I think customizing Link is a bad idea, personally. If you were able to change his facial features, hair color, clothes etc, he wouldn't be Link anymore, he'd just be some guy.
And being the silent hero has always been part of his charm. A lot of the most likeable characters don't speak at all or are limited to grunts, screams, etc. I think it would be quite jarring if all of a sudden he could talk.
Think about that Tom and Jerry movie. Yeah...
I agree. It would just feel wrong if Link talked. If anything, they should consider giving voice acting to Zelda and Ganondorf(even at that... I'm not so sure).
Oh, and that Tom and Jerry film? I thought it was really good.
God first.
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Pretty much. Incarnations of Link should either be voice acted and get character development or be customizable to some extent; maybe both. The middle ground is just tradition for the sake of tradition and, likely, laxness.
It's like the low health beeping noise; almost no modern game does that but Mario and Zelda still feel the need to beep your ears off.
Well I hadn't even noticed the low health thing but as for Link's character, personally I only care if the game is story and character focused. For the most part, Zelda hasn't been. If you look at something like Ocarina of Time and ask whether it would be better if Link had a personality, all other things held constant. As far as I can tell, the answer is that it wouldn't make much difference. The amount of serious character-based conversation in the game is incredibly small.
Another issue this would raise for them is whether they should then keep Link's personality constant in each game.
That's not an issue, Link gets reincarnated so he could be whatever from game to game. He could literally be reborn as a pigeon if they felt like it.
And the 3D Zeldas; what we're talking about here, have all been narrative-driven, so I don't see the issue. If U skimps in that respect I'll be quite disappointed with it and, despite whatever amazing gameplay it may have, it will still reside in that dimension of hollow soullessness occupied by all non-narrative games.
So two remakes, Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, are more wanted than Zelda for Wii U
I've been saying Zelda has been on a major decline for years over there but nobody believes me. I was however surprised by Majora's Mask sales over there. Didn't think it would get much over 250k.
I don't think that's necessarily true in terms of popularity. Though Nintendo have let the series wane in terms of great 3D entries, it still has the potential to sell Ocarina or Twilight's 7 million if the aesthetics, install base, and marketing all align. The reason Skyward Sword and the recent 2D titles have done 3 million or less in sales is that those games had respectively worse word of mouth and were obviously less of a big deal than the bigger 3D Zelda releases.
If Nintendo wanted to make an epic 2D Zelda they wouldn't exile it to the Elba of their game systems; they would make a modern 2D game that would blow A Link to the Past out of the water. They just don't want to or can't figure out how to do that in the 2D space.
If it is a great enough game Zelda U could probably reach 4-5 million sales lifetime.
Link has almost always been a vehicle to tell stories involving other people and places, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I've never finished a Zelda game and thought "Wow, that was good, but it would have been better if Link had a longer backstory and character arc." It's just never been something that I felt was missing. Honestly, I hadn't even thought about it until this thread. Apparently, Link needs a character arc, who knew?
But now that I do know... nah, it's still not something that I consider important. I'm still perfectly fine with Zelda games being used to tell stories about Hyrule. I could tell you more about the Gerudo people from Ocarina of Time than I could tell you about Link from all games combined, but that's fine. It's not lazy writing. It's just a different style of storytelling focusing on other things.
I would be interested in voice acting, but not in English. Fully voiced Hylian dialogue for NPCs would be really neat and immersive.
The reason Skyward Sword and the recent 2D titles have done 3 million or less in sales is that those games had respectively worse word of mouth and were obviously less of a big deal than the bigger 3D Zelda releases.
This is inaccurate. The landscape in which Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were released was totally different. "I didn't like Skyward Sword and I told all my friends it was bad" doesn't adequately explain why a late game on a dead console sold worse than a delayed, massively hyped Wii launch title. Super Mario Galaxy 2 sold significantly worse than the first game too, but we're not going to pretend that it was poorly received. Every 2nd original Zelda game on a system has sold worse than the first. There have been zero exceptions in the entire history of the series.
