#and also i think botw link and zelda deserve a fucking break

[themoonking]

i know totk just came out, and i myself literally just finished it an hour ago, but that post credits scene has me thinking about what the next zelda game will be like. will it be another breath of the wild sequel or is it time for another reboot? if it’s another botw sequel, what’s next?

[gust-jar-simulator]

I want to think out loud, so let's talk about my concept for Dark Link in BOTW. Specifically the playthrough I'm doing.

The thing is, I have two things I REALLY want to do in BOTW. I want to beat the game primarily with spears, because they're my favorite, so I've decided to RP the idea that after getting resurrected Link flees from man and god and becomes someone new. New name, new look. Best way to do that? Move into the Gerudo Desert. People are asking for a swordsman, not a molduga hunting spear-wielding vai.

Unfortunately the call of destiny takes no shit and no prisoners, and even if he tries to fully integrate into Gerudo culture, he is unfortunately the only person capable of stopping the horrible zappy camel mecha. So defeating that is what will unlock the main quest for me- right now I'm region locking myself to the Gerudo desert and highlands until I defeat Vah Naboris. Also, only vai clothes. For trans reasons.

After that though, there's only one full set of armor I'm at all interested in- Dark Link's set. Weirdly enough, you can only unlock it after defeating all four divine beasts, so I've got my work cut out for me. Once I get it though, I want to permanently switch over to that for fun.

My concept for this Link, and the story I'm telling about him (tagged Rewilding) involves a lot of identity fuckery on multiple levels. The function of a Dark Link, in my mind, is to make Link confront the version of himself that he's afraid of. Sometimes the thing the gods are afraid of him becoming, to better keep him in line- but sometimes it's fundamentally just him. His own personal monster. Himself.

These are two very different things.

What would the gods be afraid of him becoming? Someone who won't defeat Ganon, probably. Someone who joins him or loves him or embraces the malice because he's so fucking done with the cosmic game. Someone who refuses to play, even though refusal is never really an option. The oathbreaker paladin who rejects his princess- and wouldn't it be justified, after the way she rejected him? Ganon has material to work with, there, with Link's memories already corrupted and Sheikah tech flowing through his veins. There's no reason the blood moon couldn't whisper to him the way it does guardians and lynels and every other foul thing in Hyrule. Doesn't he deserve a break?

You get Dark Link's set right around the time you hit a plateau and have to make a choice in the questline. After defeating the Divine Beasts, you can go to the castle. Or, you can faff off into the wilderness, complete every sidequest and pick every flower. Sure your princess is waiting, but why not suck the marrow out of life and leave her on read a bit longer, y'know?

It's an open world game. These things are for frolicking in, not beating. <- (Dark Link whispering in your ear telling you to find every Korok because you might get cool loot)

That said, what would Link be afraid of becoming? I think I have my answer, and while an argument could be made that he's afraid of letting Zelda down again, failing her the way he failed a hundred years ago- if it was me, and of course in my games Link is always to some degree me, I'd be afraid of who I was and am not anymore. I'd say Link is afraid of Zelda's Appointed Knight, Champion of Hyrule, bodyguard and pissboy and unthinking unfeeling sword. I'd say he's afraid of the Hero Chosen by Hylia, and most especially the sword that defined him, deciding his fate before he was old enough to understand.

He's afraid of becoming the Hero, and even once he makes his peace with that, he's still afraid of who he was, this nebulous creature everyone relevant expects him to be. The whole game orbits around his amnesia and memory loss. While that's scary, it's scarier to realize that he's not free to remake himself in post-apocalyptic Hyrule. He should be. It's been a hundred years. It should be okay if he can't remember, nobody else does- as long as he saves the day, it shouldn't matter who he is or how he does it.

