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I'm looking into playing some Zelda fan stuff, and I've found lists of romhacks and fangames, which look pretty great.

What I want to know is which ones feel the most complete? Like they could have been released by Nintendo or a Licensee?

I mean with new story and/or features, and isn't just a remix of its base game.

Black Crown and Parallel Worlds are obvious ones to me, but what about Master of Time, The Missing Link, Sealed Palace, Return of the Hylian, Kaepora Gaebora and the other complete games/hacks?

I speak for many people (or possibly just myself, no need to sound overconfident) when I say that the elements of the sages in the overarching Zelda series has been slightly confusing if not contradictory in some cases, even more so now with the recent additions of TotK’s new sage roster. What with OoT’s original 6 elements with a silently confirmed 7th, then with WW’s 2 brand new elements with a 3rd that never made it past development, and now with TotK taking mostly from OoT’s original line up but apparently mixing it with WW’s and also adding yet again another element (two if you want to count the power Ganondorf obtained since he also used a secret stone, poorly translated name by the way) it’s all a big mess in my opinion.

After some contemplation, I’ve come up with a theory that attempts to remedy this jumbled list of titles into a neatly compiled set of 8, specifically by going off of something called the Bagua, or “eight trigrams”. These 8 symbols represent elemental phases through which energy flows through the world in taoist philosophy, typically employed through feng shui. For the most part, these line up quite nicely. https://docs.google.com/document/d/18XMrL_pJDsGBcS5R54-vF0VPZG2H2HIcdUMpPPeWkz8/edit

Beginning with the sage of Fire, they can easily be placed on the trigram of Fire, typically associated with fame, reputation, and passion.

Moving counterclockwise to the sage of Forest (or sage of Wind), I’ve decided both of these should occupy the same place on the trigram of Wind. The reasons being not just because both elements are green or because the OoT Forest sage Saria was originally supposed to be a Wind sage, but because Wind as an element in Bagua is actually a subelement of Wood, thus further solidifying the sameness. This trigram is representative of gentleness and flexibility.

Next is the sage of Spirit— or wait, of Lightning? Here’s where things get a bit confusing. In OoT, the Gerudo’s sage element is Spirit, associated with a temple hidden in a sandstorm filled with mirror puzzles. In TotK, the Gerudo’s Lightning temple is… the exact same. Save for a bit more focus on electricity. Functionally, both of these elements (both coloured orange as well) are the same, as we don’t get much information on what Spirit means in OoT other than courage. That’s why both of these titles occupy the trigram of Thunder, representing exitation, revolution, and arousal.

Following up on the confusing double titles is the sage of Shadow, or Spirit… again. In TotK, Spirit functions much more like Shadow did in OoT, with both of their respective temples taking place underground in dark facilities directly associated with the ancient royal family, as having immediate connection to death and ghosts. These sages fit into the trigram of Mountain, symbolizing stubbornness and immovability. Mountains are also very symbolic of spirits and immortality in Japan.

Halfway through, we arrive at the sage of Water, fittingly on the trigram of Water. This trigram represents the abyss and rapids, but also healing and conception. This fits with the established healing magic Zoras have been given in BotW/TotK.

After that is the sage of Light, whom I've placed upon the trigram of Heaven. Heaven is the trigram of pure Yang energy, making it the perfect example of Light. It represents expansive energy, creation, the sky, and all things bright or heavenly.

Then there’s the sage of Time, a title that was only hinted at in OoT but finally confirmed in TotK. This one has been placed upon the trigam of Lake, which embodies joy, tranquility, and pleasure. This is by far the loosest fit out of all the titles, but given how I’ve become confident in all the others I see no way I can change it.

Lastly, we arrive at the element that was never wielded by a sage to begin with… or was it? This element, Darkness, seems a bit of a dangerous title for an actual sage to wield, but that’s only if you aren’t considering the Bagua. Like how Light is Heaven, the most Yang trigram, Darkness too can be placed upon Earth, the most Yin trigram. Earth, the second element used in WW, is simply a non-corrupt version of this power (in my eyes at least). The trigram of Earth is associated with receptiveness, complete darkness, and in some cases, illusion.

And there you have it, my long and albeit a bit convoluted attempt at reasoning with an elemental system I doubt was even imagined by the developers in the first place. I just hope I worded it in a way that made enough sense to critique it, haha.

Hey all, I hope I got the title correct. I've had a kind of headcanon I wanted to share which isn't so much an alternate theory as a more-filled our cosmology. The only real change I think would be that I still personally put Minish Cap at the front of the timeline. Here's the cosmology though.

Null exists in the void. It does it's thing, it's its nature, Null isn't evil, it's more a force driving things to stillness, more like an embodiment of entropy.

The Godesses create protoworlds outside of existence. These are themed and protected by their own deities. These are - The Lost Woods, Subrosia, The Realm of the Ocean King, The Silent Realm, The Twilight Realm and the Realm of Light. Each of these is themed around Earth, Fire, Water, Spirit, Shadow, and Light as is reflected by the sages.

The Sacred Realms act as a kind of blueprint for their counterparts. What happens in the Sacred Realm will manifest into the actual world.

So then for the timeline - We're all familiar with the current timeline and I don't disagree with it aside from the placement of Minish Cap. But I'll say that in conjunction with Labrynna and Holodrum being provinces adjacent to Hyrule, Termina is a province adjacent to Lorule. And yes, that does mean that the moon in Lorule has a face scrawled across it. It seems probable to me that the Lorule counterparts to the Sheikah are the Garoh. For a long time, I'd considered Hyrule and Lorule to be necessary counterparts to each other for a larger reason than just "that's how it is". There are two reasons that I can think of and I like to use a combination of both of them. The second reason is that together, they sandwich and imprison the Still Realm where Null is kept trapped from the larger existence and it's powers kept to a minimum. Think of the cracks between Hyrule and Lorule that Link travels across as being kind of like prison bars with the still world contained between. The first reason is a bit more complex.

Hyrule as we know it, is I think the second Hyrule. The first Hyrule had parallel, albeit slightly different events to everything we've seen. In Hyrule 1, there was no Lorule counterpart. One of it's purposes was to draw Null in - to force it into the cage that would become the still realm. In addition, the build up of dark magic as harnessed and sourced by Null corrupted the denizens of Hyrule 1 into the Demon tribe. In the timeline of Hyrule 1, that's where we place BotW and TotK (and I put MC right at the very beginning of it). Some things I think may be different about Hyrule 1 - There's no timeline split. Many of the events of the other games played our similarly but differently enough that they were able to be resolved in ways that we don't see. With Hyrule 2 and Lorule, I've imagined that the magic sourced by Null and used by various dark magic practitioners is siphoned off and filtered out between Hyrule 2 and Lorule. This prevents the various denizens from being converted into what we now call the Demon Tribe. When we see Moblins and Bokoblins and such in Hyrule 2, they've been summoned from what remains of Hyrule 1, or they're the survivors that scurried off into the various protoworlds at the destruction of Hyrule 1.

The rest of the timeline is the same. Hyrule 2 is started with Skyward Sword. The Goddess Statue is the same one from the Forgotten Temple, pulled up into the sky and made apart of Skyloft. The temple of time is a carry over as well, continually being demolished and rebuilt throughout the ages, but never fully destroyed. Hyrule 1 doesn't have a Skyloft floating in the sky, but I bed in OoT, the remains of Skyloft are still up there. Hyrule 2 doesn't have any Zonai or Zonai ruins. They're long gone from the destruction of Hyrule 1. A parallel to them might have been in a pre-evolved form of the Occoo who helped found Hyrule, though I wouldn't consider them to be directly related to the Zonai. It may be their robots we see in Skyward Sword which are all gone come OoT.

Curious about everyone's thoughts. I know that really it boils down to just "We don't know, Nintendo hasn't released anything on the placement of BotW and TotK" but still.

裂け目が現れた３つの地域は 大いなる力を残した神々…　三女神ゆかりの地でもある

The 3 regions where the rifts appeared are all lands which are connected with the three goddesses… the gods who left behind the Great Power

-EoW, King of Hyrule

In EoW, the lands connected to the three Golden Goddesses are the Faron Wetlands, Eldin Volcano, and Holy Mount Lanayru.

But regions of Hyrule named Faron, Eldin, and Lanayru, have been appearing in Zelda games since TP.

What EoW causes us to consider, is the implication of these regions in previous games being connected with the Golden Goddesses.

For example, in EoW each of these three regions has a temple to their respective Goddess. In that temple, the Priestess (Royal Shrine Maiden in the Japanese version) can communicate with the Goddess directly. We have never had a previous Zelda game where we have directly interacted with the Golden Goddesses. I've seen some speculate that because Zelda is the protagonist this time, as the Royal Shrine Maiden, this is finally possible.

If the Royal Shrine Maiden is worthy, the Goddess will give her Sanction, which will allow the use of the Prime Energy (Great Power in the Japanese version). The Triforce.

Now, consider what all of this means for BotW.

In BotW, there are three regions named after the three Golden Goddesses. Faron, Eldin, and Lanayru. There aren't temples to the goddesses in those regions, but there are Sacred Springs. The Spring of Courage is in the Faron Woods. The Spring of Wisdom is on Mount Lanayru. The Spring of Power is technically not in the Eldin region but in Akkala. However, Akkala is right next to Death Mountain, which is the heart of the Eldin region, so it can be considered in the greater Eldin region.

