“Do not look away; you witness a King’s revival.”

My man is back and fresher than ever. A somewhat unsuccessful attempt at replicating the painterly style of the official artwork, but I wanted to get one more out before launch day. The hype is real!!

Alright, I have all my thoughts together, so here's that ask I mentioned for the LU SU AU that's just 100% Fi.

So, Fi is a pearl. Specifically, she's a replacement pearl.

Spoilers for SU after this point for anyone who cares about not getting spoiled for this show still.

So, Sky eventually gets outed as the 'renegade pearl' fighting alongside the 'rebel jasper' and 'rouge (whatever we decide Twi is, currently I'm leaning towards citrine)', and so he needs to flee. With some help from FD/Time, he makes it away and becomes a rebel full time. Which is annoying, but workable.

And then FD gets a new pearl.

See, Ganondorf/White Diamond is worried that Sky was using his place at FD's side to try and sway him towards the rebels. And so this new pearl of FD's was specifically designed to 'fix' whatever damage Sky caused.

Enter Fi: factual, logical, emotionless, and completely dedicated to her role. She was designed this way and meant solely to keep FD on track with the war and colony. (This can play a bit into how, in LU canon, Time sees the Master Sword as a burden, because that's what Fi is here, a burden.)

Except, Fi was placed with the most caring and benevolent of the Diamonds. Even playing the role of being against what he's fighting for, Time still loves his gems, both the Homeworld gems and his rebels. He loves them all deeply. And Fi sees this. She sees him break down after high casualty reports where no one can see him, sees him stressed and breaking down over the deaths. Hears him asking himself when it will end, lamenting that none of the other Diamonds are even willing to consider negotiating, much less a treaty or peaceful retreat. She sees this, and she learns.

Eventually, Time realizes the only way to end the war is to shatter FD, and so he makes a plan with the only two in the know. Twilight, using a device that Four and Legend built, would disguise himself as Time so Time could be FD, and they'd stage the shattering. Meanwhile, Sky had a different job.

Time did not like Fi, and he resented what she represented, but he didn't hate her. And he knew she cared about FD in that detached way she was capable of. He didn't want her to be there when FD died. So he asks Sky to get her out of the way.

So Sky kidnaps Fi, and takes her somewhere far away from the shattering. He doesn't question this at all, because he knows Time, and he knows how much Time cared about all of his gems. And so he follows his orders without question, and makes sure Fi is safe and out of the way while it happens.

And Fi does not like or trust this other pearl at first. He betrayed their Diamond, waged war on Homeworld. What kind of pearl would do that?! But, she was also curious. What kind of pearl did do that? What would possess a gem, a pearl, to turn their back on their Diamond? This gem was just like her, a pearl to FD, and yet he turned rogue and betrayed him. She wanted to know why.

And Sky answered all of her questions as best he could, because he'd already been bound to silence about FD being Time (I'll go into more detail for this later). And so they talk. And they talk. And Fi learns a lot, but mostly she learns about 'love'.

She learns Sky left Homeworld to join the rebels because he loved this planet, and he loved Time and Twilight, and he loved all of the rebels. He loved his Diamond too, deeply, but he couldn't stand by while others he loved died while doing nothing. He had to join the fight, no matter how much he'd loved FD.

And Fi learns that love is powerful. She hears Sky speak, and she thinks of FD, sobbing alone where no one will see as he grieved the gems killed in this pointless war. She thinks of the kindness he showed every gem he met, regardless of rank. She thinks of the hours and hours spent pouring over battle plans with the only goal to make sure as many gems left the fight alive.

Fi hears Sky speak about how much he does love their Diamond, and she remembers when FD finally snapped at her that she couldn't tell him what to do because she wasn't Sky. She hears Sky speak about love, and thinks of how much FD loved all of his gems, and she realizes something. Emotions are not bad like she was made to believe. Because love is what made their Diamond strong, and what gave Sky the strength to leave, and she thinks maybe it wouldn't be so bad to learn to feel.

Maybe, just maybe, their Diamond would stop looking at her like she wasn't supposed to be there if she learned to love him, with real love and not the emotionless substitute she was programmed with. Maybe he would warm up to her and offer her that same kindness as others if she could love him like Sky did.

