The official Zelda timeline, and some fans' attempts retconning
June 25, 2013 6:54 PM   Subscribe

The Legend of Zelda universe is complex, even if you focus only on the canonical material. Fans have been trying to create a timeline for the stories, but in 2009, Nintendo shot down those attempts, specifically in response to a split timeline series. Still, fans were not satisfied. For instance, in 2012, a fan named Zach played all the canonical titles in a month and wrote a 55 page paper (PDF; page 56 is just a short list word frequencies) on the topic. The only problem was that Nintendo released Hyrule Historia (fan translation) in late 2011, complete with an official timeline. Fans made a humorous translation of the timeline, and had some criticisms for the official history. posted by filthy light thief (30 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Zelda was never a game for me that really needed a coherent timeline, and I think Nintendo feels the same way. Hyrule just isn't epic enough to support it. It has a population of about 50, so that doesn't help much.
posted by Brocktoon at 7:36 PM on June 25, 2013 [9 favorites]


Yeah, in the Historia, there's a note that mentioning that they made the games based on what would be interesting to play, not what made sense as a story, and thus, sometimes the story doesn't make that much sense. It's not surprising that it's full of holes.

Given that, it's too bad that fan pressure made them waste so many pages on the timeline. The best parts of the book by far are the designer sketches and planning sheets. Well, if you don't count the gold leaf-emblazoned cover.
posted by ignignokt at 7:56 PM on June 25, 2013


I followed the links down the rabbit hole and found the videos for Wand of Gamelon, Faces of Evil and Zelda's Adventure. I was unaware these existed. So, yeah...that happened.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 7:57 PM on June 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Surprisingly, for all the speculation in videogame fandom, there doesn't seem to be any good population studies of Hyrule. There's idle speculation, but no proper census.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:57 PM on June 25, 2013


Dear Nintendo, I know there's an HD Windwaker remake coming, and I love you for it, but please do the same for Majora's Mask.
posted by mhoye at 8:09 PM on June 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


If Nintendo's now bothering to handwave towards a timeline and a canon explanation for the Link/Zelda/Ganon story repeating through time, they should at least do one game in a far, far future Hyrule. I'd love to see a Zelda game in a wildly different setting. And really they might as well just make it the world of Metroid so fanon goes nuts.

Also, while I'm wishing: a game where Zelda (as Sheik!) rescues Link.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:26 PM on June 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


jason_steakums: "Also, while I'm wishing: a game where Zelda (as Sheik!) rescues Link."

That would be so amazing. I would be all over it. The wife would be all over it. Hell, she thought it was amazing that I saved the queen in Crono Trigger instead of the princess.
posted by theichibun at 8:41 PM on June 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Zelda was never a game for me that really needed a coherent timeline

Link is an occasional time traveler. Like the Doctor, he's presumably rewritten his own history several times.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:15 PM on June 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


Link is an occasional time traveler. Like the Doctor, he's presumably rewritten his own history several times.

Yes, exactly this! I've never thought Zelda had or was supposed to have a linear, coherent timeline. Each game is a retelling of the stories of the same archetypes, with a sense of all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again; we're not looking at a single unified thread that progresses throughout the chronology of the games.
posted by rhiannonstone at 11:37 PM on June 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


How about alternate universes Link?
posted by Brocktoon at 11:39 PM on June 25, 2013


Oh, man, Space Link with Sticky Boots in like a zero gravity Void Temple would be so cool.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 1:05 AM on June 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


Also, while I'm wishing: a game where Zelda (as Sheik!) rescues Link.

How about alternate universes Link?

I'll just leave this here.
posted by NMcCoy at 1:37 AM on June 26, 2013 [6 favorites]


I may be prompted to buy an old NES just so that I can finish Zelda.
posted by BenPens at 3:30 AM on June 26, 2013


There's something awesome and strangely melancholy about the idea that all these stories exist in the same world, but are so separated by time. A completely planned out timeline would be satisfying and very impressive, and the official timeline works pretty nicely, but the tiny hints of connections which are already there in the games do 99% of the job for me.

