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Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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Haru17

SpookyMeths wrote:

Haru17 wrote:

Octane wrote:

Featuring a new item; the lawn mower, how else are we going to cut all that grass!?

Maybe they could just update the boomerang to be a boomerang glaive. That could combine the functions of the boomerang, lawnmower, and ball & chain into one.

Untitled

That looks horribly impractical. How do you use this without dismembering yourself?

Pocket. Ball n' chain.

Don't hate me because I'm bnahabulous.

Therad

While I can sort of understand the "art" argument, it isn't a good example in video games. Video games are not a static medium, such as movies or books. It can change based on your actions, it is an highly interactive medium.

If they added the option to play as either Link or Linkle, how would that change anything for you? You are not forced to play the female version. While at the same time actually giving people that want to play as a female the option to do so. Broaden the appeal, without forcing anyone sounds like a win-win for me. And link doesn't even have the "we-must-record-double-the-amount-of-voice-acting" argument.

And wasn't Miyamotos original vision that Link is the player (which is the reason we can name him)? Wouldn't it make sense to add a female option? Or even better, a customizable avatar.

Therad

Octane

Therad wrote:

And wasn't Miyamotos original vision that Link is the player (which is the reason we can name him)? Wouldn't it make sense to add a female option? Or even better, a customizable avatar.

No, it wasn't:

Miyamoto wrote:

Link’s name comes from the fact that originally, the fragments of the Triforce were supposed to be electronic chips. The game was to be set in both the past and the future and as the main character would travel between both and be the link between them, they called him Link.

Source: http://mynintendonews.com/2012/11/04/miyamoto-talks-about-the...

Octane

Usagi-san

Therad wrote:

And wasn't Miyamotos original vision that Link is the player (which is the reason we can name him)? Wouldn't it make sense to add a female option? Or even better, a customizable avatar.

Who was it who said Link was just an avatar again, I forget.

"I never swear, my lord, I say yes or no; and, as I am a gentleman, I keep my word." - D'artagnan in Twenty Years After

jump

I don't really see Link's orginal creation and ideas behind it applying anymore as the character has evolved (sort of) over the last 30 years to be something else.

There's not really a reason why Link can't be a girl but if they do I hope it's something better than Linkle who still to me seems too much like a cheap female knock off based on Link. Fingers crossed Hyrule Warriors Legends will prove me wrong.

Edited on by jump

Nicolai wrote:

Alright, I gotta stop getting into arguments with jump. Someone remind me next time.

Switch Friend Code: SW-8051-9575-2812 | 3DS Friend Code: 1762-3772-0251

Usagi-san

arronishere wrote:

There's not really a reason why Link can't be a girl.

How so?

Edited on by Usagi-san

"I never swear, my lord, I say yes or no; and, as I am a gentleman, I keep my word." - D'artagnan in Twenty Years After

Usagi-san

arronishere wrote:

Usagi-san wrote:

arronishere wrote:

There's not really a reason why Link can't be a girl.

How so?

The same reason why Zelda doesn't need to be a princess or Link doesn't need to be a child or Ganon doesn't need to be the villian or Impa doesn't need to be old and useless in every single game.

This doesn't really give any reason to think that Link's could be a girl.

"I never swear, my lord, I say yes or no; and, as I am a gentleman, I keep my word." - D'artagnan in Twenty Years After

Therad

Kinan wrote:

@Therad: You forget that it's too much work to also animate female main characters. ; )

Damn, I forgot it is hard to do bouncy physics! Blast you Dead or Alive to set such high standards!

I actually don't see why we couldn't get a customizable avatar. It is an evolution that really wouldn't change the game that much.

Therad

Usagi-san

arronishere wrote:

Usagi-san wrote:

arronishere wrote:

Usagi-san wrote:

arronishere wrote:

There's not really a reason why Link can't be a girl.

How so?

The same reason why Zelda doesn't need to be a princess or Link doesn't need to be a child or Ganon doesn't need to be the villian or Impa doesn't need to be old and useless in every single game.

This doesn't really give any reason to think that Link's could be a girl.

I said there's no reason why Link can't be a girl and not Link could be a girl, there's not a hard status quo with these characters that get reinterpreted pretty much every game so the game makers aren't restrained to not make any changes to them.

can? could?

I think you're missing the point. You've suggested there is no reason to think that Link can't be a girl in a Zelda game. But I don't see how this is the case. In your own examples the gender of the characters have remained constant. As symbols of the Legend of Zelda series there is no reason to think that the gender of Link or Zelda could be changed any more than Mario or Peach could change their genders.

