#dont get me wrong i like it & i hope nintendo doesnt change it but like | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

malo-mart · 5 years

Note

I saw some of your tags in a previous post, did you not like BotW? (not trying to stir shit, genuinely curious because I didn't love it myself)

so i’ve gotten a couple asks today like this one so I think it’s finally time to make a post about why i didnt love botw :~) this is like 2 years worth of internal critique that ive held in because i know its a really really popular game and arguably the most mainstream zelda game ever (possibly after oot) but i managed to write just my top 3 dislikes!!! woo!!!!

anyway so i just want to disclaim that botw is an amazing and incredible open world game with fantastic graphics and designs and just all round gorgeous! but it doesnt really hit the standard of a Zelda game to me....so here we go

music: forgettable ost so we’ve all played Zelda games before and we’re all familiar with the music of the franchise. We all know the classics, like the overworld theme, and song of storms, dragon roost island, midnas lament etc. These are really, really iconic songs which we all know and love....So i want to ask how many memorable songs did we get from botw? i loved the trailer music, you know the song that plays when you unlock towers, but the best use of that song was seriously only done in the trailer. I know a big argument a lot of people use to defend the music in botw is “you’re supposed to feel empty and alone” but I don’t want to feel like im alone! I want to feel like i’m on an adventure to save Hyrule. just want to reiterate that botw outside of the zelda franchise is AMAZING but as a zelda game im not impressed. so for the music, in comparison to 30+ years of incredible soundtracks, botw didn’t leave a mark (for me) ((these are just personal opinions)) (((so keep hate to a minimum thabk u))) also i want to add that i shouldn’t like watching the trailer more than i actually like playing the game......you gotta admit the trailer was awesome

plot: weak plot, boring, no flavour lol plot.....what plot....lol....surely we can all agree that botw had a weak ass plot. i understand that nintendo was trying to break zelda conventions by allowing you to do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted but what i dont understand is why that had to come at the cost of a good story....the fact that you could do a playthrough of botw without having to collect the memories really made the characters and the arc feel so insignificant when it could have been a really great story. one of my favourite zelda games is albw because i loved how they gave you the choice of where to go and what to do through Ravio! and then the plot right at the end....blew my tiny mind. i loved it! albw broke zelda conventions while also delivering an iconic story line. Finishing botw was not satisfying for me. The characters felt incomplete and there were entire plot points that were completely insignificant, like the Koroks. Even the Guardians were made to feel completely obsolete by the end of the game. They were never given a finishing story line. My girlfriend was telling me how botw would have had a greater impact if the final boss fight had involved the guardians, as in they returned to your side and helped you finish ganon or something like that, but instead they were just forgotten about. i feel like a lot of botw was just forgotten about...........but yeah. it was a weak plot, especially in comparison to other zelda games. i really feel like a good story is a key element to a good zelda game

shrines: too easy, too short, underwhelming ahhhh. shrines. 120 shrines, and all you get at the end are some clothes. i have a LOT to say about the shrines. they tried hard to switch it up here, replacing dungeons with shrines & divine beasts. i was really excited about this change at first but i felt they really under-delivered. Here are the zelda conventions they got rid of with the divine beasts: boss keys, dungeon specific items (bow, hookshot, boomerang etc), maps (kind of), compasses, mini boss. cool cool cool cool cool thats fine. i feel like they couldnt include any of these because the divine beasts were soooo short. i feel like i completed them in like 20 minutes. i’d say that they were underwhelming! it really made me miss getting stuck in the bloody forest temple in oot shooting an arrow at the walls trying to get the hallways to untwist for like 7 hours u know? as for the shrines, they were boring too lol. the music was all the same, there was barely any variety in the elements or challenges and they were pretty simple to complete. i thought they were booooorrriiiing. i think definitely my key word for this section is underwhelming. the only reason i would get excited about finding a shrine is because it actually gave me something to do instead of just frolicking around and foraging for like 15 hours straight

but yeah anyway i did like botw but its not in my top 5 loz games barely even in my top 10 like maybe its tenth. and reiterating these are my personal opinions if u relate im starting a club we will have shirts that say ‘botw was okay’. if u thought this was completely wrong then i feel for ya i dont blame u for loving botw. its great! i have high hopes for the sequel!!! also if anyone read this far im surprised but i love u

#personal #botw #i tried putting a read more in idk if it worked???????#just edited to try and make it work

138 notes · View notes

firstpuffin · 5 years

Text

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake

-Note: It’s kind of embarrassing to admit but my comments around the visuals of A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening are straight-up incorrect. The two games did not share the same visual style and I honestly don’t know why I said that; I most definitely knew better. Still, I’m not going to get rid of it because the internet needs more examples of people admitting to be being wrong.