But there are people who remember him, people with expectations that aren't just save us but also be the boy we remember, and he can't do that. Not fully. You can't cross the same river twice, and he was dead. The knight never freeclimbed a Zonai ruin in the rain to test his anti-lightning earrings. The knight never considered the freedom of gender fuckery. The knight never bounced Rito chicks on his knee or indulged in cool sunset pictures. He wouldn't know how, and if he did he might not understand why.

Link came back from the dead and fell in love with the wind in the grass. The knight never had that. He is incapable of being that again, but there's songs and legends and people who see the stoic soldier when they look at a young man dressed in his underwear and a korok leaf. There's an expectation.

He's terrified because if he becomes that soldier, he'll be killing who he is now, and he doesn't want to die. In that small, unnoticeable, inconsequential way that is important to only him. He can have things that are important, now. He can be happy. Does he have to choose, between being happy and being Who Was Promised? Can't he save Hyrule and be himself? With every memory, something else is rooting behind his eyes like parasitic ivy, and as much as he wants a purpose he wants it to be his own. He'd be much happier saving Zelda without remembering her at all, but that's... cruel. And, unfortunately, he kind of does want to know. So he does, hunts down the familiar-foreign feeling of mute devotion and tries to figure out if he feels longing or horror as the memories fit under his skin like a foreign thing settling into a too-small coat.

I think if we had to fight Dark Link in BOTW, he should manifest as the Champion of Hyrule, Zelda's devoted and utterly wraith-silent knight, with environmental storytelling to indicate the guilt of the failure at Fort Hateno as well as the horror of being a soldier.

This is Breath of the Wild. Every wolf and korok in the country has seen Link's ass as he paraglides and drops into freefall to shoot bomb arrows. You've never seen a less civilized gender anarchist. He's probably got sticks in his hair, and squees at cute clothes.

The knight is clean and groomed and primped like a showdog. He doesn't speak. He doesn't emote. He kills, and kills well, and when he's not killing he follows like a shadow. He is the mortal extension of the Master Sword, and needs be nothing else. He's a thing. An ideal. A prophecy in motion, and has been since the tender age of 4. That's when kids start learning how to read, and he was learning how to kill.

Nothing, not even Ganon, horrifies Link more than someone looking him in the eye and expecting that he be the king's lifeless attack dog again. Assuming, even, that he's eager to remember and become that again. Not many people get born twice, and he much prefers a childhood of baked apples and freeclimbing to indoctrination and conformity.

Link came back wrong and he likes it that way. So, if I may be humorous about it, this version of Dark Link would be Link's personal blend of toxic masculinity made flesh. Talk about exposure therapy...

Anyway, I put a lot of thought into this and I think it would be very fun to give Zelda everything she wants- a Link who remembers her, her devoted knight who's everything he never wanted to be again.

[only-by-the-stars]

the annotated Tome of the Wild

Part 7: The Wild!

- Link didn't open his eyes. A twist on the beginning of BOTW, where you hear Zelda telling Link to open his eyes. I couldn’t resist.

- Hestu’s cameo was a lot of fun to write too. I always found him adorable, first in BOTW and then in AOC as well, and the idea of him waking up Link with his maracas was too amusing not to do. I also had to include his “shimmy shimmy” battle cry from AOC because I always laugh my head off whenever I hear it.

- This also reveals that Midna brought Link to the Great Deku Tree, a character that debuted in OOT and made further appearances in WW and BOTW.

- Something tickled her arm, breaking her out of her gloomy thoughts. Midna lifted her head and looked down. New growth was sprouting from the branch she was sitting on, wriggling its way up onto her. Nothing like this happens to Beatrice in the show, but I had to put in this chilling little moment of Midna nearly succumbing to the dekuwood. It provides a way later to introduce Rhoam’s presence in his scene, as well as some horror at what could’ve happened to her here.

- Note to self: never visit Tabantha if you can help it... Tabantha, of course, being a very cold region in BOTW’s Hyrule. Link’s newfound hatred of snow mirrors my own, and now he’s going to associate it with this horrible experience.

