#i like the twilight princess style tunic a LOT

[blueskittlesart]

okay so feel free to delete this message for asking you about TP crimes. but I'm curious if you have any purely aesthetic thoughts about the Link + Zelda designs, as well as the Zora designs, in TP? like how do you feel about the designs on their own, even apart from your distaste for the general atmosphere + story. again feel free to ignore this for TP crimes and no harm done!

yeah ok. disclaimer for those who don't know. i don't like twilight princess and i think the art direction was almost as bad as the story. do not argue with me about this. let's get into it. link first

from a purely character-design standpoint I don't think this design is bad, but I don't think it's all that special either. it's very evocative of oot link, which I'm SURE was intentional based off everything else in the game. it does a decent job of complicating the outfit to the standards of tp's setting without going too overboard in terms of little details. the long hat looks stupid but i understand what they were going for. my biggest critique of the design itself is the desaturated color scheme, which I understand was present in the game at large but. I don't like it. I honestly do think that taking away the vibrance and colorfulness of loz takes a lot of the fun out of it. these games were originally for the NES. we're working off of 8-color pixel graphics. link's tunic should be eye-searingly green no matter how dark and brooding you want his story to be, because without that brightness and vibrance the games cease to feel like loz imo.

anyway. the real PROBLEM with this design, and with most of the art direction in tp, lies in how it was actually handled in-game. twilight princess was a game for the wii & gamecube, released in 2006. while advancements in graphics were GETTING THERE, the models were still relatively low-poly. The franchise had already seen a lot of success working with low-poly models in oot and ww, specifically because they leaned into the limitations of low-poly graphics and went for a more cartoonish, unrendered art style which made the blocky models seem purposefully stylized instead of limiting. twilight princess, however, did a complete 180 with the art direction and decided to attempt to HIDE the low-poly graphics behind over-rendered textures. this combined with the desaturated color palette of the character designs makes everything look very flat and lifeless.

in every close shot of link throughout this game i was constantly distracted by how awful the textures made the model look. the rendered folds of his tunic being slapped onto a flat surface, the rendering in his hair being an obvious coverup for the fact that it's one mass on the model with no physics, etc etc. the textures seldom rendered perfectly smoothly on the wii either, so the painted rendering would be strangely pixelated or blurry compared to the model's sharp edges. the game's lighting also seems to operate entirely in harsh black gradients, making the color and rendering choices on the model all the more obvious. Again, I understand that these are limitations of the medium the devs were working with, but i think that art direction that takes the medium into account and works WITH it instead of AGAINST it is almost always more successful than attempts to cover your ass after the fact, and i think that twilight princess could have been a more visually pleasing game if the art direction hadn't been so focused on covering the flatness of the models with hyper realistic textures.

onto zelda. again, we have a theme here of taking the oot design and overcomplicating it. i think the color choices are better here than they are with link, but i would have liked a brighter pink on her bodice. I also think that the dress's neckline was... pretty obviously a sexualization attempt. there's a reason men love this zelda. imo if they were going to keep oot zelda's shoulder armor they should also have kept the breastplate-ish piece in the middle and the high neckline from that dress. you cant say ooh look shes a swordfighter see she has armor!! and then leave her fucking jugular exposed. no wonder she got possessed by ganon immediately. other than my general complaints with the over-rendering i don't have much else to say about her tho. shes fine

the zora tho... this is where i start to get pissed off. HOW ARE YOU GONNA DESIGN A SPECIES OF FISH PEOPLE BASED ON TROPICAL FUCKING FISH AND THEN REFUSE TO PUT A SINGLE SATURATED COLOR INTO ANY OF THEIR DESIGNS. the way these designs could all be improved by about a hundred percent if you just TURNED UP THE GODDAMN SATURATION. GIVE ME A REAL RED. IM BEGGING. UGGHHHHHHHHHH. i also think the ugly rendering REALLY shows through on these guys because they don't have a lot of detail on them to cover it all up. someone needs to explain to these designers that you don't shade with black. like. god. the designs truly are not bad in terms of like creature design i dont think but they are so DESPERATELY in need of color that it's fucking distracting. color is not your enemy guys please

#tp critical #twilight princess art direction my detested. bane of my fucking existence #COLOR IS NOT EVILLLL YOU CAN PUT SATURATED COLORS IN YOUR DESIGNS ITS OK. ITS NOT GOIGN TO BITE YOU #asks

[skyloftsword]

Ranking Zelda stories because I am bored

Happy Easter and Trans Visibility Day! I'm bored and wanted to rank the stories of the 3D Zelda games. Spoilers of course. Ranked from favorite (top) to weakest (bottom). I also won't be including WInd Waker because I never beat it (not the game's fault, I bought HD during the Switch's lifecycle and got tired of the Wii U gamepad). A lot of my problems are just personal gripes and not really criticisms.

Tears of the Kingdom: Controversial placement, I know (I have been literally harassed SEVERAL times over this take, I am disappointed in humanity). It has its issues, but like, what thing DOESN'T have flaws? Everything is flawed, it came free with your entertainment. The plot beats for Tears of the Kingdom are absolutely insane. The Imprisoning War and the events leading up to it all felt connected and relevant to each other and the events in the present. Not to mention watching stuff like the Molduga memory and the Imprisoning War itself was extremely hype. Seeing the interactions between Sonia, Rauru, Zelda and Mineru got me really attached to these characters. The events in the present also feel meaningful and urgent. Your friends from the previous game are ACTUALLY in trouble in this game and not just being stalked by a giant robot that's doing nothing. The Sages also felt more connected than the Champions ever did. The camera not being locked behind a backtracking quest this time was cool too. Overall, this game's story hit the hardest, especially with the Dragon Tears quest.

Skyward Sword: Great story with a great cast. Backtracking is a bit of a pain and could have been handled better, but I love the events of the game. Groose's character development is truly excellent. Link and Zelda having a connection also assisted in making the adventure hitting harder.

Twilight Princess: As a former Twilight Princess hater, I would like to apologize to this game. I had a biased hatred against the game because I thought it was just TP fans that were toxic when in reality its just the Zelda fanbase as a whole that has a massive toxicity problem (not all Zelda fans are toxic). The whole beginning segment with Ordon Village and the Twili Realm sets up Link's quest perfectly. The story as a whole is really great until Ganondorf. Ganondorf in this game is genuinely really weak as a character, same with Zelda. They at least have the manga to help them but still...

Majora's Mask: I love the concept for this game's story and for the most part its really well done. Its just short and a lot of the interesting stuff is in the side quests. This is totally fine because it helps get me invested in the world, but most side quests are just... meh. Anju/Kafei, the grandma stories and the Romani Ranch quest lines (including the Ranch Race with the Gorman Brothers) are really great though.

Breath of the Wild: Man... This game's backstory is SO, SO, SO GOOD. Like wow is it good. I just HATE how its told. Stuff that would be cool to see is NEVER shown. Like why not show us Zelda and Link vs Calamity Ganon? Not to mention the Camera backtracking quest... I will say, at least it made the Champion's Tunic plot relevant. TotK should've made the Leathers important. Also the Divine Beast quests just don't sit right with me (outside of the Gerudo one, that one was really great). The Divine Beast fights are incredible though, they make up for the atrocious dungeon bosses.

Ocarina of Time: Too boring and unoriginal for me. Yes, TotK takes a lot from BotW's style of story, but it at least builds upon it and has unique aspects like Crisis at Hyrule Castle and Mineru's entire questline. I do like how Ganondorf mocks Link, especially in the Forest Temple, as it makes him more relevant. Ganondorf waiting until Zelda gave Link the Light Arrows just was incompetent though.

Alright, that's my ranking of each 3D Zelda story I have an opinion on. I very much expect disagreement (especially with TotK) and that's fine, just please do not attack me over this stuff. Its just opinions. I've been harassed way too much over my takes on TotK, its tiring.

#tloz #zelda #totk #skyward sword #twilight princess #oot #majoras mask #botw

[ecoamerica]

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[birdmomblogs]

so like,,, i’ve been doing a lot of digging because i’ve been wondering who the two mystery “links” are in the banner of the Linked Universe blog,,,

with 100% confidence i want to say the one of the right (the second mystery link) is the first hero.

the most unique similarities include: the scarf,,, the very fancy pauldrons,,, the thigh slit in the tunic,,, the buckles around the wrist guards,,, the belt design looks similar,,,

other less unique similarities are: left handed sword holster,,, short hair,,,

the chain is also in a time where NOTHING HAS HAPPENED YET!

i seriously doubt that anyone in hyrule would forget a demon king, an evil sorcerer, a calamity, etc, etc unless dink brought them SO far into the future that they actually were mere legends at this point. buuuuuuuutttt i don’t buy that for one second. the second mystery link looks too much like first for this to not be the era of the goddess hylia.

and i think it’s very likely that jojo can draw inspiration from the skyward sword manga since there is inspiration drawn from the four swords manga, no matter how little it may be!

as for the other link,,, this one is hard,,, i’m not as confident but i think it may be dink’s humanoid form. there’s several iterations of a shadow link or a dark link. but to me, whoever this link is seems to draw upon warriors’ dark link and twilight’s dark link from the games and jojo’s old sketches of warriors and twilight, when this banner would have been made.

there’s the left-handed shoulder holster, the thing on the front of the holster that looks like twilight’s shadow crystal, the grommets on warriors’ old tunic style and the mystery link’s, bandage-like wrist guards on twilight and mystery link, the high neck under shirt and top of the tunic cut on mystery link looks just like twilight princess dark link, regular length tunic sleeves,,,

the only thing stumping me about the mystery link character design is the belt. the only reference i can think of is the fancy buckle being a way to emulate warriors’ pauldron and the thing hanging from the belt is emulating the fabric twilight wraps around his waist???

so anyways, i think it’s a pretty solid theory at this point considering we know dink is here and has the ability to take multiple forms,,, also this,,,

looks a little humanoid :) doesn’t it :)

those are probably my most supported theories at this point! i’m pretty knew to interacting with the lu fandom on tumblr so i don’t know it anyone has written this all out before or not but i have seen people throw headcanons around that the mystery links may be dink and first.

but maybe we are all wrong,,, maybe one of the mystery links is actually our beloved hero of koridai /j

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #birdmom posts #linked universe theory #lu #lu theory

[legendofzoodles]

LU Character Design Analysis 6

In case you haven’t seen the previous posts yet, I’m doing this thing where I’m analysing and subsequently ranking all the designs of the chain in LU. I was going to do it 2 at a time, but I’ve got so much to say that I’m doing it one a time.