I say a lot that I want to be positive, but it’s really gonna be hard with this one. See, at the latest Nintendo Direct it was announced that they would be releasing a remake of the 26 year old game, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. As it happens I was already considering writing something about this game in a “Games from my Childhood” article, but that would actually have been positive! This one is… well, I’m going to at least try and balance every negative with a positive.

-at least the title screen looks good-

So where to begin: I won’t cover the story because spoilers but how about some personal background? The game came out a year before I did (ha! bad jokes) and I have no idea when I got my grubby little paws on it, but it was a part of my life genuinely for as long as I can remember, along with the Pokémon games. I never completed it as a child, but my memories of it were so good that I returned to it as an adult and completed it, learning its sad secret.

-hey! according to this it released the same year I did; me getting my years mixed up I guess-

Link’s Awakening (LA) was originally a pet project made outside of work hours which is why it borrows resources from other games such as the Mario series, but it was eventually released to critical acclaim. The gameplay is much the same as its immediate predecessor A Link to the Past (LttP), but with a number of new items and a unique soundtrack. Visually it is much the same as well, although its original release was black and white for the GameBoy with Link’s Awakening DX adding colour for the GameBoy Colour.

So let’s start with the visuals as that is most of what we have right now: the original shared its visuals with LttP what with them using the same assets (tools, resources etc) and LttP had a sequel recently that looked really nice. But the upcoming LA remake looks nothing like it; I wouldn’t expect it to but when a defence of the artistic choice is that “it’s an update of the original graphics” (so why not use the assets from the LttP remake?) or that it somehow “reflects the atmosphere of the original” except there’s no reason for it to be any different to, again, the LttP remake. And in response to the “atmosphere”, LA was one of the darker yet in some ways more whimsical games; this new style is childish to the extreme.

Don’t get me wrong, I love something that is good and childish, but there is a level when it stops being great and starts to feel like they condescend to the player. Bright colours, simple faces, high pitched noises- Oh god the noises!! I’ll expand on the sounds later but I’m still on the visuals. I’ve heard the game described as looking like Claymation, which isn’t wrong, but my immediate thought was that it looked like cheap plastic. And after watching it again and again as I discussed it with a friend, this opinion stuck.

-tell me this doesn’t look like claymation; this isn’t a game, it’s an animated short film-

You know how shiny and tacky cheap plastic usually looks? Imagine an entire game like that; an entire world like that. Fans of anime may understand what I say next, but there is a large element of “chibi” in this new game. Large head, tiny body. It’s often seen in short 4 minute spin offs of popular series.

-as you can see, chibi is hardly meant to be taken seriously-

-just to hammer things home-

So shiny plastic, silly chibi art with a soulless expression. Oh yeah, that. Link’s eyes have zero soul behind them. Zero. He’s a freakin’ monster. Have you seen those Funko Pops? You know how empty they look? Some have said it somehow reflects the original game’s art again, but back then they didn’t have the technology to make him look soulless and young me always thought he looked determined; it was really cool.

-determined; dead inside-

Okay, so I said I would try and be fair, and I have shat upon the plasticine toy-box long enough, so here’s what is good visually. The areas are actually really nice.

Ignoring the nail varnish sheen on everything, things are really detailed. There is an unfortunate trend in games, likely due to technical limitations, to have flat textures. Basically, imagine the difference between a tile or wood panel floor, and a picture of a tile or wood panel floor. But this game looks to have really tried in these areas. The grass looks thick and lush, tiles look like more than a photograph on the floor and even the flat flowers on the ground look decent. Just a shame it all looks like LEGO. Actually, a LEGO Zelda game would be awesome. But this is not that.

