#will link be different in botw2?

[n2y88]

Can you do another TOTK Link who fused two swords into a double bladed staff?

Erm

[ganondoodle]

totk rewrite- botw2 edition

been thinking about the other totk rewrite again (the one only based on botw in which the sonau stay a mystery while being expanded upon)

i talked about it before but heres a lil breakdown (im reusing alot of mechanics from the villain rauru rewrite bc they work too well to be discarded for this one)-

(edit, about five hours later .. its not a little breakdown, its a pretty complete summarized breakdown of the entire new rewrite that i didnt intend to spend the last hours of my sunday on but here we are .. long post, but with pics bc theres lots of concepts im reusing or reviving)

okay START:

zelda and link explore the caverns below hyrule castle bc the shiekah tech has been losing power and their research as to why lead them here

they discover ganondorf and through zeldas curiosity break the, already weak, seal on him (no enigma stone here, the seal was done by an ancient queen of hyrule)- he wakes up attacks them, breaks the mastersword and miasmas/malices links arm off (also idea is that you have to fight him but meant to lose horribly lol) and then have to play an escape sequence (or watch a cutscene of it) in which zelda drags link after herself running from gan

(remember this old first idea drawing i made when i started to think about a rewrite? yeah im reviving that, except theres no totk sonau in this anywhere)

they get out and immediately afterwards a heavy earthquake runs through the land, completely, and actually, changing the map (also using the idea of devastating the regions climates- gerudo desert is flooded, death mountain collapsed inwards, the zoras realm is dried up, rito village has completely frozen over - ACTUALLY frozen over, everything encased in thick ice, the temperature has a special new low point, the winds too strong to glide anywhere-, mountains and rivers shifted, caves are revealed- oh and most of the main villages have tried to flee somewhere saver so theres no literal 1 to 1 repeat of points of interest from botw; also no uh .. miasmas holes that are literally jsut like drilled out bc what?? i want the access to the underground be few and hidden to make it more special to discover)

links arm gets amputated and replaced with a shiekah tech one (maybe using the botw shiekah stone/slate since they still dont know how to make them and its the best self sufficient piece of tech left that doesnt rely on the breaking fuel structure) (reusing this concept from the villain rauru one, with the difference beign that theres no corruption of link -or maybe it does have an effect to have shiekah tech literally hooked up to yourself *thinking emoji*- the abilities remainign the same)

when link wakes up some time has passed (so its more logical that the other regions have tried to cope with everything happening) you get a tutorial by purah and other shiekah (bc with zelda in charge theres more shiekah doing tech stuff again! cool!) and now have a magic meter (functions like in the previous pic, recharges over time depending on environment! bc i find that idea so cool for interstign puzzles and storytelling- like i said in an older post, a place where lots of people died might be richer in spirit energy recharging your magic faster- others have been hollowed out of luminous stone which slows down the recharge) and you are left to decide where to go

both zelda and you have a shiekah stone/slate replica but its incomplete since as mentioned the knowledge on how to make it is still lost so it only has the basic functions, such as the map, journal, camera and teleport

zelda is your companion from the start, in the years since botw she trained in basic self defense and can use her sealing powers as a shield to protect herself (though reluctantly since she doesnt want to rely on them) so you dont need to babysit her- you can tell her to be aggressive in encounters, supporting you (occasionally shields you or heals you a little?) or stay out of it/only self defend if an enemy targets her (in case you dont want any help) - she also copies your movement in a way, when you glide around she will too etc- in cases where you go very fast to one thing, like the hookshot, she will grab onto you

zelda also acts as your mobile crafting station, to put it bluntly, as she can craft and repair weapons, which is at first limited but can be expanded upon by doing quests (like the options of spear crafting being hugely expanded by a zora quest- fitting their fight style), when she does it you need the material needed for it though it costs no money- theres new little smith shops around the world that can repair and craft as well in which you can spend money instead for material you are lacking (and a little fee for the work you know)

(one of the first rough concepts for a pair of smiths, one is at the shop (green lady, the scars on her arms are her missing fins bc she burned them or lost them in battle), the other walks around it like terry (beedle) does and from whom you can buy already crafted simple things, like arrow types-

oh yeah, arrow types return and get more options bc theres no way in hell id make anyone scroll through that awful menu just to fuse one arrow at a time (the old types return, but theres new ones and all are craftable in bulk, here and old rough sketch)

(also theres no new 'in the same location jsut a few steps to the left' towers that shoot you into the air bc it just destroys the entire world design- even if there is no sonau tech in this one so no gliders- i want the sky to feel as dangerous and mystical as the underground)

the sky has to be reached via the hookshot, its got big islands mostly with old shiekah ruins, including that broken titan prototype i drew before, and the bird mechanic (you can tame birds and register them at a location there, idk if im keeping the idea of a lone shiekah there, but the birds will stay)-which is if you tamed a bird you can call it when gliding to gain a little boost in height, enabling you to reach islands further away (since no building, yeah that mechanic is better used in a game actually built around it, which totk just isnt- do not argue with me about that- to really let it shine instead of just being a tiktok viral funney build simulator that adds nothing meaningful to the game and actively makes it worse due to its implementation just not fitting there) or save you from falling if you barely missed the edge of one - theres few points of teleportation up there so the world map isnt made skippable, theres no shrines there (and in general, there are no shrines, just minidungeons- ACTUAL minidungeons- integrated into the world, like really big caves that are each unique and filled with challenges- and much fewer of them) (the islands being mostly made nigh invisible from the surface bc clouds gather on their underside)

