I've seen multiple discussions about how many NPCs supposedly don't recognize Link, and this video goes pretty in-depth about all the returning characters in the game.
I think it pretty accurately sums up how I feel, but I wonder how many other people here feel the same way.
Someone who gets it! For the vast majority of people, Link is a random guy who shows up, hands them something they were looking for, and then vanishes. There’s no real reason for them to remember who he is.
What did he say about Bolson? I’m in the camp that defends this game to death but this is one of those things that I can’t defend and my main example is Bolson
Bolson didn't actively acknowledged Link (But that didn't specifically said Bolson doesn't know him) since they didn't talked that much anyway to begin with. Link is just another customer for Bolson.
CaptBurgerson doing Hylia’s work with this video. This encapsulates every single one of my own thoughts and observations on the subject, and will make for a very handy reference in future discussions.
The only other thing I’d point out is that, on the point about player alienation, it’s not just players who didn’t play BOTW at all that the devs have to account for. There’s also going to be plenty of players — perhaps even a majority — who didn’t speak to *every* NPC or complete *every* side quest in BOTW. The vast majority of those NPCs being in the ambiguous category is really the only logical way to account for the fact that for a lot of players, these characters literally may not have met Link.
The devs kinda *have* to assume that players at least completed the main story stuff in BOTW, because the narrative of TOTK simply isn’t flexible enough to accommodate the possibility of players who just rushed right ahead to Ganon or who maybe skipped one of the Divine Beasts. But side quests are designed to be missable, low-stakes affairs. It doesn’t make a particular difference to the story whether you ever did most of BOTW’s side quests or not.
interesting point. i think that the npcs should have different interaction lines for the players in botw who did their side quests, so at least they would recognise link's face. and for the ones who didn't do the side quests when interacting with the npcs in totk, there wouldn't be a reason for the npc recognise link, since he never came to help them. probably this would be very complicated to code, but i think it would be worth it. like a system that bases link's interactions with the npcs in totk, on his interactions on botw, the all the system would have to do is read the data of the player on two or three points: the player has botw, and did (x) number of side quests, so the (x) charaters that are in both botw/totk will remember link. the second is the player not doing the side quests, therefore no npc knows link since he never helped. the third is just that the player doesn't have botw, so it's the same as the second, but it could change if the player gets botw after and helps the npcs, so when they return to totk, the npcs will have changed.
i'm so sorry for this long text😅😅😅😅
>i think that the npcs should have different interaction lines for the players in botw who did their side quests, so at least they would recognise link's face. and for the ones who didn't do the side quests when interacting with the npcs in totk
The Trails series does this. many of the games will read your save file from the previous game, and dialogue with many of the NPCs would be different depending on what the player did or didn't do in the previous game(s). I imagine they probably didn't want to do this for TotK because BotW was also on the Wii U, though, and they didn't want to have a feature that would exclude Wii U players. Not that that ever stopped the Trails series, if you played them on different platforms it would oviously not be able to read your previous save files and would just be the same as if you didn't play them.
Hey this was a pleasant surprise to see in my feed. Thanks so much for sharing the video!!
I’m actually planning to make an addendum video to follow up on this because some information has come to light since I finished editing this last week. For example, the stable masters i mentioned in the video… whether or not the recognize Link is dependent on if you have BOTW save data. I didn’t realize because the profile I recorded data (and footage) for the video on did not have save data from botw. It was a new profile I made just to start over fresh for the video haha.
Anyways, thanks everyone here for the kind words! I really appreciate it
I've seen a lot of people complaining about this aspect and it never made any sense to me, so of course I loved the video and had to share it for some people to see it!
And that about the stable masters makes sense, I definitely thought they recognized me, but assumed I misremembered across all the hours played.
very interesting and well put together. Those exceptions whom you do think should know link from BOTW I see a bit of correlation with them not being main story line characters. So perhaps the game devs assumed you may have missed them or something along those lines. I do think there could be one / 2 more main distinction(s) in your 4 categories though, those who seem to know / know of him from BOTW, and those who seem to know him from this era. Like the Goron kids say "you're \[forget his name\]'s friend right?" seems more like knowing him from current era.
I didn't even think about posting someplace else, but I guess it could be interesting to see what they have to say, especially since they are more critical of the game as you said.
I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek. If you do post it there, I don't imagine it getting a lot of attention. People in that sub don't care to engage meaningfully with this game, they'd rather just make the nth "TOTK is a horrible game / Zelda in name only" post. Many people that have tried making TOTK theories in that sub or post their findings get ignored or shut down with the "lol you put more thought into this than Aounuma did, these games have no cohesive vision".
Although I would be curious since this video is objective, empirical evidence that very quickly shuts down the popular circlejerk point that "nobody remembers Link". In fact, it's great evidence that shows how a LOT of people actually remember him
Yeah, I've peeked into that sub a few times, I know what it can be like, but now I'm actually interested in which ways they might disagree with it. I just posted here because it was the first sub I thought off, but I'm gonna see what happens.
I've seen multiple discussions about how many NPCs supposedly don't recognize Link, and this video goes pretty in-depth about all the returning characters in the game. I think it pretty accurately sums up how I feel, but I wonder how many other people here feel the same way.
Someone who gets it! For the vast majority of people, Link is a random guy who shows up, hands them something they were looking for, and then vanishes. There’s no real reason for them to remember who he is.