I haven’t explained that very well, it’s an area that I am new at but I will say that clearly a lot of care has gone into the assets and the world. It is not a lazy game in any way.

-don’t tell me those trees and rocks and- well, everything, don’t look like LEGO-

Next I’m going to talk about the sound. First of all, I’m convinced that they have artificially increased the pitch of Link’s voice so it is painfully sharp to the ears. I’ll admit, I have an unusual sensitivity to lights and sound and thus I prefer darker colours and quieter sounds; I avoid clubs like the plague and not just because I’ll likely catch it there. So maybe, just maybe, I’m noticing something that won’t be a problem for most, and is just unfortunate for me. And let’s ignore that it doesn’t match the darker tone of the game.

And the music? Also quite high pitched. And super cheery. It doesn’t have either the dreamlike or dark tones that could be expected (and just thinking of how it could be dreamlike gives me shivers; it could be so good) but is instead inanely cheery. In fact, I hope they sped everything up for the trailer and the pitch is just an unfortunate side-effect.

On the plus side, the trailer opens with a cool cinematic and I swear the music changes from a nice, cheerful rendition (I don’t dislike cheerful in-and-of-itself) of the Zelda main theme to the death squeals of various instruments that I mentioned before. On top of that, it ends on a really nice vocal version of the LA theme, Ballad of the Wind Fish. If the trailer had been the cinematic and that closing song alone then I would be beyond excited about the remake. Thank heaven it wasn’t, I’m not sure my love of the series could survive such a plummeting disappointment.

youtube

-and here’s the actual trailer for your perusal-

So I’ll finish here. I was originally very pleased, excited even that they had decided to remake what was a favourite, underrated and apparently forgotten game, but I kept my expectations low because I knew what to expect from these companies. I thought I did anyway. I was still disappointed. I thought I had prepared for the worst. Still, at least it gave me something to write about.

But, the game has clearly had a lot of work put into it and gameplay-wise it actually looks to flow really well so I’m sure it controls like a treat. But the visuals and music are too big of a deal for me to let slide; if it keeps up like this then it could literally be painful for me to play. Still, games do change a lot from the initial trailer to its release and I even put forth an idea of why the sound may hurt me so much here. Maybe the final game will be a lot better. Unfortunately, the things I want to be done in games and such rarely are, and I am often alone in my complaints.

And finally, yes I am aware that the famous and incredibly popular Wind Waker entry in the series also had similar complaints and became, as I said, incredibly popular. I wasn’t a part of that crowd, I was too young and honestly, Link’s Awakening was the only Zelda game I had actually played at that time.

#first puffin #opinion #video games #nintendo #legend of zelda #links awakening #links awakening dx #links awakening remake #remake #thosetagswilldofornow

2 notes · View notes

kaialone · 7 years

Text

I’m gonna ramble about Ganon(dorf) for a bit

Proceed if you’re interested (I wrote a lot)

Okay so I don’t even know how to start this, I’ll just go.

(note that I’ll mention the timeline in this, please dont think that I dont know that the timeline could be changed at any moment should nintendo feel ike it, I just like semi-going by currently established canon. Also please note that I got no problem with people who dont feel like following the timeline for any reason, to each their own.)

I kinda really like the fact that Ganondorf is said to be a reincarnation of Demise, because, idk, somehow the idea of powerful demons needing to reincarnate into human form for some reason, and then once they have this form and live that life they start having human feelings and emotions and start struggling with what they want to be and maybe end up becoming good guys, is just somethign I really enjoy.

(If that sounds weirdly specific, Great Demon King Piccolo from Dragonball is one character with that kinda arc that I love.)

And then of course, one of the most interesting things about Ganondorf, imo, is how in the three different timeline branches, you got one incarnation of Ganondorf who turns out very different in each branch.

Something I always like is to just kinda, look at the different “last words” Ganondorf has in each timeline branch, and what they really mean for each of them:

"The wind... it is... blowing."

“I am the Evil King, Ganon...”

“The history of light and shadow will be written in blood!”

