Was actually thinking that - like one of those sketches you can see her bum. And the poses seem a bit sexualised too - like does noone wear trousers anymore???
Why women criticise sexualised character designs |OT2| I have no pants and I must scream (READ OP)
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Do you mean the Sprite from Secret of Mana?
How do you play a randomizer starring them?
https://alttpr.com/en/randomizer
Once you load the rom into google, you can choose a number perimeters, including sprites which have their own custom animation. I use Popoi because she's one of the better looking sprites and her feather horns let me gauge bomb jumps better.
I'm still slow. Two hours is too slow.
Wasn't Kuja originally supposed to be a woman?I always forget about this whenever I playthrough it. It's also so out of place, given how relatively conservative the designs are in general in this game. If I recall, Garnet's Trance did get changed for the HD port, but I was under the impression that was due to CERO related problems. Yet, somehow the above is okay...
Though, on the flip side, we also have Kuja (probably one of the few times you'll see a male character sexualized in Japanese media):
See that would be cool to see explored, but it's sort of relegated to "Its because of legends and some shit......"
Also Link and Zelda have no romantic chemistry whatsoever as far as I've seen in the games so whatever they changed would also have no impact whatsoever
That was all Bome, the actual sculptor, Takashi Murakami's only influence was making them life size (and presenting something that was "low art" as "high art"). And Bome's figures all look like that, I don't think there's any parodic exaggeration going on there.
I've never been a fan of the female Link idea. I don't like the "take a male character and put a bow on it" approach to appeasing calls for female representation. I also like Link as he is. I'd rather see Zelda have agency in her own game. Why not do a parallel path story for LOZ. Choose Link's story and you run into Zelda as an NPC, or play as Zelda and run into Link as an NPC, their stories intertwine. Or a do a character switching story. Say they fall under a curse and by daylight Zelda is an eagle AI partner while the player controls human (Hylian?) Link. At night you play as human Zelda while Link is a Wolf. You could even have animal-centric powers and puzzles based around them and add drop in co-op with the second player controlling the animal.
One of the biggest - if not the biggest - missed opportunies in BotW: after Link
dies, Zelda takes the Master Sword all the way across an apocalyptic Hyrule, then heads back to the castle to seal Ganon. And it's implied she does this alone.
...but what would Zelda even do without Link, eh, Aonuma?
That sounds cool, I'll have to try it.https://alttpr.com/en/randomizer
Once you load the rom into google, you can choose a number perimeters, including sprites which have their own custom animation. I use Popoi because she's one of the better looking sprites and her feather horns let me gauge bomb jumps better.
I'm still slow. Two hours is too slow.
Zelda game during OOT where she's training with the Shiekah to become a magic ninja. Main boss is Twinrova. Developed by Platinum.
It would be so good...
That being said, I'm still okay with Link being a woman.
Thing is , that argument doesn't hold much water when Link is a self insert vapid empty husk with no personnality of its own in the first place.
And given that even after voicing the entire cast in Breath of the Wild they still keep the mute hero shenanigans it continues to this day to not hold water here .
So in this particular instance it's refusal of "putting a bow on it" that's sexist and unwelcoming.
And again I played the entirety of Breath of the Wild in Gerudo outfit once I found it , because I have been wanting female link since the first zelda game ...
I don't demand it to be systematic just happening once.
Also if female Link is "putting a bow on it" then what does that make of Linkle seriously ???
Female Hero of Time goes to rescue Princess Zelda , Ganon is still a dude , there is nothing lost in my proposal especially if Breath of the Wild is a template for future 3D Zelda Games to come where Link still is as mute as a freaking carp !
An even easier route would be to do it GTAV style where both characters are exploring the map at the same time and you switch to them on the fly. No need to make two different routes or storylines. Sure have them intertwine at some point and give different abilities to each but that's it. I'm tired of saving Princess Zelda in every goddamn game she's in (I dare anyone to mention Spirit Tracks. She's fucking dead in that game!).
https://alttpr.com/en/randomizer
Once you load the rom into google, you can choose a number perimeters, including sprites which have their own custom animation. I use Popoi because she's one of the better looking sprites and her feather horns let me gauge bomb jumps better.