perhaps different glider types?! and you can switch their design via zelda too

the old botw shrines are non fucntional due to loss of power, either overgrown or broken into pieces due to the ground breaking open, some might be infested with malice/miasma and comes alive like a weird mix between guardian and miasma crab (which also goes for guardian wrecks that hadnt been taken apart for research yet), some are fallen into caves that got revealed or got swallowed by the ground with only the tip remaining- the titans (divine beasts) are all repurposed (like in the other rewrite ideas i had)- the rito tried to flee the blizzard using medoh but sicne no one has piloted it and unstable connection to them causes them to crash in the hebra mountains, unable to leave it due to the storm and thus on limited time; vah rudania was perhaps made into a temple, or training ground but fell into the underground when death mountain collapsed (imagine ... malice/miasma infested rudania being an actual boss itself, chasing after you in the underground); vah ruta was absolutely made into a place of worship and after their domain dried out a few remained there praying to it convinced their faith would save them- its not able to move but manages to produce a little water still; vah naboris might have been used as a stronghold/lookout but due to the desert flooding (which is in fact, bad) its one of the 'islands' people now reside in

new weather types, including storm and darkness caused by mushroom spores that are invasife to the surface

theres at least six dungeons, one for each region (but not in the exact place as in botw bc that is literally just plain stupid though i might use the zora sewer/water system idea for an actual dungeon instead of .. a single button- bc how cool would that have been?? no no lets put the fish people in the sky and put a single button in the coolest part of it that only activates a waterfalll .... coming out of a tiny island in the sky- all just by of the visual neatness of swimming up??- anyway) plus a yiga one that is in and below the akalla citadel- also might put hyrule castle into the underground and inaccessible for a good portion of the game- and one in the forest of the krogs that was corrupted (which i thought was the reaso nfor the backpack krogs, but no, they literally have no goal and serve no purpose than to make funney videos with em, and then even the forest is nothing more but a reused lame fight agaisnt phantom gan- im starting to rant, sorry)

the abilties of the champions will be similar but there are changes, as in tulins (who i might just change to teba bc lets be real he was the one you interacted with in botw really..) isnt a gust of wind, since its both contrary to revalis whole deal of how difficult it was for him to create the updraft and then tulin can just do an almost exactly the same thing as like, a 12 year old- also its little usefullness after me adding in the birds for the sky and different glider types- maybe ill make it a strong windcut forward like in the other rewrite, like the yiga officer windattack but on steriods id also consider most of them not having the innate ability for it anyway, except for yuno maybe since he literally inherited daruks shield and as my idea was could make a variation of it adding the roll an fire to it but still having the shield, bc it kinda makes them like a boring copy of the botw champions and also lessens both their impact in a way (perhaps bringing dungeon items back?? idk,so still working on that)

each dungeon has a unique boss, at least on of which being a corrupted friend (PROPERLY DONE not like poor yuno in totk >:I ) bc each being just some monster tm is kinda boring (like twilight princess was so cool for how it mixed its bosses tbh)- also want satori to have a dark (also nice) counterpart that you might have to fight first bc you are trespassing into its domain (an old sketch gonna revisit it at some point)

new armor sets of course, and you still own YOUR house in hateno, zelda either has her own one in the spot where landa (the funky building lad that you bought your house from in botw) had the 'example' houses or yours got an additional building added onto it for zelda (and you can customize like, trees around it and have a lil farm spot too!!) and in your house theres a chest you can store armor sets in so you dont have to sell them to avoid inventory clutter

POUCHES return!! you can find some but most are locked behind quests (since logically people likely would have pouches) making them a really good reward and dont force you to engange with krogs if you are tired of them, it also avoids making you go back to them over and over just to expand inventory (you can choose for which part you want to use the pouch for, weapon or shield slot etc)- krog seeds are now its own currency for a lil shop you unlock in the forest, one of the highest rewards being the eponator zero (the motorcycle from botw)

also BOTTLES return! the main way to store healing, which also has to be consumed in real time (like in skyward sword, select in on a wheel so link takes it in his hands and 'a' to use it) avoiding the pause and spam apples into your mouth problem-

now cooking is NOT removed, it has even better effects than potions BUT it cant be stored and has to be consumed where you cook it (hear me out-); the cookbook in totk i find pretty annoyingly useless so, the cookbook is now a proper book you can fill out and when you want to cook a recipe you select it there and cook it with what you have (it shows if you dont have it all and also if you wanna swap an ingredient that would end with a similar effect) AND since you cant store it, theres special NPCs that reappear throughout hyrule (like a group of chefs that have one in each region at least) that let you just cook whatever you want without it wasting your materials, and if you hit a recipe it unlocks and is saved in your cookbook (you have to have the materials you want to cook with but it wont consume them, so you cant jsut spam it and fill the entire book out in one go- maybe the chef can give you subtle hints with expressions if something might be good or not before you try it out so you dont waste ages just cooking the same shit over and over xD)

(also possible idea for an item or big quest reward, a portable pot you can set up to cook with -with wood and fire- on the go without having to rely on finding them in the wild, and zelda can act as you chef giving you hints ... honestly i love this idea, remember all the cute botw art of them travelling and cooking together?? make that real you idiots!)