(though this gets a bit muddled in the Downfall Timeline, as technically Ganon died in ALttP, but was revived in OoX,´, which I see as his true death for now, but then again we dunno if any Ganons after that where him revived or reborn so *shrug*)

But first we should talk about the guy that “grows up” to be these other three.

I mean, personally I think no matter how you look at it, OoT!Ganondorf did lots of bad stuff, and wasnt a good ruler to the Gerudo (I dont mind different interpretations at all though), but I do think his initial intentions were good like we hear him talk about in WW, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

OoT!Ganondorf doesn’t really end up helping the Gerudo once he actually takes over Hyrule (all the Gerudo are still over in the desert, cept for maybe Iron Knuckles) and its heavily implied all the Gerudo were brainwashed to some extent (The carpenters note that the Gerudo seem nicer, post-Twinrova’s defeat), and Nabooru, who was very respected among the Gerudo, was explicitly against Ganondorf, but then brainwashed into submission.

Like even if you think Twinrova did all that without him knowing, not noticing your parents brainwashing your people doesnt exactly make you a good leader.

Adding to that, if A Link to the Past’s backstory is to be believed (and the timeline is not said to split until Link falls in the final battle) then, Ganondorf entered the hiding place of the Triforce alongside fellow thieves of his, and ended up killing them all so he could have the Triforce for himself.

Buuut before you think I’m just gonna talk about how bad OoT!Ganondorf is, like, I still think he genuinely wanted to help his people (at first) and that everything WW!Ganondorf says does represent his true feelings, and that at some point, he just really wanted to do something good.

I think its interesting to think about why that presumably changed for a while, wether you think its the usual getting mad with power, getting to close to the “dark side” or whatever with all the dark magic going on, or being groomed into this role by Twinrova, or all of that, or something else entirely.

I mean, he definitely did some bad stuff before that too, but in the context of Ganondorf being a reincarnation of Demise, I wonder if it could be possible that either seeing Link and/or Zelda or laying eyes on the Triforce ended up having some effect on him, like awakening some part of Demise within him so to speak, contributing to him losing sight of his initial goals and getting more about power in general.

Notably post timeskip Ganondorf seems to use a lot more monsters/dmemons to do his bidding than before, but this could easily just be the difficulty spike for the player.

Idk if this sounds cheap to people somehow, but I remember a popular theory being that the Triforce of Power turned him evil so, its not that different imo.

Of course, in the final battle we see OoT!Ganondorf become Ganon, presumably for the very first time, but honestly? The transformation itself isn’t that important to me, as it just feels like a visual representation of the downfall Ganondorf had undergone already anyway.

And then, when he is defeated, he infamously curses Link, and ZELDA, and THE SAGES, vowing to kill their descendants once he breaks free from the seal and all...

...which leads into who is everyone’s favorite Ganondorf, and rightfully so, WW!Ganondorf.

Before going into the present day of WW, there is its backstory, which is very interesting to me, cause you just gotta think, how do we go from a guy like OoT!Ganon to WW!Ganon?

At some point after OoT but before WW, Ganondorf’s threat became reality, he broke out of the seal and tried taking over Hyrule once more.

But I cant help but wonder how it mustve felt for him. I picture him for years, decades, centuries maybe, sealed away, picturing his revenge, imagining how great it’ll feel to get free and eradicate the descendants of Link and Zelda, and finally making Hyrule his.

But when he was freed, he likely found a Hyrule that was different from how he remembered it. Notably, there would be no hero, nor descendants of his for him to exact revenge upon. And while we know that a princess seems to have had existed at the time, who knows if she was “a Zelda”, if you wanna call them that.

I just imagine it wouldve felt a lot less satisfying that he imagined, heck, probably wouldve felt more like he was robbed if his chance to take revenge.

And who knows what even happened to the Gerudo by that point? I know lack of them in Wind Waker doesnt mean they are extinct, but for all we know they couldve left hyrule altogether? (Like they seem to have done between OoT and TP, and mightve done post OoT in the Downfall timeline, if you dont think they went extinct)

Overall I could see what Ganondorf mightve pictured/wanted to be his most glorious moment, his long awaited return, mightve just ended up feeling kinda empty.