And then she learns that FD was shattered, and for the very first time, she feels something.

She's angry, and sad, and shocked, and disbelieving. She learns that FD was shattered, and she screams.

And Sky is there, and he holds her, and he lets her cry. And she does cry, and she feels, and he lets her.

She goes back to Homeworld, unable to remain with the rebels who killed the only gem she'd really cared for, and they let her go. Sky sees her off, and tells her she's always welcome if she chooses to return. She thanks him, tells him she won't be taking him up on his offer, and leaves.

And eventually Fi is given a new Diamond to serve, Hylia (Sun). And she's still grieving FD and does not want a new Diamond yet. And she suddenly realizes why FD never warmed up to her, never showed her that same kindness and love that he did other gems. She was replacing someone he loved when their absence was still fresh.

And now her Diamond has been replaced while she's still grieving, and she gets it. Because Hylia is not FD. Hylia is a replacement for the gem that Fi was still grieving. And she understands why FD was cold to her.

But she's not cold to Hylia. It is not Hylia's fault that she is a replacement anymore than it was Fi's. And Fi remembers what it was like, desperately trying to appeal to FD, to get him to notice her as her. No, she wasn't Sky, and she knew the betrayal was still fresh, but even so the resentment hurt. She wasn't going to hurt Hylia because she was still grieving.

So instead she told Hylia stories. Hylia was young, and new, and curious, and Fi had a lot of information to give. And so she told Hylia stories about anything and everything.

The stories about FD were always Hylia's favorite. Fi had known him personally, known him and loved him, and whenever she told those stories it was in the way of someone who had lost the most important person in the world to them. Fi told Hylia stories about the sides of FD that no one else had ever seen. She spoke of the tears shed over gems he'd never met, of his unwavering kindness, about how much he cared. She spoke about his love, his gentleness, his pain at the betrayal of the pearl he loved so much.

These are the stories Hylia grew up on, and she would often compare the FD Fi told her about with the one she'd heard from everyone else, and the one the other Diamonds told her of. She liked Fi's version of him the most.

And Fi told her about Sky too. The renegade pearl who betrayed the Diamond he loved so much because he loved something else more, but who never stopped loving his Diamond. About how he abandoned everything he knew for love. About how he showed he kindness, and what he taught her.

And Hylia would think about this brave pearl. She would imagine him too, and she fell a bit in love with this mystery pearl who was forced to chose between what he loved and chose the rebels over his Diamond. She admired how brave he must have been.

And so when she arrives on the plant to learn about her predecessor, this is why she doesn't outright attack or kill the Chain. This is why she asked them questions instead. Because in all of Fi's stories the rebels weren't evil, they just loved the planet and were very brave. And Hylia wanted to learn more.

And when Sky showed up, Fi was not surprised that she was happy to see him. He taught her how to feel, and so she loved him too.

Some days she does wonder what it would be like if she had stayed when Sky offered the first time, what it would be like living with the rebels. But then Hylia laughs or asks her to tell a story, and Fi knows she made the right choice. She is a pearl, and she was made to serve her Diamond.

Hylia was not FD, nor would she ever take his place, but she is Fi's Diamond, and Fi loves her.

-Attllhak

i am speechless. this is SO good Att omg??? I've known LU SU AU Fi for 5 minutes but if anything happened to her id destroy everyone on tumblr and then myself

9 Things That Need to Happen in Breath of the Wild’s Sequel

Just as I was getting over my intense love for Breath of the Wild, Nintendo go and drop that trailer on us at E3 and stop my whole ass heart. Hi, I’m two months late to the party on this one, but I’ve had a lot of time to think over what this sequel can learn from its predecessor and the rest of the series, as well as what brand new stuff can be brought to the table to make this sequel as spectacular as the first. Without further ado, here’s my list of 9 things Nintendo should do to make this amazing, as well as my own personal theories on what they could do to make it happen. Enjoy!

Spoilers for Breath of the Wild ahead!