It's true that there is a statue of Hylia at each of the Springs, but each of them is also marked with the Crest of their respective Golden Goddess.

The Springs traditionally were where the Royal Shrine Maiden (the same phrase in Japanese as in EoW) went to pray and awaken her sealing power. This is what Zelda says in Memory 13, The Slumbering Power, in the Japanese version:

王家の姫が代々受け継し厄災を封印する力 それは祈りに依って目覚める聖なるもの。。。

For generations the royal princesses inherited the power to seal the calamity. That can be woken with a sacred prayer.

そう聞かされまれて育ちましたけれど。。

I was told that when growing up… However…

母が言っていた身体を満たす霊力も祖母が耳にしたという精霊の声も

Mother said the spiritual power that fills my body, grandmother had it and heard voices of the spirits.

何一つ。。。私には感じられない。。

I can’t feel it, not once.

父には何度も叱られました『それはお前が学者の真似事ばかりやっているからだ』と。。。

Many times I was scolded with “You being a scholar is nothing but make believe!”

でも。。。幼い頃からどんなに頑張っても祈っても。。。！

But… Since I was young and immature, I have been trying, been praying!

古代の神縁のこの地に縋ってすら聖なる力が私を訪う事は無かった。。。

Even in this land of ancient gods, no sacred power has called upon me for anything…

教えて下さい 私には。。。何が足りないのですか？

Please tell me, what am I missing?

Zelda travels to the lands of the ancient gods to pray, in order to gain her power.

Is the Royal Shrine Maiden in BotW doing exactly the same thing as the Royal Shrine Maiden in EoW?

Travelling to a land connected with the Golden Goddesses, communicating with each Goddess at a shrine dedicated to them, and gaining the ability to use a great power if she is found worthy?

It's been an ongoing debate about what exactly the sealing power is in BotW. Is it the Triforce, or the power of her sacred bloodline, or a combination of both?

Is the Triforce in BotW? We see it appear when Zelda uses her sealing power, but if so it is used differently to what came before, or even after in EoW.

However, I believe that the fact that Zelda, as the Royal Shrine Maiden, does essentially the exact same thing in BotW and EoW means that, yes she is using the Triforce in some way when she uses the sealing power.

It's still not clear exactly how or if it is in combination with the other powers that she has inherited, such as Light and Time as TotK highlighted. (I have my own theories) But I think we can now say with certainty that she is also using the Triforce.

Thanks to what we learn in EoW.

There is something else that EoW helps to confirm with relation to the Golden Goddesses in previous games.

There is (was?) a vocal group of fans who doubted whether the Golden Goddesses ever really interfered in the affairs of Hyrule in the past, after they finished creating the world and left.

Some even doubted whether they ever really existed. Thankfully, EoW has put an end to that at least.

But what about whether they ever directly became involved in events? Do they even care about whether evil threatens their creation?

In EoW, the Golden Goddesses say this about Null:

己のみの世界を享受し ただ見境なく　生をむさぼる

Given a world that was their’s alone, they simply devoured life indiscriminately.

その強欲な所業を　見かねた我らは ヌゥルを封じ込め　天地を創造した

Unable to overlook these avaricious deeds, we created the heavens and earth, containing Null.

The Golden Goddesses absolutely do care. They have a sense of morality.

In TP, which also has lands connected with the Goddesses, there are Light Spirits in those regions, who are also named after the Goddesses.

The Light Spirits tell Link that in the past they were sent by the Goddesses to seal away the Fused Shadow and banish the Interlopers from the Light World.

Would the Goddesses really interfere in this way?

According to EoW, yes they would.

What about in TWW, where we are told that they flooded Hyrule in order to stop the rampage of Ganon? Would the Goddesses really have done that?

Well think about this.

How did they deal with Null? They sealed him.

How did they deal with the Fused Shadow and Interlopers? They sealed them.

How did they deal with Ganon pre-Flood? They sealed him.

The flooding of Hyrule was part of a seal in order to preserve Hyrule and stop Ganon until a Hero appeared. It's the King who actually wishes for Hyrule to be destroyed at the end.

Overall, I think it's great that EoW is helping us to have a clearer understanding of previous Zelda games.

Echoes of Wisdom takes place after Tri Force Heroes and before the "Era of Decline" that takes place before The Legend of Zelda on the timeline.

Overall this fits... okay? It's not bad, though there are some peculiarities with the Triforce. Like, in ALBW the kingdom knows what the Triforce is and it ends off with the Triforce in the Sacred Realm, where ALBW Zelda and Link made a wish on it for Lorule's Triforce to be restored. Backstory details in EOW have the Triforce having now long been sealed away behind the tablet in the Eternal Forest, under the Deku Tree. Long enough that the Triforce has faded into legend, it now being known as the "Prime Energy". That we know of, only the king of Hyrule has any knowledge of the legend. Given how active they are in its seal, it seems like it was likely the goddesses themselves who decided to seal it this way following ALBW. Only sanctions they hand out themselves allow access to it. So it looks like they removed it from the Sacred Realm after ALBW and hid it below the Deku Tree. Their symbols even being in the chamber it's held in below the tree, which is likely untouched since.

EOW presumably brings the Triforce back out into Hyrule again. Backstory info in the LOZ manual tells us that the royal family had been using the Triforce to bring prosperity to Hyrule until the story of the king, Zelda the first and the prince. Seems like maybe the golden age of prosperity comes after EOW and then the kingdom starts to decline generations later because of the prince. Ganon obtains the Triforce of Power, Zelda of LOZ breaks the Triforce of Wisdom into pieces to hide it and the king had long hidden the Triforce of Courage in the Great Palace to ensure that only one worthy of the Triforce would find it and become the next king of Hyrule.

Sad news about the EOW zora though... The zora devolved into mindless monsters by the time of LOZ...

This has been something i've been thinking for some weeks now, and now that it was confirmed EoW is between Tri Force Heroes and the NES games, i think it's the right moment to talk about

A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds and Echoes of Wisdom really feel like a "trilogy" of sorts with shared themes. It's not an actual trilogy since we have the Oracle Games, Link's Awakening and Tri Force Heroes inbetween, but i'd say those are sidestories while ALttP/ALBW/EoW are the "main" stuff

Basically, i'd say all 3 games have in common the idea of expanding on the nature of the Creation of the World and also on the other dimensions out there. ALttP was the game that introduced the fact that the world was created by the three Goddesses, ALBW showed us that the World would crumble without the Triforce and EoW reveals the reason as to why the world was made

Not only that, ALttP introduces the Dark World, the corrupted Golden Land, as our first look at what lies beyond the world. ALBW introduces Lorule, an actual alternate universe (the Golden Land seems to be more of a "pocket universe" inside the main universe) and EoW shows us the Still World and Null

There is also a theme about Ganon being forgotten with time, as he is an active threat in ALttP, is just remembered as an evil thief in legends and folk tales in ALBW and then is completely forgotten by the time EoW happens. The flow of time, as Sheik said in Ocarina of Time, is always cruel. Not even the Demon King could escape from it (that is, until he is revived for the events of the original TLoZ)

Nothing i'm pointing out here is new, of course, i just think it's neat

I don’t usually do this sort of thing, but recently I finished my first playthrough of Tri Force Heroes and I wanted to share some of my thoughts and theories.

So, for background, I actively avoided this game ever since I heard about it. I wasn’t a big fan of ALBW when it came out (I’ve since changed my mind and I think it’s good, though still not one of my favorites), so a sequel to that with multiplayer gameplay (and bad gameplay if single player) and a focus on fashion? Very unappealing. Then, when I got the Zelda Encyclopedia, I read the story premise. The moment I saw that the whole thing was about breaking a curse where a Princess was forced to wear a bad outfit, I just laughed in disbelief.

Now that the franchise has turned around and I’m back into caring about figuring out timeline connections, I started playing games in timeline order (roughly), and I felt like playing this one finally just to know what it was really like and see if there was anything interesting in it. Not to mention that now I can actually say I’ve finished all canon Zelda games, which feels better than saying “all except TFH” every time.

Let’s be clear: TFH is definitely a bad game. Easily my least favorite Zelda game, hands down. Gameplay was awful, the story was bare bones and complete nonsense (what stakes were there, really?), and it just drags on for ages. It was one of those games where I had to take breaks every once in a while or else I’d just get too bored to keep going.

There were a few good moments (mostly in boss fights), the totem thing was a decent concept, and I liked the idea of some of the outfits (there’s no way I’m bothering going back to those stages again just to have the chance of getting the materials I need for them though, no matter how much I want to look like Linebeck or a River Zora). But in almost every way, the execution fell flat.

I know I played it single player, and so missed out on a huge part of the experience. Plenty of times I thought “oh, so the intention is that one person does this, while another person does that,” while I had to keep switching back and forth between the Doppels to do the same thing. I could imagine in my head how that would be to work alongside someone else, and it would clearly be easier and less infuriating. I played FS with a friend ages ago, so I do have a reference for how well that can be executed. But I also just kept coming back to the fact that since then, I’ve played both FS and FSA a few times in single player…and actually enjoyed it. So clearly something is off.

