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The Legend of Zelda Community Thread: Timelines, Retreads and Colors Oh My

DoomXploder7 said:
Link:"Hey, Zelda do you know where the water on the floating island comes from"
Zelda:" Yea, It comes from....Aiiiiieeeee" -gets kidnapped-
Link: "Nooooooooo" -goes on quest-
By this point, it's actually pretty plausible.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Green Scar said:
Just popping in to say the music in Four Swords (the DSi/GBA/whatever one) FUCKING SUCKS GORON BALLS.

That is all.
Seriously. I don't think I noticed it that much back when it first came out and I played it with friends, but now that I'm playing it myself it sounds so underwhelming. >_<

It needs a custom soundtrack.


Professor Beef said:
It was either get HMH or get Phantasy Star Portable 2. I like to think I made the correct choice.

Besides, the HMH demo was kinda dumb.
Serious post: The Yuusha 30 demo is not representative of the whole game. It gets better. It's definitely one of my favourite PSP games. I loved all the alternate modes (I really loved that they were all different and not all of them played like each other). The localization is top-notch as well; I appreciated a lot of the tongue-in-cheek moments. Give it another chance if you have the cash for it. :D

Also, the music is awesome.
 
Dark Schala said:
Serious post: The Yuusha 30 demo is not representative of the whole game. It gets better. It's definitely one of my favourite PSP games. I loved all the alternate modes (I really loved that they were all different and not all of them played like each other). The localization is top-notch as well; I appreciated a lot of the tongue-in-cheek moments. Give it another chance if you have the cash for it. :D

Also, the music is awesome.
*thinks to himself* "Alright, let's see if these tracks are even any goo-"

1egYg.gif
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
viciouskillersquirrel said:
The fact of the matter is that the Palace of the Four Sword is in ALttP as of November 2002, regardless of your attempts to disregard it or make it go away.

We're just gonna have to end this part of the conversation, then, because I don't consider that dungeon to be canon. Full stop. Sorry.

FSA is clearly an attempt to reconcile the ALttP backstory

Yet again, a point where there is no discussion to be had. "Clearly?" If it was so clear, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. What is so evident to you is the categorical opposite to me. To me, FSA is "clearly" an attempt to bring LTTP's themes back into Nintendo's new canon in a fun way. What you call "backstory," I call "tribute."

You can't reconcile these events with OoT being the Imprisoning War without having to come up with fanfic-level explanations to how things got back to the way they were so neatly before ALttP came along.

I have told you at least two times now how I deal with this, and it involves zero fan-fiction. It is based, in fact, on decisions made during the development of video games, not on concepts in fictional universes. When Nintendo released Wind Waker, they decided the pre-OOT games were no longer canon. THE END. There is nothing else to even explain.

[edit]

ALttP: Shards of the broken Four Sword found in the Sacred Realm / Dark World

I just youtubed this dungeon to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything, and it's hilarious. "Shards" of the "broken" four sword? There are no SHARDS, and nothing is BROKEN. There are four dedicated pedestals with swords in perfect condition. PEDESTALS.

None of the conclusions you have drawn about the Four Sword in the game have been based on anything other than "the dungeon has a four sword theme."
 
Tathanen said:
We're just gonna have to end this part of the conversation, then, because I don't consider that dungeon to be canon. Full stop. Sorry.
I consider everything that happens in-game to be canon unless it's contradicted by a more recent release. The dreams Link has about the bosses when asleep is PTSD. Link's Crossbow Training happened. FSA happened. The handheld games happened. The Tingle games happened. What you're doing is cherry-picking your canon.

Tathanen said:
Yet again, a point where there is no discussion to be had. "Clearly?" If it was so clear, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. What is so evident to you is the categorical opposite to me. To me, FSA is "clearly" an attempt to bring LTTP's themes back into Nintendo's new canon in a fun way. What you call "backstory," I call "tribute."
Again, it happened in-game. Nintendo published it, so it's canon until they say otherwise.

Tathanen said:
I have told you at least two times now how I deal with this, and it involves zero fan-fiction. It is based, in fact, on decisions made during the development of video games, not on concepts in fictional universes. When Nintendo released Wind Waker, they decided the pre-OOT games were no longer canon. THE END. There is nothing else to even explain.
Please quote me where in the games, marketing material or developer interviews this was ever explained.

Tathanen said:
I just youtubed this dungeon to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything, and it's hilarious. "Shards" of the "broken" four sword? There are no SHARDS, and nothing is BROKEN. There are four dedicated pedestals with swords in perfect condition. PEDESTALS.

