#i think dorf would be proud. <3

[scrawnytreedemon]

Some Bods™ cooked up for this fine occasion. This guy is sized AF and i phuckign love that for him.

[yasmeensh]

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - The lore

I know this is an art blog but i can’t contain myself and I need to talk about zelda2 lore. Why? You all heard about the botw sequel being darker, much darker. And people made connections to Majora’s mask, because it was a dark sequel. But you know what? Zelda 2 was also a dark sequel. Nintendo are doing it for a THIRD time and I'm proud. Sit tight and maybe grab a snack because this will probably be a long passion essay. Here we go.

Most of you MIGHT be familiar with the storyline of Zelda2, but in summary, here is how it goes: Princess Zelda from an ancient time has been put to spell by a curse. Only the power of the full triforce touched by a pure heart can wake her. Finally after hundreds of years, the chosen one came along (Link). Link must place 6 crystals in 6 palaces to break the spell on the Great palace where the Triforce of courage is enclosed. Once there, he takes the triforce, completes it with the other two pieces, and wakes zelda up. The End.

And Here is the story in MORE detail (unless you are in a hurry , I recommend you read it. The top summary is just for people who have no clue what the story is:

    The king of hyrule always passes down the power of the triforce to his son next-to-be-king. This time however, he wants to give it to his daughter, Zelda, because he believes she is wiser and more considerate than the son. The son was very upset about it and has summoned a wizard to scare the princess and give up the triforce to him. The wizard however, overcome with hatred towards zelda, uses all his magic to put her to an eternal sleep, and he dies (only recently in the hyrule historia has the identity of the wizard been revealed: he is a follower of Ganon, or an embodiment of ganon himself (sort of like ghost ganon in oot or blight ganons in botw. So in this case he might have not died but just extinguished all his powers)). The son, overcome with grief for his sister, promises that every girl born into the Royal family henceforth will be named Zelda. He locks the triforce of courage far away, so only those worthy of it will be able to access it, and leaving the remaining two in the castle, unable to use its full power.

Hundreds of years have passed by and no worthy hero came by, until now. On his 16th birthday, Link noticed that a mark resembling the triforce glowed on his left hand. Worried and Confused, he goes to seek information on it from Impa. She tells him that he is the hero chosen to save the sleeping princess Zelda. She gave Link a scroll written in ancient text that only the true hero can read to ensure that he is in fact the chosen one. Link was able to read it despite never seeing that language before. The Great Palace where the triforce of courage lies is locked with a spell. The spell comes from 6 different temples, and he must break part of the spell at each temple so he can open the gates of the Palace. To do that, A crystal must be placed in each, and that is exactly what he does.

While Link is going on his journey, the minions of Ganon are going after him, trying to capture him and use his blood to revive Ganon (It’s unclear if they want him alive or dead, or simply his blood. All we know is they want to use Link’s blood in a sacrifice to bring Ganon back from the dead). If Link dies, Ganon will be revived, so he must remain alive. At the end of the trial to the triforce of courage, Link was made to fight his own shadow by the triforce keeper. After defeating his shadow, he made the triforce whole again, wished for the curse on Princess Zelda to break, and she woke. The End.

Now that is my extensive summary on the official story. Obviously I will fill in now MY theories on some points. My biggest point is Link fighting his shadow. Why did Link have to fight his shadow? Why was Link not ready to touch the triforce? He already went through ALL the trials, so why this now? My theory is that Link’s heart was not pure. Only a pure heart must touch the triforce. A corrupted heart will corrupt the world when the triforce is touched, no matter what the wish is. Link was most likely the chosen hero, but he is not completely pure. I believe Link was made to fight his shadow as a final step to touching the triforce; to cleanse his heart from any evils that are in it. Why would Link be evil and corrupt? I don’t know, but that’s hella dark.     Another point, that can be connected to BoTW, is Link’s death, and the revival of Ganon. If you played AoL before, then you are familiar with the red screen of death and Ganon’s evil laughter. Well, if Link dies, that means Ganon will return. That means Link should NEVER die. But he is not a god or eternal deity. He will die at some point during his journey after the events of the game or simply from old age, or whatever. He will die. At this point, if the people of Hyrule really want Ganon to remain dead, then Link should simply disappear once he dies. If he were to be buried, they have to hide his body somewhere the monsters will NEVER reach. I have no idea where that could be: the dungeons of hyrule castle? Something similar to the Great Palace? Maybe. The better option is to burn him, but I don’t know if people in Hyrule do that (they probably should in this case because yikes Ganon)

Where am I going with this? I’m not sure, but It vaguely reminded me of Ganon(dorf) coming back to life in the new BoTW trailer. Who was he even? A new ganondorf? Or one we already know?