All the designs are really good, it was hard to come up with a decent ranking system that I was happy with and even harder to apply it. The numbers I scored them are subjective and any one of them can be debated.

And now we have...

4th place: Twilight

He’s my favourite so it breaks my heart that he’s not in the top three but it had to be done. I might have let this bias lead me to placing him ahead of Time and Warriors. Eh, this is my list and I wanna praise wolf boi’s design.

Pros: It sounds shallow but I’m glad his hair isn’t brown and more of a dirty blond or almost caramel coloured. It also complements the chainmail.

The colour palette of his outfit is dark and muted, save for the waist situation, which is a fun nod to the art style of Twilight Princess. The dark tunic is a lovely forest green which stands out against the rich gold chainmail, it looks heroic and like he'd be able to blend into any sort of green scenery. I love the little embroidery details too and the ones decorating his boots. The ones on his tunic are much subtler than Sky's and I feel like either he did them himself (adding to the pictures over time) or Ilia got a hold of it and did them herself. The ones on his boots are amazing too and I feel like they'd be a point of pride for him. I can see his boots being a clothing item he cares about a lot.

Twilight like Sky unfortunately suffers from "blankie around the tunic" syndrome, however it's less egregious in his case. One, because it's held by a sash which unlike smooth leather would be less likely to slip down with movement and two, because it looks messier- which is a little more realistic and gives me the impression he has to adjust it whenever coming out of wolf form. I’d prefer if it stayed as part of his civilian clothes, but it does add a nice pop of bright colour. So, I’m not that mad.

Twilight's light blue waist cloth stands out so much that it's easy to miss the discoloured and patched up left sleeve. It actually took me a while before I noticed it. It's a darker green than the rest of the tunic and looks like it had been hastily stitched on, which is a nice reference to his Ordon clothes (the funny looking belted sleeve) and the fact that his arm gets chopped off in the manga. Maybe at some point the original sleeve was torn off in battle and Twilight had to mend it while on the road, hence why it looks so scruffy.

I didn't like Sky's tunic slits because they made the tunic material look delicate and seemed more ceremonial than practical, but they work in Twilight's case because they feel accidental. They give off the impression that they occurred during the heat of battle or during an adventure. Like the patched sleeve also shows, the tunic was worn and torn with extended use and Twilight had to mend it alone and on the go.

It has a sort of rustic homespun appearance which fits his character as a down to earth farmer from a small village.

It’s a brilliant idea to leave the only reference to the Twilight Realm be in the form of the shadow crystal. After all, not only was all that supposed to stay secret, but also Midna left without saying anything, so there’s no way he would have anything else to remember her by. As shown by his less than polished tunic, he’s not very good at making clothes, although he’s good at embroidery. That being said a twili cloak does sound kinda dope and I don’t like that the crystal is out in the open as a necklace- it’s a huge risk for such a cautious guy to take. As a guy who isn’t very open he’d surely hide it in a pouch rather than risk being asked about it, or worse having a member of the chain try to touch it.

He's the only one of the older members wearing a leather arm guard (on his non shielding arm so it doesn’t get in the way of the straps, very nice), which made me realise that he's probably not a fan of wearing plated armour. He could if he wanted to, he clearly has the strength and endurance to run around for hours in armour. Then again that extra weight would be hard on Epona since he rides her a lot. I headcanon that he just barely tolerates the chainmail because it’s for his own safety, but rips it off at the first opportunity once camp has been set up.

Cons: Twilight's fur pelt is another one of those things where it looks cool and is a nice visual hint at his hidden power to turn into a wolf (I especially like how it forms tail at the end, it's goofy but a cool detail), but it raises some seriously questionable things about his character.

Best case scenario it was a gift, maybe from Ashei who also wears fur, he then wore it to be polite but overtime it became part of his usual travelling clothes. But even still, he's the type who'd rather fish or forage than hunt and he can talk to animals...yet he wears the pelt of an innocent deceased animal. Worst case scenario he got it himself, and even if he had to fend off a wolf to save someone I don't even want to imagine him making it. Either way it doesn’t make sense.

Plus the way it’s tucked in at his waist looks like it would be a hassle to put on. To make it more visible it’s not tucked into the light blue material only the orange sash. Looks pretty but not very practical.

Wishlist: Regarding the chainmail, I’m conflicted (I...can never seem to make up my mind). The gold chainmail is unique and a nice reference to the golden sky seen during twilight, a time of day he’s grown to appreciate. It also fits well with his pale complexion, But like Wind I’ve always had the impression that he’d also be more tanned, from working long hours at the ranch. If he had darker and warmer colouring then the gold chainmail wouldn’t work as well and it would have to be a cool toned silver. Which would be a nice nod to his grey wolf form and more importantly would really make his grey face markings pop.  

I wish he wore his green hat. He was directly told by one of the light spirits that it was the same garb worn by the hero before him, who he ends up getting to know personally during TP and learns he’s family. Whether or not he likes it is completely irrelevant, because he would wear it 100% of the time while doing hero stuff to honour his ancestor’s legacy.

Twilight arguable has the scruffiest tunic, but the reason why I think he’s chosen to mend it rather than get it replaced is because it holds that much significance to him. Therefore, he’d value the whole thing and wear. the. hat.

The only excuse I’ll accept is that he lost it or it got destroyed during a battle, and even then he’d surely make a new one.

This isn’t important for character or practical reasons, but I’d like him to have longer hair. A shaggy wolf cut perhaps? A mullet situation? I’ve seen the fanart and it all looks amazing, so just...throwing it out there.

Score:

Aesthetic and visual score (/10): 8 Character representation score (/5): 4 Practicality score (/5): 4 Total (/20): 16

