#will link be different in botw2?

[ganondoodle]

okay more totk rewritten/botw2 wips

bc of a whole lot of changed mechanics (too long to put on here) i wanted each layer of the map to have their own "horse" .. or at least the sky (unsure about the underground)- im very attached to the idea of there being an ancient shiekah monk thats been up there for thousands of years all alone, they are mute and an odd fellow but they would serve as your hub to register tamed birds at (since you cant just fly here (parasail + hookshot only) and replenishing stamina is also limited due to the changed healing/cooking mechanic making you unable to use potions while holding the parasail) that you can call when you are in the sky giving you a little boost in height and depending on their strength perhaps also grabbing onto you/the parasail to glide without using stamina for a very short bit

now, the thing is, i cant decide whether i want them to be a hunched over granpa or a fromsoft-esque long tall thin corpse-guy

[echoesofwisdomcountup]

520 Days since Tears of the Kingdom Released. What a lovely drawing of Link.

linktober day 13: link

[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.

[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.

[n2y88]

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

Erm

[st-hedge]

What if the sky boys met

[symmetrycrypt]

@mememan93

hi! so like, i unfortunately feel like i don't really remember all the ideas i was having about it the first time i was playing totk and will try to recall them, but i had a bunch of different theories i was crafting throughout, and the main one i had was essentially just Sonia kind of secretly being on Ganondorf's side/or having her own secret agenda. (which, if she was working with Ganondorf, it's kind of debatable if that's really "evil" at this point tbh considering everything, but taking the game at its extremely face value of very black and white "good vs bad", we're gonna just say evil 🙄)

ok so, i started forming this theory very early on in my playthrough obviously. i had gotten the first maybe 4 memories in chronological order because i had noticed the game's really bad attempt at telling you, unlike a lot of other unfortunate players (seriously, i know a bunch of people have already talked about it to death, but i even played through this game twice, differently both times, just to see what it was like, and the game design with the memories is just so atrociously bad, it is ridiculous).

so i think i formed a lot of my general theory around the idea of before the game first came out and a lot of people, myself included, were talking about and theorizing for years since the first botw2 trailer (that's a different game we never got, i fear), and how the ancient hero in the tapestry looks more like Ganondorf, not Link, and maybe history was twisted or whatever, etc etc, Hyrulean Royal family propaganda, whatever.

with this context in mind, basically i was really holding onto the idea of this game actually delving into the idea of showing/talking about how the Royal Family isn't necessarily all "pure" and "good" all the time, as we see that kind of stuff very heavily hinted at in older games like Ocarina of Time with everything about the Shadow Temple and whatnot.

in the memory where Ganondorf pledges allegiance to Rauru, and Sonia, despite being right there and even talked about?? if i remember correctly. (Ganondorf saying something like "You've married a Hyrulean woman" or something like that, i don't remember), she just. says nothing. 😭 the whole time. even after Ganondorf leaves and Zelda comes up to talk, Sonia still says absolutely nothing and it was just weird/suspicious to me dkgjdkjbdkd (if only because i was holding onto my theory at the time, so i was reading into things i guess <//3)

ok so after that i think is the memory with Sonia teaching Zelda more about Recall and she starts asking about Link. now, again, i was forming my whole theory during this time still and reading into things, but i thought she was asking about Link and being so interested because... she wanted something about him. which i feel i might have been thinking about stuff with Hylia/SS type lore at the time too, i tbh can't fully remember <//3 (and then how Rauru also joins in on the convo and seems very interested in Link too, but in a very "oh, a legendary hero..." type of way, idk, it just seemed very "we're going to take advantage of this individual for our own personal ends" the first time i was playing it 😭 i was extremely suspicious of Rauru too from the start, but it seemed to go nowhere, oh well

also when you first see 'Zelda' towards the beginning of the game at Hyrule Castle in totk and clearly something is very off about her (we know now it's just Puppet Zelda, and not even written in an interesting way 🙄). i remember i was really thinking maybe it was actually Sonia, but maybe still Zelda's body, kind of like she possessed her or whatever, so she could travel to the present time or something like that. sadly, once i got more memories and kept progressing, it became increasingly clear none of that type of stuff was happening 😭

