essay, I intend to highlight the psychologi...