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Nintendo explains why you can't play as a woman in Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Why force Link to become female? He's been always a male as much as Mario has always been a male. Again, rather than forcing gender change to an already established character, why not push for a more diversified cast of playable characters that are also established, like pushing Zelda, Impa, and others? They have done it successfully with the Super Mario franchise, so making Link female isn't the only solution for gender diversification. Can you imagine an established male character, let's say Sonic, become female in a new Sonic game just to push gender equality instead of just simply adding new friends that are female?
insert creepy Sonic fanart/fanfic here
But in Wind Waker's case it is important for him to be mistaken for the Hero of Time, which happens entirely based on appearance.
A Link to the Past
Banned
If ever there was something that made me want to debate with someone, it's people whining about the SJW PC Police.
Can we ever have a thread without sobbing gamers getting super upset because people don't hold the same opinions?
That said, totally awesome and valid comparison. All you have to do is mindlessly ignore the fact that Cloud is an individual and Link is a concept.
That's entirely untrue. The only reason he did what he did was because Tetra's pirates chased Helmaroc King to his island and his sister got kidnapped. If Link was a girl, she would have the same motivations to go as Link does, because it's about saving Aryll, not wearing the clothes.
This guy knows about zelda
Thats a lame excuse. Its a fantasy world, its not like the 'laws' are set in stone.
However, on the 'Link should be female' thing; as much as I'd be happy to see a female Link, imo shoehorning female playable characters into existing franchises isn't the way forward. It's like a consolation prize. How about more new franchises built around female characters from the start?
And this.
However, on the 'Link should be female' thing; as much as I'd be happy to see a female Link, imo shoehorning female playable characters into existing franchises isn't the way forward. It's like a consolation prize. How about more new franchises built around female characters from the start?
And this.
Shin Kojima
Banned
I wouldn't mind if Link would suddenly be female. A hero in green is a hero in green. That said, I don't feel like Nintendo has to explain or defend their design choices to anyone.
Not every game has to be suitable for everyone. This is not pop music.
Not every game has to be suitable for everyone. This is not pop music.
I was talking about this particular game, but thanks to you two for jumping to conclusion and trying to shoe-horn me into a stupid role. On one side I'm the SJW scarecrow. On the other side I don't know shit about the Zelda series. Thanks fellas.
A Link to the Past
Banned
And to reply to Ragnarok's stuff, you have a pretty narrow berth for what can be considered Zelda falling into the damsel trappings.
1. In Zelda II, she is effectively kidnapped by having a wizard place a curse upon her that puts her to sleep
2. But you could have just as easily swapped in a different maiden in Zelda's place. All ALttP did was make her a more involved damsel.
3. But again, they could have done it way more interesting. Hell, they could have even had Zelda as Sheik protect Link from Ganondorf only to get captured, as opposed to being captured after just giving him a thing.
4. The TMC argument is ridiculous. Just because Vaati wasn't after Zelda doesn't mean that her being the character who is turned to stone is a mere coincidence. The fact that the king and his people get turned to stone later doesn't change that her condition is one of the aspects of Link's quest.
5. I don't think you're remembering right with PH; if I recall, she simply gets captured in an early cutscene. She doesn't do something cool and get captured if I recall.
New franchises usually don't succeed as well as old ones, so while it's ideal when it works (like in Splatoon's case), it's also not typically successful. Like, you look at famous, new female characters, particularly Faith and Jade, and we see two characters who have a very big following, but whose games are only so successful (the latter was so unsuccessful that you could get it in a package of chips in the UK!).
1. In Zelda II, she is effectively kidnapped by having a wizard place a curse upon her that puts her to sleep
2. But you could have just as easily swapped in a different maiden in Zelda's place. All ALttP did was make her a more involved damsel.
3. But again, they could have done it way more interesting. Hell, they could have even had Zelda as Sheik protect Link from Ganondorf only to get captured, as opposed to being captured after just giving him a thing.
4. The TMC argument is ridiculous. Just because Vaati wasn't after Zelda doesn't mean that her being the character who is turned to stone is a mere coincidence. The fact that the king and his people get turned to stone later doesn't change that her condition is one of the aspects of Link's quest.
5. I don't think you're remembering right with PH; if I recall, she simply gets captured in an early cutscene. She doesn't do something cool and get captured if I recall.
New franchises usually don't succeed as well as old ones, so while it's ideal when it works (like in Splatoon's case), it's also not typically successful. Like, you look at famous, new female characters, particularly Faith and Jade, and we see two characters who have a very big following, but whose games are only so successful (the latter was so unsuccessful that you could get it in a package of chips in the UK!).