to upgrade your health or stamina you have to get spirit orbs still, but this time you get big ones that each can be traded, since thers fewer minidungeons but they are 4 times bigger than shrines they also give you 4 times the reward- but still one where you can choose which one you want bc i find that an important bit of freedom (idea still is that you free trapped souls and they give you the orb as a reward, majority of which are in caves in the underground or in the surface caves) which encourages you to vary your gameplay and not focus just on one area bc you probably want all those things, go for quests for puches and bottles, for minidungeons for health/stamina etc

oh yeah, the underground houses several dungeons, the weird gravity effect is in either the entire underground or in parts of it- it does not span the entirety of the map, isntead its smaller and often enclosed areas that each are more detailed and 'finished', theres different bioms and enemies you dont find anywhere else, and some enemies on the surface (like the miasma hands but like .. less easy and no phantom ganon bc that got boring rly fast) that sport those hands can grab you and drag you underground- which can either mean doom for you or .. discovering a new area down there hmmmm a risk to take isnt it :3 (also wanted there to be a mount there but idk if i will use this old concept of the dongos or if i want it to be a crab like thing bc of the underwater theme i want to go for)

LORE/STORY

so as you explore you may discover caves and areas in the underground containing sonau architecture (the type from botw, not totk) most of which heavily damaged, but theres few that are in 'better' shape bc they have been in selaed off caverns that werent yet discovered-

you find out the sonau, which you only vaguely knew from ruins in the overworld, were in fact real (but no you dont suddendly know they fucked with hylians and even their names of untold thosuands of years ago that you just so happen to have read in a book all of the sudden like it was an always known fact and not at all a myste- .. rant alarm .. ), and given the ruins underground they must have originated from there, but there are no scriptures that survived and all sculptures are in very bad shape, alot of which seems intentionally destroyed- slowly you and zelda piece together through vague clues (VAGUE game VAGUE, let people THINK) that they had knowledge of the past and the nature of the ever repeating return of disaster to hyrule; the biggest reveal beign that they knew the cycle wasnt natural at all and that it keeps being repeated only through the structure of how this land operates, the beliefs of the people that rule it, altered history etc.

the ancient shiekah under the rule of hyrules royalty found out what the sonau had discovered/knew and persecuted them (parelells to what the king would do to them later on, anyone??) since the divinity of the kingdom must be upheld by all means necessary- which is why the sonau had disappeared so entirely, with little of their culture left and none of them, and by doing so the ancient shiekah also discovered the previously lost knowledge of the gerudo king having turned into the biggest threat to the kingdom in the past (which the sonau had kept secret, knowing what consequences it could have if not handled carefully), which starts up a whole other betrayal plot of the kingdom planning to imprison gan before he can become a true threat (im gonna guess the relations between the gerudo and hyrule havent been that great even before since hyrule was still the main empire)

gan finds out before the plan goes through and assasinates the king of hyrule, the ancient queen declares war (yes, the queen for once) and in the end sacrifices herself to seal him away, more for revenge than any prophecy, but it nevertheless leads to the cycle doing its thing yet again

calamity ganon is a product of ganondorf trying to break free of his seal- and perhaps in an attempt to weaken his unbreakable will the shiekah discover they can use his spirit as a powerful source to their newly invented tech- which previously ran with processed luminous stones (yes battery theory will never let me go idc) and essentially use his own power against him by beating the calamity with their tech

(this knowledge is also how you get the yiga to work with you, using your knowledge of the past as leverage and zeldas ability to negotiate - and bc i thinks it would be cool to see her develop that way, and no i dont mean it as they all gonan fix it uwu either, its hard to go into more nuance here, its already way longer than i wanted- and yes this also ties into the koga is one of the ancient monks that made himself basically immortal through malice experiments HC of mine)

he attacks the regions bc they too sided with hyrule, he drags you to the underground bc its where he has spent thousands of years in agony, hes only out for revenge, an understable one and one you can sympathize with, but one you cannot negotiate with, its been too long, too much, no amount of apology could sate the desire for payback (which keeps the whole link and zelda defeat ganon formular alive BUT gives it nuance, right?? more tragic really, i hope that comes across)

he attacks link and zelda, breaks the masterword bc he has seen it all before, the original calamity, through the eyes of malice, he knows what you will do, inevitably so, you too will come for him, again

at the midpoint of the game you will reach hyrule castle (underground? perhaps it depends on how much health you have, getting grabbed and dragged into its depths losing hearts and if you have enough you survive until you are inside the castle and let go, you cant teleport outside - oh and zelda is either absent for the fight bc you got separated or she held onto you and protected herself with her power- honeslty kinda like the seperation idea bc after having her around all the time its gotta be super creepy to be suddendly alone) and will have a fight with him, that you kinda lose but are saved by the rest of the crew that zelda had banded together and brought here after being seperated from you- maybe without koga yet bc he would be locked to late game i think

there will be a quest to reforge the mastersword, which if you havent already gone to the forest will now lead you there (oh also some of the krogs you find outside the forest now will tell you that they had to flee, but maybe warn you not to go there yet if you are still in early game, others might not know bc they left to plant new forests, windwaker style, maybe a quest there too! to give them purpose beyond being your plaything and then just disappearing- ahem .. )

