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[massoluk]

Yes, it spends a lot of time with cutscenes, story rolls and even during the campaign itself they are always telling a bit of the story. Compared to most Nintendo games, this is story heavy.

Are you serious? Half of the roster in this game don't have anything worth labeling as story.

 

[TheSpoiler]

I know.

I'm saying this was a really dumb way to introduce a "female Link" character, given the climate around female characters always getting shoved into supporting roles in tentpole media franchises.

Is it a dumb way? It's a direct parody of Link, and her traits aren't indicative of any gender (well, you could argue that it's typically a male focused trope, but still). Nintendo decided to make her a humorous take on Link. That's really the size of it. There's definitely issues with getting women as main characters, but treating them as dainty flowers that can't be parody characters, or in a broader sense, treated in the same way as a male character is silly.

 

[Anteo]

Ok but we are talking about Hyrule Warriors here, the other Links dont matter.

There is a precedent, that's all I say. Yeah they give him the idiot ball and he screws up big time charging forward like an idiot and that's stupid, but he is not the only Link to have ever done that, the worst example being WW Link that had to be rescued by a giant dragon and a band of pirates.

I also like that because it shows he is not flawless.

 

[Neiteio]

Nintendo's next smartphone game will be a GPS app starring Linkle. When you reach your destination, Linkle realizes the error of her ways and says "I shouldn't have gone on an adventure — I'm just a girl." She then returns to the kitchen to make sandwiches for her husband, Dinkle, and a video plays of Miyamoto congratulating the player and telling them they've restored balance to the Force.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

No, certainly not what I am saying. I don't know who Zoro is, but from what I have experienced with One Piece, I wouldn't exactly put that on a pedestral for good writing.

And Hyrule Warrior's is worth putting on a pedestal? Lol, trust me when I say that game wishes it had even fraction of the strength of OP's narrative.

 

[Yoshi]

I thought it's quite common (regardless of gender) to have a hard headed character insisting that they know where they're going, don't need a map or stop for directions, and have the situation under control, only for the opposite to be *really* true.

Well, she recognises she needs a map, and a compass. She even behaves in a way that makes clear that she should be aware she does not know how to use it, but still continues to suddenly burst out a "yosh" and run away. The trope itself (just "not asking for the direction / not finding the way") is common for both sexes, and certainly moreso for males, but please also have a look at the implementation. The "dumb, but over-confident girly" depiction is not sex-neutral. But that is not the absolute main point, her story line is first and foremost insulting to the "reader", the execution strikes me as sexist, too, even though I recognise it is common in some variant of anime. Which is not saying in itself it is okay.

Yoshi pls.

The game story is "yeah this evil girl is evil, and you have a bunch of characters of other games that fight the evil girl. Then they fight gannondof, The end"

Yes, the story is a simple good-vs-evil-story, I did not say the story is a masterpiece. It's passable. Linkle's part of it is way below passable though. It's complete and utter shit.

 

[Crocodile]

I hadn't played Hyrule Warriors Legends so I was ready to come in complaining that Nintendo had screwed the pooch. Instead I find its the OP who has literally no idea what they are talking about LMAO.

Its funny, for all the discussion of Japanese/Anime tropes, these tropes are SUPER common in Western Media too. Like where does the OP live that they've never been exposed to this stuff before?

 

[Nanashrew]

The dialogue surrounding Hyrule Warriors has always been hilarious to me. Early on people were all proud of Nintendo for including so many female characters in the cast, but then that turned into people calling it some kind of Link's Harem Fantasy. Then the Linkle concept art was shown and that started off the whole WE NEED A FEMALE LINK movement that infects nearly every Zelda thread now, and now here we are with "Linkle is fucking stupid and this is awful."

neogaf.gif

Not saying that everyone feels this way because obviously it's not true. It's just funny.

At least she's a freaking force of nature on the actual battlefield.

Outside of GAF there was actually some really weird outcry that there were too many women in Hyrule Warriors and demanded more men.

 

[LegendofLex]

Is it a dumb way? It's a direct parody of Link, and her traits aren't indicative of any gender (well, you could argue that it's typically a male focused trope, but still). Nintendo decided to make her a humorous take on Link. That's really the size of it. There's definitely issues with getting women as main characters, but treating them as dainty flowers that can't be parody characters, or in a broader sense, treated in the same way as a male character is silly.

There are plenty of ways that Linkle could have been a parody character who's treated differently than Link without being so in a way that's disparaging to the character.

I mean, I think what they were going for with her story was that she keeps showing up in the right place at the wrong time and so never quite gets to "save the day" (which makes sense because they already wrote a complete story that doesn't involve her) and that's an idea that didn't need her to constantly be reading her map incorrectly - again, on the eve of a game that's about to use map-based navigation in a big way, it's a weird signal to send when your "female Link" prototype is unable to read a map correctly.