1. Ditch the shrines

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the shrines in Breath of the Wild, I loved how difficult some of them were to find, how they brilliantly utilised each and every mechanic in the game and testing you on everything you’ve learned. These shrines were the ultimate compliment to a game that really wasn’t about holding your hand. But I think they’ve had their time, and it might be a nice idea to go back to some of the larger, more traditional dungeons of Zelda past. I’m not saying to go back to the old way of ‘you get given an item, it’s useful for one dungeon and that’s all’, I’m saying they need to definitely keep the massive variety of ways you can approach dungeons to keep that sense of freedom intact, but at the same time give us whole new types of dungeon with more visual variety. Abandoned forts, weird Lorule-esque dark versions of dungeons, towers, there’s really any kind of location they could explore when designing a new set of dungeons. Oh, and I adored the divine beasts, but I’m hoping for something completely different and surprising when it comes to main story dungeons this time around.

2. A whole new world map

If there’s one thing I think basically everyone agrees on, it’s that Breath of the Wild absolutely nailed its world. A huge, sprawling map with a variety of locales to explore and all of it packed to the brim with extra content and adventure-y fun. But we all know this world inside out, and even if they strip it bare and fill it with brand new secrets, it’ll still feel too much like something we’ve seen before. So from what we know from the trailer, it seems like Link and Zelda will be delving into the underground in this latest installment, so a fairly safe theory would be that they’ll uncover a whole new world down there, perhaps a forgotten and buried civilisation from thousands of years ago, now overgrown with Ganon’s influence and bizarre plants and animals that don’t exist on the surface. If they’re going full Majora’s Mask on this one, I think Nintendo’s best bet is to fully embrace this new darker tone they’ve shown to us and give us a world that is as twisted as that trailer.

3. Keep Zelda’s importance to the plot

I could honestly make a whole separate blog post about the evolution of Zelda as a character throughout the series, from her literally being asleep the whole time in Zelda II, to her role as more of a quest-giver in Ocarina and more recent games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword where she plays a much more active role in the plot. In Breath of the Wild however, they did something completely different that I adored; they made her into her own person. I mean sure, she was never completely devoid of character, but between the games where she wasn’t really there and the games where she’s outshone by every other character, Breath of the Wild really felt like her time to be properly fleshed out and have enough depth to be remembered. Sure, Zelda doesn’t turn up in the flesh until the end, but you spend the whole game with her voice guiding you, with you finding memories of your past with Zelda; how she seemed to have only contempt for you at the beginning because of Link’s fulfilled destiny compared to hers. You form your own opinion of her through her actions and how the champions perceive her (Urbosa as her sort of mother figure, Revali sees her as ever so slightly inferior for not being able to access her power and the mutual respect between Mipha and Zelda). Then you watch their relationship grow and change into something neither of them can really understand, but they become so close and so integral to each other that Zelda is the one to finally make him open up about himself. And that makes it all the more heartbreaking that Link has had all these memories snatched away from him and, of course, all the more gratifying when he finally gets them back so him and you, the player, both understand that you’re not just fighting for the safety of a realm you’ve been shoved into with no recollection of what’s happening, you’re fighting to be reunited with Link’s closest friend. Very probably more than friend, considering that final memory in Korok Forest. Nintendo did a brilliant job of laying the groundwork for Zelda not as a plot device or a damsel in distress, but a real, complex human being who enriches the story and makes the world you’re living in and what you’re fighting for feel more alive. So build on top of this! Keep developing Zelda, ask those questions of how Zelda feels now she’s free of Ganon and her constant fear of her power failing, how 100 years alone facing a demon has affected her mental health and, most of all, how everything that happened in Breath of the Wild changed their relationship. Are they together now? Do they have any idea what they are really? Do they just pick up where they left off or do they have to make an active effort to regain that close relationship they had before? I don’t know, but I’m really hoping we find out.

4. Ditch the sheikah slate

Get rid of it. Do it, cowards. Make Link drop it over a ledge in the first 10 minutes or something. Much like the shrines, the sheikah slate was such a fantastic idea and gave you 4 brand new powers to play around with in the massive sandbox world full of puzzles and it was great fun! But again, we know those powers too well now; we know how they work and how they can be exploited when you think outside of the box. What I want is for Nintendo to keep that brilliant creativity when it comes to gameplay mechanics, don’t just give us bombs and an ocarina again, give us something unique to this experience! I mean yeah, they could just give us an updated sheikah slate; a different model perhaps that dates back even further than the original one that has some weird abilities (maybe even a slate that’s somehow been infected with Ganon’s influence, that’d be funky), but my hopes are riding on Nintendo pulling something completely different out of the bag for this one. Making Link lose everything and only be able to use whatever he can salvage in this ancient, evil place is surely going to have a whole host of ideas behind it so I’m curious to see what they can come up with.

