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I love pretty much everything about the Gerudo in Breath of the Wild

Neiteio

Member
They really are fantastic and definitely my favorite aspect of the game as well followed by the Rito, those damn Rito kids were great. And this is a reason why I really desperately hope they will pull a Majora's Mask and recycle a ton of BotW and create a much more character and quest focused game. As well as bring back traditional dungeons.

BotW was awesome and breathtaking but there was just so much I wanted more of that it simply couldn't provide. They killed it with the exploration and grand adventure, now I want them to scale it back a bit and create a more focused world. With deeper character interactions, multiple Hyrule Castle type dungeons and more traditional narrative.
I have detailed ideas I may elaborate on in another thread, at another time, but I think the Dark World would be a great setting for an MM-style "gaiden," and a smart way to recycle certain assets for a quicker development time (with modifications to color scheme, etc, for a more carnivalesque atmosphere — again, like MM).

Personally, I'd like a focus on cave exploration in a potential sequel. More traditional dungeons would also be appreciated, but I definitely liked the Divine Beasts as well. Taken as their own thing, they were quite compelling for a number of reasons, including their dungeon-wide manipulation mechanics, their nonlinear nature, their open design and the way they're grounded in the surrounding environment, how the lighting (and feel of the level) changes with the time of day since you can see the sky, their sheer scale, etc.

Sky's really the limit, though, in terms of where they go next. BotW is such a paradigm shift for the series. It's exciting to be, well, excited again.
 
They really are fantastic and definitely my favorite aspect of the game as well followed by the Rito, those damn Rito kids were great. And this is a reason why I really desperately hope they will pull a Majora's Mask and recycle a ton of BotW and create a much more character and quest focused game. As well as bring back traditional dungeons.

BotW was awesome and breathtaking but there was just so much I wanted more of that it simply couldn't provide. They killed it with the exploration and grand adventure, now I want them to scale it back a bit and create a more focused world. With deeper character interactions, multiple Hyrule Castle type dungeons and more traditional narrative.

Majoras Mask ruined every following game in terms of NPCs. Differing daily schedules etc, but after this game its mostly just been npcs waiting around to tell you their line similar to jrpgs in the SNES era.
 
botw-ritocute039xumd.jpg

THAT IS SO CUTE, I LOVE IT. I feel like a POS for missing out on this NPC behavior! :'(
 

Neiteio

Member
THAT IS SO CUTE, I LOVE IT. I feel like a POS for missing out on this NPC behavior! :'(
The Rito kids are ridiculously adorable. So is Cottla (the younger Sheikah sister who runs around Kakariko playing hide 'n' seek). So is her sister's thinking pose. So are the Zora kids with their bulbous heads floating in their pools. So is that lil' girl in Hateno who does the Bolson dance. So are the Goron kids with their huge teeth and roly-poly bodies.

OMG, now I want to see what a baby Korok would look like.
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
I still want to know why there are both rito and zora in this game...
they straight up contradicted their own world building

WELL, my reading is that the Wind Waker Rito were never a real "race," they were Zora that were given wings by divine intervention when they came of age, and started to develop beaks and slight bird traits after living like this for a while.

BoTW Rito are a "true" bird race that just happens to share a name with the kinda-Zoras. Maybe they developed over 10,000 years, but I suspect they were present back during the Twilight Princess era but just not featured in the game at all. Maybe they lived elsewhere, more isolated, there's a wide world beyond the kingdom of Hyrule after all. (There are anthropomorphic bird people added to wall textures in Hyrule Castle Town in TP HD, it may have been foreshadowing for this.)

The Japanese word for "bird" is tori, written to-ri in their syllabary, so rito is just bird backwards, it's pretty generic. "Bird people." Easy enough to apply to two distinct groups.
 

Anteo

Member
I have detailed ideas I may elaborate on in another thread, at another time, but I think the Dark World would be a great setting for an MM-style "gaiden," and a smart way to recycle certain assets for a quicker development time (with modifications to color scheme, etc, for a more carnivalesque atmosphere — again, like MM).

Personally, I'd like a focus on cave exploration in a potential sequel. More traditional dungeons would also be appreciated, but I definitely liked the Divine Beasts as well. Taken as their own thing, they were quite compelling for a number of reasons, including their dungeon-wide manipulation mechanics, their nonlinear nature, their open design and the way they're grounded in the surrounding environment, how the lighting (and feel of the level) changes with the time of day since you can see the sky, their sheer scale, etc.

Sky's really the limit, though, in terms of where they go next. BotW is such a paradigm shift for the series. It's exciting to be, well, excited again.