I absolutely loved the touches in Skyward Sword along these lines, with the origin of the Hylian Crest, as well as Fi's story and some of the fanart she inspired.

Also, I'm pushing my credit card into my dvd drive as hard as I can, but no Space Zelda game seems to be coming out, should I try cash?
posted by lucidium at 3:32 AM on June 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


I sometimes think of the Zelda games as a kind of a Buddhist thing: the three main characters keep getting reincarnated and acting out the same story again and again, but there is change over time, and maybe even progress.

Also, while I'm wishing: a game where Zelda (as Sheik!) rescues Link.
There was this a while back?

I personally hate the idea of Space Zelda, or even Steampunk Zelda. I guess I'm okay with machinery, but the idea of a Zelda game that takes place in an industrially-organized society seems wrong. Zelda is supposed to have big open natural spaces to explore. Maybe like a very green future with lots of windmills, or in orbit somehow -- but it would be hard to get the tone right, I think.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:46 AM on June 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


I guess I'm okay with machinery, but the idea of a Zelda game that takes place in an industrially-organized society seems wrong.

You can make a pretty good argument that Arkham City is precisely that game.
posted by mhoye at 6:11 AM on June 26, 2013


While this is certainly fun to think about, I think I am mostly surprised that angelfire still exists.
posted by one of these days at 7:53 AM on June 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


You can make a pretty good argument that Arkham City is precisely that game.

An excellent point, and I never thought about it that way before. Despite having items that give you new abilities (including a hookshot), dungeons, exploration, sidequests, collectibles, puzzles, and rooms where you can't leave until you've defeated all the enemies, Arkham City didn't feel at all like a Zelda game. Which is fine, because it isn't, but I think sci-fi Zelda wouldn't either.

On the subject of Angelfire: that website started when OoT came out and has been updated till the present day and I don't think the web design has changed.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:56 AM on June 26, 2013


Weren't there time "freezing" story elements in Windwaker?
posted by Brocktoon at 11:41 AM on June 26, 2013


There were. Here's some SPOILERS....

Halfway into the game the player is taken down, beneath the surface of the sea, to find that beneath it all, in a kind of protected bubble, in stasis for centuries, lies the kingdom of Hyrule, preserved exactly as it was long ago when Ganon attacked. You go inside the castle and there is a horde of enemies, frozen in time. In order to get the Master Sword, you have to undo a magic lock, that unfortunately thaws out the monsters. (It's actually the best combat scene in the game, it's a whole room of enemies of many types! You don't have to beat them all, but it's irresistable, especially with Wind Waker's excellent parry mechanic, and it gives you a good leg-up on the spoils collection quest.)

I think a space, or urban, or modern age, or other Zelda would be great. So far, there have been fourteen "real" Zelda games (Z1, Z2, Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Oracle games of Seasons and Ages, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword), plus eleven problematic "side" games (two versions of Four Swords Adventures, Crossbow Training, the unreleased in the US Tetra's Trackers, the equally unreleased in the US Tingle game, two Satellaview games, Ocarina Master Quest, the subgame in Nintendo Land, and two CDi games). After so many different takes it seems obvious that, if they don't do something to liven up the premise, that the series is going to stagnate further, and one way is to bring up different takes on the game world. The essential aspects of Zelda, as noted by the people above who note that Arkham City is Zelda-esque, are not locked down to a single depiction. They are: free exploration, the discovery of secrets, treasure-based character advancement, and some degree of non-linearity. None of these things requires the traditional approach; indeed, Wind Waker is shaping up to be the classic of the later games, and it doesn't have a traditional overworld. (It's still miles better than Skyward Sword's sky, though.)