this whole thing is probably extremely jumbled and rambly, and i'm not sure if it all even makes much sense, sorry 😭 i wish i could remember more clearly my train of thought while i was first playing it, because i really did feel like i was crafting something good, but then the game just was so basic and uninteresting as hell 😭😭 maybe it was very wishful thinking, but i just thought the whole idea would have been a perfect opportunity to really show there was some corruption in the royal family at times 😭 (Especially if it was the woman who was a priestess who could possibly do no wrong UwU, like all the women in the royal family over the years (aka Zelda).

the only thing that can save Age of Imprisonment is if they make the bold and sexy move of making my original Evil Sonia theory come true

[ayzaart]

empty plains of hyrule

song: title track of suzume no tojimari

[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

[mistymonster]

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

[dustward]

Sigh, where to begin? How about the beginning. Long time Zelda fan who started with Ocarina of Time, which was quite the event back then - big enough to get trailers in movie theaters even! Loved BotW, and even though some would say that wasn’t Zelda enough for a game, I felt it was Just Enough and so I comfortably place it at 3rd for Zelda games overall, behind Wind Waker and my favorite of the bunch, Majora’s Mask. Played most, but not all. Played enough to know where BotW2/TotK went wrong as a Zelda game. It fails at being one in so many ways, and while that’s not the only reason I ended up hating it, it’s an important one.

Let’s talk about one of the core elements of Zelda games, the dungeons. Most, if not all play these out similarly. Each dungeon’s built around a specific item. They’re meant to be a progression of sorts in difficulty and slowly add to a core inventory of tools and weapons you’re eventually expected to use at the end of the game as you make your way to the final boss, whose often Ganon(dorf).

BotW did away with these in favor of smaller “dungeons” and a multitude of shrines with 1-3 room puzzles that may or may not revolve around Link’s main abilities thrown at him in the sectioned off tutorial-land at the start of the game. A lot of these shrines were...okay, didn’t hate them, though we’ve all rolled our eyes at the absurd amount of Test of Strengths and Nothing Shrines that count some overworld obstacle/puzzle in place of there being anything worthwhile inside. I struggle to remember most of these 4 years later (shout outs to Eventide), along with any of the main “dungeons,” save for the grand finale event that took place in Hyrule Castle.

That was easily the most memorable area, one you could tackle immediately after the tutorial’s done, and that’s exactly what speedrunners do, the gamers they be. That One Good Dungeon, with its various different entry points and paths through, that you don’t *have* to do yet can, works out as a satisfying final challenge before facing off with Calamity Ganon. While I longed for the older dungeons, this felt like a borderline acceptable trade only because they nailed that ending section (ignoring the final boss fight, or any of the “dungeon” boss fights which were sadly similarly forgettable)

Anyways, BotW2 managed to screw this format up royally in every conceivable way: fourfold, fivefold? Let’s start with the shrines: They’re back, in fact I think there’s more this time.. so many of them were Nothing, and that’s before counting the Nothing Shrines. Why are so many of them dedicated tutorials, ones that teach mechanics learned in BotW1 at that? The worst offender was a bow tutorial that followed a sky diving challenge that I encountered early, but easily could’ve found 50 hours into the game.....Why not have these in the Tutorial Island section of the game? Guessing it’s because they simply didn’t have enough ideas to fill the 150+ shrines they chose to put in this time around. Roughly 1/4 shrines, of the ones I did (max stamina + 20ish heart containers worth) felt like they were worth doing, and that isn’t to say I liked 1/4 shrines either. Some puzzles were so short, so simplistic, that I’d wind up solving them before the loading was done and I regained control of Link. The bloated Tests of Strength were phased out thankfully, but in their place was a watered down Eventide grouping that rarely felt engaging thanks to my displeasure with BotW2 combat.

