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fatefulfaerie · 3 years

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Domesticity

Zelink Week 2021 prompt #5/7 @zelinkweek2021

Word Count: 1,951

Incarnation: Breath of the Wild 2 (post)

Additional Prompts Followed: Hearts, Family

No Trigger Warnings

“Is one of us dying?”

The feast was definitely unsettling to Wendie, and although she was mostly joking, she couldn’t help but think that such a nice dinner at such a random time of the year was odd. Of course her dad was a great cook, but this was a step above, despite there being no family birthdays for at least three months and no holidays for five.

“No,” her mother said as she placed on the table a large bowl of goat-buttered mashed potatoes, one of Wendie’s favorite foods. She had said it with a slight motherly laugh and a warm smile. “No one is dying. We’re just having a family dinner.”

The mother, who went by the name Zelda, had aged gracefully over the past twenty years, blonde hair highlighted with streaks of white that her husband would often call angelic and ethereal when she would doubt her beauty. At the moment, her age-hued hair was swept into a single braid behind her head, messy yet secure.

“Our family dinners aren’t usually this elaborate,” Wendie observed. “You made mashed potatoes and seafood rice balls—which is Elyjah’s favorite food—grilled carrots, meat pie, mushroom skewers and you have an apple turnover on the counter for dessert!”

“Nothing gets past you,” her father said, putting a bowl of baked and salted radishes on the table. His blue eyes looked over to Zelda. “I think we raised them too smart.”

“Nonsense,” Zelda said, walking forward and using the rag that was just draped over her shoulder to wipe a smattering of flour off of Link’s forehead. “Where’s Elyjah?”

Wendie made a sound that sounded a lot like a lazy “I don’t know” while shrugging her shoulders where she sat at the table.

“He can just eat when he gets home,” Wendie reasoned. “There’s more than enough food.”

Wendie didn’t see her parents exchange glances, the seventeen-year old not caring in the slightest that her twin brother wasn’t here to ruin her first dibs on dinner.

“I’ll try and find him,” Zelda said with a sigh, Wendie looking back up at her parents. Link nodded as Zelda departed. Wendie once again questioned what was going on.

“Ly!” The father and daughter heard outside, Zelda from just the doorstep of their modest Hateno home calling out to the entirety of Hyrule. Link sat down across from his daughter, elbows on the table and arms folded into each other. The deep thought he was in concerned Wendie greatly. He wouldn’t even meet her glance. Was she in trouble?

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

Elyjah.

Of all the people to be in trouble, surely it was him. He had never gotten into anything truly bad but he was the biggest prankster in Hateno. The only shop he wasn’t banned from was the dye shop. The green-eyed troublemaker was here nonetheless and Wendie prepared herself for another fun show. Zelda moved to sit down next to Link at the table but Elyjah stopped as soon as he saw the table, mouth popped open and body frozen.

“Is someone dying?”

He had looked over to his sister when he asked the question.

“Yeah,” she said. “You.”

“What?” Elyjah asked, almost believing it.

“Wendie, that’s enough now,” Zelda said, before looking over to her son. “No one is dying. We would just like to talk to you both.”

Elyjah sat next to Wendie with the same bewildered look as her, trying to figure out what it was before their parents spit it out. It was like Hylia’s Day presents except they didn’t have a good feeling about this, especially when Link took Zelda’s hand and looked at their children, ready to address them.

And yet it was Zelda who started.

“Do you two remember the fairytale we used to tell you?” Zelda inquired, her voice shaky. “The bedtime story? Of the princess and the knight?”

Neither Elyjah nor Wendie had any clue of the relevance, but they both remembered the tale well.

“The one with the weird ending?” Wendie asked nonetheless. “Where he rescued her and then that was it?”

“Yeah,” Elyjah said. “Didn’t they just stare at each other in silence? After all they had been through, it seemed like there should have been more.”

Link dove his hand into his forehead.

“Zelda, you could have given them a better ending,” Link suggested.

Zelda scoffed and put her hands on her hips.

“It was a lesson in imagination,” she said. “And clearly none of you have any.”

“But that’s besides the point…” Link said, prompting Zelda in a different direction.

“Yes,” Zelda said, nodding at Link and returning her gaze to their children, confused as ever. And yet she smiled at them.

“You both have grown up so fast,” Zelda said. “We both love you very much and cannot believe that you have blossomed right before our eyes into adults.”

Zelda’s smile became sad and she bowed her head.

“You see it’s a lot easier to lie to children.”

Wendie’s brow furrowed.

“Lie…” she repeated from her mother.

When Zelda’s head tilted back up, green was glazed with waves of coming tears, making the emeralds that Link fell in love with a hundred years ago shine even brighter.

“That fairytale…” Zelda said. “The princess who used her sealing power to keep away Calamity Ganon and the knight who slept in a ruined Hyrule for a hundred years in order to recover from his injuries and save her…”

Zelda stopped herself. Twenty years of keeping it in and it seems it wanted to stay in. She wrestled with her conflicted heart, kept it at bay long enough for her to blurt it out.

“It’s true,” Zelda said, no weakness in her voice, no lie, no apprehension. “The knight and the princess really did fight the calamity, really did survive a century to see it through and then some. Once they tracked down the cause of the anomaly, destroying the true form of Ganon, they settled down in Hateno. They got married and eventually gave life to twins, a boy and a girl.” Zelda’s eyes were proud as she looked upon her children, although they glistened with tears. Her heart hurt to see their faces in shock, but the outspoken truth felt better than she could have imagined. She felt Link’s grip tighten around her fingers.

“You both have royal blood in you,” Zelda said. “Even though I stepped away from the throne in the search of a simpler, more fulfilling life, you both still have claim to the titles of Prince Elyjah and Princess Wendie. We wanted you to know in case that path would prove fulfilling for you and…well, now that you’re adults you have the right to know the truth.”

Wendie stood up and walked out of the house, her parents not daring to stop her. Elyjah, however, just sat in shock, piecing it all together in his mind. Link and Zelda both could see his green eyes working, much like his mother’s did when she went over schematics or theorized about plant life.

“The story,” he finally started, “everything you went through…the pressure…you wanted to protect us from that…you wanted to give us the childhood you never had…that neither of you had.”

Link nodded.

“That’s right.”

Elyjah pursed his lips and nodded. Sometimes he was just like his dad. He shrugged.

“Okay,” he said, replacing his empty plate with the one filled with the seafood rice balls meant for the whole family. “Cool,” he continued, or at least it sounded like the word “cool”, his mouth mostly filled with rice.

Link raised his eyebrows and looked over at Zelda.

“Apparently we’re…cool.” Link said the last word as if it were completely foreign.

“Not all of us,” Zelda reminded her husband. She started to stand up. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

Yet Link placed a hand on her arm.

“I’ll go,” Link said. “You stay and enjoy the food.”

Link found his daughter on the banks of Firly Pond, knees hugged close to her chest and water lapping at her bare toes.

At first he waited with his hand on the bark of the near apple tree, pursing his lips. Sometimes he was thrust back in time twenty years, when he felt he had no idea how to be a dad. This was one of those moments.

Link saw in his mind’s eye Wendie’s big blue eyes staring up at him, stubby arms reaching for him. He smiled. She grew up so fast.

“I know you’re there,” he heard Wendie say. She didn’t turn her head away from the pond. “Did you come to give me a speech?”

Link walked towards her.

“Maybe.”

He sat down next to her and Wendie only gave him the smallest of glances.

“I feel like I don’t know my parents at all,” she finally said.

Link nodded.

“I understand.” He said. “I don’t agree, but I understand.”

Wendie looked over to his profile, trying to ascertain how he could be serious. The calamity was real and her parents fought it. Sheikah technology really could heal fatal wounds and the goddesses power really was wielded by a mortal, not to mention her own mother, who never seemed like a princess in the slightest. Her father was a knight in a kingdom that really did exist and she?

Well she was a princess. This whole time, she was a princess. The girl who was called the “ugly duckling” of the family as a child was a princess in peasant’s clothing. She almost wanted to go brag to the town, but that seemed petty for just a small ounce of appreciation from the people her age who used to tease her when they would play as children.

Her parents were legends and in comparison, what was she?

Definitely not a princess.

“You know us as what we became after everything we went through,” Link finally said, having taken the time to get his words together. “The people we were before…”

He hesitated.

“We were nothing more than what the kingdom wanted us to be…statues, legends, weapons…we were never fully ourselves, and we could never afford to be ourselves with an entire kingdom looking at us to save them from a calamity. The slivers that were left of us found a friendship in each other, one that grew into love in time. After everything was settled, we began to truly find ourselves, basking in the freedom to do so. It’s something that usually occurs in a fifteen year old but your mother and I were a hundred and twenty years old when we solved the identity crisis. She did not want to be royalty and I did not want to be a knight. When we finally did not need to be those things, we took our first breaths as Link and Zelda. We wanted our children to take those breaths from the very second they were born, and that is why we let you grow up before we told you the truth. We wanted royalty to be an option for you two, not a necessity. We wanted you to become yourselves, not tiny versions of us. I only hope we have…at least I think we have.”

Wendie smiled.

“You have,” she said. “If you want your daughter to have absolutely no idea what she wants to do with her life.”

Link brought his daughter closer by hugging her far shoulder, bringing her close enough to kiss the top of her head.

“That’s exactly what I want,” he said. It sounded strange but Link didn’t mean it as a bad thing. “Because finding out your passion for yourself is the most exciting thing in this entire wild land.”

#zelink #zelink week 2021 #zelinkweek2021 #botw #botw 2 #but like twenty years after #hateno

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silentprincess17 · 4 years

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Sometimes Things Have to Get Worse Before They Get Better

This is essentially a darker, heavier alternate take on Memory #7 - Blades of the Yiga. I wanted to write a fic with a competent Yiga Clan. (Yes you read that right). It is very angsty in the beginning and then becomes fluffy (hence the title!)

Summary: Link and Zelda have returned from Vah Naboris with Urbosa and have spent the night in Kara Kara Bazaar Inn. Link wakes up and finds her missing.

Cue the angst.

This story is complete and I will post each chapter daily on here but you can read the whole thing on AO3

Rating: Mature (Graphic descriptions of violence) Pairing: Link/Zelda (Zelink) Characters: Link, Zelda, The Yiga Clan, Master Kohga

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

Chapter 7: Dawn of the Second Day

TW: Huge wounds, massive haemorrhage (a lot of blood loss yes I am a medic geek) and pain. Also Nintendo owns Legend of Zelda and some of the dialogue used. Please don't sue me.

This time, they teleported in, grabbed him, and teleported out.

Zelda screamed his name, but it got lost in the vortex of red paper slips, as he felt his insides split apart and then reform.

He was glad though. Incredibly glad that they’d taken him and not his Princess. He ended up on the floor, in the big arena that wasn’t an arena and he coughed, trying to get the sand out of his mouth, and eyes.

He heard Zelda shouting for him, and it suddenly hit him-this was it. The perfect opportunity. He could try and get her out. He was outside Hylia above!

And just as he thought that, four giant metal clamps locked onto his limbs. And that same cursed red glowing thing was applied so he couldn’t move. He swore at them but stopped struggling. He would have to bide his time, he already felt a little weak from not eating for three days, so every store of energy was precious right now. He had to wait for the perfect opportunity and then unleash it all.

He took a moment to try and calm down. Think things through. He was outside the cell, that was better than being inside. He just had to be observant and careful. He started by trying to determine what their motive was, but he wasn’t sure what was happening. Why had they decided to take him out, if they were only going to restrain him down again?

He looked up, at least they hadn’t clamped his neck. And then a… well. There was no polite way to think of him, if Link was being honest. And frankly, being polite was really quite low down in his list of concerns at the minute.

The Yiga Clan were... normally, at least, easily categorisable. All the Yiga Foot soldiers were thin, agile, capable of moving at lightning speed with their teleportation. The Blademasters were by comparison much larger, and they wielded the more powerful windcleaver. And now he knew of the researchers, but they looked a lot like the Foot soldiers, just with a red lab coat on.

This man… although dressed as a Yiga, didn’t match one of the above categories. He was, well, fat. He had a huge abdomen, which Link didn’t really see working in a fight, either with a sickle or a windcleaver and he was confused really. It was the most bizarre thing he’d seen since arriving.

Link wondered if the lack of food was getting to him.

“Yeah, IT'S YOU! You're that Link guy I've been looking for! And the Princess of course but she’s BORING."

Uh… what? This guy had been… looking… for him? Not to sound egoistical, but wasn’t it really obvious who he was? He literally wore bright blue and had the Master Sword strapped to his back. Admittedly, he didn’t have those two things right now but…

"I need to bust out my serious moves... A secret technique taught by my mother's father! It will...destroy you!"

Uh yeah. It probably would do that because Link was currently strapped to the floor with no weapons. So, whatever this guy chose to do, it would, in all likelihood, work by default.

“Release him from the magnesis bonds! NO WAIT! I need to finish my speech first!”

This man was starting to get on Link’s nerves, like a bratty child who wanted a sweet. But he just said to release his bonds. Yes, if that happened, he would destroy them all, steal all their weapons, physically break down those bars, rescue his Princess and then hightail it out of the desert. So, he would remain calm. Collected. And not think of what happened yesterday.

“Now. Hero of Hyrule. I will DUEL you. So someone told someone who told someone yada yada yada that I should give you a fair chance, and something testing something Princess, I'm not sure, I fell asleep half-way through, so here we are. Of course, you’re a KNIGHT so I assume you know what a DUEL is!"

Link remained silent. He figured it probably wouldn't work in his favour if he started to laugh.

"You know, your silence really is unnerving. ANYWAY, I will fight with my chosen weapons, and you will be provided with a Duplex Bow, ten arrows, a Vicious Sickle and a Windcleaver. A very generous selection, in my opinion. If you defeat me, I will allow you to walk away.” Link’s eyes widened. “YES, WALK AWAYYY!” He laughed, “I won’t kill you to DEATH! Even-if-that's-what-I-really-want-can-you-imagine-being-named-Top-Banana-Of-The-Yiga-Clan-comma-Slayer-Of-The-Hero!”

Okay yeah, there was clearly something wrong with this guy, but Link focussed on the important parts. A Duel. Of which the outcome would be freedom. But. He hadn’t mentioned Zelda. No matter, Link would be a fool not to accept. He’d defeat this fat lug and then Kill. Them. All.

And those Blademasters that had stood on that cursed table? He’d make sure to find his sword and would ensure they suffered a slow, prolonged death. But first, he’d win, take Zelda to the Castle where she’d be safe, and then he’d come back. And exterminate them like the rats they were.

He nodded.

They dropped the connection, freeing him, and he didn’t try anything. Not yet anyway. Once they gave him weapons though, Link would forgo whatever pact he’d made with this man. This didn’t count as an honourable situation anyway, this wasn’t a duel between Knights, it was a duel between captor and captee.

What he hadn’t been expecting, was the fat man to throw a small capsule in the middle of the hole, and the capsule didn’t fall, no, it hovered in place. And the outlines of a dome formed, it extended from the centre of the seemingly bottom-less hole and spread out to include a small ring of sand around said hole. All of a sudden, sound seemed to stop coming through, and he could barely hear Zelda, although maybe she’d come to realise it was futile and had gone quiet.

The capsule made a clicking noise, like an activation of something, and then a burst of red light cascaded from it, down the dome, forming a crimson-lined grid along the surface, almost like red electricity was crawling along the lines. They connected to metal ridges that Link hadn’t even noticed in the sand. He swallowed. He knew, instinctively, that he wouldn’t be able to escape. He wouldn’t be able to get out. Because it was the same thing that had trapped him in those cuffs.

It would have to be honourable. By default.

Still, Link wasn’t feeling that scared. If the fat man wanted a duel, Link would give it to him.

“In the name of Calamity Ganon!” He pranced around, shimmying from one foot to the other. "That's what you say when you start a DUEL right?!"

Link decided to ignore him, and simply looked over to where he thought the Princess was, the red light made it hard to see. “In the name of Princess Zelda Bosphoramus Hyrule, my charge, my liege… my Princess.” And his heart whispered one more thing, my soulmate.

It had started out well enough, the man simply summoned rocks at him, not unlike an octorok, but these ones were considerably larger, with a glowing upside down Sheikah eye on them. Still, he dispatched the obnoxious man in quick time, shooting a well-timed arrow into his head, and then jumping in bullet-time to attack with the sickle.

And then the fat man got angry, stamping his foot into the ground like a child having a tantrum. He moved to hover on top of the hole, and this time he had a blue barrier. Link had wasted one arrow hitting it, only for it to bounce right off. Useless. And there was no way for Link to jump in, seeing as he was without his paraglider and he'd fall down anyway, not sideways to the centre of the abyss where the man was.