- “It's a bad habit, I guess.” He laughed softly. He’s referring, of course, to how he casually greeted Riju and Medli back at the school pool and they gave him a bit of a hard time about it.

- “You...” Midna stared at him for several seconds, stunned. “You...” She slapped his hand away and starting swinging her tiny fists at him, which he easily dodged. “You oaf! You idiot! What the hell—what the hell is wrong with you? How can you forgive me so easily, when you're still in a shit situation because of me? Neither one of us would be out here groping around blindly in the fucking snow if not for what I did!” I set up Midna and Link to be parallels of each other in a couple ways. One of which is that while Link has isolated himself from Mipha, hurting and confusing her, Midna is on the other end of something similar with Zelda. And here we see something they both struggle with: forgiving themselves. Midna can’t understand how Link can so easily forgive her actions towards him, while Link utterly despises himself for his actions towards Mipha and cannot forgive himself for causing her pain. He’ll later struggle with the fact that Mipha forgives him easily, just as Midna is having trouble understanding his forgiveness of her here. All of them find it easier to forgive their loved ones than to grant that same grace to themselves.

- “She told me that while she appreciated how much I cared, I should think a little more and be less reckless. I know she'd never call me stupid, but...” Link shrugged. “Honestly, I kind of am.” Another reference to Mipha calling Link reckless, and how she hates seeing him get hurt. He is indeed not the smartest guy around, but she does describe him as being very kind and determined to help those in need, so I tried to emphasize that aspect of his personality in this story. Although the “I kind of am” line is also intended to be a subtle red flag. We’ve already seen that Link thinks very little of himself and his abilities, even when it’s clear from the words of others that he’s very talented. And we’re about to soon see him use a bit of intelligence he very much does have, in order to save the day. He would never believe himself capable of such a thing, but he does it anyway.

- “Even just a few branches could be processed... enough to get us through this storm...” Note the use of the plural here. This is leading up to the revelation about his belief that Zelda is in the lantern. His desperation to find more oil anywhere is because, of course, he believes that if the light goes out she will die. And he wouldn’t be in this scarcity if not for what happened back in chapter one, with Link and Aryll and the dog accidentally wrecking the mill and his oil supply.

- He was soon rewarded with a most welcome sight: a single dekuwood branch, growing out of that of a normal tree. It seemed sickly, withered, and it waved feebly in the air, but he rushed forward and hacked it off anyway. The very same branch that tried to attach itself to Midna, sickly and withered precisely because of that failure.

- And now we come to the confirmation that the dekuwood is made from the people who succumb to despair and exhaustion in the woods, right as we see it growing all around Aryll. Rhoam has been unaware this entire time of all the souls he’s sacrificed over the past several months, and now that he knows, he refuses to do it any longer. For he, like Midna, recognizes that Zelda would never want anyone to be harmed for her sake.

He’s also right that Link would never leave Aryll to such a fate, recognizing Link’s love and protectiveness towards his little sister. This is a point where my characterization of Link wildly diverges from that of Wirt, the protagonist of OTGW. I pulled some things from Wirt for Link and his arc, but one thing I didn’t keep was the resentment and initial callousness that Wirt displays for Greg, who is revealed in the tavern sequence to be his half-brother thanks to his mother remarrying, something Greg frowns at when Wirt mentions it. Aryll is also technically Link’s half-sister, as I revealed in the letters that his mother remarried some years after his father’s death and had Aryll with her new husband, but I could not for the life of me see him being resentful or unkind to his little sister. Whatever his faults, I’ve written him as being, at his core, an incredibly kind and deeply loving person, and his adoration of his sister is a part of that. He doesn’t view her as a “half” anything, she’s just his sister and he’ll do anything to protect her. Which of course is a big part of what led to his breakdown: his feelings of guilt over not doing as good a job of that as he thinks he should be doing.

