#also a fun fact: there are no wind waker song emulators like there are ocarina which made that part difficult

[powdermelonkeg]

Secrets in the Breeze

"What do you think it is?"

Several sets of eyes fell on the tablet Hyrule had unearthed, pondering its use. Legend studied the pattern critically. "Hmm..." He reached down and wiped away some dirt. "...It looks like song magic."

"Those aren't notes I recognize..." Sky said with a frown. “Are you sure?”

“No. But that’s my best guess until I can study it better.”

Hyrule reached for his recorder. “Well, we can find out pretty quickly, right?”

Time held out a hand to stop him. He gave the strange tablet a thoughtful look. "...Everyone, stand back."

The other four in the hunting party quickly gave him distance as he pulled out his indigo ocarina. The marks looked a little different, but...Drawing in a breath, he lifted the instrument to his lips.

The other heroes watched in anticipation.

...Silence.

Time frowned, glancing around the area. “...Did anyone notice anything happening?”

“I don’t think so.” Wild paused, peering at the sky outside the cavern. “Not unless you have a song for causing rain.”

“I do. This isn’t it.”

“Wait, really?”

Time offered a small smile. “A conversation for another time. Let’s get back before the others decide to come looking for us.”

“Do you think they decided to cook something themselves?” Hyrule asked, grabbing his game bag.

Sky scrunched up his nose. “Goddess, I hope not. I can still taste that...reekfish thing.”

Wild raised his hand. “I liked it.”

“You eat rocks. You don’t get to judge what tastes good.”

As the others went ahead, Legend glanced back at the strange tablet. After a moment’s consideration, he wrenched it free of the earth and tucked it under his arm.

It needed to be studied further.

“There you are!” Warriors exclaimed, halfway through putting up the oil tarp for the rain. “We were just about to get a search party ready.”

“He means he was about to go running off after you,” Twilight said, giving his well-polished counterpart a side-eye, then shook his head. “Anyways, we’re all hungry. What took you?”

Hyrule rubbed the back of his head. “Secret cave.” He gave a nod to Wild. “He spotted some fragile rocks and wanted to blow them up.”

“Find anything?”

“Yeah, actually.” Legend held out the tablet. “Song magic script. Do any of you guys recognize this?”

Twi, Four, and Wars all frowned as they looked at the markings, but Wind lit up instantly. He threw his hand in the air. “I do!” he exclaimed. “That’s 4/4 time; it’s conductors notes!”

Time raised an eyebrow. “Conductor’s notes?”

“Uh-huh. It’s how song magic works on the Great Sea.” Wind tilted his head to the side. “Though, I don’t know this song. What is it?”

“We were hoping you could tell us that.” Legend said, sitting down by the fire. “Think you can play a tune for us?”

Wind’s eye’s shone, and he pulled out his silver baton, looking to Time for confirmation. “Can I?”

The older hero frowned, considering. “...Not this close to the fire. Or to bad weather. For all we know, it’s a Lyric of Lightning or something equally as dangerous.”

Wind’s shoulders slumped, and Four patted his back. “Cheer up,” he said. “You can still try it out tomorrow. Besides,” he flashed the younger hero a smile, “we should eat before it rains, right? I’m hungry, aren’t you?”

“...Yeah,” Wind relented. He gave one last wistful look at the tempo pattern.

Soon, he told himself. Soon, I’ll learn your secrets.

Rain pattered outside the heroes’ shelter, the soothing sound and calm scent of petrichor letting even the most troubled of them sleep undisturbed, for once.

Well...almost all of them.

Wind managed the 2 AM watch at the edge of camp, eyeing Legends tools and trying to coax himself out of the temptation to try the new song. It had been so long since he’d run into a tablet like that; the thrill of new abilities or hidden passages was a siren’s call to the young adventurer.

Up, down, up, right. It was so simple.

What could it do?

