My favorite place in any RPG is also Zeal. Imagine it, to stand atop the floating world and behold the planet below...a priceless gift wrapped in cloud, a shining jewel of unimpeachable value, a treasured home wrought of curiosity and meaning, a world caressed into a softly curving horizon so distant that not even the eye can reach it....to stand there and behold those sights from above, and to know that it is that world that gave rise to your people, who in turn created the floating world itself, and that you live there, in the capital of all human accomplishment, the masterpiece of sentient imagination, with halls decked and orchestras engaged, and that you know how to dance. Would you not feel tinier than the tiny in such a place? Would you not feel greater than the great in such a place?
But in addition to the Kingdom of Magic I should also like to add one other place in the worlds of RPGs where I find myself lingering whenever I should visit. It is the top of the pyramid in the Dark World in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Nowhere in any video game has a single image moved me so strongly as that time when Link stood atop the Golden Pyramid of the Triforce and beheld the tall mountains to the southwest, with Ganon's Tower crowning Death Peak, and all is silhouetted by the setting sun. No processor power and no generation of console can come closer than that beautiful, terrible image.
And, only because it needs to be said, the music in both Zeal and the Dark World helped immensely to develop the mood.
~ Josh