I'm still slow. Two hours is too slow.
Incidentally, this prompted me to look up Popoi's gender, since it was something hotly debated among my gaming friends back then when internet didn't exist. Turns out they're nonbinary, and use genderless pronouns in both the Japanese version and the western version of the remake. That's pretty cool!
But Link already has a bow... :)
In all seriousness, I would have zero problems with a female Link. As it's been mentioned, Link is a player avatar anyway, much like ME's Shephard or Fire Emblem's Robin and Corrin. I don't think any of these games were ruined by giving the player the option to make the main character female, and that's even though any of them has 10x more personality than Link.
That said, playable spellcasting Zelda is one of the reasons I'm so excited for Cadence of Hyrule!
There's one OoT moment with Zelda that I'd want to see.
In the Adult Timeline, Link ceases to exist and the Line of the Hero is broken. And yet Ganon returned. And the world got flooded, setting up Wind Waker. Someone had to pull the trigger on that flood. Like, say, a princess who is the reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia, and who has ninja training?
Yup, you play as Zelda/Sheik, travel the world to unseal the temples, raise the towns into the sky, and finally face off against Ganon, in a kaiju battle where you use your divine powers to flood Hyrule and seal him at the bottom of the ocean. The flying towns would land and become the islands of Wind Waker over time.
But again, what would Zelda even do, right?
I knooooowww riiight !!!
Thank you I feel less alone in this buisness here . Like for real playable Zelda and she looks like she's got some badass spells .
Like for real I can't wait for Cadence to come out JUST for this reason alone.
Clearly the player would just be watching from the void as a ghostly Link, acting as Zelda being inconceivable :D
Oh, I've been stanning for playable spellcasting Zelda forever, it has so much potential (there's a reason she was my main in Smash Melee). E.g.:
I just never expected they'd give it to us in a Necrodancer game of all things, but as a huge Necrodancer fan, I'll most certanly take it! Cadence of Hyrule seems tailor-made for me as a fan of both games. :)
One of the things that's really exciting about Cadence of Hyrule is that Necrodancer itself has, like, 15 characters or more. If they go all in with this one we may get a lot of deep cuts. In keeping with the thread's theme, I'm particularly hoping for Impa and Urbosa. :) I just hope most of them aren't super hard / frustrating ones like Aria, Coda or Monk.
You know, I'm actually not sure. Doing a quick google search, I can't find anything on this.
Would be interested to know if this was the case.
I've never seen any video game character as a self insert, whether that was the dev's intention or not. Even when given a character generator I never make me, I make a unique character and create a personalty for them, and I play Link as a unique character as well, so I suppose my approach is why arguments that "but they're a self insert so why not a female version" are meaningless to me. I would rather Link himself be given more substance as a character. I really dislike blank slates.
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Secret of Mana is a really nostalgic game for me. My first JRPG and the only one I played through in co-op with my brother. I always played the Sprite, love that game.
Here are the things that Breath of the Wild made me want even more when I already wanted them , or made me want period.
-Link romantically does get involved with someone but NOT ZELDA , hell in Breath of the Wild Mipha's interest for Link seems to be a bit of a two way street why not going all the way ?
-A 3D Zelda game where I get to play as Zelda and she is equally as capable as Link her being royalty can be a hurdle to overcome but not being a woman (after all Japanese royal and noble families are always so protocol driven having a Zelda going on the adventure and telling some few protocol zealots to shove it up their ass would be a welcomed sight for all kinds of reasons )
-The Gerudo outfit minigame to be able to enter the Gerudo village cemented even further my want for a female Link like crazy. Besides now that we have multiple outfits to wear improve and swap around hell let me "play doll" with Link for hours more outfits put some armor fashion in your Zelda games please
-Link should finally break the silence or at least have something somewherre in the plot adressing him being mute . Seriously having everyone voiced but Link still being mute (while every characters ACTING as if he wasn't is distracting) hell make him respond with sign language even I don't care something anything !!!!