Wind found himself fantasizing about the possibilities. Maybe it calls birds, he thought. Or summons fairies, or lets you talk to rocks. He glanced up at the stormclouds. Or maybe the old man’s right and it’s a lightning song. How cool would that be?

He pictured it; calling down lightning like one of the mages of legend, with just a swish of the Wind Waker. He could take out entire monster camps in one fell swoop!

His eyes drifted back to the tablet by Legend’s bag.

...If it’s really a lightning song, then it won’t work if we wait for the storm to clear, Wind thought to himself, pulling out his baton.

He needed to try it out.

Just to test it. Time would understand, right?

Stealthily, he crept over and grabbed the stone, carefully pulling it over to his post at the tarp’s edge, and stood in front of it. The Wind Waker sparkled with magic intent.

The stone shimmered, triangle carvings lighting up; orange, yellow, orange, blue. Light bled through the cracks, and—

—it crumbled to dust.

Wind’s jaw dropped.

...Legend was going to kill him.

He shoved the Wind Waker back into his bag hastily, trying to keep calm. This is fine, right? If he doesn’t say anything, then nobody can blame him, and Legend could chalk it up to age! Relics break all the time!

...Except Time’s disapproving frown would crack Wind for sure. There was no evading that; it was almost as bad as when his grandma gave him the look of disappointment. He was doomed.

Ping!

Wind’s ears twitched, momentarily distracted from his crisis by the sound. A soft purple glow caught his eye.

Ping!

The Master Sword gave another call, the sliver of visible blade pulsing with lavender light among Sky’s things.

Wind stared at the sacred sword, uncertain. “...What is it?” he whispered.

Ping!

He reached out to take it, then hesitated.

Sky was going to kill him too.

...No. He couldn’t, right? The Master Sword was just as much Wind’s as anyone else here; besides, he’d just borrow it. Sky could have it back. He reached out for the blade.

Ping!

Four shifted in his sleep, and Wind froze, staring at the shorter hero. If the sword woke anyone up before he could fix the tablet situation, he was toast.

Ping!

Panicking, Wind snatched the sword up and ran outside, trying to silence it before it could make any more noise. He would deal with the consequences later, when the others woke up at a normal time. Once he was safely in the white noise of rainfall, Wind drew the blade. “Alright, what is it?” he demanded, holding it level with his eyes as if he could scold it. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”

Ping, ping, ping—

He frowned as it began to beep faster, lowering it. “Come on, I can’t deal with-”

Ping! Ping!

He paused, then lifted it up again.

Ping, ping, ping—

He lowered it.

Ping! Ping!

Back up.

Ping, ping, ping—

Wind tilted his head curiously. Experimentally, he spun in a slow circle.

Ping, ping, ping ping ping PINGPINGPING ping ping—

“Are you...trying to show me something?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Watching it closely, he pointed the sword in the direction that caused the most noise and light.

Into the forest.

He glanced back at camp. If he stayed behind, they could all go after whatever this was together...after he got a scolding for breaking Legend’s stuff, and endangering the camp, and not listening to the old man...

Yeah, no. Forest it is.

Sky rolled over in his sleep, his dreams filled with endless skies and blue loftwings. Clouds rolled in over the picnic of pumpkin soup he was having with Zelda.

Fragrant, but suffocating clouds. He couldn’t breathe.

He bolted awake, fighting whatever was cutting off his air and defeating the tangled sailcloth in a heroic and not-at-all frantic wrestling match. His eyes fell on the white fabric as he caught his breath.

...He should stop wearing this thing to bed.

With a sigh, he unpinned it from his shoulders and went to wrap it around Fi. If he couldn’t have the comforts of home, at least she could. He reached for the blade—

—and grasped nothing but air.

With a frown, the hero fumbled for his tinderbox and lit a match, struggling a moment to make a spark in the damp storm air, then looked around for his trusty blade. The longer he searched, the more he could feel ice creep into his veins; he even rifled through the luggage of the usual borrowers of the Master Sword.

“Sky?”