I don't necessarily expect the execution to be good, but I at least expect these kinds of gestures not to be patronizing. It sucks, because I'm actually really impressed by how ridiculously powerful she is as a fighter, and I like the character anyway even with the current quirks in place, and so I don't want to criticize the character. But I can't help but feel like they didn't quite pull her off.

 

[Richie]

Nintendo's next smartphone game will be a GPS app starring Linkle. When you reach your destination, Linkle realizes the error of her ways and says "I shouldn't have gone on an adventure — I'm just a girl." She then returns to the kitchen to make sandwiches for her husband, Dinkle, and a video plays of Miyamoto congratulating the player and telling them they've restored balance to the Force.

Berg?

 

[bobbychalkers]

Yes, the story is a simple good-vs-evil-story, I did not say the story is a masterpiece. It's passable. Linkle's part of it is way below passable though. It's complete and utter shit.

Everybody's character arc in the game is complete and utter shit. It's pure goofiness left and right. The game lets you lead an army of Cuckoos to fight Moblins. Musou games aren't known for character depth.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I know.

I'm saying this was a really dumb way to introduce a "female Link" character, given the climate around female characters always getting shoved into supporting roles in tentpole media franchises.

The only way anyone involved in this game should have even thought about actually doing this is if they could position her as just as "hero" as Link. The whole "ditsy" thing doesn't demolish that potential by itself, of course, but if the way her story ends doesn't resolve that idea (I haven't finished it yet) in a satisfying way, they're sending the exact wrong message with this character.

Linkle's story being more or less concurrent with the main story basically killed any chance of her taking on the proper "Hero of Legend" role. Hyrule Warriors already has a Link, and they're not Linkle.

Linkle may have started as a female Link design, but the end result is a separate standalone character who shares similarities to Link. If they were actually going to use the "female Link" idea in a game, it likely wouldn't be Linkle.

 

[maxcriden]

It's probably why I wouldn't like a female version of Link in a mainline game. Japan just does something... weird with women. You see this in anime all the time. No real (Edit: Most) woman behaves like that...

I think judging Japanese media's depiction of women based only on anime may be a bit too narrow of a lens. No offense intended. That's not to say there aren't problematic aspects regarding the depiction of women in Japanese media, simply that other forms of Japanese media demonstrate a more well-rounded depiction of women than some anime alone may lead you to believe.

 

[LegendofLex]

Linkle's story being more or less concurrent with the main story basically killed any chance of her taking on the proper "Hero of Legend" role. Hyrule Warriors already has a Link, and they're not Linkle.

Linkle may have started as a female Link design, but the end result is a separate standalone character who shares similarities to Link. If they were actually going to use the "female Link" idea in a game, it likely wouldn't be Linkle.

This is a game about multiple timelines colliding and overlapping in the same physical space. They could have found a way to have her be a proper "legendary hero" if they wanted to do it.

I understood that reference.

I understood this reference.

 

[Nyoro SF]

Berg?

I understood that reference.

 

[Pokemaniac]

This is a game about multiple timelines colliding and overlapping in the same physical space. They could have found a way to have her be a proper "legendary hero" if they wanted to do it.

But they didn't. That should be telling of their intent for Linkle. You really seem to want her to be something she really isn't and isn't intended to be.

 

[Azuran]

Linkle has more personality in one game that Link has had in 18 of them.

 

[Zolo]

Probably due to the implementation of her into the game as a side character rather than having a focal role in the story. The Koei-Tecmo team wanted to do something like you're suggesting and have her be Link's little sister, but Aonuma shut it down due to continuity clashing with Aryll in Wind Waker (which is silly since this is a different incarnation of Link anyway). So what we got is rather last-minute more or less.

This might be a problem where the fanbase sees each Link as a different iteration while the main team might see each incarnation as similar while sometimes having the same ensemble like farmgirl Marron. You can also expect if another Link has a sister, it'll also be an Aryll expy.

 

[Camjo-Z]

I don't really care that Linkle is an idiot because she has one of the best movesets in the game.

 

[OVDRobo]

So this is what happens when a Nintendo fan plays a game where the developers have tried 'characterisation'.

Every single Koei-Tecmo musou game deals in anime tropes. Whether it's meant to be set in ancient China, Japan, or some actual anime universe, most characters are one-dimensional walking tropes meant to fill some stereotype that has existed for years.

Hell, most games out of Japan do it now. This isn't unique to musou games.

In the case of Linkle, despite her design being inspired by Link (because she believes she is the legendary hero), she seemingly was always intended to very much be her own character. I'll absolutely agree that her final character is more dumb than I'd like, or what it had potential to be, but people seeing her and expecting her to be a female version of Link is them coming in with preconceptions based on their own misinformation.

