My Favourite Video Game Featuring: Sail
My Favourite Video Game is a guest feature from bands and artists where we set them a simple task… tell us about your favourite video game. In this feature drummer Tom Coles of melodic, alternative metal band Sail took up the mantle and you can read all about his choice below.
Truthfully, I think that Breath of the Wild is the best game ever made. But over my life I’ve probably spent more time with A Link to the Past, which came out around when I was born. We had a SNES from a friend of my Dad’s, which I played obsessively from the age of about 9. I remember being drawn to the gold box with the sword motif, and thinking this might be a bit like Lord of the Rings. It was a simpler time.
LTTP is the third game in the series, returning to the top-down view. The story is a little more fleshed-out and the game is longer, taking place over two main regions – one a medieval fantasy world full of monsters and secrets, and later on an edgy goth version. Eventually, you defeat Ganon, the evil pig-wizard who had uncovered the triforce, and had been posing as an evil human-wizard the whole time.
Most of my arguments as to why this is a good game are linked to the memories; this was my first flirtation with gothic horror (Blind’s Hideout in the dark world, the moth boss that tried to eat you, getting attacked in the dark with no torch), weird plant monsters that led to me getting weirdly obsessed with Day of the Triffids, and dense, labyrinthine puzzles that fried my tiny child brain. And the music! I downloaded the sweeping 16-bit themes, trills and motifs and used them for ringtones and background music for terrible films as soon as I got my hands on a low-res video camera.
There’s lots you could say about the history; this was the last home console Zelda title before Ocarina of Time which is widely considered one of the best games of all time, and was a transition between 2D and 3D styles. The games that came later had more stories, richer themes and deeper characters – especially female characters, who are notably absent, mute or helpless in this entry. But for a kid getting into fantasy, this was an excellent gateway, and remains a game I return to whenever I can.
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