Welfare
Member
if these aren't the exact words, they're pretty close - zelda says, 'help me, save me.'
and it's the worst fucking thing. because you can kind of explain away a lot of what happens between her discovering she was zelda and joining the final battle in tww, but phantom hourglass is straight up character assassination. i don't go nuts about story in games, but phantom hourglass's opening is one of the reasons why that game sucks.
A Link to the Past
Banned
It was a particularly sorry way to open the story, yeah. The game has problems in so many areas, it didn't need a weak de-characterizing of Tetra to make it worse!
The opening cutscene of Phantom Hourglass:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=enNs2nghvrA
It notably condenses Wind Waker's story to "two friends travel together, Tetra turns into a beautiful princess, the beautiful princess gets captured by an evil king, the boy travels over mountains and seas to slay the demon king, the beautiful princess is rescued."
After this, Tetra jumps on board a ghost ship to investigate it, but it disappears into the mist, and the player has a vision of Tetra saying "Link...save me...Link...save me...Link..." (This vision plays again whenever the game is turned off and resumed.) It's revealed later that Tetra has been turned into stone, and Link must find a way to get her life force back.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=enNs2nghvrA
It notably condenses Wind Waker's story to "two friends travel together, Tetra turns into a beautiful princess, the beautiful princess gets captured by an evil king, the boy travels over mountains and seas to slay the demon king, the beautiful princess is rescued."
After this, Tetra jumps on board a ghost ship to investigate it, but it disappears into the mist, and the player has a vision of Tetra saying "Link...save me...Link...save me...Link..." (This vision plays again whenever the game is turned off and resumed.) It's revealed later that Tetra has been turned into stone, and Link must find a way to get her life force back.
There is no trend, people who previously did not have voices now do.
Its never going away.I would advise you deal with it
freeofgreed
Member
Lmao that explanation was so weak. I was reading that story expecting some amazing revelation as to why they're all male and all I get is, "because we wrote it that way".
The King of Red Lions had been searching for the Hero of Time. He found a boy wearing the hero's garb. All characters who were alive in OoT's time mistake him for the Hero of Time.
Tetra is also a secret Hero of Time fangirl based on the stuff in her cabin and the way she helps Link.
I think it's wrong to blame Zelda's getting captured on her being female. She may have started out as captured female for the sake of it but she's evolved. She is a series strong powerful characters who happens to be female and the reason the villains and heroes seek her has nothing to do with her gender. They seek her because of the power she wields.
1. I said that Zelda 1 and 2 were pretty clean cut damseling. The goal of the game is for Link to get with Zelda. But still, she was essentially murdered.
2. The game has 7 maidens total. Giving Ganon a real reason to capture her and making her rescue not the focus of the plot subverts the trope. Ganon kills her father, Link's uncle, and the priest.
3. Of course they could have done it more interestingly. OoT had major development problems and still they told its story in an amazingly coherent fashion all thing things considered.
4. Zelda gets turned to stone because she stands in his way when he opens the bound chest. Link begins his quest initially to find a way to reverse Zelda's petrification at the behest of the king and because she's his friend. Vaati doesn't take interest in Zelda until late in the game, and as a statue it's hard for her to fight back. Other powerful characters sharing her fate, especially male characters, subverts the idea that what happened to her had to do with her gender.
5. She gets captured in the intro. She jumps onto the Ghost Ship to investigate it but it's never shown how she got captured. She screams, the Ghost Ship departs, Link tries to jump on board but falls into the ocean.
NeonZ
Member
You seem to be ignoring what happens after Tetra is captured though and reducing her entire character to that moment. In the final battle, she takes Link's bow and fights right alongside him.
If you want to see Tetra handled badly, you've got Phantom Hourglass.
Chû Totoro
Member
This! Also Link is a male since the beginning why changing his gender now?
I'm not asking to play Uncharted as a woman or Tomb Raider as a man. Again choice is best but not having choice won't kill me. Why not a black jew transgender link ?
Why do people want to play as their gender or the character to have the same colour of skin absolutely? Of course choice is better but if the game is good with male or female character let it be good that way.
I'm not asking to play Uncharted as a woman or Tomb Raider as a man. Again choice is best but not having choice won't kill me. Why not a black jew transgender link ?
