Blog Quest 1: Emotional Contagion

I have played a lot of video game in my lifetime, and none of them has particularly moved me emotionally. But, there were a few games that sparked my imagination. When I play some video games and I get really interested in the game, I feel as if I was the main character and that I am the one living the life of these characters.

One of these games was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time that I played a lot of when I was little. This was probably my first game I played where you have a no-named child become a knight and saves a princess. I thought that was really cool and that Link, the protagonist, was amazing for doing all of this. He was just a little kid just like I was, yet he went through all these adventures, fought his way through difficult monsters and dungeons just to save one person. I imagined myself in Link’s shoes playing through the story of Ocarina of Time all the time when I was little. The stories of a hero saving a princess are really common but Ocarina of Time was one of my first games that had a story like this. I have read books with this kind of scenario, but reading and playing a video game is completely different. I feel video games are more in-depth because not only do you get immersed in the narrative, the visuals and audio are well done to make it feel as if you are in Link himself.

Another game or game franchise that sparked my imagination was the Kingdom Heart series. I loved how Kingdom Hearts had one of their themes as the classic Darkness verses Light. They had a unique story of how these enemies called Heartless would take people hearts and turn them into Heartless themselves. Another interesting thing that I thought was cool when I was little was that the main weapon in the game was a sword called the Keyblade. The Keyblade was a giant key that the protagonist used like a sword. When I was little, I would always think what would happen if this situation happened in our world, where a key is a mighty weapon that can open many locks and that it can defeat any enemy. If I had a keyblade I would be able to open many doors into the different worlds and explore all of them. I think that would be an awesome thing to do if I had a keyblade.

Stories are a very interesting asset that could emotionally grab a person’s interest. I think a video game with a great story is the middle point between a book and a movie. The details and visuals really help bring players into the video game world where their character lives in. Everyone has a game they can never forget. These games are the ones where the players have been emotionally moved or these video games had sparked the imagination of the players. I hope I can find a game in the future that could make me feel the same way as Ocarina of Time and Kingdom Hearts.