So, he bid his time, going as far back as possible and decided to just observe the attack. He remained calm, although for some reason he was a little more flustered than he ordinarily was. Perhaps because the Princess’s safety relied on this fight. Yes, that wasn’t an unusual occurrence, but normally, she’d be hidden, well-protected, should anything go wrong with him. This time… If he failed, then who knew what the consequences would be.

He refocussed, the next move simply involved two rocks hovering horizontally and then vertically to the man, where his barrier faulted for a split second, just before he chucked them at Link. It was easy enough to dodge, and now Link knew what to do. He simply hit the man when the barrier was down, and the Yiga lost control of the rocks, so they hit him instead. After another couple of rounds, where Link looked worryingly at his meagre five remaining arrows, another tantrum fest occurred, this time jumping up and down with one foot whilst floating. Link rubbed his eyes in case he was hallucinating. No, he wasn’t.

And that is where everything went wrong.

The man was now using that accursed red thing to move a giant metal ball at him. The ball had spikes. Huge ones at that. And despite Link keeping his eyes trained on the man, his barrier did not fall. Not once.

Crap.

How?! How could the Yiga mentally control metal?! How was he supposed to defeat him now?

The spiked sphere continued to crawl after him, a slow and steady reminder of what was coming. Link was trying hard not to panic. What else could he do? He didn’t have any of his other weapons. He didn’t have shock arrows. He didn’t have his bomb bag. Maybe he could parry the sphere? But he didn’t have a shield either. He cried, almost, thinking back to his prized Hylian shield sitting in the Inn at Kara Kara Bazaar.

What else what else what else

He knew one thing for certain though. He wouldn’t be able to keep up running forever. Not as weak as he currently was from all the stresses over the past two days and the lack of food. Yes, the sphere moved slowly. But it moved. And eventually he would tire.

The man took back the sphere and Link aimed, hoping his barrier would come down for one second, but no. All he did was pause before sending the sphere. Straight. Back. At. Him.

Goddesses above he wouldn’t last.

Was this his true Hero trial?

Was this how he would die?

He decided to try to use the windcleaver to generate some gush of air that would what? Move the giant ball? He was crazy enough to at least attempt because what else could he do? None of his weapons would even reach the man, even if he chucked them, let alone penetrate the seemingly solid blue barrier.

He ran to the edge of the dome, hoping to be a little out of the ball's range to give him some breathing room should this go wrong, but he had no such luck, because it came, hard and fast for him. He waited until it came close then swung the blade down and tried to repel it.

It obviously failed; no colossal, incredibly heavy, metallic sphere was going to shift with the mere power of air.

Belatedly, he realised that the fat man could afford to be fat. Who was going to hurt him if he could levitate himself out into a pit of no end so there was no hope of reaching him, put up a barrier that you had no hope of penetrating, trap you in a hemisphere so you were effectively at his mercy and was armed with a deadly weapon only he could control?

Link only had just about enough time to turn, for his fingers to hit the dome, before the spikes rammed into his back and Link heard himself scream.

He was used to pain, he thought distantly. He’d hurt himself so many times, from climbing accidents, to training mishaps, to when he’d first started fighting monsters, especially those Goddess damned Lynel swords, oh, wait, no, the crushers were worse.

But he’d never had enormous sharp cones ram into his back, upper thigh and calves, all at once. He was effectively pinned against the dome. And then the ball was pulled out, and shoved right back in.

And again.

And then for flavour, the fat man shifted it just to the right, so now his wounds grew and grew, until he was slowly ripped apart, until the only thing actually holding him upright was the metal sphere.

Link lost track of everything. He’d never felt so humiliated, so weak.

He’d never lost a fight.

What would happen now? What would happen to him and Zelda?

He felt wet, lethargic and so, so heavy. Which struck him as odd, especially considering he’d probably lost a lot of blood. Shouldn’t he be light?

Little spots of blackness coated his vision, somehow he blinked and he was on the floor, on his knees, the dome gone, his hands shaking trying to hold himself up. His blood rushed through his ears, thundering too loudly, and everything else was muted, muffled, and he could no longer focus properly.

"-oga! Did you se- I did i-"

Link must have blacked out again, because the next thing he knew he was being hauled by his armpits back into the cell, and his injuries were stretched even more, and Link screeched in pain. He was so far gone it was silent, and he lost consciousness yet again, because he practically fell on top of Zelda, landing on his front, in her arms. She was shaking, maybe? Or was it him? Probably him, but he couldn’t tell, and he heard her furiously mutter under her breath about hypo-something shock, but really, he was barely holding onto the few remaining threads of consciousness he had.

“Link?” She sounded frightened, but he couldn’t bring himself to respond. Instead, when he opened his mouth, he coughed up an alarming amount of blood. He felt some of it dribble down his chin and he heard her half scream in response.

“LINK! No! In - name of Hylia st- with me! Link!” She gently held his head in her hands, his head rolling in her hold because he'd now lost what little control he had over his muscles. He focussed on the softness of her touch, and how it contrasted so deeply to the agony that he was in, although everything was dulled around the edges right now, probably from the blood loss. He stared at the growing pool of bright crimson around them, it seemed to be coming from everywhere. Like he was a dam that had suffered too many hits and now all the water was leaking through. That wasn’t that far from the truth to be fair.

“Zel-” He tried to say something, to reassure her that he would fight to stay awake. But it ended in another, harsher, coughing fit, and it felt like Daruk had grasped his chest in his hands and squeezed. Dear Goddesses, he felt his vision start to fade again, it was already half faded, in all honesty. And it scared him, because this wasn't the same blackness he'd had after being knocked cold from a fight. This was darker, more permeating. It felt... more permanent.

She cried, and it pained him to see her tears for him, but the blackness forced its way upon him, and he slowly closed his eyes, trying his hardest not to give in, but even from the start he knew it was a losing battle. Vaguely he wondered if the sword would remember him. He wondered what would happen to his family, to Hyrule, to her, if there was no Hero for the Calamity. He wondered, if he'd had more time, more courage, if he and Zelda could have-

She cradled his head in her arms, gently brushing his matted hair away from his forehead, and he allowed himself a final deep breath, for her lavender to imprint in his mind one last time.

Link was not... scared of death. He knew it was inevitable, and there was a significant probability of him dying, either in the line of duty to the Crown, or against the Calamity, his destiny-chosen battle. But... he was scared now. He was scared of what the consequences of him dying meant. Her verdant eyes stared at him, and she was saying something but he could no longer hear. She was his biggest regret, he couldn't stomach leaving her, here and now, because who knew what horrors would await her once he left. So much guilt, so much shame, so much despair hit him, in the final moment but there was nothing left to he done. He tried to convey that to her, through his gaze, that he was sorry, for not being enough, for not doing enough, for failing to get her out of here- the list continued, but he was rapidly losing what little control he had left, and he felt his eyes glaze over. He’d seen enough death to know where he stood. Because everything ached, he felt increasingly weaker, and his breathing grew progressively more ragged, as stabs of pain shot up his ribs for every centimetre he inhaled in.

He gasped for air, one final time, trying to commit her to his memory, and that seemed to be the very last assault his body could handle. Because within seconds he lost all sense of the world, his final thought was of his silent princess, and of a lullaby, that would forever haunt him till the end of time.

#zelink #botw zelink #botw #botw link #botw zelda #pre-calamity #yiga clan #master kohga #Alternate take on Memory 7 - Blades of the Yiga #angst with a happy ending #enemies to friends to lovers #more so understanding enemies?#heavy angst #angst and feels #some fluff intermixed because i am incapable of writing pure angst #selectively mute link #slow burn #mutual pining #link's pov

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jinmukangwrites · 5 years

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Fly

Prompt

Warnings: description of injury, whump, blood, extreme doses of angst provided to you by a shady dealer named Jin, Jin taking liberties with prompt, what else is new.

-o-o-o-o-

Sky knows the feeling of falling, the butterflies in his stomach that flutter up to his throat are not unfamiliar to him. The wind ripping through his hair, his limbs spread out and trembling from the force. He's known the feeling ever since he first rode his crimson Loftwing, bringing his fingers to his lips and whistling as hard as he could because he had just launched himself off of the face of his world and is now plummeting towards the Cloud Barrier and the unknown below it. He's known it from when Zelda pushed him off various heights to see him fly or to see him test out her gift to him, the prize he won.

Yet, always, without failure, he's known the feeling of being caught. Whether it's his other half swooping below him and allowing him to grab onto those stiff yet soft and incredibly strong feathers, whether it's Zelda who realized she just pushed him off something and if she doesn't fly down to catch him he's gonna splat on something below, whether it's his greatest treasure that gives him a pair of wings in his own way, he's always been caught. He's always landed gently with two feet on the ground and a laugh bubbling in his throat because of the pure adrenaline and exhilaration flowing through every single artery and vein in his body.

To fly you must fall, and both processes give life to his limbs and pump his heart and clear his head. He loves it. He loves jumping and falling and rising so much. He's never been afraid of heights, why else would he choose his name to be the sky?

He misses Skyloft, he misses everybody and everything associated with it. He misses his Loftwing, he misses Zelda's Loftwing too. He misses Groose, Zelda's father, even that annoying cat. He remembers when his new group of traveling partners stumbled upon Wild's Rito village and he saw the launch platforms along the steep cliffs; he had many dreams of sprinting and jumping off them those nights they were there. He misses it.

So much.

The feeling of flying was ripped from him the moment he won, the moment he saved the world and was allowed to return to a normal, quest free life. He wasn't okay with it, he pretends to be, even to this day, for Zelda's sake if not his own, but it hurts. He sometimes brings his fingers to his mouth and blows, hoping for something while everyone wonders what he's doing, and nothing happens, nothing comes, there's no loving nibble to his ear from his good friend, no excited chirps and squawks, just him standing at the edge of a cliff looking up at the clouds and thinking that the only thing falling right there were his own tears.

For a moment, right now, he thinks he should whistle, yet if he brings his hands away from where his Sailcloth is stuck in one of the metal bits of his bag, he will surely die. He's falling, falling so fast, the wind is howling in his ear and every organ in his stomach is rising to his chest, something is caught in his throat, be it bile or fear, either way: if he doesn't get his cloth unstuck, he's going to hit the ground at terminal velocity and probably turn into dust from the force of impact.

They were fighting, it was just a pack of Wolfos, but they were stronger than normal according to Time. They were savage beasts who ran around and clawed at them the moment they found a weak spot. Sky had two trying to gang up on him, and he didn't notice they brought him to the edge of a cliff until he took another step back and found nothing there to support him. He could have caught himself, with arms waving he almost did, but one of the Wolfos snarled and with its tail wagging with excitement, it lunged and pushed.

For a few seconds, the very short feeling of floating washed over him. Everything was still, the clouds, the setting sun, the grinning beasts before him, and then he blinked and he was falling, falling down down down towards the trees and streams and rocks and world below him.

This is no problem, he thinks, the worst this has done is set him back, he'll have to find a way back up and then he'll join the others. The force of gravity pulls at his hair and his his heart is pumping a mile a minute as he reaches to the cloth around his shoulders and tugs, or at least tries too. His stomach clenches with an indescribable anxiety when he meets resistance. He glances at his hip and pales when he sees the corner of his Sailcloth is caught between the two ends of a metal ring. How it got in the tiny gap he doesn't know, what he does know that when he frantically tugs at it, it's not budging.

There's no way the cloth will stop his fall while connected to his bag, he has to quickly get it unstuck while in the middle of free fall.

His hands shake as he tugs and pulls and jerks the cloth, and his head is spinning faster the more he falls, he hasn't been this terrified in awhile, not since he fell from Skyloft and broke through the mysterious Cloud Barrier.

The ground is fast approaching, it's almost funny how quick one falls from great heights. In free fall, you always think you have more time, but in reality it's a few seconds if your lucky.

Too close, too close, his mind is screaming at him to do something to stop the fall, but he can't, it's stuck and it's not moving. Terror makes his eyes blurry, and he forgets to be careful with the cloth in one final attempt to pull. It finally comes free and he ignores the loose threads still stuck in the ring as he quickly opens the Sailcloth.

He didn't think. He didn't think what recklessly throwing up his Sailcloth would do at terminal velocity. For a second, he's stops falling, legs swinging out from the force, and the next second he's screaming in agony as something pops in his shoulder, the socket empty and his arm pulling up at a terrible angle with nothing to stop it. Instinctively, he let's go, vision red and whole body reacting to the unexpected pain of a dislocated shoulder. He veers to the side and he has just a heartbeat to see that he's heading straight towards the cliff wall before the pain in his shoulder is replaced with stars, a blur, and then nothing.

-o-o-o-o-

"Wake up, sleepy head," a voice says. He blinks, his eyes opening to his dorm room ceiling. He groans and turns over in his bed, thinking: just five more minutes. Let him sleep for just five more minutes-

"Link, c'mon," the voice says again, a chuckle in her voice. A hand falls on his shoulder and shakes him roughly, though he'd be a fool to think she could ever be graceful with him. She's always a bit too excited, a bit too… herself. "You're going to miss class again. Link, get up! Link! Link, help! LINK! LINK HELP!"

He gasps at the sound of her scream as a terrifying black wind rushes past him strong enough to give him whiplash. He has to save her, she's in trouble, he scrambles out of his sheets and turns around to see… an empty room.

"Zelda?" He asks. No one answers. It's silent. Nothing but his room, the desk, the wardrobe, his bed, and himself. "Zelda?"

The bed below him creeks as he lifts himself up. He could have sworn... He looks around the room with a growing sense that something is wrong, which couldn't be right because this is his room and nothing is out of place or moved.

Something suddenly catches his ear, it's a cry, someone screaming something on the other side of the door. Worried and confused, Link walks up to the door, the closer he gets the better he can hear what's being said on the other side.

"-it! I need—health——now!"

"——got one!"

"-so much blood-"

"Will he be okay?!"

"Back off! Give me room to work!"

"He can't die-"

"He won't die!"

"His arm-"

He puts his hand on the door knob and turns, walking into a giant room with walls covered in moss as silence falls upon him like a weighted blanket. The only noise he can hear is a distant clinking of gears and his own breaths.

"Hello?" He calls, no one answers. "Zelda? Anyone?"

He walks further into the room completely lost as to what's going on. Up ahead is a pedestal with many steps leading up to it. He swallows and begins to walk up the stairs, one foot at a time, with silence as his only companion.

When he reaches the top, his breath is stolen by the scene. His sword, Fi, is there, shoved in the stone and left to sleep there until needed again, for an eternity. Yet, the blade is rusted, chipped, coated with thousands upon thousands years of blood, some dried, some still dripping. Wielded like a weapon, not a friend.

He puts his hand on her blade and he can feel her pain, and a horrible thought flashes in his mind that there is a reason she does not speak to them. It lasts a second, a heartbeat, and he has no clue where it came from or who these people she doesn't talk to are. She's crying, he can sense it, so many years, forced to rest, to serve with no choice of her own. She started off uncaring, but by the end she could feel and she had the longing for agency, to choose to remain. She had no choice, and he could hear that longing in her voice when she told him she was feeling something that closest resembles the human emotion of happiness.

"Oh, Fi," he whispers, his eyes sting, and he gently grips her hilt more firmly and lifts her. It's like a physical blow when he sees parts of her chip away and fall as he lifts her up. He slides her out of the stone with a shikk and holds her in front of him. "What have they done to you?"

She pulses weakly yet strong, as if saying it's not anyone's fault that she's the way she is now, that the passage of time wears at everything, even the strongest of swords. After so long, she's still holding on, she is still looking forward to the next hero she meets, to the next incarnation of her most favorite mortal.

Link, every one of them, are the wielders of courage, but all of them pale in comparison to the braveness of the sword always accompanying them. She could he angry, hurt, bored, desperate. She's so different, he thinks. Here she is, waiting, separated from her Master for thousands of years at a time yet she never gets bitter. Not unlike-

"Time and time again," a new voice says and he spins around to see him. Demon Lord Ghirahim.

He's standing by the entrance of the temple, cape fluttering around him from some invisible wind. His eyes look dead, his skin is pale, his frame decaying. There's a gaping wound in the center of his chest, glowing a crimson red and a broadsword in both hands. Link's eyes travel up and many emotions overtake him all at the same time. Joy, anger, confusion, desperation.

"Let her go," Link snarls, lifting Fi up in front of him.

Ghirahim chuckles, his voice raspy and breathless, clear evidence of his eternal suffering. He too glances up, licking his lips, as if he's just as surprised Zelda is unconscious, suspended in the air above him.

He laughs and brings his hand to his bangs, swooping it to the side before giving a triumphant smirk over at Link. "Time and time again," he repeats, "I have let you go, let you survive. My greatest failure was not killing you the first time." A guilty pleasure. "You just keep coming back. Again… again… again…….." his fingers twitch and his head jolts to the side like he's fighting a seizure. He laughs again, a laugh filled with so much hatred and pain, Link almost feels bad for him.