- “Link, I don't... I don't think that's natural light. It looks more like...” This has a double meaning. The fire in the lantern is not the “natural light” of the sun, and it is also deeply unnatural, given that it’s the Beast’s soul in there.

- Speaking of that! The confrontation with the Beast plays out a bit differently here than it does in the show, thanks to Midna’s personal connection to all this. Rhoam’s mention of Zelda gets her attention, and the Beast uses her love for Zelda as a way to try and turn her and Link against each other with his attempt to make them choose which soul will go into the lantern. He’ll get fuel and kill Aryll either way, but why not pit these two against each other as a way to manipulate them into doing what he wants? Except it backfires, because Midna won’t harm anyone for Zelda’s sake, and Link figures out what’s going on anyway, thanks to remembering the words of Rhoam and Telma.

- Link stood up, his mind racing. It was like when the solution to a puzzle finally presented itself in a moment of stunning clarity. For all that he’s not that bright in so many ways, it’s important to remember that he’s canonically able to solve all those tricky puzzles we do, without benefit of a guide, just using his wits and the tools he has at hand. And so too does he solve this particular puzzle, by remembering what he’s been told and piecing it together with what he sees here, thinking about the fact that the Beast’s story doesn’t add up. Which saves the day, in the end.

- “Am I wrong?” Link repeated, his voice shaking with barely suppressed fury; he took a few more steps, forcing the Beast to retreat further. “No more lies. Tell the truth for once, Beast.” Referencing, of course, the fact that Telma told him the Beast lies. He’s absolutely furious right now because of the attempt on Aryll’s life; you do not mess with Link’s loved ones. The Beast, too, fucked around and found out the hard way.

- In the show, Wirt gives the lantern back to the Woodsman to blow out after the delivery of the “Are you?” line that I kept (and had Link nail the delivery of on his first try, unlike Wirt, because that’s what makes sense for both their characters). Here, I chose to let Link kill the Beast, because he is, after all, the legendary hero who slays the villain. But even more importantly, I felt he deserved and had earned such a moment with his growing courage over the course of the tale.

- “See you later, Link.” Hey, remember how Midna broke all our hearts by saying a similar line to Link in TP as she broke the mirror and went back to her world? I sure do!

- “Sleepers wake, dreams will fade... although we cling fast..." This, and the lyrics that close out this section, are the first few lines of the vocal version of Ballad of the Wind Fish that was done for the LA remake.

- There were lights and shadowy figures coming closer, and voices—was someone calling his name? As I would later reveal in the prologue of a place to start, Mipha was screaming his name as she ran down the hill towards him.

- The words he wanted so badly to say to her hung on the tip of his tongue And it shows on his face, that desire to express the love for her that is all but bursting out of him in this moment, and Mipha sees it. She sees that love shining in his eyes as they stare at each other, giving her her hope back and then some. In a way, Link was right: if he hadn’t hidden from her, she would’ve realized what his real feelings for her are. He just didn’t know how happy it would’ve made her. But he will soon.

- “—and that's how we got away from the evil possessed lady!” Out of the corner of his eye Link saw Aryll shake the frog triumphantly, and Mipha, distracted by the sudden commotion, looked away from him. A small, muffled chime sounded, and the amphibian's stomach glowed. “The ringing of the bell commanded her! Though she wasn't really evil, just...” The series is never clear on just what the otherworld the brothers enter is, but it is clear that it really happened to them, and I preserved that ambiguity in the same way, by showing the bell as still being in the frog’s stomach.

- Link nodded. “Yes.” It didn't matter anymore how it'd gotten into her pocket; he'd made it, and brought it with him tonight, with the intention of giving it to her. There was no more question of taking it back or denying it. Courage has been achieved; he’s no longer going to hide or pretend, or try to take back the gift he worked on so hard. Midna is right: he’s been so brave in the Wild, and it’s time to apply that bravery to confessing his feelings to Mipha and letting her know that he loves her. The words will have to wait till the next day, but for now he’s doing all he can to face his fears and stop running, by hugging her and holding her hand and wiping her tears away, letting his love show in his expression as he looks at her without avoiding her eyes. Plus, of course, admitting to his intentions with the tape and inviting her over to listen to it together. They’re finally getting a breakthrough after two months of separation and pain.