I really believe that the best way to live together without discrimination is to embrace everything without putting rules to "force" things. Most of games are with a white 25-30 male character... I'm clearly not representing myself as this and I find all these characters very simplistic (even boring for the most part) but I play the game ans try to enjoy it without judging the creators. Maybe saying that not offering this or this as a character is as much insulting for the creators because :
1- you don't respect their work and their artistic choices
2- you assume there are bad intentions behind these choices
And for the last time, of course choice is better, but when it's by default and not because the female character (or black or whatever...) has nothing interesting to bring to the game I'd rather keep the generic white dude (yeah now this is almost racist the other way around
)At the end :
- have creative ideas for different characters, go for it. If it's just a "skin" then I'm not really interested because it could feel weird in some parts of the game and it's complicated to please everyone
- customizable characters in your game => the more possibilities, the best (not having different genders or skin colours could feel very strange)
- don't have money, time, ideas to make things nice, don't bother and focus on your game and the experience you want to bring to the player (so if your choice is a female character, go for it. If it's a gay black character, go for it)
Representation is not the solution. It's good of course and it's important but the first thing to do is equality in society. Black people are represented in almost every TV shows or movies in the US.. yet look at how they're treated in US society.
Linkstrikesback
Member
Not only that. In the ending of Wind waker, zelda is able to hold the master sword. She gives it back to link and takes his bow instead, but that's presumably because she is supposed to have experience with a bow and not a sword.
And that is what is troubling my mind.
We're all in for diversity, diversity doesn't mean having 50% of games that make you play whether you like it or not as any kind of person and 50% white male straight character.
What all we should aim for is having choice in games that work well with that option! Like fallout or mass effect.
Games where the protagonist character can be swapped without altering not much due to the nature of the game and the story created for that "universe".
What I can't support is the attitude of hey, this x% of characters are white straight male and therefore x% should be (women, colored,
Trans, etc) because by that logic then there should be like 1% per genre/race/sexual orientation.
Also it should not be seen as a "I've been forced to play as a white straight male so now everybody should be forced to play as xxxx" that's not justice, that's just revenge.
As I said before, we're all open minded about lots of things now, so instead of messing with stuff that it's liked as it is right now, start creating new and better things, establish new IP's and create awesome new stuff.
Also, I feel we sometimes must respect the decisions of the creators, instead of thinking: hey you should cram another protagonist in your story ask for a completely new story.
Then the whole industry could move on and expand, and people would fall in love with new stories and new characters while loving what they already have, it's a win win situation.
QuantumZebra
Member
I see your point.
So, if I was the developer in a similar situation and said something like:
"We're aware of the issues surrounding representation in games, and appreciate that the lack of a female protagonist or female character options may upset some people.
For this particular game, we wanted to depict a male protagonist, however we are always considering different approaches."
Would that be acceptable?
If no, why?
If yes, would it still be acceptable if every developer made that same statement each time?
If no, why?
If yes, great. That's the answer.
The explanation is weak because IGN is basically calling them out on using pallet swaps, at which point the explanation is "we did that so we'd only have to design and create one character."
Ding ding we have a winner.
Lights and Waves
Member
You're embarrassing.
Steve Youngblood
Member
I see that as an acceptable answer. At the very least, it's far better than what was offered in the interview. As to the second question, I think it kind of undermines its validity if we're just trying to formulate a generic catch-all that's going to work in every situation. I'm not saying that it would never be a valid response, but it loses any touch of sincerity if it just gets tossed out for every challenge.
Again, I really feel like so much of the time we end up with these threads that are needlessly contentious. I don't feel like creative integrity is under a great attack here. An interviewer asked a question, expressed disappointment in the answer, and Nirolak thought it would make for an interesting thread. This isn't day 100 of feminist radicals sitting in at Nintendo HQ with demands that must be met. I think the goal of asking questions like this is just to get creators to think on a go-forward basis about this stuff.
If they do some soul-searching and come out the other side thinking "no, we wanted the character to be male," then that's fine. But in this process they might also be able to articulate their vision better than just offering a canned response. Or maybe -- and I think it's worth noticing that this has been happening a lot as of late and as such it continues to surprise me that people think that these questions are unnecessary and accomplishing nothing -- they come out the other side thinking "you know what, this is an easy change to make that will yield some good will for our next game. Yeah, we can add more diverse options for our player characters."
Well, you do know that Ubisoft was blasted last year for not having playable females in AC: Unity, right?
And at least Ubisoft didn't dance around the issue by saying that their female employees were fine with it.
I was agreeing with you. I was being facetious too...
Best post in this thread.
Amory
Member
how much interest would've been appropriate? should he have berated the guy?
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2004/06/09/igncubes-2004-die-tingle-die-die-campaign
10+ years on and still not successful.
The women on staff were asked ''Any objections, lady?'' It was a joke, and they were greatful for the nod.
Beelzebufo
Banned
There's something really weird too about a person who's artistic vision is vehemently against making one of the three colorful characters in a kid-friendly cooperative action/puzzle game a girl if it makes tons of people happy. I don't think I'd want to be around that person in real life.