5. Embrace the darker tone

This sort of goes without seeing considering what we’ve seen so far, but I really want them to go full in with this darker atmosphere they’ve shown us. I mean, Breath of the Wild was never a ‘light’ game so to speak, but most of the games darker elements were masked by its beautiful landscapes and huge array of colourful characters that made Hyrule feel alive. There hints here and there of a much more macabre side to the realm; destroyed battlefield littered with rusty weapons, old structures covered in Ganon’s malice and the general feeling that Ganon was always watching you from the castle that you can see basically anywhere on the map. I want them to take that mild dread they instilled and turn it up to eleven. And one way that can be accentuated is through the plot. For example, we know a fair amount about the Sheikah tribe at this point, but what if there’s a side that was never explored? What if there’s a much more sinister reason why the Sheikah tribe were suddenly shunned by the royal family all those years ago? Or maybe the Sheikah found something under the castle as well as the divine beasts that they left buried down there and hoped no one would ever find it. Oh, and I’ve heard a theory that Calamity Ganon was just a puppet of the real Ganondorf, who was hiding underneath the castle all this time, which is absolutely terrifying if you consider what the puppet managed to achieve on its own. Not just plot stuff like this, but the music (keep that ambient style they went for before that knows when to amp it up and make it epic, but with a creepier vibe to match the tone of the world), the visuals, the sounds you hear while exploring. Nintendo need to make it clear that we aren’t in Kansas anymore; no more soft piano melodies while riding through beautiful valleys on my horse, make it spooky!! Unsettling, distorted notes playing through dark, twisted woods with trees gnarling into each other and shiny eyes peeking out at you from the canopy. Or something. Who knows, I just wanna be spooked.

6. A much fuller story

One of the main criticisms I always hear for this game is its lack of story content, which I suppose is true to an extent. But I don’t think this let the game down at all really. The game was far less linear than previous titles, so it makes sense that the story they were telling was much more general, but I don’t think this kind of approach would fit as well in its sequel. Nintendo told us just enough in Breath of the Wild to keep us guessing; we were introduced to this particular version of Hyrule, its inhabitants and what Ganon’s up to etc. But they’ve deliberately been extremely vague on what could possibly be explored in a sequel, as well as where/if these two games even fit into the overall Zelda timeline. They deliberately lifted focus off the narrative to make the world and how you traverse it the central point of your adventure. But now that they seem to be plunging us into a much darker world and have given us so many unanswered questions, I reckon its time to dial the narrative back up and give us a bit more of a beefy story to go with our hell exploring.

7. Change in characters

Slightly vague subtitle, but here’s what I mean. As I mentioned beforehand, Breath of the Wild is full of colourful characters that populate the towns as well as the general landscapes, from merchants to adventurers and shield-surfers to Beedle (I love Beedle). And for the most part, these characters all want to help you along on your journey by giving you helpful advice or sending you off on quests to find more shrines. And while I’m not saying this sequel should do away with all helpful NPCs, I do think there should be fewer of them. When designing new towns and settlements, they could give us the odd helpful citizen here and there, but for the most part, how would the inhabitants of this forgotten underground place treat Link? I think it would add to the atmosphere really well by having some of the characters that populate the world deliberately unnerve Link when giving him advice or telling him something helpful and then mocking him at how ineffectual he is at completing his quest. Or if they really want to go a bit overboard, they could even have occasional encounters where talking to the wrong NPCs can end in a random fight, in the same vein as the disguised Yiga in Breath of the Wild. But of course, you don’t want to only populate a world with characters that hate you (that’s what MediEvil is for), so some form of guide would maybe be a welcome addition. If not Zelda (I would definitely welcome the idea of her being along for the ride, though I fear it would take away some of the nerves if you have Zelda as an anchor of familiarity), then perhaps the ghost of a Sheikah from thousands of years past that never agreed with what his tribe were doing or was responsible for something in his life that he now deeply regrets and he can’t pass on until Link helps to finally defeat the real Ganon. Who knows what they’ll do with the characters, but as long as they leave Navi and Tatl back on the N64, pretty much anything will do me.