I do have to give them props for making all of the game possible without doing multiplayer, though of course that meant less creativity in what the puzzles could be. While there were spots that aggravated me because I had to switch so often or plan multiple steps in advance only to be forced to start over, I think the only time I felt like the challenge of playing single player wasn’t very fair was in the final boss. There’s a section where you have to hit this ball of light with the corresponding color, and it moves way too fast! As for the Den of Trials, I felt like that was a better pace, but then I got to the end and had to give up because that Dark Link fight just seemed downright impossible on my own, because I would just get pummeled by all three at once, and switching between Doppels didn’t seem to change that one bit. Really disappointing, because playing as Fierce Deity Link sounded like it would be fun too…

I’ll probably never bother playing this one again, since there’s very little reason to. The story was such a letdown because nothing happens throughout, except that new outfits are available, a few characters say different things, new areas are unlocked, etc. There was one point where we find out Couture and Maude are related, but they never do anything with that. It’s kinda funny that this is the one Zelda title with a post-game, as small as it is.

I did also note some bits of lore during my playthrough which interested me since I’ve never really heard anyone talk about them before (probably because I wasn’t really that invested in Zelda at the time this came out, and that it’s not very popular in general). So if there’s anything about these that has been expanded upon elsewhere, let me know!

• Hytopia has Triforce imagery, legend of three heroes, description of Link, similar royalty structure.

• Deku Scrubs! They likely moved here in the DT, similar to how Gorons and half the Zoras left Hyrule too.

• Fourth Doppel by a tree: is this the fourth hero? Is this somehow connected to the Four Sword? Which is more canon, Doppels or multiple Links? Nintendo specifically said that they wanted to do multiple Links rather than have other playable characters, but this was mainly for the gamer’s experience. Or is the idea that one of the Links is the “hero” and the other two are basically just lookalikes?

• Hytopia knows about Kokiri? Is there a reason for this, or just there for reference’s sake?

• Linebeck referenced: again, likely more Easter egg than lore, but since DT and AT are the most closely linked, it could be that a different version of Linebeck exists in the DT.

• Sky realm-what is this connected to? Kind of looks like Oocca Sky Temple. Yes! Dragon Citadel makes this almost certain, the architecture is so similar and the flying Lizalfos are pretty much exact matches.

I feel like there’s a ton more here than I was expecting, and possibly more that I missed, but I haven’t heard of any theories based on this game yet. Here are a few ideas I came up with:

• AOL takes place in Hytopia. TLOZ is in the Death Mountain area as confirmed by HH/ZE, and AOL clearly takes place north of that mountain. ZE seems to imply this interpretation, but does not say it outright. The towns are named after the sages because after Hytopia is annexed, Hylians start to colonize the Drablands, naming towns after their revered sages. (Exceptions: Mido may be a town started by the same people as Saria town, or it could actually be connected to Medoh? Kasuto could be a sage we haven’t seen before, or it could just be an old Hytopian town.) The castle you find Zelda in is actually Hytopia’s old castle, at the center of the map just like in TFH. TFH has six temples on the ground, as well, correlating with AOL’s six temples (there’s even a “spooky” region in TFH, lining up with the ghost stuff in AOL). This could also help with the river Zora lore, since now it would seem that some of them remained enemies, while those in the south started to work along with the Sea Zora again after ALttP (Sea Zoras likely just off-map during ALBW).

• Connected to the above, I had a theory while playing that the MC/Four Swords events actually take place in Hytopia, rather than Hyrule proper. Perhaps the borders of Hyrule change as much as its geography always seems to? This would explain why the legends of Vaati and the Four Sword are always missing from the rest of the games’ legends, and possibly why there are three Doppels rather than just two. Could it be that before OoT, Hyrule lost its claim on the land to north, and this factored into the civil war? Then, during the Imprisoning War, affluent members of Hyrule (and those with magical ability!) fled to Hytopia, only to face the devastation wrought by Vaati instead of Ganon? Then another hero came along to use the Four Sword, only for Vaati to somehow destroy it? Then the magic-users of Hytopia came up with the Doppels to mimic the sword’s power, but for some reason only two of them were viable, so the fourth was lost in the legend?

• The Oocca might have died out in the DT, or perhaps there are more ruins up there than we know of. Haven’t played TP in a while, so I can’t think of a lot to connect this with, but it at least seems to confirm that those ruins are in the sky in each timeline. Perhaps they move around, or like I implied in the above, perhaps it’s actually above Hytopia the whole time, and TP’s borders are actually more north than we thought (hence Eldin being in the mid-eastern area of that game’s map).

• Zunari from WW is from Hytopia. He talks about being from a land to the north, but Windfall only has the wind temple north of it. Hytopia is said to be colder, thus leading to the need for magic in their clothing, and he comes to Windfall with a parka (a similar one is found in TFH as a possible outfit). He also gives Link an heirloom that covers him with a magical barrier, running off of magic or rupees depending on which version you’re playing, both of which insinuate its creators had a lot of either one.

Combining these, my idea of the events would be as follows:

DT - Ganondorf takes over Hyrule > magic users and rich people leave for the north, settle their own kingdom of Hytopia > either legends of four sword get passed down from those who already live there, or new Vaati shenanigans happen > ALttP through ALBW > TFH events > Hytopia is annexed by Hyrule > EOW > TLoZ and AoL happen, with greater Hyrule south of these games’ maps

CT - Ganondorf is stopped, so no exodus. Hytopia is not a kingdom, but perhaps is an area that Hyrule colonizes/annexes much earlier.

AT - Ganondorf takes over Hyrule > magic users and rich people leave for the north, settle Hytopia > Ganon is defeated, Hyrule at peace, Hytopia continues to develop, possible collaboration with Hyrule > Ganondorf returns, great flood, both countries forced to settle mountaintops/islands.

With AT, I originally toyed with the idea that Hytopia and New Hyrule are the same place, but this wouldn’t really make sense, seeing as New Hyrule already has a long history of Malladus, the Lokomo, etc. It’s more likely that Hytopia just ended up being a bunch of islands as well, and New Hyrule was an area with a higher elevation, unaffected by the flood. Also, the lack of Gorons/Zoras on this continent seems to imply that this land is completely separate from anywhere else, and too far away for any of Hyrule’s races to have traveled before the flood.

Overall, the lore of TFH seems to lend more credence to the idea of an exodus during/after OoT in the DT, or at least that the world is a lot bigger and more inhabited than the games go out of their way to imply. I think the idea of the magic-users of Hyrule moving to Hytopia makes the most sense, since Hytopians are said to have more magic which they weave into their clothing, while the citizens of Hyrule have almost completely lost their magical abilities by ALttP’s events, but think that their ancestors used to have them. But we can also point to the fact that Sea Zoras and Gorons are nowhere to be found in the DT except in the Oracles and eventually EoW, and now we can add Dekus to that list who only show up in TFH and EoW.

This is all half-baked, based on my first impressions, so if there’s lore or interviews that corroborate/contradict this, I’d love to see it! If you’ve played it, what did you think about TFH and what it added to Zelda canon?

Timeline of hero is defeated, right after Triforce Heroes and before Zelda 1. This is as official as they can get, seems like that unlike with the 3D open air games, they still plan to include them in the timeline alongside the other titles.

https://www.nintendo.com/jp/character/zelda/history/index.html

From an interview with Eiji Aonuma, Tomomi Sano (Nintendo Director) and Satoshi Terada (Grezzo Director):

Interviewer: I can't ask this question because it's the core of the story, but it all starts with Tri. By the way, how did you decide on Tri's design?

Sano: Tri was designed to be more human-like than a fairy. She navigates the game and is a bit like Princess Zelda's companion. But when I thought about Tri's role, such as expressing the cost of taking out potable items, and how easy it is to understand as a user interface, I ended up with an image that is more primitive than a human.

Aonuma: At first, she was quite talkative, but after going through various changes, she became impersonal.

Sano: As the story and other details solidified, we eventually settled on a simple design.

Aonuma: Although Tri is a fateful character, she doesn't know everything. The navigation character is in a position to pull the gameplay, so it's convenient for her to know everything.

However, since this game is about Princess Zelda and she thinks and acts for herself, I thought it would be boring to have a character who deliberately guides her. So I made her more impersonal and made Tri learn what's going on together with Princess Zelda. So, rather than being a person, I wanted to give her a sense of gradually growing from a place where she doesn't understand people. After much consideration, I thought about what kind of existence Tri should be, and she became that kind of character.

I really liked that about Tri and it went along way of giving her more personality.

She's definitely joined Tatl and Navi as my favorite companions. (Tatl still reigns supreme though).

Just one more reason why I love this game. It's the best Zelda I've played since WW and it felt so good getting that classic "Zelda feeling" again.

Either in universe or out of universe.

I’d love to know what Demise actually is from a lore perspective (outside of the whole Bringer of Demise and Demon King stuff). Where did his sword come from?

I’m also curious about Majora’s inspirations, both the mask’s design and the bosses.

Edit: Should have made it more clear that the log to me is just evidence of an underlying problem (i.e. 100 forgettable quests instead of a few memorable ones). Would appreciate y'all reading the entire post before downvoting and commenting ❤

EoW was great, I enjoyed it more than I expected and it felt very much like a "classic" Zelda, scratching that itch that TotK couldn't quite do. I'm glad I picked it up! But what baffled me the most (in the trailers already) is that it uses the same kind of quest log as BotW and TotK. It felt strange to me in those games too, it felt unorganic to Zelda-games and more like something I'd see in a western RPG.