- The doctor, Syrup, is a recurring NPC throughout the series, a witch who brews up helpful healing potions for Link to use on his adventures.

- I'm home, Mipha. Calling back, of course, to Midna’s line about there being someone waiting for him and to go home to her. Not only that, but in Mipha’s letters, I had her mention wanting him to “come back to her”. And now he finally has.

and that wraps this up, as the epilogue is composed strictly of Miphlink fluff and sweet, sweet payoff. if you took the time to read the fic and these write ups, thank you, I hope you enjoyed them! ❤

[ramblings-of-the-nerdy-nature]

What about you? Top 5 played in 2017!

Oh geez I can’t even remember everything I played in 2017 let alone completed, but I’ll give it try :3

This won’t be in particular order and probably have some games I haven’t finished on it:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

So I’ve been kind of a late fan to the LOZ series, Link to the Past on the GBA being my first one that I can remember. And I only played a few of the games in the series after. But this series always kind of had a special place in my heart over the years. I remember LTTP being one of the first “large” games I really got into as a kid and actually put some serious thinking and late night gaming into (the other being FF tactics advance also for the GBA). But I didn’t stick to the timeline until like Twilight Princess and on, loving the hell out of every new game that came out that I played. For the longest time Skyward Sword was my favorite Zelda game, which I know is controversial for most fans. I mean yeah the game had problems and the pacing was rough to deal with but I enjoyed the hell out of that game and the final boss was something out of my boyhood dreams. But then I played Link between worlds and that blew me out of the water too, I rarely try 100% games but that game demanded it of me. I’m starting to ramble so I get to the point, for a while it was hard for me to say what was my favorite Zelda game and how I even enjoyed my open world games. But BOTW break through my front door, took me in it’s arms, and showed me a whole new world; literally. Hell I bought a Switch mainly for that game and the moment I started it up I couldn’t put it down.  I didn’t have that usually feeling of getting bored quick or distracted by something else around. The game grab my attention and kept it even to this day with the DLCs. It’s not a perfect game sure, I mean nothing is really perfect but it just felt...idk, refreshing? I’ll cut it here though as it’s already long as hell and everybody knows how amazing this game is at this point. (Side note: fuck the koroks seeds though, that’s way too many goddamn seeds Nintendo!)

Super Mario Odyssey

It kind of says something about this year when the biggest games fresh in my mind are Nintendo based but who knows what lol. So yeah SMO this game was a blast to play, frustrating at times because I have terrible hand-eye coordination or just suck at platformers, but a blast nonetheless. The moment I started this game I was having fun with a small on my face, which was honestly surprising. I’ve had a rough relationship with games for years now; it takes a lot for a game to pull me in before I get bored of it and never touch it again. For a game to make me stick to it to the end is miracle really. And just like BOTW, SMO came down from up high and made it rain fun onto my weary dry gamer soul. I don’t think I can sufficiently convey how big a deal me liking SMO is, I mean I haven’t really enjoyed a Mario game since...like...I don’t even know! So that, again, really says something...especially since BOTW is basically my GOTY. (Also again, fuck 999 Power Moons, like seriously what the hell man?)