"I won't be so merciful this time, sky child."

Ghirahim rushes forward, screaming a war cry that is all too familiar, as he raises his gigantic sword and prepares to strike. Link blocks and grunts from the force that sends him to his knees.

"Sun's going down, we need to move him-"

Sk- Link shakes his head and shoves Ghirahim off from him. The demon spirit stumbles backwards but quickly rights himself in a poise position, an excited and hungry smile tugging at his lips. Sky gets to his feet and they're at a standoff for just a second. He takes that time to glance down at Fi, whose definitely looking rough around the edges, yet she's pulsing with a eager and willing trust that he forces worries for her towards the back of his head and instead focuses all of his own trust in her.

"Careful with his head! Keep his arm still, I need to set it-"

Ghirahim lifts a lithe hand and snaps, the broadsword dissipates in a series of diamond designs and is replaced with a long sword. Link lifts Fi to the sky and charges her power up in response as Ghirahim snaps again, a cluster of red dagger like objects appear before him and a heartbeat later they're heading straight towards Link.

He swipes Fi and she sings. A burst of light erupts from the tip of her blade and flies, knocking the daggers off their path and hitting Ghirahim right across his chest. Link doesn't allow Ghirahim time to recover this time, he sprints forward, lifting Fi high, about to deliver the last blow straight down into Ghirahim's broken heart, but he's stopped as hid opponent lifts his own blade and blocks with stunning force. Fi stops against that blade, but Link's hands continue down as she shatters in his grasp with a glorious blue light.

He feels the loss like a blow to the stomach, or maybe he physically feels a blow to his stomach. All he knows is that he's now stumbling backwards, clutching his gut and struggling to suck in air as Ghirahim gets to his feet and brushes invisible dust from his shoulder.

He walks forward and gracefully slices his sword out, whacking Link across his head with the flat side of the weapon. He feels skin break and his head spin from the force of the blow, he falls to the ground only to get kicked in the gut by pointed shoes.

"The bleeding started again, why is he bleeding again?! Get me another health position, NOW!

Link shakily tries to force his arms to move and get him back up to at least try to defend himself, but a hand wraps around his hair and forces his head against the stone floor with a resounding bang. A foot lands on the small of his back. His vision is swimming, nausea crawling in his gut the threatening to climb up his throat. He tries to suck in air and he glances up at where Ghirahim is grinning ear to ear, sharp teeth, tongue, and all. He lowers his sword down so it's resting against the side of Links neck, he can feel the sharp edge kissing his skin threateningly.

"I never wanted to kill you, sky child," Ghirahim says, licking his lips, "but, oh, will I enjoy this."

He makes to slice Link's neck open, but before he can another blade—thick, black, dangerous—pierces through his chest. Ghirahim makes a strangled noise as he shatters in a flash of light. Link watches with growing apprehension as the light travels backwards towards the blade held by a black figure with flaming red hair. Zelda lays crumpled on the ground below him, looking ashen and gray. Dead.

Demise doesn't make any pleasantries, doesn't let Link get his bearings, don't do anything but stride forward and grab Link by the throat. Link grunts and chokes and before he knows it his back is being slammed into a moss covered wall. His lungs shutter and claws split skin, allowing red droplets to escape and run down his neck onto the collar of his shirt.

"The honor of killing you belongs to me," Demise says, voice deep, glutal, terrifying. Link chokes and brings his hands up to the one holding him up and tries to pry the fingers apart, but Demise only tightens his grip and Link's vision blurs.

Demise leans forward, his face scarily neutral, uncaring. "I told you my hatred will never die." He releases his grip ever so slightly and Link sucks in a lungful of air greedily before once again his airway is cut off. Demise doesn't want him to die quite yet. "I told you an incarnation will find every reincarnation of your spirit, every moral body of the Goddess, until the day everything belongs to me as it should. I told you how to avoid that fate, and you ignored me. You fought valiantly, hero, and so did they, but in the end, I will win."

"Set his shoulder———hold him———move-"

If Link had air to scream, he would have when Demise slowly sunk his blade into Links shoulder, but instead he can only writhe and make pitiful grunts and chokes. He tries to kick out at Demise, but nothing seems to affect him. He goes limp when the blade slides completely through his shoulder and tinks against the wall behind him. There's tears flowing down his cheeks, but with his last remaining strength: he glares.

"-eed—wrap it———wait——wake up."

"You humans never know when to quit," Demise says, almost sadly, "and because of that, you've doomed every one that comes after you to my hatred. All of their pain, all of their battles, that's on you, not me. And you know that, deep down, that it's all your fault. If you have just laid down like the dogs mortals are, they would never have had to fight me. I have no grudges against them, they hadn't need to suffer my wrath. You destroyed their lives."

He knows this already. He knows he's the one who doomed them to a life of war, loss, and goddesses. He knows who Ganondorf is, the demon, the Gerudo, the leader, the King, the thief. Whatever form he takes, he's always overtaken by Demise's hatred. In a way, Link also knows he's doomed that man as well. He's doomed Zelda to a constant battle for her life that will never end. Everyone he knows, everyone they know, they all suffer because Link only managed to seal away the demon king, not kill him. Everything; it's his fault. From the physical scars on each of their bodies to the psychological wounds they take and will carry with them until they eventually reach their graves.

It's all his fault. To his knowledge, he's the first hero, the first Link to carry the spirit of courage. He's failed them.

But… he's come to terms with that as he traveled with them. Yes, if he had managed to kill Demise, Wind wouldn't have had to grow up so young, Wild wouldn't have his scars, Time wouldn't have lost any dear friends, Twilight, Warrior, Legend, Four, Hyrule… all of them would be normal Hylians with no worries in the world, but he didn't defeat Demise, because he wasn't strong enough. They could be. Somehow, somewhere down the line, each of then have been cutting Demise down smaller and smaller and smaller until the point Demise threw away his reincarnations, started appearing in his true demonic form, and he's still being defeated. Maybe, just maybe, in a few more centuries, there will be another boy born with the spirit of the hero who will finally drive Fi right through hatred's heart and stop the vicious cycle Sky created.

He has to hold onto that hope, that someone will finish what he started and no longer will people have to worry about the next time the demons rear their ugly heads. He started this, he didn't finish it, but they will.

With a scream—a scream filled with agony, desperation, and courage—he brings the Master Sword that has materialized into his hand right through Demise's stomach.

Denise stumbles backwards and Sky drops to his feet, sucking in air. He clutches his bloodied shoulder with one hand and with the other he marvel's at his beautiful companion. He doesn't know where the sword came from, but he supposes where there is courage, there is Fi.

"You. Won't. Win."

Demise looks down at him, slightly bent over from his wound, and snarls. "You don't know what you're talking about, human."

"I will keep fighting you. They will keep fighting you, until you're damned back to whatever hell you crawled your way out from. No, no until there isn't even a speck of dust left of you in the world. You will lose. I can promise you. And if it's not me, it's Four, if it's not four, it's Time. If it's not Time, it's Twilight, or Hyrule, or Wind, or Legend, or Warrior, or Wild, or someone we haven't met yet. You're right, we don't know when to give up, and that will be your downfall, not ours. We will win."

Demise snarls and lifts his sword, lifts Ghirahim, and charges. Link matches him, running, running faster than what he has ever done before with his sword lifted to the heavens, then he shoves Fi forward, stabbing Demise through once again. Then, another sword flashes, and Four is there, looking fierce and determined and not at all blame-full. Then Time is there, stabbing Demise in the back, he nods at Sky like they have finally come to an understanding. Twilight jumps in snarling, swinging his sword like it's a part of him. Legend waves one of his many magic weapons and a blast of fire knocks into Demise's face, making him howl in agony. Hyrule loses an arrow, Wild besides him losing his own, at rapid fire, working together to make Demise look more like a pincushion than a demon. Wind charges forward, a look of pure bravery and pirate savageness hardening his features as he slashes at his enemy, and Warrior brings down a vicious blow, the concentration of a captain on his face as Demise stumbles and gurgles blood.

"I will be back!" Demise screams. "My hated will never d-"

A final sword pierces his body, and there's another man there. His hair is blond, almost white. Eyes are sharp, face set in righteous fury. The sword he wields is glorious, his armor classic hero green. His wrists are bloodied and scabbed and thousands of scars litter his visible skin and Sky instantly knows who he is.

He doesn't have time to say anything to his predecessor, to the Hero, before a flash of light explodes around him.

"He's waking up-"

"Thank Hylia-"

Sky blinks. There's nothing but the sky and clouds around him. The air ripples as he takes a step forward, and another, towards a beautiful woman he has come to love unconditionally over the years he's known her.

"Wake up, Link," Zelda says, and he's falling, reaching towards her, and she's reaching towards him. He doesn't know if he's falling down or if he's falling up, but when his hand grasps onto hers, he //sours.

"Wake up, Sky-"

-o-o-o-o-

Unconsciousness is different than falling asleep, and he is reminded of that every time he wakes up. If he's rested, he fell asleep, if he's in unbearable pain and more tired than be has ever felt before, he fell unconscious.

His head is spinning and he can't see a thing through his blurry eyes. He doesn't know what the last thing he remembers is, only that if he doesn't turn over now he's definitely going to throw up. He gags and trembles, trying to get his bearings before hands gently grab him and help him lean over whatever surface he's laid on so he can get sick without worrying about getting it all over himself.

He gags and dry heaves and tries to orientate himself but it's useless as his body seems to just want to flop down and do nothing for the next century.

It takes a few seconds for him to finally calm down. He rapidly opens and closes his eyes, forcing them to see through the blur, until finally, he can see where he is.

"W-wah happen…"

He can hardly feel his tongue.

"Hey buddy," Hyrule says softly, smiling. He's sitting next to where Sky is laid on a table. There's shuffling around him and the faint smell of milk and alcohol tinting the air. They're in some kind of tavern, and he's laid over the bar.

Okay.

"What do you remember," Warrior speaks up and Sky closes his eyes because it's too much work to move them.

"Wolves?" He asks.

Four speaks up. "You fell off a cliff- OW! Dude-!"

"Don't be so blunt," Twilight says, and Sky would laugh if he didn't think he'd throw up again if he opens his mouth a second time.

"We can talk about it later, he's tired, we should let him rest."

Sky opens his lead heavy eyes and gives a thankful smile Time's way, but then Wild comes into his line of sight, holding out his most prized possession. "We cleaned it the best we can…" he said, looking nervous. "But..."

Sky shakily holds out the arm that isn't strapped to his chest to keep his recently reconnected shoulder joint restrained and takes his Sailcloth from Wild. It looks clean, at first glance, but he can see the faint orange-ish stains of blood washed out too late. He smiles sadly at the sight, but he won't get mad, besides those orange stains are light green grass stains, and besides those are the faint stains of some juice Zelda had accidentally spilled onto him a few months back.

Things happen, he supposes. Nothing he can do about it. Just gotta keep one foot in front of the other and hope that another stain won't appear or another thing won't go wrong. He unwraps the Sailcloth and places it on his chest, close to his nose where he can still smell her. "I'm gon'sleep-" he says.

"You do that, partner," Legend says, smirking slightly.

Everyone moves away from him and he closes his eyes, breathing out a sigh of relief and content. He hurts, but he thinks something changed.

Before he can let sleep completely take him, he forces one eye half open because two would be too much effort.

"Hey guys…" they all look up from their spots to look at him. He smiles. "Thanks."

"Anytime, Sky."

#jin writes #fan fiction #linked universe #hero of the wild #fan fic #hero of time #hero of twilight #hero of warriors #legend of zelda #hero of legend #hero of the four sword #hero of the wind #hero of hyrule #hero of the sky #skyward sword #ghirahim #demise

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ananke-asteria · 6 years

Text

BOTW AU: ZELDA THE HERO

BECAUSE HONESTLY IT’S THE LEGEND OF ZELDA AND IT JUST MAKES SENSE!

First of all full credit. This headcanon is inspired by many wonderful works of fan art and mods, specifically the Zelda Conversion Project, nearly all of my screenshots are from their youtube chanel. This whole idea of Zelda as the hero made me freak out because it is just steaming with potential!

I am not the first person to come up with this idea and I will be crediting all fanworks that insipired this headcanon. Please check out the links because frankly these works are amazing. I will not be reposting their work.

-Chronologically all the memories are the same upt to Memory 16: Despair. Zelda and Link are running away, tears in Zelda’s eyes as she laments that everyone she knows is dead and it’s all her fault and she breaks down into tears, that’s all the same

BUT THEN

-Memory 17: Zelda’s Awakening is where things go differently. Link is fighting against a Guardian. There is a moment where it looks like the Guardian might get the best of him and Zelda runs in front of him in a desperate bid to protect him but just as she lifts her hand up...

Link recoveres enough to get back in front of her and, with a final strike, cuts the Guardian down. There’s a moment of silence while he and Zelda catch their breath before he hears it. A voice inside the Master Sword, a voice that Zelda (and the audience) can’t hear, he turns to look at her with sadness in his eyes. Before Zelda can ask Link what’s going on two Sheika... Young Purah and Impa because honestly it should have been THEM and not some random Sheika males in that memory.

FOR REAL THO it would have made such a strong impact on the game to see Young Impa and Purah, to have a direct comparison to what they look like now in the game. That the impactof 100 years can be felt in these two characters still being alive and looking WAY different. The emotions would be so much stronger. And YOU Nintendo just gave me too random dudes when this memory so OBVIOUSLY needed young Impa and Purah considering they say that they were the ones who put Link in the shrine in the first place. Just UGH missed opprotuintiy so now its in my AU. bitterwhosebitternotme.

ANYWAY

-Purah and Impa come forward and Link tells them to protect Zelda and keep her somewhere safe. Impa tries to stop him at first, stating he is abandoning his duty to the princess before Link reveals that the Master Sword itself told him to go. Impa reluctantly lets him leave and Link gives Zelda one final glance and whispers “I’m sorry” before dashing off towards the castle. Zelda screams at him to come back, that she doesn’t understand, while Purah and Impa take her away.

-Memory 18: Wounds. As Impa, Purah and Zelda run through the woods Impa tells Zelda to trust her knight, that even if he’s leaving her he’s doing it to protect her. Zelda wipes her tears away, stating she hates it, hates that others are dying for her when she hasn’t accomplished anything. Impa gives her a knowing look and says “That is not why Link-” But Impa is cut off as the three of them get ambushed by a rogue Guardian. Before Impa can react Zelda gets gravely injured by a Guardian beam. Zelda passes out and Purah holds her in her arms as Impa quckly takes the Guardian down. Impa begins to panic before Purah suggests that the Shrine of Resurrection might just save her. Impa agrees and together they carry the girl to the shrine.

-Thanks to the “Sword that Seals the Darkness” Link is able to keep Ganon contained in the castle for 100 years.

-The game starts with Zelda waking up to a voice, soft spoken but clear in the Shrine of Resurrection.

-“Open your eyes.” The voice continues to speak. “We never spoke much in life. My fault, not yours. I thought that staying silent gave me strenght, though now...I wonder...” Credit to the aformentioned dialouge to http://a-perplexing-puzzle.tumblr.com, seriously the work is beautiful as is the quote. Check it out!

-The voice also encourages Zelda to take the Sheikah Slate and to start her journey. Zelda has lost her memories. Making her way out of the shrine she finds her old prayer dress, still covered in dirt, in one of the chests and makes her way up to the Great Plateau. Cue cinematic of a young confused princess staring at her kingdom, a kingdom she doesn’t even remember. Title drop.

-There is also amazing fanart by http://jujuthevuvu.tumblr.com/ of this moment. Go check it out!

-In the corner of her eye she sees an old man who looks familiar and thus the tutorial begins!

-The fighting mechanic is basically the same but all of the tutorial clues are in Link’s voice “Parry,” “Keep your guard up” “Use a sneak attack” stuff like that, Zelda isn’t sure who she is hearing, if it’s some sort of memory of someone teaching her to fight or there is a voice literally inside her head, either way she picks it up fast.

-The old man at the end of the tutorial brings Zelda to the Temple of Time and asks her to pray at the goddess statue, Zelda does as he asks and nothing happens…the old man sighs in disappointment but Zelda just looks confused.

-Then in a dramatic reveal the old man presents himself to be the King of Hyrule and gives Zelda the backstory of how this young knight named Link kept Ganon away for 100 years using the “Sword that Seals the Darkness.” He also explains how he is the ghost of her father and how he wished he hadn’t been so hard on her in the past, he also tells her to go seek out Impa as she was the one who put her in the shrine, and right before he fades away he tells her he loves her.

-Zelda despite not remembering him, is shown to have a single tear running down her cheek before clutching her fist and diving off the tower.

-She may not know much about this Ganon fellow but that ghost says she is a princess and that logically means she has a duty to her people. It also hurts to hear this man who says he’s her father be so sad, she doesn’t know him but she wants to make him proud.

