RIP Nintendo Power

[Kriven]

There's also a few other characters who have had reincarnations despite not being connected to the Triforce. Epona and Tingle are probably the most notable.

[Mutsukki]

And obviously the 2 DS ones had the same Link.

Actually, Phantom Hourglass is the same Link as Wind Waker. Spirit Train is a sequel to Phantom Hourglass, but with a different Link (you get to see Niko from Wind Waker as 100+ years old man, the only human character to ever survive seeing another Link). The rest is right though (Oracles and Ages are the same Link and timeline).

There's also a few other characters who have had reincarnations despite not being connected to the Triforce. Epona and Tingle are probably the most notable.

Yeah, there are a lot of characters who go over, besides the main ones. The entire Tetra Pirates crew were part of the Hyrule Royal family (as seen in Minish Cap and a painting in Wind Waker), for example. Queen Rutela may be Ruto's equivalent in Twilight Princess and so on.

[Sol]

Zelda stuff

I always thought that Ganondorf was the same character in every game, I'm not sure if this is actually stated anywhere, but I figured he's always resurrected/not fully defeated because of the triforce of power he has, and also

Skyward Sword spoilers

because Skyward Sword implied that he's incarnated with Demise's hatred, which would always come back or whatever.

And if that's the official timeline that Zero Kirby posted, I find the three alternate timelines thing kind of ridiculous. If there's just going to be a ruined timeline where Link gets defeated no matter what, there'd be no point for him to even travel to the future, he could just immediately travel into the past as soon as he got the ocarina of time and warn the king that Ganondorf was about to fuck everything up. The adult timeline doesn't seem to have a reason to exist, haha. Then again that might be more of a problem with OoT's story than with anything else, and I have to realize I'm critiquing the mythology of a video game series, one that might not have originally meant to have a concrete timeline anyway.

Three timelines raises some more questions, though... with the split timeline, does only the timeline of Hyrule diverge, or is the split all-encompassing? Are there three separate iterations of the sacred realm and goddesses as well, even though they're apparently all powerful beings? If not, do they oversee all three timelines? How does that work? Would Hylia be aware of it, or

Skyward Sword spoilers

any incarnation of Zelda after the split, considering she's Hylia's reincarnation? Is Demise's hatred affected by the split?

Does the twilight realm from TP exist outside of Hyrule's timelines? Is Termina destroyed in the two timelines without Majora's Mask? Considering all the time-altering magic and artifacts in the series, is there any way the timelines could interact or affect each other?

Once again, I'm probably reading too far into this, haha.

Anyway, me and my brother read Nintendo Power all the time when we were younger. I stopped getting it at some point in middle school, so I can't really say anything about its quality after that, but it was something I enjoyed. Between the two of us, we have quite a few of them, so we can always read the old ones, haha.

[Kriven]

Actually, it might be cool if there was a game where the story involved the timelines merging again. Link could be given something to help him travel to the two alternate lines, and could even be guided by the other Links in some way. One of the Links could have been transformed into the standard Navi-helper, for example.

[puggsoy]

That, or a sort of Four Swords style game, but then three swords. Obviously you'd need some new interesting mechanics, but I think it would make a good story. They'd need some defining features other than colours though, identical links with different coloured clothes is a bit bland.

[Kriven]

Well, you could always do the typical Young Link and Adult Link for two of them. And the third one could be in the Majora timeline, possibly trapped changing between mask forms.

[Koopaul]

Heh, every Nintendo related topic turns into a Zelda topic!

[Goemar]

And obviously the 2 DS ones had the same Link.

Actually, Phantom Hourglass is the same Link as Wind Waker. Spirit Train is a sequel to Phantom Hourglass, but with a different Link (you get to see Niko from Wind Waker as 100+ years old man, the only human character to ever survive seeing another Link). The rest is right though (Oracles and Ages are the same Link and timeline).

Forgot about WW and PH being same Link but yes I knew that. I never played Spirit Tracks (never even finished PH) but I just assumed it was a direct sequel because I'm awesome like that.


Note to self: Borrow Skyward Sword off of brother.

[puggsoy]

Forgot about WW and PH being same Link but yes I knew that. I never played Spirit Tracks (never even finished PH) but I just assumed it was a direct sequel because I'm awesome like that.

You should finish PH, it's a great game. I know that you're probably thinking "oh hell that temple of the Ocean King" but it isn't really that bad. And the final boss is really fun.