It’s a really strong design: visually interesting, practical if a bit well-worn and full of characterisation. It tells you about who he is and what he’s been through just through what he’s wearing, like Time’s design. But better.

~~~

Thanks for reading! What modifications would you make to their designs? And do you agree with me or not? I’d love to know :)

Masterlist

9th place in the character design ranking

8th place

7th place

6th place

5th place

3rd place

1st place

Character analysis posts:

Hero of the Sky, Hero of Time, Hero of Twilight, Hero of the Wild, Hero of Warriors

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu #lu twilight #lu twi #linked universe twilight #twilight #lu character design analysis #character design analysis #defo not biased

[endless---possibility]

𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐬 𝐎𝐟 𝐄𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏

(Please excuse any bad quality pictures)

𝐒𝐤𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝

I like this design for Link. He's very reminiscent of Twilight Princess Link, just with less detail on the clothing and without the bracer. The chainmail is a nice touch. I also like the baggy pants. They look very comfortable. Definitely a great Link design.

𝐀 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬

I know he's the same person as A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, the Oracle games, and I think Triforce Heroes.(?), so he looks a lot like them. Overall a very cute design.

𝐇𝐲𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐬

Very detailed. He's got a very great style to him. As I said with TP and SS Link, I love the chainmail. The gold trim on the tunic are also very nice, for they add some good contrast. The blue scarf adds a pop of color. A really cool design for Link.

𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐝

Very different from most of the more realistic Links. His features are much softer. I've got to say, I love the ponytail. It's nice that Nintendo tried a different sort of hair style with him. I like the Champion's Tunic, but I do miss the green tunic and hat. Though very different, he's still a fun design.

[wittyworm]

POV: You’re on a date w Pipit 😳🌿💚

#one of the cutest boys in skyloft.. sir….. i love you #i know his eyes r blue but #green simply felt correct #sshd #skyward sword #legend of zelda #loz #tloz #the legend of zelda #skyward sword hd #pipit #my art #hopefully gonna have this up as a print soon #i took some liberties w his fit cause he got too much chainmail please #i like the twilight princess style tunic a LOT

[melonsap]

So, BO2W Breakdown

Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

Here we’ve got Ganon’s...energy taking over Link’s arm. Ordinarily, I’d call it Malice, but based on what it turns into, I’m just going to be calling it corruption. We don’t get much information from this scene besides this expression:

Link’s grabbing the corruption with his other hand, and wincing. It looks painful. I personally think it’s for cinematic effect that it was included, but it COULD be a gateway into a Phantom Hourglass sort of mechanic--Link has to function on a time limit, or using the corruption’s power could drain his life.

Next we’ve got a closeup of Ganondorf. F in chat to the rehydration theorists.

And the closeups of his jewelry. The only significant thing I can see is his necklace, which looks like a cross between the Gerudo symbol and a Fleur de Lis:

But what I’M most interested in is this tie on his belt:

For one, it’s WAY bigger than it needs to be, and that’s deliberate. Ganondorf’s got a jewelry aesthetic he’s already hit above; everything else is gold, why not this bit?

Most importantly, you can barely make it out, but the designs either look Sheikah or Zonai--they’ve got that same kind of swirly busy pattern to them. The red tint and tan-ish lines in it makes me think it’s possessed Sheikah tech.

Next, we’re shown Zelda falling. This looks like it happens right after these two caps from the first trailer:

So we reach for her as the ground collapses, and evidently, we fail to pull her back up. So my next question for that scene is going to be what the in-game reason is for us not diving in right after her. Maybe we won’t get one, since the appeal of the original BOTW was that you could fight Ganon whenever you wanted.

Up next, we’ve got a skydiving shot:

The first thing to notice is that Link’s pose while skydiving is just about identical to his pose in Skyward Sword:

Second is that, yes, he’s falling towards a floating island, and that in itself is noteworthy, but he’s FALLING. There’s something either above him that he jumped off of, or a force that carried him high enough TO fall, and I doubt Nintendo’s encouraging magnesis flying.

So, there’s a few options: Loftwings making a return (which is unlikely, but a hope I have), something like Revali’s Gale boosting Link up for a cinematic shot, indicating that the corruption arm has that kind of power, or islands higher than the one shown here.

Now the island itself:

In Skyward Sword, Skyloft looks like this:

And (spoiler alert) we loose this island here over the course of the game:

Now, it’s not a PERFECT 1:1 match, as most things between games aren’t, but a quick rotate and overlay shows it’s got the same kinds of shapes between the two. The same “W” shape along the eastern side, the same tiny island off the northeast point, the same relative edges.

Now, I don’t know what happened to the plaza at South Skyloft, or the Knight’s Academy isle, but it could very easily be drift away from the central island.

The presence of other islands through the clouds seems to support that theory. Now let’s look at Link here:

The outfit is new. We haven’t, to my knowledge, seen one of this design in other games. My gut reaction to this image was “oh, we go back in time and we’re the first hero now!” because it’s vaguely reminiscent of Tapestry Hero.

But upon closer inspection, that theory’s null and void. Under Link’s tunic in the image above, you can see that he’s still wearing the shorts he woke up in in the first game. So either Sheikah boxers haven’t changed in 10,000 years, or it’s taking place in present day. Jokes aside, I’m curious to know if the outfit he’s wearing is modeled after Tapestry Hero.

Next thing to point out is the obvious:

Link’s arm here looks less prosthetic and more...withered, I almost want to say. The corruption here’s made his hand look frailer, and armored them up with Zonai patterns before it fades out at his shoulder. Based on how the tattoos look, I think they’re an artifact of the corruption taking hold.

Also, the belt here:

Aesthetic purposes, or specific function? The presence of the second, smaller one on the side reminds me of Skyward Sword’s adventure pouch, which could be how the new game handles inventory size:

Next we’ve got another flying shot:

It seems like he’s flying towards Ruined Skyloft, and you can see the bottoms of islands above it, possibly meaning that the sky serves as more than just a hub world like it did in Skyward.

Now let’s look at the paraglider he’s using. It’s new.

This is how the paraglider looks in the original BOTW. It looks like we still have the Rito symbol in the center, but other than that, there’s a LOT of changes here.

First off is the color. We’re now blue and gold. The shade of blue makes me think of the Kochi Dye Shop’s navy blue:

So, possibly a dyeable paraglider?

The new pattern surrounding the Rito symbol makes me think that it’s combining the paraglider with Skyward Sword’s sailcloth:

Other than that, there isn’t much else to say about the paraglider besides the handles looking like they’re made of bone. Craftable paragliders? God, I hope not.

Back to Link:

Here we have him in different gear than the last shot. He’s wearing the snow boots, he has a shield with a stylized Eye of Truth looking upwards, and he looks like he’s carrying a traveler’s sword and an unknown bow. The presence of the bow makes me think that the shield here is a lower tier item, rather than this game’s Hylian Shield equivalent.

Now, let’s get a better look at the horizon:

The trees here look a lot like the smaller trees you can find in Akkala, but there’s a distinct lack of red among them.

Then it looks like we’ve got some ruins at the furthest isle.

Whatever the rock formations are over there, they don’t LOOK natural.

Another thing I noticed is the bottoms of the islands.

These look a little too geometric to be natural, too. Now, this one, I’m a little muddy on, because it COULD be a stylistic choice. But it also reminds me of the Shrines if you clip out of bounds:

And a little bit of the dormant Gate of Time from Skyward:

My money’s on the cube-like nature of the islands’ undersides being deliberate, rather than just a far-off render.

And then there’s this thing!

What is it? It doesn’t look broken at all; look how nicely the roof(?) is kept. The ribbing on the sides makes me think it might be a Zonai thing, but the shape makes it difficult to figure out. A giant temple? An airship? A sloped coliseum? This thing haunts and vexes me.

Our next shot is presumably from one of the islands, based on the color. Here we can see that there are definitely ruins all over the place. Link is in the same gear as before, so I won’t touch on him.

This, however, has my interest. The design here has more geometric patterns--Zonai ruins?

We’ve got another one off in the distance here. Sky checkpoints, like Sheikah towers?

Now this guy here. There’s a LOT to look at. First off is the eye design, it’s the same sort of upward looking one that Link has on his shield in the previous shots.

The energy that’s pulling this thing towards its base looks like the same green energy that surrounds the arm holding Gan in place in Trailer One:

This stuff. That, plus the fact that the robot has to be pulled into its base rather than just existing, implies that either A: Link activates it himself, like a trial thing, or B: that the green energy here functions in the same way Malice does in the original BOTW.

This pattern at its base is intriguing, too. I don’t recognize the gold symbol in the center, but the green around it reminds me of the portals from Twilight Princess.

Which, yes, everyone’s already said that the Twilight Princess patterns look like Zonai things. But another thing this weird dial thing reminds me of is from Lanayru Desert:

On top of that, the color palette of this guy looks like that of the Lanayru Robots from Skyward:

BO2W robot on the left, Lanayru robot on the right. Given that Skyward is a lot more vibrant than other non-Toon Zelda games, I think this is a fair enough comparison to draw similarities from.

And then we get a closer view of the sky ruins from the last shot. I don’t know if the geometric pattern in the corner is a deliberate carving, or wear from time, but since the pattern looks ALMOST mirrored around the corner, I’m going to go with the former.

A better shot a few frames later. The robot has HANDS, which I do not like in any way shape or form. However, we get a better look at the sky ruins.

We haven’t seen this style of stairs before, to my knowledge. The pedestal out front looks like a light source, and it has the same floral egg thing the robot above has on each shoulder; the eggs could easily be a power source for Zonai tech. And at the top of the stairs, we see a pedestal, backing up the theory that these ruins function as our new Sheikah towers.

This is our next shot. Which...

Unikoblins. Can we talk about that? UNIKOBLINS.

Anyways, Link is here again in his old clothes. This is a very early game shot, because his right arm isn’t corrupted yet; this means we get to explore Hyrule before we embark on the main quest. Which gives rise to a question: Where’s Zelda?

The hopeful side of me wants to say that she’s a tutorial companion, like Navi or Tatl, at least for the beginning here. The pessimistic side of me thinks that she’s waiting for us at a predetermined location, and this is just part of getting to her.

Now the unikoblin structure itself is built on a Talus, meaning that the dev team at least intends to have more inter-monster interactions. But if you kill the Talus, does that mean that the base falls apart, or does it just drop down as a separate entity?

Also, what are these background ruins? The one on the left looks like it’s a distinctly different style than the one on the right. It looks almost like a giant guardian arm.

Our next shot is Link’s arm getting corrupted. Which, first of all, the effects look beautiful.

Now, we can see a corner of Link’s hip here, and we know that this is his right arm. So Link’s lying down here. Unconscious? Knowing how Zelda games like to start with Link waking up, probably. Although it looks like at least part of his shorts got an update.