(old concept for the krog forest/dekutree boss)

the dekutree will tell you to restore it it will need the blessings of the three dragons (who might not have appeared yet, or slowly disappeared one by one, they might need to be rescued bc gan probably knows you are gonna try and repair the sword) (oh look more old concepts still relevant!)

in the end it will .. end with you defeating ganon, just like always (unsure of the place where it will will be but OH LOOK old concepts- here it was still with hyrule castle in mind but that might be jsut for the midpoint fight now- maybe id put the end fight on the forgotten plateau, to round it up nicely, ending where botw began ... ;3

i really like this one .. even more than the villain rauru one, though that one is fun bc a twist like that is pretty neat and fighting with ganondorf is also rly cool- but sicne i just dont like the totk sonau and much prefer them remaining mostly a mystery im very fond of this (also .. im so sick of ancient people with high tech bs now..)

the aim with this is to .. make a botw2 that actually feels like a botw 2 (for me), shiekah tech is still there but little functions still, logically bc its main powersource is breaking off of it, the sonau are a mystery and kinda negatively talked about bc the shiekah persecuted them just like they would later be - also explains why there are shiekah things in every sonau building, of course they would overtake their places and try to erase a much as possible of them (the thunder plateau might have been a place of worship to farodra or for research- now look its a puzzle for a shrine to strengthen our hero to defeat the thing we caused :)) ), the sonau are expanded upon WITHOUT destroying their mystery (none of them are shown, there are NO memories in this game, everything happens in real time and what you can learn about the past is mostly vague clues pieced together by nerd zelda!)

it gives more depth to the shiekah as well as add an important ounce of nuance to the yiga and shiekah, to ganondorf as well while adressing and fixing the things that needed work in botw in ways i would find enjoyable (instead of making it WORSE)

i also dont want to go too hard on 'zelda is totally agaisnt the monarchy bc monarchy BAD', its not meant to come across like that, i just wanted to do sth interesting that does question everything and bc i like to think she could be lead to a different way of thinking, especially if so through her own research and discovery of previously buried history, being confronted with her own biased views by her passion for her interests

anyway, if you read through all of this, i probably forgot stuff, buts its very late and i spent alot of time writing this (bc i cant stop once i started i guess) and theres lots of things repeated that i already talked about BUT if yo actually read through it all, i cannot even begon to express just how much that means to me, and id i dare request, do tell if you like it!!! and thank you so much!!! it might not seem like much but this is also very important to me, i still dream of gamedev after all and i see this as a sort of practice, are my mechanics and stuff actually better os does it just seem like it to me etc -

(though keep in mind, this is in part self indulfent bc hey, its not real and is never gonna be so i might just do what i want- and yes i do believe it is doable, even if this all sounds alot, the magic lies in making it less but make that 'less' more dense and detailed, hence the underground being like at least cut in half in size and the building mechanic being removed (to give to a game where its better used than totk) alone should free alot of time and space for the things i described here)

-thanks again for reading, posts like these rarely get much attention so uh ... its pretty much never worth the time i spent typing designing and writing it (even if theres still lots missing here, like the dungeons and details to the champions ..) so every bit of commentary weighs alot more <3

[dragonridernoobie]

Hello! I don't know if you're still staring intensely at your inbox bored... but! I can give you something to do for a little while if you'd like . It's my first asking, so I'll try to be simple.

How about a one-shot of Ganondorf x reader, where they both used to know each other well romantically before ganondorf became the god of power. (When he was still the king of gerudo), the reader could've been a simple traveler who traveled through the desert (they could be injured due to battles against monsters on the way there) and found themselves in the gerudo town or something where they met him in the market in disguise cause he try sometime to find peace away from all the responsibilities once in a while and they bond over thing they both like.

Some time passes, and their feelings to each other grow more and more until the reader has to leave because of an emergency at their hometown (idk a family member is sick and they need special treatment that is very hard to get) so they leave while promising to ganondorf to come back once the situation is over. But they never do.

Heartbroken and angry ganondorf becomes the god of power, and after some times the reader goes back only to find out by the new ruler of gerudo that he became the man that brought hyrule to ruins.

Idk maybe something with a little bit of hope at the end? The reader could meet link and help him get to the palace. Like they see the man they fall in love with still inside the corrupted being in front of them. And tries to bring him back?

It's a long ask, and it's totally fine if you don't want to write it or have the time to do it (I know it's a lot energy to write) But if it gave you ideas for a new story or inspired you little than that's all that matter 😉. Anyways! Have a wonderful day or night.

A ask is never too long, I'm sorry if this took so long. I was trying to think of a way to make this a good way of writing it. Since I write in so many ways. So, I decided to make it seem like a story. I hope you like it or love it, I'm fine with either. Thank you for being Paitent!!!! (Also, i changed the story a bit since I've never seen or played BOTW2, and I rather not spoile it for my self.)

The story of the human and the Gerudo King

Long ago, when life was still new and people were still new to the land. Lived 6 different races that rule these lands.

The first hylians came to the land from the goddess Hylia. They created the Hylians as the first race of Hyrule.

And from that race, came all 5 other races.

Rito, hyilans who became one with the sky. Zoras, hyains who became one with the water. Gorons, hyians who became one with the ground. Gerudos, hyians who have split off and became one of their own.