8. Keep the stamina wheel

As much as I’ve bleated on about everything I want them to change or add in, this is something I most definitely want them to keep. The core gameplay, while I can’t imagine them really changing it, is integral to the sandbox world they created. Having Link be able to sprint, jump, climb up literally anything is what gave players such a sense of freedom; being given this whole massive world to explore and being able to access absolutely all of it. And while I’ve talked a lot about how much I’d like this sequel’s tone and approach to narrative and a bunch of other things to change, this game absolutely needs to keep the same sense of unabashed freedom we had in the first game. And the most integral part of that freedom was the stamina wheel. Short segment I know, but that’s all I really had to say on that one. Let me climb things, Nintendo.

9. Switch up the monsters

In Breath of the Wild, there was an excellent balance of amazing new designs for old favourite monsters, as well as a whole host of new ones (the guardians and the moldugas getting a special mention here). But I reckon what this sequel needs is some brand new monsters to add to the pile; a larger variety of monsters to encounter out in the wilderness would enrich this new darker world we could be exploring to no end. Also, while I really loved all the main story bosses in BotW, I feel as if a larger design variety of story bosses would benefit this sequel. Imagine the potential for whatever ancient monsters are down under the castle to give Link a hard time and what kind of an epic fight is Ganondorf going to put up when we finally get there?? Just as a little idea to throw out there, maybe undead Sheikah will make an appearance as an enemy, woken from the dead and forced into Ganon’s service after being infected by malice. And hey, the Yiga Clan never really got full closure! Yeah Link gets rid of their leader, but the Clan is very much still alive and kicking by the time of Calamity Ganon’s death, so perhaps they’ll play a central role once again now that Ganondorf seems to have come back into the picture. What would make the Yiga even more menacing is if this were their plan all along; knowing that Link very well could defeat Calamity Ganon and then, after retaking the castle, be drawn underground to free the real culprit. Nobody knows what direction Nintendo are going to take with any of this, other than ‘it’ll probably be kinda spooky’, but I am way too excited to find out.

Got any cool ideas or theories of your own? Anything you want them to add or take away in this sequel? Drop it down below in the comments! I’d be v interested to hear if you have anything to add. Thanks for reading and let’s hope the wait isn’t too painful!

Best of E3 2019 ~ Belated Edition

E3 2019 - held June 11-13, 2019 in Los Angeles, CA - is already ancient history, but that's not stopping me from from giving some belated impressions of what was on display or announced at this year's show. Better late than never, right? Without further delay, here are my top 10 Nintendo-related highlights from the recent gaming extravaganza.

10. Heroland This is a weird game: you act as a guide for a group of would-be heroes in an adventurer-focused theme park. The graphics are rather simple, and your party members more or less fight on their own, with you having only limited control over their actions. However, the story and writing in this XSEED-published title are hilarious and seem like they'll compensate for any gameplay shortcomings.

9. Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield The demo for Pokémon Sword & Shield was pretty limited and didn't tell me much about the game I wasn't already expecting, but the big news for me was Yamper, the corgi Pokémon. How can you not love a corgi Pokémon?! If I hadn't been sold on the game before, well, I certainly am now.

8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons Yes, it's too bad it got delayed, and yes, I wish it had been playable, but it's great to see that Animal Crossing: New Horizons is coming along well and including features like crafting and a bigger focus on multiplayer. It should be great!

7. Fire Emblem: Three Houses In the space of one trailer, Fire Emblem: Three Houses made a tonal shift from Harry Potter Year 1 to Harry Potter Year 7. I can't wait to see how it all plays out when the game hits in July.

6. amiibo! I'm always excited for more amiibo, but even more so when it involves favorite franchises like Zelda and Castlevania. It was great to finally get a look at characters like Richter Belmont, Incineroar, Dark Samus, and Chrom, and I could always use a new version of Link!

5. Astral Chain This is another one that I wish had been playable on the show floor, but I'm very excited for it nonetheless. It looks to have all the great action that we've come to expect from Platinum Games, along with a lot of exploration and investigation and an extremely compelling cyberpunk world.