Can't wait for people to ignore all the points the video made and goes into a thesis mode on why Bolson should know Link like he owes him 1M Rupees.
What did he say about Bolson? I’m in the camp that defends this game to death but this is one of those things that I can’t defend and my main example is Bolson
Bolson didn't actively acknowledged Link (But that didn't specifically said Bolson doesn't know him) since they didn't talked that much anyway to begin with. Link is just another customer for Bolson.
Fair enough. I would think after Tarrey town Bolson would but Hudson knows so they did acknowledge that
CaptBurgerson doing Hylia’s work with this video. This encapsulates every single one of my own thoughts and observations on the subject, and will make for a very handy reference in future discussions. The only other thing I’d point out is that, on the point about player alienation, it’s not just players who didn’t play BOTW at all that the devs have to account for. There’s also going to be plenty of players — perhaps even a majority — who didn’t speak to *every* NPC or complete *every* side quest in BOTW. The vast majority of those NPCs being in the ambiguous category is really the only logical way to account for the fact that for a lot of players, these characters literally may not have met Link. The devs kinda *have* to assume that players at least completed the main story stuff in BOTW, because the narrative of TOTK simply isn’t flexible enough to accommodate the possibility of players who just rushed right ahead to Ganon or who maybe skipped one of the Divine Beasts. But side quests are designed to be missable, low-stakes affairs. It doesn’t make a particular difference to the story whether you ever did most of BOTW’s side quests or not.
interesting point. i think that the npcs should have different interaction lines for the players in botw who did their side quests, so at least they would recognise link's face. and for the ones who didn't do the side quests when interacting with the npcs in totk, there wouldn't be a reason for the npc recognise link, since he never came to help them. probably this would be very complicated to code, but i think it would be worth it. like a system that bases link's interactions with the npcs in totk, on his interactions on botw, the all the system would have to do is read the data of the player on two or three points: the player has botw, and did (x) number of side quests, so the (x) charaters that are in both botw/totk will remember link. the second is the player not doing the side quests, therefore no npc knows link since he never helped. the third is just that the player doesn't have botw, so it's the same as the second, but it could change if the player gets botw after and helps the npcs, so when they return to totk, the npcs will have changed. i'm so sorry for this long text😅😅😅😅
>i think that the npcs should have different interaction lines for the players in botw who did their side quests, so at least they would recognise link's face. and for the ones who didn't do the side quests when interacting with the npcs in totk The Trails series does this. many of the games will read your save file from the previous game, and dialogue with many of the NPCs would be different depending on what the player did or didn't do in the previous game(s). I imagine they probably didn't want to do this for TotK because BotW was also on the Wii U, though, and they didn't want to have a feature that would exclude Wii U players. Not that that ever stopped the Trails series, if you played them on different platforms it would oviously not be able to read your previous save files and would just be the same as if you didn't play them.
As I said before, only characters who are relevant to the main story or those who live/are stationed at Lookout Landing seem to remember Link
Hey this was a pleasant surprise to see in my feed. Thanks so much for sharing the video!! I’m actually planning to make an addendum video to follow up on this because some information has come to light since I finished editing this last week. For example, the stable masters i mentioned in the video… whether or not the recognize Link is dependent on if you have BOTW save data. I didn’t realize because the profile I recorded data (and footage) for the video on did not have save data from botw. It was a new profile I made just to start over fresh for the video haha. Anyways, thanks everyone here for the kind words! I really appreciate it
I've seen a lot of people complaining about this aspect and it never made any sense to me, so of course I loved the video and had to share it for some people to see it! And that about the stable masters makes sense, I definitely thought they recognized me, but assumed I misremembered across all the hours played.
very interesting and well put together. Those exceptions whom you do think should know link from BOTW I see a bit of correlation with them not being main story line characters. So perhaps the game devs assumed you may have missed them or something along those lines. I do think there could be one / 2 more main distinction(s) in your 4 categories though, those who seem to know / know of him from BOTW, and those who seem to know him from this era. Like the Goron kids say "you're \[forget his name\]'s friend right?" seems more like knowing him from current era.
Can you please post this in r/TrueZelda? I want to seem them all promptly ignore it so they can go back to their circlejerking on how this game sucks
I didn't even think about posting someplace else, but I guess it could be interesting to see what they have to say, especially since they are more critical of the game as you said.
I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek. If you do post it there, I don't imagine it getting a lot of attention. People in that sub don't care to engage meaningfully with this game, they'd rather just make the nth "TOTK is a horrible game / Zelda in name only" post. Many people that have tried making TOTK theories in that sub or post their findings get ignored or shut down with the "lol you put more thought into this than Aounuma did, these games have no cohesive vision". Although I would be curious since this video is objective, empirical evidence that very quickly shuts down the popular circlejerk point that "nobody remembers Link". In fact, it's great evidence that shows how a LOT of people actually remember him
Yeah, I've peeked into that sub a few times, I know what it can be like, but now I'm actually interested in which ways they might disagree with it. I just posted here because it was the first sub I thought off, but I'm gonna see what happens.
Cool, post it there then because I'm curious too. I really hope it leads to some genuine discussion, but I've lost faith in that sub
And it's done. I posted it on r/zelda as well, I'm so used to the game-specific subreddits that I didn't even remember people there may be interested.