Not that I think he wouldve done a complete 180 already because of that, but I could see it leaving him in a bit of a shock.

Adding to that, now just as he is about to conquer Hyrule for real, the gods decide to destroy it, essentially. Or at least, thats how Ganondorf felt about the situation, given how he speaks of it in the game. Its like the gods are playing with him, everytime Hyrule is just within his graps, they take it from him.

The flood mustve felt especially terrible for him, cause the way he saw it, it mustve been something like the goddesses saying “we’d rather just end hyrule and kill all its people than have you be its ruler”. What a slap in the face, to put it lightly.

After that, getting sealed away again, and all the stuff I mentioned above, probably gave him time and opportunity to reflect upon his life so far, and the future too.

I dont think that in WW, Ganondorf was just “going through the motions”, and just trying to finish what he started because he had no choice at this point. I do think he still genuinely wanted to try and conquer Hyrule, its just that he has had some time to think about it, a bit more about why he wanted it, and about what he did wrong before, and regretting those mistakes.

Like for example, he really doesnt seem like he wants to harm Link and Zelda anymore, if he can help it. He could be hating them, still furious for what happened during OoT, but he doesnt seem to be.

One of these days I wanna talk about all the contrasts and parallels WW seems to draw to Zelda games that came before it, especially OoT, but for this bit I just wanna mention this one thing.

How in OoT you confront Ganondorf, who smugly plays his leitmotif on the organ, the sound of which growing louder the further you approach his chamber. His back pointed at the entrance which he knows the hero will emerge from. Zelda, encase in a crytal, hangs above him like a trophy, like the hero bait she is to him at this point.

And then in WW, his leitmotif plays in his final dungeon, but actually grow more quiet the closer you get to him. That already makes you feel like, while it invokes OoTs atmoosphere, it actually turns it on its head. And then, when you do cofront him, “Zelda” is instead peacefully sleeping in a bed, (presumably Ganondorfs bed?) with him calmly sitting by her side, watching over her. He doesn’t face Link directly as he enters, but isnt completely turned away from his either.

Of course this scene still has some creepy atmosphere to it, especially when he starts reading her mind, but maaaan, the contrast to OoT (and games that came before it) just GETS ME everytime I just think about it.

Ahhh, I could go on and on like, you all know this stuff, you all thought about him in this game so much, didnt you?

I really hope nintendo will choose to give another Ganondorf this kinda depth, and maybe even just play with the idea of Ganondorf taking on a different role than “final boss” in a Zelda title. I would love that.

Now, let’s turn the clock wayyy back to when Ganon fought Link, and talk about the timeline that occurs when Link is actually killed by him.

To me, this is kinda of the “original” timeline, for various reasons, but I don’t wanna distract from our main man here too long.

In this version of the events, Ganon manages to actually aquire the full Triforce in the final battle of OoT, and causes quite a bit of misery before the Sages finally manage to seal him away in this version, too. But because he is so powerful with the Triforce and all that, it ends up costing a lot more lives to finally get to that point.

Now from that point on, this Ganon seems to just kinda rule the Dark World, a twisted “evil” version of Hyrule of his own creation. And of course most notably, either because of this worlds properties, or his general state of being, this Ganon seemingly always stays in beast form from that point on.

Sadly this one doesnt talk too much (though he is very much capable of doing so), so we dont get much of a grasp on his character.

To me, ALttP!Ganon feels like somewhere in the middle when it comes to Ganons. Despite his bestial appearance, he doesnt seem as blind with power and rage as TP!Ganondorf, maybe cause he doesnt call himself a god or something. But he of course is nowhere near WW!Ganondorf in terms of reasons and having reflecting upon his past.

Either way, it is clear that he is not happy with just ruling his very own personal Hyrule, filled with damned people that have become monsters like him, as in ALttP he does attempt to break his seal and go back to the World of Light

This might just be out of greed, but you could also imagine he might simply be unhappy in this demonic world, or even scared? Given how we see that some inhabitants of this land lose their humanity to such an extent that they’re turning into things like trees, maybe even completely losing their sense of self?

One of the more curious things about ALttP!Ganon is his relationship to Agahnim. No one is entirely sure what they are to one another.