4. Luigi's Mansion 3 I expected Luigi's Mansion 3 to be good, but the demo surpassed my expectations. The demo was dense and full of cool things to discover in every room, and I especially love the ability to slam ghosts into each other. Visually it's spectacular as well. And the E3 booth, which was practically a Luigi's Mansion 3 theme park attraction, was one of the best reasons to actually go to the show.

3. Hero & Banjo in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Though neither Dragon Quest nor Banjo-Kazooie are personal top-tier favorites of mind, I'd be hard pressed to think of two more deserving characters to be added to the Smash Bros. roster. I've always wanted to smack my friends with a bird.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening The original Link's Awakening is in my top 25 games of all time, so I had high expectations for this one, and the E3 demo met all of them. It's a game I've loved for 25 years, with a gorgeous new "diorama-come-to-life" look, enhanced controls, and just enough newness for the game to feel fresh while still retaining all charm and familiarity of the original. The actual handcrafted dioramas in Nintendo's booth were amazing too, and sign me up for the special edition that includes an artbook!

1. The Legend of Zelda: BOTW Sequel Predictable, yes, but how can I not pick the Switch follow-up to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? As a landmark entry in one of my favorite series, I can't wait to see where Nintendo takes the series from here. Was that really Ganondorf's body? Will Zelda be playable? How will the formula change!? I can't wait to find out.

BONUS: Top 3 Non-Nintendo-Related Highlights of E3 2019

3. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III Despite the publisher change from XSEED Games to NIS America, Trails of Cold Steel III doesn't seem to have lost a step. It's about as classically inspired and traditional as you can get when it comes to RPGs on console these days, which is perfect for old-school enthusiasts like myself.

2. Sega Genesis Mini Speaking of old-school, I was thrilled to go hands-on with the Sega Genesis Mini and finally play an English version of Mega Man: The Wily Wars. I'm looking forward to a lot of games on this piece of hardware, but none more than that. It's a dream come true after 25 years!

1. TMNT arcade machine from Arcade 1up Likewise, I was very impressed by the scaled-down four-player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade unit from Arcade 1up. Featuring both the first and second TMNT coin-ops, these are some of my favorite arcade games ever released, and they've never been available at home in arcade-perfect form before (although the Xbox 360 port was very close). Where am I going to keep an arcade machine, even a scaled-down one? I don't know, but I guess I'll find out!

Just finished LoZ: Wind Waker...

I normally never post, but I recently wrapped up Wind Waker HD (Yes, I’m late to the party), and it is so far removed from the usual Zelda fare that I just had to compile my thoughts. And if I’m compiling my thoughts, I might as well yell them into the void.

You will have to show me physical proof that Wind Waker is not Ocarina of Time from the Opposite Dimension, where windows are the primary means of entering your house and people worship at the altar of Hello Games, because despite me being almost exactly as satisfied with Wind Waker HD as I was with Ocarina of Time 3D, the greatest sources of joy are flipped with the biggest annoyances between the two games.

Yay!

Breath of the Wild had won me over in part because the entire world felt cohesive; you could go anywhere on the map without having to encounter a single loading screen, and I had no idea Wind Waker did the same thing. The Great Sea is a vast trove of trees, pirates, and treasure, with the occasional giant squid attack or salutation from the Flying Dutchman. Each of the 49 segments contains an island that is often unique in purpose, and you’re very rarely sent to a specific island for a specific item by a specific character. Instead, the entire overworld becomes open to you as soon as you grab your sail on Windfall Island, and you have a literal sea of knowledge before you as the 49 fish that serve as your guidebook to the game take their places.

A couple of islands start off closed, unable to be reached until you get the Iron Boots or the Bow or the Hulk Hogan suplex manual, but that’s it as far as what you can’t reach, and the squares of ocean containing even these islands can be reached as early as any other zone, fish and all. The fish are easy to spot, splashing around near their respective region’s landmass, and to reward taking to initiative to explore, a surprising amount of what they tell you can be put to use immediately, like the location of the all-new extra-fast wind-changing sail the remake’s added to speed up travel. Good thing, too, because there’s a point where travel time stops being buildup and becomes padding, especially when you have to dance a round of Hands Up every time you want to change direction. Later in the game, when you’re better equipped, you could stop by one of those islands you couldn’t figure out earlier on, and figure out what to do with just one more trip around the border. Nothing pops up on your map to indicate that suddenly you’re able to access anything new, and your boat doesn’t  wonder whether the eastmost pillar on island A7 has met any nice hookshot targets lately. The game trusts that you can navigate the uses for your gear yourself, which I value. Fewer tutorials, more expectations.

