Topic: Nintendo’s impact on Life

I tried to express my feelings about Nintendo and it’s impact on my life in a previous thread, but it was closed. I just want to share this with this community, because it is relevant to this site, and even if no-one reads it, my deepest thoughts on Nintendo will have been expressed, in a way I have never been able to before, to people who may understand.

Okay...
So what do you want to say about Nintendo ?

Ok? I think maybe your last topic was closed bc it might have been a triggering topic to people but I have no idea what it was, So uh, what would you like to say about nintendo?

Nintendo's impact on life.. to me Nintendo was there for my whole childhood. So it gave me a hobby and the means to express myself better.

@TheJGG I agree, nintendo was always there for me.

Lol you've posted this twice, both times saying you want to talk about the impact Nintendo has had on your life but then not actually said anything.

I sometimes worry people take this site's name a bit too seriously

@Picola-Wicola I totally understand. Go for it. Please share

My original post seems to be open now, which restores my faith in this site and is befitting of a site dedicated to Nintendo and their values. Which is where I will start. Playing Nintendo games has made a lot of people I know better people, just as they made me better when I was younger. My two children have grown up playing Nintendo games, and I was proud to see the young adults they have become, and that they still have an excitement about Nintendo, even when the PS and xbox are more popular among their friends. Nintendo has a unique sense of what’s right, being the good guy in a world that often confuses morals. Miyamoto created a character that is white and blue-eyed, not in his image, but Link silently encapsulates the hero, trying to make the world a better place. Think about it: if someone else created a character who was meant to be the ‘link’ between player and the game, they would usually have someone who looked like themselves. So why not make Link Japanese? People can argue it was a commercial decision to appeal to the west, but the fact is the majority of people in the world are not white. And white men have committed atrocities over the years, not to mention being responsible for the deaths of thousands of Japanese people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (regardless of your views on the merits of WW2, and that Japan sided with a regime that is generally regarded as one of the most evil in history, I apologise for going off topic here, I’m rambling because I do not speak to anyone these days, out of choice, and so I am expressing my thoughts on a lot of things but it is framed by Nintendo: as a Japanese company I find it fascinating that they try to protect children and promote family values in a way that the other major companies do not, even when it does not make economic sense) So why did Miyamoto not make Link in his own image? I personally love Japan and their culture, and what they offer to the world with their genius and creation, and would be honoured to play as a Japanese Link. But if I had the creative choice to make a hero of time who fights evil and saves the world? I’d want him to look like me. But Nintendo picked someone not of the creator or any of the developers race. And they wanted to appeal to the Japanese market at first, that was the priority. Why they used a white character for their two main characters can be debates all day long, but to me it shows a side of them that is not selfish: do I wish there was more representation of black people in games? Absolutely. Is it a little unrepresentative that both princesses that mario and Link save are blue and green eyed girls? Absolutely. But I read somewhere that every character in BOTW was white. Forgetting of course my favourite champion, urbosa. She not only represents women in a fantastic way, both in her general demeanour and her actions ( giving the strongest power to Link) she is not white. And she comes off far better than Zelda, who arguably is the weakest woman in the game so far (can you tell I’m currently playing it, can’t bring myself to finish it, and writing this is eating up my game time, but buying the switch a couple of months ago has inspired me to write this, and has brought me back to life). Just on Zelda, she might be the princess and the one who you, as Link, have to save, but she is not the most attractive woman in the game, ( how stunning is leader of the gerudo, and Mipha is nicer to Link than most, and arguably has a purer love for him than Zelda) Anyway, you can’t please everyone, but Nintendo do a better job than most companies of bringing people together. They have recently saved me from myself, and I will always be grateful to them for that. And for the many memories over the years, and for communities like this. Thank you all, whoever you are and however you define yourself, I am a straight, white man who is seen as privileged, but I grew up in an impoverished area, with a mother who had nothing but still managed to scrape the money together to get me and my brother a NES to share, and my favourite gaming memory: the Christmas she got us a SNES, which were not cheap and I have no idea how she managed to get it, but she made it happen because she knew that all me and my brother wanted was to play super Mario world and Streetfighter 2. That NES and SNES not only brought me and my brother together but it kept us out of trouble, and was a force for good in our lives

@kkslider5552000 LMAO.

@Picola-Wicola I think Link is caucasian because Zelda is an RPG-like game, and medieval Europe is simply the standard setting for RPGs. This convention was established by Dungeons & Dragons, which was inspired by Lord of the Rings.