In some of the mangas, Agahnim is portrayed as a human who gets possessed or turned by Ganon in some shape or form, and this portrayal is popular from what I’ve seen.

But in the actual game, Agahnim is described as being Ganon’s alter-ego. The term used in the japanese version is “bunshin”, which can mean a lot of things, including alter-ego or even reincarnation, but in the context of the Zelda franchise, there is another part in the series where it is used. In Phantom Hourglass, Oshus is described as being the “bunshin” of the Ocean King. So, if we assume Agahnim works the same way, his consiusness would have to be exactly Ganon’s, right? Of course that doesn’t mean other interpretations can’t exist, I myself am not even sure what to think.

The usage of the word bunshin does imply that to some extent, Agahnim literally was a part, or offshot of Ganon. So froma certain point of view, we could add his character to Ganons, if we wanted to.

Something that intrigues me though is that in the Downfall Timeline, we never see Ganon in human form again. Could this be related to Agahnim? Maybe not exactly literally but symbolIcally?

Did Ganon split the humanity he had left off of himself, because that was the only part of him that could exit the Dark World before the seal was lifted?

If so, did Agahnim dying have any effect on him? Or did whatever Agahnim was in the end just return to him?

So much to think about here, ahh.

Of cours, ALttP!Ganon then gets killed by Link in their battle. Not sealed away, just flat out killed.

Normally this would probably be the end, but of course OoX happened, in which Twinrova tried to revive him, but didnt quite succeed.

Ganon is revived as a seemingly mindless beast, only actualy talking in his final moments, which is the quote from earlier.

In the japanese version, this quote is written entirely in katakana, which can indicate that its pronounced weirdly somehow, in cases like this likely because he had a hard time forming the words at all.

He also refers to himself as a Demon King in japanese, but that term hadn’t caught on in the english versions of the games yet.

Okay so, as I kinda mentioned above, this Ganon’s story gets a bit muddled from this point on.

Sometime after ALttP, but before ALbW, ALbW’s backstory (which is not ALttP) occurs, during which a hero fights a Ganon, who is then sealed away by him, the princess and the sages, but we dont know if this Ganon is the same, just revived again, or an entirely new incarnation.

But you could argue that it hardly matters, cause he barely does anything in the game, essentially acting as a power boost for Yuga...

However, there is a theory that he might do more than that actually.

So, according to this theory, Yuga actually was completely loyal to Hilda, and its only by fusing with Ganon that he starts wanting to betray, due to Ganons influence. The theory is nice in the sense that it makes Yuga more of an opposite of Ganon than he seems if you take the game at face value, and gives Ganon more to do. Depending on your interpretation, Yuga might just be influenced by Ganon, or they literally fuse into a being that is just as much Ganon as it is Yuga.

But of course that is just a minor theory, and you dont have to like it, naturally.

After that we get HF and AoL!Ganon, who is said to be more of a mindless beast as this point, no trace left of the human he used to be.

A rather sad fate.

Again it is unclear if this is the same Ganon, revived yet again, or maybe (anotehr) reincarnation.

But if its the former, you can only assume that, even if you dont think Agahnim dying had any effect on Ganon, just forcing him to ressurect over and over instead of letting him reincarnate properly, must’ve done quite the number on Ganon.

Somehow thinking about this version of Ganon in particular makes me think about the cursed boars in Princess Mononoke, who where lost to their anger. Especially the moment when the Wolf faces the Old Boar, who we have seen slowly lose his self at this point, and she almost pitifully says “Can’t you even speak anymore?” to him.

It almost feels like Downfall Timeline!Ganon is cursed by fate, in a sense. Not really in-universe either, but out of universe too!

History is already written (the first two games are already out) and thus Ganon has to follow the path that is already set for him, become what he will be in the future (what he is in the first two games), a frightening monster that terrorizes this kingdom of Hyrule for the sake of power, with no humanity in him (him having been human wasnt part of his character at the time the first two games where released)

I wonder if the demons failing to get Links blood in 2 will mark the end of this Ganon? (I hope not)

It was kinda nice to see BotW seemingly do somewhat of a modern take on this kinda idea of Ganon, something that has become little more than destruction of Hyrule in pyhsical form. I could see people place BotW as post- AoL for that reason, even.