Look at her go!

-And it’s at that moment that Zelda hears a voice in her head, it’s the quiet one from the shrine, and he only says one thing “I believe in you.”

-Zelda has no doubt that it’s Link, and feels a bit of comfort in this strange new world.

-She makes it Kakarioko village and seeks out Impa, Impa is shocked to discover Zelda has lost her memories but mumbles that perhaps its for the best as Zelda was so hard on herself 100 years ago. She tells the “Legend of Reincarnation”, “The Triforce” and how Zelda is the “Force of Wisdom” and has the power to seal Ganon away.

-Zelda asks if she has that power why didn’t she do it 100 years ago.

-Impa gets quiet for a long time and then finally states that Zelda got very injured before she had a chance to use that power.

-Zelda nods and says she’ll find a way to use this power, she just needs to remember.

-Impa smiles knowingly and agrees. “Of course you will Princess.” She then tells her to seek out the three springs of the Goddess to help her unlock her power.

-Impa also tells her to go see Purah to get her Sheikah slate upgraded.

-She also also tells her that once she has recovered her sealing power she can free the Divine Beasts and release her friends from their prison.

-To get to any of the springs Zelda must first pass a series of trials. There are encampments of monsters that test her courage, shrines and puzzles that test her wisdom and mini-bosses that test her power. When she gets to each spring and begins to pray nothing happens. However at each spring there is a memory to unlock.

-At the Spring of Courage it would be Memory 5: Zelda’s Resentment. If she finds this memory, by the place where Link would stand watching over her when she prayed. Once she prays again he gets a a third of her triforce. One triangle. With just a third of her sealing power she can now sense when Blood Moons will rise. It’ll be a menu icon that shows a mooncycle.

-At the Sprng of Wisdom, Zelda can now witness Memory 7: Blades of the Yiga. Again once she recalls this memory she can now activate another third of her triforce. She can now stun enemies with a blinding light before getting a few attacks in.

-At the Spring of Power Zelda finally recalls Memory11: Shelter from the Storm This memory makes her pause, uncertain if she should pray, if perhaps she is unworthy. But Link’s voice cuts in and states that she has come so far and accomplished so much on her own and that of course she is worthy. Reninvoigorated by his words Zelda prays again and completely unlocks her sealing power. She now has the ability to drain monsters of HP. The power is weak at first, no stronger than the Master Sword with attack damage of 30 but Zelda states that with time and practice she can make it stronger.

-Not to get all ZeLink on you but it’s Zelda’s recollection of her love of Link, the knowledge that he is proud of her and the experience of facing all these trials alone is what allows her to unlock her sealing power. Basically Zelda’s memories got taken away to give her a chance to rebuild her confidence.

-Link tells her after the final Spring that while she has unlocked her power the Master Sword is telling him that it is unfocused and that if she were to find the Great Deku Tree in the lost woods she would find something to help her channel her power.

-Link also tells Zelda that she now has the power to free the Divine Beasts and save their friends.

-If Zelda goes back to Impa she can now unlock all the other memories in the game, since she now has her sealing power reflecting on these memories won’t break her self confidence but renew her resolve to defeat Ganon.

-Finding all 19 memories will make her sealing power stronger and will make the cool down slower.

-Going to the Great Deku tree will reveal the Bow of Light trapped in the ground, it will take 13 hearts to pull it out of the ground. The bow will never break but if Zelda uses 10 light arrows (not a collectable they just come with the bow) in a row, another arrow won’t respawn until a designanted cool down time. Then she can use them again. Using the bow also raises the damage to 60 per arrow instead of 30 when she just uses the power without the bow.

(Dot Voice) Pretend it’s a bow okay?

-And at the Great Deku tree Zelda gets to see the AU version of Memory 17 and Memory 18. That’s right we’re tossing out the mechanic that the memories are tied to location, in this AU they are tied to story progression.

-Using the Bow of Light will increase her damage of sealing power and also decrease the cool down. Without the bow Zelda can use five blasts of sealing power in a row before a cool down, with the bow she can shoot 10 arrows before a cool down.

-So Zelda’s now on her way to every Divine Beast and instead of some random boss like “Fireblight Ganon” it is now the body of the champion possesed and corrupted by Ganon. This is totally based off this super cool fanart by https://roposhipin.tumblr.com/. So the emotional toll in battle is higher, Zelda has to fight through her guilt as well as shock of seeing her friends so mutilated. Also these corrupted figures use the powers of the Champions against Zelda. Basically corrupted!Revali can fly high and avoid your attack, corrupted!Daruk can block your attacks, corrupted!Mipha can heal quickly and corrupted!Urbosa can emit blasts of lightining against you. It’s hard for Zelda to fight against them but Link tells her that if she wins she will save them and that gives her the strenght to fight back. It takes a combination of Zelda’s sealing power, fighting prowess and words of FRIENDSHIP to break through.

-Stuff like “I’m sorry I let you die.” “Your father is so proud of you.” “You were the best warrior in your village.” “You are stronger than this.” Basically, WEAPONIZED EMPATHY and closure all wrapped into a cool battle.

-At the end of each sequence Zelda apologizes for letting them die and wants them all to know that she will defeat Ganon. Each champion presents their gift and says something along the line of being glad that Zelda helped them be free.

-And the final fight at Hyrule castle aka ZELDA TAKING BACK HER HOME!

Get out of my house!

-Zelda fights Ganon using her weapons, the help from the Divine Beasts, and her sealing power, either raw or concentrated with light arrows. During the Dark Beast Portion, Link appears before her with the sword to seal the darkness. He looks around confused and Zelda is about to speak, “Link! I-” when Dark Beast Ganon appears. Sharing a nod of determination they both get on the same horse and as Link cuts holes in the beats’s defenses with the master sword Zelda fires arrows into those hoes to seal it away, you have to avoid the beast blasting you but eventually together with Link, Zelda seals Ganon away.

And stay out!

-The final cinematic is Link saying “I’m so proud of you” goes to bow “My Queen.” And then Zelda with happy tears in her eyes runs towards him and throws herself into a hug, both of them falling to the ground.

-Final post credit scene, Zelda asks Link what the sword said to him that made him face Ganon in the castle. Link is hesitant but eventually says, “The sword knew you could never unlock your sealing power when you felt that you were in my shadow, never living up to your potential the way I had. It said that I had to leave and trust you to survive on your own in order for you to gain access to your sealing power.” Link looks away from her and then back again. “Leaving you that day was the hardest think I’ve ever done but I’m glad I did for I got to see your journey and see you flourish and grow into the great Queen I always knew you could be.”

-Zelda smiles with tears in her eyes and then shakes her head and says “Thank you.”

-They make their way to Vah Ruta, it’s not working and the credits fade to black.

-And yeah the rest of the game is pretty much the same, it’s about Zelda’s arch of redemption, exploring her kingdom, helping her people with side quests and training herself to fight Ganon and become the Queen she was always meant to be.

This is my kingdom and I shall defend it!

-Oh and because I know some of you will ask instead of an elaborate trick to get into Gerudo Town, Zelda has to dress up in that thick Flame Breaker armor and do a side mission with some of the young Gorons and pretending to be a “brother” in order to find Yunobo and begin the Vah Rudania quest.

#loz #legend of zelda #botw #breath of the wild #legend of zelda: breath of the wild #zelda #link #zelink #botw au #zelda conversion project #zelda mod #urbosa #mipha #daruk #reavali #impa #purah #my aus #my meta

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spoookiepie · 6 years

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Hey it’s me cha girl here to talk about Digimon games

Cause like, BOY DO I HAVE OPINIONS. We just got the announcement trailer fro Digimon Survive and it looks... fine? It looks fine. Far be it from me to judge it too much based off tiny snippets in an announcement trailer, but everything shown looks... just fine.

But not like... amazing.

It looks like the battles at least will be grid, turned based, so Fire Emblem-esque. I can’t say I’m excited about that, but I bet some people are. But if I’m being honest that just... really doesn’t feel like it fits the Digimon brand. The rigid turn based stuff never really did, even less so with the even more tightly controlled grid system here.

And look, I have a soft spot for the Digimon game series. (Not ALL of them, mind you. But enough of them) But even at their best, the series has always felt like it was about 5 years behind. Even at it’s best, it’s felt a little bit cheap. Even at it’s best, and with all the love I have for certain entries into the franchise, even I can’t really say I think there’s a truly amazing game in there.

The series need a huge overhaul, is what I’m saying. In this essay I will

Problem 1; It’s a huge thematic and mechanical mess.

If I asked you what the basic core themes and mechanics of the Pokemon franchise were, you could easily rattle off the game play and battle system, the themes of friendship, and adventure, and something about ‘Catching them all’. This would hold true for every main-line entry into the franchise, differing only on the spin-offs. (these themes and ideas also carry over to the show, an important point I’ll get to later) The same could be said if I asked you about Mario, or Zelda, or Fallout. Even the Final Fantasy games, for as old and varied as they are, carry SOME core ideas - that being that they’re generally all going to be long, epic games, with emphasis on characters and story, set in pseudo fantasy worlds, and having some form of an RPG battle system. (again only straying from this in spin offs).

The Digimon games though? Not so much. Remove the actual Digimon from the first three games, and they’d be practically unrecognizable from each other. The first is a semi-open world (about as open as many PS1 era games could be), where you have a single Digimon who you essentially have to take care of, similar to the Tamagatchi-like toys the series started as in the first place. Battles are real-time and you have p minimal control over what the Digimon actually does. Meanwhile the second game is a slow dungeon crawler, with strict, 1v1 to 3v3 turn-based battles. No open Digital World, no Digimon care taking. The DW3 goes for an isometric, pixel style game, with 1v1 battles (which ARE in 3D?), and attempts to have a more robust story and host of characters. And the series just continues to spin off from there.

For visual comparison alone, check out the first 3 games of the Digimon series to the first 5 of Pokemon. These are aesthetics alone.

(pokemon image via http://www.neoseeker.com/news/23873-pokemon-then-and-now-see-17-years-of-video-game-evolution-in-a-single-comparison-image/)

Basically, there is no “core” to the Digimon games, outside of the mascots themselves. It makes the franchise as a whole feel disjointed, and it means you never really know what you’re getting when you go to play a new one. While you certainly don’t want a franchise to get old and stale, you also shouldn’t be re-inventing the wheel every single time either, cause it stops looking like innovation, and starts looking more like you don’t know what you’re about.

Problem 2; They feel cheap.

It pains me to say, but almost every aspect of Digimon games feels like it’s just a step under what it should be. Everything is aggressively just ok. The voice acting (if the game has it) is nothing of note, especially in the dubs. And the weak dialogue certainly doesn’t help.

The art and characters designs are... also just ok. The main characters in the first handful of games are aggressively generic, to the point that the ones from 2 and 3 are basically the same model. Once the games started to stray from the style of the show, the designs started to get even weaker, and the already flimsy visual design fell apart even more. (Some of the better character designs came out of Digimon Story Lost Evolution, which OOPS, never came state side) Say what you want about the character design of the original show but this

is a pretty recognizable art style and way of character design. Like Pokemon, it’s simple, but distinct unto itself. I could easily pick this style out of a lineup.

Whereas these?

Well... yeah. Not so much. I don’t even dislike the bottom two, from Digimon World Next Order (and in actual technique alone, they’re all solid). But, I also can’t say the style is terribly distinct, or what I would look at and immediately recognize next to a whole host of other anime and light novel illustrations.

The writing (when there is much of a story) is lackluster. And no, I will never understand the people who say Cyber Sleuth was great, and had a great story and writing. I just have to imagine, if Cyber Sleuth is the bar, then they’ve never picked up a Persona game. Or many RPGs/visual novels. Or... many games in general. I found it’s characters, story, and tropes all rather predictable, and nothing struck me as particularly clever. Meanwhile, Next Order had your p run of the mill but otherwise vapid ‘save the world from the Big Bad(c)’ story. Again, a bit predictable and cliche, and mostly there to move the game along.

Everything just feels a little... meh. A little like everyone didn’t put their all into the games. It feels like the studio is banking on fans buying their stuff through sheer nostalgia, rather than really putting their all behind the games. Again, even for the entries that I personally love. And that’s a shame.

Problem 3; They have very little connection to their anime counterpart.

Look, I get it. These are games, not the anime. This isn’t Pokemon, where the two have to be hand-in-hand almost all the time. And I certainly don’t want to just recreate the show in the games, or vice versa, hereby rendering one redundant.

But

I’d argue that the vast majority of Digimon fans, are fans of the anime first, and their love of the spin off stuff like the games comes after. There will be exceptions of course, but the Digimon show is the most well known and well loved part of the franchise. And the games really don’t feel like they reflect much of that. They’re a whole beast unto themselves, and not necessarily in a good way.

For a show that so heavily emphasizes friendship and bonds, you spend a lot of time in the games alone. And characters are often written lack luster and one-dimensional, giving you very little reason to care about them. They feel oddly lonely. For a show that so heavily emphasizes the special bond between a tamer and their unique, special Digimon partner, the Digimon you get in the games are frankly... disposable.

Hell, even the Digital World itself doesn’t always make an appearance in the games. I’d argue the Digital World is a vital component of the Digimon franchise and universe. It’s so unique, it’s practically a character unto itself. And to just throw it out feels like a whole part of the franchise is missing.

So, how would I start addressing some of these problems?

Before I begin, let me just say, I’m not a game designer. I’m judging this with an outside perspective, so take this with a grain of salt. But, I’m also not a newcomer to game OR the show, and have spent a chunk of my time analyzing both. I also tend to study up on design in my spare time for fun, so I’m also not completely talking out of my ass here.

1; Consistency and Vision.

So, for starters, the Digimon games need to buckle down and figure out what their core is. Figure out your themes, your mechanics, your visual style, and what are core concepts to your franchise, beyond just the Digimon themselves. These are ideas that will be carried throughout your series. This is your core, you theme, and your vision. You can tweak things, by all means. But when I set your games out on the table, SOMETHING needs to bind them all and make them a collection. Pokemon games are still Pokemon games, even when you ignore the Pokemon themselves. Persona games are still Persona games without the Persona. A Mario game is still a Mario game when you remove the plumber himself. Art style, themes, mechanics, and world building all amount to this. What - beyond just the Digimon - makes a Digimon game?

Personally, I’d like to see these things gravitate to a more Digimon World 1/3/Next Order style. I want an emphasis on exploration of the Digital World and more freedom than the likes of Digimon World 2/4/Cyber Sleuth had.

But either way, the game’s need to figure out what they are. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel every time, and please stop trying to copy whatever another popular game did 5 years before.

And also for the love of God, this is Digimon. Stop designing characters like this

If you want to appeal to a more “mature” audience, trying actually doing something smart, than resorting to T&A.

2; Figure out where to put the budget

Now, I can bet what some people are gonna say.

“Digimon is a smaller franchise than those you keep comparing it to! It doesn’t have the budget to be a huge title like those!”

And yeah, I get it. Digimon doesn’t have the kind of money Pokemon, or Final Fantasy, or Persona have. But money also doesn’t a good game make.

Once devs have figured out what’s core to their series (see; step 1), then that’s how they need to plan out where to put their budget. Is exploration one of your core themes? Budget needs to go towards the world and map design. Is it in the characters and story? Splurge on your writing team. Right now, the games feel like they’re all a bit lackluster in every department. Frankly, I’d be ok with one aspect being cut down a bit more, to make the other core parts really shine. I don’t need 100+ different playable Digimon, for example. Take some of those out and put the resources elsewhere maybe.

3; Hire better writers

Look, I’m just gonna say it. Your writing needs to be a core thing you splurge some budget on ok? I don’t expect the best of the best, epic story telling from a Digimon game, but at least try to reach the same level of writing the original show did maybe.

THAT SAID; I’d also move away from the talking head/visual novel style of story telling and cut scenes. I’m talking THIS kind of dialogue, btw

Games like Persona, Phoenix Wright, and Danganronpa can get away with it because they have A++ stellar writing. (2 of them HAVE TO since they’re visual novels, and the writing is the core of what they are. Also, ONCE AGAIN, these three games have very distinct character and visual design, that are a delight to look at)

Digimon? While I say you NEED - DESPERATELY NEED - better writers, you’re not quite here yet, where a talking head alone is enough to keep me entertained.

I’d rather see you’re characters moving and doing stuff while they talk. Have fully rendered cut scenes, and do a little more showing than telling. Again, you’ll have to budget for this, but I think it’s worth it. (also, you don’t have to have Final Fantasy level models if you just have solid character and visual design I WILL NOT LET THIS POINT GO) Seriously. The Digital World is one worth seeing in motion, not in static back and forth exposition dumps.

