This game changed a lot of the fundamentals of Mario.

Happy Black Friday! And what better way to celebrate an absurd shopping tradition than by reading an article about Nintendo (again!) and their creative process over the years? In my previous article I discussed Nintendo’s longtime focus on a younger demographic and how their extensive back catalog makes it easy draw upon long established franchises. I mentioned how this is one of Nintendo’s strengths, one of their more unique advantages, but that it can also be a problem. This week I will expand on this, as I believe it to be one of the bigger problems the Nintendo brand has faced over the years. Being the talented and long lived industry player that it is, Nintendo’s franchises are often the ones to have set a standard for a certain game genre. The earliest examples include Mario and Link in their respective games for the NES. But since such time as those conventions have been set and made into expectation, Nintendo seems to have encountered a problem in the choice to stay the same or change. Often times, Nintendo meets criticism for doing either.

As I mentioned last week, and as is often brought up in discussion about Nintendo, this company is a conservative one both financially and practically. It might make sense that often their flagship titles adhere closely to conventions and formulas that work, but the company also found its greatest success by tapping into the immense creative talent in its employ. Nintendo often enjoys periods of familiarity in their game design and periods of brand new creativity. In their earlier days of the NES, many of Nintendo’s would-be franchises would see vast and wild changes. Thanks to a lack of expectation from consumers, these changes were received very positively. Super Mario Bros. 2 outside of Japan released as a very different game from its predecessor, including whole new mechanics and themes on top of the basic platformer gameplay of the original. The original was a massive success, as the NES was a success in general, and yet here was a Mario title with extensively different elements from the last. Of course, in Japan SMB2 was released as a very iterative sequel that mostly increased the challenge over the previous title and left theme and mechanics untouched. Afraid this extra challenge might turn off foreign players of the original, Nintendo was willing instead to offer a completely new Mario experience fitted over the world and mechanics of the Japanese game Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. Since then, Mario games have continued to add new features and conventions, sometimes staying closer to tradition (like Super Mario World) and sometimes breaking out of it.

The Zelda series is one of Nintendo’s most staid franchises.

The ill received Super Mario Sunshine was one such break out. Mario, now experienced in the ways of 3D world exploration and on more powerful GameCube hardware, was set to take what made that 3D transition work so well and add a new element. Some may describe it as something closer to a gimmick, but Mario’s water Jetpack was incorporated fully into the setting of the Sunshine world. Interspersed with more traditional platformer elements, this game would see the rise of the community backlash. Previously, throughout the NES and SNES, through the transition into 3D and all the new elements built along the way, it seemed Mario could do anything. But by 2002, Mario had become a convention. What “a Mario game” was, and what it was not, had become distinct where before no such line had been drawn. A mainline Mario held certain expectations to the point where even minimal deviations were considered missteps. Most of the criticism seemed focused less on the setting and world of Sunshine and more on the “FLUDD” jetpack. And yet, today, criticism flies left and right that Mario games are stagnant, sitting too much upon the past innovations and accomplishments of its predecessors. It would seem that where ever the fancy takes Nintendo, into the realm of the familiar or the new, they have created an unusual standard of both innovation and tradition.

It might be true that no other game company could possibly live up to this kind of standard, of demand at once for a distinct flavor and a new sensation. But where newness and change are perhaps slowest to come from Nintendo among their console titles, is in the Legend of Zelda series. Excepting the aberration that is Zelda II, Link has been featured in games that have changed very little over the years. Some of the greatest changes seen by the series have all come cosmetically. The transition to 3D with Ocarina of Time and the cell shaded style of Wind Waker stand out commonly as the biggest upheavals. Slight wrinkles and additions do exist, such as the masks in Majora’s Mask or the sailing in Wind Waker, but the game remains firmly rooted in tradition. Many might claim blasphemy should some things change, things that would mark banal improvements in other game series, like voice acting or the ability to play as someone other than Link. And so, yet again, Nintendo has set a precedent, an expectation for their franchise that defines what a Zelda game is and is not, while concurrently coming under fire for remaining stagnant.