We can see what looks like circuits here. It looks a bit like the electricity puzzles you can find in the Divine Beasts and Shrines in the original.

Then we’ve got these strange symbols.

Whatever this circular stone he’s lying on is, it looks a lot like the Zonai puzzle from the “A Fragmented Monument” sidequest.

This one that everyone thought was the Mirror of Twilight for years.

Our next shot is Link using the corruption powers against enemies:

The spike ball itself looks solid; the question is, is this a duplication power, or a visualization of how the spike ball is set into motion?

We see it barreling over a poor Unikoblin or two, but I’d like to turn your attention to the Moblin and the background.

The moblins here have helmets, and the bases, while they carry the same design, look like they have more cause and effect in mind. The left base’s rock, for instance; that’s a lot bigger than the rocks we got to play with in the last game, and it looks like we can barrel anything in the screen over with it.

The helmet, though, concerns me a little bit. It looks natural rather than forged; like it’s the moblin’s horn, just very much deformed. Does it mean a harder enemy, or is it just for flavor?

Our next shot is this strange flower thing. Note that Link’s right arm is perfectly fine in this shot, meaning that it’s still early game.

This is what Link’s flamethrower looks like. And this:

Is Zonai art.

So the question is, what IS the flamethrower? My first thought was that it’s either a new item in its own, or it’s a Sheikah Slate upgrade. The latter might sound a little far fetched, but Link in this game is right-handed, and in BOTW, he always held the slate in his LEFT hand when using it.

We have more of the weird faded designs that we saw on the Sky ruins:

And we’ve got some kind of pedestal or stage behind the ground flower thing:

It looks like it’s either an altar or a grave, from what I can tell. The stairs aren’t the same design as the ones in the sky, and there aren’t any patterns on it.

More importantly, though, is that this place is underground. This could be a part of the game you’re required to go through, in order to get to Raisin Gan.

A few seconds later, though, we get our answer to what the flamethrower is!

It’s a shield!

Off to the left side, we can see pillars with more weird scribblings towards the top. These match the Sky ruins’ pillar shape, with a narrow base and a wider top.

Our next scene is...weird.

We see a puddle splash in reverse. It’s hard to tell if it’s actually water or not, but the design on the ground implies that it’s either been there for a long time, or that that’s a dedicated splash spot. And the quality and zoom makes me think that this is part of a cutscene. Return of the timeshift stones?

We then see Link...surfacing out of the island? I don’t know how else to describe it. However, his arm is changed again, and glowing, meaning that this is a corruption power. And the “water” he rises out of here looks a lot like the puddle in the last clip.

We get a good look at the Zonai Lights:

A Sky ruin that looks like it contains a room:

And a glimpse of other isles’ ruins in the far distance.

And then as the camera zooms out...

We can place a location!

We’re right over Thundra Plateau!

We also get a mildly better look at the back wall of the sky ruin, which looks to be some kind of table:

The next scene is Hyrule Castle:

The ground shakes and it starts to rise up. However, notice that the columns surrounding the castle are now missing.

We’ve also got red sparks in the air, like we would have in a blood moon. However, due to the sky color, we can assume that this is a conscious decision by Gan himself, and that he isn’t drawing power from his surroundings.

We then see that power bleeding out of the ground. It’s MUCH more red than Malice is, which has always been a kind of burnt pink-ish color.

However, even though Ganon lifts the castle up, he doesn’t lift it very high.

The castle’s about triple the height it was. But since we’re talking Skyloft levels of floating islands, this is still pretty ground-level. What’s interesting to me, though, is that in this shot, despite the game now being about sky islands that we should be able to see from ground level...there aren’t any here. This, to me, means that there’s going to be a sudden appearance of the isles in the sky, rather than them simply being accessible now.

And that’s the whole trailer! I have many questions.

My blog! If you have any opnions/questions/theories, feel free to drop an ask!

Part 2 is up! We missed a lot!

#botw #botw2 #bo2w #the breath just got wilder #breakdown #analysis #e3 #trailer #theory #zelda #loz #nintendo

[fandomqueen44]

Descriptions of Illusia characters for art reasons

Probably never gonna give good descriptions in fanfic, so for all your artistic needs, here's the descriptions of characters!

......

Dallas

Human in looks, with large brown wings that look like a mix between an Eagle, Barn Owl, and Hawk. About a 10ft wingspan and his wings reach about the heels of his feet (like barely not touching the ground)

Pale skin with freckles dotted throughout but not heavily.

Wide almond eyes that are blue with a darker blue around the pupil.

Messy brown hair like what he had in the movie, but is much taller on top.

About 6'3

Wears no shirt yet has a pair of pants he wears that are made from brown leather and have a fur wrap around his waist. He has A flower on a vine wrapped around his left bicep. On his other arm he has a vine that moved around to various lengths. Wears a choker with a light blue gem in the center. Wears a flower crown.

Has pointed ears

Has deer like antlers ontop his head, but they look like that of a young buck who's growing them in still.

Very defined cheek bones

Tim Shephard

Human

Messy dirty blonde hair and brown eyes

No freckles but some scars (mainly on his torso where he was stabbed in war)

About 6'1

Usually wears a light gray tunic with dark jacket, dark pants, and brown boots.

Looks kind of like he does in the movie tbh

Strong man

Curly

Long brown hair he keeps tied back (his hair is also curly)

Brown eyes

5'10

Tan skin since he gets a lot of sun

Not as muscled as Tim but still pretty muscled.

Nice jawline

Pretty big eyes for a human.

Wears a red shirt sleeves shirt and dark pants with tall black boots.

Marcia

Smol 4'9

Really pointed ears (like....an elf but even more dramatic and pointy, baby yoda ish)

Solid black eyes that take up a lot of her face.

Little nose

Plump lips

Her skin is pale but like with a tinge of green

Wears I giant yellow flower as a dress

Black hair that has never been brushed ever.

Has a tattoo sleeve of a vine climbing up her arm with flowers on it. No color, just black ink

Cherry

Basically her movie appearance but as a deer centaur

White-tail deer specifically

About 6'0 with the deer body

No shirt but uses hair to cover her breasts

Wears a jade necklace

Has a bracelet made from the same thing as Dally's choker.

Usually has a bag on her side to carry rocks

Two-bit

Mostly human but with some....differnces

Has dragon like eyes even as a human.

Has scales on the really thin parts of his skin (i.e around his eye, elbow, knee, anywhere skin is naturally very thin)

Brown hair he swoops back with his hand and leaves it.

About 6'4

Long nails

His teeth are sharp like a dragons at all times, just smaller

Wears a white shirt, long black petti coat, black pants, black boots.

Large red wings (8 foot wingspan)

Large red tail (doesn't quite touch the ground)

When he's a dragon, he's about 40 feet long and 10 tall.

Solid red dragon

Has scars from many fights

Bob (Robert)

Light purple skin (lavender)

Curly red Linguini style hair.

Glowing orange eyes

About 6'0

Not very muscled, pretty lanky tbh

Soft features (pretty feminine for a guy)

Paints his nails black

Little fangs

Wears a black silk shirt with puffy sleeves, right black pants and black boots. Everything except his sleeves are skin tight.

Randy

Much darker purple skin (like almost black)

Glowing yellow eyes

Slightly bigger fangs than Bob

Silver hair he keeps in a mullet

Silk gold shirt, black pants, black boots. Not as soon tight as Bob's but still tight.

About 6'0

Darry

Tall man (about 6'6)

Dark brown hair

Gray eyes

Nice tan

Chiseled everything

Pointed ears

Elves are stupid pretty tbh

Wears seafoam tunic and white pants that hug that sweet ass, brown boots. Brown vest.

Sodapop

Very pretty like all elves

Wavy strawberry blonde hair styled very fancy

Pointed chin and features, but in a good way

Green eyes

Pale skin

Usually has his nails painted a bright color

Purple tunic with tight sleeves, black pants, black boots.

Lots of jewelry

Has a pet bird named Freddie that likes to sit on his head (a yellow parakeet specifically)

Honestly just a gay disney prince

About 5'11

Ponyboy

A nice mix between Darry and Soda in terms of face.

Brown hair he just kind of....leaves alone? Honestly looks like it's always windblown

Seafoam green eyes

Nice tan but not too tan

5'8

Built but not as much as Darry

Wears a black tunic and white pants with black boots.

Always has a book on him

Johnny

Little man (5'0)

Very pretty butterfly like wings yet they look like stained glass.

One wing has a crack in it which is why he can't fly

Nice coffee colors skin (like a nice medium brew)

Purple eyes

Likes to wear bright things.

So like pink shirt, white pants, brown boots, but honestly of it's bright he'll be wearing it

Curly dark brown hair that's curly and all over the place.

Has a wand with a star on the end like those toy wands

Has a belt with little pouches

Steve

Fish man

Just look up a picture of a zora from Twilight princess tbh

Only instead of a tail on his head he has curly auburn hair

Green scaley skin

Has fins n the side of his face and hills on his ribes

Has fins on the back of his calves

Webbed hands and feet

Smug man

About 6'0

Always has a spear on his back

Btw if you have any characters you wanna know about, just ask.

#the outsiders #illusia!verse #dallas winston #ponyboy curtis #darry curtis #sodapop curtis #Two-bit Mattews #Steve Randall #Johnmy Cade #Marcia #Cherry

[105ttt]

Revised FS Precure AU

This is going to be a long post about my revised FS Precure AU. I’m putting it under a readmore because it’s going to be a lot. You have been warned.

General Info

I’ve decided to make Zelda the pink lead Cure, since Zelda never gets to be the leader in the games, and it preserves the “pink Cure is the leader” rule.

As a civilian, Zelda is actually named Hylia. Her Cure name is Cure Zelda. The reason she is named Hylia instead of Zelda is just so that her Cure name is not the same as her civilian name.

Hylia is an eighth-grader who loves all things science. She especially loves observing nature, and takes time to sketch what she sees. She is known for her generosity and never acts selfish or boastful. As such, most people at her school don’t mind her company. They appreciate her helpful attitude and her strong sense of duty to others. She is friends with quadruplets who go to her school; these are, of course, the hero Links.

Since I want their Cure names to be their colors, but their names in the Japanese version are just Green, Red, Blue, and Vio transliterated into Japanese, I thought I’d make their civilian names the actual Japanese words for “green”, “red”, “blue”, and “purple”. This is not meant to be a weeb move. It is just so that their civilian names aren’t the exact same as their Cure names, and I used Japanese since Precure is a Japanese franchise. Think of it like how Nozomi’s name means “desire/wish/hope” in Japanese, but her Cure name is Cure Dream, using the literal English word “dream”, or how Nodoka’s name means “delicate/gentle” in Japanese, and her Cure name is Cure Grace, using the literal English word “grace”.

Hylia is visited one day by a Zelda-style fairy who tells her that she is destined to become a Cure warrior. At first she doesn’t believe this, but when she is presented with visions of the past, showing Cure warriors fighting the Big Bad (Ganon, of course), she is more willing to go along with what the fairy says. The fairy in question, Miss Fairy, becomes her fairy partner, and together they search for the other Cures destined to serve Cure Zelda and fight by her side.

It turns out that the quadruplets Hylia is friends with are destined to be the other Cures! Thus, she convinces each of them to join the team, and they eventually oblige, both because the entire world depends on it and because they all genuinely want to protect and help Hylia.