4; Seriously just include the Digital World

Like I said before, the Digital World is one of the most unique worlds I’ve seen in media. To. Date. It is a perfectly weird and whimsical synthesis between the natural and the man-made. It is a perfect visual representation for what it is; An AI built world, that attempted to grow organically out of completely inorganic data created by humans from all over the world.

That is a world of endless possibilities and I want to see it.

Without the Digital World, the franchise feels a bit more hollow. The whole adventure in the original show was in the kids being sucked into a new world! A world that was exciting, and new, and weird, and whimsical, and yeah, a bit scary and even dangerous. If we’re not in the Digital World, then we’re just... in Tokyo, basically. But with some Digimon.

5. The Digimon need to be characters

Okay. Here’s... where’ I’ll probably upset the most people who are fans of the games.

You should only get one -maybe two- Digimon partners and ONLY their basic digivolution trees ok!

You got Palmon? Well, ok, you ONLY have Palmon, and her evolution tree up to Lilymon. Maybe Rosemon if we feeling fancy. She does not have branching trees. She does not DNA digivolve. She does not return to an egg, and re-hatch as a new baby lv Digimon. You just. Have. Palmon. Or Agumon. Or Veemon. Or whoever you choose/or is that game’s Digimon.

Why make this limitation? Two reasons. 1. Less resources used on modeling, stat designing, and programing 100+ Digimon partners. Cut down on the amount of Digimon you can have as a partner, and the more resources and time can be put elsewhere.

2. More importantly, the Digimon partners need to be characters. The show gave huge emphasis to the fact that each partner and their Digimon had a special bond. It was special because it was unique. One person for one Digimon, each with their own unique personality and bond. There might be plenty of Agumon out there, but this one was Tai’s Agumon. He had his own personality, his own likes and dislikes. He was special. In contrast, the Digimon in the games are completely disposable. They have no personality, if they even talk at all. And oh, don’t want Tentomon? No worries, just digivolve him to something else or wait till he dies and hatch a different egg! It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter.

And for a show that made me so desperately want my own, unique, soul bound monster friend, that’s... really kinda sad.

So yeah, limit what Digimon you can have, and really, really write them as their own special, unique characters. And have them bound to their trainer. Want to allow your players to choose from multiple Digimon? I have a solution. Choose your trainer. Give your players the choice between 3-5 characters to choose from. You’ll be choosing that character and their stats, along with their unique Digmon and their stats. And hey, if you wanna go above and beyond, make these trainers actual characters with personalities too, who may change the course of the story, or at least the flavor, depending on who you picked. If we use Digimon Adventure for example. Your story and stats may vary greatly depending on if you chose to play as Matt and Gabumon, or Sora and Biyomon. Maybe you could go an Octopath traveler route, and have all the characters potentially converge. Or, maybe a Seiken Densetsu 3 route, where you choose 3 of six potential characters, and your story will differ depending on which you chose, and which of those three you picked as your main.

Either way, really emphasize these characters and their bonded Digimon. This isn’t Pokemon after all, right? So why have an emphasis on how many Digimon you can obtain?

Anyway, that’s my thesis on where to at least start in fixing the jumbled mess that is the Digimon game franchise. Many of these are opinions, yes, but I hope you can at least understand where I’m coming from with most of them. And hey, I guess we’ll see what the new game has in store for us.

#digimon #digimon world #opinion #essay

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24kitty-doodles · 2 years

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10 Projects

I am a few weeks in grad school pursuing an MFA and a common question that has been presented to me (starting with the application process) are what are other works of art that inspire me or are my favorites. It begs the question "What do you I really like??" It's something that I haven't really put a lot of thought on until recently since it has come up so often now.

It's forced me to put more thought into that question and formally pick things out, categorize it, and log it into my brain so I can more properly draw from these inspirations later. As a part of that process, I'm starting with these 10 "projects" that have inspired me in some ways in the past. The term project is used loosely and varies from things I've seen, played, or other artists, but let's start the list!

the 2D animated movie Klaus

To give more context as to how much the movie amazed me, I have to talk about past sentiments while I was completing my BFA in animation. When I was an undergrad, 2D animation was pretty much written off as a dying and antiquated art. Disney had officially closed the last of their 2D animation studios not long before I started my BFA, reasoning that there is much more time and work involved in hand drawn animation in comparison to 3D animation. I feel a lot of people treated that as nail to 2D's coffin, which saddened me to say the least. I wasn't really able to pursue it as a result. Only classes being offered at the time was cell animation during my undergrad, and I focused more on 3D as a result.

But this movie really changed how I felt about the legitimacy of 2D animation. The fact that the studio was able to make their own software, creating new technologies for the art which really amazed me. Makes me feel that it is only a matter of time before the technology for 2D catches up to what 3D has to offer. It definitely rekindled my desire to learn the art and I'm looking to do just that during my MFA.

2. the animated film It's Such a Beautiful Day

I just really love this film. The style of the animation can be considered child-like or unrefined with its use of hand-drawn stick figures, but it works so perfectly with the story it presents. I can't imagine it being done in any other way. I think it helps me to put things in perspective that, you don't need to approach a project with a mainstream mindset that one might consider to be current or proper. If it works, it works; focus on that.

Also please go watch this film because it's great!

Watch IT'S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY Online | Vimeo On Demand on Vimeo

3.-5. animated cartoons like Adventure Time, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Steven Universe, and many others!

I probably wouldn't be sane today if it wasn't for animated cartoons. It brings about the purest forms of joy through nonsense and tomfoolery, while still delivering complex storylines, fully built universes, and deep messages. Afterall, you can't be super serious all the time. Trust your gut, be yourself and be silly!

6.-10. GAMES! Just all the games! But some of my favorites are Darkest Dungeon, The Binding of Isaac series, The Legend of Zelda series, Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk, and Hades

My love for games is similar to my love for cartoons, except you get to be the character! Experience the grand world and storylines through that character or create your own stories, characters and worlds. Nothing inspires me to create my own characters and worlds as much as games do, especially games that give you the freedom and control to add and create your own sort of story to the overarching story provided by the game.

I tend to have an affinity for dungeon-crawlers, rogue-likes, and RPGs. Something about slowly progressing through the story through an endless cycle of trial and tribulations, of death and rebirth. You are slowly learning and growing along with story, making it feel that much more rewarding when you do succeed and progress. The progression from starting off weak and becoming stronger through both mistakes and triumphs, appeals to me personally, makes it feel more immersive and that no matter what, you just have to keep trying and you'll eventually get there.

If that's not inspiring idk what is ¯\_(´・ω・｀)_/¯

#video games #art #animation #2d animation #cartoon #grad student

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rwdestuffs · 6 years

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Discussion: What would make a good RWBY Villain?

They say a hero is best defined by the villains they face, but what happens when those villains aren’t compelling?

For this, we are going to take a look in how the villains really compare, and how they succeed (or fail (they do a lot of failing in this)) in being good villains.

In order to do this, we need to figure out what aspects of the villains that we’ve seen work, and how they ended up disappointing us.

Beware comparisons to other series and their antagonists, and what makes them compelling.

For starters, let’s take a look at the least disappointing villain: Roman.

Roman had charm to him. He showcased a few skills, and his weapon was named. Which is more than can be said then any other antagonists’ weapon. Roman’s characteristics made him really likable despite the fact that he was beating up a fifteen year old when he’s got to be in his late twenties at this point. Though, it’s worth noting that at this point, there were no other villains for a comparison. But Roman’s overall personality makes him somewhat likable.

To surmise: Roman’s personality, presence, and actual power made him a compelling villain. He was different. He had mooks, he had a weapon. He gave our main protagonist a hard time.

But then he dies. Not in a brutal or action-packed battle with Ruby, mind you. But in a really underwhelming way. He gets eaten by a grimm. It almost feels like a cop-out. They won’t let Ruby and Roman have an epic fight, so they just have a grimm eat him. He would be better if he had perished by the hands (or in this case, scythe) of Ruby. But nope. Just some sheer luck is what causes Roman Torchwick to be snuffed. He’s still the least disappointing though. It’s primarily his lack of a good conclusion to his character that makes him disappointing. Everything else is fairly solid.

Now, let’s go on the opposite end of the spectrum, and talk about the most disappointing villain. Or should I say, villains (Note the plural).

The grimm.

Seriously. The grimm are the most disappointing villains around. I mean, Zwei beats one.

Without aura.

Why. How. There’s no reason for the grimm to be a threat. A freaking auraless dog took one down. Coco literally mowed down the entire horde singlehandedly. The grimm aren’t a threat. They’re like the Goombas from Mario. The Moblins from Zelda. The- You get the point by now, right?

This leads me to believe that RWBY would make for a better video game than show. With the grimm being a poor man’s version of the Heartless, this would actually be pretty cool. The characters could be interesting and you wouldn’t have to delve deep into their backstory. In fact, you could just buy a player’s guide, or have a sidequest for the backstory of the character.

Getting back on topic, let’s try to create an interesting villain.

Well having the character be an interesting contrast to a member of the main cast would be a start. But for sake of character development, let’s try to make them a villain that would put the main protagonists in a tough spot.

One example would be a Grimm!Zombie!Pyrrha. This creates an interesting conundrum. Do they perform a mercy kill?- Can Ruby’s silver eyes try to purge it, and if so, how much?- If the grimm gets purged, then what happens to Pyrrha?- There are a lot of questions to be had here, and it would actually cement Salem as a threat. Salem could bring Pyrrha back, but as a grimm. Which would force the heroes to make the tough choice of either killing her, or trying to rescue her. And that’s assuming that she can be rescued.

But let’s say we want to build a villain from the ground up. Let’s make a counter to silver eyes. Instead of slaying grimm, they strengthen them. They act as a sort of a support for grimm, and are a dangerous threat. They could even be a new type of grimm that Salem developed and has an immunity to silver eyes. This grimm is fast.

Or how about a silver-eyed warrior that sides with Salem?- One who was cast out from their home, and instead of finding resolve in wanting to be a hero, they found kindred spirits in Salem and her band of cohorts.

Perhaps someone who can show the protagonists what happens when they take their main goal too far. Instead of a Salem accomplice, we have a huntress who wanted to constantly help people, and sees the only way of doing that is to become stronger and never started a family, causing them to become distant to others. This would serve as a warning to Ruby, that she should know what to do with her life aside from being a huntress. Or perhaps a person who wanted to take over a company from corrupt hands, but failed to plan for what would happen once they actually got control. This could serve as a counter to Weiss, so that she would be forced to understand that while her goals of taking back her company would be a priority, that she should also plan ahead.

Maybe a foe that would force Ruby to learn how to use her silver eyes. Or maybe a foe that could keep up with Ren’s speed so that he would be forced to learn how to take a punch… Like how he should’ve been taught how to do in volume 5 instead of sitting around and talking about aura.

Off-topic tangent aside, let’s take a look as to how Salem fails at being a threat. To best do this, let’s take a look at a villain from a very famous anime (Sometimes a bit too famous for its own good, but that’s just an opinion): Freeza.

See, when you have minions and you want to showcase their boss being a threat, you have to have those minions showcase their power. You also have to show them being afraid or at least uncomfortable with disappointing the boss. Freeza does this exceptionally well. Characters like Zarbon, Dodoria, and the Ginyu force are afraid of failing Freeza, and when you see the power and abilities that they’re throwing around, you start to get worried.

And here’s where Salem fails immediately. Only Tyrian is afraid of disappointing her, and it’s easy to just say that it’s because he’s obsessed with her. Cinder doesn’t fear Salem, Hazel is willing to go against her plans because of a grudge, Watts doesn’t seem to care, and really… only Leo is afraid of her. But we never see his power, so it’s hard to actually fear Salem.

Another way that Salem fails is her lack of action. She doesn’t really do much, she just sits around and tells people what to do. It also feels as if she’s not a villain, considering she openly praises Cinder for making Beacon fall, and acquiring the maiden powers. It really doesn’t feel like she’s a villain.

Cinder had mooks. Say what you want about her personality and lack of backstory, but the fact that she’s willing to go to such lengths as to team up with a grimm queen to gain power is somewhat unnerving. She manages to play on Emerald and Mercury when they’re in an emotionally vulnerable state, and gets them to join her. Sure, she sounds like she just came from a room where she was watching a video titled “How to be Seductive and Threatening at the Same Time” only once while not taking any notes or actually paying attention, but she was pretty intimidating. She could take on Glynda in the first episode, and she practically destroyed Pyrrha. Had it not been for a deus-eyes-machina, Cinder would have completely won the battle of Beacon.

Unfortunately, she kind of squanders her “Would Hurt a Child” trope in favor of messing with jaune, and taunting him. And her inflatable tube grimm arm also doesn’t contribute to her intimidation factor that well. But the fact that Emerald is wary of disappointing Cinder shows that Cinder is at least manipulative enough that Emerald doesn’t like disappointing her, or that she’s stronger than Emerald. Really, the biggest thing she had going for her was the fact that she was an attractive fire lady.

Hazel was a case in disappointment. Here you are, expecting something big to explain why this guy is working for Salem, and then it turns out… he’s more or less working against Ozpin. He and Salem just happen to have their goals overlap. His sister died when she wanted to become a huntress, and that’s it. Firstly: Oscar is 100% right in this situation. If the intent was to cast Ozpin in a shady light, then how about you highlight the fact that he’s currently possessing a child?- Here’s an interesting fix: Ozpin’s reincarnation took over the body of Hazel’s brother, and Hazel is mad that Ozpin ruined his brother’s life, and took away his hopes and dreams. Or how about his sister being killed in a skirmish between hunters and grimm, and Ozpin covering it up?- Either way, Hazel utterly fails at being an interesting villain because of his weak backstory.

Adam started as intimidating, but then devolved to being a whiny toddler. The guy who gave Blake and Yang PTSD, dismembered the latter, and led an army… whines about Blake’s family causing him nothing but pain?- What happend? Is this supposed to be intentional?- Is this supposed to be symbolic of Blake overcoming her fear of Adam? What the hell just happened to make Adam go from intimidating to laughable in a matter of minutes? Adam could have been a character similar to Freeza above. You know he’s a scumbag, but he’s so good at being a scumbag. He’s a character that you love to hate. But nowadays, he’s a character that is mocked. And that’s in part due to his voice. Say what you want about Cinder, but her lack of emotion could actually come off as intimidating if you squinted. Adam’s voice couldn’t be intimidating unless you really tried to stretch. Adam lacks any form of intimidation.

Neo would be more intimidating, what with her incapacitating the powerhouse of the team, having a sadistic smile most of the time, and her muteness adding to the creepy intimidation factor……… if she were to show up. The girl has more screentime, development, and character interaction in the spin-off show!

Back to the subject at hand, I want to know: What would be your ideal rwby villain?- What would be their name, weapon, semblance, personality, motivation, etc. What would they look like?- And how would they pose a threat to the heroes and provide growth for them?

#rwde #rwby criticism #rwby discussion #rwde discusson

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fatefulfaerie · 4 years

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Dearly Parted

The following one shot has no spoilers for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Not only have I distanced myself from social media feeds, but I also wrote this quite a while ago. I promise this is safe to read and spoiler-free.

If you are reading this and are aware of spoilers that perhaps contradict it, please be mindful of your knowledge and respect that others would like to find out in their own time and space. Please do not tell me I got anything “wrong” or “right” or talk about Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity in any way. Just read it, appreciate that I took the time to write it before I knew anything canon to contradict it and keep scrolling. Thank you in advance.

“You’re going to be just fine,” Zelda assured him in her soft voice, yet Link knew she was really only assuring herself with that statement, that he already felt himself fading, and that the pain of his injuries subsiding did not in any way mean they were healing.

Link knew he was dying as he tipped his heavy head to lean on her shoulder, her arm supporting his upper back and her fingers clutching, grasping, holding for dear life onto the sleeve of his blue tunic.

Link stared into her green eyes and his heart panged with the ferocity of lightning, warm with love that burned a touch too hot and froze a degree too cold.

Her shoulder was soft and smooth and she looked at him with an angelic gaze that he couldn’t keep his eyes off of. The round, green emeralds danced like a flame, fuming with desperation, embers rising along with her concern, ashes forlorn with an unwanted grief.

Link brought his left hand to gently cup her cheek, his eyes already watering.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a coarse voice. “I’m sorry I wasn’t enough, wasn’t...” Link’s breath hitched as he clamped his eyes shut. Zelda searched with desperation and panic in her eyes before his eyes opened to hers again. “Wasn’t strong enough...to be what you needed.”

“No,” Zelda said, shaking her head as she brought her hand to Link’s on her cheek. “No, Link. You...” Her voice broke. “You mean so much to me. You are enough for me. Just...” Zelda sniffled her nose to ward away her coming tears as she brought her forehead to Link’s. “Just stay with me...please.”

Tears finally escaped Link’s eyes and his breath started to shudder and to hiccup.

“Zelda, I...” Link said shakily. “I’m not going to make it.”

“Of course you are,” Zelda insisted, her brow furrowing. “Don’t say that!”