Nah. Make it as a remake/retcon of links awakening. Dealing with link dream while in stasis. Since its a dream you can reuse characters but change the roles. Also make him being able to track down memories of his village and anything before the calamity (a peaceful hyrule) to expand botw, heck you could retcon marin to be someone he knew as a child. Then make the same revelation that beating the game = waking up = losing all the memories he recovered an destroying the island, make the final boss his fears (calamity ganon, fighting the other champions, his last stand in hateno fort , etc) and finish the game with the intro of botw, the one with the light and zelda saying open your eyes as you wake up.
 

WPS

Member
I strongly suspect that a BotW depiction of Ganondorf would place his height at 9-10 feet tall. Men in most media are often depicted as taller than women, so they'd probably upscale him. Would've been neat to see what he looks like in this game.

I'd hope not, tbh. I can see them scaling him up so he's not dwarfed by them, but I wouldn't be impressed if they made him taller than all of them again. Also media totally needs to stop using height as a measure of manliness.

While it doesn't really match it, a lot of the Gerudo lore updates reminds me of MGDMT's portrayal of Ganondorf, which put quite a bit of thought into what a man raised in a society of almost entirely amazonian women 's idea of gender roles would be.

This thread is good content.

I was also impressed hylians have racial and cultural variety now too, with cultures inspired by japan and hawaii as well as usual fantasy stuff.

If anything, I'm most impressed that even the non-humanoid races come in a variety of shapes and colours. I've seen a lot of settings only add that for humans as a quota filling exercise, and then neglect the others because they're not human so we won't notice. I think only the Sheikah were particularly limited in appearance, though I don't remember how diverse Hylians were since I never paid attention to who was hylian and who was human.

While we're at it, are the humans, gerudo, sheikah and hylians meant to be different species, akin to Tolkien's humans, elves and dwarves, or are they more like real world ethnicities?
 

Neiteio

Member
Maybe BotW's Rito originally were Zoras, but they're simply an evolutionary offshoot. Kinda like humans and Neanderthals are considered different species but can trace their evolutionary line back to chimps, and the two coexisted for a time. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, I'm most definitely not a scientist!)
 

Haunted

Member
You just wanted to post all those pretty screenshots, didn't you.




Great writeup. I think BotW is one of those classics that will be talked about and analysed and taken apart for years and years to come.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
I liked the Gerudo too, and I actually missed all the whole Riju post-dungeon stuff. She asked me if I wanted the Thunder Helm and I was like "nah, I'm good" without realizing that there was a lot of questing behind it.

Time to check it out later.

As for the whole women-only thing, I did find it odd that Riju didn't tell the other Gerudo that Link was allowed to hang out there afterwards. I'm also still confused how they handle husbands. They seem kind of sheltered about how to meet men when they leave the city, and once they find one, are those Gerudo women forced to live outside the city to stay with their husbands? They never really work that part out.

Is it just me or does the desert fairy also have much more varied dialogue than the others?
I think she does too. She sounds a lot more sure of herself than the other fairies because she's the oldest one.

While we're at it, are the humans, gerudo, sheikah and hylians meant to be different species, akin to Tolkien's humans, elves and dwarves, or are they more like real world ethnicities?
I think they're ethnicities.
 
The Rito kids are ridiculously adorable. So is Cottla (the younger Sheikah sister who runs around Kakariko playing hide 'n' seek). So is her sister's thinking pose. So are the Zora kids with their bulbous heads floating in their pools. So is that lil' girl in Hateno who does the Bolson dance. So are the Goron kids with their huge teeth and roly-poly bodies.

OMG, now I want to see what a baby Korok would look like.

If Build a Bear workshop got into a agreement with Nintendo to license/make plushes for the Rito kids, my wallet would suffer. I would want to buy every kid in that screenshot as a plush. The coloring on them is fantastic!

It is a nice change of pace to see children NPC in games. In a lot of these open world games, we really don't get to see a nice variety of different age groups. BOTW did a good job in giving us at good handful of age groups with each race we encountered.

I guess you could say, it's a nice breath of fresh air ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
 
This was the third "main area" I visited about 120+ hours in. Agree totally with everything you've said. Still have a good bit to do here as well!

Fantastic screenshots as well.
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
Maybe BotW's Rito originally were Zoras, but they're simply an evolutionary offshoot. Kinda like humans and Neanderthals are considered different species but can trace their evolutionary line back to chimps, and the two coexisted for a time. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, I'm most definitely not a scientist!)

The BotW Rito being so clearly derived from various real-world birds makes me think they evolved from actual birds, not Zora, or any shared ancestor.

Or not, considering that creation myths in Zelda aren't myths. They were probably plopped down just like that.
 