If these demands for sameness and those for change came from different camps then perhaps some understanding of the situation could be had. But I feel that most of the calls for change also come from the long time fans who would not abide certain fundamental changes in their favorite games. Zelda games cannot have spoken dialogue, and yet the dungeon/item formula needs to change. Mario must at once be a familiar platformer and cannot include a permanent change to Mario or his abilities. The demands upon Nintendo’s franchises are mixed even within an individual fan. So perhaps, and despite the immense pressure, it is unsurprising that Nintendo seems to play its cards close to the vest. When it is not obvious what people want then it is clear that they do not know what they want.

I have kept it short this week. Well, short for a Mel post, anyway. I figured you needed a break after eating all that turkey and having to trample old ladies while deal-shopping. So, what do YOU want, readers? Do you want more change out of Nintendo while maintaining that familiarity? What should change and what should stay the same for their various games? Do let me know below!

The Legend of Zelda Series Logo

So for many years hardcore fans of the series have looked for clues in each of the games to maybe try and piece together some semblance of a coherent timeline or storyline and, in 2006, the website GameTrailers produced a video presenting the ever popular “Split Timeline” theory. The theory states that two timelines were created when Zelda sent Link back into the past after they defeated Gannon at the end of Ocarina of Time. The timeline starts out with Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap, then after that is the legendary Ocarina of Time, then the theory states that the timeline spits with one of the lines being the time with Adult Link being sent back seven years and becoming Young Link again (Hyrule A) and the other being the one he left behind with Adult Zelda (Hyrule B). In the A timeline the next games are Majora’s Mask, Link’s Awakening, Original Legend of Zelda, Zelda II Four Swords Adventures, and A Link to the Past. In timeline B the only two games at the time of the videos release were theorized to be Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. This then left three games out of the two timelines those games being Oracel of Seasons, Oracel of Time, and Twilight Princess; even though both of the Oracel games can’t be placed definitively in either of the timelines they do provide some proof of the “split timeline” theory.

The Legend Of Zelda Timeline

Now flash forward five and a half years and three Zelda games later, Nintendo has decided to release an art book entitled “Hyrule Historia”. The book was released in Japan on 21st December 2011 for 3,255 Yen which equates to about Forty-One USD. Interestingly enough the once “locked away” timeline of the Zelda series was included in the art book… in Japanese. About a week later multiple Zelda fan sites start to receive translations of the timeline from one Joe Public. The Nintendo branded “Official Timeline” has the same basic set up as the Split Timeline theory with a few key differences. The first of two major differences is that the games on the timeline have been updated to include all the ones after the release of Twilight Princess, and the second difference is that instead of two universes created after Ocarina of Time there were three. Along with each of the games in chronological order each game and the time between them have been given an era name, for example the eras during the series newest release Skyward Sword are called “The Era of the Goddess Hylia” and “The Sky Era”. So here are the games as Nintendo has put them in the official timeline, first is Skyward Sword, second is Minish Cap, third is Four Swords and fourth is Ocarina of Time. Now after this the aforementioned three universes are created. The timeline breaks the three universes into two groups the first group being the split timeline theory with the Hyrule A&B and the second group is a single timeline in which Gannon defeats Adult Link in Ocarina of Time. So in Hyrule A, the one in which Link is sent back in time, the games are Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess, and Four Swords Adventures. In Hyrule B, the one Adult Link was sent back from, the games include Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks. Now if you, the reader, has been paying attention the a great majority of the games are in this third timeline including the original Zelda’s for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The games in this timeline include A Link to the Past, The two Oracle of games, Link’s Awakening, the original Legend of Zelda and finally, Zelda II

WOW! Well with all that in mind it seems odd that a great deal of the Zelda games gamers have played have been in a timeline in which one of the most beloved characters in video games failed, but notice that most of those games came out well before Ocarina of Time and out of those games the only one that ever references the Hero of Time is Link to the Past. Really whoever had the god awful task of trying to make the early and spin-off Zelda games fit into a somewhat coherent timeline should be given a pay raise! But really should Nintendo have gone this long without publishing the timeline? Do you think they will release updated timelines when new games come out, or will they do the typical Nintendo thing and just not really say anything about it?