That Time Zelda (sorta) Saved My Life

Ok, maybe the title is a bit sensational and perhaps a little click-baity, but Zelda definitely saved my sanity.

Excuse me, Mr. Dracula,  have you
heard of our other Lord, Jesus Christ?

This one’s going to be way more personal than all of the other posts, and perhaps a bit embarrassing. Like, some of this I haven't even told my wife. And it’s not something I like to talk about since a major life paradigm shift roughly 7 years ago, but there was a reason I spent some time in Japan that wasn’t part of an exchange-student type program or sightseeing trip. I was there to be a Mormon missionary.

I know that logically, I wasn’t exactly forced to go and I could have refused. But I felt obligated to go because it’s just what good Mormon boys do, and I had seen how those boys who didn’t go (or weren’t able to successfully complete the two years) were treated by the local Mormon community. They weren’t exactly shunned or kicked out, but there was a definite presence of cultural shaming which colored and overshadowed all their social interactions; they were seen as "less than," and I didn't want that to happen to me. I felt apprehensive, but I had taken 3 years of Japanese in high school and had wanted to visit Japan ever since. Besides, Nintendo was headquartered there, so there was excitement to accompany my apprehension.

Matsumoto Castle

Once I had said goodbye to my family and friends, the reality of what I had embarked upon started to weigh heavily on me. There was a whole list of things I wouldn’t be able to do for the next couple of years, like play video games, watch TV/movies, go on dates, call my family (except for Mother’s Day and Christmas), or hell, even be alone for a while. I would be missing a whole bunch of pop culture events, most notably Star Wars Episode 1. For the duration of my time as a missionary I was limited to writing letters (snail mail) because the rules didn’t allow for email – something about wanting to keep us focused on our duty and not be worried about family back home.

I wasn’t sure I could make it, and I needed a coping mechanism. I now know that a lot of Mormon missionaries experience some kind of depression and/or culture shock, and I was no exception, but I didn't know that at the time and assumed it was only me who was experiencing this. The idea hit me that if I thought of my mission as a quest, like the kind I had enjoyed in The Legend of Zelda series of games, I could make the time pass more quickly, make it more bearable, and give me a goal to focus on.

A digital recreation of my
notepad and planner

My idea was to make a list of every major event in the four Zelda games to date. Since I had left about 6 months before Ocarina of Time came out, Link's Awakening was the most recent game. Once I had my list, I was going to use the calendar in my day-planner to spread the items/events evenly over the two years, celebrating each event as a mini-step towards the end goal. 

For about three weeks, when I had some personal time (which wasn’t often) I racked my brain to make a list of every item found, every piece of heart, and every boss and dungeon. I was sure the other missionaries would find my coping mechanism rather silly so I kept it from them and sorta wrote in code. All they knew was that I had a notepad with a list that meant something to me – Yes, it was a secret to everybody. To help me remember each thing, I also recreated the item sub-menus from memory and mentally played through the games to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. It helped that I had beaten each of the four games at least 5 times each. Once my list was complete, the only thing left was to do the math and write them on my calendar.

If do right, no can defense.

If I recall correctly, it worked out that about every 3 to 4 days there was some new event or item to celebrate. For example, July 15th might have been finding the Power Bracelet, or October 23rd might have been defeating Agahnim for the first time.  It became my morning routine that after I had eaten breakfast and  showered, I would sit at my desk and check my planner/calendar to remind myself of the day's agenda, but also to “see where I was” in the game. 

Keeping that in-game progress in mind as an analog to what I was doing in Japan helped me keep my spirits up. This isn’t to say it was all bad. There were plenty of good times - nice people to meet, new food to try, and interesting things to see in between all the work I was meant to do. But I mainly relied on Zelda while doing things I didn't enjoy, like knocking on doors to bother people (for which I’m extremely regretful now) or sitting through boring meetings/trainings. It's too bad that I hadn't played Ocarina yet, as it might have been fun to imagine that  having to ride my bike for miles on end was like riding Epona. 

After living in Japan for about 4 months, I started to see some of the promotional material for Ocarina of Time around stores. I took a few fliers home to my apartment and would stare at them, draw the pictures, and translate the text, using it as a good excuse to enhance my Japanese vocabulary. In my mind, getting to play Ocarina of Time was like getting the Triforce at the end of A Link to the Past, and it gave me another reward to look forward to. Occasionally while at a store I would see the demo of it playing (you know, the title screen and some cut scenes that play if the game is on but nobody is playing). The cruel irony of not being allowed to play the game while living only a short train ride to Nintendo Headquarters and the forest that inspired Miyamoto’s sense of adventure was not lost on me. 

At long last, I made it home to Oregon and I think I had only been in my house for about three minutes before I was staring at the title screen of Ocarina of Time. Even when a girl I had been sorta interested in dating before I left tried calling me, I would have rather been playing Zelda and got off the phone as soon as I could.

So even though I highly doubt anyone involved in making the games will ever see this, I want to sincerely thank Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, Koji Kondo, Yoichi Yamada, Yasunari Soejima, Daniel Owsen, Kazumi Totaka, and all the others who worked to make these games so good, thank you. No, really - Thank You. Your efforts helped me get through a difficult time in my life, and while I’m not claiming anything like I would have been suicidal without them, they helped me stave off some depression by giving me a little something to look forward to every few days, and something big and well worth the extra wait it took (one and a half years late!) at the end of it all.

Years later, I have moved away from being associated with the Mormon church, but my love of Zelda is stronger than ever, and it served as one of the anchors in my life when my whole world was being turned upside-down and inside-out while coming to grips with finding out the awful truth about the church I had been raised in.