#I wrote a lot of bitching about Zora's domain but it's probably better off as its own post

[loz-furbies]

My ranking the four races

Since there’s a lot of repeating elements in the four peoples of the champions, it’s fun to compare them to each other.

Champions

Revali - Revali my beloved. Tsundere bird. Apart from Zelda has the most noticeable character arc. Creates tension in a story where most allies are friendly with you from the start. Best AoC theme (no contest here) and he gets two!

Mipha - Such a sweetheart and lovely voice, and I like the childhood friends thing she has with Link. Also has a great sibling relationship with Sidon.

Urbosa - Really cool, and the most mentally sound of the group. Suffers a bit from the fact that she’s already grown up and content with herself, so we don’t see her struggle with any personal obstacles. Also since a lot of her story related more to Zelda than Link, I felt a bit like a bystander as the player.

Daruk - Balances the cast nicely but doesn’t do much for me on his own, other than his friendship with Link. Like Urbosa is already an adult so we don’t really see much personal struggles from him. Too much of his focus is about food.

Champion successors

Sidon - Before playing the game I had the impression that Sidon would be very serious and stoic so the himbo energy took me by surprise. I really like how positive and friendly he is, especially when everything is always some kind of trial to Link where he has to prove himself. So it’s so nice that someone is enthusiastically on his side right away.

Riju - I really like Riju, she has a great design and the contrast between her age and still being one of the smartest and mentally sound of the cast is interesting. Which works well with her hidden more childlike side too. It’s like she got Urbosa’s great qualities, and also has weaknesses to overcome to make her easier to root for.

Teba - It’s nice that one of the characters is already an adult who has a family. He’s described as being quick to anger but I didn’t see that much and to me he came across as pretty reasonable. I would have liked to see more of this side of him (or more of him in general). 

Yunobo - I don’t have anything specific against Yunobo but of the major characters he is the one I think the least about. He does have a decent character arc though.

Champion powers

Revali - Makes getting around so much easier and saves rainy days. The best (and only really) of the powers to in terms of character importance; Revali developing his on his own is very relevant to his character, while we don’t really get to know how the others feel about theirs.

Daruk - I can’t use shields so Daruk saves me from guardian lasers.

Urbosa - Useful since I also suck at combat. I like that the offensive ability was given to a female character.

Mipha - The first one I got and very useful in the beginning, but as you get more hearts and better armour it gets so easy not to die that I haven’t needed this in ages. Storywise super healing powers create issues by trivialising injuries.

Hometown

Rito Village - I’m a creature of North and feel at home in the middle of the snow and evergreen trees. Best music. I had a memorable experience stumbling here without a map.

Gerudo Town - Feels the most like an actual place where people live their lives outside the player’s actions and there’s a lot of little things to find. I especially like the secret clothing shop and how you can take part in the romance and cooking classes. And the marketplace is great as a gameplay element and I can easily imagine it bustling with people.

Zora’s Domain - I want to like Zora’s Domain more because it’s Sidon’s home but I have a lot of issues. The architecture is very pretty but it feels implausible and weird for an aquatic race, like I’d rather imagine canals and underwater locations. And the gameplay and story segregation here bothers me a lot; the Zora actually know Link and Sidon is supposedly his close friend but you still have to pay to heal at the hotel?

Goron City - Suffers from the fact that I don’t care much for the Gorons and there aren’t that many reasons to visit here (and when I do I’m forced to wear the uncute armour).