Like if someone asked me, "Hey Beelzebufo, would you mind making one of the three completely interchangeable avatars in your new game female? It would actually make tons of us really happy!" I think it would be perfectly reasonable for them to judge the hell out of me and think I'm a total scumbag if I responded with "No. Never. That would ruin everything" and then started rambling about some prophecy.
This is The Legend of Zelda, and a goofy multiplayer iteration of it at that. This ain't Un Chien Andalou.
Like if someone asked me, "Hey Beelzebufo, would you mind making one of the three completely interchangeable avatars in your new game female? It would actually make tons of us really happy!" I think it would be perfectly reasonable for them to judge the hell out of me and think I'm a total scumbag if I responded with "No. Never. That would ruin everything" and then started rambling about some prophecy.
This is The Legend of Zelda, and a goofy multiplayer iteration of it at that. This ain't Un Chien Andalou.
Jelly Rajah
Banned
I would really like to see a female Link in a mainline Zelda game. Not a huge deal if that doesn't ever happen though.
As far as Tri Force Heroes goes, anyone who refuses to play or criticizes the game because you can't play as a girl is being absolutely ridiculous. Zelda is already one of those series with a significant amount of female fans - it has very little do to with whether a playable female protagonist is present in the game.
As far as Tri Force Heroes goes, anyone who refuses to play or criticizes the game because you can't play as a girl is being absolutely ridiculous. Zelda is already one of those series with a significant amount of female fans - it has very little do to with whether a playable female protagonist is present in the game.
It's obvious Link is an Asian girl, anyway.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
They were blasted because the devs words were completely misconstrued into something that he never said, that whole "females are hard to animate" shit was never said. The dev just went into detail about what they would've wanted to do if they wanted to include the option for a female protagonist that the player would never see themselves as. Yes, it would've been a lot of extra production work. It was ridiculously blown out of proportion. Thankfully they didn't do that "We also have female devs thing."
spyroflame0487
Member
It's kind of like the Female Thor problem; It's cool that they did it, but...why couldn't they make a new female character? Why did it have to specifically change Thor's gender?
I'm not really surprised that they didn't because that's just the way things have been with the series. I'd certainly hope that future games allow the option or include a female character to play as. Hyrule Warriors does a great job of this.
I'm not really surprised that they didn't because that's just the way things have been with the series. I'd certainly hope that future games allow the option or include a female character to play as. Hyrule Warriors does a great job of this.
Broken Joystick
At least you can talk. Who are you?
Of course not, it's never the interviewer's intention to make the interviewee uncomfortable, but the wording of "I guess I have to ask", as if they're being forced to do so, comes across unprofessional to me personally.
This is a really great post.
Because it's really quite hard to build up name recognition for a brand new superhero/video game franchise. It's not like Marvel and DC don't both have a long laundry list of failed women and minority characters, but there's a nasty catch-22 in place where the conventional wisdom states that those don't sell, so they don't get the publisher support and talent to let them stand on equal footing with the established hits and thereby slip down the charts, which reinforces the conventional wisdom and so on ad infinitum.
If your goal is the grow the market through increased diversity, it's easier and more meaningful to change up a core character when you can and see what the response is.
I just want a Legend of Zelda game where you play as Zelda and create her legend. She can turn into a ninja, a pirate, control statues, astral project, sail a ship, fly, cast tons of magic, AND she can use a straight sword and silver arrows. When are we getting THAT game? (I'd be fine with her not having a regular shield if it meant a reliance on parries, magic, tactics, form changing, and dodging)
Sir Alemeth
Member
That's it Nintendo. You've gone too far.
Next metroid game Samus better be a black man.
Next metroid game Samus better be a black man.
Link's a guy... Just a design decision.
I hear people's cries in this thread, I do, but the long and short of it is that if they changed his gender around it'd go against his character concept.
What they COULD have done is introduced female characters with the other 3 'heroes'.
I hear people's cries in this thread, I do, but the long and short of it is that if they changed his gender around it'd go against his character concept.
What they COULD have done is introduced female characters with the other 3 'heroes'.
Dice//
Banned
Übermatik;170577944 said:
This too. I think the one thing that really bugged me about this game first is that it starts not one, not two, BUT THREE IDENTICAL Links. This is the Mass Effect blue-print, green-print, and red-print idea all over again.
For a series with so many unique characters, races, species, whatever -- the idea of three Links is so creatively bereft it's annoying.
I'm curious as to why this has become such a big deal for fans of the franchise lately. Why does it matter if Link is a boy or a girl?
If they want to make Link a girl, cool. I wouldn't have a problem with it. But what's with the constant prodding about it? Let them make the games they want to make.
If they want to make Link a girl, cool. I wouldn't have a problem with it. But what's with the constant prodding about it? Let them make the games they want to make.