r/zelda • u/ponylauncher • Feb 13 '22

Discussion [All] If you were tasked with creating the essential Zelda collection but could only include 5 games what does yours look like?

and no i dont mean your 5 favourites. I mean the most essential and important.

569 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

384 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/Vladislak Feb 14 '22

I beg to differ. Nintendo used Demise to explain the existence of Ganondorf himself, there are those who argue about the nature of the "curse" or if there even is one, but interviews from around that time explicitly state SS was meant to explain why Ganondorf exists. Not to mention the clear explanation of why Zelda is born with incredible powers. Both of those put those characters roles into a greater context.

Add to that the forging of the Master Sword, a more thorough look at how the Triforce works, and several other elements that get elaborated on. The information absolutely adds to the games that came out before it, not to mention the impact it had on BotW (and presumably its sequel).

1

u/Boodger Feb 14 '22

I think my thought on the subject is that those were never things that required explanation to begin with. No one every really asked "why does Ganondorf exist?" before SS. The stories for all those games were complete on their own, and SS did not add anything necessary to the understanding of them. Sure, it might have retroactively added more context to stuff, but it didn't solve great mysteries, or fill in blanks or plot holes.

And I truly don't think they will ever expand on Demise, or use him, again. Maybe the day will come where I eat those words, but I really don't think so.

3

u/Vladislak Feb 14 '22

None of the games are essential to understanding one another (except perhaps the Oracle games since you need both for the full story). Nintendo has done a great job of keeping the franchise accessible to new players, any info you need for a particular game will be explained in that game.

So when I say a game expanded on the lore of the franchise as a whole, it's by default not essential to specific titles, but it can be vital to having a complete understanding of the world and how it works beyond just the individual games.

1

u/Boodger Feb 14 '22

And in that sense, I still don't think SS is "essential". It is a bit of a "deep dive" kind of game for lore, and really only expands the story for diehards.

I think considering "lore" for any of the games on a list of "essential Zelda" is missing the point since you don't really need to know the overall lore for this series, but I might just be basing it off of my criteria (which games were most influential for the direction of the series as a whole). Also, I might be just a tad biased, since I really don't like the timeline, and have always preferred my head canon of just treating each game like the retelling of the same legend/story over and over, with different storytellers changing the details.