They are a unique species since they only live in the desert. Where they first became is unknown hut they are known for being made of woman and woman only.

But every 100 years, a male is born from a Gerudo, and it becomes the new king of the Gerudo.

The six species are unknown. No one rarely sees them, no one knows about them, but we only know one thing.

They are wise. They have ways to cure the most evil sickness. They know how to survive in places that shouldn't be possible, and they are hard to kill.

Sadly, at one point in time, a king who was ruler of Hyrule found where these humans were and declared war on them. He slaughtered all of them. Their species were lost in time, and no one them about them.

And this is where our legend begins

Before calamity himself became, to be, there used to be a simple king of his lands of the Gerudo. His name was Ganondorf.

His people lived in the desert. They struggled but were happy. Ganondorf traded with people across the land. People always wanted to trade with the Gerudos.

So this is where ganondorf met his love.

He was on his way to a city when the bridge he rode on collapsed. He fell great distance and fell in the river below.

Ganondorf disappeared for weeks and his kingdom feared the worst. Intel Ganondorf arrived and even more unexpectedly that he had a few people with him.

Word spread around in the city that the king was alive and the city was happy.

The humans showed the Gerudos their ways, showed them how to get food in unique ways, showed them how to fight aginst sickness and even showed them how to plant foods in the desert.

While the humans showed them their ways, a human named (Y/N) and ganondorf grown feelings for each other. They were happy, and for years, the humans lived with the Gerudos. Even the human males.

Sadly, (Y/N) had to leave. They had to cross the land to reach another human settlement that are in need of help. They told ganondorf they will return and set corse.

Weeks past and ganondorf waited, and waited, and waited, he waited for days, weeks, and months. After so long, ganondorf became angry and hurt. Angry since (Y/N) has left and that the hyilans have caused trouble.

Hurt because he believes (Y/N) abandoned him. So he decided to declare war on the hyilans and kick out the humans.

This is where calamity came to be. When (Y/N) found out what has happened, they were stuck with grief and hurt.

When link awakened and they met (Y/N), they both agreed to defeat calamity. When link was able to defeat calamity (The first BOTW) (Y/N), talked to him before he was slayed by the light bow.

"I promise to keep fighting for you love. Please do the same...."

Once he was slayed, they fled away. Zelda and Link never saw them again. Though, they wernt gone forever. They where just praying and helping their remaining village survive.

Though (Y/N) hopes to have her love once more.

[genericstudios]

Been watching a lot of osmp lately, and I have decided to turn the chain (+ an extra link and an oc) into different origins!

Sky: Elytrian

Twilight: Fox

Warriors: Slimecian

Time: Enderian

Wild: Blazeborn

Legend: Rabbit

Hyrule: Bumble Bee

Wind: Merling

Four: Inchling

Shadow (FS): Phantom

Jade (botw2 oc): Starborne

[novantinuum]

Wip Game!

(Aw hell yeah, these are always fun! Thank you for the tag, @drsteggy!)

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? Dnd campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!

TBH I have a shameful amount of WIPs so I won't be tagging as many people as I have WIPs because a lot of you have already been tagged! Also, I will have different sections for various fandoms because I actually do still have WIPs for Steven Universe I have not entirely shut the lights down on. So, uh... without further adieu...

LoZ Writing WIPs I have started:

The Ballad of Aryll: Song of Time

Clutching Destiny

Untitled Fic About Arwel's Death

Blades of the Yiga what-if

Zelink Prompt- Glass

again, and again, and again (like i was destined to be yours)

AoC Zelink Week Fic

LoZ Writing ideas:

Hero's Decay

All the Words That Go Unsaid

Hylink Meeting

Fi & Link Bodyswap Fic, Also Aryll is There

A thousand Whumptober prompt concepts I never got around to fleshing out

SU Writing WIPs I have started:

Crack the Paragon (yeah this is still a WIP folks)

Misalignment

Echoes of Chalcedony

Proposal Fic

Untitled Reunited Alt POV Fic

Peridot and Steven short

SU Writing ideas:

A Diamond Adrift

Bad Dreams

Art WIPs (All fandoms)

Haywood Family Portrait

ch2 illustration

link in battle

Botw2 Link

queen and king

CtP- Moonbase

CtP ch1 illustration 2

Echoes of Chalcedony cover

Flower Child comic

obsidian and co

palette challenge 2

palette challenge 3

sketch th jim

sketch th toby

slep

su gf crossover 1

eclipse GF 1

drops of jupiter

12 and clara gf style

background paint practice

So anyways, I'm gonna go ahead and tag some of my fellow creatives! Sometimes it's kinda fun to dust off those WIPs, find those documents you haven't thought about for a while, and give them a lil' shout out moment in the spotlight.

