I have been so excited for the new Legend of Zelda game that I have been watching everything Nintendo for the last month. I have seen this video about Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto probably four or five times. During my last watch, however, I noticed a tiny move that the editor of this piece made that was really clever. Since The Legend of Zelda is all about finding the hidden treasures that allow you to triumph in your quest, I thought it was appropriate.
The video is about how carefully Miyamoto and his team have designed every aspect of their games to teach the player how to play, to tell an engaging story, and to remove any barriers that might make their games less immersive. When they’re talking about this last point, they discuss the design of the very first Nintendo controller. You know the one:
The narrator is trying to make the case that Nintendo’s decision to release a Mario game for iOS is in keeping with the ergonomics and the ease-of-use that the original controllers provided. With a clever editing trick, the video links these two design choices starting at 5:27:
Did you catch that? When the narrator finishes his part, the editor brings in the audio from an old news spot from 1988 about the original Nintendo Entertainment System. The camera pulls in close to a child’s hands using the iconic NES controller while the reporter says, “These controllers direct the characters. The better your eye-hand coordination, the better you do.” In the middle of this audio, however, the editor brings in a close-up shot of someone playing Run Mario Run (2016) on an iPhone.
In one move, the editor brings the philosophy of the past into the present. By leaving the words in the mouth of a 1988 reporter, but showing that those words are just as true now as they were then, the two eras of Nintendo history are linked. It’s probably especially effective because it’s the last shot of the video so it leaves the viewer really satisfied. Well, I know it left me pretty satisfied at least.