His attention snapped over to the source of the voice. Time was looking at him with an eyebrow raised, bleary-eyed and confused. “What are you doing?”

Sky swallowed the panicked lump in his throat. “The Master Sword’s missing.”

Time sat up sharply, wide awake in an instant as adrenaline shot through him. He quickly did a headcount.

Eight. One short.

Kid-sized bootprints left the camp’s edge, pressed into the fresh mud in a perfect trail.

Wind ran through the woods, following wherever the sword led him. The faster he figured out what was going on, the faster he could get back. And if he found something, that would make things better, right? He’d even let Legend keep some of the treasure, as a peace offering.

The forest, though, seemed to have no end to it, stretching high above his head, with shadows reaching out from all directions. He remembered hearing about something like this from Hyrule—the Lost Woods, which spat you out the way you came from if you made a wrong turn in them. He’d never heard of such a thing on the Great Sea, but then again, the ocean wasn’t exactly known for its vast woodland.

Finally, he reached a clearing, the sword giving a continuous ringing noise to indicate that he’d hit his dowsing mark. And, standing in the middle of it, was a weathered stone wall, overgrown with vines. He could faintly see something scrawled behind the foliage.

Narrowing his eyes, Wind channeled all the magic power he could into the Master Sword’s spin attack.

“HYAH!”

“HYAH!”

The heroes stopped in their tracks at the noise. Hyrule sheltered his candle from the rain carefully. “Was that-”

“He’s here.” Time said, quickly breaking into a jog. “Come on, we can’t lose pace now. The Lost Woods can do awful things to you if you’re not careful.”

Wind shook his head, quickly getting rid of the stars in his vision. He’d forgotten how disorienting a Hurricane Spin could be.

It had done the job well, though. The vines were nothing but chopped salad now, and the carvings behind the stone were clear as day. Six conductor’s notes stared Wild in the face, begging to be played.

The hero’s fingers tingled; this felt like the start of an adventure, one that didn’t start with a kidnapping and cannonfire.

Drawing himself up, he pulled out his baton, and began to play the magic tune.

This one was different from the first. It felt...familiar, somehow. It wasn’t something he’d ever played before, and yet...

The music carried his thoughts away from him. He found himself conducting from his heart, like when he’d played with Medli and Makar, swept up in the energy the song game off. As he ran out of notes to orchestrate, he heard an earsplitting CRACK, and his eyes flew open.

The wall had crumbled to nothingness, like the tablet had. In its wake, however, a shining blueish pedestal sat, magic spiraling outwards from its center like a spring flower.

Ping!

Wind looked at the Master Sword, tucking the Wind Waker away. He smiled fondly. “Just like old times, huh?” Giving it a playful twirl, he walked over to the pedestal, holding the sword’s hilt in both hands. “I wonder what’s going to look like this time. Are you going to get more powerful?” His eyes shone, imagining the others’ faces at bringing an even stronger Master Sword back with him. Taking a deep breath, he stabbed the blade down into its newest resting place, confident that he could handle whatever boss or dungeon this unlocked.

“LINK!!!”

His head snapped up as the rest of the Chain rushed into the clearing, eyes wide. “Hey-” He tried to talk, but no sound came out; his mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and his head swam. Silver fog began to cloud his vision.

The last thing he was aware of before he felt himself fall was Time throwing his blade aside and running to catch him.

Then it all went white. The only noises he could hear were the whispers of watchers, and the chimes of tiny bells.

[sage-nebula]

1, 2, 6, 16!

1.) Top 3 incarnations of Link?

2.) Top 3 incarnations of Zelda?

Both of these were answered here!

6.) Most overrated and underrated game?