Link’s blue eyes melted completely as his hand brushed from her cheek to splay around her ear. The feel of her blonde strands on his fingertips was as intoxicating as he always imagined it would be.

With a slight tug downward, Zelda knew what Link desired. He didn’t bring her lips completely to his, nor did he force the action to take place against her will. He merely closed the distance between their lips, resisting the temptation to go further as their breaths entangled and melded into one, one wild, untamable breath that held in its creation a great anticipation, a great disbelief, a great lust, a great and terrible love that had been both the doom and the savior of Hyrule.

Zelda finally crashed her lips down to to Links and their hearts itched for more as they closed their eyes and explored the sensation, the desperate, passionate exchange, the pressure and the depth that just wasn’t quite enough.

Link’s lips, however, began to shakily rescind, and it wasn’t long before he dove his tears into the crook of Zelda’s neck, clutching at her hair. His shoulders bobbed and his hiccuped breaths sounded like he was gasping for air as he bawled into Zelda’s shoulder.

“I don’t to want to say goodbye to you,” he blubbered. “To leave you alone. I need to protect you. I need to know you’ll be okay.”

“I will,” Zelda insisted. “I will because you’ll be by my side. We’ll go to Hyrule Castle and defeat Calamity Ganon together, like we’re supposed to, my sealing power and you wielding the sword that seals the darkness. And then...and then we’ll live happily ever after.”

Link, still tightly held in her arms, voiced no response. Although Zelda knew him as quiet in comparison to how much others typically talked, this silence and the way he was heavier in her arms was chilling.

“Link,” she said, tears streaming down her face in her utter fear of what those things meant. She moved Link off her shoulder to see her worries confirmed, Link’s eyes were closed and his head, his arms had drooped to the ground with no strength to hold them up.

Zelda had trouble finding her next breath, her shoulders shaking as she dove her head into Link’s chest, mourning her lost love.

“No,” she said, denying the truth. “No.” She inwardly refused to let go of him, her heart stinging and tears bleeding endlessly from her eyes. “No,” she repeated, the light drizzling of rain echoing the seeming perpetuality of her tears.

“Open your eyes,” she said, pleading and begging for his life harder than she had pleaded and begged to any goddess statue. “Please, open your eyes. It’s time for us to go. Please. Just get up.”

She cried and cried as she began to accept his death, her entire body starting to tremble at the new loss.

“Princess!” A voice exclaimed as two sheikah warriors ran quickly to her aid.

“Princess?” one of them asked when she didn’t acknowledge their presence. He hastened closer and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Are you alright,” he said, starting to pull her away from Link. “We must get you to safety.”

“No!” Zelda exclaimed as she resisted his pull, wanting nothing else to stay with Link, as if he were still conscious, as is she was still someone he needed, as if staying by his side meant something. “No!”

The sheikah looked at his companion with parted lips as he allowed Zelda to keep Link in her arms and bawl into his chest. The other sheikah came around to the other side of Link and brought two fingers to his neck.

“He’s alive,” he said.

Zelda’s head popped up immediately.

“What?”

“He has a pulse,” the sheikah explained. “A weak one but a pulse nonetheless. I’d say we can nurse him back to health in Kakariko but looking at the extent of his injuries, I don’t know know if it will be enough.”

“We have to try,” Zelda insisted. “He is Hyrule’s hero. We have no hope without him, he...”

Her words faltered as she heard a whisper from the sword, Zelda’s eyes widening at the prompt, and at the idea that struck her head because of it.

“Take him to the Shrine of Resurrection!” She exclaimed quickly, commanded even. “If we don’t get him there we are going to lose him forever. Now go!”

“Your Highness,” one of the sheikah said. “That technology is largely experimental. We only recently figured out how to turn it on.”

“I gave you an order!” She yelled, nearly crying. “The kingdom may be ruined but I am still its princess. Take him to the shrine of resurrection or I will do it myself!”

“Understood,” both the sheikah said with a nod, Zelda letting them take Link from her arms and quickly departing towards the dueling peaks.

Zelda stood up, still weak and shaking from the sudden loss of Link. She picked up the sword as she did, but it seemed she was left alone in a Hyrule doomed for ruin. The champions had lost and their leader blamed herself for their lives. Her love was gone and Zelda ached for him with her whole heart. Her kingdom reeked of death and she felt she was the last person who deserved to survive.

But, because she did, she closed her eyes and found the resolve to do all she can to remedy her failure.

And maybe, just maybe, Link would return to her for their happily ever after.

#zelink #zelda #link #tloz #aoc #botw #the legend of zelda #age of calamity #breath of the wild

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argetcross · 7 years

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Here a Witch, There a Witch

Witchhood, Celica’s Act 5 arc, and Treatment of Women in Echoes (aka several thousand words of musings. Coherency not guaranteed. Spoilers of course.)

I find the narrative choice of turning Celica into a witch who is then saved by the intervention of Mother Mila a really weirdly interesting one?

First off, I skimmed the Gaiden script and this doesn't happen. This is probably the weakest part of the whole story for me in Echoes, and, in Gaiden, it's even more confusing.

Jedah: Alm's trapped in Dragon Mountain. You must want to save him. If that's so, then follow after me. If you offer yourselves as sacrifices to Lord Doma, Alm's path shall also open up once more!

Witchhood, the soul of a Branded child, Duma needing both Alm and Celica, all of that isn't spoken about, so it's not certain what exactly Jedah is doing all that time. So it's literally a game device to force you onto a linear Alm path. At the very least, turning Celica into a witch makes a bit more sense if you assume that there's some equal power exchange, which Jedah hints at. Celica's soul, her Brand, her magic, all are things valued by Duma, namely strength. Taking both Celica and Alm’s soul would restore Duma to a sanity and power he’s been lacking for ages. Okay, sure.

The idea of sacrificing your humanity for a love one is supposed to foil to Rinea and Berkut (and to a smaller extent, Jedah and his daughters, probably). The idea of witchhood is so interesting because you get many different 'witches' in the game. You have those that chose the contract of their own accord (Nuibaba) and kind of exists outside of Jedah's faction. You have the witch sisters, which Sonya says it was Jedah's sacrifice to Duma that turned them to witches, but Jedah counters her, saying they offered up their souls willingly. You have Delthea who for all intents and purposes gets witch like powers when controlled by Tartarah. Finally you have Celica who, even after having her soul offered up to Duma unwillingly, is controlled but also is mentally present enough to tell Alm to kill her.

The idea of men sacrificing women for power is one that happens a lot in this game. The villains, Fernand, Berkut, Jedah, all destroy their relationships with women in their lives and women who reject notably megalomaniac men survive (Sonya, Mathilda). The masculine and feminine dichotomy of Duma and Mila is pretty slanted towards the Father who destroys and the Mother who gives life. This is echoed in the paternal relationships in Echoes (Rudolf + Alm, Lima + Celica) all being quite toxic ones while the maternal ones (Liprica + Celica is the most significant, Mother Mila being redeemed is another example) having positive connotations.

(Side Note: Given the eternal sleep of Duma, Sonya, no matter what her ending suggests, could not have become a witch by offering up her soul to Duma. The ending therefore, one could argue, is simply trying to demonstrate the futility of retrieving souls already sold, and Sonya could have easily taken up residence in Nuibaba's manor with ill rumors abound.)

(Second side note: The time when Alm is saved by Celica's pendant, notably that comes from Celica's mother as one of the gifts. Was it meant to protect Celica against the influence of witches? Lady Liprica did not want Celica to stand in front of Mila - did she fear Celica to lose her soul to not a god but a goddess? Was Celica's giving nature what allowed Alm to succeed even when he wasn't prepared for Duma's true might, possibly crippling her own protection in the self-sacrificial nature she had? The last one is almost certainly a yes.)

You also have quite a bit of 'liberation' through the protagonist's part (Delthea, Mathilda, Celica) in contrast to the hordes of witches that you can't save due to their lost souls to Duma. So why can you save who you can save?

Berkut and Rinea are easily understood. Berkut volunteered himself up to Duma, Rinea, being sacrificed but also unwilling to leave Berkut's side, is unable to be redeemed. Simple enough.

Delthea is controlled not by Duma but by Tartarah and notably against her will. Upon killing Tartarah, she's freed - so attempts to create witches can be thwarted through destroying the arcanist controller. Also- the soul didn't actually get to Duma in this case. Nuibaba did not actually sell her soul to Duma. Her contract was with Medusa and she's referred to as an arcanist despite her witch class.

Marla and Hestia - it's hard to tell if you can believe either Sonya or Jedah's story as the total truth. They were almost certainly coerced on some level, but Hestia mentions that she should have lived her life freely like Sonya. Again, a scrap of her own personality and some hint at a decision she made? It's hard to tell, but it's likely we couldn't save them because again, there was something in their process of becoming a witch they couldn't recover from. Did they make that decision out of their own lust for power? It’s likely.

Now to Celica, the strangest of the potential witches, not only does she get her soul returned to her- it's through stabbing her with the Kingsfang/the Falchion. She gets her soul returned to her despite Jedah being convinced her soul is already devoured. How on earth does Mila have Celica’s soul if Duma has taken it?

Well game logic suggests that by killing Celica, Duma loses her soul. You see this with Berkut and Rinea, in death, they are freed from Duma’s control. Suddenly, Hestia’s last words make sense. Duma’s not all-powerful.

In the same vein, Mila finally gets over her fear of selling out her brother. Of note, Duma never used the Kingsfang on Mila and Mila never took an advantage to kill her brother. They fought bitterly but they also, like overgrown siblings, never wanted to kill each other. They were, in some ways, too proud and far more concerned with their own interests rather than those of humans’.

So maybe from this viewpoint, it makes sense how Celica’s self-sacrifice spurs Mila into finally releasing her seal on Falchion and entrusting her brother’s fate to someone who was able to do something she could never bring herself to do - trust in her opposite and sacrifice each other for the greater good.

Of note, in Gaiden, instead of the witch dialogue, you get this:

Cellica: It won't work. Judah possesses some mysterious power that's obstructing all our attacks. Besides, countless Bigles keep coming to entangle us. We can't even move anymore. We're probably already done for... Sorry, Alm. I wasn't able to do anything for you after all. I've had a strange premonition... A feeling that something terrible will happen to you... That's why I came this far on a quest to rescue Mila... That's why, until then, I didn't want you to fight. Because of that... I acted so cold. I'm sorry... The truth is, I've always...

This is after the crypt. I mean logically, this is because the game wants you to play as Alm as the hero and Celica now steps into a role similar to Zelda in TP - both a maiden to be saved as well as the wise queenly character to aid the hero. What's interesting is Echoes actually plays up Celica's self-sacrificial nature and her inherent importance, because of the part about giving up her soul. Gaiden's Celica actually makes less sense - she has no plan, she is just feeling defeated and like she failed Alm. Even if Echoes Celica makes a bad decision, she's takes action that makes a lot of sense for Celica at this moment - that is, a Celica abandoned by her goddess and used to bearing a lot of survivor guilt about her existence as princess.

For comparison, the Echoes dialogue goes:

Celica: Back on the island, I had a dream. A dream where something terrible happened to you. So I decided to petition Mila for the strength to protect you. Yet for all my travels, you’ve still faced terrible danger. And you were even forced to end your own father’s life. …I’d seen it all. I knew it was coming, but I couldn’t change a thing. I failed to keep you safe, Alm! Alm: That’s not… Celica, none of what’s happened is your fault. You’re not to blame for any of it! Celica: But I won’t lose you… I won’t let any of you die! I don’t want you to fight Duma. I don’t want anyone to be hurt or killed. That’s my only desire in this life.

Why did Celica believe Jedah? A lot of people kind of groaned when she bargained with Jedah, but I think, stepping back for a moment, looking at how Celica views the gods is important. Even if she doesn't agree with Duma, she still reveres him. Her ending dialogue with Duma is pretty much that. She recognizes what he did for Valentia but seeks to free him from his madness. However, at the beginning, she believed if the gods were lost, the land would become barren and humankind would surely die. She's not at Duma tower to kill gods, she's at Duma tower to retrieve a god and restate the natural order of Valentia. Celica, who was looking for Mila in order to circumvent the sufferings and the destruction of humanity, of course would turn herself into the problem. It's not that she trusted Jedah, but I think Celica at this point had been coping with a vast body of knowledge and pressure about the gods and their effect on the world that Alm never really considered. She makes a hard decision in absence of her own faith and confidence, in her eyes, a choice that would protect everyone.

The problem is Rudolf, in moving against the Duma Faithful, has already broken the Accord and set in motion events that means Celica's mission is a failure. The gods HAVE forsaken her. Mila notably doesn't come to her senses until the two branded children are about to kill each other in front of her. (Honestly, I think the Fire Emblem team has a small fetish for stabbing your loved ones, especially under possession. Awakening flashbacks anyone?)

Celica upon seeing Mila in stone, has a crisis of faith essentially stalls her entire arc. Is this weak writing? Yeah, it really is. Celica’s arc lacks its personal climax. Alm has his Rigelian heritage and Berkut on top of this. Celica’s arc gets absorbed into Alm’s. Celica needed something else to restore her faith in herself, especially after her mental surrender.

Is the answer faith in loved ones? Partially. That part is already in the game though.

Celica: I do. It’s as Mila said… We’ve had the strength to live and fight for our world this whole time. I lost faith in that somewhere along the way… But right now, it seems the most obvious thing in the world. I trust in mankind like I trust in you, Alm. Absolutely, and without hesitation.

The issue I think that would resolve this best would be actually in how they handle Mila. What would have strengthened Celica's final decision would be Mila reaching out to Celica rather than Alm, acknowledging how it was Celica that uncovered the mystery of where she was, came all the way to save her with her own, very human powers. That her journey to Mila gave her a greater wisdom and understanding of the relationships between gods and men that Alm couldn’t have known.

Isn't that a kind of strength even the gods couldn't predict?

#fe15 spoilers #fe echoes #celica #alm #mila #fe gaiden #arget rambles #my meta #duma #what even is this #feel free to talk to me about this #as much as I love this game #and the emotional arc was super punchy #I think the way they handled this was just #good bad weird and yet still emotional #so who even knows what's going on #maybe I just need to write fanfic or something

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firstpuffin · 6 years

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Spyro, Randomizers and Beam Saber.

So I do have a longer, researched piece in development but I need a bit more time for that. I want it to be as objective as I can because it’s the type of thing that brings emotions to the fore. Instead I am writing this rather more light-hearted piece out of topics that I doubt I can make a whole upload out of on their own.

It’s another multiple topics in one piece, like that writing one I did before but this one will be about video games.

If you’ve looked through my other stuff you will likely have noticed that I like video games. Modern games are like television or movies that you can interact with and for this reason are deserving of more respect than they currently get, so expect more uploads on the subject. Might actually be worth an upload to expand on this.

So I have three topics at the moment and the first is about Spyro the Dragon (1998), more specifically the series on the original PlayStation. For those not in the know, Spyro is a very child-friendly game with cheerful music, bright colours and cartoony enemies and developed quite a following. You play as a dragon who is considered small even by the game’s standards. You can take three hits before having to resume from the last time the game was saved and you know how many hits you have taken by the appearance of Spyro’s dragonfly friend, Sparx, who changes colour as you take damage.

Being a small, possibly underdeveloped, dragon, Spyro is forced to glide rather than fly, can breathe small flames and charge with his horns. As the games progress Spyro can pay to be taught more moves. This isn’t pointless information though, these abilities are used both to fight and to solve puzzles; Spyro isn’t a turn your brain off action game but a puzzle experience.

So all in all Spyro is a cute, brain training game. So why am I writing about it? It had a remaster released in late 2018 after the success of the Crash Bandicoot remaster, and that had me playing the original games (I didn’t have access to the remaster) and I realised that Spyro is freaking terrifying.

At the beginning at least, the enemies who you kind of have to kill are terrified of you. They run and they cower so Spyro is just running around murdering people. Sure, in the first game you might be able to justify it through the fact that I believe the enemies are magical creatures made purely to attack you so maybe it doesn’t count, but in order to recover from taking hits you need Sparx to eat butterflies, which you get from murdering the local wildlife who are just as scared as the enemies. In the second game though, the enemies might well be the local wildlife and are just as scared of Spyro as in the first game.

So what else? Is that all I’m going to talk about? Nope. This occurred to me as I was playing the second game but as you enter a new “world” (I didn’t cover this, did I? Basically, there are a series of worlds that give access to more worlds) there will be a cutscene showing its inhabitants and a similar one when you leave, and these reveal some disturbing information about the inhabitants.

Not only do the enemies show a callous or even sadistic disregard for life, but those that Spyro is working to save also show a light-hearted cruelty that is played for humour. Man-slaughter and torment are commonplace on all sides; Spyro’s murder-spree almost seems tame in comparison.

