Hyrule Historia

Name:  The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia

Authors: Shigeru Miyamoto et al.

Publisher: Dark Horse

I play games, not accessories, such as figurines, cards, soundtracks associated with them. There are still some exceptions, and The Legend of Zelda is one of them. After watching the IGN's review, I bought Hyrule Historia online.

The touch of hardcovered books is wonderful. 

The book a hardcopy and the paper quality is very good. The whole book is full of concept graphics and producers’ ideas about the game designs.  It starts with the Skyward Sword, the latest installment in Zelda series. Then it traces the older games. What interests gamers the most could be the timeline. Series fans had already had some concepts about the time orders between some titles. Link's Awakening follows A Link to the Past; the Wind Walker is after the Ocarina of Time, which has a direct sequence Mojora’s Mask. Now Nintendo officially connects all gamers (some mini games and the infamous ones on the CDi are not included) together. I see the connection is loose because producers did not have a picture about where this series would go when the individual game is made. The timeline is not really my concern. Being a player for a long time, I know gameplay rules even if it is a big franchise.

The Timeline

In the Chapter of Chronology, every title is introduced by the way of linking its prequel and successor. Wind Waker Remake is going to Wii U this year. Can’t wait to see more information in E3 2013.

Twilight Princess might be a title less impressive than Ocarina of Time; its dark art style impressed me very much.

Among all versions of Princess Zelda, the one in Twilight Princess is also the most fantastic.

The other interests me is the unused characteristics. According to the producers’ talking, I think making games are like doing research. Both are time consuming and involving. First you need to have a basic idea, and then extend it gradually. Through trial and errors, a lot of interesting stuff is dropped. Those left are considered to be more compatible to the game. Unused stuff could become useful in the next project.

 Different Versions of Link

The book is not only a must have to fans, but a good to teenagers who want to be game producers in the future. They can learn one or two things if they don’t just read the beautiful graphics.

In the end of the book, there is a short comic. The art style is too Japanese.