This might just be me, but trying to understand and get the physics of these games to work is a chore and not at all fun, and there’s so much of it in this game. I got enough amusement out of stasis in BotW1, but with that gone all that was left was either getting such puzzles done in 1 try or in 10+ attempts, never understanding what I did wrong. Nothing Shrines shouldn’t even be a thing I’ve come to realize. There should just be chests in the open world that give you your Blessing. Two unnecessary Switch-length loading times feels insulting at this point, and this is just one of the many ways this game wastes the player’s time. If Sage’s Wills can be found out in the world, and are spent at Goddess Statues, why not Lights of Blessing? The Nothing Shrines that reuse overworld challenges were among the most infuriating, such as the 3 giant mazes. Like many aspects of the game, I felt punished for playing BotW1. It’s so obvious most of these Shrines are warp points first and puzzles second and that became even more painfully evident when you realize so many of them are also tied to Lightroot warp point locations. Just...make a warp system instead?????

They added roughly 150 caves and these suffer the exact same issue. Rarely one feels like it’s worth the effort and they all take so much time to go through. The fact a few of these hide important armor means you can’t just turn around when you find one, either. Wells can now be explored...as well, and none of the ones I found amounted to anything meaningful. The most useful either of these new additions ever felt was in where you wound up afterward when using the new Ascend mechanic, which is one of the few bits of gameplay that felt good and felt like it had constantly been considered for general gameplay and exploration. Unfortunately, this resulted in a similar thought to how “shrines are just warp points” - “caves/wells are just about where you can ascend afterward” - this facet even comes up a few times in the sidequests I bothered to do. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s an issue when you make 150+ (250ish if you add in the wells) of these little tunnels and have little in form of substance for them. Ones tied to main quests felt acceptable, but again they’re main quests so they’d better be.

There are 6 main “dungeons” in the game, and it’s time to dunk on them I suppose. The Goron minecart venture was ruined by joycon drift constantly making Link walk out of carts against my will, making me wish you could just have a Sit button prompt similar to horses and zonai vehicles (I don’t recall any steering devices in the Goron “dungeon”). The Rito ship/Zora dungeons were a whole big Nothing whereas the climbs up to them were actually kinda fun. They reused half of Hyrule Castle. They actually make you do laps around it to fight monsters and that’s apparently a “dungeon.” Sigh. Don’t even want to talk about the Mineru one, as I hated the fuse mechanic (loved Thunderhead though, we’ll get to that in a separate post). The Gerudo Temple was just about the only serviceable “dungeon” and even then I felt disappointed because I tried using Ascend all over that place, thinking and hoping they’d have some fun elaborate puzzle tied to it but I was just sequence breaking and doing areas early which was only slightly fun, since Riju was stuck a few floors down.. I wonder if the dungeons could’ve worked out better if given their own separate loading zones, similar to shrines, if trying to fit them into the world was an issue.

The final path to Ganondorf is a long, winding stretch littered with enemies. I ran past all of them, I was so done with the game at that point, and I felt like nothing of value was skipped as a result. Had to fight a big enemy gauntlet at the end anyway! Also, anything related to caves, wells, and the underground looked awful to me, visually. There was a constant fog in the air that weighed down the exploration as it made things unnecessarily hard to see. The beauty of the overworld - I’d seen that already, in the first game. There’s some beauty in the Sky Islands, but that’s about all you get this time around, that’s new, with only a few exceptions that we’ll get into later. As for the other bosses? Design wise, I loved them, but combat wise.. ridiculously easy and fights shorter than the cutscenes that played before and after them. Most of the bosses not requiring any unique move or ability to defeat just reinforced how this game’s open ended nature means you can’t require the player to use anything specific most of the time. The rare instance a sage ability was required, it was awful because this implementation itself was awful, but more on that in a later post where I rant about combat.

...I feel I didn’t appreciate the better dungeons of past Zelda games enough after finishing BotW2/TotK. Skyward Sword’s Desert dungeons were -fantastic-. Still remember most of the Ocarina/Majora’s Mask ones. Wind Waker’s were so few that it’s hard to forget how they played out. Even Twilght Princess with some of its...weirder moments, like the Icy manor and beyblade dungeon. Tarm Ruins also fondly comes to mind. I’m gonna miss these experiences. It’s feeling pretty evident we won’t be getting anything else like them from this series going forward. Hope I’m wrong, though.