in addition to the quadruplets, Hylia’s girlfriend, Erune, ends up becoming a Cure as well (Cure Yellow, named after her theme color because I have no originality), around the same time as Hylia (think Futari wa, Splash Star, Suite, Mahou Tsukai, etc.). Her fairy partner inhabits her favorite doll, Rosie, so it takes on the name of Rosie. (This goes without saying, but the doll is much more Precure mascot-like in this AU instead of being a creepy, realistic doll.) Erune is a kind, gentle girl who hates when peace is disturbed and intervenes as best as she can, but she initially lacks the courage to speak for herself and often confides in Hylia when she needs to vent. (Obviously, later on, Erune learns that it’s okay to speak her mind and stand up for herself.)

With the team fully assembled, they go through the regular motions of a Precure show, learning new attacks and getting development, etc. But as time goes on, Ganon and his servant, Vaati, create a demon in the image of the quadruplets to fight the Cures. This is, of course, Shadow Link, now just called Shadow as a villain and the Japanese word for “shadow” as a civilian. (Naturally, his Cure name is Cure Shadow.) While he is still a villian, he infiltrates the Cures’ school to spy on them and gather information on them, as well as cause trouble for them by creating monsters to fight. Shadow ultimately turns to the Cures’ side because of Hylia’s kindness and willingness to listen to him, as well as the friendly gestures of the Links and Erune. He also would love to get back at Ganon and Vaati, who don’t treat him so nicely.

(As a side note, the Links’ fairies are the same as the ones described in my old posts.)

As with every other Precure series, after a good redemption arc for Shadow, lots of character development and fun times, more toys advertised, and more group attacks learned, they seal Ganon and Vaati away with their final attack and complete their quest - and then they can go back to living their lives as normal middle-schoolers, with Shadow being adopted by his new mother.

Speaking of family: since I love the idea of the Shrine Maidens adopting the Links and Zelda, the Links and Hylia were adopted by one of the different Shrine Maidens. The Links stayed in touch their whole lives because their mothers felt it would be bad to separate them for good, so they grew up as if they lived in the same house. They’re inseparable here, too! Hylia was also adopted by a Shrine Maiden. Erune still lives with the mom she has in canon.

Toy/Cure Design Info

Naturally, it’s not Precure without toys. The Links all have a sword transformation/attack item that looks like the Four Sword. See my old posts about the AU for this, since it’s basically the same. Same for Shadow’s items.

Hylia has a sword similar to Zelda’s sword in Twilight Princess, and Erune has a similar sword so that they match (and so that the toy can use two different collectible items).

The Royal Jewels are the main collectible item. See the old posts for more on that.

The Links have outfits VERY similar to their canon ones, but imagine them as frillier, with more accessories and details. Typical Precure outfits based on the canon tunics and caps, essentially.

Hylia and Erune share a similar design consisting of a long dress (think Cure Moonlight, Cure Passion, or Cure Earth) in pink and yellow, respectively, which is based on Zelda’s canon dress. As with the Links, it has more frills, lace, and details added to make it Cure-like.

I don’t have ideas for a shared toy used for group attacks, but I think that the Links can fuse into one being (called Link), and Hylia and Erune can fuse into one being (not sure what to call it) in order to perform final finishers.

I think that, in order to make this Precure unique, the Links and Hylia and Erune can fuse in pairs at will after reaching a certain milestone of understanding between each pair. In addition, if they have individual super forms, they all become Fierce Deities (including Hylia and Erune) with different face and armor markings to match their personalities.

The fusion names are: Gray (Green + Vio), Purple (Red + Blue), Teal (Green + Blue), Maroon (Vio + Red), Brown (Green + Red), Indigo (Vio + Blue), any fusion with Shadow is just “Shadow” + whatever the other person’s Cure name is, Lime (Green + Erune), Orange (Red + Erune), Emerald (Blue + Erune), Onyx (Vio + Erune), Watermelon (Green + Hylia), Coral (Red + Hylia), Lavender (Blue + Hylia), Magenta (Vio + Hylia), Morganite (Hylia + Erune)

#four swords #four swords manga #long post #god this is cringe but take it

[vomiting-out-words]

Twilight Princess [Maybe to Be Continued?]

Session One - May 29th, 2018

Ordon Village, The Twilight, Faron Woods(Twilight), Forest Temple, Kakariko Village(Twilight), Death Mountain, Goron Mines, Lanayru Province (Twilight)

Information Trash -

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is the thirteenth installment of the Zelda series. The game was originally going to be released on the GameCube in 2005 but ended up getting released the following year with the release of the Nintendo Wii in 2006; only the be released on the GameCube a month later. Ten years later; it was released in a high-definition version on the Nintendo Wii U, with the GameCube control style. Nearly nine million copies of the game were sold before Breath of the Wild had taken the title of best-selling title in a series in April 2018.

Session One - Session Two - Session Three - Session Four

Let’s Get Down to The Dirty -

Ever since the Christmas of 2010; when the Limited Edition Red Wii came out with Super Mario Bros., we also got it Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Since then; every year I seemed to spend a couple of days playing the game over again, and to see how long it takes for me to get through it. So, I am back at it again this year, and and I finally agree that I shall write a review for it because it seems like a good one to do the first review with. Not to mention it was the first Zelda game that I actually played from start to finish by myself.

So, I started the game up, since I was babysitting my younger sister who had injured herself over the weekend and couldn’t really go to school. It’s been awhile playing on the Wii because I’ve been playing like Stardew Valley and other things on the PS4 and computer so it was really weird to be swinging my arms around, but it was a good workout.

Twilight Princess takes place hundreds of years after Ocarina of Time; within an alternate timeline from The Wind Waker, which leads the game to be in the Child Timeline. But I am not even going to get into the Zelda timeline because that is a can of crap that I don’t want to even get into right now, but maybe later. You; the player, plays as the recurring protagonist; Link. A young Hylian male who is once again trying to save Hyrule from the threat of the mirror realm; the Twilight Realm. A very original idea, Nintendo, but it seems like you pretty much reused it for Link Between Worlds.

Like pretty much every other Zelda game; Link lives in a small village, with some very average life; and somehow knows how to wield a sword; among many other things; with or without and explanation on how he learned such things. Thank god it’s kind of assumed on how he learned it in this game. Ordon Village is as far south as you can get in Hyrule, and far enough away from Hyrule Castle that Link has never really been exposed to a whole lot of Hyrule. Not to mention he’s like the other able person to protect the village from dangers while working his day job as a rancher on a goat farm passed the mayor’s house. So, as the player; you get like 10-20 minutes into the game doing really boring shit; like herding goats, having to make children happy by spending your own money, then going off to save said children because apparently they don’t listen, but when do children ever do, before having to try and get your horse back from Link’s love interest; while during that scene of getting Epona back, that’s where all the shit goes wrong.  Literally; they pretty much put in a love interest for Link in every game, and the love interest is barely apart of the story and is never mentioned ever again. So, Nintendo is really trying for romance, but they are putting so much pointless crap that doesn’t need to be there. Which isn’t the shit that blows up in their face. 

So, Bulblins come brushing into Ordon Spring; knocking out both Ilia and Link, and somehow getting only four children of the village; Beth, Talo, Malo, and Colin. Though how Beth, Talo, and Malo got taken is literally unknown to the player considering it was only Link, Ilia, and Colin at the Ordon Spring with Epona. Anyways, Link gets dragged through a dark wall that splits the Ordon Province from the Faron Province; being brought into the Realm of Twilight, which should have made him into a spirit that literally has no idea what is going on, but surprise, surprise, the Triforce of Courage influences Link by transforming him into a “beast” wolf. Now, Ordon is perfectly fine thanks to the Ordon Province Light Spirit; Ordona. How that Light Spirit is stronger than all the others is beyond me even.

Skip to Link waking up chained up in a prison. He’s more surprised then freaked out about what has happened to him; which makes this boy pretty laid back, more so than most people, which is very odd because anyone in Link’s situation would be having a clear heart attack or something. A few moments pass and here comes an imp-like chick; Minda. Who literally taunts Link until finally setting him free, only to really make him her minion. With Midna’s instructions; he takes her to someone to explain to him what in the world is going on. While the player already knows where Link is, and who he is going to meet; until right before he gets to meet the person; Midna tells him that they’re at Hyrule Castle. Literally pulling something out of a Disney Guide, Link breaks into a tower and goes into a room at the top to meet no other than Zelda. While Nintendo spent so much time building up this very scene, it was very anticlimactic all around. Link and Midna ditch Hyrule Castle as soon as the cutscene is done and with Minda’s little ability, they are taken to Ordon Province, right at the Ordon Spring where Link finally gets to talk to Ordona; telling him what he needs to do now.

Midna instructs Link that they need a sword and shield first before they head off to the Faron Province; meaning Link heads back to Ordon Village; due to the fact that the player knows that there’s, in fact, a sword and shield there. While doing some sneaking around to get these things; Link finds out that the children have been kidnapped as well; along with Colin’s father; Rusl, being injured while going to look for the children. Pretty much getting the things, Link heads to the border of the Ordon Province and Faron Province and goes through the wall once again to be brought back to the Realm of Twilight, only to pretty much to almost get his head chopped off by Midna; who has no clue how to wield and sword and shield or at least the shield bit. Link should have died much earlier than this by now, but he’s the hero of course; and he can’t die because he’s got the Triforce of Courage, that he had no clue about until Zelda told him.

The player pretty much heads straight for the Faron Spring, where you see a cloud of glowing dust over the water before meeting the Light Spirit; Faron, who asks Link to go find the Tears of Light to restore the Spirit from this state. These Tears of Light are being held by- I am literally just going to call them fireflies, but just deadlier and huge assholes. Once that is finished, Link is brought back to Faron Spring and changed back into a human; but in the Green Tunic of the Hero; the typical Link uniform. Faron points you in the direction of where you need to find what you are looking for, which Link has no clue since Midna literally doesn’t give out that information just yet about what they are looking for.

Welcome to your first dungeon; the famous Forest Temple. Which is pretty much the actual tutorial of the game. Since before; that was all really grunt work, and nothing was really other than just running around doing tasks, which is the game has a lot of if you’re willing to spend like a day in enjoy area getting everything. Something that I never do when I play this every year. Pretty much, the entire task of this dungeon is to collect monkey’s, that the game makes you think are assholes; but Talo is just an animal racist. The dungeon holds two mini-boss’ and one main boss; all of which are super easy, seeing as this is the tutorial. The item that you get from this dungeon is from the first mini-boss which is the King of the Monkey’s, you see him when you first get to the temple, he smacks his ass at you. The Gale Boomerang is something that you do use pretty much throughout the entire game; and of course, plays a huge part of the dungeon. The second mini-boss is right before the boss key, and is a pushover compared to the battle before it; thanks to the Gale Boomerang. Finally, you go to the boss.

