Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda

Why 'Zelda' Fans Need To Get Over The Whole "Timeline" Crap And Enjoy The Game

Here's a bold statement that Legend Of Zelda fans don't want to hear but need to: There will never be a Zelda III. It sucks, but deal with it.

As I write this, sitting on a bookshelf next to me is a book I got for Christmas a few years ago called The Legend Of Zelda: Hyrule Historia. A book with a $40 price tag that's now out of date and will probably cost me $50 whenever they get around to updating it with Breath Of The Wild. In the book, as well as on multiple videos about the entire screwed up Zelda timeline (see AVGN, Games Brained and The Game Theorists for references), everyone can basically come to the conclusion that the first two NES games are at the end of a series of prequels and sequels to prequels that are screwed up and have shoestrings tying them together for continuity. For some reason, Nintendo has been obsessed with creating new games that come before the two that launched the series into stardom and captured the imagination of at least three generations worth of gamers. It could also be argued that Nintendo has simply been repackaging and reselling you the same game over and over for 30 years, but that's another topic for another day.

But every time a new Zelda comes around, there's all this talk of "where does it fit in the timeline?" Too many Reddit forums of "Hey, this is here, but this isn't, and this part makes no sense, but this thing just happened which didn't happen until here, so does that mean it fits here?" Even Kotaku jumped into the game this week with a talk about different timelines and talking about how Breath Of The Wild doesn't fit in anywhere. There's a simple answer for all of this: There is no such thing as continuity in The Legend Of Zelda. Doesn't matter how Nintendo framed it in a book, the basics of the story and the people involved kill the idea. How many times do you think the world of Hyrule keeps getting a blonde princess that they decide to name Zelda? How many times does a new princess keep running into a mute fighter named Link? And how many times can the main guy rising to power be an evil warrior/demon named Ganon? It's the video game continuity equivalent of Groundhog Day. The reality of what's going on is that every single game (and occasional sequels spawned from select titles) are different for a reason: They're all different games that aren't tied together.

Let's simplify things and use a couple popular titles, starting with Link To The Past as an example. The game's main plot talks about the war for an ancient golden power and Seven Sages locking Ganon away, an integral piece of the story and part of the reason you're traveling to seven dungeons. But if we skip over Link's Awakening (just a dream) and get to the next game released in the series (Ocarina Of Time), the whole war for the Triforce and the Seven Sages is gone and we're talking about three goddesses and three people holding onto different sections of the Triforce, including Ganon, the guy trying to get his hands on it in the first place who now just happens to be holding a third of it. I know we're quantifying everything down to the most basic plot points for a moment, but think about that. Nowhere in LTTP do they mention the three goddesses, and if OOT is a prequel, shouldn't we be in the battle with the Seven Sages doing their thing? The two can't exist in the same timeline because their reasoning for the Triforce being around and how the power is used has changed. You're not dealing with different timelines at all, it's just different games using the same characters, which at best means multiple parallel realities.

So when people get online and argue about how in the hell Breath Of The Wild fits into everything, the argument that it doesn't is, in fact, correct. But you also have to swallow the bitter pill that it doesn't fit because aside from a few titles that have direct sequels by name (Zelda 2, Majora's Mask, Four Swords Adventures), none of them fit together. And if you are still clinging on to the idea that all of these fit together in the convoluted timeline that Nintendo claims to be reality, then what you really should be looking for is Nintendo to make a Zelda III, because the first two NES games are (by their own words) at the end of the timeline.

What we're basically trying to do here (aside from pissing off hundreds of gamers for the comments section to go insane) is to tell you that Breath Of The Wild is its own game. It has a specific history and a cool story that share elements of all the other Zelda games you've loved. But it is a stand-alone game. Stop trying to connect it to the others with yarn and thumb-tacks in your basement. Enjoy it for what it is. Take it outside in the spring and feel like Link does roaming around Hyrule. Share photos of the adventure. Do anything with it, except try to connect it. All you're doing is watering down the adventure and focusing on the wrong thing.

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