And well, rolling back time yet again, we go to the last way OoT!Ganondorf turned out, which is TP!Ganondorf...

....who, compared to the others, actually has a bit more of a complicated “set-up” that kickstarts his character.

When Link gets send back in time at the end of OoT, his Tiforce of Courage breaks apart into the pieces we find in WW, presumably because Link was literally removed from that reality as he possessed it?

Then upon his arrival in the new Child Timeline, Link immediately gets the Triforce of Courage of THAT timeline, presumably cause he is in a state of being where he is meant to have a Triforce Piece of Courage?

Well, regardless of what you believe to be the cause, this is what happens, and as a result, the other two Triforce pieces choose Zelda and Ganondorf to bear them and end up residing in them. Thats how the pieces ended up with the three without the Sacred Realm being entered in this version of the events.

Link ends up warning Zelda and the king of the events that will transpire in the future, and thus Ganondorf loses the trust of the king and is unable to set his plan from OoT into motion.

Its a bit vague, but sometime after that Ganondorf starts a direct attack towards Hyrule, but gets captured and put on trial.

And as you know, as he was about to be executed, the Triforce of Power activated and saved him from death.

Now I am not sure if this is true, but I think up until that point, Ganondorf didn’t even know he had it.

But wether he discovered he had it now, or the moment it fist came to him, one thing I am sure of, he mustve felt so great for it. Cause he has no idea that a time travelling Link caused this to happen, right? From his perspective, the power of the gods just came to him like that because he is that great! And then, he cant even die as a result of this? He is literally immortal? Well, he must be the dang chosen one, right?

No wonder he got all god complex in this one!

Something I´m kinda interested in is how this guy spend years, likely centuries, in the Twillight Realm, and if his form in there is any indication, not exactly in physical form either, I mean isnt it implied he HAD to mae use of Zant like that in order to be able to have a physical form like that?

Ultimately TP!Ganondorf just is a lot like OoT!Ganondorf if you think about it, just kinda taken to a more extreme. He is no longer just human, but has transcended humanity much further than OoT!Ganondorf has, and feels superior to everyone because of it.

He is absolute in his own eyes, he is a god, his eventual victory is certain, his battle with the hero just a formality at this point.

And he sticks to that mindset until the very end, even as he is stabbed and fatally wounded by Link. It only makes sense, he couldnt be stopped by this before, why would it stop him now?

Of course the events that follow are rather vague, and people argue about what it means to this day, but I think it ultimately boils down to Ganondorf biting of more than he can chew, overestimating his own power. Or rather, what he thinks is his own power, cause its not even his.

From the moment he was impaled by the sword of the sage, Ganondorf has been a dead man.

He has only been kept alive afterwards through the power of others, the gods, and Zant as well.

This power was not his, and thus it could just leave him just as quick as it came to him.

The imagine of Zant snapping his neck, to me, either just refers to the fact that with Zant dead, who acted as Ganondorf anchor of sorts, Ganondorf himself dies as well, or it refers to the fact that Ganondorf, who saw himself as a god and superior to everything, was ultimately just as much of a mortal and simple being than the very person who worshipped him as a deity the most.

Yes, you could call Zant the very person that made Ganondorf a god in the first place, in more ways than one, so without him, Ganondorf is a god no more. And he dies just like any mortal would.

Ultimately this Ganondorf story feels like a story of hubris.

Simple, but neat.

(Its interesting like, its almost like, TP!Ganondorf was a human who longed to be a god, and WW!Ganondorf was like a god who longed to be human?)

But, do not think it ends here...

We’ve looked at all the people that OoT!Ganondorf grew up to be, but that isn’t all the Ganons there is, the story of Ganon actually continues further down the Child Timeline.

Yes, this brings us to FSA!Ganon, or as I sometimes like to call him, Ganon II.

I understand that most probably never played this game, and I probably won’t blow your minds if I tell you Ganon doesn’t actually do much in this game but, I still like to think about him.

He’s actually a proper reincarnation of TP!Ganondorf, folowing the latter’s death at the end of TP.