Lets go back… what about AoL Link’s death? Another option for keeping Link out of the hands of Ganon’s minions is for him to never die. To be absolutely safe, protected, and strong enough to protect himself, and to live eternally. And I know the people of hyrule (at some point) will have that technology available, because BoTW Link was revived after his death. Link can probably die countless of times and still continue to live because of that shiekah tech. Now about the tech, AoL seems too middle ages, right? WELL… this is going to sound dumb but the temples in AoL have elevator thingies in them. Shiekah technology? Maybe. It could be a manual pulley system. Or pure magic. We don’t know, but we are a step closer at least.

BASICALLY i see a lot of similar points between these two games and idk if nintendo accidentally did that or took inspiration from aol but its cool that these two games share the concept of the kind of tragedy hyrule will go through if link dies and the idea of Ganom coming back to life.     Why am I even getting into BoTW… let’s get back to AoL lore! If you played AoL, you might be familiar with the Link dolls. Dolls that save Link from death (i.e extra lives) those dolls are pretty creepy and they look like a tiny hunched over limb Link. They are scattered throughout all of hyrule, and you find them in random weird places, like at the beach, in a swamp, inside a temple, in a cave, near a graveyard, forest, etc. They are everywhere. Who put these dolls there? No one knows. But someone is totally trying to save Link from dying on his journey. If he dies, Hyrule is screwed. Could it be Goddess Hylia? The fairies? A magician? Link Dolls are extremely strange and Nintendo could have gone more in depth on them because they provide some super cool dark lore.

Also we can’t forget about Kasuto Town. All the inhabitants of the town went to camp in the forest because their town was destroyed. Why? No one knows, again (everything in this game is shrouded in mystery). There is only a single man living there in old Kasuto. Kasuto town is entirely destroyed, all the buildings are decaying and crumbling, the air looks nasty and the sky is purple. There are ghosts EVERYWHERE. And if Link didn’t acquire the cross before entering, he will not see the ghosts at all and will just die from being hit by what looks like air. Now the civilians! The civilians are hiding in the forest! In-game, you will never be able to find them unless you hit a random block of grass with the hammer, and then it will appear. They are well hidden. Something must have destroyed their town, something terrifying, and they are hiding from it. The entire population has gone to hide in the depths of the forest. Now I have a theory that these people COULD be related to the shiekah. Those people are magic experts. You learn something called The Spell in old kasuto. And in new kasuto, you use this spell to raise a small temple from the GROUND to get the key in it (idk man but reminds me of the shrines) You also receive the final magic container there. So, yeah, those people definitely have a magic obsession or *super powers*. (i’m hinting at it but these people could be the shiekah). Also one more thing, these people are begging Link to save hyrule. They are the only people who are begging him to do something. They know HE will save hyrule. In all other towns, it only seems like Link is asking for advice and they answer Link is a random nobody. However, the people of Kasuto are AWARE. (shiekah much? idk)

This is not too lore-y but it’s about how dark this game is: there is so much red in it. Game over screen is red. The lining of the triforce on Link’s hand is red. The windows in the temples are stained red (blood?). The Tinsuit sprites have fresh blood dripping down their swords. Also, sleeping Zelda’s dress is red. I can’t brush that off. Whenever I think of AoL I think of the colour red. There is so much to say about AoL... But what I want to say is that this game is HELLA dark. I hope Nintendo uses its lore in future games, and adds references, because it can totally work if they try to. This game has a lot of lore material to work with. Nintnedo should consider expanding on it (and botw was inspired by loz1, it would only make sense if the sequel will mirror the original loz sequel too :3)

PLEASe share your ideas! I’d love to hear what you all think! There are many ideas to go around so share your thoughts! And one last thing, AoL is very difficult. If you want to try it, be prepared to see the colour red a lot, cry a lot, and rage quit a lot.

Thank you for reading my very long post! Enjoy your day <3 <3 <3

[mellz117]

Mellz plays KH Re:CoM, Reverse/Rebirth (Riku’s Campaign) part 3

Check out parts [1] and [2] if you haven’t seen them yet. Part 1 also has a link to Sora’s campaign

Below the Read More is the endgame and my final thoughts

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Riku is met with Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, yet again, who still can't fathom why Riku's resisting his advances. Close your damn jacket!

Final battle! I lost twice? I think? Not many times but I think it was 2. But god damn not as many times as I lost to Repliku. That sucked. I don’t get mad about dying multiple times in a final boss, that’s kind of the point of final bosses...