But at long last make him break the silence , even if with sign language (hell Japanese sign language is one made of beautifull hand motions one at that , that would make him even more feminine even when a dude see the linked video - fun fact JSL was developped mostly by women hence a lof of sign are a bit "girly" )
-The other Champions wanted to play as them -hell I was expecting the DLC's to be us playing them in the past - Because well Mipha / Rivali / Urbosa were really interesting characters with what little we saw of them I wanted more.
-The quests we did to get some of the old tech repaired to have the Sheika Tablet improved ? Know what how about we have a bit more of that you know Link having some basic repairs to perform here and there in some side quests ...
And the list goes on and on
-Link romantically does get involved with someone but NOT ZELDA , hell in Breath of the Wild Mipha's interest for Link seems to be a bit of a two way street why not going all the way ?
-A 3D Zelda game where I get to play as Zelda and she is equally as capable as Link her being royalty can be a hurdle to overcome but not being a woman (after all Japanese royal and noble families are always so protocol driven having a Zelda going on the adventure and telling some few protocol zealots to shove it up their ass would be a welcomed sight for all kinds of reasons )
-The Gerudo outfit minigame to be able to enter the Gerudo village cemented even further my want for a female Link like crazy. Besides now that we have multiple outfits to wear improve and swap around hell let me "play doll" with Link for hours more outfits put some armor fashion in your Zelda games please
-Link should finally break the silence or at least have something somewherre in the plot adressing him being mute . Seriously having everyone voiced but Link still being mute (while every characters ACTING as if he wasn't is distracting) hell make him respond with sign language even I don't care something anything !!!!
But at long last make him break the silence , even if with sign language (hell Japanese sign language is one made of beautifull hand motions one at that , that would make him even more feminine even when a dude see the linked video - fun fact JSL was developped mostly by women hence a lof of sign are a bit "girly" )
-The other Champions wanted to play as them -hell I was expecting the DLC's to be us playing them in the past - Because well Mipha / Rivali / Urbosa were really interesting characters with what little we saw of them I wanted more.
-The quests we did to get some of the old tech repaired to have the Sheika Tablet improved ? Know what how about we have a bit more of that you know Link having some basic repairs to perform here and there in some side quests ...
And the list goes on and on
If they could let you use both Sheik's ninjutsu and Zelda's spells that might be freaking amazing, imagine the gameplay potential and breadth. But that said, after BotW I kind of have a hard time imagining a non-open world Zelda game, and as much as I deeply love P*, that's not exactly their forte. NieR Automata's world had some very beautiful places, but it felt tiny and devoid of secrets.
An actual collaboration between them and Nintendo to make such a game (like the Monolith collaboration for BotW) though, sign me up for that immediately!
It's such a great game, I also have a lot of nostalgia for it. :)
I tried convincing my SO to play either Seiken 3 or Legend of Mana nowadays, which are both drop-to-your-knees-crying gorgeous, but they're too slow for her; she's definitely not a fan of the action stopping each time a spell is cast in SD3. :)
I think everyone wanted playable champions, everyone expected the DLC to be playable champions, and everyone was disappointed that it wasn't. :D Ah well.
I'm fine with Link being a practical mute. Actually, if they make him female it would be the first time we'd have a mute female hero, right? I can't think of any off the top of my head, whereas there's quite a bit of male ones like Crono, etc.
Kuja is actually the FInal Fantasy IX version of Hinten Kinsho no Kuja a Shinto divinity of lust , beauty and revenge , and is said to appear to you as the gender identity you would most likely be attracted to at that moment .
So the answer is Kuja's gender identity is "whatever you would bang with at the moment you see Kuja" at least in Shintoism ...
Hell in the legend we know it's the case because the hero we're following is a bisexual dude and well the second time they meet Kuja appears feminine which leads the Hero to ask a few questions and that's how you know that Kuja's inner working are wholly dependent on who's watching Kuja at that very moment.
