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Yes, you read the title correctly. If he’s managed to make you balk, it’s because he’s achieved his goal: hitting a nerve. And it’s the sign that there’s a topic that deserves to be addressed. Quiet. By trying to see beyond the original idea. Because for historical franchises like Mario, zelda, gloriole, Diablo, finalfantasy, Some have been present for almost 30 years, a death is necessary.
A mandatory revival
If I mention the death of these licenses, it is mainly to revive them. The first video game Mario dates from 1983. sound ? 1991. Would you like something more recent? Halo: Combat Evolved, 2001. In my thirties, being a gamer since childhood, I was able to discover some of these franchises from the start. This of course influenced the notion that I could benefit from the licenses which I have seen grow over time. Risk-taking, more classic episodes, continuity of game mechanics: each game paved my way as a player, with elements that I sometimes liked and others that I didn’t understand.
When someone asks me what a is zeldaI immediately have a clear idea of the definition I’m going to give. It has a similar priority to the episodes I discovered in my childhood that started my love for video games. Here the gap widens.
Constantly evolving codes
I grew up with these licenses. Apart from the fact that other players have also been born in the meantime. These people didn’t start their video game journey at the same time and necessarily with the same games. Because of this, they don’t have the same skills to read games and watch these series as I do. Quite a number of the younger players are not yet at the same stage as the older ones on their JV path. Their codes come from newer licensed works and are not identical to those of the early players. Two examples immediately come to mind zelda and the last final fantasy.
If breath of the wild Released in 2017, two camps quickly emerged between the “purists” who didn’t rediscover the codes of the franchise to which they were accustomed and those who were willing to embrace the new direction of the series. A few years later we witness the introduction of the grappling hook Hello infinity which did not produce unanimity. A little further and we are in 2023 with playground social networks and a similar phenomenon occurring Final Fantasy XVI. The rifts continue between those who are desperate to find the JRPG codes of the previous works and those who welcome the novelty with open arms. Worse, the phenomenon of Check the bomb plot becomes an absolute approximation of the truth for every major publication.
You don’t have a monopoly on the good
If man has always liked to put himself in opposition to others, believing that his tastes are better than someone else’s, the advent of social networks was only a catalyst to ignite this fight that makes no sense. Just thinking that you get absolute legitimacy by being able to play all the works in a license, or knowing better than the creators what’s good for a franchise and what’s not, is to become disconnected from your role as a player. Other generations of gamers have the right to discover series that we might care about but dislike for the same reasons. What’s more, the reasons they love them could be the same reasons we hate them. It’s not serious.
It’s not by presenting ourselves that we can exchange, share and – why not – show people what excites us about these titles. The twists and new directions of the popular sagas are not intended with the “historical actors” in mind, if we had to name them. The characters we grew up with never belonged to us. It’s time to let the younger generations make them their own. It’s up to us to bring a different perspective, not in opposition, but in understanding. The video game and players have more to gain from transmission than from confrontation.