Ansem has a great voice btw, like if there’s gonna be a voice for G-Dorf in Breath of the Wild 2, I want Richard Epcar or Dave Boat (Lexaeus) to voice him. I doubt it’ll happen but those are my picks!

This guy sure does talk a lot for someone who's supposed to be dying.

Ansem explodes in a thick fog of darkness that envelopes Riku and Mickey comes to the rescue. Technically Riku won so he’s allowed to relish in his victoy AS WELL AS be carried off my a floating mouse.

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 IDK where the basement is supposed to exist here because the door Riku reaches the ground floor through is the same door Sora goes through to LEAVE the ground floor. Is it like a hill? Gotta go upstairs to go downstairs?

Idk. I wanna see the full interior of the castle, I want blueprints.

“What now Riku? You going home?” Your Majesty. Mickey, my dude. You can’t just GO HOME after killing a man. Riku’s got some shit to go through, he can’t return to a normal life after this. There is so much more tha nthis!

I’m glad a MOUSE can understand darkness is a thing that just exists, can coexist with the light. Good on him for keeping an open mind! It took how long for anyone to realize light and dark are two sides of the same coin? Twilight Princess was all about this. ...Riku is the twilight princess.

Mickey wants to follow Riku down his path of light and dark and they’re friends now. When did they get the time to bond between KH1 and CoM?

How old is Mickey? He’s BFF’s with a teenager now, how old is he? I’m not saying child and adult friendships aren’t and shouldn’t be a thing, I may use Tumblr but I’m not THAT Tumblr. I’m just wondering what kind of grown-ass adult WANTS to be friends with a teenager lol. Mickey tells Riku, since they’re friends now Riku should call him my his name, rather than his title. So... No one else gets this talk? Donald? Goofy? No? OK.

I deadass expected Simple and Clean to start playing after a hard cut to black despite actually remembering the final confrontation with DiZ.

Riku and Mickey don the black coats DiZ presented earlier then they leave Castle Oblivion behind. The duo meets up with him at a crossroads and immediately Riku’s on the defense. I love Riku, he’s tired, he’s annoyed, he knows the world isn’t black and white, light and darkness, and the literal path he chooses reflects that. He’s accepting the darkness and using it to fight for his friends. I’m so proud of him. I wonder where these paths actually lead.

THE SUN IS RISING I DIDN’T NOTICE THIS UNTIL EDITING THIS WHAT?KJVBLSDFKJVBDLJ

NOW Simple and Clean plays, albeit after a fade to black.

During the credits cinematics we see Riku and Mickey travelling through Hollow Bastion, the same location where the 1,000 Heartless battle in KH2 takes place if I recall correctly! That was cool to see. Riku is having a difficult time. Help him.

The next one we see Roxas again. He stops and looks at the Twilight Town gang when they pass him and Axel tries leading him away. I can only assume the following went down:

“I wanna try that”, Roxas says and gestures to the ice cream the aforementioned group was eating. So he and Axel buy some ice cream and go up the clock tower, Roxas seems to be enjoying himself but Axel doesn’t seem to like this treat at all. I think he just eats it now for Roxas’s sake, he pretends to like it to make him happy.

So I don’t know the timeline of this part of the game. Is Roxas not part of the organization yet at this point? Is Axel trying to recruit him? Is this after Roxas defects and is forgetting his time with them?

The third clip we see a very brief shot of Riku a few months later and he’s looking good. Doesn’t cut his hair.

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Final clip, after the credits shows Roxas and at this point he’s either friends with Hayner, Pence, and Olette or they’re inviting him for the first time to hang out with them.

“Beyond the path without you is a forgotten promise to keep. We may have walked side by side, but now we go on back to back. And though our paths may not cross, all paths are connected somewhere. When I arrive at where you are, we may not appear to be as we were...”

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So, final thoughts of the game overall. I enjoy longish games but when the length is just padded out with such shallow worlds I get bored really easily. I like to explore the map but I can’t do that in this game. Riku’s campaign is very short in comparison to Sora’s, for better or worse. For someone who just REALLY, REALLY wanted to move onto KH2, this was welcome lol. Sora’s half put me to sleep and I had a hard time trudging through it. Not that the story wasn’t engaging enough for me, I just didn’t want to play.

