One of my favorite birthday parties as a kid was an evening of revelry I dubbed “NintendoFest.” It wasn't much of a festival: three of my friends came over and we played games all night. Some multiplayer, but mostly we worked our way through the first few dungeons of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, passing the controller back and forth until the sun rose in the morning.

It’s a good memory, and I have a bunch of others similar to it. Usually when I hosted or went to a sleepover, it meant staying up late and playing games, some video — Sonic Riders, Worms 3D, and Kirby Air Ride all come to mind — and some tabletop. I had a blast playing Yu-Gi-Oh! with my friends. Even though I was the worst of the group at it, I would bluff and say things like, “You haven’t yet seen a fraction of my power!” while getting my ass beat for the fifth time in a row.

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I remember staying up watching video game-related movies, too, like The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Pokemon Heroes: Latios and Latias, and Super Mario Bros.. When you’re a kid, it’s easy to stay up all night if you’re stimulated enough by what you’re doing (and stimulated enough by sugar and/or caffeine). Sleeping in until noon the next day is less fun, because you usually wake up and have to go home within a few hours, but the staying up late part always made it worth it.

But, the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has revealed how much I’ve aged in just a few years. I try for Zelda, but I can’t stay up playing games like I used to. I was up until around 1:30 playing Tears of the Kingdom the night it launched, got up the next morning at 6:30 like I normally do, and felt wiped out for the rest of the day. One night getting five hours of sleep and I was exhausted? Pathetic.

It’s shocking how quickly this has happened. Back in 2016, when I was just getting started in journalism, I could pull this kind of thing no problem. That was how I played Resident Evil 4, The Last of Us, and Uncharted 4 — in all-night sessions before peeling myself out of bed and going to work the next day. I was 22 then, I’m 29 now, and I’m stunned how big of a difference seven years have made. “In your twenties” is shorthand for “young,” but there is a distinct difference between being in your early twenties and being in your late twenties. Then, I was fresh out of college. Now, I’m rapidly approaching the age Danny Tanner was at the start of Full House — when he already had three daughters and a recently deceased wife.

In the case of Tears of the Kingdom, I have a direct comparison I can make. I was 23 when Breath of the Wild came out, and I stayed up late into the night exploring Hyrule for as long as my Wii U tablet held a charge. I was tired the day after, sure, but I drank some coffee and got on with my day. Now, aging is winning out. But, Link can still restore his energy by eating some green mushrooms. Despite starring in games since 1986, he's truly a 22-year-old at heart.

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