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makingmusic476 on 23 March 2008
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Cheebee said:
thetonestarr said:
Anybody that states that every Link is different clearly doesn't know their Legend of Zelda.

However, there are quite a number of them.

By what I understand, it seems the timeline goes as follows. Whenever you see a group of games together in bold/unbold, those ones have the same Link.



Timeline A:
Minish Cap > Ocarina of Time > Majora's Mask > Link's Awakening > The Legend of Zelda > The Adventure of Link > Four Swords Adventures > A Link to the Past > Oracle of Ages/Seasons

Timeline B:
Minish Cap > Ocarine of Time > Twilight Princess > The Wind Waker > Phantom Hourglass > Oracle of Ages/Seasons

Four-Swords Adventures is italicized because there's no evidence to tell if it's the same Link or not as the previous games. A Link to the Past is a ways down the road, however, as Hyrule has recovered from the events of the previous games and the story about Ganon being sealed away has become legend.

If you pay close enough attention to the games, this is a sound interpretation. I've played every single one numerous times, so I can assure you - this is pretty accurate. Of course, Nintendo hasn't stated a canonical timeline, but they have stated that Ocarina of Time was the first... before Minish Cap came out. Minish Cap pretty much makes it clear that it's definitely before Ocarina of Time. Then, if you connect the events in each game from there (every game makes obvious connections, some more obvious than others), you can make this assumption with little doubt.

You won't find a better timeline than the one above.

No way. The OOT & TP Links are different. The one in TP is just a boy from a quiet village outside of Hyrule, nothing in the game AT ALL points to him being the same Link as in OOT. It's pretty clear that TP takes place a long time after OOT anyway, with Kakariko in ruined state, no Gerudos anymore, the sages... :S Have you even played TP? :s

Also, the Link from OOT/MM is different from ALTTP/LA. Also, LA comes after ALTTP. It states so in the manual of that game, as well as the fact that it was released next after ALTTP and kept a lot of things from that game. In ALTTP Link defeated Ganon, then he went on some sort of journey to deal with all that's happened, and then when he decides to go back he gets shipwrecked in a storm.

It's also pretty clear that ALTTP takes place after OOT, but before the NES games. It just fits perfectly. Every single bit about ALTTP tie with OOT. For example, how Ganon was imprisoned by 7 sages but finds a way to break the seal and escape using the sorcerer Agahnim. ALTTP is the ONLY game in which this is ever mentioned, in others, like the original LOZ, Ganon is just there, no mention of where he came from. So TLOZ and TAOL couldn't possibly be after OOT but before ALTTP, because Ganon had to be freed from the Sacred Realm first in ALTTP before he could appear in TLOZ.

So, well, your explanation doesn't make any sense.

Aaaaanyway. :p To be honest, there is no definite chronological timeline in the Zelda series anymore. Before, it was plausible, even probable, but now, with all the different games and versions and storylines, there are just far too many plotholes, twists, gaps and things that don't add up or make any sense to connect it all. That's also why Shigeru Miyamoto has said that they don't really think about the connection between the different games anymore. When they make a Zelda game, the story is really not that important. He said he just sees every game as a single world with a story, and the Legend of Zelda is more like a continuous retelling of the struggle between light and dark. So when the developers themselves don't even care about the interconnecting storylines or chronological order, why should we? It's obvious there is no longer any greater storyline spanning all games and binding them into a connected whole. Just enjoy the games and their separate stories, and leave the storyline between them for what it is. Unimportant and nonexistent.


I didn't even notice that he said it was the same Link throughout those games. >_<

Doesn't TP take place ~100 years after MM?