I especially think these pop-ups that tell me when a quest is finished are awful. Especially after major plot points, I don't need a massive pop-up with a tactile tick-sound telling me I've got something done. I know I got something done from what I have achieved in the game and how the NPCs told me about it, too. That's already super satisfying. When I play a Zelda-game, I don't want to be reminded that I'm playing a game the whole time and I much less want to feel like I'm doing a checklist. I want to get immersed in the world.

I also don't like that they're officially called "quests" now, it feels out of place, too. It should just be something that happens in the world and you're there for it or not. Calling it a quest and a side quest just makes it feel like you're doing a job and these guys are your clients. That's probably very subjective, but it's how I feel.

And you could argue that the quest log is required because of all the characters and their big and small stories. Majora's Mask had the Bomber's Journal after all and the game would have been a hot mess without it. The difference between MM and modern games though is that MM had comparatively intricate and time-sensitive quests. EoW doesn't have that. In fact, out of 51 side quests, about 25 of them are fetch quests. "Bring me 10 of these," "Show me an echo of this," "Bring this to NPC", "Carry this to there." That's not interesting or original to a Zelda-game. It's not a puzzle nor much of a challenge and it doesn't provide much story usually either. It can be fun once or twice, but not for half of the quests. I would have gladly sacrificed all of these fetch quests for just one more interesting side quest.

Anyway, if you cut these out, you're still left with a lot of fun and memorable side-quests where most of them can be done right then and there, so there's no need to remember them for later. If you still need directions or forgot about a quest, there's better ways to refresh your memory that feel more like they fit into the game and gameplay than a lifeless quest log. We had fortune tellers and Sheikah Stones before and I'm sure these concepts could be improved upon.

tl;dr: Quest logs are a bad solution to a problem that isn't really necessary to begin with and I just wish they'd go back to more organic ideas that feel less out of place with the game.

This is a little theory I had regarding potential connections between Demise and Null. In particular, it gives an explanation as to why and how the Demon Tribe came into existence at the end of the Era of Hylia, as well as their hatred for the Gods and creation, despite having been hiding underground up until then. It also tries to reconcile the fact that both Null and Demise represent something of an origin of evil in the Zelda universe.

Zelda: Origin of Demons:

“This eternal being has conquered time itself. It is the source of all monsters.” - Fi, about Demise.

In Echoes of Wisdom, there is only one eternal being we see existing in the void before the Gods made the world, before time began. One who snuffed out all other life trying to form in the void. One who is imprisoned by the Golden Goddesses; meta-physically by time (an order that is the antithesis of the chaos this being represents); and also physically, deep in the core of the Earth, the planet where Hyrule would one day be born. Null.

“One dark, fateful day, the earth cracked wide and malevolent forces rushed forth from the fissure. They mounted a brutal assault upon the surface people, driving the land into deep despair…”

My theory is that the origin of Demons is Malice, created by Null. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom shows us that even when an exceptionally powerful being is sealed, they can still disrupt the world as their latent hatred takes form and leaks out of their prison. In BotW it is given the name Malice. 

In Skyward Sword, the earliest game in the timeline, capital-M Malice isn’t mentioned, but there are some very similar substances. The Evil Crystal, which is described as "pure, crystallised monster malice," looks pretty close to the Malice of BotW. Koloktos, the boss of the Ancient Cistern, is animated by a similar, dark energy, not unlike the ‘Blight Ganons’, which seem to be Sheikah technology fused with Malice.

And under the Ancient Cistern, below the earth, are strange depths filled with pools of purple liquid that are harmful to the touch for humans, but reanimate dead monsters, very much like Malice.

While not explicitly stated, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the purpose of the Ancient Cistern for the humans in the Era of Hylia, was to purify water from Lake Floria, likely an important freshwater source to warrant such an elaborate cistern. I think the purple sludge that gets dumped in the underground areas is Malice that had been seeping through the rock and polluting the lake. Little did the humans know, that filtering it out of the water, and leaving it to pool and condense underground would only make its effects intensify.

But whose Malice? Not Demise’s, because he was sealed right at the end of the Era of Hylia, when the remaining humans on the surface had already been raised into the sky. So by the time he had been sealed long enough to start leaking Malice, there would be no one to build the Ancient Cistern. I believe what we are seeing here is Null’s Malice, its hatred for the Gods and their creation, seeping through miles of rock from the planet core over the millennia, to finally begin insidiously infecting the living beings of the surface.

So far, so good, but that doesn’t explain how Demise and his followers came about.

Well let’s look at the Demons that we do know the origin of; ones we actually see at the moment they become a Demon. There’s Vaati, and then all three versions of Ganondorf, each with their own Demon origin story. All four of these people were once mortals, sorcerers, who become a Demon by using or absorbing something of great power. Vaati absorbed the Light Force from Zelda in Minish Cap. Ocarina of Time Ganondorf uses the Triforce of Power. Four-Swords Adventures - the Trident, and Tears of the Kingdom - a Zonai Secret Stone.

We also have a case of a Demon transforming into a human, in the shape of Skyward Sword’s Batreaux, showing that perhaps the differences between the two tribes are not so vast.

It’s interesting that Demons are referred to as a tribe, in a similar way to the other races of Hyrule. Monsters and other evil beings are not usually given that distinction (the Bokoblins or Lizalfos are never called a tribe despite displaying intelligence.)

It is my belief that all Demons, except perhaps ones that are specifically magical creations of Demon Kings, were once mortal beings, distinguishing them from monsters, and that Demise himself, the origin of evil, was at one time just a man.

He explicitly wants to obtain and use the Triforce, so it is unlikely that he is divine in origin, since Hylia cannot use the Triforce in her immortal form.

Monsters are corrupted versions of Farore’s creations, the flora and fauna of Hyrule; with no will except their masters. But Demon’s are possessed of far more intelligence, cunning and purpose. They are all the dark things hiding in human hearts; greed, lust, envy. They are the dark counterpart to the humans, Hylia’s chosen people, just as their leader Demise is the opposite of Hylia herself.

This is where we have to ramp up the speculation a bit, because it wouldn’t be a Zelda theory without a bit of ass-pulling.

I believe Demise was a man who lived near the end of the Era of Hylia. Perhaps he was the first in the long line of humans who would covet the Triforce. Perhaps he was only seeking power in any form, and his grand ambitions didn’t emerge until his transformation.

Magic and magic wielders seem to have been more prominent in the Era of Hylia so perhaps Demise was a sorcerer, who chose to break away from Hylia’s teachings, and search for other sources of power, becoming one of the first black magicians.

My very headcanon-y idea is that he was the King of the Eldin region, ruler of the civilisation that built the Earth Temple and the Fire Sanctuary. Obviously as worshippers of Din, they valued Power over all other things. Perhaps he became jealous of the Faron and Lanayru regions for their Gates of Time, or for their favour with Hylia. But to stand against a god, he needed the power of Null. And so he led his most loyal followers to the Ancient Cisterns' depths.

Whatever the reason, I believe he caught wind of stories about the strange substance with magical properties discovered in Lake Floria, and went to investigate. When he found the Malice of Null in the subterranean labyrinth below Faron, and realised the eldritch power it originated from, he performed a dark ritual to absorb some of Null’s power for himself, transforming into the first Demon King, in a similar manner to many of his future incarnations.

From the depths he used his new powers to amass an army of Demons and monsters by corrupting captured humans and animals with Null’s Malice. As the human civilizations thrived on the surface, the Demon Tribes ranks swelled, unseen below them, before eventually bursting through the earth (much like Null would wish to do) and assaulting the peaceful world.

So Demise is the origin of all evil, Demons and monsters, but only by using Null’s latent power, contained in the Malice seeping out from the Earth’s core, to transform himself into the progenitor of the Demon Tribe. You could argue that means Null should be the source of evil, but Null seems beyond things like Good and Evil, being more like an elemental force, with a singular goal; the destruction of the Golden Goddesses and everything they created. So while Null is the source of Demise’s power, the once-human Demise is the source of evil.

Once transformed, he acts as an arbiter for Null in the same way that Hylia does for Din, Nayru and Farore. Demise and the Demons probably wouldn’t worship Null like the Hylians worship their Gods, but through the Malice they are connected, like a perversion of the Hylian’s “magic-infused blood” and “ability to hear special messages from the Gods.” One example of Null’s will influencing a Demon could be Majora, whose only stated goal is to “consume everything”, a goal shared by Null. It crashing the moon into the Earth could even be viewed as an attempt to free Null from its prison, though it is unclear if Null exists in Termina.

When Fi says Demise is an “eternal being” who has “conquered time”, she might really be referring to the source of “Demise, the Demon King’s” power; the eternal Null, who has managed to defy the gods and influence events outside its physical and metaphysical prison. I acknowledge this is a bit of a stretch but to be fair this description is said by Fi when facing Demise in the climactic battle. It wouldn’t be very logical for her to say “Oh by the way, this guy's only borrowing power from something way scarier” to Link right before the fight of his life.