Even the story serves the game’s hands-off attitude. Ocarina starts with Link going into the Deku Tree to purge it of some unspecified evil (What exactly does Gohma do in there, anyway?) before coming out to be told of his fate to kill a man he has never met before and become Hyrule’s savior. Link takes up the mantle in that game only because the gods who have not and will never make a proper appearance want him to do it. Meanwhile, Wind Waker opens with Link putting on the green tunic to make his grandmother happy for a day, right before his sister, who clearly adores him, gets kidnapped by a giant bird, and he teams up with pirates to sneak into a fortress and rescue her but instead gets bitch-slapped by Ganondorf, who turns out to own the place and the bird. In addition to being awesome because pirates kick ass, Link’s introduction to the man who wants him dead feels a lot more natural here, and Ganondorf doesn’t even come into the plot for real until the second half of the game. Link’s got a sister to save, and everything he’ll do to accomplish that goal will demonstrate him to be worthy of the Master Sword, which itself seems to prefer this organic sort of journey, seeing as the Link who set out to get the Master Sword from the beginning ended up locked in solitary confinement by the thing while it allowed the man it was created to kill to instead take over the world. Evidently the Master Sword is a strong, independent blade beholden to no one who can’t think for themselves, and anyone who disagrees can spend some quality time with the nice old man who loves to talk and talk and talk and talk.

The characters in Wind Waker feel more on the dynamic side than Ocarina’s. At first I was a bit surprised that i felt that way considering Ocarina had you view two very different versions of Hyrule, but Ocarina’s characters either don’t change in personality much between time periods or don’t make an appearance in one of the two at all. Talon’s still lazy in the future, the carpenters are still idiots, the Lake Hylia scientist is still mad, the Kokiri of course don’t change at all, you see none of the Zoras after their caves are frozen over, etc. Not to mention Ganondorf, who doesn’t get much beyond “evil Gerudo thief king who wants to take over the world because of reasons,” even if he gets a bit further than many movie/game villains and is able to demonstrate exactly what he’d do while in charge and why he’s so dangerous. Wind Waker, meanwhile, has even a fair few one-off characters with their own tiny arcs. Mila goes from stuck-up rich kid to poor as dirt and struggling to adapt, so out of her element that she resorts to stealing money from her new boss until Link catches her and helps her stay true to herself in the future. Maggie’s father starts out so desperate for Link to save his daughter that he will annoyingly stop you in your tracks every time he so much as glimpses you and repeat his pleas for help, but after Maggie is returned home and he strikes it rich through no deed of his own, he decides everyone else is beneath him and starts bitching at Link, the Rito postman, and anyone who thinks repeatedly boasting about your own fabulous wealth makes for poor dinner conversation. Even Ganondorf himself is given more than a simple desire to take over Hyrule this time around, as his belief that the rest of the kingdom deserves to suffer the way the Gerudo suffered in the desert is brought to light. 

Boo!

Part of the reason I liked the dungeons in Ocarina of Time so much is that they had a way of coming full circle at the end, or even a smaller full circle in the middle. You’d come across something at the beginning, go “Huh, that looks cool,” then move on. An hour later, BOOM, payoff, and likely in a way you didn’t even expect. The web serving as the floor in the Deku Tree and the blue stone head at the back of Dodongo’s Cavern come to mind. Plus, there were often open rooms that allowed you to get a handle on where everything else was relative to you, and gaze upon areas you’ll visit once you find the Hookshot or Hover Boots. Wind Waker’s dungeons are the antithesis of the rest of the game, they’re cramped and, for the first half of the game, overly linear. Dragon Roost never musters up much more challenge than “kill enemy in front of you, go through door in front of you, repeat,” a far cry from the wall-climbing around the first half of the Deku Tree. Re-hydrating the bombs to get into the place is arguably as clever as you get with it, which for me is the perfect representation of the amount of thought that went into everything surrounding the dungeons vs. the amount of thought that went into the dungeons. And aside from those spinning leaf wheels in Forbidden Woods that wouldn’t know what a wind was if they were fired for incompetence and forced to spend the rest of their lives at its mercy, this is best illustrated during the teamwork-based dungeons with Medli and Makar toward the end of the game .

