That's not reasonable and people are hyping themselves up. Historically all things point to "no", so I don't see how you can lay this at their feet.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Aonuma won't say if you can play as Zelda in Breath of the Wild 2
- Thread starter NotLiquid
- Start date
Lol.
After this interview, it's kinda obvious. If she wasn't playable at all, he would try to kill the expectations.
The thing is how much and how different from link will she be. A segment, half the game, the whole game? A skin of Link or a different playthrough as in Resident Evil 2?
I sure hope not! This "one new 3D Zelda game every 5+ years" cycle they are on is killin' me! This better be out before Metroid Prime 4, haha.
The more I watch that little trailer, the more I think that not only is Zelda playable, she is THE main character, because Link is corrupted or whatever was happening to him there. It would also allow good reasoning to have to start at square one for the player, instead of starting with the Master Sword and the powerful beast abilities and full set of hearts and stamina and whatnot.
Have we played the same Zelda games?
Link would nearly never win final fights without Zelda's help, and even less progress in his adventure without her (either through motivation or her direct help). Plenty of people are fans of Zelda without her being playable or being seen in every cutscene.
And I don't think Zelda fans would want some shitty AI helping like Atreus in God of War either (for the "sit on the sidelines" comment).
edit:
Like when he didn't want to say if Link was a girl in BOTW, then clarified after threads like this that Link was never planned to be a girl?
It's Aonuma, he's always like this in interviews because he thinks he's mysterious and funny.
Because there not saying no instead of just being honest.
People have been wanting Zelda to be playable for years and beings dicks about instead of being straight up is just gonna make people more excited for the idea
It wouldn't 100 percent be their fault but they would absolutely deserve some of the blame.
Link needed her help for a battle or two max in one or two games and you equate that to having her be the single playable Protagonist? Really?
Oh yeah her showing up in the last cut scene to cast magic is such a wonderful contribution. All that deep nuance.
People can like characters without them having great representation. I love Mipha but I'm not gonna pretend she's a flawless character that they couldn't do more with.
If Zelda's so perfect then why did they bother putting her in Smash?
Why create new movesets for her in Hyrule Warriors.
Why is her being in Cadence of Hyrule a selling point?
People like Zelda. People also want her to be playable and for her own series to stop kicking her to the curb.
I feel we have this discussion every single time a new Zelda game is released and then....We don't get to play as her.
I did think it was kind of odd that Zelda seemed like the more prominent character of the two in that teaser, which may not mean anything, but maybe it does.
Come on guys don't do this to yourselves, Aonuma did exactly the same when people thought Link was a girl or that you could create your own Link for BotW (don't know what made people think that but whatever) and ultimately he clarified that Link is always the hero of these games.
Also go watch the trailer again, they show Link apparently getting a new ability with that glowing arm, so there's no way he won't be the protagonist here.
So no, Zelda won't be the protagonist and no, we won't be able to play as her.
The best case scenario would be that she kept the Sheikah Slate and there will be some sections where we have to use her to advance, but it's better to not expect this and be pleasantly surprised rather that be completely disappointed in the end.
Also go watch the trailer again, they show Link apparently getting a new ability with that glowing arm, so there's no way he won't be the protagonist here.
So no, Zelda won't be the protagonist and no, we won't be able to play as her.
The best case scenario would be that she kept the Sheikah Slate and there will be some sections where we have to use her to advance, but it's better to not expect this and be pleasantly surprised rather that be completely disappointed in the end.
C'mon you can want Zelda playable (I want too) without pretending all her other appearances are bad. She's great in several games, like Spirit Tracks and Ocarina of Time (and bad in others).
There are all sorts of reasons for not answering. He could be being a dick, but it might not be decided yet, or it might be tied to something in game. He isn't obligated to tell us everything or anything about the game yet, even though we'd like to know.