And while Null is not necessarily a force of evil in the world while it is sealed away, it is the spring that feeds all the dark magic in Hyrule - in the same way that the Triforce and by extension, the Golden Goddesses, are the source of light magic - as it seeks to exert its will fully on the world, up until Null is destroyed in Echoes of Wisdom.

reupload due to OG post having broken links

According to archives, in 1996 there was an official collaberative story created by Nintendo known as "a Hyrulean Adventure" (and/or a Hyrulean Adventure: a Link to the future)? as detailed in this Zelda wiki article (https://zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/A\_Hyrulean\_Adventure:\_A\_Link\_to\_the\_Future) the story featured an unknown island on hyrule, and new species known as Kani and Shigrami. There was also a mysterious empire known as the Sirius Empire.

Nintendo power ran a similar story earlier in that year, about Metroid, known as Blood of the Chozo (https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/Blood\_of\_the\_Chozo) one that had a lot of lore created by Nintendo. unfortunately, that story is barely archived, just like this story. However, blood of the chozo at the very least had a large part of its main story archived by a user of Metroid Forums, who posted their archive sometime in 2008, as detailed on the metroid wiki article.

From what i've found in my research, it seems that seemingly all archives of "A Hyrulean Adventure" were lost when Nintendo Power shut down their AOL chatroom, where the story was played- Nintendo Power Source.

So, i figured i'd ask on here- does anyone have any info, or memories, about this event, or any parts of the story (specifically parts created by nintendo power, but really any info would be helpful)? i've been working on archiving it on the wiki, so i figured i'd ask here.

more info, to potentially jog memories:

-it featured people being shipwrecked on an island and building a city

-an empire known as the Sirius Empire emerged from the wastelands of the island.

-there were users from the previous Metroid event deemed "official scribes". the users were "Darkpanda", the Scribe of Power; "RawleyCoop", Scribe of Wisdom; and "JippyKid", the Scribe of Courage.

I remember growing up and reading on internet chat forums where most Zelda fans really hated this game. I heard criticisms along the lines of how the art style is too childish looking or how the sailing too boring. Nowadays, I see that there are fans who now have a special fondness and nostalgia for this game. The question I have is, how old school fans of the series feel about Wind Waker now?

1. Majoras Mask
2. Ocarina of Time
3. Skyward Sword
4. The Wind Waker
5. Twilight Princess
6. Tears of the Kingdom
7. A Link to the Past
8. Breath of the Wild
9. A Link Between Worlds
10. Links Awakening
11. The Minish Cap
12. Echoes of Wisdom
13. Phantom Hourglass
14. Oracle of Seasons
15. Spirit Tracks
16. Oracle of Ages
17. The Legend of Zelda
18. Four Swords
19. Links Adventure

So, the Downfall Timeline. Everyone loves the Downfall Timeline, right guys?

... right guys?

Okay, i think this will be a rather long post. I've wanted to write this for a long time, and while i considered scrapping it, i've decided against this because i have done so much research on this

I am not interested in the in-universe origin of the Downfall Timeline. I have my own ideas for it. I am, however, very interested in how they came up with it and, perhaps, how it could relate to another very sensitive point in the official timeline: the placement of Four Swords Adventures

So, quick recap here on the timeline up to 1998:

A Link to the Past was made as a distant prequel to the NES games. This was first confirmed in an interview with Miyamoto for The Legend of Zelda Perfect Fan Book, which was translated by @makgameadv on Twitter

This was also supported by both the japanese and american boxes, as well as the official A Link to the Past guide

Quote from the ALttP japanese box: "This time, the stage is set a long time before Link's adventures, in an era when Hyrule was still one country."

Quote from the ALttP american box: "The predecessors of Link and Zelda face monsters on the march when a menacing magician takes over the kingdom."

Quote from official ALttP guide (Zelda 1 section): "Although The Legend of Zelda appeared first in the series of Zelda adventures, it actually takes place many years after the third game. In this time, Hyrule had declined, becoming a rustic land with few remaining signs of its earlier glory. The land was overrun, and Ganon was to blame. At the heart of the conflict lay a missing piece of the Triforce Princess Zelda."

Quote from official ALttP guide (ALttP section): "Back in the mists of time, before the era of The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link, Hyrule was a land of fabulous palaces and magic. It was also a troubled land, and the divisions of light and dark were tearing it apart. The origins of this conflict lay even deeper in the shadows of time, with the coming of the Triforce and the greed of Ganondorf, King of Thieves."

Besides, the game itself ends with Link recovering the Triforce from Ganon, which could reasonably lead to the Golden Era, mentioned in The Adventure of Link. The Silver Arrows, which debuted in Zelda 1, are also made in ALttP.

Then comes Ocarina of Time, and both the character designer and script director of the N64 game said it was supposed to be the Imprisoning War, mentioned in the manual of ALttP. The conflict where the thief Ganondorf claimed the Triforce, became Ganon and was sealed in the Golden Land by Seven Sages. In fact, the script director even said that the Sages were named after some of the towns from TAoL to imply that the towns were named after them in-universe.

According to Satoru Takizawa, the character designer of OoT: "This time, the story really wasn't an original. We were dealing with the "The Imprisoning War of the Seven Sages" from the SNES edition Zelda."

According to Toru Osawa, the script director of OoT: "Though in this game Zelda is now included in the Seven Sages, the other six have the names of the town names from the Disk System edition "The Adventure of Link." In the SNES edition game, the story "Long ago, there was a war called the Imprisoning War" was passed along. A name in the Imprisoning War era is the name of a Town later."

Before we continue, i will give an overview on the Imprisoning War using multiple dialogues from the GBA version of ALttP:

"The Triforce will grant the wishes of whoever touches it, as long as that person lives... That is why it was hidden in the Golden Land. Only a select few were told of its location, but at some point that knowledge was lost... The one who rediscovered the Golden Land was an evil thief named Ganondorf. Luckily, he couldn't figure out how to return to the Light World...

(...)

Ganon's wish was to conquer the world. That wish changed the Golden Land into the Dark World. After building up his power, Ganon planned to go on to the Light World to fulfill his wish.

(...)

As the sages sealed the way to the Dark World, the Knights of Hyrule defended them from the attacks of evil monsters. I heard that the Knights of Hyrule were nearly wiped out in that battle..."

OoT and the Imprisoning War had inconsistencies, yes (the Knights of Hyrule being absent from OoT is a very noticeable one), but most of them could be chalked up to "the story of the Imprisoning War in ALttP is a legend based on OoT, which is the true event, that's why there are some differences". There was a big one, though, that couldn't be easily explained: the Triforce. Ganondorf was sealed at the end of OoT with the Triforce of Power, but in ALttP he had the full Triforce. This couldn't be a retcon (OoT retroactively stablishing that Ganon only had the ToP in ALttP) because the whole plot of ALttP lies on Ganon having the Triforce. In fact, we see that he was guarding the Triforce at the end!

Despite this, though, it was pretty clear the intention was for OoT to be the Imprisoning War. North Castle, the oldest Zelda site still online, was made in 1997 and in 1998 a page about the chronology of the series was made, which stated the following: "Another point of interest is the number of Links and Zeldas. I have put numbers next to them when each generation is born. Link and Zelda I are from The Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64. Link and Zelda II are from A Link to the Past on the SNES and Link's Awakening on the Gameboy. Zelda III is mentioned in Zelda II, as a Princess put to sleep generations ago. Finally Link III and Zelda IV are from the original The Legend of Zelda games on the NES, The Legend of Zelda and Link's Adventure."

Majora's Mask was released in 2000 as a sidestory to OoT and the Oracle Games came in 2001 as interquels, set between ALttP and LA. We also had Four Sword in 2002, and Aonuma later said in 2004 that it was the earliest game at the time.

So the timeline by 2002 was FS > OoT (with MM as a sidestory) > ALttP > OoS/OoA > LA > TLoZ/TAoL. That's fine... Until The Wind Waker came in and took ALttP's place as the sequel to OoT. The Split Timeline was also confirmed by Eiji Aonuma in 2002, and 4 years later we saw the Child sequel to OoT in Twilight Princess. This left ALttP (and, by proxy, all of the older 2D games) apparently out of the timeline, as its relationship to OoT had been severed.

I think that i have tracked all of the Zelda team's movements trying to include the older 2D games again in the timeline after TWW was released, and i will explain my reasoning with evidences here

Nothing that i will show here is new, but i've never seen all of this in the same page. I've also never seen someone trying to point an exact timeframe for when the Downfall Timeline was officialized, as i plan on doing.

My first idea is that, after TWW was released, ALttP and the other games were moved to the Child Timeline, after MM. Basically the master document on the timeline, mentioned by Miyamoto in 2002, would have been this:

..............TWW

............../

FS - OoT

..............\

..............MM - ALttP/OoS/OoA/LA - TLoZ/TAoL

However it wouldn't be as simple as saying that Ganondorf tried to bruteforce his way into the Sacred Realm and the Imprisoning War would've happened. The Child ending of OoT heavily implied Link now had the Triforce of Courage, which means that the Triforce was no longer complete in the Sacred Realm. I think that there was a very big gap between MM and ALttP where a lot of unseen things happened, like the Triforce being reunited and a new Ganondorf being born to become the Ganon from the 2D games, not OoT Ganondorf. Basically a gap like the one we have between the timeline and BotW, where a lot of things happened and it's not very clear what exactly happened. In the same 2004 interview where he confirmed FS as the oldest game, Aonuma said this: "To me storyline is important, and as producer, I am going to be going through, and trying to bring all of these stories together, and kind of make them a little bit more clear. Unfortunately, we just haven’t done that yet."