@infriga, @stariousfalls, @fexiled, @inktheblot, @michpat6, @ladyhoneydee, @buggy-mars, @citrusella-flugpucker, @shisei11, @thelastspeecher

[arcadian-vampire]

Okay here are my botw2 thoughts now that I'm over the Screaming And Yelling period:

-Ganon is ripping up the land, unearthing ancient artifacts, which gives us the floating islands + Zonai tech (though it's also possible Hylia is sending islands into the sky again to protect the Hylians, like before Skyward Sword)

-Ganon going ham has also awakened an ancient Zonai deity- I firmly believe the figure in the mural was Not Hylia. It's also possible that Link and Zelda seek out and awaken this deity themselves, as they don't have enough power on their own to handle the situation this time. Anyway, this deity is responsible for the teal glowy arm we saw in the one trailer, along w the teal spirals and all that (though the spirals could also be 'yo there's tech materials to collect here' or portals to the place that Does Not Look Like Anywhere In Hyrule, or something)

-The Zonai deity works w Link and Zelda to fix things bc Ganon is going WILD here. Fuck the golden goddesses and their triangle of tragedy, it's time to spice things up and add another factor to the mix

-Purah gets to study Zonai tech, yippee, and she helps Link with upgrades and vehicles and all that

-Spirits like in Twilight Princess, sacred flames restoring the Master Sword like in Skyward Sword, there will probably be many more references to old games, tying things together to reinforce the endless cycle of Ganon resurrecting + Link and Zelda kicking his ass

-ALTERNATIVELY. This game is going to break the cycle, somehow. The oubouros won't mean that things are stuck in repeat, it means they're going to finally cut the head off the snake and take things in a different direction

[dustward]

Everyone will call it TotK, but I’ll always consider it BotW2. It’s the rare direct sequel Zelda games only occasionally see, which pushes slightly different standards and expectations compared to a clean slate Link/Zelda/Ganon/Hyrule. It feels somewhat personal how many aspects of BotW1 I did like were drastically changed, while aspects I’d put up with were doubled down on. There was a baffling lack of Quality of Life improvements, worsened by another game’s existence that was over a year old by the time BotW2 released. I’m of course talking about Elden Ring.

My biggest issue with the game, aside from having to replay botw1 via overworld exploration and the loss of proper dungeons, is how inefficient traversal is. Having Link’s stamina reset from max, especially after being temporarily reminded of what his max felt like in the prologue, was really painful to deal with when it came to running around. For climbing and paragliding it makes perfect sense, but there’s a lot of overworld to roam, and there isn’t always gonna be a good chance to paraglide instead. There’s horses, but..

You have to find one, then you have to tame it. You have to hope the one you tamed has a decent speed stat, and if not you’ll have to look for a different one or grind out annoying materials to level it up via a specific location you may not find for a while. Your horse can die and reviving it would require further material grinding. Your horse has trouble turning, fidgets with you for a while till you Bond with it. You can’t loot items while riding it. Your whistling for it to come to you is only so effective, especially when it hasn’t been fully tamed. You need to spend money at a stable to register and save it, and then interact with a stable to retrieve it if you wind up on the other side of the world. It’ll throw you off if you try to go too fast after burning through its stamina. It’s such a robust system that in BotW1 felt acceptable, but after Elden Ring I realize I don’t want a robust system, I want something that keeps the gameplay flowing as smoothly as possible.

In Elden Ring you get one horse, Torrent, at the same time you get the ability to level up. Provided you don’t get distracted this should happen before you’d normally get the paraglider in either Botw1 or 2 (hate that it took longer to get in 2, btw). You can loot from the horse. It has far better turning. it materializes and disappears into thin air at the single press of a mount/dismount button. It has a jump. It has a double jump with surprisingly useful air control. It doesn’t freak out when you go too close to a tree, a wall, or a 15 degree slope. There’s no bonding, no having to call it from across a field, no worrying about where it is when you warp to the other side of the world. It cannot die. At worst, when it’s hp is depleted you’ll have to burn a heal to bring it back, a heal that is quickly restored when you rest at a relatively common bonfire (which is a far better warp system than shrines for the record..) The mounting/dismounting is so seamless that it’s an effective way of dodging attacks with bigger enemies in the field. Oh, and stamina? It shares your player character’s stamina bar, which...is infinite when you’re not in combat. Yeah.

It’s impossible to not be reminded of any of the above comparisons whenever I rode a horse around in BotW2. It’s an intricate system and yet it was frustratingly immersion breaking with how many hitches I ran into with turning, looting, a horse not wanting to go a certain way and Neighing it up in protest. It was...slow, and yet it was the fastest and most consistent method of transportation across both games. True immersion is when the gameplay understands and lets the player keep in motion at all times, stopping only when *they* wish to.

As for other methods of transportation? The paraglider is good, but losing Revali’s ability in favor of Tulin’s felt like another downgrade. Getting that initial airborne boost felt far more important to me as an easy way to launch off the ground. From my understanding, fusing rockets and springs to shields was meant to replicate that, but those are one use per fuse, for some reason. And they drastically kill durability on even the best shields so you’re only getting roughly 5 uses per fusion, which involves menuing, finding either zonai item, dropping it, menuing your ability to equipment fusing...The game’s very tedious if you couldn’t tell, filled with constant speedbumps to the gameplay. An item that’s a bit more durable are the zonai fans, but their speed is similarly slow. 

