The Legend of Zelda

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

The Legend of Zelda is a series of adventure games for the Nintendo system. One of the oldest franchises, alongside Super Mario, at least one game has graced every console Nintendo has put out. With its epic landscapes, focus on puzzles, and wide array of monsters and races, the Zelda series is a goldmine for an enterprising Dungeons & Dragons DM to draw from for inspiration.

The Story

You play as Link, a green-clad youth somewhere in between 9 to 18 years of age who sets out to fight evil to accomplish some heroic goal, often related to rescuing someone. And often this is Princess Zelda, whom the series is named after. In pursuit of this goal he often clashes with the evil Ganon (or Ganondorf), who wants to rule the world, or some other menace ranging from a jerk wizard who kidnaps girls to a fucking scary mask trying to destroy everything.

Central to the series is the Triforce, an artifact of immense power that taps into a user's power, wisdom and courage to use. It has near reality-warping powers in its full form, which is why Ganondorf seeks to obtain it. Link often has to find bits of the shattered Triforce in his quests, or people capable of sealing Ganondorf away.

Note that it is not always the same Link who appears in the series: while some of them appear in several games as the protagonist (One appears in four games, and three others in two games each) there is often a new Link in every game. And while they look alike, they are except from one case where it is strongly hinted at that they are family not related to one another. This is because the games are constantly soft-rebooting (really it's that it takes place over a VERY long stretch of time and each Link is a new reincarnation). Hyrule itself will change too every so often; sometimes it will feature the same familiar geography of Hyrule castle, Death Mountain, Zora Village, etc. And other times it will feature very dramatic changes, such as all of Hyrule being flooded.

The Zeldas on the other hand are related to one another: the first one was the reincarnation of the goddess Hylia and all Zeldas are her descendants, making them the Blood of the Goddess. And while the various Links might not be related they inherit something as well; the Spirit of the Hero which gives them the drive to stand up to evil and use the various tools they find despite them never having used or even seen them before.

The villainous Ganondorf is the same one over and over again though. Occasionally it's stated he can't die any defeats he has are temporary. Even while he gets killed at the end of some of the games, his followers try to ressurect him (and sometimes even succeed), making him the same guy again and again.

The fact that the timeline also branches off into multiple paths simply makes it more confusing to keep track of. Fortunately, Nintendo not only printed a game-by-game explanation of the timeline, they also gave a definitive starting-off point in Skyward Sword, taking place just prior to the founding of Hyrule and the establishment of Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf as perpetually reincarnating characters.

Tabletop Games

Officially, there are no Zelda tabletop games. Unofficially, homebrewers have tried their hand at making some. A Legend of Zelda D20 system has been floating around the net for years, and /tg/ has been busily working on a Legend of Zelda RPG. There's also Megaton, which is a wargame set in the Zelda setting.

Vidya Games

There's been A TON of them, but the one that gives most nostalgia is the first one, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp2YdP-WM3Y The two most famous (and have originated the most skub) are Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask for the N64. Ocarina of time was a massive adventure, featuring a whooping 9 MANDATORY (there were a couple that were dungeons which were optional, such as the gerudo fortress' labrynth) quite big. The Sixth dungeon, the water temple, became a meme due to its frustrating difficulty. Ganondorf (not ganon) makes his first appearence proper here, showing us as a black ginger (proving us again how prejudiced the japs are). It also is a focal point in the legend of zelda series, because the The Majora's Mask game had a smaller questline (4 to 6- depending on how you value the pirate fortress and Ikana's palace as dungeons or add-ons for the main ones- dungeons plus the final boss) but featured an obscene amount of side quests (like 30-40 of them!).

Of course, many have debated wether the longer questline or bigger variety of side quests is better, or wether Ganondorf's pimpery can surpass the Mask's eldritch-grade awesomess. They are good games, all the while, overshadowing the forecoming titles.

Another great game of the saga is the Wind Waker, which allowed to play a pirate-lite while you sailed across the seas in search for booty and your sister, kidnapped by a now jaded ganondorf (many say this ganondorf is the best, as we see him here as a dude who's totally tired of this shit and is shown in a kinda simpathetic light). It's noteworthy that the link of this continuity managed to appear in two games and that he may or not have sired one of the two parents of the 'spirit tracks' link.