Nioh

This is kind of a cheat because I have not beaten this game as of yet and not even close to beating it. But I still feel like it deserves a place on my list for a few reasons; first I’m not a real fan of the Souls games or Bloodborne. I really wanted to be as they came out over the years, I gave each one a try starting with Dark Souls 2 in hopes that it’ll click for me. But none of them ever did, sadly. Either it was because my brain just couldn’t get behind the systems in place and the difficult; or the setting and creatures/characters inhabiting it was just too much for me. So I always keep a lookout for a game in the style of soulsborne games that I can try and get into. And lucky 2017 gave me that game in the form of Nioh. Now this game is still pretty complicated and unsettling, it’s like right on the edge for me, but I enjoyed the time I had with the game. Actually made progress and strategies to combat the situations I was in. Hell, I was having fun being challenged which never happened with a Soulsborne game before so, I’d say that earns the game a plus in my book.

Kirby Triple Deluxe/Planet Robobot

This is a two-for-one special now kids; my list is just consisting of things I had with at this point lol. So I’ve been an outside fan of Kirby, I love the little pink puffball but never really played his games growing up. 2017 I made the effort of changing that to show the little Kirbster how much I loved him, so I bought Triple Deluxe was enjoying the hell out of it. Making the effort to 100% levels as I played them and just taken in by the charm. Then the same happened with Planet Robobot, which I always call Robobutt by mistake; which included Mechs which are always awesome so what’s not to love. I mean honestly I could’ve just posted a picture of ESP Kirby here instead of an explanation and that would’ve been reason enough lol.

Persona 5

I was never really into the Persona series before P4, never played SMT or any of the others. But damn was I hyped for Persona 5, absorbing every little piece of info that got released, every new clip or screenshot. I, of course, was worried that something in development for that long would break my heart and fail me but I kept the faith and preordered the game. Now I kind of have a problem with big games, especially like big RPGs, I rarely finish them because I get overwhelmed or just bored. And I did get overwhelmed with Persona 5, I mean damn there’s so much to do in that game and so many decisions to be made. So throughout 2017, I’ve been on/off with it trying to finish it because I do genuinely love playing the game, the world, and the characters. The soundtrack is amazing and just the whole game oozes style which I love. Really you can determine if I truly care about a game in a few ways. One of those ways is if I care about spoilers or not; I usually don’t care about spoilers with a lot of games because I can still experience things in my own kind of way. But I’ve been avoiding spoilers for P5 like the plague and still to this day.

So that’s my list and I gotta say this was way harder to than I expected because I really couldn’t all I played last year. A lot of games I thought of while writing this was from freaking 2016! Lol But this was fun :D

[nannycanes]

I just beat BOTW and I’m gonna yell about it for a minute here we go spoilers ahoy.

Overall, I think it deserved like a 9, perhaps 9.5, but then again I tend to give a lotta unloved games some rather high ratings so idk how much merit my input has (after all I love the hell outta Spirit Tracks and like 95% of the Zelda fandom seems to hate that game.) The gameplay mechanics are amazing, and in my personal experience I was finding decent weapons faster than I was breaking them, so I never had to worry about running into a camp with something like a badly damaged boko club or something to that effect lol.

The tilt puzzle in Myahm Agana in Hateno Village can suck an egg but otherwise I loved the shrine puzzles. For the beasts themselves I went Rudania>Medoh>Ruta>Naboris but if I were to replay I’d just do Vah Ruta first and get it out of the way (and get my free ‘fairy’ lol)

Pretty sure people clicked this to see opinions on specific characters though and that’s what I really wanted to talk about so, in no particular order, my thoughts on:

Sidon: This character was so corny I referred to him as the Ham and Cheese sandwich during my entire Vah Ruta playthrough (which I did 3rd) I get why people like him (conventional attraction and ??british?? accent are big factors I think) but honestly the first time I heard him I thought his accent was Jamaican and tbh that would’ve been more interesting. That or the Skid McMarx voice Game Grumps gave him)

Mipha: uuuuuugh shut up please. Her VA was obviously straining very hard to sound super soft and feminine, esp right before shooting at Ganon. As a person she’s alright but I gotta wonder why she’s totally ok with her relationship with Link consisting of just her running around healing him every time he does something stupid. What’d he do for her? What’s the relationship like outside of her healing? Kudos for Link actually getting engaged (by choice unlike OOT lol) but I’m scratching my head over his choice, there’s lacking context I think.

