The Triforce Wielders (Ganon/Ganondorf) Recurring: Goddesses and Allies, Villains and Enemies, Races Main Series: The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Oracle games, Four Swords, The Wind Waker, Four Swords Adventures, The Minish Cap, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds, Tri Force Heroes, Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom Spin-Offs: Philips CD-i Games, Hyrule Warriors, Cadence of Hyrule, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
Hyrulean Forces | Dark Forces | DLC Characters | 3DS Warriors | Giant Bosses | Captains | Others
General Tropes
- Adaptational Badass: Most of the playable characters aside from Link and the villains did not fight in their original appearances; some may have had moments of cutscene badassery (Sheiknote , Impanote , Midnanote ), implied Offscreen Awesomeness (Sheiknote , Darunianote , Impanote ), or served as combat mechanics (Midnanote , Zeldanote ) in some games, but generally they were purely NPCs, maybe serving as Exposition Fairies (Zelda/Sheik, via her playable role in Super Smash Bros., being the one exception). This game gives them all the opportunity to cut loose and show everyone how powerful they really are.
- Agitha goes from an eccentric rich kid to a full-on magical combatant who beats up enemies with a parasol and bug magic.
- And it goes even further with the introduction of Marin. Originally a singer from an unknown island with no combat experience whatsoever, now she uses her bell and the power of the Wind Fish to decimate entire platoons.
- Amazon Brigade: Of the ten playable heroes, eight are women, including Sheik (who has no attempt made to hide her true gender) and Fi (who is technically genderless but feminine). Two of Link's weapons (Great Fairy and DLC Epona) also essentially turn Link into an accessory for a female character to take the lead. This is somewhat balanced by one female and five male (or genderless but masculine, in the case of Ghirahim and probably Wizzro) playable villains, though. The DLC cast introduces both female and male figures from the Zelda mythos to balance it out even more.
- Army of The Ages: Both armies are led by famous figures in Hyrulean history.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Enemy commanders and captains display short-lived meters called "Weak Spot Gauges" after certain attacks are used, while the Giant Bosses display them if certain items or techniques are used to counter them properly. Depleting these gauges triggers a unique attack that causes much higher damage, and for giant monsters this is really the only way to kill them.
- Badass in Distress: Due to the nature of the game, the various characters often come into situations mid-battle or otherwise wherein they require help. This doesn't make them any less of a badass, though.
- Bag of Sharing: In story mode, all of the sub-weapons are shared among all the playable characters once they are picked up. They are even shared among characters who shouldn't plausibly have access to them (such as the playable villains). And on Legend Mode stages before they found them in the first place.
- Battle Aura: Focus Spirit, a Super Mode that temporarily enhances a character's speed and attack strength.
- Boss Subtitles: All playable characters and bosses get an intro cutscene and a subtitle. Some are only seen in Adventure Mode, though.
- The Bus Came Back: Among the cast are a number of characters who have only made an appearance in one game of the series and haven't been seen since.
- Elemental Powers: Each weapon type has an element of either Fire, Water, Lightning, Darkness, or Light, although the nature of which of these elements are used vary from character to character.
- Your fairies can activate a burst of energy that can, in most situations, kill every nearby mook and damage all captains. These blasts are elemental and can be customized by feeding your fairy, allowing them sometimes to have multiple elements with different side effects.
- Evil Knockoff: Dark versions of any character can appear as enemies in Adventure Mode (yes, even "Dark Ganondorf"). Functionally, they are identical to the real deal, even having the same elemental weaknesses and resistances, and mainly serve to allow multiple copies of a given character on the field at the same time. Dark Links also appear during Legend Mode for a plot-related reason, as does a Dark Cia.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: The two factions as a whole technically have an equal amount of main characters of both genders. This is thanks to Sheik technically
being Zelda in disguise, and Lana and Cia being actually two sides of the same person that were split apart. - Hyperspace Arsenal: The various playable characters have a number of sub-weapons to choose from:
- Battle Boomerang: A sub-weapon that can be used to stun enemies. A power-up temporarily replaces it with the Gale Boomerang from Twilight Princess.
- A hammer, introduced in Legends. It can be used to pound certain switches to activate mechanisms.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Hookshot is a sub-weapon that can be used to navigate the battlefield. A power-up upgrades it to the Clawshot from Twilight Princess, which temporarily allows it to pull down miniature moons that resemble the one from Majora's Mask.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: A sub-weapon where a barrage of bombs are thrown at once. A power-up temporarily replaces it with giant bombs bigger than the characters.
- Item Get!: Everyone gets their own take on the classic Item Get! pose. Even Ganondorf.
- Logical Weakness: You can usually guess what a foe is weak to. As a rule of thumb, Hylians are weak to Darkness; Villains and Darkworlders (i.e. Loruleans and Twili) are weak to Light; burning/stony foes are weak to Water; watery, flying, or particularly metal-covered foes are weak to Lightning; and the undead or anything that'll burn/melt easily is weak to Fire. If you don't count Agitha's finery and basket of bugs or Tingle's countless hidden explosives, their weakness to Fire might seem arbitrary, and Lana's weakness to Lightning instead of her Evil Counterpart's element is a subversion.
- Mooks: Freely employed by both sides. The Hylian Forces use Gorons and Hylian Soldiers, while the Dark Forces use Bulblins, Bokoblins, Stalchildren and (in the Wind Waker stages) Miniblins.
- One-Man Army: Each of the playable characters can single-handedly easily wipe out opposing armies.
- Power Trio: Certain characters form this with each other in story mode. It's also extremely common if character officers are on the enemy team in Adventure missions to have them come in sets of three, themed around certain things, and the biggest amount of playable characters that you're able to take with you in certain Adventure Mode missions is three characters with only one exception occuring in a DLC Reward Map mission where you're allowed to take with you a team of four characters.
- Promoted to Playable:
- Outside of Link himself and a very few other exceptions (Zelda in Spirit Tracks and Tingle in his own spinoff games, plus Zelda, Sheik, and Ganondorf in Super Smash Bros.), most of the characters are playable for the first time here.
- An update made Cia, Wizzro, and Volga playable as well as giving them their own set of Legend Mode levels.
- The Master Quest DLC pack allows Epona, who initially only appears in Link's intro and victory animations in this game, to properly storm across the battlefield with Link.
- The Boss Pack makes both Ganon and the giant Cucco from Lana's Summoning Gate playable, albeit limited to the Ganon's Fury mode.
- Skull Kid appears at several points as a NPC in Hyrule Warriors... only to appear in Hyrule Warriors Legends as a playable character.
- An interesting version with Linkle, in that she was planned to be included, being shown in concept art, but was cut. In Hyrule Warriors Legends, her concept was refined and she's finally playable.
- Two Girls to a Team: Inverted. Among the main Hyrulean Forces characters, only 2 are men.
- Hyrulean Forcesnote
- Dark Forcesnote
- DLC Charactersnote
- 3DS Warriorsnote
- Giant Bossesnote
- Captainsnote
- Other Charactersnote