Didn’t care for the card based battle here. I preferred the combat more in Riku’s half because card management wasn’t really a thing which I ended up growing to appreciate for Riku once I got used to it. All I had to do was level up and get an extra card if I felt like it. The duel system was really fun and made boss battles go quickly, when I actually took the time to INITIATE them. Most of my frustration was just me NOT doing what the game aggressively suggested. At least I admit when it’s me and not accuse the game of poor gameplay like a certain grumpy gamer but that’s none of my business. I think this game may have felt better on the Gameboy Advance, I wouldn’t know.

I wanted to cry. I missed these kids so much. I love them so much. I’m a god damn crybaby now so a lot of moments just ended me and sometimes I needed a moment to sob while I hug my cat.

The (original) characters.

I can feel bad for Vexen to a point, he was a bastard but he just ultimately just wanted to do sciency stuff. A lot of questionable science but whatever. He creeps me the hell out. I know he hated Marluxia but was he really willing to spill Marly’s plans to Sora JUST TO SPITE HIM? Or was he actually trying to help Sora? That might explain some things later on down the road...

Lexaeus was always boring so no comment.

Zexion is a cutie pie, I don’t know why I think this I guess it carried over from 10 years ago. I have a soft spot for him. And I didn’t post a single picture of him so here’s one.

Axel, my favorite bastard. I will always love him. Chaotic neutral. He’s not much of an antagonist in this game, more of an obstacle, but he’s certainly working in favor of his own interests. I’ve been reading Inkheart and he reminds me of Dustfinger? Fire and all i guess.

Marluxia is also a bastard but as an antagonist I don’t dislike him. He mostly has his good looks to help him with that. I’m not sure why he wanted to overthrow the Organization but it got him dead so GG my dude. Not sure why Xehanort invited him and Larxene back.

Larxene.

Repliku. Brat, very much a brat. He immediately had beef with Sora because apparently it’s too unreasonable for Sora to “forget the quiet girl who moved away” when you were four and five years old. I could barely remember this game let alone any memories from when I was 4. I would have liked to see him interact with Riku during the time he thought he himself (Repliku) was the real one. Imagine the DRAMA. I do feel bad for him, his struggles with his identity and his jealousy towards Riku. I love how he is with Namine, so soft spoken and gentle. But we all know that’s based on false memories which is so sad. But like Sora said, the memories might be fake but the feelings are real.

Namine is a very good girl, a victim, a child who, when given the courage to, will stand up against her captor to protect her friends. She’s very sweet and smells like Kairi! (Riku, that’s weird) She’s brave as hell and I stan her. She just wanted a friend.

Sora... He’s so pure, so wholesome. He’ll do whatever it takes to save his friends. He had a little moment of weakness and cast Donald and Goofy aside but he got better pretty quickly. He was willing to give Repliku a chance despite their interactions being negative. He forgave Namine, knowing she had no choice but to do what she was forced to do. Sora. Just Sora. Love him.

Riku. I couldn’t stand him in the first game, he was just a punk-ass teenager (which makes me wonder why he and Sora were ever friends in the first place) with a super inflated ego who just, kinda does a 180 after you beat Ransem and is good? But my god. I just fell in love with this precious bean in Re:CoM. I remember the best of Riku from KH2 (let’s pretend KH3 doesn't exist for a second here because that is in my opinion the BEST Riku) and it was so welcoming and CoM really bridged the developmental gap between 1 and 2. It’s nice to see him struggle with this darkness and then learn to utilize it in a safe manner. We see a lot of vulnerability from him too, when he’s being constantly mocked by Ansem and the few embers of Org13 he meets here, his own doppelganger touting how much better he is, not having his one form of support physically be there on the majority of his journey. Riku’s super snarky throughout the game overall though and I love that. He’s the complete opposite of Sora at this time and he’s absolutely done with everyone’s bullshit.

Ansem is really persistent. He’s the guy who just can’t take a hint, I can’t imagine his dating life is very successful. I don’t like him but I don’t hate him either. He definitely makes more of an impact as a bad guy in this game, frequently showing up to harass Riku. Obligatory mentioning my mistake in saying that HE was guiding Riku in the beginning of the game when it was actually DiZ.

DiZ is formally introduced in this game and he’s cryptic as shit. I dig his design but what the hell made Ansem the Wise take this form? With all those bandages he looks like a burn victim (I haven’t played BbS if this is what happened Im sorry) but the call of fashion still rings in his ears. Why belts on his head though? That was this series aesthetic until KH3 pushed plaid. Anyway he is also a character I don't have any particular feelings towards

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I think I’m going to take a break from KH for a bit. I got the Spyro Reignited Trilogy the other day for XBOne, so I’ll be playing that. I’ve never played Spyro before, I hope I like it!