I'd love to see the threads we'd get if most Nintendo IPs had characterisation rather than playing with mute or very neutral protagonists most of the time. Look at Metroid: Other M and more recent Fire Emblems for examples.

 

[SparkleMotion]

Berg?

 

[MaximumSpider]

Fucking love Zoro
What's funny is that Zoro also got lost a lot in Pirate Warriors 3 and you have to help turn him around.

 

[TheSpoiler]

There are plenty of ways that Linkle could have been a parody character who's treated differently than Link without being so in a way that's disparaging to the character.

I mean, I think what they were going for with her story was that she keeps showing up in the right place at the wrong time and so never quite gets to "save the day" (which makes sense because they already wrote a complete story that doesn't involve her) and that's an idea that didn't need her to constantly be reading her map incorrectly - again, on the eve of a game that's about to use map-based navigation in a big way, it's a weird signal to send when your "female Link" prototype is unable to read a map correctly.

I don't necessarily expect the execution to be good, but I at least expect these kinds of gestures not to be patronizing. It sucks, because I'm actually really impressed by how ridiculously powerful she is as a fighter, and I like the character anyway even with the current quirks in place, and so I don't want to criticize the character. But I can't help but feel like they didn't quite pull her off.

I'm completely fine with not liking her parody personality. But I think people are taking this too far in terms of how this relates to sex.

The character's tropes aren't related to the female genre primarily, so fanboy or fangirl of link could have turned out like this. Like, this doesn't really relate to sexism beyond the fact that it's a girl and that she wasn't written correctly. But that's a problem you can apply to many characters in this game in general.

 

[Nanashrew]

A person can be smart and still have a horrible sense of direction.

 

[Neoleo2143]

A person can be smart and still have a horrible sense of direction.

It seems that the writing doesn't acknowledge her "smarts" in any other way though. This is a bit disappointing. Take Admiral Yang Wenli from Legend of the Galactic Heroes for comparison, he is an absolute combat and historical genius but he is notably a slob and sometimes is careless in a social setting, which allows the politics of the world to take advantage of him.

 

[SparkleMotion]

Why does Linkle have to be smart? There can't be a dumb female character or it's sexist?

 

[marmoka]

I only came to this thread because of Zoro.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Every single Koei-Tecmo musou game deals in anime tropes. Whether it's meant to be set in ancient China, Japan, or some actual anime universe, most characters are one-dimensional walking tropes meant to fill some stereotype that has existed for years.

Yeah, a good recent example of this is Dragon Quest Heroes. A common trope is that male characters race ahead in battle without thinking of the outcome while female characters are the levelheaded ones. But just like with Linkle, they flip the trope where the female character (Aurora) is the one always telling the male character (Luceus) to shut up when he's thinking of a plan and she just runs into battle. For DQH2 they're flipping it back around and the female lead is the levelheaded one and the male character is the run racing ahead.

 

[tolkir]

 

[Angry Chair]

I wanted to say she is like this because of her small woman brain but that doesn't apply here. Those are male tropes you are complaining about.

 

[LegendofLex]

But they didn't. That should be telling of their intent for Linkle. You really seem to want her to be something she really isn't and isn't intended to be.

I think the mere fact that they set up the character in such a disappointingly non-forward-looking way is a really bad gesture given the climate surrounding gender representation in video games (especially) and film.

I'm completely fine with not liking her parody personality. But I think people are taking this too far in terms of how this relates to sex.

The character's tropes aren't related to the female genre primarily, so fanboy or fangirl of link could have turned out like this. Like, this doesn't really relate to sexism beyond the fact that it's a girl and that she wasn't written correctly. But that's a problem you can apply to many characters in this game in general.

I'm not complaining about the choice of trope itself making the depiction of the character sexist. She doesn't need to be absent of stereotypical tropes or flaws to be a good character. Hell, I even think she's a good character anyway.

I'm complaining about the specific choice of trope - the whole "unable to find her way using a map" thing - sending a really weird message given that in 8 months Nintendo's about to release a game where the player will need to navigate using a map, but their aspiring legendary heroine - the first time they've represented a version of Link as a female player-character - is apparently incapable of reading one.

Like I said, I'm pretty fond of the character and I even like the whole "she keeps showing up late to the fight" thing as it gives her room to act on top of the existing story without being overly gratuitous. I like that she isn't obviously caught up in the major hero prophecies and is just going off to fight because she wants to be the hero, spurred on by her grandmother's stories. I think that's all fine (great, even!) and makes her endearing in a way that Link isn't. I think going the wrong direction constantly is a fun little quirk, too, that I personally enjoy.