Diababa is some weird looking creature that is in poison water. The thing is just terrible. With the Gale Boomerang and help from the Monkey King, you beat the boss with the legendary three hits rule and that entire dungeon takes about fifteen minutes tops; maybe twenty if it’s your first time through it. You get your heart piece along with a Fused Shadows, a piece of it, considering it’s been broken up into four pieces, Midna has one of them on her head. You learn a little bit more of it; that with they hold an ancient power that could help them fight Zant; the King of Twilight that started this entire mess. But they are across Hyrule and they need to find them.

With Faron Woods done and dealt with, it is time to head to the Eldin, after Faron tells Link that he’ll find the people that he is looking for. So, with that, they head off and entire the Realm of Twilight once again. On their way, Link finds a broke wooden sword; his old wooden sword that he had given to Talo. Sniffing it gives Link the scent of the children leading them to Kakariko Village, where Link meets the Light Spirit; Eldin, who also needs Link to gather it’s lost Tears of Light. While on the hunt; Link comes across spirits and finds that it’s the children, but no Ilia. Who is not mentioned, literally, you seriously don’t hear anything about Ilia for a while, or does anyone make mention of her.

While the rest of the children are scared, the only person who really is calm is Colin; who tells the others that Link is coming to save them, he knows it. Link is obviously touched by this, because he’s right there listening, and it kind of motivates the player to continue of this task just because of the sake for Colin. Collect the light, and once back as Link, the children see him and come running, all so happy to see them. Renado; the shaman of the village, who has been taking care of the children with his daughter; Luda, fills Link in on what has been happening. The Gorons’ had a sudden change in behavior and that Death Mountain seems very different. Link attempts to head up to check it out, but gets knocked back down, when returning to the village, Link runs into Renado; who tells him that the mayor of Ordon Village; Bo, has challenged the Gorons’ before and won, earning their respect. But right before Link starts to head back to Ordon Village, Epona comes rushing down the road from the other way and Link is finally back together with his horse, making the trip back to Ordon much easier and quicker.

Link learns how to sumo fight, which is pretty cool to bring Japanese culture into the game, but it is a Japanese game, but that’s beside the point. Once after defeating the mayor during the second round, he deems you right to fight, while giving you a little gift of the Iron Boots, to keep Link on his feet. Return to Death Mountain and start the climb to the top. While there, the mountain is erupting like crazy, making it pretty hard to dodge falling rocks and keep from getting knocked down by Gorons’. Finally to the top, Link ends up getting challenged by Elder Gor Coron. Once through that fight, then you learn of what is going on. The Gorons’ have been keeping watch over the Fused Shadows piece for generations now, and with the mountain acting up, they went to investigate, which lead to the Goron Tribe Patriarch; Darbus to be cursed and go on a rampage, so they locked him up deep in the mines.

Now with access to the Goron Mines; the player heads down to the second dungeon of the entire game. Which is literally just fire and lava everywhere. How Gorons’ mine from this, is literally a mystery because there are millions of safety concerns that they don’t seem to be bothered about at all. With this boss key, you have to go and find the other Goron Elders that are all holding a piece of the key. Along the way, you use the Iron Boots, and obtain the Bow and Arrows with a mini-boss fight with this huge Goron that is protecting the item is of the previous hero. With both, the player spends the rest of the dungeon with those items collecting the key pieces from Gor Amoto, Gor Ebizo, and Gor Liggs. Finally with the key put back together you go down to fight Darbus, who has been transformed into the Twilit Igniter Fyrus. This boss has to be one of the easiest out of the entire game, considering it’s just making him fall and go whack his head. The Forest Temple boss was easy as well, just more time-consuming.

With that out of the way, pick up Bombs first before heading to the Lanayru Province. Trying to get to the spring is a bit of hassle considering the player has to jump off a bridge because there is a time limit before Link is burned alive thanks to asshole enemies. Jumping down towards Lake Hylia and realizing that there is practically no water, but thankfully landing into the water that is left is a god sent. Link kind of wanders around until finally figuring out how to get to the spring and start on collecting to Tears of Light for Lanayru. While this takes you to Castle Town because Link finds Ilia’s leg pouch and followed the scent back to a bar, where she is seen worrying over a Zora boy.

Quick backstory on this boy; he’s actually the Zora Prince, who was coming to the castle to tell Zelda about what has happened in Zora’s Domain since they were attacked by evil people as well. You meet this Prince’s mother after you help Eldin; telling you that her son is out there and if Link could please find him seeing as she was publicly killed in front of all the Zora’s.

Now, after that little moment, Link heads up to Zora’s Domain, where it is freezing for some reason. Going further up, and still not seeing at Zora’s, they reach the throne room where they look down to see that all the Zora’s are trapped in ice. Midna warps something from Death Mountain that had fallen on your way up there to deal with the Fused Shadows. Freeing the Zora’s just in time too, because they probably would have died. Noticing that there is a mark missing, before it magically pops up on the map back at the lake, getting back down there quickly thanks to the fast current of water after defrosting the Domain. Que boss music; literally to close off this segment of the game; you fight this huge, gross bug and finally finish collecting Tears of Light, that you never have to do again for the rest of the game.

Link learns about the Fused Shadows from Lanayru, stuff that Midna would never tell him due to mainly being ashamed of her past, of her tribe, but she doesn’t really mention it until much later in the game, but she does hint at it a little bit after each time finishing a dungeon.

With that done, Link has to head back to Kakariko Village to go sell his bombs to get water bombs or the player can figure out how to get more bomb bags, though personally you only really need two since, in the entire game, you really only need regular bombs and water bombs. Then return to Castle Town to reunite with Ilia… Who has no clue who you are and is very worried about the Zora boy; which brings Link to escort Telma; the bar owner, Ilia and the Zora Prince. This had to be one of the worst things to do besides collecting all the Tears of Light. I was more than glad that it was only once that I had to do this because you had to focus on some many things to do that it was overwhelming and you want to throw your controls at the tv. After that mess was dealt with, you get the Zora Armor as thanks.

With this, Link can finally head to the Lakebed Temple and get the final Fused Shadows.

But this was where I decided to end the first session considering was I just relaxed with just having those parts behind considering I knew that I was about to be in store for a lot more hurt when I picked the game back up again the next day, which doesn’t help with jerky controls, but then again, the batteries were dying in the Wii remote, so that was partly at fault.

#review #playthrough #video game #words #twilight princess #legend of zelda #legend of zelda twilight princess #Link #Zelda #Midna #Light Spirits #items #plot #complaining #bitching #salty #long post #part one

[smashmusicideas]

August 16: Fighter 17 - Zelda

As with her alter ego, for some reason I’m disappointed to say I just don’t have as much to say on Zelda. I find her moveset painfully underrated - that one great aerial kick, her Ocarina of Time magics, her super specific up smash - and such a great contrast with other magic users (or Peach, who seems to get used as a comparison point for a number of reasons). And really, that sense of being underused extends to her in general; people always seemed to pick Sheik first when they were together, and for the most part she just seems less liked by Smash players. But I’m not sure I can say as much about that, beyond “use Zelda more, you jerks;” it’s a position so clear and obvious to me that actually defending it feels paradoxically hard. And my laziness being what it is, I’m going to go with something easier and talk about her most fun and notable change in Ultimate: her new, A Link to the Past (and A Link Between Worlds)-inspired outfit.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since the E3 Direct. In Smash 64 and Melee, the Zelda representation drew mostly from Ocarina of Time. Zelda used the game’s magic spells (a sensible move), and the entire cast in general looked like their depiction in the N64 classic. Then we moved to Brawl, and the “default” Zelda game was Twilight Princess. It didn’t set the style of the cast entirely - Toon Link was there - but it was the main source, fitting given both games’ more “realistic” art direction. That kept up in Smash For, either because Skyward Sword didn’t exactly set the world on fire or just that it wasn’t an adequate substitute. But then the Direct came out, and, well, things have obviously changed. Toon Link still has his Wind Waker outfit, but Link has his Champion’s Tunic, Sheik also has a design inspired by Breath of the Wild, and Young Link and Ganondorf are both rocking their Ocarina designs. And Zelda has been remade to look like the version of the character from the SNES classic A Link to the Past and its 3DS sequel by way of remake. And even though they aren’t my favorite Zelda games, and I really liked her Twilight Princess design, I’m so happy with her Ultimate version.

A Link to the Past is one of Nintendo’s most iconic and important works, an SNES staple whose influence can be seen not just from future Zelda to entirely unrelated games made in the twenty-seven years since its release. But while it’s had music, that’s about it. It’s kind of an outlier given its importance, in a way similar to Super Mario Bros. 3 or Kirby 64, I suppose. And that makes sense; it’s hard to replicate its top down gameplay and mechanics in a sidescrolling fighting game, and while Sakurai could’ve made a stage based on it, there weren’t a lot of great chances for that or locations that’d have necessarily been ideal. But giving Zelda that design has allowed Sakurai to represent the game (and its sequel) in a new way, while also having the benefit of letting Zelda look livelier and more energetic than ever. As great as the Twilight Princess design was, the brighter colors in her dress and the front cloth of this dress feel more exciting and engaging, her animations more, well, animated while retaining the regal nature of the character. This isn’t really about Zelda as a fighter, and to be fair this post does a disservice to her. But I really like her new design, and I think she’s a useful example of how the simple act of a new look can be so great for a fighter.

(Link to my writings on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

#Super Smash Bros. Ultimate #Super Smash Bros. #Zelda #The Legend of Zelda #The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past #The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

[returnerofthesky]

What do you think of the other designs for Link, then?

You mean TP, SS and Wild Links? This got a little longer than I expected, so I’ll toss this one under a cut.

Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword’s Link designs are both alright, but they’re also both very, very similar to each other, so they share a lot of the same problems, and that problem’s kind of a big, unfortunate one: they just don’t look very good in-game.