Considering how often you have to switch between characters to set up a Mirror Shield reflect or to hit a switch or to plant a seed or because you got hit fucking once, it would’ve been nice not to have to do half the Macarena every time you want to switch to your companion’s viewpoint. It also would’ve been nice if the controls of your partners didn’t make me want to offer them to the Floormasters. That said, Medli wasn’t awful. Yes, her flight was a bit hard to direct, there was no way to halt her Link-bearing glide without throwing her, and the number of times you had to hop on the Wind Waker was a pain, but the irritation was diminished when lot of her roles involved standing still and shining light while you played as the character the game actually put work into handling. Plus, my wave of enthusiasm from the first moment I walked under a spotlight while carrying her and saw the light reflect lasted me quite a ways into the dungeon, so my memories of the Earth Temple are okay enough.

On the other hand, Makar. (I still call him Oaki, which should indicate how memorable Makar’s character is) When flying with Medli, all that was required was good aim when leaping off any ledge you were leaving, whether she was on her own or supporting Link. Makar has to fly in patterns more complex than straight lines, so naturally his controls are twice as stupid. You have to repeatedly press A to fly, speeding up or slowing down your button presses to increase or decrease the amount of lift as you go. Button mashing as a recurring mechanic, yay. Its imprecise nature becomes worse when the vertical nature of the dungeon’s biggest room has Makar rack up a ton of momentum from the amount of rising and falling he’ll be doing, leaving you struggling to adjust your frequency to keep up, with aerial endurance that makes you wonder how the Korok seed-spreading ritual has not led them to extinction by mass drowning. Fortunately, there’s a giant fan you can activate at the bottom of the room to blow yourself upward and kill any chance you have at forward progress. You’d think that being able to coast to the top of everything would be a good thing, but being in the fan’s range of “anywhere” causes Makar to eschew any direction that isn’t straight up (as his flight meter drains!), when running out of flight power has the same effect but downwards. If that wind catches you while you’re trying to cross the room, you’re left to watch as Makar is frozen in place while his energy drains to zero, wait for the fan to stop, fall several stories to the bottom of the room, and walk about two feet toward where you want to go before the fan activates again and restarts the cycle. And that’s assuming one of the many flying enemies doesn’t brush Makar and throw the camera back behind a Link who’s attempting to keep calm by doing the wave.

The combat took some getting used to. Ocarina’s combat was fine; it was easy to tell what you were in range to hit, and timing your swings properly could get shield-wielding enemies like Stalfos in a loop where continually accurate shots would finish them in seconds. In Wind Waker, Link’s attacks don’t reach quite as far as his sword would indicate; you’d think the gods would make sure their magical evil-smiting blade is most capable at the end that goes in the King of Evil, but I guess not. “Just The Tip” is a no-no with these monsters, so it’s either impale them in full or let them dominate you.

Meanwhile, you have two options for your targeting system, and they both suck. You either hold down L as long as you want to keep an enemy targeted, which before long will cause your left index finger to rebel against its draconian master, or press the button once to start targeting and press it again to target a different enemy, leaving you with no way to stop targeting the enemies and put an arrow in the switch. This wasn’t that big a deal in Ocarina, since Link had a wider vertical range with the bow and there were never many enemies hounding you  when there was another immediate objective to complete, but in Wind Waker, you can expect a rainbow of respawning Chu’s to ambush you around the clock. It sours a lot of dungeons and dungeon-themed areas for me. That’s why the Wind Waker experience was so surprising; the dungeons were a slog to get through and felt less like a collection of clever puzzle ideas suiting each region’s theme and more like an obligation to throw in because it’s Zelda, yet everything surrounding them felt engaging and intriguing enough to make me want to keep playing and find out what happened to everyone.

(Tower of the Gods was pretty cool, too.)