Hyrule Historia

While debating on how to tackle smaller NES and Game Boy games on my self-imposed chronologically-correct way my mind works, Nintendo released their Hyrule Historia art book/encyclopedia over in Japan and I can't stress this enough:

This thing has gotta make it out of Japan.

It's not the first time Japan's withheld such Word of God goodness. I've almost gotten over the fact that we'll prolly never get all the Kingdom Hearts Ultimanias, fantastic strategy guides that go super in-depth on the beauty of the Kingdom Hearts universe with interviews, artwork and what-have-you. But it doesn't mean I can't hope.

Mainly posting this week about the fact Nintendo's revealed the official timeline for their The Legend of Zelda series. Whether or not you believe this is a public fragment of Nintendo's alleged and highly-classified document that houses how the games relate to each other doesn't matter to me, since I've lurked around enough comments sections and forums to know this is exactly the kind of thing that can break a fanbase in half (or three!). As far as I'm concerned, this is the official timeline until proven otherwise. And seeing as how this was edited by Eiji Aonuma himself and published by Nintendo, this is all but fact in my eyes.

An illustrated guide to the timeline, with an interesting development:

Most enticing part about this reveal is the existence of a so-called Failure Timeline.

Ocarina of Time was known to have created two timelines back when The Wind Waker was released, resulting in the Adult and Child timelines. This led to us fans to try and compile the then-ten titles released. (No, the CD-i games are not canon and I have no intention of playing them.)

As of last week, I had settled on my version of the timeline after thinking over the series and replaying most of the titles this year, which was as follows:

-Original Timeline-

1 Skyward Sword [SS]

2. Ocarina of Time [OoT]

 -Adult Timeline-

3. The Wind Waker [WW]

4. Phantom Hourglass [PH]

5. Spirit Tracks [ST]

6. The Legend of Zelda [LoZ]

7. The Adventure of Link [AoL]

-Child Timeline-

8. Majora's Mask [MM]

9. Twilight Princess [TP]

10. A Link to the Past [LttP]

11/12. Oracle of Seasons/Ages [OoS/A]

13. Link's Awakening [LA]

I was confounded for years where the Oracle games figured in to the equation, since the ending suggested a direct lead-in to LA and I assumed the same Link in LA was from LttP, though I didn't know why that Link would suddenly spring for tights despite the art style being similar enough, so I eventually gave in and stuck them at numbers 11/12.

Though it was always the Four Sword Trilogy that threw me off the most. I assumed the games were prequels of each other, as was the general belief based on the main console releases, so I had them ranked:

-Four Sword Trilogy-

1. The Minish Cap [MC]

2. Four Swords Adventures [FSA]

3. Four Swords [FS]

The original Four Swords could've been placed anywhere, with its legend of the Four Sword suggesting it had occured beforehand. Then FSA's Hyrule shared a visual similarity with LoZ and LttP with OoT's races, yet the story had too many inconsistencies in regards to Ganon's backstory to be the same incarnation of Ganon from OoT. Finally, MC came along and seemed to be set even before OoT, resulting in the birth of monsters and the Four Sword itself with a significantly small Hyrule Kingdom, though it also introduced its own legend of a Hero of Man, which suggested a previous Hero, but I didn't believe it to be OoT's Link.

Then SS was released, which I came to assume was the Hero of Man MC's introduction spoke of. It was obvious SS set the stage for any subsequent Zelda, even MC and especially OoT. Eventually I had to place FSA and FS into the timeline somewhere, so I set FSA after LA, in which that Link had defeated Ganon with the Silver Arrows, which resulted in Ganon's alternate rebirth. FS would take place after LA and before the post-apocalyptic-ish LoZ and AoL, which I always assumed were the latest titles. Technology in the Zelda universe works in reverse, with subsequent games in the timeline having lost the knowledge of technology and the majority of its races, magical abilities and knowledge of its founding dieties.

So while I was proud with my own timeline after nine years of contemplation, Nintendo announces this bombshell. Glad to say I wasn't completely off the mark on a few of my placements, but it was the reveal of a third timeline that threw me for a loop.

In detail, here's a translation of the timeline with descriptions of the corresponding eras:



The fanboy in me loves the detailed eras of Hyrule's long and storied history.

The Failure Timeline would explain a couple things, such as the overall decline of Hyrule technologically, magically and racially, yet raises more questions, the most agonizing question in my mind being what the definition of "Failure" means and what it specifically entails at the end of OoT, if that's indeed where it occurs.

See, Nintendo's brilliant. Even though their timeline for the current sixteen games are revealed, there's no end to the speculation and theories on specifics.

Anyway, just throwing my two cents in on current affairs while I organize a few NES and GB games to review, since I'll prolly just end up clumping a few smaller/shorter NES and GB games together for substance's sake.

Merry Christmas!