Like, to take Twilight Princess Link, he’s clearly based around OoT Link: he’s got the same white undershirt and tights, a tunic with short sleeves and so on, but he’s also got a significant amount of more detail to him: the gauntlets each have a unique look (one is an actual gauntlet while the other is just the glove), his boost lack the large belted cuff, there’s visibly more stitching and little flourishes here and there, he’s got the chainmail, so on and so forth. His eyes are also a lot sharper and his hair is more akin to Wind Waker/Classic Link, except it’s side-parted in the opposite direction. On top of that, the whole design is kind of... desaturated (especially noticeable when compared to any other Link).

Skyward Sword is basically a light tweaking of TP Link: his gauntlets are now both just gloves, the tunic is lacking the extra stitching and details and it’s a slightly-brighter, more vivid green, his hair is... just kind of doing its own fluffy thing, and he’s got the baggier tan pants rather than white tights. He’s still got a white undershirt, his tunic is still the short-sleeved sort, he still has chainmail.

I don’t know if I’ve ever come off as this before (maybe? who knows), but I actually don’t hate either of those designs, despite not exactly loving either game (I’ve griped about Skyward Sword before and Twilight Princess is just alright). I think they’re nice reworks of Link’s OoT design, and even if I prefer his OoT design I can see why a lot of people enjoy TP/SS Link.

The problem? To me, they only look good in the artwork.

Twilight Princess Link is desaturated to match his game’s artstyle, and while that’s nice and all, it means his actual outfit and general design is kind of muddy and never really sticks in the mind - this is on top of losing the expressiveness of the earlier designs, since every time TP Link tries to emote in TP he looks super-awkward and uncanny (with the first Fishing Hole scene being the standout example, of course). But only in-game! In the artwork he looks just fine! And that’s what’s so weird about it. Like, that Tanabata picture with TP Link smiling? He looks normal. The pictures they made for Twilight Princess HD? Smiling Link looks normal. It’s the perfect example of why a realistic artstyle doesn’t always translate well into an actual game in terms of expression and visuals (nowhere is this more apparent than the Twilight set in BOTW, where the desaturation makes it look incredibly ugly against all of the vivid colors).

Skyward Sword has the same issue in that I’ve never particularly liked the way the game looks? And Link has all the same problems. His outfit and design don’t really stick in my mind at all, and any time he has to emote he looks bizarre. I do love his thousand-yard stare and his screaming at Groose since they’re goofy as fuck and memey and all, but if we’re looking at it from a serious perspective they look super-uncanny. He can emote better than TP, but he looks weirder for it.

As for Wild Link, his feels like another reimagining of OoT Link, but it also feels much more like his own thing, which helps the whole “this is a brand new Zelda game” thing they were going for. His tunic has some ornate details and is a very vivid, distinct shade of blue, and it similarly takes from the OoT mold of “short-sleeved, open neck with a little stitching” style. His undershirt is a more faded white (not quite tan, but almost), but it has orange-and-green bordering, which matches the pattern on his gloves (and his sword-hand’s glove has TP’s gauntlet) and helps both stand out as well. He doesn’t have a hat (revealing some very messy hair that feels like another fluffing-up of the classic side-part), and his pants and boots are very simple, but this helps emphasize the details of his tunic, which instantly gives him a more recognizable look overall.

On top of that, it looks just as good in-game as it does in motion. The blue stands out extremely well in any environment, Link himself finally hits that balance of anime-style expressiveness without looking uncanny, and he’s got a distinct look that makes him stick in your head (which is why everyone rapidly recognized “oh shit that’s BotW Link” in the Smash trailer :u ).

But yeah, those are my thoughts, basically

#legend of zelda #Anonymous

[ninjagoforever]

What is Legend of Zelda about? A TV show? A video game? A movie? (you can give me a detailed explanation ; I'm willing to read a book as long as there's no spoilers) I wanna know..... - nerdface

Short answer: it’s a video game series.

Long answer:

In the game’s mythology, the world was created by three goddesses. After they were finished with their creation, they left behind an artifact called the Triforce that could make any desire a reality. Time after time, evil forces rose up and tried to claim the Triforce, but a hero always appeared to defeat them and bring light back to the land.

The protagonist in every game is named Link, a young man who rises from humble origins to combat the evils that threaten the land of Hyrule. Link is a separate person in each game (with a few exceptions), but most of them share certain characteristics, such as being left-handed and wearing a green tunic. Link is also the only person who can wield the Master Sword, a legendary blade that repels darkness.

The title character of the series is Princess Zelda of Hyrule. She’s a bit of a damsel in distress in the early entries in the series, but the later games have done a great job of giving her some real character. She’s very wise and skilled with magic, and is often shown providing guidance for Link as well as making great sacrifices for her land and people. 

Finally, Ganondorf, also known as Ganon. He doesn’t show up in every game, but he’s a recurring villain and the primary antagonist in some of the best-known games in the series. 

The Triforce is made up of three parts, called the Triforce of Wisdom, the Triforce of Courage, and the Triforce of Power. Each of the three characters above is associated with one of these parts: Link with courage, Zelda with Wisdom, and Ganondorf with Power.

The games have independent storylines and can be played in any order, although Nintendo, the developer, has published a timeline that connects most of them together. They also vary widely in tone and style, from darker stories (like Twilight Princess or Majora’s Mask) to lighter themes (Wind Waker or Skyward Sword). 

Finally, a few thoughts on the games I’ve played if you’re thinking of playing for yourself.

Skyward Sword–The first game in the Zelda timeline (though it’s a fairly recent release). It’s intended to be the “origin story” of the franchise, and it reveals a lot of backstory regarding the Master Sword and the conflict between Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf. It’s the only Zelda game released exclusively for the Wii.

Twilight Princess–This one jumps down the timeline a bit. It contains some blatant references to Ocarina of Time, the previous game in the timeline, but you don’t need to play that game to understand and enjoy this one. It was originally released for the GameCube, and a version with a right-handed Link was released for the Wii. Later, the game was remastered in HD and re-released for the Wii U (and Link went back to being left-handed). A word of warning: the ending will make you cry.

Breath of the Wild–The newest game in the franchise. It diverges a lot from the traditions established by earlier games–Link is right-handed, he doesn’t wear green, and it’s the first Zelda game to feature open-world gameplay and voice acting. Zelda herself plays a much larger role here than in the previous games. It’s available for the Wii U and Nintendo switch. Words cannot describe how much I recommend this one.

#legend of zelda #nerdface #nothing here is spoilery i promise this is all general knowledge #i could go on all evening about this series i swear there is no way to do it justice

[superduper-adventures]

So... I have story for you xD

So after the Tree Hous Event of the Switch i was so hyped that i made my friend’s little brother react to the new trailers. He wasn’t that convinced with Breath of the Wild soooo… I spammed them with everything new, different and returning i could think about the game and see if I was able to hype him up (at least I hyped my friend xD) so here is the freaking long list of he things i told them!

-You no longer can find rupiea or hearts in grass or pots… in your life

-Enemies can do more than 7 hearts of damage

-You can only get cure by eating food

-You can have more than one horse

-You can do a catapult or other stuff by applying the physics of the game

-Link is an arsonist. You can burn a big forest if you want (this is the part that convinced him xD)

-Link doesn’t have the green tunic until now -He can use any type of clothing

-He apperently can change hairstyle too

-You can summon Wolf Link by using its amiibo

-There’s people traveling and fighting to survive just like Link

-Link can use any type of weapon (Spear, Hammer, Axe, etc.) and you can even use enemy weapons

-Link is freaking chef

-The climate has a huge on Link

-Almost all previous races are back (Gorons, Zoras, Koroks and even Gerudo)

-You can fish… with bombs!

-You can do your own campfire and camp at anytime

-There’s a bit of a crafting mechanism woth weapons and armor

-You can only get rupies by selling things

-Link has been dead for 100 years and just woke up!

-He doesn’t have a companion/guide like before similar to Navi, Midna or Fi (besides Zelda’s voice i guess…)

-You can directly go to Calamity Ganon and finish at once if you want

-The Sheika are very prominent in the story

-There’s a boost of technology (Link technically has a tablet xD)

-There’s an airship in the form of a big bird

-There are mini-bosses all around

-The time between night and day is a lot more

-The Great Deku Tree is back

-The Master Sword is freaking busted

-The Temple of Time is back too

-Near the temple, the map is almost the same to Castle Town in Ocarina of Time

-You can do parkour

-There are meteorites at night

-The word seems bigger than The Witcher and Elder Scrolls games combine!

-There is a zone that resembles a lot to the map of the first game of Zelda

-There’s freaking voice acting! (but Link still doesn’t talk :v)

-Link can fly! (well… fall with style)

-Nintendo calls it Open-Air instead of Open-World (for… some reason xD)

-You can snowboard with the shield

-The weapons have a certain durability

-Bow and arrow have more focus this time

-You can leave Link on his underwear (okey not really xD)

-There’s the possibility that you can play the events from 100 yeara ago, making the world technically be doubled in size

-There are epic and big cities around… but not much xD

-It’s because… well it was the apocalypse during does 100 years

-You can do deforestation with axe

-You can climb anywhere any almost everything

-There’s infinite bombs!

-There’s no direct tutorial like other games in the franchise

-Link can jump finally!

-The season s can change… so you can technically see if a year or so has passed

-Lightning can strike Link during storms

-Previous and new types of arrows are in!

-You can kill enemies a big freaking boulder

-The game has elements of all parts of the chronology, which makes it harder to predict where it is placed at

-Almost all types of terrain (desert, volvano, forest, tropical, jungle, plains, snowy, etc.)

-There’s the possibility you can go deep into the sea (since the Zoras are back)

-The name of Link will be always Link!

-There are more than the typical 3 files to save your game

-There are big gigant hyper beast bosses/temples to beat

-Guardians and other enemies can attack at any moment (you are not save even in the cities or villages)

-There’s also a part of the mapa that looks like the Castle Town of Twilight Princess but in ruins

-The old dude of the first game is back (at least as a reference xD)

-More than 100 hundred mini-dungeons… i think

-The new amiibo that came for the anniversary of Zelda can give extra loot!

-There’s an infinite amount of bottles to use, no restrictions to craft elixirs :v

-Link has gone Solid Snake all around xD

-Link is more expressive

-The game saves automatically

-Beetle is back! (^v^)

-Zelda’s father appears to be more prominent in the story (beside Wind Waker)

-Link still doesn’t have any type of instrument or tool of music 8v

-Horses are automatic… they aren’t stupid anymore xD

-The logo of the game has different style to the other ones

-Has he freaking style of Studio Ghibli, the greatest of all!

Ufff… I think that’s all xD My friend got more hype for the game than his little brother doe xD Let’s see if you guys can put more stuff into the list ;v Sorry for this big post and probably bad grammar and that stuff Good night and dream nintendo!

