I was raised with a lot of games that were cheap at the time. When I wanted a game, I had to wait months after it had released and get it for 5 or 10 bucks. Although, I mostly played with my dad's Genesis or the Wii my uncle game us, I kind of was interested in lots of off console games: CoD, Metal Gear, etc.. As soon as I got the 360 and PS3, I was drifting slowly way from my previous consoles. At the brink of almost putting my old consoles in storage, my dad went home with a GameStop bag in his hands with a game I never seen before: Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess. Hello and welcome to this Community Writing Challenge.
I believe it was at the end of 2012, somewhere around October or November. My dad got this game mainly for him, but as soon as he put the disc in the Wii, I was excited to get my hands on it. I don't really know what it was, either the music, the art style, something brought my 13 year old mind's attention to this game. My dad loved the game and he didn't let me play it until he was finished, but even though I didn't play, I was excited to watch him play. Every puzzle was fun to watch, every enemy was exciting and fun, Epona was the horse to love, I watched until he couldn't finish it. He couldn't. He tried to solve one mission, but forgot what it was.
He gave me the controller and said, "You can play, bud." You don't understand how excited I was. It was going to be my first Zelda and it was going to be reason why I played almost all in the series. Although, the tutorial is pretty long and hard to get over, I loved what I was playing. In about 3 longs days, I told my dad I beat the game. He was surprised to see that I did, he walked to the living room and saw the save file, all hearts earned, all items taken, 100% complete.
After that day, my dad and I loved playing Zelda and seeing who would beat it first. It was a challenge and a family achievement. I've played the famous Link to the Past, Adventures of Link, the dreadful Skyward Sword (Most of it). It was a tradition for me and my dad to try and beat the game, either together or on our own. It was actually how I connected with my dad. Everything else I did, my dad wouldn't relate to. He would collect McFarlane toys while I played with them, he enjoyed the more adventurous games while I liked those that gave the most action, but Zelda was the game we both loved. Sometimes we would even brag how many hearts we got in the game and share where the secret ones are.
As soon as it came to be 2015, my dad grew to dislike it. I would play the new Zelda game that came out and he would not want to watch me play or try to get his hands on it. He just shied away and began to play the more relaxing games like Half-Life or Doom on his PC. We would sometimes talk about Zelda and he would sigh whenever he finished talking about the game.
One day, when I was waiting for my dad to pick me up from school, he didn't come. Me and my sister were worried and tried calling him. We tried several times, but failed. We tried calling our mom, but each time we would get the answering machine. We walked to our Grandparents near by and told them our situation. They quietly looked at each other and told us he was rushed to the hospital. We learned he had an unknown problem with his muscles in his legs. He was equally dehydrated and high blood pressure, they could find what caused this nor could they fix it.
After weeks of worrying about him, they sent him home with medication that would help him with his legs and to further test him for what is causing this much distress. He was not happy. He would sit silently on the couch watching TV and playing games on the Xbox to pass the time. One day, I walked in and told him a man was recovering with the help of playing a Nintendo. He groaned and told me to go away. I walked off like he told me, but came back from my room with the Wii and a DS in one hands and a bag full of games in the other. He told me to stop and I quickly replied with the words, "Remember Twilight Princess?" That was the only time I saw him shed a tear of happiness.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this quite a bit. I had to search my life of a game that meant the most for me and a series I was later for. Trust me there weren't many that would have an interesting story behind it. Again, I hope you enjoyed this and 'til next time...
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