To me, this implies that there were still unclear things to be answered in order to fully connect all games. We know he couldn't be talking about FS, OoT, MM and TWW, so he had to be talking about ALttP and its sequels in relation to the newer games. In other words, at the time of TWW, the Zelda team didn't exactly knew how the Child Timeline would lead into ALttP, they only knew that it had to lead into ALttP. And the first step, i believe, was supposed to be Four Swords Adventures.

This is an old story in the theorizing community by now, but there are some evidences that, at some point, FSA was supposed to be a new Imprisoning War, replacing OoT and introducing a new Ganon, Ganondorf II. Benjamin Lamoreux wrote an article for Zelda Dungeon about it, so i'll link it so everyone can read and get a quick explanation on the theory that FSA was going to be a new prequel to ALttP

If this is accurate, and i believe it was, the timeline by 2004, with FSA and The Minish Cap, would've looked like this:

........................TWW

......................../

TMC - FS - OoT

........................\

........................MM - FSA - ALttP/OoS/OoA/LA - TLoZ/TAoL

However, FSA wasn't released as planned. The story was heavily altered, to the point that the actual game could no longer be the Imprisoning War. Not only that, but "what happened to Ganondorf I?" was still a question with no official answer. Or at least it had no official answer until Twilight Princess was released two years later. Aonuma confirmed in an interview in february 2007 that Twilight Princess as a sequel to OoT in the Child Timeline. It revealed that the whole Triforce had split when OoT Link came back in time, and also showed the death of Ganondorf I. TP showed the Master Sword on the Sacred Grove, like in ALttP, and stablished that there was an all-Hylian group of Sages on the CT. it was clear, however, that there had been some changes in the plot during development.

It's interesting that Ganondorf I had a cut monologue that said that another of his blood would appear in the next time that a hero and a princess appeared: "When the chosen ones appear... They are always born into this world in perfect balance. That is the destiny of the chosen. That is the fate decreed by your gods, the only path for those who bear their crests. When this world brings forth another marked as you are... Know too, that it shall also be visited by one of my blood."

It is important to note, however, that this is just Nintendo of America's translation. The original japanese version seems to be more vague, but it still mentions the "anthithesis" to the hero and the princess and an upcoming era of bloodshed, which i believe were supposed to foreshadow Ganon II and the Imprisoning War: "When one appears bearing the chosen power, so shall their antithesis invariably come into being. That is the destiny of those who bear the crests granted by the gods in which you believe. Each time a crest-bearer appears in this world, an era of bloodshed ever shall follow."

This seems a stretch at first, but both FSA and TP were made roughly at the same time and, more importantly, had the same writer, Aya Kyogoku, the current director of the Animal Crossing games. It would be reasonable for her to want to connect both of the games that she worked in, with TP killing off Ganondorf I and FSA introducing Ganondorf II

Once again, however, things eventually changed. I don't know why, exactly, but after TP was released Aonuma finally created the Downfall Timeline to place ALttP, OoS/OoA, LA, TLoZ and TAoL. FSA, no longer being able to be placed between OoT and ALttP, was vestigially kept after TP. The main reason for me to believe the Downfall Timeline was made around here is the cancelled Retro Studio Sheikah game, which can be seen here

According to the artist who did the concept arts, this project was being developed around 2005-2008 and would take place after the "bad ending of Ocarina of Time". More specifically, i have reasons to believe it was being developed between 2007 and 2008

The description for OoT on the Wii Virtual Console, in february 27th, 2007, included this passage, translated with Google Translate: "The names of the characters in the game are the same as the names of towns that appear in the Disk System software "The Adventure of Link", and there are plot elements that are similar to the old tales told in "A Link to the Past", so there are some gimmicks that will entertain those who have played the previous games."

This is relevant because it was the first time in almost 10 years where the connection between OoT and the older games was officially acknowledged. I believe this was because even the Zelda team was unsure of how exactly ALttP connected to OoT in a post-TWW world and it was tentatively moved to the end of the Child Timeline. FSA and TP were meant to connect MM and ALttP, but ultimately the final releases didn't worked as originally intended, so Aonuma felt it would be better to make a third branch to reconnect OoT and ALttP and explain the Triforce plothole that i mentioned above

Both Aonuma's interview confirming TP's placement and the existence of only two branches in the timeline and this description implying OoT was the Imprisoning War are from february 2007, so i believe the Downfall Timeline was made between those two events, somewhere in february 2007. Two years later, in 2009, Aonuma once again affirmed the connection between OoT and the older games: "Each of the races has a character fated to become on the sages later on. We named them after towns in The Adventure of Link so it would appear that the towns had been named after them. (In the world of Zelda, the events of Ocarina of Time occur before the events of The Adventure of Link.)"

So this is my whole essay on the development of the Downfall Timeline, and how ALttP went from a sequel to OoT on the Adult Timeline (despite the Triforce issue) to a sequel to OoT on the Child Timeline and then to a sequel to OoT on the newly made Downfall Timeline. In short, this is how i think things happened:

-1998: Ocarina of Time is released as a prequel to A Link to the Past

-2002: The Wind Waker is released as OoT's sequel, ALttP and the other games are moved to the end of the Child Timeline

-2004-2006: FSA and TP are released, originally intended to bridge MM and ALttP but failing

-Mid february 2007: The Downfall Timeline is finally made

- 2011: Hyrule Historia is released, finally revealing to the public the existence of the Downfall Timeline

Well, this is it. Thanks everyone for reading it. I hope this has shed a new light on how i think we ended up with the Downfall Timeline and why FSA is on the Child Timeline

I recently completed echoes of wisdom and while I loved it, a part of me was wondering all throughout if the switch to Zelda as the central protagonist affected much in the story. Of course this is 2D Zelda so I shouldn't expect as much story content as, say, Skyward Sword, but there were times I thought to myself "would anything change if link was still the protagonist?" In terms of the story that is.

I think the usage of Zelda shined the most with the plot points regarding hyrule castle as we see a bit of her relationship with the king and impa, but outside of that, she's basically unknown by most other NPCs not related to the castle/Castle Town so nothing much would've changed if link was the hero.

Honestly this isn't much of an issue though I wish we could have seen Zelda's role as princess affect how others treated her or, as consolation to her being a silent protagonist, have link actually speak.

I always wondered about that, because in the first games he is always that pig-like beast and suddenly in Ocarina of Time he had his real "human" form (Ganondorf). Is there any information about that? And if not, why do you think it was changed by Nintendo like that?

Btw random but did you ever noticed how Ganondorf and Bowser both have redish longer hair? It's like if it's Miyamotos thing to do to his villains lol

I have an interesting theory in regards to a hard, definitive timeline placement of the Wild era games, but I wanted to make sure I was considering all the evidence I possibly could before I posted it somewhere. I also hadn't seen much timeline discussion as it relates to any new evidence that appeared in Tears of the Kingdom, so I wanted to just have a centralized place for all of the potential evidence. 

Anything at all is welcome. If you have your own theory, leave it here. Want to expand on a point that's already been mentioned? Say it. Random detail you aren't sure fits? Leave it anyway. Nothing is too crazy. 

Here's what I remember, I'll update if I think of anything else myself: 

- The Rito's presence 

- The Zora's presence alongside the Rito 

- Koroks 

- Rock Salt's description, could be Lanayru from Skyward Sword or Wind Waker's Great Sea 

- The Hyrule Warriors theory, either Child Timeline because it's only timeline specific game reference was Twilight Princess before DLC, or Unified Timeline because of the DLC and the time powers that would make a unified timeline possible in the first place 

- Arbiter's Grounds present in Breath of the Wild 

- The springs of power and courage being the same as they were in Skyward Sword 

- The Forgotten Temple 

- Lon Lon Ranch's ruins 

- "Whether skyward bound, adrift in time, or steeped in the glowing embers of twilight..." also happens to be the same three games that make up Hyrule Warriors before the DLC got involved 

- Referring to the Divine Beasts as divine beasts, similar to Midna's comment about a blue-eyed divine beast 

- Majora's Mask DLC item 

- Ruto is mentioned on the Zora's stone tablets 

- Basically all the location names 

- Fi's chiming 

- Hyrule being sick of Ganon reincarnating so much, possibly evidence for the downfall timeline 

- The Downfall Timeline only features the Ganon form, not the Ganondorf one, although with Tears of the Kingdom this might invalidate this evidence being in favor of the Downfall Timeline (Side Note: Is Calamity Ganon a projection of Tears of the Kingdom's Ganondorf? How can there be incarnations of Ganon when one is sealed, that's not how it's worked in the past unless it's an Agahnim situation, but with the power Calamity Ganon is shown to have I find myself skeptical) 

- Temple of Time and Ocarina of Time's Castle Town ruins on the Great Plateau 

- Wolf Link 

- Ooccaa may have evolved into the Rito instead of being the same Rito as the Adult Timeline, although the stone relief in TP's Castle Town I usually see in association with this has the Ooccaa in a different panel 

- The Fokka from Adventure of Link, which are bipedial birdmen warriors 

- Hyrule Castle's architecture from Breath of the Wild and Twilight Princess is the most similar to each other 

- Breath of the Wild's map is very close geographically with A Link to the Past 

- Spectacle Rock is only in the Downfall Timeline 

- Lynels are also only in the Downfall Timeline, depending on where Echoes of Wisdom falls 

- "He has given up on reincarnation and assumed his pure, enraged form." I heard somewhere this was mistranslated into meaning the opposite, meaning he decided it was better to reincarnate faster(?) but it's a confusing comment to me either way. 