I think it's fine to want Zelda to be playable. I do too. People have wanted all sorts of different things. But based on everything we know about the Zelda series over those years, it's not likely, and the way people acted last time was outrageous. I'd hope people learn from that. It's totally fine to be disappointed, but Nintendo hasn't slighted you. There's no need to overreact to not getting what you want, especially when it's unlikely.
My line of thinking is this is exactly the same thing he did when people were asking for the option of Link being a girl in BoTW before they finally put the kibosh to it, so I'm not getting my hopes up.
I could see her being playable this round. Not at Links expense, but the trailer sure framed it as both of them being prominent in the game.
I just hope that, if she'll be a co-protagonist, her gameplay would be different from Link, but not in a Sheik way.
1) I didn't equate the two, just defending the fact that Zelda isn't a useless character, far from it
2) it's easy to check that she's been needed in nearly all the 3D games, and not just in the final battle, as said in my post.
People like Zelda, absolutely, that's what I just told you in my previous post.
She's also playable or even a main character in spinoffs, as said in my previous post, and as Aonuma pointed out in the first place.
It seems it's a "put her in or it means you hate her!" situation for you. She's well loved by plenty of fans and at Nintendo as well (she wouldn't get that much representation otherwise), but they've also decided that they want to focus on a single character as a main character in mainline games.
I don't see how this is a difficult concept, nor why some nuance isn't allowed. It's also not unusual at all for this genre of games to focus on a single character in long franchises, especially established ones.
There are only very few action adventures out there where you play two different main characters, if any in recent days. They could implement a switch-mechanic(pun intended) though, where you could change between link and Zelda on the fly. I doubt it will happen though.
I doubt we'll get it, though he was a little less coy about if Link was a girl in BotW than he is here.
But I've always wondered why we don't have a Zelda game or spinoff actually starring Zelda. We got one for Princess Peach, with her emotion powers being something completely new to the series. Zelda's pretty consistently depicted as a talented magic-user and intelligent strategist; why not funnel that into a game? Even something stealthy with Sheik could be cool.
But I've always wondered why we don't have a Zelda game or spinoff actually starring Zelda. We got one for Princess Peach, with her emotion powers being something completely new to the series. Zelda's pretty consistently depicted as a talented magic-user and intelligent strategist; why not funnel that into a game? Even something stealthy with Sheik could be cool.
She's pretty amazing, especially in Ocarina of Time but she is always only really rolled out in the end for the final battle and either is living in hiding, containing Ganon or investigating until that very moment...
He did say he wanted to make a Sheik stealth game or something. Would like to see it.
I also think the (deserved) criticism Super Princess Peach got, made them a bit scared of pushing games like a Princess Zelda solo title.
Let's take a trip back to January 2017:
edit:
also from 2017
And following that, you had threads of people betting that meant Zelda was playable.
edit:
also from 2017
and
Sorry for the caps, that's how those articles are formatted and I won't bother rewriting old articles for this old debate.
Oh man, I never saw that quote about a Sheik stealth game. That would be so cool!
I haven't touched Super Princess Peach since I was in high school, but I see why people would be irritated with it reducing her down to being an emotional damsel lmao. I like to think Nintendo's a little smarter than "one game with a female protag didn't do well, we should hold off", but nobody's safe from that (even if they're well-intentioned!).
added the links about the Sheik game in my edit above:
edit:
It seems more like the usual female character development in Japanese fiction to me, with the female character cutting her hair (with help or alone) to show she's starting a new life. Cf Mulan too.
Playable Zelda on Cemu has no issue with her long hair either.
edit 2:
Important Haircut - TV Tropes
When a character cuts off their hair, it often symbolizes a rite of passage or bout of character growth. A princess striking out on an adventure, or a new recruit at boot camp, for instance. Parting with it voluntarily can be greatly symbolic.
tvtropes.org
"Why didn't Aonuma casually explain major elements of a massively important game in early development, that was revealed with a clearly deliberately cryptic trailer, off-hand in a random interview?"