Overrated: Ocarina of Time beyond a shadow of a doubt. I’m sorry, I know it’s your favorite—and hell, it’s a lot of people’s favorite, which is why it fits here—but Ocarina of Time is the Gen I of The Legend of Zelda series, except it doesn’t even get the honor of being able to claim, “without me, this series wouldn’t exist” like the Gen I Pokémon games do. I’m not saying that Ocarina of Time doesn’t have good things about it, because it does. It has some interesting characters, even if they’re flat and underdeveloped. It seemed big and explorative for its time. It has some of the most memorable songs in the franchise, and so on and so forth. But while there are good parts to Ocarina of Time, it doesn’t deserve nearly the praise it still gets all these years later. It was good, but it isn’t a masterpiece. And it certainly isn’t good enough to justify all the bashing the games that followed it (Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker) received, nor should it still be looked to as the standard Nintendo should try emulating in future titles. Lastly, I really wish people would stop thinking that every single Hero is the Hero of Time just because of this game. Ffs, there was one Hero of Time, and his only adventures were in Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. This isn’t difficult lore, guys.

Underrated: Oh boy … Either Link’s Awakening or Oracle of Seasons / Ages. All feature the Hero of Worlds (as I call him), all were on the Game Boy / Game Boy Color, and all tend to either be flat out forgotten by people (including Nintendo themselves, what with how they kept going on about how A Link Between Worlds was the first sequel to A Link to the Past when it’s the fourth sequel to that damn game!!), or else insulted / bashed. But I don’t think these games deserve to be forgotten, and they certainly don’t deserve any insults or bashing.

Link’s Awakening has a lot of mystery surrounding it—a lot of legend and lore that’s begging to be unpacked, yet isn’t truly by the end of the game. I love the entire concept; ordinarily the “it was all just a dream” concept is a really cheap and bad way to end a story, but what made it work in Link’s Awakening is that Link learns that Koholint Island (with the possible exception of Marin) is a dream midway through the adventure, but it’s not his dream. Link, a person from the real world, is trapped within the dream of another, and he has to choose whether to battle the Nightmares and destroy this place and these people he has come to care about, or whether to continue existing only in the dream of another creature. That’s deep. Add to that the fact that the world itself was bizarre, it has one of the best songs in the franchise, and the writing was really quirky, witty, and fun (right down to how the NPCs sometimes lampshade the ridiculousness of their situations, such as the man who tells you he’ll be lost in the hills later—and then he is and you have to find him to progress the game), and it was overall just a really great game.

As for the Oracle titles, they had a lot of the same witty, fun writing as Link’s Awakening, even though Holodrum and Labrynna were actual worlds, and not just a dream world. But what sets the Oracle titles apart is that the gameplay experience can be unique (or at least somewhat different) for each player. Since you can choose which animal to partner up with (with different animals being available depending on which game you start with), your gameplay experience can shift and change. There are NPC sidequests that carry over from game to game after you transfer your data. And even that aspect of it, that you play both and connect them to get the full adventure, is something I feel is still pretty unique as far as this series is concerned, and was a lot of fun. Tbh, the Oracle games handled the multiple game aspect better than the Pokémon series ever has.

So yeah, Link’s Awakening and the Oracle games are definitely the most underrated, and they deserve more love.

16.) Rank the BotW champions from favourite to least favourite.

Easily:

Urbosa

Daruk

Revali

Mipha

I love literally everything about Urbosa. I love the fact that she’s a brilliant chief to her people, that she’s a fierce warrior, and that she’s a fantastic surrogate mother for Zelda (and sort of Link as well, to an extent). 

Daruk is great; I love how he acts like Link’s big brother, but that he also acts like that for the others. He would tie with Urbosa if he didn’t foolishly hate dogs.

Revali is aggravating a great deal of the time, but I appreciate how much hard work he put into perfecting his technique, and there were times when his ridiculous ego made me laugh.

Finally, I just find Mipha to be somewhat bland, and a huge part of that is how cliché her crush on Link was. She reminds me of any other moe, sugary sweet and shy anime girl with a crush on the main protagonist. The times (few and far between) where they talked about her duties to her people and her family made her more interesting, but otherwise, I just found her to be somewhat boring. Not unlikable, but just sort of there.