The Gerudo area is great, but I'll also say that it was my least favorite of the Divine Beasts. The whole rotating cylinders thing was way too frustrating for me for some reason, plus the boss is pretty cheap when you're underspecced. Came back after getting the
Master Sword
and beat him without ever using a health item.
 

Neiteio

Member
Nah. Make it as a remake/retcon of links awakening. Dealing with link dream while in stasis. Since its a dream you can reuse characters but change the roles. Also make him being able to track down memories of his village and anything before the calamity (a peaceful hyrule) to expand botw, heck you could retcon marin to be someone he knew as a child. Then make the same revelation that beating the game = waking up = losing all the memories he recovered an destroying the island, make the final boss his fears (calamity ganon, fighting the other champions, his last stand in hateno fort , etc) and finish the game with the intro of botw, the one with the light and zelda saying open your eyes as you wake up.
This is a cool idea, but my heart couldn't handle getting attached to characters and then losing them in a dream world that dissolves again. :-(

I'd hope not, tbh. I can see them scaling him up so he's not dwarfed by them, but I wouldn't be impressed if they made him taller than all of them again. Also media totally needs to stop using height as a measure of manliness.

While it doesn't really match it, a lot of the Gerudo lore updates reminds me of MGDMT's portrayal of Ganondorf, which put quite a bit of thought into what a man raised in a society of almost entirely amazonian women 's idea of gender roles would be.
I think "physically imposing stature" is the presence they go for with Ganondorf. Nothing to do with any concepts of manliness. He holds the Triforce of Power, and I think his design is meant to embody that in terms of physicality and brute strength. So if he were in BotW, I imagine he'd be the biggest humanoid of any race. It'd be pretty neat to see, IMO.

WPS said:
If anything, I'm most impressed that even the non-humanoid races come in a variety of shapes and colours. I've seen a lot of settings only add that for humans as a quota filling exercise, and then neglect the others because they're not human so we won't notice. I think only the Sheikah were particularly limited in appearance, though I don't remember how diverse Hylians were since I never paid attention to who was hylian and who was human.

While we're at it, are the humans, gerudo, sheikah and hylians meant to be different species, akin to Tolkien's humans, elves and dwarves, or are they more like real world ethnicities?
Yeah, the non-human variety is great. I like how the Rito draw inspiration from osprey, eagles, owls, even macaws (Kass). And then the Zora draw upon fish, rays, sharks, etc. Even the Gorons have variety with different "rock formations" for their shells and shoulders, not to mention different skin tones (black Gorons, etc).

As for the nature of the Sheikah... It's hard to say whether they'd be considered a separate "species." If nothing else, they have a strong genetic disposition toward certain traits, namely the silver hair.
 

Flipyap

Member
It's just a shame they gave them high heels, especially since the game makes sort of a big deal out of the importance of wearing "sand boots." No idea how they justified that art choice, especially since other female travelers, warriors and a princesses in the game were allowed to wear perfectly reasonable hiking footwear.
 

Neiteio

Member
You just wanted to post all those pretty screenshots, didn't you.




Great writeup. I think BotW is one of those classics that will be talked about and analysed and taken apart for years and years to come.
you_got_me_breaking_bad.gif


As for the whole women-only thing, I did find it odd that Riju didn't tell the other Gerudo that Link was allowed to hang out there afterwards. I'm also still confused how they handle husbands. They seem kind of sheltered about how to meet men when they leave the city, and once they find one, are those Gerudo women forced to live outside the city to stay with their husbands? They never really work that part out.
The Gerudo woman who sells wheat and rice tells you that she's married. It appears that Gerudo women who marry can still come back to Gerudo Town to conduct business. I imagine they leave town to live with their husbands at the end of their shift, though.
 

Neiteio

Member
It's just a shame they gave them high heels, especially since the game makes sort of a big deal out of the importance of wearing "sand boots." No idea how they justified that art choice, especially since other female travelers, warriors and a princesses in the game were allowed to wear perfectly reasonable hiking footwear.
Maybe I'm being charitable here, but I like to imagine the Gerudo wear heels as a fashion statement (expressing their individuality) and they're able to do so comfortably because they grew up in the desert, are incredibly athletic and accustomed to sand.

But that's just me fan-fiction-ing!
 
And oh. That Molduga music is. So. Good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbR7wb7ezGg

Very nice screenshots by the way, I thought I was done with this game for years but now I almost feel like starting it up again, heh.

I got into a bad fight with a few lizafoes and was down to 3 hearts. Bloodmoon rises and the Molduga theme began. 3 hearts, 3 lizafoes, 1 molduga. Was an intense battle but I still won in the end.

That music added to the epicness.
 