[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.

[symmetrycrypt]

What was the concept designer ON,,,

,,,,,,,fdjkdfnl  ,,, , ,

Let their visions become reality in the sequel i am BEGGING you

[ganondoodle]

botw2 (totk rewritten) ganondorf design (+some story) post

Mummy version what link and zelda discover beneath hyrule castle when investigating the failing shiekah tech and discover a cave system that leads to several abandoned shiekah research/security sites and ultimately lead to a cave in which ganondorf is still sealed away by the ancient queen of hyrule; after the initial sealing (or capture rather) her descendant and the shiekah, who were rapidly advancing their tech at the time, build around it, both to keep the seal secret and safe (as the actual sealing was a short but intense battle between him and the queen that wasnt intended to happen like that, in the middle of the throne room that got broken and both ended up in the underground, the only survivor being the young princess of hyrule from that time- since all involved parties except for her died little was known as to how and why but the stories were spun regardless and ultimately the final narrative was in hyrules favor) and to use ganondorfs immense spiritual power and magical skill- eventually becoming one of the main power sources for all shiekah technology (ouch)

the chamber is all shiekah built (post sealing) and similarly secured like the monks in shrines (though visibly decaying and failing)- once disturbed the remainder of the ancient queen fused into zeldas hand (with seemingly no effect but temporary pain, perhaps she will hear voices from the past telling her not to explore any further .. still working on that) ganondorfs body falls to the ground but then springs back to life, somewhat clumsily but fiercly attacking zelda and link, the shock from being in this horrendous condition between life and death for thousands and thousands of years and suddendly being thrust back into his decayed and used up body still fresh

the mastersword is broken and links arm destroyed, both link and zelda start to flee from the crumbling cave, zelda dragging link behind her in panic (and as he is hurt)- after which link gets his shiekah tech arm (and the arm stays gone) and the world changes

mid game fight- this game is not as free in progression as botw, you can do alot when you want but some things will remain locked, the mid game fight can only happen once the 4 main regions problems have been dealt with (very different to canon totk, but that is for a different post) and the castle, which fell into the underground shortly after the intro, is made accessible (specific way how still in work) the interior is both broken castle, rooms previously blocked, and shiekah tech- since beneath the castle was a whole, giant array of tech made to secure the castle, including reserves of ancient energy specifically for the royal family and the entire mechanism behind the rising pillars filled with guardians-

at the start of the dungeon link is grabbed by malice/miasma hands and dragged into the castle, seperated from zelda and the mechanics she introduced (crafting/reparing weapons and more), theres no way out, teleports are blocked; after getting further in alone, zelda finds you again, and nothing seems out of the ordinary (unless you have a keen eye, she only uses her left arm and would walk past things she usually wouldnt) after a certain amount of progression, without warning, as soon as zelda is out of the cameras view she will attack you relentlessly, not speaking a word and with changed eye color- after fighting with her/beign chased into the main throne room, the real zelda breaks through a wall, her friends in tow (yunobo, teba+tulin, riju, sidon, which she went to to ask for help, explaining the time gap), and ganondorf drops the disguise, a fight with him (mummy version) ensues, though he is very much back to his senses

at the end of the fight he shows (or forces her to see) zelda his last memory from when he lived, the confrontation with the ancient queen to his sealing (since she doesnt know/is in denial of her families role in both all this and the sonaus (zonais) extinction (as well as the betrayal and persecution of the shiekah later on), and his beef is with her specifically, link is just her guard dog after all) (i wasnt sure to include a direct scene from the past, but this one scene is very self contained and gives alot of context while still letting most of the past be a mystery- as i want to keep it as feeling ... removed and unknown as much as possible from the world you know)