From some dialouge in-game we know a little bit about his past. Like his past life, he was a boy born to the Gerudo people, and was named Ganondorf.

Interestingly, in this game, the Gerdudo dont actually say that every 100 years a male child is born, they that every 100 years a “special” child is born, and of course Ganondorf was that special child. They still mention the “only man” part, but it doesnt come up with the “every 100 years” line.

Notably it also doesnt seem that Ganondorf was supposed to be their king, and it doesnt seem like they ever treated him like a king, they only mention he was supposed to be the protector of the Gerudo people and the desert.

This is just speculation, but perhaps, after what happened to the first Ganondorf, the Gerudo people decided it wasnt a good idea to treat the sole male like a king just because.

The Gerudo in the game tell you that the older Ganndorf became, the more twisted and obsessed with power he became, and eventually he started breaking their laws, too.

When he entered the forbidden pyramid, the Gerudo basically considered him banished from their tribe, but also didnt think he would ever survive in there and presumed him to be dead.

The Gerudo in this game really only talk badly about Ganondorf, which probably makes sense if he really just did bad stuff to them, but its a very stark contrast to OoT where the Gerudo seemed to just let Ganondorf get away with everything, kinda.

Something I wonder about if maybe like, Ganondorf wasn’t exactly treated well by the Gerudo, out of fear of him turning out like the old Ganondorf, or if Ganondorf just turned bad all on his own. Or maybe a mixture of both?

What is sorta interesting is the story of how this one came to be Ganon, which is that within the pyramid, he found a certain Trident, which is implied to have caused him to “awake as Ganon”, so to speak, as he picked it up. This is the inscription found with the Trident:

“Seek...you...the world? Seek you...power? Does your...soul...despise peace and...thirst for... more? Does your soul...cry... for...destruction and... conquest? We...grant you...power to ...ruin...the world. The power of...darkness. Evil...spirit of magic trident. You are...the... King of Darkness.“

The trident feels like it has more out of universe meaning than in-universe (though I do headcanon it to be a reincarnated ghirahim somehow, because I can). The trident being a weapon that franchise-wise is heavily associated with Ganon, and notably Ganon only, as Ganondorf is never really seen wielding a literal trident.

This Ganondorf picks up the trident, and with it the legacy of the interpretations of Ganons that came in the games before this one, so to speak.

I´m sorry for this part being so unstructured, but interestingly, Ganondorf is this game is referred to as “ancient demon reborn”, or something like “instrument of evil reborn” in japanese, hinting that even at the time of the game’s release, this Ganon was probably intended to be the reincarnation of a previous evil, likely a previous Ganon, of course.

What I wonder about is how much this Ganon is aware of that, though. When he grew up, becoming more and more twisted, did he know? Did he know he was the reincarnation of a villain that had previously plagued Hyrule? Did he feel his hatred? Did he know whose it was, or did he consider it his own? Or was it simply his own?

And when he picked up the trident, and transformed into a demon beast, did he understand what this meant? What he was? Did he ever obtain any memories of his past self, even?

Something that hints that this /might/ be the case is Shadow Link.

Now Shadow Link is not actually created by the dark mirror from the evil part of Link’s heart as the english localization suggest. Instead its created from the evil part of Ganon’s heart, using the dark mirror. It is said that through the mirror,the hatred and evil of Ganondorf, throughout time, took on the shape of Link. Likely because the hero is a major subject of Ganondorf’s hatred.

The fact that this happened when FSA!Ganon used the mirror, despite himself never having met Link up until that point, hints that he might, at least subconsiously, harbor the memories of his past incarnations?

But really, as usual there is a lot open to interpretation.

I´m just so intrigued, like in this timeline there is a “second Ganon”, a Ganon that came “after”, someone who had to take on this cruel legacy.

And, with that we have now talked about all the Ganon(dorf)s that have existed in the franchise to this day, not counting stuff like BS Zelda and the CDI-Games.

If you stuck around until this point, thank you so much, you’re too kind!

But also thanks to everyone that just skimmed this or looked it over briefly, I hope this wall of text did something for you.

(Sorry for any typos I... type too fast when I get excited about a topic.)

#legend of zelda #ganon #ganondorf

11 notes · View notes