- The yellow band present on the Cap of the Wild is present on every game from the Downfall Timeline and the Downfall Timeline only, again, depending on the Echoes of Wisdom placement 

- Fragmented Monument quest 

- Eventide Island referencing Link's Awakening 

- River Zora vs. Sea Zora, friendly Zora are only present in the Central and Child Timelines, Rito in the Adult Timeline, and turn into River Zora and become enemies in the Downfall Timeline 

- Manhandla's appear in the Downfall Timeline and Four Swords Adventures, which is in the Child Timeline 

- Valley of Seers lining up with the Spring of Power in Breath of the Wild 

- Blue being a symbol of respect of the Royal Family in the Champion's Tunic description, Hyrule Warriors is the most obvious culprit but the Ocarina of Time is also blue, something only the Royal Family is supposed to have access to, or the Hylian Shield's blue 

- Ganondorf's five chain crown piece from Twilight Princess, consistent with his Hyrule Warriors appearance, and Calamity Ganon has a similar piece made of Shiekah technology 

- Ganon is mostly bipedal, quadrupedal in Twilight Princess, Hyrule Warriors, and Dark Beast Ganon, tusks also match 

- Vah Medoh is named after Medli, while the others are named after Ocarina of Time's Ruto, Darunia, and Nabooru 

Over the years, I've noticed that some fans of BotW don't hesitate to name it among the most "influental" games of the current gaming landscape. But frankly, I don't see it? To me it feels like people jump to that conclusion because they see its huge sales numbers and because gaming outlets often rank BotW very highly in their top game lists.

But where is the influence in actual game design? Ironically, while I'm not the biggest BotW fan, I truly WISH it had big influence. Because it irritates me to no end that exploration in action adventure games has been dying for a while now. More and more developers follow the Ubisoft formula of guiding you through an entire campaign with glowing breadcrumbs, artificial GPS systems and map icons that completely destroy player agency. BotW should have been the antidote for this and prove to publishers that their audiences can handle action adventures with free exploration.

Yet the reality is, almost no one does exploration like BotW - everything's still leaning towards Ubi-maps and handholding. It's like 30 million copies sold never happened or other developers didn't understand the appeal. Because some games copied the graphical style of BotW, but not the actual game approach. When I think of influential games of the past years, I'd point to Resident Evil 2 Remake. It singlehandedly reinvented 3rd person survival horror and we simply wouldn't have gotten Silent Hill 2 Remake, Alan Wake 2, an Alone in the Dark Reboot, Dead Space Remake, etc. without its big success. The closest connection to BotW's game design I can find is Elden Ring, but one could argue that FROM Software was always heading towards this kind of game.

So I played and beat oracle of ages first. I got the noble sword and beat that game, and then linked the game to seasons. In seasons, I used the king zora secret to get the noble sword again (and therefore the master sword in ages.) in order to get the master sword in Seasons, I’ve been told that I need to talk to the old lady by the seed tree in Lynna Village.

My problem is, she’s not there? The game is definitely beaten and my game is linked. I don’t know how to make her appear. Any suggestions?

For clarity’s sake: I have the master sword in Ages (my first game.) I have the noble sword in Seasons (my linked game.)

The Dark Realm in Spirit Tracks and the Oracle games have demons, or malevolent beings with evil intent originating from, or being summoned from them. In spirit tracks, the final battle takes place in an arena that looks strikingly similar to Hyrule, specifically around the area at the beginning of the game where Cole and Alfonzo fight.

In Four Swords Adventures magicians of evil intent seem to originate here as well, along with other monsters having a strong connection to the Dark World. The World also features a parallel world practically identical to Hyrule. I'm wondering if these two places are the same place, and if it's all essentially a hell where demons originate.

To be clear before i start, this is NOT timeline related. Not directly, at least. You can read it as such if you want, but my focus here are the games individually

Every once in a while, an article pops out in Nintendo-related groups where Aonuma says that the Zelda team prioritizes gameplay and then build the story around it, and somehow a lot of people mistakenly interpret that he is saying story does not matter. This is not true at all

Having gameplay as a priority, i'd say, is the right thing to do. A game with a simple/nonexistent story but with good gameplay is always better than a game with an amazing story and complex characters but with a boring gameplay. I wouldn't play the latter, i would just watch the cutscenes on YouTube. Frankly, doing that might even help them making the gameplay flow with the story better, as the story is built around the gameplay

Like, if the Zelda team did not cared about doing good stories for the games, they could easily just take the easy route and make every game with the simple story from Zelda 1, but with different gameplay styles each time. No Zelda game has the same exact story. There are parallels, sometimes deliberate parallels, but they are all unique when it comes to what's going on with their narrative.

In fact, one of the first things Aonuma said when he became the main producer of the series was this: "To me storyline is important, and as producer, I am going to be going through, and trying to bring all of these stories together, and kind of make them a little bit more clear."

Even Miyamoto, infamously and wrongly known to some as "Mr. I Hate Storylines", said that stories are important. He just doesn't want them to become so convoluted people won't understand

"The most important thing for me, is that the player get sucked into the game. I want the games to be easy to understand, and that the people appreciate the games content, its core. I will never deny the importance of a great story, but the plot should never get that important that it becomes unclear."

Those kinds of statements aren't as nearly as shared as the ones where they say gameplay is their priority

So yeah, i think some people fail to realize that this is not exclusive to Zelda. I'd say most games are made with the gameplay first because that's their nature as interactive media. Even games with more complex stories than Zelda are made like that. That doesn't mean they do not care about putting a good story in the game and anyone who plays Zelda can see they always try to do something different when it comes to the plot, just like they do for the gameplay

Yes, that also does not means Zelda has the deepest narratives out there. But, sometimes, it is better not to. A lot of game franchises are being meme'd on the internet due to their stories being so complex they become confusing and borderline unable to be understood without a 3-hour youtube video. At the end of the day, Zelda games do not have extremely deep and Oscar-winning stories, but they do not have nonenxistent stories either. Like Miyamoto said, they are just... good stories. And sometimes that's more than enough

Thanks for your attention

Back at it again with a new "Roll for..." Challenge Playthrough. I've made a few of these (most recently posted about Skyward Sword), but to summarize: the basic idea is you roll on a table of categories to determine what limits you put on yourself for each section of the game. Each section is a little different that way, and you have to continually adapt as you progress. Here's a link to the dropbox that has the template sheet in it.

If anyone gives it a shot let me know how it goes! I'd love to hear feedback as this isn't this first "Roll for..." challenge I've made.

Sorry if this has already been answered but i'm making a Zelda powerpoint for my powerpoint night where i'm going to be explaining the basics of Zelda and this includes the timeline. I thought I understood how the timeline split works between the child and adult timelines but i'm confused as to why the adult timeline exists at all.

So when we get sent back in time at the end of OOT and then warn the kingdom to stop Ganondorf from taking over then why does he still exist for the adult timeline to exist? Due to basics of time travel then theoretically he shouldn't even exist for the adult timeline because we prevented that future from coming to fruition, then again neither should Zelda.

Can someone please explain to me how this is possible that he can exist in both realities?

I wrote this thing a couple of days ago

So, quick recap: we know from many, many, many sources that ALttP was seen as a prequel to the NES games, the infamous Miyamoto order notwithstanding. We also know from both the character designer and script director of OoT that OoT was made as an adaptation of the Sealing War, the backstory of ALttP. So by 1998 the order was OoT > ALttP/LA > TLoZ/TAoL

There are problems with every other theory. The Extended Adult Timeline (OoT > TWW/PH > ST > Downfall Games) was, from what i can see, the most popular hypothesis pre-Historia. The problem is that Old Hyrule and the Master Sword no longer existed after TWW. The Extended Child Timeline (OoT/MM > TP > FSA > Downfall Games) also has problems because the Sages that sealed Ganon can't be the ones from OoT, and we know they must be because of the towns named after them in TAoL. Heck, Ganon himself can't be the one from OoT

I've made an entire thread on the problems i see with the Minish Cap split theory, feel free to look up on my profile

The only sensible solution to place those games is to separate ALttP/LA from TLoZ/TAoL and place each duo in a different timeline. OoT/MM > TP > FSA > ALttP/LA accounts for the Master Sword and Old Hyrule and without TAoL there is no need to assume the ALttP Sages are the ones from OoT. OoT > TWW/PH > ST > TLoZ/TAoL accounts for the towns named after the Sages and as a bonus also accounts for the lack of the Master Sword in the NES games and allows the sleeping Zelda to actually be Zelda I of New Hyrule. It seems like a perfect solution!