(after which he leaves the scene as zelda tries to understand what she just saw)

post revival Ganondorf (beginning of end fight cutscene and phase 1.) only appears at the end (excluding the possible cutscene in the mid game fight, which shows him in his time, alive, which is a different design than this that i will make for a cutscene/story post)

the end of the game is in/on the forgotten plateau (it ends were botw began :) ) perhaps it rose higher and revealed an entrance after more game progression (at least one more dungeon, master kogas, and the restorations of the master sword via deku tree dungeon and sword quest involving the dragons; how much of the past you cared to explore within caves, which ARE the underground- its in several bigger and smaller, harder to access caves, each being somewhat to very unique and reveal more context, is largely irrelevant, it mostly serves to give YOU more context and make you think)

the dungeon is within the plateau, once to the end there is a longer cutscene of zelda trying to talk with ganondorf, now in his, largely, restored form (largely as in, not exactly as he was in past, clothing difference etc), her having come to understand what her legacy is and wanting to take responsibility for it; he listens calmly and talks to her for a bit (but the tension is very high, he knows what threat he poses and his goals, zelda is visibly trying to keep it together) and for a bit it might look like she can avoid this conflict

but he makes it very clear then, that she cannot undo anything, there is no possible price she could pay, he has suffered at hyrules hands for generations, having seen the world that was his home grow into myth, see his own people forget him, and how the history was remembered, not as it was, but as they wanted it to; he is forever changed, ripped from his time and all he ever held dear (there are clues and a mention of him having had two daughters, a little boar figurine, carved from wood of trees now extinct, hangs from his belt even now)- he wasnt a perfect king, but well liked and kept his country to stay strong against hyrules schemes .. until he fell- he is not truly alive, he is in a strangers world and this world hates him, it is anger and hatred, rage against all that happend, guilt for having failed his own, feeling betrayed by them yet, even if not truly their fault as no one knew what really happened except him, but he was imprisoned, with no breath to speak nor air to scream

he does not care for this world and his only goals now are to disrupt as much as possible, be the unstoppable force that hyrules always been, be the monster they wanted him to be, do as he wants until someone stops him ...and kill zelda to end her rotten family- but even if she gave up her life willingly he wouldnt take it, she will have to fight and make her own hands dirty and she does not want to die.

your friends arrive, and the battle begins.

(rough examples of his weapons are further below; he fights with one arm only in phase 1. then reforms his missing arm with malice, borrowed from the boar appearance, though it is not usable enough to truly replace it, it acts more like beasts claw and to copy some of links abilities, like the hookshot)

Beast Ganon(dorf), normal appearance (phase 3)

at the end of phase 2 he knocks out your friends, changes into beast form and attacks you, zelda using her magic to shield both her and link so he cannot bite through, instead smashes them both through stone and dirt all the way to the surface of the plateau on which the fight continues, this time only link and zelda

(his movement isnt a senseless rage, but a graceful being, he moves and jumps, floats and swims through the air as the ground in an almost dragon like way, he still wields magic, not all malice, but lightning and perhaps even more too, it is still him, just a different form)

Beast Ganon(dorf) while charging magic (phase 3)

Ganondorf phase 2 + Ganondorf phase 4 (slightly out of order but the boar wouldnt fit on one picture with other forms)

at the end of phase 3 (beast) it seems like you have beaten him, he is down and zelda takes charge, ready to do as she did to the dark beast she faced before (dark beast ganon in botw) but as she raises her hand a sword slash cuts off half her right hand- he is not done yet and refuses to be dealt with like that again, not by her hand again-

the final phase is a mix of all, including his appearance, this is the final struggle, to give every last drop of strength, the hole in his chest is open, malice eyes staring from within, it keeps him alive yet still-

zelda is disabled for this fight, she has been taken to safety by your friends, this fight is all on link to finish; while this is his most desperate and vengeful form, he is not senseless either, he summons his sword to attack you with as he did in phase 2, then throws it at you, quickly conducting lighting to it and while you are busy dodging lunges like in beast form (to paint the picture a little), this fight is supposed to be truly challenging.

(heres a rough example for his weapons)

(not fully sure of the ending scene, but there is supposed to be a short view into a timeskip in which zelda also has half a prosthetic hand made from shiekah tech)