Mario is specifically an italian-american plumber, because this stereotype was supposed to appeal to the US, as far as I understand. So it's a commercialy driven decision.

Is Link not supposed to look Japanese? Always kinda assumed he was.

@Pizzamorg The first time I posted it got shut down before I could say my piece, and then I lost what I’d written, which was quite lengthy, as you will see of you look at my post below. I am not a regular poster on this site, and after today I will probably keep my mouth shut and go back to just reading, but I just got inspired today and felt like getting some thoughts out, whilst taking a break from gaming. I can imagine some people will say or think that it (gaming) is just a hobby, and not as important as some of the major issues in life. But it really is to me, and the times I haven’t had gaming in my life ( I missed out on the Gamecube completely, it’s the only Nintendo console I’ve never owned, apart from the VB) have been the most hollow. A few years ago I sold my consoles and games, for a relationship that at the time was more important. My WiiU, which I treasured, my DS, my GBA SP and my prized GBA Micro with a Link to the past, I never wanted to sell that thing it was a marvel of engineering, but eorst of all my 3DS, which was my third iteration but with all my ambassador games on, as well as every Zelda and Mario game ever released for the system. I genuinely never thought I would sell my 3DS, I used to take it everywhere with me, and keep it in a safe place at all times. When I sold all my gameboys, and all the boxed games (rare ones as well, and gamecube games I had missed out on but thanks to Wiis backwards capability I could play) and pretty much all my gaming stuff, I kept my 3DS. For a while, and then I sold that. And they just wiped the memory and all the games I had stored on it in front of me. And I regret that to this day. I regret that I had sunk so low that gaming, and how magical it could be, had been lost from my life. And then I hit a very low point in my life, some really dark times. I had not got a switch at launch like I had planned to do, like I had done with the WiiU and the 3DS, during the happiest period of my life which coincidentally was when I had rediscovered my childhood joy for Nintendo games. I will stop here because I’ve been droning on to a stranger, suffice to say that finally buying the switch and rediscovering my joy for Nintendo has changed my whole perspective on life, not to mention the benefits to me, mentally. And here I am, interacting with a stranger (albeit over the internet) which is the most interaction I’ve had with any other human in ages (out of choice, I have never been a loner or unpopular, and have always been in a romantic relationship; now I choose to have my interaction through games, and it has done me the world of good). And I don’t even care if I am writing this message to an empty space and no one reads it: as long as I can express it without it being silenced and denigrated I am happy. And if I can start a discussion with just one other person I will be glad to take part. If not I am happy because writing this and being open about my feelings is taking me away from the thing I am most passionate about, and that is rescuing the princess and saving the world. Because let me tell you, when you are lost in a game, and I mean a really good game that you enjoy most of all (which used to always be mario for me, until I tried Zelda as an adult and now nothing can touch a good Zelda, ), there is no better way to escape

@Picola-Wicola
Well, why don't you start to buy again Nintendo machines and the games again ?
Never too late to get back the joy of playing video games that has been lost.

My theory is if I hadn't discovered Nintendo and videogames in general I probably would have started hanging out with the wrong kinda friends. I'd have become some burn boy sitting around toking on wacky weed and being a pathetic waste of life. Videogames gave me an escape from the traumatic yelling and violence I grew up with everyday in my home as a child. I'll just say my mother was a severe alcoholic and my father was hardly in my life until much later in adulthood. By the time we reconnected and started getting to know each other it was too late. He recently passed away and I felt like I hardly knew him. His not being around was really mostly due to my mothers drinking problem. He never married her because of it and I was kinda without any real father figure. You might say videogames were an outlet for me and a big stress reliever. Whenever my mom and the many would be step dads were yelling and fighting I'd go hide in my bedroom and play my games. It was like my safe space. My Happy place.

I doubt it. Hyrule is clearly inspired by medieval europe, especially the architecture, i.e. the castles and cathedrals. And Zelda even has an English name.

Also, in the early games Link is Christian, the Bible is an item in Zelda1, and the Link to the Past promotion depicts Link praying at a crucifix. So I'm sure he was meant to represent a European.

@Picola-Wicola I really wish there was more representation of paragraphs

Your texts are hard to read without them.

Grew up on them and love them even to this day games like Mario Kart Wii and the toon zelda games.