The Legend of Zelda games have an amazing sense of adventure that ought to translate well to an animated series. But videogame journalist Blake J. Harris says that Nintendo's only attempt at a Zelda cartoon, in 1989, is spoiled by its unlikeable protagonist. "There was nothing that showed me that Link was loyal to anyone, or treated other people like family, or respectfully, or did things for the right reasons," Harris says in Episode 421 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "So I was like, 'This guy is just a smug jerk.'" Fantasy author Erin Lindsey agrees that Link's personality completely ruins the show.

Movies based on videogames have a notoriously bad track record, but fantasy author Erin Lindsey says that the recent Tomb Raider reboot, while hardly original, was surprisingly well done. "They do the work of showing why Lara is capable of what she's capable of, and being believable in what she's not capable of," Lindsey says in Episode 415 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "It was done on a very human scale, and it was credibly acted, and they put in the work with the characters." Other recent videogame movies such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Detective Pikachu, and Rampage have connected with audiences and even earned respectable, though hardly stellar, reviews. Videogame journalist Blake J. Harris hopes that these successes will change the way people look at videogame movies. "A lot of people always have this caveat, like when Rampage made almost half a billion dollars, and people were like, 'Oh, well that one wasn't really a videogame movie,'" he says.

This is not a controversial statement. A quick trip through recent cinematic history reveals a universally dismal track record. This is a genre whose high point is the Resident Evil series, whose touchstones include Mortal Kombat, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Prince of Persia. This summer's Angry Birds and World of Warcraft may have produced legitimate commercial successes, but that's only thanks to the Chinese market. In the US they both tanked, commercially and critically.