But yeah, 2D Zeldas have never been as big of a deal as 3D, as is the case with almost every gaming franchise in existence. Mario seems to be the only exception.
Pretty much. Incarnations of Link should either be voice acted and get character development or be customizable to some extent; maybe both. The middle ground is just tradition for the sake of tradition and, likely, laxness.
It's like the low health beeping noise; almost no modern game does that but Mario and Zelda still feel the need to beep your ears off.
Well I hadn't even noticed the low health thing but as for Link's character, personally I only care if the game is story and character focused. For the most part, Zelda hasn't been. If you look at something like Ocarina of Time and ask whether it would be better if Link had a personality, all other things held constant. As far as I can tell, the answer is that it wouldn't make much difference. The amount of serious character-based conversation in the game is incredibly small.
Another issue this would raise for them is whether they should then keep Link's personality constant in each game.
That's not an issue, Link gets reincarnated so he could be whatever from game to game. He could literally be reborn as a pigeon if they felt like it.
And the 3D Zeldas; what we're talking about here, have all been narrative-driven, so I don't see the issue. If U skimps in that respect I'll be quite disappointed with it and, despite whatever amazing gameplay it may have, it will still reside in that dimension of hollow soullessness occupied by all non-narrative games.
So two remakes, Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, are more wanted than Zelda for Wii U
I've been saying Zelda has been on a major decline for years over there but nobody believes me. I was however surprised by Majora's Mask sales over there. Didn't think it would get much over 250k.
I don't think that's necessarily true in terms of popularity. Though Nintendo have let the series wane in terms of great 3D entries, it still has the potential to sell Ocarina or Twilight's 7 million if the aesthetics, install base, and marketing all align. The reason Skyward Sword and the recent 2D titles have done 3 million or less in sales is that those games had respectively worse word of mouth and were obviously less of a big deal than the bigger 3D Zelda releases.
If Nintendo wanted to make an epic 2D Zelda they wouldn't exile it to the Elba of their game systems; they would make a modern 2D game that would blow A Link to the Past out of the water. They just don't want to or can't figure out how to do that in the 2D space.
If it is a great enough game Zelda U could probably reach 4-5 million sales lifetime.
I was talking strictly Japan there. It's no secret Zelda is liked but not loved like it is in the west. Skyward Sword sold worse partly because it was gimmicky. You not only had to have the game but a add on yo play it. The same reason Majora's Mask probably sold a bit worse. Everything else @CaviarMeths pretty much summed it up.
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MERG said:
If I was only ever able to have Monster Hunter and EO games in the future, I would be a happy man.
It's just business as usual for games released during a system's prime to sell better. The Wii was booming in 2006-2008 when Twilight Princess was released. It was a hugely anticipated game on what turned out to be the fastest selling console of all time. All of the biggest games on the system were released within the first couple of years. By 2011, the Wii was in heavy decline. No games were selling particularly well, and Skyward Sword would be no exception. Most of the people who bought a Wii in 2006-2008 had already moved on.
The other thing is audience retention. Take Majora's Mask and Final Fantasy VIII, both sold worse than their immediate predecessors on the same hardware. Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy VII were the first 3D games in their series and they were a huge deal at the time, massively hyped and massively marketed. People who had never played a Zelda game or FF game before were buying OoT and FFVII, many of them were buying a N64/PS1 just to play those games. Most people liked those games. Some didn't. Those that didn't probably weren't interested in buying Majora's Mask or Final Fantasy VIII either, and so they sold worse.
So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.
It's just business as usual for games released during a system's prime to sell better. The Wii was booming in 2006-2008 when Twilight Princess was released. It was a hugely anticipated game on what turned out to be the fastest selling console of all time. All of the biggest games on the system were released within the first couple of years. By 2011, the Wii was in heavy decline. No games were selling particularly well, and Skyward Sword would be no exception. Most of the people who bought a Wii in 2006-2008 had already moved on.