But, if the official timeline did this, they would be ignoring the original intent for... all of the first five games, really. ALttP is no longer a prequel to the NES games and OoT is no longer a direct prequel to ALttP. You might not like the DT and/or think other theories "make more sense", but i think that keeping the original intent intact is a very important thing

The ECT, the EAT, splitting the games between both timelines and the Minish Cap Split all have the same problem: if the Zelda team did this, they would be doing exactly what a lot of people wrongly accuse the timeline of being: an after-the-fact made-up thing that connects games which were not originally supposed to be connected. The justification for the DT is a retcon, yes, but the order itself is what was always intended

Also all alternatives take away all the potential the other two branches have. The AT is a brand new Ganondorf-less Hyrule with infinite potential really and the CT has a Ganon with a fully-functional brain still alive and just waiting the right moment to escape from the Four Sword

Another criticism of the DT is that we don't get to see Ganon getting the Triforce after defeating Link, but the most popular alternative (FSA > ALttP) has the same problem. I'd say it's even worse because we have to assume that Ganon escaped from the Four Sword, formed a band of thieves, found the Sacred Realm, claimed the Triforce (mind you, we also have to assume the Triforce was reunited offscreen after TP and returned to the SR) and then the Sealing War happened. Possible? Yes, but it has unarguably more assumptions than the DT, and there is no clear connection between FSA and ALttP like we have with OoT and ALttP. The ALttP trident doesn't even seems to be the FSA trident upon closer inspection. At this point you might as well just use Ganon's origin in ALttP and place FSA elsewhere. FSA is completely inconsequential to the ECT, despite the FSA/ALttP connection being one of its marketing points since FSA was originally made as a prequel to ALttP. Or was it?

We have no confirmation about FSA originally being a new prequel to ALttP. We have evidence and theories, yes, but no solid proof. Meanwhile, OoT as a prequel to ALttP has been confirmed multiple times throughout the years, with the connection between both games being mentioned as late as 2007, before HH

Also, i think i should address the idea of OoT Link being defeated. There is undeniably a good amount of nostalgic bias against the DT. Clearly, the hero being defeated, by itself, is not a problem to everyone who dislikes the DT as the Minish Cap split is always being thrown around as an alternative. The problem to a lot of people lies at the fact that the Hero of Time specifically is defeated. Some say this renders his journey pointless, which is why the ECT is better. But i'd argue that the ECT is what actually makes the Hero of Time's journey pointless

Cool, he saved future Hyrule. But it was flooded and destroyed. So he went to the past and ended up causing a butterfly effect that leads to the Sealing War, Ganon ends up with the full Triforce instead of only the Triforce of Power and Hyrule becomes a wasteland by the end of the timeline while people in the AT eventually recover and build new thriving lives. Good job, Hero of Time, you managed to create a WORSE future somehow

To finish this rant, another criticism: "oh, if Link can be defeated in any game why don't we have infinite Downfall Timelines?"

This one has always baffled me because the answer is, quite frankly, blatantly obvious: there might be other Downfall Timelines, we just don't see them because there are no other games in them. Besides, in all other occasions where Link loses (including TMC) the world is doomed. If Link dies in Zelda 1, Hyrule is doomed. If Link dies in ALttP, the Light World is doomed. Even in OoT, if Link dies at the Deku Tree dungeon, the world is doomed. HH goes out of its way to specify the DT branches off from the final battle of OoT because this is the single point where Link being defeated does not automatically condemns the world, as the Sages were awakened and could contain Ganon if needed. OoT was, after all, based on a story about Seven Sages sealing Ganon without a hero

I hope this text was good

TLDR: not only the Downfall Timeline keeps the original intent of the first 5 games somewhat intact instead of ignoring it, it also allows for CT Hyrule to have a better future, which would otherwise make the Hero of Time going back to the past a stupid idea

Just picking up the key points:

About the Reveal

Series producer Aonuma acknowledges "a lot of the focus of the topic of conversation was going to be on Zelda being the main protagonist".

But, he says, a bigger concern for him was "whether or not the unique gameplay of the echoes was going to be conveyed properly and understood properly by the viewers".

It's a feeling shared by directors Terada and Sano.

"Whether or not the Zelda fans would accept these new elements was something I was watching over nervously," says Terada, chief of third-party co-developer Grezzo.

Sano says she was "relieved to see that it was being accepted positively, and was really watching closely over my smartphone to see people's reactions the following day as well".

Getting used to the new systems

Aonuma, who says he completed Echoes of Wisdom eight times during its development, admits that he had similar feelings on his first playthrough.

"From the second time through I sort of realised that there's various ways and methods of overcoming these puzzles and overcoming the challenges," he says.

Aonuma says experimenting with different methods helped him to change his experience.

"And so I think that realisation that you can do various things and there are various ways to overcome and solve these puzzles is sort of a turning point of whether you become used to using the echoes in the new game system."

Watching the videos of what the players do

Terada says that the team spent a lot of time testing Echoes of Wisdom's various combinations, but even they were surprised once people got their hands on it.

"Seeing how players are using it, I was really amazed at people's imaginations," he says.

The developers admit they were impressed by one trick that's been widely shared, of players combining a bed with a tornado to propel Zelda into the air.

"That was one that we hadn't thought of," Terada admits.

Sano adds: "Players were using the tornado and the bed to actually climb and go over mountains.

"And this was something that I was amazed by, something that I probably wouldn't be able to do."

Game Criticisms

Many players said the game's frame rate - which governs the smoothness of on-screen animations - was unstable.

Sano confirmed that Echoes of Wisdom uses a variable frame rate, and that the developers felt this was the "best option" available.

Players and reviewers also had complaints about the menu system used to select echoes during the game.

By the end it's possible to have gathered a total of 127, and the main method of selecting them involves scrolling sideways through a very long row of icons.

It can be filtered using options including most used and newest, but many still felt that it could have been more streamlined.

Terada tells Newsbeat the developers wanted to encourage players to experiment.

"One of the essences of this game is being able to figure out different ways of using each of these echoes," he says.

"And so in that sense we wanted players to fall upon and see the echoes that they may not have noticed or have been using while they're sorting through all the echoes that they have."

He also pointed out that there's an alternative notebook method which enables players to access the echoes they've gathered more quickly.

This was all BBC interview but there's also an interview with famitsu:

Link was originally going to speak

In an interview with Famitsu, grezzo director Satoshi Terada and producer Eiji Aonuma revealed that they originally wanted Link to have written dialogue in the game.

The pair explained that throughout the history of The Legend of Zelda series, the idea has always been that the protagonist doesn’t speak. Because the protagonist has always been Link, that essentially meant Link never spoke (other than occasional dialogue options for the player)

However, because Zelda is the protagonist in Echoes of Wisdom, the idea was originally that she would be the only character with no dialogue, allowing Link to have lines for the first time.

“Actually, Link was speaking at first,” Aonuma confirmed.

“I had Link talk a little bit,” Terada agreed, adding: “No matter what I made him say, it just didn’t feel right.”

“Link would never speak like that,” Aonuma explained. “It felt really strange. Nobody knew what Link would say – that’s only natural, because he’s never spoken before.

“So we had to come up with a setting where he couldn’t speak, and that’s how we came up with part of the story.”

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/link-was-going-to-speak-in-zelda-echoes-of-wisdom-but-nintendo-thought-it-didnt-feel-right/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7nm2g9n9ro

We know little or nothing about Link's parents in all Zelda games, besides that they are most likely dead, however, I think that the few clues we have about the family of most Links (BOTW/TOTK, AlttP, OoT/MM, as well as comics) point to their fathers being a knights.

BOTW/TOTK - Pretty sure his father was officially a knight.

AlttP - While we don't actually know anything about his father, we could assume that his father was a knight just like his uncle, who could be his father's brother.

OoT/MM - We know nothing about his father but we know his mother died in a war, Link's father probably died fighting in that same war (?).

I have found that much of Zelda's lore is related to japanese mythology in some way, so, I'm wondering if there's some sort of myth about a heroe born from the seed of an unknown soldier. Is my idea baseless and too stupid? Or could there be something interesting here?

I've recently started my LoZ revival (grew up playing Alttp, OoT, MM and MC, but never finished other games) and having a blast after playing WW, BotW, EoW and AlbW for the first time.

When Tears launched, I've mostly seen people complinentint the game, but since it was long before I played any Zelda game I didn't have much contact with general players, only content creators. Now that I've been more into discussions about the franchise again, the general feeling I get is that people are disappointed with Tears and this made my hype go downhill to the point I didn't go right to it after finishing BotW even though I already owned the game.

It's important to say that I know basically nothing about Tears. There are some small things I know but a friend of mine told me they didn't even scratch the surface. This means that I didn't read any detailed reviews that could give more in depth details about content or quality of the game - and which may have made my vision of it all change.

The reason I'm making this post is just to know how you guys feel about Tears. I'm a bit sad that I was really hyped to play it when the game launched (even though there was no sign I'd own a Switch in the future) and now I feel like delaying it until it's the only game left. You guys may argue that expecting nothing may make the experience feel better but to me it's usually the opposite: I prefer to start a game hyped, even more if it's from a franchise I like a lot.

So, how do you see it? Should I really not expect much from it or was my vision of it too biased on spoiler-free opinions?