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Nintendo is being weird with their women protagonists (Invidious link) (redirect.invidious.io)
submitted 2 months ago by sneak100@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net
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Quite a good breakdown by Laura Kate Dale of Nintendo's handling of recent games featuring playable women characters from franchises usually headed up by men i.e. recent Peach game and upcoming Legend of Zelda game featuring the titular Zelda.

Featuring such Aonuma bangers as:

If we have Princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do?

The triforce is made up of Princess Zelda, Ganon and Link. Princess Zelda is obviously female; if we made Link a female, we thought that would mess with the balance of the triforce - that's why we decided not to do it.

We feel like what takes priority is this idea of gameplay. If it turns out that particular gameplay we're trying to bring to fruition would be best served by having Zelda take that role, then it's possible that that could be a direction we could take.

i.e. Zelda has featured exclusively MANLY gameplay up to this point btw

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[-] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 59 points 2 months ago

The triforce is made up of Princess Zelda, Ganon and Link. Princess Zelda is obviously female; if we made Link a female, we thought that would mess with the balance of the triforce - that's why we decided not to do it.

The Triforce has to be gender balanced, that's why Link is canonically NB

[-] Gay_Tomato@hexbear.net 35 points 2 months ago

Not letting Zelda be playable in her own storyline unironically ruins Tears of the Kingdom.

[-] sneak100@hexbear.net 24 points 2 months ago

I haven't played TotK, but this is kinda what I hated about BotW too — other than the initial "get the four people to help you do the thing" conceit, the main story is made up of you remembering a more interesting story from a different time, in which you are standing around in the background for the most part

[-] Gay_Tomato@hexbear.net 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

the main story is made up of you remembering a more interesting story from a different time, in which you are standing around in the background for the most part

Its even more inexcusable in the sequel. Imagine if sonic generations made all of modern sonic's stages cutscenes, then tried to do the above for the second time because "time travel nonsense."

This coupled with the cowards at Nintendo

spoilerconjuring up a new Ganondorf because finally ending this man would make investors sad or something among other things makes TOK feel narratively pointless. It also makes breath of wild feel pointless retroactively (kinda like the new star wars trilogy without director shuffling to even blame for this mess.)

[-] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 34 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If we have Princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do?

I never thought I'd utter the sentence "Do what Wand of Gamelon did," but...

[-] sneak100@hexbear.net 8 points 2 months ago

Haha yeah it gets brought up in the vid too. She also talks about a more recent CDi-Zelda-like game —Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore. It actually seems really cool, hearing about it made me want to play it.

[-] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 33 points 2 months ago

If we have Princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do?

Whenever Link isn't around all the other characters should be asking, "where's Link."

[-] sneak100@hexbear.net 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

where's Link

The upcoming Zelda game answers this question with "Possessing the princess whenever she needs a man to show her how to use a sword"

[-] SnowySkyes@hexbear.net 9 points 2 months ago

Wait, you're not serious, right? Please say you're not serious.

[-] sneak100@hexbear.net 10 points 2 months ago

I am unfortunately serious. It doesn't feature combat as the main way to interact with the world, but it does feature a swordfighter mode for zelda, during which she is posessed by link's ghost and is therefore able to swing a sword now. She couldn't do that on her own ofc because girl.

[-] sneak100@hexbear.net 8 points 2 months ago

Ego level 9000

[-] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If it's such a worry, maybe people wouldn't ask for a Zelda game if Nintendo wasn't nigh ceaselessly shafting their only female protagonist

[-] peppersky@hexbear.net 7 points 2 months ago

I'm pretty sure they started making Metroid games again like 7 years ago and there's a new one coming out just next year.

[-] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 6 points 2 months ago

I said nigh. But in the past 14 years we have gotten 1 new game and 1 remake. And the game before that was Other M.

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[-] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 14 points 2 months ago

Prior to watching the video comment but as a they/them who had played every Zelda game, used to buy and sell retro games in the early 2010s and really knows the hell out of Nintendo and it's fans, always make link androgynous and pick pronouns at the start. The character was literally designed for the player to project themselves onto hence the super on the nose name. I would add they should make link female for one game before settling on just assigning the pronouns to an androgynous link which barely requires any changes to the standard character model. And in the games link is a child, just give pronoun options, the character is like 8-12, don't be weird about it gamers.

[-] sneak100@hexbear.net 13 points 2 months ago

Yeah the idea of a female link is not that wild and definitely makes a lot of sense. The video brings it up as something the fans were half expecting instead of a princess zelda game because of some promo art that looked like it portrayed a more femme, but still androgynous link. Turns out, nope, nintendo says that's just our main manly man link smh

[-] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 8 points 2 months ago

Yeah, I remember that from early botw videos and I was kinda hyped to see a female Link

[-] peppersky@hexbear.net 8 points 2 months ago

I'm going to put myself on some thin ice here, but a lot of the representation talk in gaming, including the discussions surrounding The Legend of Zelda seems pretty reductive: I don't know if there is much progress in a world where we simply change the surface-level signs of representation of a game, when the gameplay and the mechanics of interacting with the gameworld stay the exact same from game to game. If the form is seen as unchangeable and we can only have variations in content, gaming is dead as a medium and any changes in representation will fail to matter (although admittedly most artforms are as dead under late-stage capitalism).

[-] sneak100@hexbear.net 10 points 2 months ago

I completely agree with you and it actually is exciting in a way to see the zelda formula messed with in this way - I'll be the first to hate on combat being the primary way you interact with the world around you. The problem is that it comes across like nintendo is only changing things up because girl game, and the mechanics they do change end up feeling sexist asf when viewed in that context. At the end of the day, you're still put in a role where you identify with and play as a royal, which I don't find nearly as exciting as the person in the vid.

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this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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