BTW: In Hyrule Historia there is some sketchy art of an abandoned early idea that was a more futuristic approach to the game, including a rather surprising drawing of a sci-fi Zelda in a bikini.
posted by JHarris at 5:11 PM on June 26, 2013


JUSTIN BAILEY ------ ------

You could create a space Zelda that would be perceived as a Zelda, but it would veer quite close to Metroid apart from the items/weapons and certain sensibilities.
posted by ersatz at 5:23 PM on June 26, 2013


There's a lot more that separates Zelda and Metroid than just theme. Zelda typically has an explicit division between overworld and dungeons (or "underworld" in the parlance of the first game's manual), while Metroid has no such division. Zelda is usually overhead while Metroid is side-view. Zelda tends to be a lot more about up-close combat compared to Metroid's beams and missiles (although in the first game, notably, you have to find an item to let you shoot more than two blocks away!), Zelda has truly obscure but mostly optional secrets, while Metroid actually forces you to do some exhaustive searching to progress (there are places in the original game where your only clue you can pass some walls is that the screen seems willing to scroll beyond the wall), Zelda's overworld is an area that you travel and retravel, a space through which all routes pass, while Metroid instead uses backtracking, going back to old routes you ordinarily would haveno reason to revisit to get certain items. And so on.
posted by JHarris at 5:51 PM on June 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Metroid is also incredibly silent, narrative-wise, whereas Zelda got questier and questier, to my annoyance.
posted by ignignokt at 7:04 PM on June 26, 2013


I think the platonic Metroid has very little narrative. Unfortunately, some of more recent games, Other M and Metroid Fusion, have been very story heavy, to their detriment.
posted by zixyer at 9:47 PM on June 26, 2013


Agreed. Although Zelda is still fairly quiet compared to, say, your typical JRPG. And it's interesting that Other M and Fusion are usually mentioned when people start talking about the series' missteps.
posted by JHarris at 9:54 PM on June 26, 2013


I thought Other M was pretty good gameplay-wise, I'd love more 2.5d entries to the series, but man, that storyline. I'm not even against the idea of a story-heavy Metroid game, but why did it have to be that story?
posted by jason_steakums at 7:37 AM on June 27, 2013


Metroid is still divided into zones though, which arguably become more dungeon-y as the game progresses. On the other hand, Skyward Sword played with more puzzles during the navigation of the overworld and the Capcom-made The Minish Cap threw a lot of puzzles to navigate the overwold without making it feel un-Zeldalike. Both games have installments with different cameras (overhead, side-view and 3rd person for Zelda versus side-view, 1st person and 3rd person for Metroid). I agree that the weapons are a major difference and a futuristic Zelda could keep variations of current items or weapons, but I think the two series aren't as dissimilar as they seem. However, Metroid has been doing a lot better on sequence breaking.

It's a shame that Other M destroyed the characterisation of Samus.
posted by ersatz at 5:07 PM on June 27, 2013


On the other hand, Skyward Sword played with more puzzles during the navigation of the overworld and the Capcom-made The Minish Cap threw a lot of puzzles to navigate the overwold without making it feel un-Zeldalike.

Skyward Sword's overworld is the sky. The ground segments are just extended dungeons.

I gave the examples, not as a flat "this is what this IS" thing, but as a kind of vague misty definition. Of course there are individual games that overturn all of those points for each series, but overall each tends to have a certain "look," even if certain features are missing from time to time. That was what I was trying to get at.

Zelda and Metroid certainly do have points in common, though. Huh. Maybe what we need isn't just a sci-fi Zelda, but a quasi-medieval Metroid. For sooth Samus! Yon king dains not rely upon the marital prowess of maidens, so take up ye armor that obscures your face, and ye plasma cannon.... Um, this might take some more work. Come back later?
posted by JHarris at 7:38 PM on June 27, 2013


Maybe what we need isn't just a sci-fi Zelda, but a quasi-medieval Metroid.

Castlevania?
posted by jason_steakums at 9:46 PM on June 27, 2013 [1 favorite]


I gave the examples, not as a flat "this is what this IS" thing, but as a kind of vague misty definition. Of course there are individual games that overturn all of those points for each series, but overall each tends to have a certain "look," even if certain features are missing from time to time. That was what I was trying to get at.

Point taken. A space Zelda would be a departure from the usual anyway :)
posted by ersatz at 4:50 AM on June 28, 2013


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