AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I'm hoping for a Dark Tower, Turn ∀ kind of dealie. Something like it being set so far ahead of everything else, that every other installment has already taken place and are then referenced and poked fun at occasionally, but never directly.

Well we know it's not before OoT because the Temple of Time is there and is in complete ruin. Wouldn't be all fucked before OoT.

Also something about Zelda II is that Ganon can be revived. In both other timelines, Ganon's dead. Like, dead dead. He died. Outright. Couldn't come back. And both times he died because he was killed with the Master Sword. In the Child Timeline, Ganondorf eventually is reincarnated but he's not the same as the original, he's just the same soul, just like Link and Zelda.

He's beaten down with the Master Sword in ALttP and ALBW but it's never a serious death blow like in the other timelines. It seems more that he loses his form but stays "alive" and waiting to be revived.

Of course, another option is that it's after Four Swords Adventure. Dramatically after. Because that does also have the reincarnated Ganon there, and after Link returns the Master Sword in TP, it isn't seen again at all in that timeline either. However, the leap from those two games would have to be really, really drastic. The Link in BotW has been sleeping for a hundred years, and it seems to be implying he fought Ganon already and failed. Meaning Hyrule would have had to have gone from being extremely active and bustling to almost completely dead in a hundred years. after Ganon attacks once.

It seems more likely to me that it's in the ALttP timeline simply because Hyrule was in a steady decline through that whole timeline, in Zelda II it's made really clear that while there's towns and Hyrule exists as a more complete entity, it's nowhere near the same level of prosperity that it was in almost any other game. A massive, interconnected world with long travel times and small towns you can use as resting points that are long distances apart screams Zelda II more than any other game, and would really fit the overall apocalypse theme.

I can't believe I forgot about the whole thing with the Temple of Time. I feel like an idiot now. Speaking of which, is anyone else disappointed that we aren't getting any sort of rendition of the classic Temple of Time theme?

I've also been hearing that you'll be able to go fight Ganon right from the start. This worries me since I'm afraid that this will dramatically screw up the story's pacing. Also, the only games to date where it's been possible to defeat Ganon without holy weapons are the Oracle games. Are they going to acknowledge that? Are they going to give players who just make a mad dash for Hyrule Castle an opportunity to get something like the Master Sword or the Silver Arrows? If not, how are they going to explain this when just about every game in the series - especially the 3D ones, which seem to be taken into account far more than any others in terms of canon - has made a big deal about Ganon's immunity to all but the holiest of weapons? It's why the weakened Master Sword in Wind Waker couldn't hurt him. It's why the Ordon Sword and even the Fused Shadows were useless against him in Twilight Princess. They also made a big deal about how old and rusty the Master Sword is now in the trailer. What are they planning? What are they thinking? I don't see how letting the player bypass almost the entire world and characters and skip the entire story and fight Ganon whenever they want, rather than building tension and giving the player time to grow attached to the world they're trying to save could possibly work unless they include a fuckton of different endings.

first off: wow that is a lot of concerns you have over a rumor

second: that's like the least likely scenario, the game is very open but there's clearly emphasis on needing to obtain specific items in order to progress. however, you're forgetting that this is bodaciously what the first zelda game did. you could get to ganon before even getting a sword. you just couldn't win.

so there's your stop gap if someone beelines it. they can't win. extremely simple.

and that's if the rumor holds any water whatsoever, which it doesn't, because we already know how the game starts and we've had people talking about it enough to know that you're required to go to certain areas to progress. it's just that in-between those progression spots you can do whatever.

1. I didn't say it was just a rumor.

2. It was possible to get past everything but Ganon without the sword, but you couldn't get more than two rooms into the final dungeon in the original without collecting all of the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom.

It is you. You are the holy weapon. Nah, I don't know.
But anyway, if you go without anything you probably have to be a Dark Souls type of guy to even stand a ghost of a chance.

I'm half-expecting the plot twist to be Ganon has already died of old age or something, I don't know, and there's actually some other evil entity (maybe Demise pops back up, tired of his ancestor constantly botching killing Link/Zelda?) that is causing the destruction of Hyrule, just no one knows it yet and assumes it's Ganon

"you can go anywhere from the start" dosen't mean "you can kill the final boss immediately"

you can go anywhere from the start in like every bethesda game but there was still a story you had to follow.



Ganon isn't causing any destruction at all, actually. He's still sealed in Hyrule Castle. He's also not referred to as a person, but specifically as "The Calamity Ganon", like he's a hurricane or natural distaster. Whatever Ganon is now, it's not mortal, and it's not gonna just die. Link wakes up because the seal is going to end soon and Ganon has to be stopped before then.

Scroll down the page to the Story Details section.


The thing is, Zelda endings very often present a showcase of all the people you've saved as a way to wrap up your journey. A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, the Oracle games, even Link's Awakening in a dark sort of way. If they did that here, it would just leave players who made a beeline for Hyrule Castle scratching their heads as the game shows them all these people they never met. Again, this could be fixed with multiple endings; going to fight Ganon right away could just lead to a simplistic ending and a generic credits sequence, or maybe the credits could show various characters from the game like Wind Waker in order to tease players about who they have yet to meet. Come to think of it, I think Majora's Mask's ending sequence added or removed certain scenes based on whether or not you had completed certain sidequests; they could do something similar here.

I'm somewhat worried about the final dungeon and boss. I believe that in most games, especially games like Zelda, the final level (and the final boss, to some extent) should serve as a test of all the skills the player has been using up to that point. If you can just grab a rusty sword and a small table and charge into Hyrule Castle naked and still beat Ganon, that could go against that. That would especially be a shame considering how interesting and creative the puzzles and items in this game look. On top of that, I'm afraid the final boss might just be another sword fight like in Skyward Sword, not using any special items or abilities. Now, they could make some of the rooms of the final dungeon brutally difficult to get through without items, and they could leave large parts of Hyrule Castle inaccessible without items. Similarly, they might make it easier to exploit calamity ganon's weaknesses with items. I dunno; it's a bizarre decision, and while I'm very uneasy about it, I'm interested in seeing where they go from here.

Also, I can't read the name "calamity ganon" without thinking of Calamity Jane. Anyone else want to see Ganondorf dressed like he's in the old west?

yeah no i'm gonna stick to it being just a rumor because i cannot find anywhere it was said you could just walk to the final boss. the rest of this article is bodaciously just listing off things that were shown during footage, but that seems to be entirely speculation. i could be wrong, coulda been said in an interview i'm not aware of at all, but nothing that i have seen and nothing i can find says that's a true statement.

Marin's on Hyrule Warriors Legends in 6 days.


Gonna beat up some monsters with a water-spewing musical instrument.

I distinctly remember hearing someone from Nintendo (I think it was Bill?) say it in one of the E3 videos Nintendo posted on YouTube. I think it was the Beyond the Plateau video, but I'm not sure.

well then i'm sure they have it figured out, they wouldn't do something like that if they didn't think it would work

Tokyo Mirage Sessions is still very cool, good job NintendAtlus