None of the conclusions you have drawn about the Four Sword in the game have been based on anything other than "the dungeon has a four sword theme."
That's how the Four Sword works - it splits into four identical pieces when you hold it and it splits you in four. Thing is, unless someone's wielding it, you never see it as four separate pieces except in TMC, and even then, the pieces are elemental powers that you get in dungeons in order to forge the Picori Blade into the Four Sword. The sword is broken in that temple and broken in a thematically-consistent way - into four identical swords.

"Shards" is just a term I picked up talking about it on other forums, so sorry for the confusion.
 

JaseMath

Member
viciouskillersquirrel said:
I consider everything that happens in-game to be canon unless it's contradicted by a more recent release. The dreams Link has about the bosses when asleep is PTSD. Link's Crossbow Training happened. FSA happened. The handheld games happened. The Tingle games happened. What you're doing is cherry-picking your canon.
...You really consider Link's Crossbow Training and (to a lesser extent) the Tingle games canon? Really?
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
mdtauk said:
The Japanese is much closer aligned to OoT and WW's storylines.

Not really a surprise.

But I still love that old manual.

JasonMCG said:
...You really consider Link's Crossbow Training and (to a lesser extent) the Tingle games canon? Really?

Indeed. If we can't exclude Nintendo-published games from the canon then Smash Bros. has to get looped in as well. And hell, why not Soul Caliber? Nintendo OK'd Link's appearance in that game.
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
viciouskillersquirrel said:
I consider everything that happens in-game to be canon unless it's contradicted by a more recent release. The dreams Link has about the bosses when asleep is PTSD. Link's Crossbow Training happened. FSA happened. The handheld games happened. The Tingle games happened. What you're doing is cherry-picking your canon.

Welp, then our interpretations are simply incompatible, and no accord will be reached. I'll go ahead and let it end there. Pleasure chatting with you.

[edit] Well except for this, I guess:

Again, it happened in-game. Nintendo published it, so it's canon until they say otherwise.

Nothing in FSA happened, in-game, that says it's a LTTP prequel. You can infer, you can extrapolate, you can say it's "clearly the case." But nothing in the game says it outright, period. In this, there is no wiggle room.
 
JasonMCG said:
...You really consider Link's Crossbow Training and (to a lesser extent) the Tingle games canon? Really?
Why not? They don't contradict anything important* that happened in the mainline games.

*
I know, I know, Stallord - thing is he was already undead in TP, and he's not the first monster in the series to have returned from the dead. Nor is it unreasonable for a new Stallord to have risen thanks to some magical mcguffin or other.
 

apana

Member
Isn't the most likely scenario that Nintendo doesn't know where any of the other games in the timeline are placed yet? I get the feeling they are gonna and try and sneak the games in there whenever they get a good opportunity.
 
So did the Goddesses mean to create the Triforce? I recall from OoT that it made at the point of their exit from the world.
 
Tathanen said:
Welp, then our interpretations are simply incompatible, and no accord will be reached. I'll go ahead and let it end there. Pleasure chatting with you.

[edit] Well except for this, I guess:



Nothing in FSA happened, in-game, that says it's a LTTP prequel. You can infer, you can extrapolate, you can say it's "clearly the case." But nothing in the game says it outright, period. In this, there is no wiggle room.
Nothing in TP ever says outright that it's in the Child Timeline of OoT, yet the connection has been confirmed in developer interviews. It, like so much else in this series, is meant to be inferred. Miyamoto and Aonuma have a tendency to show rather than tell. Are the monkeys in TP just reincarnations of the Kokiri? It's never explicitly stated, but the fact that Kokiri symbols are everywhere and the fact that they live in the forest in what seems to be the husk of the Great Deku tree are pretty telling.

The thing about the fiction of the games is that it is often stupid, goofy and makes very little sense. You can't just exclude things like that solely on that basis.
 

JaseMath

Member
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Why not? They don't contradict anything important* that happened in the mainline games.

*
I know, I know, Stallord - thing is he was already undead in TP, and he's not the first monster in the series to have returned from the dead. Nor is it unreasonable for a new Stallord to have risen thanks to some magical mcguffin or other.
Sure. Link's cameo's in Donkey Kong Country 2 and Soul Caliber 2 are canon then too, yeah?
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Nothing in TP ever says outright that it's in the Child Timeline of OoT, yet the connection has been confirmed in developer interviews.

That's a case of the Word of God, which is usually equal to in-game canon. So unless you have one of those two connecting FSA to LttP, I'm afraid it's hearsay.