The other thing is audience retention. Take Majora's Mask and Final Fantasy VIII, both sold worse than their immediate predecessors on the same hardware. Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy VII were the first 3D games in their series and they were a huge deal at the time, massively hyped and massively marketed. People who had never played a Zelda game or FF game before were buying OoT and FFVII, many of them were buying a N64/PS1 just to play those games. Most people liked those games. Some didn't. Those that didn't probably weren't interested in buying Majora's Mask or Final Fantasy VIII either, and so they sold worse.
Don't bring logic into this conversation.
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MERG said:
If I was only ever able to have Monster Hunter and EO games in the future, I would be a happy man.
I don't think that's necessarily true in terms of popularity. Though Nintendo have let the series wane in terms of great 3D entries, it still has the potential to sell Ocarina or Twilight's 7 million if the aesthetics, install base, and marketing all align. The reason Skyward Sword and the recent 2D titles have done 3 million or less in sales is that those games had respectively worse word of mouth and were obviously less of a big deal than the bigger 3D Zelda releases.
If Nintendo wanted to make an epic 2D Zelda they wouldn't exile it to the Elba of their game systems; they would make a modern 2D game that would blow A Link to the Past out of the water. They just don't want to or can't figure out how to do that in the 2D space.
If it is a great enough game Zelda U could probably reach 4-5 million sales lifetime.
We were talking about Japan. TP only sold 600,000 and SS only sold 370,000 there and the Wii had an install base of 12 million. Now compare that to the N64, whose install base was 5.5 million, OoT sold 1.45 million copies. So, as you can see the popularity of Zelda definitely dipped in Japan
I love reading a survey whose sample size is thousands out of millions.
Tbf the Famitsu survey doesn't say what the market wants, but rather what their readers want, and the reader base hasn't always correlated with the rest of the market.
The reason Skyward Sword and the recent 2D titles have done 3 million or less in sales is that those games had respectively worse word of mouth and were obviously less of a big deal than the bigger 3D Zelda releases.
This is inaccurate. The landscape in which Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were released was totally different. "I didn't like Skyward Sword and I told all my friends it was bad" doesn't adequately explain why a late game on a dead console sold worse than a delayed, massively hyped Wii launch title. Super Mario Galaxy 2 sold significantly worse than the first game too, but we're not going to pretend that it was poorly received. Every 2nd original Zelda game on a system has sold worse than the first. There have been zero exceptions in the entire history of the series.
But yeah, 2D Zeldas have never been as big of a deal as 3D, as is the case with almost every gaming franchise in existence. Mario seems to be the only exception.
I didn't say that word of mouth acted in the negative, but when gamers saw the new Zelda game and talked to their friends about it 'you can swing Link's sword with the controller,' etc, etc that certainly moved a lot of copies. Let's not forget that the bulk of Twilight Princess' sales costed about $250 more than Skyward Sword, because it was a Wii launch game before everyone had one. The Wii hysteria certainly helped TP sell, but let's not forget it sold about half of what Skyward Sword did on gamecube alone.
I'm just saying that if Skyward Sword had blown peoples socks off and not been such a sleepy affair it would've sold much better. Plenty of my friends got bored with that game and stopped around the first dungeon.
It's always the story of the hero, and that hero is Link.
Link's role in most Zelda stories is reactionary. He reacts to plot, story, and conflict that is centered on other people, or the land itself. The stories are really about the supporting characters.
Games like The Last of Us or Final Fantasy X are definitely about Joel and Tidus, but Twilight Princess was about Midna, Zant, Zelda, and Ganon.
Do you remember the part where LINK KILLED GANON... err sealed him... I guess? Yea, that was a pretty major event.
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Do you remember the part where LINK KILLED GANON... err sealed him... I guess? Yea, that was a pretty major event.