I just don't like that the last piece of big Zelda media we're likely to get before their big open world Zelda game with a huge detailed map leaves us with our first female analog to Link... and she can't read a map. Again, it's an unusual signal to be sending alongside such a character, in the context of that particular upcoming game.

 

[Mesoian]

It seems that the writing doesn't acknowledge her "smarts" in any other way though. This is a bit disappointing. Take Admiral Yang Wenli from Legend of the Galactic Heroes for comparison, he is an absolute combat and historical genius but he is notably a slob and sometimes is careless in a social setting, which allows the politics of the world to take advantage of him.

...again, this is a Musou game. A dream match musou game.

 

[NoKisum]

So Yoshi, what do you propose should be done? Make sure all female characters in media have absolutely no character flaws to make sure this doesn't happen again?

 

[Mesoian]

So Yoshi, what do you propose should be done? Make sure all female characters in media have absolutely no character flaws to make sure this doesn't happen again?

Clearly the answer is to do what they did for the WiiU version, strip out her story entirely and just use her on adventure stages.

 

[sensui-tomo]

...again, this is a Musou game. A dream match musou game.

people forget that musou/warriors games main point is to be a power fantasy and anything else after the fact.

 

[Neoleo2143]

...again, this is a Musou game. A dream match musou game.

Even a dream match musou game can present a somewhat qualified view of its characters.

 

[Brandon F]

Seems like a harmless attempt to instill a bit of humor into the character.

I suppose I understand the concern from a tropes perspective, but at what point does a gag like the one depicted not work for any race, creed, or gender? Feels like we are already there...

 

[UnemployedVillain]

It seems that the writing doesn't acknowledge her "smarts" in any other way though. This is a bit disappointing. Take Admiral Yang Wenli from Legend of the Galactic Heroes for comparison, he is an absolute combat and historical genius but he is notably a slob and sometimes is careless in a social setting, which allows the politics of the world to take advantage of him.

What character in Zelda is considered smart?? Link is always a dumb kid or a farm boy who just gets along. She's not portrayed as any number than anyone else

 

[Nanashrew]

It seems that the writing doesn't acknowledge her "smarts" in any other way though. This is a bit disappointing. Take Admiral Yang Wenli from Legend of the Galactic Heroes for comparison, he is an absolute combat and historical genius but he is notably a slob and sometimes is careless in a social setting, which allows the politics of the world to take advantage of him.

I'm only pointing out that having a horrible sense of direction doesn't mean a person or the character is dumb. Plus Musou games tend to play up the tropes and even go out there with some personalities. Imagine one day when Groose shows up in Hyrule Warriors 2. Think of him from Skyward Sword but personality increased 10 fold like a 4koma does with characters.

 

[Mesoian]

Even a dream match musou game can present a somewhat qualified view of its characters.

None of them ever have.

Not one.

Even Musou games from other franchises just lay into the tropes of the characters from their respective series.

You don't come to these games for a detailed analyses of the characters within. If you're doing as such, you're going to have a bad time.

 

[Meesh]

Most male heroes in manga are as dumb as bricks. If you have heroes that are too perfect in every way it's like some crappy fan fiction. Nobody likes it because it feels phoney.

Sounds like I have something in common with this Linkle.

 

[sensui-tomo]

None of them ever have.

Not one.

Even Musou games from other franchises just lay into the tropes of the characters from their respective series.

You don't come to these games for a detailed analyses of the characters within. If you're doing as such, you're going to have a bad time.

Best example is Warriors orochi, thats the game where the trope defines the character.

 

[Mesoian]

Best example is Warriors orochi, thats the game where the trope defines the character.

Tropes or literal physical attributes.

"That guy big and noble because he drives a longhorn that looks like a harley. Like a biker! GET IT?!?"

And of course "that guy is a mech. We don't know why. It's fine, he's going to die soon anyway"

 

[Maedhros]

Maybe you need some more time banned to think about this and play more titles about japanese tropes.

Hell, it isn't even commonly used with women at all. In Japan, most characters that are part of this trope are male.

 

[bobawesome]

Now featuring Linkle!

 

[The Orz]

If Tecmo Koei wanted to really run with the joke they'd have your map constantly change while playing as Linkle. It would have been both brilliant and infuriating.

Also, thank you everyone for the Zoro and Ryouga pics. Warms my heart.

 

[sensui-tomo]

Tropes or literal physical attributes.

"That guy big and noble because he drives a longhorn that looks like a harley. Like a biker! GET IT?!?"

And of course "that guy is a mech. We don't know why. It's fine, he's going to die soon anyway"

.... i didnt say we should talk about sengoku basara with tadakatsu Gundam.

 

[-Horizon-]

Now featuring Linkle!

holy crap lol

 

[Ryaaan14]

I'm offended by the name Linkle. Name sux

 

[rollysoup]

Exactly what I was thinking of.