Personally I'm pretty sure FSA is in a different universe altogether.
 
JasonMCG said:
Sure. Link's cameo's in Donkey Kong Country 2 and Soul Caliber 2 are canon then too, yeah?
The Lost Woods can take you just about anywhere…

Off-franchise cameos don't actually affect the main story nor do they flesh out the world or provide detail regarding story events. You're free to disregard them completely or include them in the canon and the main details remain the same. You're probably better off exluding them from timelines for the sake of readability, however. How exactly would you represent the timeline knot that would ensue from TP Link fighting WW Link in Brawl, for instance?

Personally, I don't include them, mainly because doing so would be cumbersome.

Andrex said:
That's a case of the Word of God, which is usually equal to in-game canon. So unless you have one of those two connecting FSA to LttP, I'm afraid it's hearsay.

Personally I'm pretty sure FSA is in a different universe altogether.
Don't mislabel vague, ambiguous in-game hints as hearsay.

You're free to believe that FSA is in a different canon, but I've never seen any reasonf or this to be the case at all, apart from maybe convenience.
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Nothing in TP ever says outright that it's in the Child Timeline of OoT, yet the connection has been confirmed in developer interviews. It, like so much else in this series, is meant to be inferred. Miyamoto and Aonuma have a tendency to show rather than tell. Are the monkeys in TP just reincarnations of the Kokiri? It's never explicitly stated, but the fact that Kokiri symbols are everywhere and the fact that they live in the forest in what seems to be the husk of the Great Deku tree are pretty telling.

The thing about the fiction of the games is that it is often stupid, goofy and makes very little sense. You can't just exclude things like that solely on that basis.

Some things you can infer, sure. You can say "hey Kokiri symbols, I bet this is related to the Kokiri." Maybe even that it's the old Kokiri forest. You can NOT infer something about reincarnated monkeys. That's when you tread into inference without any actual source.

FSA has a Ganondorf get a trident. You can say "hey that's like in LTTP." But that's where it stops. Here's a perfectly plausible alternate explanation for it: in a timeline where LTTP comes well before FSA, Ganon's trident is kept after he's killed, and instilled in the temple. This new Ganondorf uses it as the foundation of his power. Which also gels well with the "ancient evil reborn" comment in there.

Of course, that assumes you need an in-universe explanation. The point is: there's inference, and then there's wild extrapolation. When you have to say "this would make sense before this other game as long as they made another game in between the two to explain what happened," you have a link that is not strong enough to be an actual link.

FSA being a LTTP prequel is fan fiction.
 
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Nothing in TP ever says outright that it's in the Child Timeline of OoT, yet the connection has been confirmed in developer interviews. It, like so much else in this series, is meant to be inferred. Miyamoto and Aonuma have a tendency to show rather than tell. Are the monkeys in TP just reincarnations of the Kokiri? It's never explicitly stated, but the fact that Kokiri symbols are everywhere and the fact that they live in the forest in what seems to be the husk of the Great Deku tree are pretty telling.
Sometimes monkeys are just monkeys.
 

Anth0ny

Member
viciouskillersquirrel said:
How exactly would you represent the timeline knot that would ensue from TP Link fighting WW Link in Brawl, for instance?

The all encompassing Nintendo franchise timeline.

Duh.
 
viciouskillersquirrel said:
The Lost Woods can take you just about anywhere…

Off-franchise cameos don't actually affect the main story nor do they flesh out the world or provide detail regarding story events. You're free to disregard them completely or include them in the canon and the main details remain the same. You're probably better off exluding them from timelines for the sake of readability, however. How exactly would you represent the timeline knot that would ensue from TP Link fighting WW Link in Brawl, for instance?

Personally, I don't include them, mainly because doing so would be cumbersome.
They've already established that in Smash Bros. they are trophies (or in the original, dolls) that come to life, rather than being the actual characters.
 

Anth0ny

Member
Chet Rippo said:
They've already established that in Smash Bros. they are trophies (or in the original, dolls) that come to life, rather than being the actual characters.

And Master Hand is a kid playing with his dolls... or trophies.

Although that theory completely goes out the window with Brawl. What kind of fucked up imagination does this kid have to think up of Subspace Emissary?
 
Anth0ny said:
And Master Hand is a kid playing with his dolls... or trophies.

Although that theory completely goes down the drain with Brawl. What kind of fucked up imagination does this kid have to think up of Subspace Emissary?

Sakurai's?
 