Jazzem

Member
It's just a shame they gave them high heels, especially since the game makes sort of a big deal out of the importance of wearing "sand boots." No idea how they justified that art choice, especially since other female travelers, warriors and a princesses in the game were allowed to wear perfectly reasonable hiking footwear.

Heh yeah, the obsession of unnecessarily giving female characters high heels always bugs me. It's nowhere near as egregious as Zero Suit Samus for me at least, that being the absolute nadir of that trope :p
 

Twookie

Member
Urbosa is definitely one of my favorites from the game.

Gerudo valley is probably tied with Zora's domain for me - I love the aesthetics of Zora's Domain but the quests were a bit meh, while most things Gerudo were top notch.

BotW is so fucking good man aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
 
I wish there was an easy and quick way of taking screenshots in the WiiU version. So many shots I wanted to take, but the though of waiting forever to upload to Miiverse bugs me the fuck out.
 

Neiteio

Member
I wish there was an easy and quick way of taking screenshots in the WiiU version. So many shots I wanted to take, but the though of waiting forever to upload to Miiverse bugs me the fuck out.
This is easily one of the best features of the Switch. The capture button is QUICK. Much faster than my PS4 Pro.

Only problem is the Switch has a 10,000-shot limit for microSD cards, regardless of their capacity, and a 1,000-shot limit for internal memory (thankfully this is counted separately, so 11,000 shots total).
 

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
Maybe I'm being charitable here, but I like to imagine the Gerudo wear heels as a fashion statement (expressing their individuality) and they're able to do so comfortably because they grew up in the desert, are incredibly athletic and accustomed to sand.

But that's just me fan-fiction-ing!

I figured it was just like most of their design being a juxtaposition of their extremely amazonian physical appearance, super tall, very muscular and rather stern demeanor in contrast to their very hour glass figure and super ornate, rather sensual, and decorative dress style.

So you have these 8+ foot tall, wall of muscle women who are unrealistically attractive and fit but who also dress in very revealing and what we would consider sexy outfits. It's a common enough trope, but works well here as they don't dwell on it.
 
Yeah they're pretty damn sexy and cool



They all irrationally hate men though. Like come on give me a chance I never did anything to you I'm not like all the other guys -.-
 

GamerJM

Banned
I love their designs and characters and everything. The idea of a completely matriarchal village is so cool and I think it was neat to see them finally fleshed out in a Zelda game.
 
The character designs were all so great, particularly the Zora, but man did the Gorons get the short stick? Like has it been universally acknowledged that the Goron design just sticks whatever? They look the same across all titles.
 

Wiseblade

Member
URBOSA IS MY CHAMPION

SNAP YOUR FINGERS AT MEEEE


Out of the four, she's easily my favourite. The Gerudo quest is easily the best out of the four, too. The Zora pretty much stop your adventure to push you down their path, while finding the Gerudo Desert felt very natural.
 

Forkball

Member
I kept scrolling and the post didn't end.

I really liked how the Gerudo were handled in this game. As any nerdy Zelda fan can tell you, seeing the Gerudo have an expanded role is something everyone wanted. Their distinct culture separated from the Hylians, the dynamics of how an all-female society works, the fact that the big bad is one of them... all of these could lead to very interesting stories. There was no analogue for them in Majora's Mask, and they were hauntingly absent from Twilight Princess. They were completely ignored in Skyward Sword and Wind Waker (well, except for one). Nintendo managed to flesh out a lot of the key aspects of their appearance in Ocarina while also giving them more distinguishable traits, both in their personalities and how their society functions. I would like to see them expand more on what they think of Ganon. Urbosa mentions briefly that Ganon was a Gerudo, but everyone else doesn't mention it. I suppose it's so far removed from OoT that everyone forgot. Though we still go back to the "What about all the other Gerudo males?" question. Maybe in BotW 2...

The desert region as a whole is remarkable as well. When compared to visual diversity and unique topography of the rest of Hyrule, the idea of a largely flat desert seems rather bland. However, they managed to incorporate so many unique aspects to make the area stand out. The shifting temperatures force you to be aware of your situation, which can be doubly difficult once enemies start to pound on you out of nowhere. Molduga is easily the best field boss and feels like a real Zelda boss fight. The game captures the feeling of being lost in a desert, chasing an endless horizon, and then the sweeping relief when you find an oasis or notable landmark. This is really highlighted in the quest where you have to traverse a sandstorm. The desert being dotted by ruins and remarkable statues also gives the area a real sense of history that is disconnected from the rest of Hyrule. Gerudo Valley's storied Spirit Temple from OoT and the oppressive Arbiter's Grounds from TP also gave those areas the same feeling.

THIS GAME IS SO GOOD SAND SEALS HOW DO THEY EVEN THINK UP THIS STUFF
 
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