The limitations on the player’s speed are so awful that the only conclusion I could draw is that faster travel would mean players running into the Switch’s limitations and freezing of gameplay to account for load times. I ran into this once by accident when following one of the dragons down a chasm. It pushed me out of the chasm immediately and the game was NOT ready for that, freezing my game for over 10 seconds as it realized it had to reload the overworld. It made me realize that as incredible a feeling as it was going down a chasm the first time, it was designed as a loading zone for the depths. Of course, the dive into Death Mountain was similarly great, but this is the usual case of lamenting how far behind Nintendo’s systems are in terms of performance.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Spoiler Warning for Elden Ring in the next passages ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

While we’re comparing to Elden Ring? It did caves as well. Major spoiler warning, but.....it did the depths, as well. It did both of these infinitely better. There were caves and minidungeons all over the place. Some of the simplest of these were comparable to the middle-length cave systems of BotW2, while I’d argue the better ones were more memorable than some of the main “dungeons” of either BotW game. Meanwhile, the depths equivalent....One of the biggest moments of its game, a moment, like many elements of the game’s exploration, hidden behind hours and hours of gameplay. Intentionally designed so next to nobody would stumble onto it within their first 20, 30, maybe even 40 hours? The scale with which you’re hit by the realization that the game’s size is...bigger than you think. Bigger, and bigger still. A moment that caused me to put the controller down for several moments to take in The Reveal. A reveal that was not obscured by any darkness, just a vast open expanse of an area that somehow, believably hid underneath the lands.

Meanwhile, in BotW2 it’s part of a guided (sidequest) tour, as though the game doesn’t trust you to find it on your own. It constantly reminds and insists you visit it long before you’re likely to clear your first main quest dungeon. For the record, I really did appreciate that first dive down a chasm, but thanks to Elden Ring the impact was...lessened considerably for me. I made sure to avoid trailers intentionally as I do with all games, so I trust it wasn’t shown during any of those, but had the game kept it out of your reach till you cleared a single section of main quest - now, that would’ve been something, wouldn’t it? Of course Elden Ring’s got main dungeons, and nothing in either BotW game can dream of comparing to them nor their subsequent boss fights, but I feel I’ve made my case by now. I called this back then, when I was maybe only 20 hours into Elden Ring. That it was gonna be more of a sequel to BotW1 than 2--TotK ever could hope to be, and I hate how much I feel vindicated by the end result.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Spoiler Warning for Elden Ring in the previous passages ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So much of the game feels like a hollow shell of its predecessor. The opening is cut and paste: Link again wakes up with just a pair of pants, and following a panning camera shot and title drop, he’s then guided by the ghost of a former king of hyrule to acquire 4 abilities from 4 shrines - except this time forced to take an extra heart container (as though they knew I would’ve picked stamina like I did in the first game.) Visit the Rito, the Gorons, the Zora, and the Gerudo and their corresponding main characters again (we swapped out the Rito though!!) Btw Zelda’s not appearing yet again. Yeah, she’s stuck in cutscene hell except this time the cutscenes are gonna be more focused on Ganondorf and the (far less interesting) ghost king. Please also watch the same cutscene with barely any differences after defeating each of the first four major bosses. Here’s some even older champion ancestors of the four major races, but this time there wasn’t a chance to give them a proper character design nor personality.

Devs priorities were rather apparent in the fuse mechanic and tripling their workload by bloating up the explorable world’s size which, despite being more than doubled, feels just as empty of meaningful content. You can only reuse the same bosses, minibosses, and puzzles so much before players realize you only had a handful of ideas and similarly cut and pasted them three or so times to fill out the map. 3 mazes on the surface, the sky, the depths. Colosseums for mostly BotW1 enemies. Floating islands with an interior masked by vines with a shrine crystal you have to zonai-vehicle to its destination. Another mine with a piece of nostalgia equipment. Another well with a cooking lore entry. Another set of lava pits that maybe has a chest tucked around it somewhere. Another Help Liberate Hyrule sidequest. Another Yiga hideout with a reward I never used. Maybe I blissfully forgot how much of a checklist the first game was because the magic and novelty of that world was fresh and new. Maybe the devs didn’t have enough material for a sequel but had no choice but to make it. The zonai devices/fuse mechanic really needed to carry the whole game, and it didn’t for me.

Oh, speaking of zonai devices, there’s that Mineru robot you build as part of the main quest. It’s slow and clunky like so much of the game, a tank more than something meant to get you around fast.

And yet, this is the mount that lets you loot while riding it. As opposed to the faster moving horse. I’ma go scream into a pillow now.

[jenseits-der-sterne]

That moment in "The story mill" when Link doesn't fight the Lynel. Not sure why that sticks with me, maybe because fics rarely depict Link as level-headed.

And of course the hot spring scene in the same fic! 😁

Oh, @zeldaelmo, this is so interesting to me! Like, you never know what scenes are gonna stick with people? And sometimes you write a scene and you're like "eh, idk about this. This might not be working??? :\"

That scene was one of those ones that I honestly wasn't so sure about! I think largely because... nothing actually happens, action-wise. In fact, I'd planned for Link to actually fight the Lynel originally! But then as I wrote it, it dawned on me that maybe he'd plan to fight it, but realize he was way too out of sorts to do it and turn right back around and leave.

lol, you're right, level-headed Link doesn't appear often in fics, does he? But the thing is, as the player, there are so many times, especially early on in BOTW, where you know you're not cut out to do something yet. So what do you do? You maybe peek at the daunting thing and then you run away and come back later when you're actually ready! So, idk, I tend to interpret these player choices as Link's... So if a player can be careful or level-headed about something, then Link is too. If a player decides to do something stupid and ends up ragdogging down a mountain, then Link's stupid and ragdogs down a mountain 😂I think Link can be both of these things at different times! We all have moments of being level-headed and not being level-headed.

