Again, slightly gave it away but really, who didn't see this coming? It's no news to anyone that I'm a Legend of Zelda diehard; so much in fact that I feel kind of bad for not making our green clad hero no. 1 in this buuut... I think at the end of the day the final and semi-final spots are more deserving, at least to me. Of course when it came to adding Link into this thing, the real question was "what form of him do I add?" Child or adult? Original design or Ocarina of Time or the drastically different Breath of the Wild? Do I go with the Link from my favorite game of the series? (Majora's Mask) it was tempting, but truthfully the base Link of that game isn't my favorite. That may go to one of the transformations but I can't put them in. I had to go with the most iconic look for Link, one that everyone would recognize.
Okay, so honestly it wasn't hard for me at all to figure out which variant of Link I wanted to add, but you can understand how it COULD have been a dilemma! No, for me the answer was clear. To go with the inexplicably pink-haired Link from the SNES classic, A Link to the Past, complete with the Red Mail and Golden Sword! Not because I think it's superior to others, but because I think that color scheme is so ridiculous that it's amazing! I mean just look at that mess of colors! He looks like a goddamn rainbow! He has the kind of color scheme that Eiichiro Oda has wet dreams about (Alright! Nailed the esoteric reference! Score one for me!) So yeah, the absurd coloration from Link to the Past has always stuck with me, just because it's so out there and was never repeated. I know the pink hair was some odd graphical issue, but it still confuses me to this day. I wanted to kinda do my own thing with Link here and... I'm not really sure it turned out how I wanted, kinda has an unintentional WoW look to him, but oh well. Also, the boomerang slapped on his back was put in literally because his arms were going to go in that shape, but I changed it, but I like the way it look so I turned it into his boomerang because I good. Again... dunno if it all turned out well, but whatever.
Much like Mario, I don't have much else I can say about this series I've not already gone on about. Zelda is the series that jumped me from just casually enjoying games, to appreciating them as a real art form. They were the ones that showed me there can be so much more to them and something about the world just sucked me in... not immediately mind you, it was sort of time release. I played Link's Awakening a bit when I was younger and it was ok to me, and I distinctly remember finding Ocarina of Time kinda dumb when I first played it. In truth, I may own more to Link to the Past then just ironically liking a goofy color scheme because as I think on it more, I think it was my borrowing that game from a friend repeatedly that really drew me more into the series and gave more appreciation for it and to go back and give Ocarina another chance and well, the rest is history.
In a lot of ways I feel the series has shifted from the world I grew to love. I mainly blame the forced in connecting timeline as I feel it's becoming a detriment to it's story telling, but all the same Zelda never loses it's charm. Sure, there are times when I feel it goes in a direction I don't enjoy, for example, Breath of the Wild was a game I thought I'd hate, but it still managed to capture my interest. They manage to maintain the same Zelda charm throughout the years and that's what will keep me coming back for years to come... Honestly I think the only ones I can say are truly BAD were Zelda II and Phantom Hourglass... well, those and the Philips CDi games but... well those are amazing!
