Zelda Tournament Fighter
By Ice
I know the thought has crossed your mind. Especially with Smash Brothers just being released. Smash Brothers takes popular Nintendo characters and pits them together against other popular Nintendo characters. But what if Nintendo made a tournament fighter with strictly Zelda characters? Who would you include? Who would you NOT include? How much of a success would it be? Would it be a waste of programming time? What if not enough time was spent on it and it spoiled the Zelda series? These are questions that I hope to address and conquer in this editorial.
Ok, so who would you include? Surely, we must use the little green guy known as Link. But what about Ganon? Of course. But which form? Human or hog? Perhaps both... yes... BOTH would probably appease fans much more. And Zelda herself? Of course we would. Get a little pro-feminist action going on. And we would undoubtedly use the Zelda that appeared in the comics and cartoons, with her wicked bow and arrows. Ok, so the three core characters were a no-brainer. But who would we have OTHER than those three? The Molblins have a very strong following, so there should be a Molblin in there with a Magic Spear. Probably a Stalfos, as well. Agahnim, too, perhaps. And of course, no Zelda game would be complete without ME! :-) Seriously, though, there aren't many other frequent or popular characters that we could draw from. Perhaps Impa, maybe all of the sages, or a representative from each race. Can't you just see King Zora whoopin' up on a Gerudo Warrior? Um, no.
Anyway, the characters that are included are the least of our worries. How much of a success would it be? Well, anything right now with the Zelda label would sell a million copies easily, but what about a year from now? Probably so. The Zelda name is nothing short of a gold mine, and Nintendo knows that. Surely it would be a success.
But... would it be good enough to bear the Zelda name? A lot of time would have to be spent on it for this to be true. And it took us 3 years to receive Zelda 64. Now, if this game was in 3d like Mortal Kombat IV or Smash Brothers, that should cut down a lot of the time, because we have a lot of the polygon models already formed in Zelda 64. And we have the Zelda-ish textures and backgrounds. But if Nintendo undertook this, they wouldn't just settle for the graphic quality found in Zelda 64. Surely, they would strive to top that. And it probably wouldn't be too hard for them to do that, considering the rate at which Nintendo's graphic abilities are progressing. All in all, the game would probably take a year total, since they already have the engine of Smash Brothers to work with and the polygons already plotted out.
But what if Nintendo hyped it up real good, and it turned out to be a major disappointment? Not a disappointment necessarily, but just not worthy of carrying the name "Zelda". It's possible that such a thing could happen. Would it spoil the series? For some, it would. That's not something that Nintendo's gonna risk. Not for a million bucks. As things are right now, I can safely say that such a game as a Zelda tournament fighter is not likely. At least not yet. But it's not an idea to completely cast aside. It could happen. Just not now. But... if it DID... would you buy it? Well... do birds fly?
Staff Comments:
Stalfos333: Personally, I'd rather fight as some of the bosses than as Zelda. The emphasis in Zelda has always been on strategy, rather than the brute force of fighting games. If you shift that focus, is it really a Zelda game?
Crysaler: Not if the bird is an Ostrich. But it's a good idea anyway. Would you rather a Zelda multi-player on the Goldeneye/First-person engine?