Revali: What a dickhead, I’m glad he and his terrible bird puns are dead. Kudos to the VA for getting his smugness in every single little line, including the one where he tells you the Revali’s Gale power is charged up again. The writers knew exactly what they were going for with him and fuckin’ nailed it.

Teba: Aka the bird whose name is never remembered. I think he suffered from the rushed writing of the entire Rito segment because it seems the only investment he has in taking down Vah Medoh is that the village chief/elder told him to. Felt kinda flat, but very determined at least.

Urbosa: my favorite champion because she was confident without being downright arrogant, it strongly felt like she knew exactly what she was capable of and likely took a long time to get there. She definitely cared about Zelda, and I bet out of all the champions, she was likely closest to her. It felt more like a personal relationship than professional.

Riju: Surprisingly mature for a kid, I gotta wonder why they didn’t think to just pad the inside of the thunder helm to keep it from slipping lol. She wasn’t a bad character in any way, but at the same time she didn’t stick out beyond being a good basic lead-up to Vah Naboris. Also someone on tungle dot hell is overly-obsessed with sand seal puns and mentioned her room being packed with seal dolls, so naturally I went in to investigate and damn those things’re bigger than she is.

Daruk: second-favorite champion, I love how he’s all about big displays (Zelda coronating Link, his enthusiasm with Vah Rudania, major gestures, etc) His voice acting was good and his characterization was as well, but despite his clearly honest concerns for Zelda in the flashbacks, it still sorta felt more like a business-based relationship than personal. Makes me wonder how much any of the champions actually hung out with Zelda.

Yunobo: MY BOY. MY SON. Would’ve been ‘crush’ but his title is ‘goron youth’ and I’m not about that in the slightest so SON IT IS. A lot of people complain about his voice acting, but I think his voice fits him perfectly. Sure, a couple of lines were a little weird (idk if they had to do his tired panting in the initial introduction, for example) but I especially love how being a descendant of Daruk didn’t make him special beyond, “hey you’re the only thing we can shoot at this damn robot to make it go away”. No special treatment and no ego to follow. Kinda felt like they struggled to find a balance of whether or not he was cowardly, so that kinda took away from it, but by far and away he’s my favorite character in the game.

Zelda: I 100% don’t blame her for being an emotional wreck and I’m really glad Link doesn’t seem to either. Her British accent seemed sorta fake or exaggerated here and there (I don’t think Patricia Summersett herself is British) but she had a really well written story, there was a lot of focus on her struggle to awaken her power, and I think it’s a shame that there isn’t more emphasis on getting those memories (of course, to be fair, it would feel forced if there were, so I guess finding them is both a reward AND incentive.) I wonder how she even got started on rebuilding Hyrule?

Link: This poor, anxious, screaming, naked child. I want to know more about him and am sad that the game tries to keep him blank for player projection. TELL ME BOUT THE BOY. I legit expected him to speak up at some point near the end given it’s a voice-acted Zelda game, but sadly it didn’t happen. Also me wearing the Guardian Helmet kinda sucked the mood out of the final cutscenes, it literally looks like an overturned jomon pot was just jammed on my head.

Ganon: holy fuck what happened to his face. Ok in all seriousness though I didn’t expect something that unsettling waiting for me in The Pit™ given the four blight Ganons were pretty uniform, so if you have a thing about like... spiders or centipedes or things with long spindly limbs I would advise for that, I guess. As always, boar Ganon is hella and personally I’m pleased with the final shot being taken from like 200ft off the ground.

I still have stuff I gotta do, sidequests to finish n’ all that junk, but I’m glad I beat the game in the timeframe that I did (the copy I’ve been playing belongs to my sister’s friend who leaves tomorrow)