AND, big AND, we don't really know what Link is like when he's traveling with Zelda! What I think would be interesting in BOTW2 is if there is a companion mechanic or if you can perhaps play as both characters and switch between them. In either of those scenarios, I WANT Link to behave differently! There's a really interesting opportunity here because we've already got a whole game of him on his own: we know what he's like in dialogs with NPCs and we know how he/the player approaches problems. We know BOTW Link well. So, I think it'd be interesting if there are ways in which he'd behave differently because Zelda's around. I don't know how this could happen...?

Maybe he could be a bit different in dialogs? Would he'll be "quieter" and let Zelda do most of the talking, but he choses speak to at specific times? Or will he be even chattier than he ever was in BOTW??? If he's chattier, why?! Is it more puns? If he's quieter, why?! Is he letting Zelda call the shots and decide what happens next? Does he feel weird around her so he's just quieter in general? We don't know!

As for how a behavioral change in Link could come out in game play, I'm not sure? But there are probably things the devs could do it as a character trait/story element? Maybe if Zelda's around during a fight, Link's animation is actually different, more guarded, maybe a bit anxious? Maybe his animation is brasher: is he showing off??? These aren't exactly game play changing, they're more just animation change ideas 😂 idk! I'd need to think on how Zelda's presence could show changes in Link's behavoir through gameplay notion more...

Anyways, lol, I've really rambled! I'm so glad that scene has stuck with you and thank you for letting me know it! 💖 Clearly, I have thoughts.

[st-hedge]

What if the sky boys met

[ayzaart]

empty plains of hyrule

song: title track of suzume no tojimari

[mistymonster]

sometimes you wake up and you just wanna sketch hair 💃 he’s perfect for that

[ganondoodle]

(wip) totk rewritten botw2 edition

rough ideas for the reworked healing system- bottles+potions are back and must be used in real time, cooked meals are not storable but better than potions, different types of portable pots?

wasnt sure if the portable pot should have different effects or just have designs you can change, but decided to add a few different types for roughly different types of players without too many options that could overwhelm but still add some variety to any gameplay AND a more meaningful reward for bigger quests!

-my goal with this is avoid the pausing to spam apples into links mouth to heal problem, to readd some difficulty with more limited healing in general (bottles must be found or gained as a reward, usage in battle like in skyward sword via wheel menu and then used in real time) and adding more variety via the design of the pots, a neat new item since they are portable (set up a campfire, then option is added to add the pot for cooking), and make cooking a lil more interesting besides it spamming your inventory even more with healing stuff AND add some meaning to bottles and potions again bc imo they were one of the most useless things you could get when playing botw/totk- which is why cooked meals are not storable but with better effects, think of it like a bit more customizable and zeldafied elden ring mechanic with the usual heals and the one time physic buff

so if you got into a bossfight and lost it, you could set up a cooking spot before the arena to give yourself a temporary buff via a meal and restock your potions for in battle healing and/or effects depending on how many bottles you have, if you have trouble dealing damage for example you can use the firey pot to add some extra attack dmg (and yes it stacks if you do attack effect in the firey pot it adds extra attack damage, maybe even with a hidden bonus)

(got similar planned for the parasail .. like dif types with dif effects like faster gliding speed but more stamina usage- one used like koga does in aoc that lets you glide fully soundlessly ...)

(legend of zelda)

(also no NPC will give you a shitty cooked thing as a 'reward' anymore, if anything its a bottle that you can use like in the old games ..)

[cloudcreates]

Wait what were the other two times? I’m curious:)

THE MASTER CYCLE (and zelda even Riding the master cycle in AoC) IS ONE, AND THE OTHER IS LINK GETTING A FUCKY-WUCKY MAGIC ARM HAHA

[peachssodapop]

Curly hair Link

[twilighthiro]

BOTW 2 2019: Ganondorf’s back, Zelda gonna fight alone again, Link’s gonna die, there are voices screaming for help, everyone will die, Link will have TRAUMA, THERE WILL BE MALICe VERSIONS OF EVErYTHING INCLUDINg THE CoRPsES OF LONG-DEAD hylIANS ANd LINK’S DAd EVERYTHING WILL BE UNDERGROUND and LINK’S POSSESSED-

BOTW 2 2021: WE’RE IN THE SKY! LINK HAS LOOSE HAIR and a NEW OUTFIT! also the castle’s in the sky through Malice pillars and Zelda’s dead but anyway-THERE’S A NEW ROBOT! SKYWARD SWORD HD! LOFTWINGS AND FI???? LINK HAS A NEW SHEIKAH ARM! CLIPPING IS A FEATURE NOW! SUNLIGHT AND JOY AND LINK’S NEW OUTFIT! STONE TALOS MONSTER CAMPS!

[mehkuno]

The Legend of President Zelda School of the Wild Archery-Kyudo Club feat. the Ritos 🏹

Captain Teba, ace archer Revali, and club manager Saki help run Hyrule's archery club. Honorary member Link drops by whenever he's at the Vah Medoh wing of the academy BUT by President Zelda's decree and for the safety of the whole student body, he's not allowed to light any arrows on fire!

🌸 More art for School of the Wild, a school AU of Zelda BOTW drawn in old-timey-anime aesthetic.