upvote

points

by stephbook2 days ago |
comments
upvoteby shermantanktop2 days ago|
next
[-]
Sometimes? I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure these games were generally not built with a hefty bible full of inviolable lore. Plot and continuity errors are common enough to show that.

Some people are very invested in making sense of things that just don’t have a ton of intention and meaning behind them.

reply
upvoteby willis9362 days ago|
parent|
next
[-]
The timeline's always been a mess, but it has been something that has been given serious thought since at least the late 90s.

https://www.zeldadungeon.net/forum/threads/the-truth-behind-...

https://old.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/sejcwx/newly_tra...

https://old.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/6866wt/addressing_th...

That's not to say that there is a capital C canon that constrains all subsequent installments to be 100% self consistent. They seem to enjoy the freedom of being able to change things to fit their vision for the next installment. I just don't think it's correct to say there's no thought at all put into the head revision of the canon.

reply
upvoteby shermantanktop1 days ago|
parent|
[-]
I read through those links (ha) and I agree, they knew the overall story was interesting to players, but intentionally elevated story over continuity. That was my original point.

The same debates happen about early games made with far less intention and artistry. For those games I’d be surprised if there was much care about canon at all.

Especially when the studio which made game v1 was fired and a new studio was asked to take some random game in development and update the sprite to look like v1’s box art. And 40 years later people are arguing about timelines and character arcs?

reply
upvoteby DanielHB1 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
The developers of the Zelda series always tried to make new games fit the previous one's lore.

The devs themselves put a ton of effort on making these games kinda fit with each other at the time they were making each new installment, it wasn't a retroactive thing. They just weren't super pedantic about it until the official timeline came out.

reply
upvoteby Tanoc2 days ago|
prev|
next
[-]
Early Nintendo games were sort of like Osamu Tezuka works. There were "actors" that all had the same appearance and sometimes names used across multiple works that filled the role they needed. Of the first five Zelda games only The Legend Of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventures Of Link have a connected story, and even that's questionable as the beginning of Zelda II retcons the ending of The Legend Of Zelda and rewrites the setting extensively.
reply
upvoteby hn9933022 days ago|
prev|
[-]
They put thought in, it just changes periodically. Like Mario used to be a plumber in Brooklyn. There was a whole TV show and movie, the old one. Then he moved to some fantasy world that always changes and he has an Italian accent.
reply
upvoteby archonis18 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
Before that he was just Jumpman rescuing a damsel from a kong that couldn't be called king for intellectual property reasons, and the genesis of a gorilla being involved at all was nintendo's loss of the popeye license.

He didn't become Mario until there was a two player sewer themed game requiring names for the protagonist plumber brothers.

reply