I posted this in another thread.
But what do you think?
I will say that a lot of people are discouraged when it come to just any new LoZ rep.
Ever since we got a lot of characters back in Melee (
) we... Never got much afterwards. Not only does the 3 Links are pretty much semi-clones/clones (Like , a ton of Yink's animations are copy and pasted from adult Link) , but Ganondorf is still to this day... Both a joke competitively , and not an accurate representation of the character.
And starting with Brawl , they were
clear opportunities to add characters that were ignored. Brawl has a big Twilight Princess redesign for the LoZ cast , and Midna would have been a perfect addition and... She just got a trophy. Granted , we got Tink , but he was a later addition due to the game's release beeing delayed , and Yink was removed.
Then we have Sm4sh , and Skyward Sword and Wind Waker HD were the latest zelda game and... We got a Midna , Skull Kid and Ghirahim AT. On top of that , the only significant change to the LoZ cast was spliting up Zelda and Sheik due to technical difficulties. So well , the intended design of the character got killed.
Even with Sm4sh DLC , we had a ALBW , there was even a fake Ravio trailer wich was pretty well done.
And with Ultimate , we got an overhaul of the LoZ cast with... Weird changes. Zelda's moveset is great , but her personnality isn't Zelda anymore , they slapped Ganondorf's sword from a 2000 E3 Space demo with Ike and Cloud smash attacks and called it a day , and... They wanted to give Adult Link a Botw treatment but didn't do much in the end. I'll give them credit for giving Ganondorf his OOT design. I like his TP design , but his OOT design is great.
Also , making the Moon and Skull Kid separate ATs is still a baffling move to this day.
And finally... Obvious missed opportunity with Both for Midna (TP HD and Hyrule Warriors) and any Botw rep.
So I will agree that now , the only way to get a LoZ rep is through fan demand. Sakurai doesn't seem to be very interested in simply adding another LoZ rep , and don't want to change the current movesets of the characters already in game , by fear of allienating the players.
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And yes... Support for a new LoZ rep is extremely split up. I will say that I notice 4 characters that always come back :
-Midna
-Skull Kid
-Tingle
-Impa
Skull Kid got his popularity from his last man standing effect from Ultimate pre release ; People were in the right to find it weird that the Moon became an AT , and that the Skull Kid AT wasn't there ; On top of that , both Dark Samus and Isabelle got promoted from their previous AT status. So I don't want to say "it's bandwagonning" because you have a lot of genuine SK fans , but it did indeed help his popularity.
Midna has always been a reccuring request for a new LoZ rep , ever since the teaser for TP was revealed. Sadly , she tend to get disconfirmed rather quickly with each game ; The Brawl Trophy , the Sm4sh Trophy , and revealing her Ultimate AT very early. (If she wasn't revealed early , she would have easily been the second Skull Kid of Ultimate speculation) Her popularity is slowing coming back tho.
Tingle is... I have the bad feeling that people don't understand something about Tingle : He's a joke character. While he has his own games , they came out 10 years ago , and only one got a worldwide release. My issue is that beside sellings maps and stealing ruppees , he doesn't do much in mainstream Zelda. While I understand that he's a recurring character , and that he has a big memey energy , it would feel weird to wait 18 years... For basically a joke character.
Impa has some real things going for her ; She's honestly the only recurring character I see having genuine stuff going for her. While her appearances are... Diverses , to say the least , she has a lot of moveset potential , especially since Shiek doesn't use much sheikah stuff. On top of that she seem like an important character to LoZ , and she really affect the story , even if she's more secondary.
So yeah , while I think 3 out of 4 of them have strong reasons to be added , they all have their own fanbase , and while there is some overlapping (some people simply want several of these characters) a lot of people think we could only get ONE new LoZ rep , so people can get pretty defensive with their pick.
Hence why I think it became impossible for everyone to rally behind one character , because you have several characters with strong stuff going for them. People can't "choose one".
However , I'll agree that fan demand , at this rate , is the only thing that will get us a new character. (And honestly , LoZ could use 2 new characters...)