I do genuinely believe that the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and arguably the Zelda franchise as a whole, though i myself have played literally none of these games) is closer to fitting the description of ‘Tolkien-esque Fantasy’ than most other movies/shows/games/books etc that claim that label
Like, compare this post by tumblr user wufflesvetinari, which makes an important point about Tolkien’s worldbuilding, and also lives in my head rent free:
and then these quotes from Jacob Geller’s “Every Zelda is the Darkest Zelda”
and his conclusions about the messages in Zelda games are thematically very similar to the through-lines about friendship and love in LOTR, and what a lot of authors miss about what makes a fantasy story personal and memorable:
“A world without joy and humor isn’t a compelling world to fight for” is exactly why there are so many pieces of fantasy media out there that just feel like carbon copies of each other (i’ve seen many posts that explain this better than I can though I can’t find any specific ones at the moment, just know that I didn’t invent this thesis). You’ve got the cool swords, you’ve got the wizards and the spells and the battles, but first and foremost you need the LOVE.
Got fully obsessed with Elden Ring last year, and made a series of mockups of a strange world where it came out in 2001 for the game boy color. Maybe a better world??? Here's all of the fuckers for ya anyway
My heart almost broke. I mean, of course I and others can/could ship whatever anyway, but I can't help but be relieved that Sidon and Yona's marriage was arranged by his father canonically.
working on the shiekah arm for the totk rewrite and i actively have to force myself to not try and make a mechanically sound magic tech arm bc its a magic tech arm and doesnt need to be mechanically sound