The advertising for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been pretty full force all of a sudden. Just last night I saw a full-blown trailer for it play before Guardians of the Galaxy that nearly had me in tears as a dad and son played it together. But no Tears of the Kingdom ad stands out like the one below, which comes directly from Nintendo of Australia and, as Kotaku Australia reports, is apparently based off of a man’s Japanese Amazon review for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from 2017. The ad, titled “Rediscover your sense of adventure with The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom,” is either incredibly uplifting or the most depressing slice-of-life take on the boredom and monotony of modern-day life since Yasujirō Ozu’s last film.
The ad is a mini-movie in and of itself. A man rides the bus, looking out the window but seeing nothing exciting. He comes home late from work and his wife says good night. Their relationship doesn’t seem broken, but clearly they’re just ships passing in the night. He sits down and notices that somehow Tears of the Kingdom has appeared on his coffee table. Did he order it and it showed up today with his knowledge? Did his wife get it for him as a surprise gift hoping to rekindle some magic? Did Shigeru Miyamoto himself see this man on the bus that morning and decide that if anyone could use an early copy of the game it was him and have his elves deliver it to him? We’ll probably never know. But what we do know is that in playing Tears of the Kingdom, the man rediscovers something inside himself. The next time he’s on that bus and looks out the window? Meaning and life wash over him.
Or maybe not. There’s another, very easy reading here, about a 40-something man drifting through life with no anchor, who picks up a video game and plays it. None of his problems are actually solved. He’s still a guy who comes home to a sleeping wife, pours himself a boring glass of water, and then stays up late playing a video game. Has he truly discovered any adventure here, or is he just looking out a bus window at the adventure he’s not actually having? This is already more words spilled over a nearly two-minute commercial than I’d ever thought I’d write, and I’m still not sure which side I land on.
The Nintendo Australia Tears of the Kingdom Ad Is Rooted in a Real-Life Review, Apparently
Whatever the answer is, the Tears of the Kingdom commercial definitely makes you feel something, and according to an anonymous person who worked on the ad and spoke to Kotaku Australia, it was inspired by “a Japanese Amazon review for Breath of the Wild.” Kotaku Australia then tracked down an incredibly heartfelt Amazon review for Breath of the Wild that appears to fit the bill, from a person who did indeed rediscover adventure when he picked up that game.
Read using a shaky Google Translate version, the lonely man isn’t sure why he picked up a Nintendo Switch and Breath of the Wild; he hadn’t seemed to have played video games in forever. Yet, in a depressed state, he did it, and it basically saved his life. He recounts looking out his window at mountains he doesn’t know the name of before playing the game and not feeling anything, but after BotW, he was reborn. He sees those mountains and thinks, “I can climb that.” He concludes the review with words that are strikingly poetic, even when translated through a computer: “But don’t be disappointed in life. The adventure I was hoping for was in a place like this.”
You can read the full, rough Google Translate version of the BotW review below:
He is a member of society called a so-called [businessman]. He was hit by the commuting rush hour, bowed to his customers and bosses, Overtime work every day while doing various things while being forced to train his juniors. I get annoyed by mountains I don’t even know the name of that I see on my way to work. When I come back home dizzy, I don’t have the strength to eat, so I drink and sleep. If you have time to play games, you have to go to seminars and get married. Days when I honestly wonder why I’m still alive.
I remembered it from the Switch store sale I saw on the day I went to buy dead sake. When I was crazy about Mario 64 when I was a kid, “It’s like Mario these days! It’s PS.” I was embarrassed when my friend told me. At that time, I was determined not to be hated by my friends, I also replied, “Surely Mario is old!”
The beauty of FF7 at that time and the shock of hearing the CD on TV, It may be a feeling that children today do not understand. That’s how appealing and innovative it was to children at the time.
I still don’t know why I picked up the Switch at that time. I just bought the main unit and Zelda with a beer in one hand and thinking that I could sell it if it was boring.
Yesterday, when I was at work, I saw a mountain I didn’t even know the name of from the window of the train. The moment I thought, “I think I can climb it,” tears overflowed and I couldn’t stop. The [businessmen] of the same generation who were beside me must have thought, “What the hell is this guy?”
I would like to recommend it to [businessman] colleagues who are pressed for time and who run side by side every day even if they are hated for maintaining the status quo. Don’t say it’s just a game. We were born in the golden age of gaming. Have you ever seen your family move with Mario’s jumps? Do you remember playing Smash with a controller? Have you ever discussed strategies for Chrono Trigger or FF7 with your friends? I know it now. I used to be a fucking kid, but my parents were on birthdays and Christmas, That you bought me fucking expensive hardware and software. On the side of being naughty, you managed to buy an expensive game for me with the house money.
I’m impressed that I’ve realized just now that I didn’t realize that I was working so hard on my life. I should have been more filial.
★5 There’s nothing more I can say because all the reviews are good. This Zelda gives me the “challenge and reward” that I forgot. You can experience an exciting adventure where you can freely explore the world without a map. We of the same generation are sick every day in order to surpass tomorrow. But don’t be disappointed in life. The adventure I was hoping for was in a place like this.
Nintendo Australia really found quite the Amazon review to use as the source of inspiration for its Tears of the Kingdom ad. The game is out this Friday, with GameStop offering a special trade-in deal to get it for $20, and the developers have finally revealed big details of its story and whether there are dungeons.
