Level With Me, Nintendo

Making him female is as simple as adding "er" to his name.

My high honesty level gets me in trouble sometimes. If I like an unpopular game  or the much greater sin of disliking a mainstream hit  I'll tell you so, eve though I'll get dragged through the mud for it. This might be why I find it so baffling that game company spokespeople continuously feed their customers bullshit.

I don't mean making bad or incomplete games and pretending there's no problem, I mean outright lying about their decision-making process.

The most recent example might be the most laughable of all. Set aside your personal feelings on the need/lack of need for a female Link in a Legend of Zelda game for a moment and take a look at what series producer Eiji Aonuma said this to Kotaku regarding Link's continued maleness in the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:

"You know there’s the idea of the Triforce in the Zelda games we make. The Triforce is made up of Princess Zelda, Ganon and Link. Princess Zelda is obviously female. If we made Link a female we thought that would mess with the balance of the Triforce. That’s why we decided not to do it."

Come on, man, don't talk to us like that.

There's so much wrong with that, it's hard to choose where to begin. Um….

1) It's a damn Triforce. It has an odd number of sides or points or whatever.

2) So two guys and one girl in the Triforce is OK, but two girls and one guy is not? I don't… that doesn't… what?

3) The fucking Triforce isn't real.

And again, please, please let's not make this a discussion about whether you or I want to play as a female Link. That's not the point here. The point is that the reason given is undeniably pulled direct from the ass.

My interest level in Breath of the Wild is unaffected by Link being a boy or a girl, but what chaps my hide is that the same group who created every detail of Hyrule would come out and be like, "Nope. Any more than one girl and we'd have a fucked up Triforce on our hands. Nobody wants a fucked up Triforce." 

Well I submit for consideration that any Triforce that exists with two males and one female but would be "unbalanced" by going the other way around is already fucked up. It's already unbalanced.

Just be honest with us here. You're making art, so defend it. Defend your art. 

Nintendo has no obligation, no civic duty, no moral expectation to make a female Link. A lot of people want it, and I would buy such a game for sure, but that doesn't mean Nintendo has to do it. The Legend of Zelda is their intellectual property and they can do what they feel is best, but I wish they'd have the confidence to do it while telling us the real reasoning, instead of hiding behind an imaginary Triforce.

Pictured: Not Link
It brings to mind that time Ubisoft tried to say that 30 frames per second was better than 60 because it was "more cinematic." Just tell us you didn't feel like aiming higher, or that you couldn't top 30 despite efforts, or whatever the truth is.

If Aonuma said, "To be frank, hey, I just prefer Link as a dude," then I'd dust my hands off and call it good. Going forward, I wouldn't see any more reason for a female Link as I would for a female Solid Snake. But he didn't say that. It's the obvious truth, but he didn't say that. 

Just tell me why you really did stuff, my friends.

Upcoming Releases
Kindred Fates is an open world monster battling RPG, and a love letter to the monster battle genre. Our goal is to evolve the genre, and finally bring fans what they've been asking for.
Inspired by the beauty of the natural world around us, Everwild is a brand-new game in development from Rare where unique and unforgettable experiences await in a natural and magical world. Play as an Eternal as you explore and build bonds with the world around you.
Atlas is an action-rpg with rogue-like elements where you use your ability to control the ground to fight the enemies and move through procedurally generated worlds.
Reviews
X