Whether you see them as self-inserts or not (and I actually agree with you: I don't) is irrelevant: they are meant to be the player's avatar. That's their function and the reason Link is mute, so that you can fill in his speech. Note that "self insert" doesn't need to be, literally, the real-world you: whenever I'm given the choice of genders I always make a female character, but it's still my "avatar", my proxy into the world. It's like a pen and paper RPG: the "role playing" comes from playing a character that you're not, but it's still a character that you made and that you want to act as your proxy.
Also apropos of nothing, I found another post of mine stanning for spellcasting Zelda (in the "games you want that will never get made" thread). :D
What bothers me isn't so much that Link is mute per say , but that there is an inconsitency between his silence and the fact that mechanically he is able to answer and is therefore viewed perceived and the other characters dialogue lines reflects the fact that he has a voice of his own.
That's what throws me off and now that the rest of the cast is fully voiced it is even more off putting. So something anything even if he signs but for the love of fuck if they keep writing dialogue lines as if he is supposed to have answered a question then he does have a voice of some kind , and that should be reflected in game.
Hence why I said "hell make him sign in JSL , it's one of the most beautfiull sign language in the world on top of that, that would get rid of a problem and at the same time make actual mute people feel welcome , you're legit killing two birds in one stone here"
PS : and yes I know that on ther other hand JSL being a very feminine looking sign language that would make him look even more androgynous that he already is , leading to the demands for female link to be even more pressing ...
I always took Link as talking normally, you just don't hear him because it's as if it was you, the player, doing the talking. Which, OK, I know you can hear yourself when you talk, but you typically don't "pay attention" to it because obviously you know anything you're trying to convey. If that makes sense?
It's a bit like not being able to see your character in a first person game. Which incidentally and ironically, bothers me much more than mute characters! :D
I got the exact opposite problem complete lack of body awareness at the first person doesn't bother me one bit .
Yet having dialogues written in such way that it conveys that the character did answer (and therefore for NPCs he does have a voice) but you not hearing anything is real offputing. I bared with it during the Playstation era (hell the number of JRPG mute characters is through the roof during that time) but now that we have fully voiced performances but they still act and talk as if your character answered , then said character needs to have answered in SOME way anyway , be it through signing , with voiced lines of dialogue somehting anything I don't care what but either the character can reciprocate communication and we see that reciprocity in action or he can't and therefore the writing reflects a character that can't answer and only ACT .
And even when he doesn't have them his tunic isn't so short that his entire ass is hanging out.
Would the game's soundtrack be produced by The Alan Parsons Project?
Maybe by Andrew Powell. I'm making a huge assumption that DragonKeeper was referencing the 1985 film Ladyhawke here, though. The Legend of Zelda: Ladyhawke Edition does sound badass, DragonKeeper .
Just to follow up on my earlier post, I'm completely in favor of a mainline Zelda game with a reincarnation of Link as a woman! I realized my post could have been read as "be content with playing pretend with a sprite swap" and that's not what I was trying to convey at all, it is just something I do for fun that I thought other people might like to do as well.
Don't give Aonuma a good excuse to then weave a timeline where your idea turns out to be the Original Sin type moment because the original Triforce was holy and a sacred power and shit , and now the Triforce we've all been reconstituing in every game is a corrupt one ...
Come on folks you know damn well that if Aonuma could turn Zelda into an Eve of sort he would ... so let's not give him canon fodder to that idea ...
I'd feel a particular sort of satisfaction if Zelda performed a Shinobi Execution on Link. Just saying.
There's a whole lot of things that Zelda should do to many people that would be very satisfying to live through as a gamer... (one of which involves her father)
But for that we need to be given the opportunity to play her more often.
At least we have Cadence of Hyrule to look forward to .
But all those party games / spin offs are not feeling satisfying let me play Zelda in a mainline entry dammit.
I wasn't saying it was big picture relevant. I was saying it was relevant to me personally and thus why my perspective doesn't take "self insert" into account when I talk about my preferences in character design.
