I’m all about riding Blake’s coattails today…
When I read his post about a Zelda makeover I had one of those random inspirational flashes, as I am wont to do when reading anything written by savvy former Joystiq blogger and current columnist to the video game stars Blake Snow. My random flash was: sure, Zelda could use a makeover. I’m all for it, actually. But what if that makeover was one that was darker and more adult than Twilight Princess?
The cards are all there for it to happen: the twilight realm, Midna’s “transformation”, the adult look of the characters now. Who’s to say Link doesn’t undergo an even darker change than morphing into a wolf? As long as it isn’t an emo transformation, or the Square Enix Final Fantasy fem-boy treatment, I think I’d be fine with it (as long as we kept Link a complete mute, that is). Since Sadness is never coming out, Nintendo can even borrow liberally from that genre and really make things bleak. Give Link a backstory with a dark secret. Anything so long as it’s fresh and edgy.
The move could even play into the series’ fading appeal in Japan and elsewhere. Nintendo could spin the transformation so that the series becomes a niche product, embraced by a smaller number of gamers. “Sure the series is selling fewer units, but we have actively targeted a more mature, niche market with this latest Zelda offering,” they’d say. I can see Reggie’s slick press conference keynote in my mind’s eye already…
But who cares what I think. What say you? In the hypothetical world of future Zelda installments, should the series go darker, lighter, “cellier,” or what?