The Legend Of Zelda - General Thread

more liked crunched, as the challenge of Miyamoto was to make a game with in a year.

Sure, Romani (and Cremia, who uses Malon's adult model) aren't one-to-one to Malon, and the out-of-universe reason for the reused assets was to save on development time, but that doesn't invalidate the in-universe parallels. Termina is a dark mirror of Hyrule with lots of familiar-but-strange faces for Link to recognize.

A recent interest of mine has been this specific map that... just keeps showing up. I've seen it on puzzles of various piece numbers, on posters, blankets, rugs, tapestries... the card backs in Zelda Uno are actually a darkened version of it. Very intriguing that this map, that doesn't correspond to any specific game, has become the default rendition of Hyrule in a lot of merchandise. It not being based on any specific game isn't a negative to me, to be clear; it's a really nice map, and quite clearly a representation of Hyrule and not a generic fantasy map.

What's also interesting is the inclusion of Castor Wilds. This map has been around since at least 2014, so it's actually the first published instance of Castor Wilds (or as it is called in Japanese Tabantha Wilderness) as being north of Gerudo Desert and just in general being the main western region in a version of Hyrule that includes other more famous landmarks like Zora's Domain, Kakariko Village, and the Great Deku Tree.

How strange. Is it the standard on official merchandise, though, or is it a fan design that got popular enough (and unfortunate enough to have a high-res uncredited PNG somewhere) to show up on a bunch of "print this on a shirt" type factories?

Edit: If I had looked with my eyes, I would have seen the copyright mark, at least... but I can't say I've ever seen this before. Huh.

Edited by RedSavant on Mar 17th 2024 at 10:38:32 PM

I'm sure some of the stuff I've found is unlicensed, but the map itself is used in too many official brand collaborations to not be something that's being provided by Nintendo.

Also, Hidemaro Fujibayashi brought up the map during the GDC presentation on Breath of the Wild. But not as, like, concept art for Breath of the Wild, he says it's just "something that I stumbled upon while I was sorting out assets for this presentation". "An illustration that an artist created a few years ago in an attempt to actually put down on paper this great spirit of adventure". And I'd say it does a pretty good job at that. Looking at the locations in this map makes me think of the kinds of adventures I would have in them, even when I can't place a specific game that looked like this.

Edited by BOOXMOWO on Mar 17th 2024 at 11:19:04 AM

I guess we can call it the platonic ideal of Hyrule.

I've already cleared Cadence of Hyrule!

Very fun spin-off, I'll come back to it in the future to finish the DLC part (I got stuck in the Temple of Brainstorms and the enemies in the overworld were too overwhelming to me).

Is that an official spin-off? I've never heard of it before.

It's a crossover game with Crypt of the Necrodancer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_of_Hyrule

Ah, okay. It's the rhythm game based Zelda. I forgot about that one.

Is Tabantha that swampy place with lily pads and a Deku head north of Gerudo Valley? I vaguely remember it being swampy in Minish Cap (I played that but I always forget I played it), but it's basically the opposite of that in Breath of the Wild.

Man, I just want the Deku to rejoin the series in a big way. They should move the Rito to Hebra and let the Deku retake their swampy habitat.

I would have put the Deku tribe in the Faron region instead of Tabantha. In BOTW, that whole region was entirely irrelevant for the story because there was no village located there, no associated Divine Beast, nor even anything related to the Master Sword. -_-

They really called the kitsune in Majora's Mask "Keaton"?

The wiki suggests the Japanese name is キータン (Kiitan), so... it's not really that big a deal.

Many of the creatures in Zelda have made up names even if they have a direct real world counterpart like a stalfos is a skeleton.

And just like my half-kitsune self, they also have three tails, guess the other 6 would've caused the N64 to blow up.

Faron would've been a good home for the Deku in Breath of the Wild specifically, but the region and Farore in general are more broadly associated with the Kokiri/Koroks. I wouldn't want to stick all the plant people in one place, and I don't want to lose the Bubblegloop Swamp archetype.

I also think we should keep Hebra going forward (apparently, it's existed in Japan since A Link to the Past). Slippy-Slidey Ice World is a surprisingly rare archetype in Zelda, and I love the idea of the Rito living in monasteries on a mountaintop above the clouds.

I think you can have Korok or you can have Deku just because they probably don't want overlap with the Plant Person aesthetic.

Yes, the Hylian text next to it reads "Castor Wilds". Most Hylian letters (in the Hylian script that's been used since ALBW) just look really similar to their Latin counterparts, so having a guess about what one part of the text says, and then you squint, it suddenly becomes readable. Though I think that's an Octorok, not a Deku.

And yeah, Castor Wilds (AKA Tabantha Wilderness) was a swampland in Minish Cap, it had a mechanic where you can only cross the bog without sinking by running with the pegasus boots. Tabantha Frontier in Breath of the Wild is instead dominated by mountains, lakes, coniferous forests, and dry canyons, without a single instance of the bottomless bog mechanic. Three possible reasons for this are:

1. They had already developed the concept for the region before attaching the name Tabantha.

2. Since its name was just "Tabantha Wildness", not "Tabantha Swamp" they see the concept as flexible, certainly mountains, lakes, coniferous forests, and dry canyons do fit the criteria of wilderness.

3. The nearby Ludfo's Bog was originally part of Tabantha Frontier before they changed their minds and made "Hyrule Ridge" its own subregion of Central Hyrule.

I second the idea that Hebra should stick around. Pulling back to the "point" of the map, the core of Hyrule is an adventurous spirit, and the reason places like Death Mountain, the Lost Woods, and Zora's Domain have become staple parts of it is that they are always exciting places to journey to on your adventure. Places like Hebra Peak and Floria Falls have this same spirit.

Edited by BOOXMOWO on Mar 18th 2024 at 8:11:46 AM

Hebra also adds an icy region to Hyrule, which was a video game biome it was notably lacking

If I absolutely have to choose, I choose the Deku, but I'd hate to lose the cozy temperate forest aesthetic and that doesn't really suit them. (I mean, I guess that's where they lived in Ocarina of Time, but it's really Majora's Mask that made them a proper race).

Let's just bring back the Kokiri and put them in the Lost Woods. Koroks should really only exist in the adult timeline anyway.

Also a good excuse to bring back Yeto!

I honestly feel like the Faron region in BOTW could've worked in some Deku Scrubs. There's some areas there that are swamp-ier. Probably some other areas you could fit them with that in mind, too.

This kind of thing is why I feel like I would prefer a return to a more focused map. As thematic as the tropical forest area is in the BOTW games' maps, there isn't much reason to stay there aside from getting the shrines and leaving.

Faron was pretty so I had fun just exploring.

Honestly it's something I like about how big BOTW is, the fact that it has some regions that exist solely to be fun places to explore rather than just being the area around a dungeon or the area where you get an item needed to progress to the next dungeon. And the fact it can have both the Great Hyrule Forest and Faron Woods without them feeling like they're stepping on each other's toes or overdoing the forest theme.