"I never swear, my lord, I say yes or no; and, as I am a gentleman, I keep my word." - D'artagnan in Twenty Years After

CaviarMeths

@rishisquid You say you'll "deal with it" if there's a gender option as if it's some significant personal toll on you that other people be included. Some great compromise. There isn't. Link is an iconic design and he could still remain iconic even if there were a second, slightly more feminine model. There's no drawback here.

There would be no difference from a narrative perspective. Not in status as a video game icon. Not in artistic integrity or quality.

I don't think that there should be a gender option for every character. Not even most characters. Link is just such a great candidate for it due to the nature of the lore. It's a different incarnation every time and no set rule that it always has to be a boy. But the cool thing about a gender option is that if you want, it can always be a boy. Always! Every time. That's your choice. You can look at a picture of a male Link in the year 2030 and say "that's my Link" and that's rad. Nothing wrong with it.

But where it stops being rad is when you believe that someone else looking at a different picture of Link and saying "that's my Link" would in any way diminish your own choice.

Artistic integrity really has nothing to do with it. There's no compromise. Only complement.

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

rallydefault

@Kinan: It's like your responding to somebody else... I think it's called a "strawman," sir. I never even typed the words "singular vision" in my post... heck, I didn't even type those words separately in my post... ?? Yet here you are attributing that idea to me to "refute" my point? Grasping much, huh??

My bottom line is: it's up to the artist. They should NEVER. And I mean NEVER, be forced to include anything in their art that they don't want to. That's a taking away of free will and choice, which I am inherently against. Maybe you're not. As for the whole "not all games are art" or whatever you said, I call "bull." Maybe you consider yourself some sort of 21st-century art inspector, but games are art. They are visual and narrative stories being presented for audiences, akin to both books and movies and even paintings and sculpture. Art imitates life, and the artist funnels that imitation through a lens, their lens. Video games do this. TriForce Heroes is art. Call of Duty is art. Candy Crush is art. Paper Boy on the NES is art. And the people who design and make the games are artists. Some may be "better" or more pronounced in their styles or more unique from others, but they are all art.

Edited on by rallydefault

rallydefault

Haru17

SpookyMeths wrote:

You say you'll "deal with it" if there's a gender option as if it's some significant personal toll on you that other people be included. Some great compromise. There isn't. Link is an iconic design and he could still remain iconic even if there were a second, slightly more feminine model. There's no drawback here.

There would be no difference from a narrative perspective. Not in status as a video game icon. Not in artistic integrity or quality.

I don't think that there should be a gender option for every character. Not even most characters. Link is just such a great candidate for it due to the nature of the lore. It's a different incarnation every time and no set rule that it always has to be a boy. But the cool thing about a gender option is that if you want, it can always be a boy. Always! Every time. That's your choice. You can look at a picture of a male Link in the year 2030 and say "that's my Link" and that's rad. Nothing wrong with it.

But where it stops being rad is when you believe that someone else looking at a different picture of Link and saying "that's my Link" would in any way diminish your own choice.

Artistic integrity really has nothing to do with it. There's no compromise. Only complement.

There's a refreshing amount of 'not-sexism' on the 'not-sexism : sexism' ratio here.

Or if we require a softer (read: intellectually dishonest) version of this post, then I'll just say I like how 'open-minded' most are being.

Edited on by Haru17

Don't hate me because I'm bnahabulous.

rallydefault

Haru17 wrote:

SpookyMeths wrote:

You say you'll "deal with it" if there's a gender option as if it's some significant personal toll on you that other people be included. Some great compromise. There isn't. Link is an iconic design and he could still remain iconic even if there were a second, slightly more feminine model. There's no drawback here.

There would be no difference from a narrative perspective. Not in status as a video game icon. Not in artistic integrity or quality.

I don't think that there should be a gender option for every character. Not even most characters. Link is just such a great candidate for it due to the nature of the lore. It's a different incarnation every time and no set rule that it always has to be a boy. But the cool thing about a gender option is that if you want, it can always be a boy. Always! Every time. That's your choice. You can look at a picture of a male Link in the year 2030 and say "that's my Link" and that's rad. Nothing wrong with it.

But where it stops being rad is when you believe that someone else looking at a different picture of Link and saying "that's my Link" would in any way diminish your own choice.

Artistic integrity really has nothing to do with it. There's no compromise. Only complement.

There's a refreshing amount of 'not-sexism' on the 'not-sexism : sexism' ratio here.

Or if we require a softer (read: intellectually dishonest) version of this post, then I'll just say I like how 'open-minded' most are being.

But to defend free will/free speech on the part of the individual (artist in this case) is to be considered close-minded.

rallydefault

Usagi-san

arronishere wrote:

Mario and Peach are characters where as like you say Zelda and Link are just symbols, it's only "it's not the status quo!" that says there can't be a change which hasn't been the case in the past for other changes..

