Remembering Play' Beyond Retro: An Analysis of YouTube Videos and Comment Data on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in South Korea

Abstract

This study examines how nostalgia for games is formed and transformed into gaming practices, moving beyond retro game discourse. An exploratory study combining quantitative and qualitative text analysis was conducted on Korean-language YouTube videos and comments related to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in the South Korean context. The analysis yielded three findings. The YouTube comment section is a nostalgic space where players' memories and experiences are inscribed as social time. Comments that occur here are nostalgic practices that express and regulate emotions by contrasting the past and present, based on loss and deficiency in the series. This practice becomes a playful act where players critically engage with the game, invoking play experiences and nostalgia to reconstruct meaning through commenting. Game nostalgia is not merely retro representation or emotional recollection, but a cultural practice that transforms into emotional play through the remediation of players' memories and experiences.