Tathanen said:
Some things you can infer, sure. You can say "hey Kokiri symbols, I bet this is related to the Kokiri." Maybe even that it's the old Kokiri forest. You can NOT infer something about reincarnated monkeys. That's when you tread into inference without any actual source.

FSA has a Ganondorf get a trident. You can say "hey that's like in LTTP." But that's where it stops. Here's a perfectly plausible alternate explanation for it: in a timeline where LTTP comes well before FSA, Ganon's trident is kept after he's killed, and instilled in the temple. This new Ganondorf uses it as the foundation of his power. Which also gels well with the "ancient evil reborn" comment in there.

Of course, that assumes you need an in-universe explanation. The point is: there's inference, and then there's wild extrapolation. When you have to say "this would make sense before this other game as long as they made another game in between the two to explain what happened," you have a link that is not strong enough to be an actual link.

FSA being a LTTP prequel is fan fiction.
We all make our own fiction when it comes to this franchise. In many ways, I think that's sort of the point - there's a timeline, but it's kept intentionally vague so you can read whatever you want to into it.

Point is that you aren't going to convince me to excise games from the continuity, that ALttP's backstory still fits OoT's main story or that this or that cameo is just that on the basis of your say so, which is pretty much what your argument amounts to.

Chet Rippo said:
They've already established that in Smash Bros. they are trophies (or in the original, dolls) that come to life, rather than being the actual characters.
Really? That's pretty cool. I've never played any of the Smash games.
 

Big One

Banned
Tathanen said:
Nothing in FSA happened, in-game, that says it's a LTTP prequel. You can infer, you can extrapolate, you can say it's "clearly the case." But nothing in the game says it outright, period. In this, there is no wiggle room.
So how do you explain the origin of Ganon getting the Trident and the fact that the game takes place in the exact same Hyrule as ALttP?
 
Cow Mengde said:
Wasn't it written by someone who wrote Final Fantasy? Something about Donkey Kong on a bus.
'"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.'
 

BY2K

Membero Americo
DoomXploder7 said:
"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.

Guillaume de Fondaumiere doesn't need the press to do that.
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
Big One said:
So how do you explain the origin of Ganon getting the Trident and the fact that the game takes place in the exact same Hyrule as ALttP?

Because OOT is the Imprisoning War.

This is really the crux of everything for me. OOT is the origin of one Ganondorf. FSA is the origin of another. FSA Ganon can't be LTTP Ganon because LTTP Ganon is OOT Ganon.

I've made my argument for why I believe OOT is the Imprisoning War several times in this thread already, I won't repeat it. Things like the Trident and "a Hyrule that looks sort of like LTTP" in FSA are homages, not implications. For every thing you can identify in FSA that is "just like LTTP," there is another that makes it nothing like LTTP whatsoever. And those carry more weight.
 
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Really? That's pretty cool. I've never played any of the Smash games.
Yeah, in Brawl's Story mode when the characters get defeated, they revert back to trophies, which can be brought back to life when the touch their base
Co1F9.jpg

It's always been shown in the openings. Also at the beginning of Melee's opening
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
viciouskillersquirrel said:
So who was Wind Waker Ganon?

OOT Ganon.

As I will now repeat for what I believe is the fourth time, I consider OOT to be a bridge title that is present in two wholly distinct canons. It's a prequel to LTTP in one canon, which contains all of the pre-OOT games. It's a prequel to WW and TP in the other canon.
 
DoomXploder7 said:
'"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.'

Considering he wrote it, yeah, I would attribute it to him. It's not like every single person who worked on the game also wrote the story.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Personally, I don't include them, mainly because doing so would be cumbersome.

Cherry picking canon! Cherry picking canon!
 
Cow Mengde said:
Considering he wrote it, yeah, I would attribute it to him. It's not like every single person who worked on the game also wrote the story.

Well really I was trying to say I only know one person's name from that development team so that's the one I used.
 
Andrex said:
Cherry picking canon! Cherry picking canon!
Actually, it's more a case of how difficult it would be to explain how Link got into these different universes and timelines on a 2D plane. As it is, you'd almost have to resort to representing it on a Calabi-Yau space. Avoiding clutter is the main reason I usually put the Tingle games, Zelda Game & Watch, Ancient Stone Tablets or Link's Crossbow Training on a separate line. If it was published by Nintendo, it's canon.

Thinking about it, SC2 was published by Namco, though, so it counts about as much as the CDi Zelda games.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
I think it's absurd. There's quite clearly a mainline series with a strong canon, and spinoffs with at best, a weak canon, or no canon. You're trying to shoehorn everything Zelda together, which is not what the developers intend.
 
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