You're kidding, right? If you can't see that Link and Zelda are characters then I'm sorry, I can't help you. For over twenty five years Link has always been a boy and Zelda has always been a girl. They are as well established as Mario and Peach and equally representative of their respective game series. Nintendo has never treated the characters the way you do.

"I never swear, my lord, I say yes or no; and, as I am a gentleman, I keep my word." - D'artagnan in Twenty Years After

jump

rallydefault wrote:

But to defend free will/free speech on the part of the individual (artist in this case) is to be considered close-minded.

I doubt Ninty would be forced into including a female option since they so rarely listen to their fans anyway so it wouldn't be against their flag waving freedom of speech as individuals of a large corporation

Edited on by jump

Nicolai wrote:

Alright, I gotta stop getting into arguments with jump. Someone remind me next time.

Switch Friend Code: SW-8051-9575-2812 | 3DS Friend Code: 1762-3772-0251

Haru17

rallydefault wrote:

But to defend free will/free speech on the part of the individual (artist in this case) is to be considered close-minded.

Snort of laughter. Look, guys, you can say 'art,' 'free expression,' or 'artisanal, free-range interactive experiences' as many times as you want, but that doesn't make this any less of the sales-mandated nth sequel to a millions-selling franchise made by an entertainment mega-corp that it is.

Generally there's two ways Link can go: he can be a bad character that's a vehicle for a player (as he has been) OR he (I use 'he' because English is silly) can be a more developed character, with specific traits, flaws, spoken words, etc. If we assume the former option is the case (as it always has been) then Link exists solely for the purpose of representing the player in Hyrule.

Let me be clear here; there is NO reason for Link to not have the option to be female, black, fat, transgendered, or any other type of human under the sun other than the collection of pre-existing, highly-illogical biases commonly referred to as sexism, racism, transphobia, etcetera.

You can argue specifics about resource use and the proportion of the audience who is, say, transgendered, whether that would even come up in the game and so on. But half of humanity, and a large part of the Zelda fanbase, is female. That's just a no-brainer.

Edited on by Haru17

Don't hate me because I'm bnahabulous.

rallydefault

@Kinan: Ouch. Sounds like I hit the nail right on the head. Good day, friend.

@Haru17: I'll take your "snort of laughter" with a grain of salt, coming from one who but recently called another poster a "homophobic trash monster." And to be mature about this, you are correct with a lot of what you're saying. Half of the world, roughly, is female. It's interesting that you say there is no reason for Link to not have all of these options.

Very interesting.

I have a question. It'll be tough to do one-on-one on an internet forum, but just a question if anyone wants to take me up on it. Are the "open-minded" people here calling on game developers in the year 2015 and beyond to always provide players with character options? Gay/straight, male/female, black/white, whathaveyou? In every game that is made from here on out?

Curious to see the responses. Thanks, guys.

rallydefault

CaviarMeths

rallydefault wrote:

But to defend free will/free speech on the part of the individual (artist in this case) is to be considered close-minded.

Please. It's a commercial product. It is in no way, shape, or form immune to adapting to the market.

It's also ironic to project your own desires for the product on the creator and call it "freedom of expression." You can bet every dollar you have that the moment Aonuma said "I kinda want to include a female Link," the same people who are blowing the freedom horn would be down his throat claiming "political correctness" and moaning about evil SJWs.

rallydefault wrote:

Are the "open-minded" people here calling on game developers in the year 2015 and beyond to always provide players with character options? Gay/straight, male/female, black/white, whathaveyou? In every game that is made from here on out?

Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

Edited on by CaviarMeths

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

shaneoh

rallydefault wrote:

My bottom line is: it's up to the artist. They should NEVER. And I mean NEVER, be forced to include anything in their art that they don't want to.

So much this. If people want a certain type of character or theme in their art, then they should make their own piece, not try and force other artists to shoehorn it into their art pieces. Also, not all pieces of art have to be a political statement.

Edited on by shaneoh

The Greatest love story ever, Rosie Love (part 33 done)
The collective noun for a group of lunatics is a forum. A forum of lunatics.
I'm belligerent, you were warned.

CaviarMeths

If Aonuma really wanted to make art so badly, he should probably quit using Nintendo's money to create mass market commercial products. Even Michelangelo was hired to paint a very specific product when he was commissioned for the Sistine Chapel. No artist in history has ever been given free reign to do whatever they want when they're doing it with someone else's money.

Also, not all pieces of art have to be a political statement.

And it took only 2 posts for my bet to come true.

Edited on by CaviarMeths

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

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