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I don’t want you to get me wrong though, the games are great. Even for children. The first game can be monotonous but the second one improves on it greatly. The reason why the enemies run and cower actually makes sense, particularly at the start: it gives the player a safe place to get used to playing the game with minimal danger. A slow start. And the dark humour? Well that’s common everywhere in human society. Jokes about death and harm are common and the games count on children not quite understanding what’s happened. This may not be ideal in children’s media, but it’s not too unusual and whether or not it is harmful is not a debate for here.

So which of the two subjects do I want to continue with? I think the semi-“review” that I have planned will be easier to end things on so I’ll leave that for last.

There is a certain type of game, I’m not sure if it has a name, but it kind of relies on discovering specific items to progress the story. The Legend of Zelda series is well-known for this: in the entry Wind Waker you need to approach a dungeon that has a strong wind blowing at you and in order to get close you need a specific item that allows you to approach it. This specific item is always at a specific place and it is the same in most of the games.

The Metroid series is the same. You need a specific item (say, the Spider Ball which allows you to climb walls) from a certain place in order to get to another certain place (up a wall). So where am I going with this?

Well someone figured out how to take these items and make them random; as in, they are not where they should be but are still needed. Naturally there are certain safeguards to make sure that you can actually complete the game but it adds an almost realism to a game you know well. An unpredictability.

And it’s not just items either. The avatar you play as can be random, the colour of your clothes and even the dialogue spoken. These Randomizers (nice name; exactly what it says on the tin) give the player the choice of what is randomised and to what degree.

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-she is not the usual character-

So I guess the question is “What’s the point?”. Yeah, heaven knows I’m too intimidated to try it myself, but it takes an old game that you’ve played a score of times and makes it new. You’re playing the game you love, but not how you’ve played it before. On top of that, random dialogue can be hilarious. But, as with all things video games, someone inevitably took things up a level and combined two games with items randomly spread between the two.

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Even if you are not interested in playing these Randomizer games, maybe you’ll find them interesting enough to watch a few on YouTube.

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And finally, my semi-review. A few weeks back I was able to visit my friend and he was insistent that I put on his VR headset and play a game called Beam Saber. Using two remotes that detect movement you swing them like swords at targets that come towards you. Maybe I should have mentioned earlier but Beam Saber is what is called a rhythm game: music plays and you have to interact with the targets that the game shows you, and always to the rhythm of the song.

-you might remember an old game called “Guitar Hero”; that’s the same premise-

Beam Saber has you swinging your arms as though you were using swords to hit the targets, hence the name Beam Saber.

youtube

-I don’t personally watch this guy’s videos, but he at least guarantees a certain quality-

The thing about Beam Saber is that it is great fun. A lot of games that try to use motion controls like this are willing to let you wiggle the control unenthusiastically to get the same results, but Beam Saber encourages you to really put your all into it. You get better results for putting some umph into your swings while being punished for being too wild. It uses challenges, some of which are optional, to challenge you to measure and hone your movements.

Co-ordination, motor skills, memory and more are tested and practiced as you play; quickly wiping off sweat to avoid flinging the remotes at your bud’s nose (he didn’t have wrist straps so I really had to focus on not throwing them) as you flail about like an enthusiastic madman to a roster of catchy songs. On top of this, play for long enough and you will be feeling the burn for days so you can hardly be accused of sitting around all day playing games.

I would like to add here that people who are particularly weak like myself might benefit from this game. See, if you have weak muscle tone for whatever reason, exercising is particularly difficult; it is noted that dyspraxics are often quite weak (we’re clumsy so sports are not only unappealing but off-putting of exercise in general) and have to start any exercise menu at a lower level. Heck, in my attempt at getting stronger I am beginning with lying down and standing up again and again because I just can’t do push ups; that’s the sort of level I am talking about here. So having fun, with time just flying by, might be a good way to gain the minimum strength needed to really start working out.

-some of us have to make up for wasted time with the most basic of basics-

And even if it isn’t enough for strength gain, it most definitely will help dyspraxics with motor skills, grip strength (but might be best with wrist straps), proprioception and all the other multitude of things we struggle with. On a similar note, video games are great for us who struggle with reactions and the above issues.

So in summary, Beam Saber is great fun and is has any number of benefits.

#first puffin #opinion #review #spyro the dragon #spyro reignited trilogy #beam saber #randomizer #video games #vr #dyspraxia #guitar hero #legend of zelda #metroid #goldeneye #thosetagswilldofornow

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operationrainfall · 8 years

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Title Horizon: Zero Dawn Developer Guerrilla Games Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment Release Date February 28, 2017 Genre Action RPG Platform PlayStation 4 Age Rating ESRB T for Teen Official Website

The comparisons between Horizon: Zero Dawn and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild were inevitable. In fact, during E3 last year when the first major trailers for both games were released, I came to the opinion that Horizon: Zero Dawn seemed to be the adult Zelda game that I was looking forward to more than the Switch canon release. Now it has turned out that both games were released within a week of each other, so in many ways they will always be tied together. Zelda has the additional pressure of trying to be a system seller, and Horizon has the pressure of trying to start off a brand new franchise that Sony and Guerrilla hope to be the new face of their system for several years to come. Now I have played Horizon: Zero Dawn to completion, and the first question I should answer (since that article was so long ago) is whether the game did indeed turn out to be a take on the Zelda formula. That way we know if we are comparing apples to apples or whether it is some other flavorful fruit.

The princess of this castle can save her own kingdom.

It has turned out that Horizon is even more similar to Zelda than I knew from the early trailers. It’s true that I went on a major media blackout after those first couple trailers, but even then it’s still a little surprising how much they did with that established formula. There are indeed dungeons in the game, particularly the Cauldrons, but also a few other similar buildings and outposts, and they include a large boss fight in them (usually at the end). The focus on bow and spear combat also gives a fairly common feel between the two series, as well as the option to ride mounts (only mechanical this time). But the largest Zelda feel is in figuring out how to use all your different weapons and items to take out giant creatures in a strategic method. In that area I would say that they take that Zelda classical style and move it forward several steps. Not only does it end up being a lot of stressful fun figuring out how you are going to take out these creatures, but you have many creatures just wandering around in the world that would have been dungeon bosses in the old Zelda games. So in fact you are getting to actually play with your weapons and items and the game mechanics much more than you would in the other series. But, make no mistake, that feeling is still there in Horizon: Zero Dawn and it’s super satisfying. Because you can take those giant monsters on in several locations and in several situations, you end up learning so much more about how those monsters operate, how they are weak and different situational strategies to use.

Aloy is an outcast among her people for reasons that are no fault of her own.

Aloy was raised as a child by an older gentleman named Ros, who was an outcast of their primitive tribe, called the Nora. The tribe is a very matriarchal society, governed by a council called the Matriarchs, and it becomes apparent very early on that she is an outcast due to her mother or the situation in which she was found. It remains an early open question (one that you will not find out the answer to until well into the game) whether Aloy is even a Nora at all, or whether she was just found among them. Either way, without a suitable mother she is considered an outcast and some of the Matriarchs strongly disapprove of anything to do with her, calling her a curse. This attitude permeates among the lower class Nora as well, as it would, and therefore she is treated with open disdain any time she gets near one of the village folk. Forever alone, with only her outcast caretaker to associate with, she trains to become a great warrior so that she can earn the right to join the tribe and to learn the secret of her origin.

The Old World can provide boons and it can provide objects of terror.

When she is young she accidentally falls into the ruins of the Old World, and in the efforts to find a way out she discovers an electronic interface item called a Focus. You can basically consider the Focus to be a smart device that overlays its UI over your vision and interfaces with your own brain waves to translate what you are seeing into an interface for you to make use of. In other words, it can translate text or it can label hostile or friendly creatures and it can store memories of what you see and hear. Thankfully it is very small and fits into one of her ears, barely sticking out. The Nora are deeply offended by any relics of the Old World and would not take kindly to seeing her using it. In practice the Focus often works like the Witcher Sense in The Witcher 3, such as tracking and finding things of interest. Only in many ways they added some very useful mechanics to this because the Machines in this game are so complex, with different regions of their body that are susceptible to different types of damage being displayed. This, added to the physical training with a spear, the bow, sneaking, and climbing that she is taught, makes her a very formidable warrior.

She earns their respect, but it is no longer a place that she can stay.

The training Aloy has gone through earns her the respect of her tribe, but the events which occur during her Proving show that she does not really belong there and that a much larger destiny awaits her. It becomes apparent fairly early on (even if you ignore how little of the map you have explored by that point), that the Nora live in a very closed off world and there is much that she needs to see in order to find out her origins and about the people who seek to destroy her personally. It is really difficult to talk about some of this in a review because there are so many wonderful twists to the story, and I would be horrified to spoil that for anyone else. The story in this game is definitively a major strong point, it is both personal and epic in scope. There is a very fine line between the struggles of a girl trying to find out who her parents were, and the needs to save a world that doesn’t know how much danger it’s in. At times several NPC characters will get frustrated with her over how narrow her view is, but to me it felt very accurate to how anyone would react in that situation. In fact, the tragedies of her circumstance are handled quite well by her, in my opinion, and the worst reactions that you are going to get from her are a bit of self pity at times and a whole lot of snark (which I found quite endearing).

Aloy is such a badass character, a wonderful action heroine in her own right.

That range of emotions and reactions with Aloy turned out to be a very strong plus in the game. She was never one note or entirely predictable, and she was quite powerful but also vulnerable. In short, I’m very happy that my primary console of choice has her as their mascot for the foreseeable future, now that Nathan Drake has retired. The game ends on a very satisfying note, but there is no doubt at all that this is planned to be a series and that Aloy is intended to be the continuing protagonist of it. And while I’m not one to promote diversity only for the sake of diversity when it forces an alteration on a creator’s vision, I’m also one to celebrate when the creators themselves come up with something new and fantastic that does include a new demographic. I can tell you that if I had a daughter, I would be sitting down in front of a TV to play it with her for hours on end because she is such a positive female character in so many ways. My one issue with many other “strong female characters” such as Commander Shepard (as much as I loved Jennifer Hale’s performance), is that they often make them gender neutral so that they only look female. But with Aloy she is definitely a woman, but still has a full range of human emotions. The only thing you really don’t see much from her is romantic love (which is a fascinating decision, in and of itself), but when you consider all the other things that are going on with her, that is quite understandable. Although I strongly suspect that you’ll see the potential for it in the sequel, they already have the dialogue option system in this game, so it would not be out of the realm of possibility that she will have optional romantic interests as well.

More Horizon on Page 2 ->

The Machines start out small and easy to kill with a single Silent Strike.

But Aloy and the human tribes are only one half of this world, the other half are the sentient machines which populate the world. Many of these machines have very obvious agricultural purposes, but some of them seem to be militaristic and aggressive in design. You will learn over time that the machines have become increasingly aggressive against humans in the past two decades, and that several new designs for them have appeared. That tells you two things; the first is that new machines are still being created all the time, and the second is that something in the world is changing. You also discover quickly that there are certain humans that can corrupt machines to make them work for them, and they can also use those machines to corrupt other ones around them. Aloy finds a way to steal that technology for herself and make better use of it. Afterwards it becomes an important mechanic in the game that she is able to learn how to control machines to make them either rideable or make them temporary allies to fight on her side. She can only turn a machine over to her side if she takes them by surprise and only if it’s a Machine type that she has learned its construction (she learns new ones by reaching the end of a Cauldron and downloading the Machine Schematics). That means that even the largest enemies in the game (Earthbiters, Stormwinds, and Thunderjaws) can be potentially controlled by Aloy and used for her own purposes. The one weakness of this game mechanic is that she can’t command them to go anywhere, they are only going to go after an enemy that enters their aggro circle. However, the larger the Machine, the larger aggro circle they have (the Thunderjaw aggro circle is simply massive).

Each Cauldron was different and they were all surprisingly fun.

As a result of the ability to control the Machines, Cauldron diving becomes an important task that you will want to do fairly early on. But they are not a part of the main story, they are only a side-quest, so the game can be completed without ever doing them. And that is one of the major characteristics about this game is that the main story is very fascinating and surprisingly long, but there is a lot of side stuff that is optional but go a long way towards making the experience a much more satisfying one. You could potentially never download the data out of a Tallneck machine, the map does fill in simply by you entering that area and exploring around it. But each Tallneck has its own area of influence and the zone has a different design that will allow you to get high enough to jump onto the roving giant in order to download all the map data for that region. If I just did a critical path run with this game, I’m sure that I could have finished it in slightly under 20 hours. Much like a Zelda game, the levels really only increase your health and they give you 1 Skill Point to use. But you can also gain Skill Points from a lot of different quests, for example; most of the major story quests, a lot of optional quests, and areas that are either very difficult (Cauldrons) or have a large story importance.

In addition to trading with Special Merchants, the exploration items fill in the world story.

There are plenty of collectables to find in the game, and they can all be traded into Special Merchants for nice rewards, but more importantly they fill in details about the world such as the location where all these events happen (an area of the world that I’m intimately familiar with). That made it much more satisfying to search for everything than it would be if there was only a Trophy reward for finding all of them. And even though there were many objects to find on the map, it never felt overwhelming or just busy work. And there were always enough hints about where they were located (obviously Viewpoints will be high up in the region shown on the map, etc) that it never was frustrating for me to search them out. One feature of the part of the world where this story takes place is that the land there is extremely diverse, so even though most of the preview footage showed her in a very cold and and mountainous region, there is a lot of different scenery to look forward to. In addition you will discover that while the Nora have gone back to a tribe that bears a lot of similarity to the Native Americans and the Vikings, other peoples have not gone in a similar direction. In fact, the greater population of this area of the world seems to combine more aspects of the Mayan tribes and the Romans.

The game has the best overworld map that I’ve ever seen, and should be the new standard.

Beyond those cultural influences, it’s very interesting how diverse the cast of characters is. All the characters run the gamut from different size and shapes to different races and cultures and also a couple cases of sexual preference. In fact, it turned out to be a major spoiler that I figured out fairly early on something about the diversity that didn’t add up. And that is one of the most fantastic aspects of this game is that the story and the science behind the story do work together. So if something is not making sense, it’s probably for a good reason. Also taking place in this region of the world turned out not to just be for the diversity in its weather and topography. There are certain businesses, facilities, and government institutions that make a whole lot of sense for them to take place in the Old World. As a scientist it made me extremely happy that all those details were played out so well and so much thought went into everything. The fact that this game is the first one in a series and that the developer is the makers of the Killzone franchise (which I kind of liked, but didn’t love) deeply impresses me.

There was a lot of good dialogue but there were a few technical hitches.

As you can tell from all the screenshots so far (and you’ve probably heard online), this is one of the most beautiful games ever made. I played on a normal PlayStation 4 in 1080p and it was still the most beautiful game that I’ve personally ever seen. But even then it made me start to crave a PlayStation 4 Pro and a 4k Television just so I could see it in all its beauty. There was only one aspect of the game that didn’t look it’s best, and that was the face to face dialogue. It’s not a huge thing, but there were a few funky hitches with the character models when they were talking to each other. But the character models in this game are so beautiful and expressive that I have no doubts that being at the bleeding edge of technology is what tripped them up here and I have no doubts that it will be fixed for the sequel. This new game engine is truly amazing, and having both Guerrilla and Kojima using this engine to move gaming forward is deeply exciting. But I do want to stress that the dialogue itself was very stellar and the voice acting was all top notch, it was only a technical glitch that I got used to over time in the game.

For as amazing as the story was, just being out there hunting machines could keep me happy too.

That is literally the only thing bad I can say about this game. I suspect that this game will turn out to be a classic thought about for years to come. I earned the Platinum Trophy in 69 hours of playtime, and still can’t wait to get back to play it again. I’m going to keep my 100% clear and just go back and hunt some more and play in the world, and then I would also like to go through the story again to re-experience one of the greatest gaming stories that I’ve played in years. So they have combined some of the most fun and addictive gameplay with one of the best stories and put it in the most beautiful gaming engine I’ve ever seen. I was excited going into this game and I had high expectations, but they were all met and exceeded. I cannot recommend this title enough, even for it’s normal MSRP of $59.99. From the reviews I’ve read on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild so far, it looks like that game is also going to be a classic, and I’m really happy about that as a fan of that franchise over the decades. But with Horizon: Zero Dawn I have not had a single moment of regret that I’ve chosen to wait and see on the Nintendo Switch to find out if they are going to have longer term support than they have for their previous couple home consoles, for now my Zelda itch has been more than adequately scratched. I know already that Sony is going to be killing it during that time, and with Guerrilla Games providing the new face of their console I cannot be happier with where my PlayStation 4 is going and the entertainment I’m getting out of it. Horizon: Zero Dawn might be the prime example of what this generation of gaming can aspire to be.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”5.0″]

Review Copy Purchased By Author

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REVIEW: Horizon: Zero Dawn Title Horizon: Zero Dawn

#Action RPG #Guerrilla Games #Horizon Zero Dawn #PlayStation 4 #Sony #sony interactive entertainment

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jumpchain-drop · 4 years

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Chapter 4.13: 5.25 Years

Year 6, day 91: As we defend the Firma Fortress and the towns from monster attack going into the back half of the decade, I felt it pertinent to go through all the resources that we managed to get together. And by “get together,” I meant “buy all the way back at the beginning of this thing.” Something I really wished I did a lot earlier.