#nintendo #nintendo switch #nintendo nx #switch #loz botw #the legend of zelda

[gman-003]

Aesthetics - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword analyzed, Part Five

(This is part of my ongoing series analyzing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, part of a bigger series where I play through and then talk excessively about every game in the Zelda series. If you want to catch up, earlier installments discussed the use of patterns, the story and how it fits into the chronology, the controls, and the flow and friction)

Video games are composite art. They combine dozens of artistic (and non-artistic) disciplines. You have game designers, writers, musicians, and an entire array of visual artists, specializing in textures, models, animation, lighting, and all kinds of other things. I've been focusing a lot on the game design, since that's an understudied field, but all the other elements deserve analysis too. We've already examined the story, so today, we'll take a look at the look of Skyward Sword.

Good: Overall art direction, graphics

When I review games, I make a distinction between "art" and "graphics". The former, as I use the term, is the timeless quality of the art direction, divorced from that specific implementation in the game; the latter is the technical work of making the software turn the artistic vision into reality, judged by what the hardware can theoretically handle. "Art" is that which shows up even in the manual and advertising, that which is unchanged in remakes and ports. Skyward Sword, on the whole, does an excellent job on both fronts.

The graphics are nothing to write home about by 2017 standards, but for a Wii game, it looks excellent. It's important to remember just how weak the Wii was, even compared to the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. It also has some real limitations on what you can do with it, beyond just strength - since the processor design was identical to the Gamecube, it had very little flexibility, requiring a lot of trickery from programmers to get many special effects.

I'm not really equipped to dig into the technical functioning of it, but just from playing, it seems to hold a mostly-stable 30fps, rendering the game at 360p and upscaling to 480p before rendering UI elements. This is a common trick for console games - this hides the jaggies you get with no antialiasing, and fonts benefit far more from the increased resolution than the 3D environment does, while not costing nearly so much processing time to render. There was some consistent framerate drops during certain cutscenes - most scenes of a Timeshift Stone have some really nasty reduction in framerate - but during gameplay, it seems to be solid, which is when it really matters.

Some very interesting effect is done to create a depth-of-field-like effect, blurring the far background in a painting-like way. Again, I don't have the tools (or, quite frankly, the skills and time) to dig into exactly how this is done, but the effect is really well-done. This serves a gameplay purpose too, by making foreground objects (like enemies or items) stand out more from the background.

The design of most of the characters is also spot-on. Everything is stylized, anatomy is often exaggerated, and colors are bright and vibrant. There's visual depth to everything, lots of layers, which balances out the flatter colors. Faces are expressive. Costumes are iconic without being overly simple.

Even lots of the fully background characters look pretty good. Wander through Skyloft, and you'll see lots of interesting characters. There are very few background characters with a bland or boring design.

Okay: The Heroes

Which makes it so weird that the two central characters of the game are so dull. Skyward Sword's Link and Zelda aren't bad, really. They're just... completely unremarkable. 

Link is bland. He doesn't have any of that exaggerated styling that made other characters fun. He just looks like the Link from Twilight Princess with new textures. There's very little depth or layering - the dominant feature is just that blank green tunic. Given how much green there is in the environment, Link often fades into the background. This never reached the level of a gameplay issue, at least for me, but it's still not great when the player character isn't visually distinct from the game world, especially when the story is about him entering a strange new world.

Link also just doesn't fit in. His proportions are far more realistic than the rest, making him look out of place next to caricatures like Beedle or Strich or Gondo. It's not consistent - he looks fine beside Pipit or Kina or Peatrice - but that inconsistency is itself a minor problem.

Zelda's first design in the game is fine. It's got contrast, it's got depth, it's not the best thing ever but it's pretty good. And she's very well animated - I won't call it Pixar quality but it's leagues ahead of where they were even a few years prior. She's emotionally expressive and responsive. But then she has a costume change, and it's just... nothing.

It's a white dress. No other color. No layers. No depth. No frills or poofs or anything, besides a bit of lace designs that you can only see in the concept art. They still have her moving well but it's just... so... wasted. Could they really think of nothing more visually interesting than a featureless white dress to symbolize the purification stuff? You don't see her in this outfit all that much, but it's the outfit she's in for the majority of the game, so it's still very important. It wouldn't have taken much to make her design better. Give her any splash of color - a red rope belt (red string has a suitable symbolic meaning in east-asian culture), a purple feather from her Loftwing in her hair, anything really that isn't plain featureless white. Even making that lace rendition of the Hyrulian Royal Crest more visible would have worked. Even if you absolutely insisted on flat white, you could layer the clothing to give depth instead of a featureless white void. Or give her more to wear - a wimple or veil over her head even adds to that "purification" intent (and it's not like Zelda games haven't borrowed religious imagery before). I can't really point to anything that was actually done wrong with Link or Zelda. They just aren't nearly as good as many of the other characters.

Bad: The Villains

Some stuff was just outright bad, though.

Tentalus, the boss of the Sandship dungeon, is a bizarrely cartoonish enemy design. If its battle was intentionally funny, that could have worked - but the fight is framed as one of the most dramatic in the game. The ship shudders under its attack from the moment it appears, twisting in a section reminiscent of the Call of Duty 4 level "Crew Expendable", of all things. The skies are dark under the pouring rain, lit by distant lightning... the music builds to an ominous tension... as this Baby's First Lovecraftian Horror shows up. It's purple Cthulhu with tentacle dreadlocks. As more than one fan artist has noted, Tentalus looks like it came from a Monsters Inc. knockoff, not a Zelda game with a French Impressionist aesthetic.

And the single eye as a weak point, in this late stage of the game, is frankly unnecessary. Any player who's made it this far knows how boss weak points work. Absent a gameplay justification, it just further serves to make the boss look child-like.

For a boss that features so prominently in the game, The Imprisoned is also quite poorly designed. His core problem is his lack of features, and how the "gameplay-oriented" features look so out of place.

On the face of it, a dark behemoth, featureless except for a gaping maw, seems like a perfectly fine idea. The early concept art certainly looks good. But now add some white blobs as "toes" that serve as weak points - first, it distracts from that singular focus on the mouth, and second it undercuts the intimidating look of the boss, because seriously, you kill the boss by stabbing its toes? The same thing happens when, in the second and third forms, they added some ungainly long arms, tipped with white blobs as "fingers". They were certainly necessary to make the boss fight playable, but there had to have been another way to do it. It just reeks of a boss that was designed by an artist, and then had to have gameplay elements tacked on.

The Imprisoned also fits very poorly with the painterly aesthetic of the rest of the game. It, almost alone in the game, is harshly geometric, with his hundreds of identical scales. The concept art is quite a bit more abstract, so maybe it's a matter of the Wii not having the horsepower for all those particle effects. But I have to judge the game they released, not the game they wanted to make, and this game has a central villain that doesn't fit.

Had that felt more deliberate, it could have worked. The Twili had that sort of effect in Twilight Princess, with a techno-ish sound and harsh digital effects to play up their alien-ness to Hyrule. But in every way except its appearance, The Imprisoned fits the game normally - normal music, normal gameplay, normal sound effects.

Overall, the game's aesthetic sensibilities are on point. It really is a lovely game. But those few mistakes are all the more glaring when they're surrounded by excellence.

Next time: the greatest flaw of Skyward Sword

#the legend of zelda #everyzeldaproject #loz #skyward sword #game design #character design

[arkingarts]

Updating... ... ...

It’s the end of another week and nearly the end of the first week in April! 

I feel like I’m so behind now, all of my goal dates are rushing up to meet me. I was hoping to reach my body goal by May 14th and I now have just over a month to get there. 

As for my costumes Mer-May will be my time to work on my Ariel costume but for budget reasons I might not actually have the finances to invest in making a new tail this summer. It’s not too expensive but since I’m so behind on all my other projects this one might end up biting the dust. 

As for my other costumes I actually have been productive in them, just not in the ways I thought I would. All of my embroidery for Joffrey is done, update pics coming soon I promise! I’ve also worked on producing the belt for that costume, the crown, and accessories. The crown is turning into quite the project piece requiring a lot of time and effort to sand down and make just right. I still need to make the scarlet undershirt and the laced faux leather pants for this costume which will find multiple use in two other costumes I have in the wings. 

Aegon Targaryen has been a slow going project despite being the first costume I produced. Missing from this piece yet is the embroidery designs that mirror Joffrey. I have this idea in my mind that the Lannisters emulate and heighten what the Targaryen dynasty did, a little obsession and jealousy fueling their style so imagine my Aegon will more subdued in design. Truly Aegon should look a bit more medieval compared if we’re talking costume periods but as it is I’m not making any big changes in my plans yet. Still the leather pants will be used again for this costume, and I have yet to produce the circlet and cape that will go hand in hand with this piece. I also need some pins and brooch accessories to finish it off. 

I’ve also finished a lot of my Harry Potter costume which means I’m just the robes away from finishing the look. Currently I have the glasses, wig (needs to be styled), wand, and some various accessories (golden snitch/potion bottles/broom). I like to think of the snitch as my sneak peak to a future Quidditch Seeker Harry costume in the far flung future. 

Lastly in my spare moments I’ve maintained some progress on Robin and Link. Link is by far the most intensive, requiring a near overhaul of the look but I’ve also been happy to discover that a lot of what I’m making transfers to three different costumes. First off my Twilight Princess Link needs braies yet, an undershirt, chainmail, and some belt accessories. Theres still the option for a new tunic but I’ve yet to delve into that. From there the braies will be used yet again in conjunction with my Wind Waker Link costume which will be making a reprise this summer for a photoshoot. This costume requires just a few things to complete it after that, and wouldn’t you know I just finished making a Wind Waker so it’s nearly done! Lastly Breath of the Wild Link actually wears trousers rather than braies, but the wig and props used in the others would transfer nicely to produce a third outfit. 

So my to do list over the next week is - - -

Finish the damn braies!!!!

Cut Potters Robes

Stitch the embroidery onto the doublet

Take photos. 

#dialing it back #overdoing it #costumes #cosplay