When it comes to established character VS blank slate/customizable character, I've always felt they should match the narrative structure. If you design a game with a set narrative and the playable character has a set role in it, that character should have a defined personality and not be a blank slate.
If you design a game with a narrative the player can shape in meaningful ways, where you can make choices that have a significant impact on events, then I'm all for customizable characters who are blank slates that the game allows you to shape via the narrative. Customizable characters should go with customizable plots.
Yep, don't remember the plot but I do remember the premise and always thought it would make a great hook in a game.
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DragonKeeper trust me we understood it all too well we were not trying to gang up on you . It's just that Nintendo made the choice to keep Link being a proxy for you to indentify as , and therefore being an empty husk that's mute. And well sorry not sorry but if they go the route of premade non customisable empty husk that I feel the boots of. Then sorry not sorry but as an intersex who presents male , my feminity is never taken into account in day to day society so time of play is one of the few moment where I get to enjoy it fully . So if you're gonna give empty husk to fill in give me a female one .
Hence my want for a female Link . So to me it won't feel like a "put a bow on it" type deal quite the opposite actually.
I know that's not how you feel , but simply put you calling it a "put a bow on it" is missing the tree for the forest here really ...
Now on the flipside bear in mind that we would also like Link to be more fleshed out. Like you've seen in my list of things that Breath of the Wild made me want, I wanted the relationship between Link and Mipha to be more than a cutesy begining of something and the game cutscenes alluding to the fact that Link might very well be into Mipha as well.
If they wanted to show that Link was engaging in romance with Mipha why not going all the way and only alluding to it ?
That was legit hyper frustrating for me. For once we had confirmation that Link was just dealing Zelda and the whole Triforce shebang out of duty while romantically having his heart in a whole different country and culture altogether ...
Okay fine sweet ... can you bother to develop it further ... aaaaaannnddd nope I'm gonna have to fill in the gaps because you didn't bother to detail more ...
That made me ragequit the game for a full month ...
PS : Hell if you find Mipha's diary you even learn that in a previous incarnation Link fell in love with a Zora Princess the feelings were mutual and they even married , and she prayed to every Zora Goddess to be blessed enough that Link would fall for her ...
Nintendo if you want to make it canon that Link sometimes marry Zora Princesses ... why stop halfway through when you bother to show us it happening through flashbacks ???
Hence my want for a female Link . So to me it won't feel like a "put a bow on it" type deal quite the opposite actually.
I know that's not how you feel , but simply put you calling it a "put a bow on it" is missing the tree for the forest here really ...
Now on the flipside bear in mind that we would also like Link to be more fleshed out. Like you've seen in my list of things that Breath of the Wild made me want, I wanted the relationship between Link and Mipha to be more than a cutesy begining of something and the game cutscenes alluding to the fact that Link might very well be into Mipha as well.
If they wanted to show that Link was engaging in romance with Mipha why not going all the way and only alluding to it ?
That was legit hyper frustrating for me. For once we had confirmation that Link was just dealing Zelda and the whole Triforce shebang out of duty while romantically having his heart in a whole different country and culture altogether ...
Okay fine sweet ... can you bother to develop it further ... aaaaaannnddd nope I'm gonna have to fill in the gaps because you didn't bother to detail more ...
That made me ragequit the game for a full month ...
PS : Hell if you find Mipha's diary you even learn that in a previous incarnation Link fell in love with a Zora Princess the feelings were mutual and they even married , and she prayed to every Zora Goddess to be blessed enough that Link would fall for her ...
Nintendo if you want to make it canon that Link sometimes marry Zora Princesses ... why stop halfway through when you bother to show us it happening through flashbacks ???
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Link definitely has personality in some games, like Wind Waker
Ladyhawke is awesome and anyone who hasn't watched it should correct this mistake like now. That said, yeah, it has the soundtrack of a completely different movie, but hey, it was the 80s. :D
(fun fact: there was a Spanish game vaguely inspired by it for the ZX Spectrum, called Sol Negro (literally "Black Sun", referencing the movie's eclipse. While the woman still turned into a hawk, the dude turned into a slightly less flattering fish. :) ).