First off was our own personal fleet of ships: Cody’s shop boat, Shadow and Zorro’s submersibles, and (if they were here) Timothy. Plus whatever Maria and Tooty’s boats were, once we managed to get there.

We also had a large number of mason jars – or, to use the Zelda vernacular, Bottles – and “complimentary coupons” for Beedle’s shop. One each for each of us, except Shadow who got two Bottles because apparently he was down to pocket change at the time. So far, all the coupons had done is cause Beedle to give its user a very weak compliment. As well as prompt that from anyone we showed it to. Kinda next to useless. Though the Bottles have been in constant use by us to store things like health potions. Cody’s bought a copy of the recipe that turns Chu Jelly into potions and has set up large stores of potion in the Warehouse, so we won’t be out of stock for the rest of our stay here on that front. He wants to look into setting up a Chu breeding pen in the Warehouse, but we’re currently a little short-manned for that.

Cody and Zorro had started out with each of three decorative flowers on pot-like pedestals. They made good inventory for awhile, as every time one was sold, two more appeared in Cody’s shop’s storage lockers or the Warehouse. Eventually we stopped selling them to keep them from running roughshod all over the Warehouse and had to dump several in the ocean. Cody traded these with other merchants (which, thankfully, didn’t cause them to multiply) to get other decorative items, such as flags and statues. We’ve kept a couple of those for taking along, especially since they don’t multiply. I like the Hero’s Flag the most; I had a badge of it for my 3DS, but never had any idea before that point what it actually was.

Cody also started with this gold membership card from Beedle. He could get at least 10% off any purchase anywhere with it, and somehow even increase the prices of his own inventory by 10% without anyone batting an eye. Combine this with his hard bargaining skills, and I wasn’t kidding when I said Cody makes for a scary business mogul. Thankfully he’s mild enough to fund expanding and building the towns in the first place instead of monopolizing everything.

From what I remember of Bolt’s items – which is, y’know, everything – he had another bottle that came with a constantly hot serving of soup made with love. And probably also actual ingredients, he refused to share. He also had his own bag, though it was different from the mailbag I had, as well as a telescope and a Tingle Tuner. I’ve had to meet Tingle a couple times when one of the treasure map configurations proved too difficult to figure out, and he’s chill enough. Cody at least managed to bring his prices down from obscene to slightly less than Disneyland would charge for it; if we had the technology to reverse-engineer the Tuner, he probably could’ve put the weird little man out of business.

Along with an identical version of Bolt’s bag, Shadow got a Hyoi Pear, which let him command seagulls. Which we could buy, and the Warehouse only replaced the previous used one once per week. In all fairness, he had no idea what he was getting into.

Along with the aforementioned wallet of bottomless money storage and her Deku Leaf, Elmily had two bottles that were noticeably different from the others. These purified and filled with life any water left in them for a few hours, which made them great for growing plants. It even got rid of the salt content if it was taken from the ocean. This comboed nicely with a power that accelerated the growth of plants she tended to without even taking into account her natural green thumb as a Grass-type, and we got enough food and Reviver Seeds to outlast any siege, with enough bumper to sell in Cody’s business. She also got a leaf-based musical instrument that vaguely resembled a violin; while she got lessons from Makar on it that I sat in on with the Mind Strings, it was sadly different enough that I only got a vague sense of how to play my own instrument. So much for the easy way of soothing Anita’s heart.

Zorro, bless his heart, had the most surprising choices. Not the telescope, he just wanted one of his own, but the other things. Apparently several locations within the Great Sea were available to purchase, from Outset Island to the Forsaken Fortress to the Tower of the Gods, but none of the descriptions (as far as they could remember) specified anything about what would happen after the world ended. It wasn’t like any of those places could fit in the Warehouse, after all. But you know that island cabana that was owned by that schoolteacher that Link could come to own after bribing her with enough shinies? Zorro owns it. We legally owned an island that we could’ve used as a base this entire time and he didn’t tell us. I asked as calmly as I could, with Terra holding my hand just in case, and he said that I looked so deadset on taking on the Fortress as our home base, he didn’t want to ruin it for me.

I don’t deserve this kid.

And finally was our collective weapons assortment. Apparently one of the choices gave an option of two weapons and not a lot of limitations on what exactly besides weapon and shield. My hammer and shield came from that choice being forced on me. Hylians, A.K.A. everyone else but Terra, got it for free and they took it aside from Cody (he told me it slipped his mind from being overwhelmed by the whole process), so altogether, those produced one hammer, one sword, one lance, three shields, two daggers, and one boomerang. And then there were the special swords that were separate purchases.

Bolt had gotten a copy of the depowered Master Sword that he used almost exclusively instead of the plain sword he got. It had also gotten a bit of a chargeup for a while during the last leg of Link’s quest, but it since faded after the Earth and Wind Temples flooded. Most of the time he fought with it, though, he filled it with his own electrical power; since we had come here, he had managed to learn Discharge. The most fascinating part about this was that it showed me the interesting difference between human world and Mystery Dungeon Pokémon – he still had separate PP stores for each move and could always use them at full power, as could Cody, while Terra, Shadow, Manaphy, and I had a single PP well for all our moves but only half the strength if we weren’t in Pokémon form. In any case, Bolt had taken it with him when he left.

But that pales in comparison to what Zorro got. For no other reason than name alone, he had bought the Phantom Sword. By itself, it was merely effective at damaging incorporeal enemies like ghosts at any time instead of having to wait for them to make themselves vulnerable, as well as providing some resilience to time-based effects. What made it so extraordinary was the hilt had a slot in it that fit my Phantom Hourglass perfectly, providing a perfect place to hold and use it in a combat situation instead of trying to fiddle with a thing on my belt.

So I, along with Elmily in human form who could pass as a Hylian named Terra easily enough, recently started taking up swordsmanship training with Orca on Outset Island. My hammer delivers a strong enough blow, but against Anita, I’m going to want the power of the Phantom Hourglass as easily accessible as possible. Elmily, meanwhile, wanted to mitigate how relatively useless being a Torterra on a sailing ship was when it came to combat (especially if it was one we didn’t want to sink in the process) and most of her moves, and while she was bipedal on the Isle o’ Hags, she still fought primarily as a Torterra; she needed to learn how to fight with a human body so she could provide all the help she could. I can trust Shadow to watch Firma Fortress while we’re on the other side of the ocean for this.

#jumpchain #a man chooses #jumpchain a man chooses #story #layer 4 the legend of zelda the wind waker

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thatguysamaniac-blog · 5 years

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While looking for images of anthropomorphized versions of the new pokemon with their tits out, we stumbled upon some clickbait. Not just any clickbait, metacritic showing us a definitive fact based, unbiased top 50 games of the 2010's: 1. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, 2010) 97 2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch, 2017) 97 3. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PlayStation 4, 2018) 97 4. Grand Theft Auto V (PlayStation 4, 2014) 97 5. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch, 2017) 97 6. Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360, 2010) 96 7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Xbox 360, 2011) 96 8. The Last of Us (PlayStation 3, 2013) 95 9. The Last of Us Remastered (PlayStation 4, 2014) 95 10. Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360, 2010) 95 11. Portal 2 (Xbox 360, 2011) 95 12. God of War (PlayStation 4, 2018) 94 13. Batman: Arkham City (Xbox 360, 2011) 94 14. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS, 2011) 94 15. BioShock Infinite (PC, 2013) 94 16. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (Xbox 360, 2010) 93 17. Divinity: Original Sin II (PC, 2017) 93 18. Super Mario 3D World (Wii U, 2013) 93 19. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (PC, 2010) 93 20. Persona 4 Golden (PlayStation Vita, 2012) 93 21. Persona 5 (PlayStation 4, 2017) 93 22. Mass Effect 3 (Xbox 360, 2012) 93 23. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PlayStation 4, 2015) 93 24. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii, 2011) 93 25. Rock Band 3 (Xbox 360, 2010) 93 26. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PlayStation 4, 2016) 93 27. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch, 2018) 93 28. INSIDE (Xbox One, 2016) 93 29. Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One, 2018) 92 30. God of War III (PlayStation 3, 2010) 92 31. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PlayStation 3, 2011) 92 32. Bloodborne (PlayStation 4, 2015) 92 33. Celeste (Switch, 2018) 92 34. Super Street Fighter IV (PlayStation 3, 2010) 92 35. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PlayStation 4, 2015) 92 36. Undertale (PC, 2015) 92 37. Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS, 2013) 92 38. Divinity: Original Sin II - Definitive Edition (PlayStation 4, 2018) 92 39. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Wii U, 2014) 92 40. Journey (PlayStation 3, 2012) 92 41. Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii, 2012) 92 42. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch, 2017) 92 43. The ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection (PlayStation 3, 2011) 92 44. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine (PC, 2016) 92 45. LittleBigPlanet 2 (PlayStation 3, 2011) 91 46. Overwatch (PC, 2016) 91 47. Bayonetta 2 (Wii U, 2014) 91 48. Forza Horizon 3 (Xbox One, 2016) 91 49. Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers (PC, 2019) 91 50. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition (Switch, 2019) Richie: I LIEK THE DUBBLE ONES! The Last of Us x2 Divinity: Original Sin II x2 Play count: 16 off that list, that's also eight twentyfifths, which is roughly how much of my massive dick your mom can take. Cunzy: Now, we all know the issues with a crowd sourced list. It's dumb. It's like putting together a list of best fruit, or favourite socks. However, every now and then it's useful to pull the wang out to measure it against the communities' wang and see just how weird and misshapen our is (we share genital appendages) by comparison. Play count: 9! What an alternative darling I am! Richie: I mean they are great, and you know they will be, but you have to draw the line somewhere, So you have to choose and say, "Nah I wont play this", better the time sink you know, right? And you choose your reasons, you skim an article, and find the thing that is slightly wrong and then activate your inner drama queen to say "OMG that is not a game I want to play I cant believe they dont have Fred Durst doing the voice of the main character" or something equally nuts. And there is plenty of them on that list that I simply refuse to play for these reasons. And I guess that's fine? Time is finite, I cant go back ten years and play all of the PS3 games I never played? Can I? Cunzy: GUILTY CONFESSIONS, A.K.A those games you know are great but just never got around to: Mario Odyssey, LoZ (the whole franchise), Red Dead (series), Mass Effect (series), Persona (series), Divinity (series), Souls (series)... where do I hand my gamer card back? Richie: Also Overwatch... Do people actually play it, or is that there just because people fiddle with their genitalia to fund cosplay camgirls? Cunzy: Yes, watch me throat this widowmaker dildo on my stream now. Richie: So do we disagree with this list? Well, to be fucking honest I'm not going to research it myself, I'm not sure I have played much more than 50 games this year, as far as i can recall, I played a lot of Diablo 3 and Fallout/Skyrim... but yeah I'm sure the above is good... Actually fuck that, Games of the decade for me are... Every iteration of pokemon that came out in the last 10 years, X/Y, Sun/Moon, Black/White, Sword/Shield, Flaps/Scrotum. Skyrim SNOW VIKING DRAGON SHOUTING Animal Crossing, Shake the tree for Nook. Lego Everything, play, collect, repeat Hyperdimensions Neptunia. Ultra Japanese anthropomorphised consoles as Anime girls. Vert is best Waifu. Fallouts So many plus expansions, Chandler as a bad guy is special. Diablo 3, Clicky loot loot WoW Classic, because... FFXIII-2, Timetravel-bocolina Tomodatchi Life, Make your friends on the DS into miis, interact with them, cry alone at night Smash Bros. Repeatedly main Peach till she becomes top tier, yaay Jackbox games, All Gems, probably the best multiplayer gaming actually this decade. Doki Doki Literature Club, MO-NI-KA Batmanzes, grapple glide Southparkgames, play the stories you have watched and add a weak RPG element. Dragon Ages-s, Way better than mass effect Every Naruto game. Like lego, but with anime ninjas Barrel Scrape: the game, where you frantically look at your steam collection for the games you have most played, and check the dates of your 360 games to see if they fall into this category I played 18 games it seems? Cunzy: *gasps for air*, wipes synthetic jizz from Lollipop Chainsaw skirt. Ten years is a long time. Here's my top 18 games of the decade. Silent Hill Shattered Memories 2010 Silent Hill without the combat and all the more psychologically chilling because of it. Great setting, theme and story. One I regularly come back to and still brick myself. Endless Ocean 2 2010 Expanding on the first one in every way, shame there aren't more nature lovin' games in this ilk. Monster Hunter Tri 2010 The only one in the series to have kept my attention despite it being the 'wrong one' according to many in the MH community. Lost Planet 2 2010 Probably one of the games with the most comprehensive couch co-op mode and ridiculous bosses to team up against. Absolutely bonkers story, giant monsters and jetpacks. What more do you need? Dead Rising 2 2010 I wasn't too bothered with DR3 and DR4 despite absolutely loving the first game. They seem to have crossed the line between goofy but po-faced and just silly apocalypse zombie killing. DR2 arguably gives you a playground more memorable than Willamette and stays on the 'serious' side. Dead Space 2 2011 One of my favourite gaming franchises I think, excellently built world that is complemented by the tie in anime, comics and spin-off games. Resident Evil Revelations 2012 It was a good decade for Resident Evil with almost every game seeing multiple ports, re-releases and remasters. It's a close call between Resident Evil 2 and Revelations on the Nintendo 3DS for my favourite of the decade but this one really got it's biohazardous talons-with-eyes into us especially raid mode. Revelations 2 is fantastic co-op but the raid mode side of things isn't as fluid as the original Revelations. Criminally, aside from a brief VR foray into Resident Evil 7, we errr didn't play it. The Last Story 2012 Oh, I fell in love with this game and despite the small geography of Lazulis City it felt like a living city with many surprises tucked away. Great soundtrack to boot. Fire Emblem Awakening 2013 Another series that had a rock solid decade starting with Awakening then the rest of the 3DS trilogy, an excellent Warriors game and even Heroes wasn't too bad. Although Fire Emblem Three Houses is the superior game, it's the cast and the support system pioneered by Awakening that has this in my top 18. Tomb Raider 2013 Sometimes the context in which you play a game is as important as the game itself. A weekend in 2013 with fellow Tomb Raider fans blasting through this excellent and long awaited reboot is fondly remembered. Last of Us 2013 It's hard to put a finger on just one thing that makes this game phenomenal but there's not been much like it since. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2013 There were some great LEGO games this decade from opposites LEGO Worlds and LEGO Dimensions to movie tie-ins and a strong series of games based on the Marvel and DC comics. The Marvel trilogy in particular was outstanding. Everyone's Gone to the Rapture 2015 With age, the more energetic games can leave me wheezing with exhaustion just thinking about playing them and EGttR is a perfect respite from the shootbang games. Honestly, I'd be keen to play more games just like this. The English countryside setting in particular made it extra special. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 2017 Honestly, who actually puts Mario Kart on their top games list? Well thinking about it and looking at play records it's probably the perfect couch multiplayer game but with a real challenging depth to those looking to break records and get a hold of those elusive gold kart components. Splatoon 2 2017 Cheating slightly here by including Splatoon 2 and the Octo Expansion as one entry. I'm really not a huge fan of the central competitive gameplay of Splatoon, although I've put in the hours, but the single player side of things are a worthy first person puzzler(?) in their own right. Into the Breach 2018 When the options paralysis sets in, which is often, I just spin up Into the Breach. Three hours and a few runs later I'll question why I don't play this game even more often. Hundreds of hours in and still challenges to do, runs to try. Super Smash Brothers Ultimate 2018 Part game, part nerdy love letter to gaming, part video game museum. Pokemon Sword and Shield 2019 Okay as Richie pointed above any of the pokemon mainline series could have filled this slot but the last one makes most sense. Twas also a good decade for the spinoffs. I enjoyed Pokemon Conquest a huge deal, put an embarrassing amount of time into Quest as well as Picross, Rumble, Duel, Go and mystery dungeons. And there we have it, lists, we'll be back at some point in the future with more lists, perhaps with a list spanning the last 2 decades, to present you with our Game of the Century (spoilers, it's SSX Tricky). Also if anyone has a word to describe my above rant about the act of proactively dismissing something despite knowing it will be good to avoid committing to the time sink, please let me know. We live in a time of labels, there must be a word for this! Love and where do you even start with persona! Richie + Cunzy X

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