Really, I should've known better.
"Legend of Ocarina - Rupee Quest" sounded like a badly written attempt to work around the copyright of certain famous elf-eared Hylians, but I'd always been a sucker for the unusual. I'd been looking for a particularly hideous piece of work to get a friend as a prank for their birthday, and this looked about the right speed. The photos on the site I purchased it from featured two sides of a well-maintained cartridge, the sticker all but worn off.
At the time, all that really stuck with me is how weirdly pastel the blue skies were. I still wonder about that, from time to time.
It took me a few minutes to dig out my credit card and enter the numbers. Numbers for the card, where I lived, how much I wanted to donate to a charity that looked suspiciously as if the money donated wouldn't be entirely used to build homes for luck-lorn orphans.
Somewhere through the process, I decided that I wanted the game. I deserved it, after all - I'd had a pretty terrible couple of days, the usual sob story. My friend could wait - they hadn't been thinking much of asking me or how my days had been, right?.. When I get angry, or sad, or feel powerless - sometimes what I do is buy stuff. Sure, it might be shallow and purposeless, but I don't care now and I didn't care then.
The delivery took a few more days than I wanted - the delivery guy belonged to a private postal firm and obviously wanted a tip - or something. I sent him off and thought about poking the tires on his stupid van out, but was uncomfortable enough just talking to the guy - who was probably a good ten, twenty years older than me, and smelled funny.
He was optimistic and had faded tattoos and smelled of cigarette smoke and piney air freshener. He wanted to talk about videogames because he was excited to have someone who 'totally shared his interests'. I think it was his enthusiasm that made the most nauseous.
When I'd banished the interloper from my domain and retreated to the fortified safety of my inner sanctum, I tore away the fragile wrappings that protected the little sliver of goodness that was this hidden gem of failure. It looked even worse in person - the seller had tried to make it look more appetizing by pressing the sticker back on with scotch tape, but that'd backfired and the cartridge sticker - well, it sagged.
I'd made some noodles a few minutes earlier and they were starting to burn. You recall the weirdest things, in retrospect.
Blowing on the cartridge - shut up, it totally works - and slotting it in, the first thing that gripped me was that the game Legend of Ocarina sold itself as, and the game it was? Two different things, as different as strawberry ice cream and strawberry-flavored cough syrup.
The title font was written in bloody red, and the game itself had a 'cinematic' feel characteristic of 32-bit games that wanted to be edgy without getting in trouble with concerned parents. Your main character - creatively titled SPRITE by default - woke up in the middle of a rainy haze... Outside of a house, without a bedroll.
In the middle of the rain. I guess he was an outdoorsy SPRITE.
Or she. The possibility was there, however unlikely, that SPRITE was a girl elf, and this game was desperately trying to stand out in one way or another. The loving detail that had gone into the background certainly hadn't gone into character design, that's for sure.
There was no story as such - you went around fighting monsters, who exploded into chunks of pixelated gore. The good stuff - each enemy seemed to be made of highly pressurized red corn syrup, from the way their guts roped out when killed. They dropped jewels (rupees? Was the game trying to be consistent? I doubt it) and I collected them, or rather SPRITE collected them.
You eventually tapped out at about 255, though the counter had room for a whole 'nother column - maybe there was a wallet upgrade or something. I'd stopped caring. There weren't any NPC's to interact with and I was very aware of how terribly bland the in-game world felt. As if all the designer had felt intent on portraying was a killing ground of monsters, rendered with as much loving violence as they could manage for the time.
The soundtrack though, was awesome. All very sultry, jazzy stuff that sounded like it could've come from a high-class club, the kind where people drink expensive fruit-flavored booze - liquer, even - and talk about The Issues. Whomever had composed it had poured their heart and soul into the soundtrack - and only a few people would ever hear it.
I only felt sad for a milisecond, and then I forgot about it because I still hadn't turned the stove off. When I returned, I explored the last area I could find in the short and remarkably limiited overworld - what appeared to be a grove with a small, wood-and-dirt castle. Motte and bailey; the word came unbidden, a fragmented memory from an unloved history class.
Waiting for me were all these woodland creatures - which ran away as I drew near. Heh, rip-off, I thought smugly. As I was patting myself on the back for noticing, I realized SPRITE was moving without my input... And not quickly, either. Each step was slow and methodical - labored.
Finally, SPRITE reached the gates of the castle, and turned to stare at me with impossibly huge, round, sky-blue eyes.