Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@Haru17: Please stop with the sexism accusations. It doesn't make you look smart and it bears no value whatsoever. No gender is prejudiced or discriminated when Nintendo decides the only playable character in a video game is male (or female for that matter).

I simply compared his argument to the Republican argument, which was accurately suffixed with "I'm a homophobic trash monster" because that's what people who compare being gay to beastiality are. He may very well not be a homophobic trash monster, who's to say?

And to be mature about this,

EYE-ROLLING INTENSIFIES

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.

I thought my wall o' text made this clear. Link, just like Sheppard and the Dragonborn, is a representative vehicle, not a character (or at least not a good one). As long as he (again, not necessarily 'he') remains a representative vehicle as opposed to a more defined character then there is no reason not to add customization options.

The same does not hold true for defined characters like Joel from TLoU. In that instance Joel being a white Texan man was very important to the plot in the sense that it colored the player's preconceptions of him and the plot played on those preconceptions.

However, it logically doesn't matter if other characters, whose identities don't relate to their physical traits, can change sex, race, etc depending on the save file.

PS: I think my profile pic is DELICIOUSLY apt for this discussion, do you not?

Let's keep the political jabs/statements and other off-topic items to a minimum. Very fine line folks. Anyways, love your profile pic @Haru17

I see Link as an actual character, and not a blank state for the player to project themselves onto. It has always been, for nearly 30 years, The Legend of Zelda with Link being the hero to save her and Hyrule, same with Mario saving Toadstool/Peach and The Mushroom Kingdom. If Nintendo/Anouma want to include Linkle as a playable character that would be fine, just not in a way that replaces Link or undermines his importance to the lore and story. Link is a character, Linkle is a different one, and the player can chose to play as either. That would be the best way to go about things whilst keeping the maximum number of people happy IMO.

^in that case of Linkle being a separate character in addition to the story I'd rather they just use Zelda, Impa, Tetra or Midna who to me are more intresting than Linkle* to do the same thing.

*Although currently it's hard to tell with her since she doesn't have a game out yet.

@arronishere: that would also be vey cool with me. I think we're long overdue a proper Zelda game where the titular character herself is playable in some form. Smash and Hyrule Warriros have showcased how badass she is, it's only a matter of time before that transfers to a main game instead of things like her 'role' in Twilight Princess. Midna and Impa I'm less keen on, they're not as interesting or important to me at least.

This thread has gone to the pits, I see.

Even if Link is a firmly established character and not simply a projection of the player, it still doesn't matter if he's male or female. It's literally an avatar, canonically acknowledged. It didn't matter for Aang and Korra and it doesn't for Link either.

It's so much easier to do too than making a game with Zelda as the playable character or an entirely original character. A much more realistic ask of Nintendo. "I'm against this because I want something far more expensive and resource-intensive," isn't reasonable. Maybe some day we will get that Ninja Gaiden style Impa action game. In the meantime, a gender option for Link is a good, easy, cheap initiative. The lore welcomes it.

we have already had 2 adventures with zelda as main protagonist, wand of Gamelon and zeldas adventure.

I don't see why it would be bad to include gender selection in the game. Or even better, customization. 'Purists' could have the link they have always used, and everyone else can use whatever floats their boat. It is really an addition, not replacement.

Beside the horrible CD-i games you can make the arguement that Spirit Tracks has a playable Zelda.

Seriously why has Tingle jumped ahead of characters like Zelda and got not just one but two games of his own where as other bigger players in the Zeldaverse are left with nowt?

Now that I think about, it, I wouldn't be against a gender option, but I really don't like Linkle. I would LOVE to play as Zelda in the game, she's my main in Smash and in Hyrule warriors. I'd also like to play as a new, unique female character. But Linkle... She's a new character but she's also based on Link. I think it's kind of a cop-out.

I wouldn't mind a gender option at all if they switch every character's gender. I would love to see Prince Zeldan and Ganondina if the user picks a female Link. After all, they're all reborn spirits, so they might as well switch up everyone.

Lord knows I definitely wouldn't mind a Great Fairy with vines covering their big ol' muscles

Changing the gender of every character would be too much work, or end up in generic uninteresting dialogue.

Also, we already have a male version of the Great Fairies. He's named Tingle.

He's not a great fairy, he's a grown man who wants to be a fairy. Plus, just changing Link to a girl would also result in generic dialogue. You think we'd get a SS-esque story if we could have made Link a woman? A big point of the story was the close relationship between Link and Zelda. Sure, they could do it with two girls, but we all know Nintendo would never do that and instead would opt for generic relationships that don't imply anything. At least if they genderswap everyone, the love stories could remain.

You're exaggerating.

Anyway, take a look at Tingle's original design, he's clearly (vagely) based on the OoT great faeries.

You say I'm exaggerating and then try to tell me Tingle is based on OoT great fairies. lmao

The only thing they have in common is that they're both contenders for the most ugliest character in the Zelda franchise.

Well, let's just describe a character.

A curvy figure, body covered in green with red details, with feminine but still really strong facial features, apparently wears make up, hovers above ground and above their head is a prominent red element of their design. Has a unique laugh and sound effects, likes to use "magic" to help the hero and is often described as weird.

Who am I talking about?

1) Avatar, heh.
2) It actually makes more sense for Link as opposed to Aang and Korra. Those two had to be their respective races as descendants of the Air and Water Tribes (who each had a specific race).

It's so much easier to do too than making a game with Zelda as the playable character or an entirely original character. A much more realistic ask of Nintendo. "I'm against this because I want something far more expensive and resource-intensive," isn't reasonable. Maybe some day we will get that Ninja Gaiden style Impa action game. In the meantime, a gender option for Link is a good, easy, cheap initiative. The lore welcomes it.

If there's anything to be concerned about it would be the beautiful hair and green cap animation we've gotten since Wind Waker. However, I get the feeling that that could be easily remedied even with slightly longer hair (if we assume FemLink has longer hair [no I am not going to use 'Linkle' because 'FemLink' has been around for longer and is less AWK]).

@Kinan: Ugh. Right back at you, man. Let's just move on. But thanks for the [hypocritical] personal insults.

@SpookyMeths: You do make some good points. It is ironic to express desires and profess "freedom of expression," but honestly, man, I don't know how to type it in a way that would seem to suit you. Because I'm not expressing my desire they do something, but a desire that they do something THEY want to do. I don't know. I'm sure that won't be good enough for you, but there you have it.

But your biggest flaw is that you won't address my actual warrant: video games, no matter who or what they are created for, are art. And the people who dream them up and make them are artists. It doesn't matter if it's Aonuma sitting in a one-bedroom walk-up making a pastel out of Cheetos for himself or if he is making the next Zelda game for millions of people: it doesn't take away that it is still art and he is still an artist. Nobody in this forum can say how much or how little control he and his team have over the direction of the series, but from the information we are given, indications point toward "a lot." We do hear horror stories of CEOs strong arming developers into certain situations, but so far for Zelda, we don't have much fodder for that direction.

"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." And this sounds spectacular, but I highly doubt it is true. It would be interesting to do some research into that. I'm sure we could find a couple examples to prove you wrong.