Link kills him, and this isn't a character moment for Link. It's a character moment for Midna. Link has no character development or story of his own in Twilight Princess. Link does things that advance the plot, but he's not actually the plot himself.
This is why people get confused and say things like Link is supposed to be an empty vessel for the player to project themselves into. He's not. He is an empty vessel, but his purpose is to act as a tool to tell stories about Hyrule and its citizens. He's a playable plot device.
Do you remember the part where LINK KILLED GANON... err sealed him... I guess? Yea, that was a pretty major event.
Link kills him, and this isn't a character moment for Link. It's a character moment for Midna. Link has no character development or story of his own in Twilight Princess. Link does things that advance the plot, but he's not actually the plot himself.
This is why people get confused and say things like Link is supposed to be an empty vessel for the player to project themselves into. He's not. He is an empty vessel, but his purpose is to act as a tool to tell stories about Hyrule and its citizens. He's a playable plot device.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
I disagree; the fault inherent in Link being boring is that the main character is boring! If they could wrap his character up in the plot with some sort of personality then that would improve basically every Zelda game.
I love reading a survey whose sample size is thousands out of millions.
Tbf the Famitsu survey doesn't say what the market wants, but rather what their readers want, and the reader base hasn't always correlated with the rest of the market.
And tbf the sites that used the survey used the inaccurate title "this is what Japan wants"
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Do you remember the part where LINK KILLED GANON... err sealed him... I guess? Yea, that was a pretty major event.
Link kills him, and this isn't a character moment for Link. It's a character moment for Midna. Link has no character development or story of his own in Twilight Princess. Link does things that advance the plot, but he's not actually the plot himself.
This is why people get confused and say things like Link is supposed to be an empty vessel for the player to project themselves into. He's not. He is an empty vessel, but his purpose is to act as a tool to tell stories about Hyrule and its citizens. He's a playable plot device.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
I disagree; the fault inherent in Link being boring is that the main character is boring! If they could wrap his character up in the plot with some sort of personality then that would improve basically every Zelda game.
You're very right, and in most cases its' considered poor writing to have the protagonist be bland like Link is. I mean, look at Godzilla (2014), Joe is one of the most interesting characters, but instead the writers made the protagonist be a bland and almost emotionless soldier guy who's disrespectful to his own father, and honestly Ford has no character development what-so-ever. The movie would have been more enjoyable story-wise if Joe or Serizawa had the lead part, as their characters have more depth and emotion to them.
Ok so i am just going to jump in this. This is my opinion
I don't want link to have a personality because he not the point of the stories. The point of the stories is that a Young boy that nobody knows goes out and saves the various lands(mostly hyrule) from the forces of evil. I mean the title is Legend of ZELDA representing that its the story of the Zelda and the people not link himself. Link is just the tool that is being used to explain and show the stories. That is why all the secondary characters have huge character development and link barely gets any.
Do you remember the part where LINK KILLED GANON... err sealed him... I guess? Yea, that was a pretty major event.
Link kills him, and this isn't a character moment for Link. It's a character moment for Midna. Link has no character development or story of his own in Twilight Princess. Link does things that advance the plot, but he's not actually the plot himself.
This is why people get confused and say things like Link is supposed to be an empty vessel for the player to project themselves into. He's not. He is an empty vessel, but his purpose is to act as a tool to tell stories about Hyrule and its citizens. He's a playable plot device.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
I disagree; the fault inherent in Link being boring is that the main character is boring! If they could wrap his character up in the plot with some sort of personality then that would improve basically every Zelda game.
lol you're completely missing the point of Zelda and Nintendo and Adventure games. You are Link. You already have a personality. You are the one playing the game. You are the one involved in the story. You don't need the character representing you to get involved any deeper in the story, the character doesn't need emotions, YOU have emotions. surely you get this by now if you've been playing Zelda for a long time.
That is true, still, would be nice if we had Wind Waker levels of exaggerated expression again. Hell, I don't need him to talk, just seeing him react to things was good enough...
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