OK, but this is a completely different discussion from "should Link have the option to be female". You're arguing that you dislike Link as it is now (blank slate self insert), which is fair enough, but as long as it's not going to change anytime soon (and it's not), we might as well have the female option for people who prefer it; including, but not limited to, actual women.
So when you say "the argument [in support of a female Link] that Link is a blank slate is worthless to me because I don't want Link to be a blank slate", that is, I must insist, irrelevant, because your preference doesn't change the role Link actually and fully intentionally serves. And within that context, that role is better served by being able to change his gender.
Or to put another way: I would not counter arguments that Call of Modern Warfare Duty 5 should have a bigger depth of field with "it would be better if the game was third person, I dislike first person". Personal preference should not get in the way of assessing what is best given a game's specific goals and constraints.
(fun fact: there was a Spanish game vaguely inspired by it for the ZX Spectrum, called Sol Negro (literally "Black Sun", referencing the movie's eclipse. While the woman still turned into a hawk, the dude turned into a slightly less flattering fish. :) ).
OK, but this is a completely different discussion from "should Link have the option to be female". You're arguing that you dislike Link as it is now (blank slate self insert), which is fair enough, but as long as it's not going to change anytime soon (and it's not), we might as well have the female option for people who prefer it; including, but not limited to, actual women.
So when you say "the argument [in support of a female Link] that Link is a blank slate is worthless to me because I don't want Link to be a blank slate", that is, I must insist, irrelevant, because your preference doesn't change the role Link actually and fully intentionally serves. And within that context, that role is better served by being able to change his gender.
Or to put another way: I would not counter arguments that Call of Modern Warfare Duty 5 should have a bigger depth of field with "it would be better if the game was third person, I dislike first person". Personal preference should not get in the way of assessing what is best given a game's specific goals and constraints.
Peoples, that's not what I'm saying. My original statement was simply "I'd rather see playable Zelda than female Link". That's all. A different preference doesn't mean disagreement.
I didn't miss any of that. I wasn't making an argument against it. I just added my own statement. Also, the blank slate statement was a different discussion that got added on as an addendum.
edit: Forum fought me on editing that post...cripes
Yes, yes it was, and wasn't meant to be otherwise. I only even brought it up because I feel, whatever Nintendo asserts, no character that is established in a set narrative is a very good self insert. Who a person is can be well informed by their actions, even if they don't speak. It's tangential to my statement, not the core of it.
I didn't miss any of that. I wasn't making an argument against it. I just added my own statement. Also, the blank slate statement was a different discussion that got added on as an addendum.
edit: Forum fought me on editing that post...cripes
Yes, yes it was, and wasn't meant to be otherwise. I only even brought it up because I feel, whatever Nintendo asserts, no character that is established in a set narrative is a very good self insert. Who a person is can be well informed by their actions, even if they don't speak. It's tangential to my statement, not the core of it.
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Either that was a legit and well-known reference to ^this^ or you just found the perfect reaction gif to that super random Zelda sentence.
Log onto Crunchyroll and this is the first thing I see...
Hm.
Hmhm.
Ok.
The weirdest thing about slime san is that I feel lilium was actually sexed UP from the manga. I've read all of that thing and I don't remember her ever being in that thong. I wanna say her demon form was bootyshorts, which isn't that much better, but still...it's really odd.
AND THEN, the anime cut out the weird "let's go back to the hostess club!" adventure for what I would assume is "Sensitivity's sake"...
The anime production of that thing is just strange. Slime doesn't really work as an anime, the pacing is too fucked up.
Yeah that's Lilium's demon form, which, again...I don't remember being THAT bad in the manga.
But yeah, Slime-san ain't doing anything new when it comes to female representation. The manga is about to get an older woman as it's temporary villain which could be interesting, but...yeah, the dragonnewt evolution is pretty much all you need to know when it comes to where the mangaka's head's at design wise.
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