Redesigning Zelda (but keeping her the same)

[Jotari]

Other redesigns

https://smashboards.com/threads/redesinging-ganondorf-but-keeping-him-the-same.513191/
https://smashboards.com/threads/new-melee-moves-for-samus.515562/
https://smashboards.com/threads/redesigning-link-but-keeping-him-the-same.518191/
https://smashboards.com/threads/redeisgning-kirby-but-keeping-him-the-same.521634/
https://smashboards.com/threads/redesigning-zelda-but-keeping-her-the-same.521781/
https://smashboards.com/threads/redesigning-ike-but-keeping-him-the-same.522334/

I've tackled Link and Ganondorf, it's time to complete the Triforce by talking about Zelda. Unlike Kirby, Samus and Link I actually used to play Zelda, back in the Brawl days. But one particular change in SSB4 really turned me off her. More on that below.

First off, it just needs to be said, Zelda's representation in Smash is really bad. Like worse than Ganondorf. Probably the worst represented character on the roster in terms of "Number of games vs number of moves directly inspired by games". Because she's appeared in over a dozen games and has...nothing in Smash. Only Phantom and her Final Smash and even then she's never quite used them that way. This is the fault of Melee where Zelda's combat was very limited, but even back then there was actually some stuff they could have pulled from that they didn't. It was all generic magical attacks...but honestly those attacks are fine. They look good on her and they work well. So I'll start out by saying I'm happy with her jab, tilts and aerials. Her dash attack looks a bit clunky but I've nothing better to replace it with. The two major things Zelda needs from her series but doesn't have are 1)Her rapier and more importaly 2) Her light arrows. And to give them to her, we're going with the Ganondorf method and replacing her Smash attacks.

Her side smash currently is a palm thrust with multiple connecting strikes. The same idea remains, only now it's a rapid thrust with her rapier.

Her Up Smash is an upward thrust based on the position she puts her rapier in during the Twilight Princess boss fight. This is quite similar to Marth's Up Smash. On the subject of Marth, I think Zelda could do with a tipper for these rapier attacks. Careful positioning is one of the core features of Zelda's moveset so rewarding better Smash attack reads plays into that.

Her up and side smashes were really just giving her more range on her current smashes, but her down smash has changed completely. She now uses the Triforce Mine from Twilight Princess. She stabs her sword into the ground creating a small triangle that explodes if anyone steps on or slightly over it. After a set amount of time it will also explode automatically. It this sounds strange for a smash attack, it's not actually the first time we've had something like this. Snake had a mine down smash in Brawl. Overall this combined with her down and side specials should give Zelda huge stage control.

So that's it for her Rapier, but what about her Light Arrows, the more important of the two? Well those are also part of her Smash Attacks, as Zelda now has a gimmick inspired by her appearance in Hyrule Warriors. When ever Zelda successfully connects with a Smash attack (on either an enemy or a stage feature like a crate or something) she will get an Orb of Light beside her portrait. When she has three orbs the next Smash attack she will use will use her Light Arrows instead of her rapier. These Light Arrow attacks will be a lot more powerful than her rapier attacks with better range. They'll be pretty powerful tools, but, much like Mac's KO Punch, the enemy will know they're coming and will be ready for them. So timing their use wisely will be the crux of her gameplay. The bow she uses will be the one from Breath of the Wild, as it fits a bit better being pulled out of nowhere in Smash given it's small size.

Her forward Smash is a simple light arrow show in front of her, manifesting in an attack much like Mii Gunner's Side Smash.

For her Up Smash she'll fire the light arrow directly above her making for an attack much like Palutena's Up Smash.

Like this animation only she's using her bow.

For her Down Smash she just creates a larger mine by shooting the ground with her light arrow.

So with a whole new array of Smash Attacks Zelda should be more powerful than ever. However, we also have her Specials to consider. And there have been some minor and one major change. Though, before that, one note on her throw. Her throws are all fine, they feel nice and powerful, I would just slightly change her up throw. She now raises her arms like she does when opening doors in Ganon's Castle in Ocarina of Time.

Again, no specific gif, but I'm sure you know the scene.

Now on to her specials. The first I want to talk about is Din's Fire. Man oh man what a frustrating attack. It's so fun to use, but it's kind of bad. I don't think it should be taken out entirely, as, per what I said, it is really fun to use, but it needs to be made better. It either needs a lot more power so that it can more reliably kill enemies trying to recover, or, preferably, you need to have a lot more control over it as an attack so you can slow it down or speed it up or move it backwards to get around enemy attacks. One solution is to make it bigger, which is what I've done. This gives it more coverage which should be better for hitting enemies, as you can detonate it early or late and its increased range changes when the enemy would need to shield. It becomes a more predictive attack to defend against and thus more dangerous to be at extreme ranges from Zelda. I've also changed it from a fire attack to a light attack and renamed it Ball of Light.

https://i.imgur.com/5SYCVba.mp4

On playing some more Zelda and seeing how useful Nayru's Love is in the air, I've went back on this decision. I do still like the idea of using the attack from Ocarina of Time, but it's probably best left to custom specials.
Next is Nayru's Love, and, this might actually be the most significant change. I've moved it to her Shield. When shielding Zelda will automatically use Nayru's Love, meaning shielding with Zelda deals damage. This part of the attack still reflects projectiles, but after the attack is done she maintains Nayru's Love as her regular shield, making it resemble more it's origin in Ocarina of Time. This also makes Zelda's shield more like Yoshi's shield which is a bit unique. Due to this extra attacking and reflection mechanic on her shield, Zelda's shield will be easier to break than most of the cast, but I think an autoattack when shielding will make that worth it.

But now that Nayru's Love is on her shield, she's open to have another special.

Zelda's new neutral special is Light Force, based on her attack used to stun Ganon at the end of Ocarina of Time. How it plays out in effect is very similar to Robin's Thoron, only without the lower levels. Zelda charges up a massive ammount of energy and then shoots a stram of light traveling a great distance vertically in front of her. I think this will play well into her moveset as I feel I need a long rang oomph when playing Zelda that she doesn't have. She only has Din's Fire which is only good at securing kills against recovering enemies. This would give Zelda the power she needs to be a threat from a distance, improving her neutral game considerably.

I have however, changed Nayru's Love name and visuals to Light Force, from the Minish Cap. The attack is pretty much identical but now as a light appearance instead of a blue diamond.

Next is Farore's Wind. This is the thing that turned me off Zelda in SSB4. Namely one really frustrating change they made wherein if you teleport into the ground with Zelda, instead of reappearing at the spot on the ground you aim for, she'll bounce left or right and reappear somewhere else. This caused many a suicide for me as I'd try to reappear by the ledge only to bounce off into the abyss. I really like teleporting mind games in Brawl and I feel this subtle but critical changed ruined the move a lot (on the other hand they gave it a lot more power which is nice). Like Din's Fire and Nayru's Love, this attack can also get the aesthetic make over and be changed to a light based teleport we see Zelda perform in one of her games, though right now I have no specific animation in mind.

The last thing to talk about is her Final Smash. Which is a bit ridiculous. Like, everyone agrees it is out and out the best Final Smash in the game, right? It's really easy to hit enemies with, deals a tonne of damage and auto kills at above 100% which isn't hard to do when it does about 40%+. So it needs a bit of a nerf, but I still want it to be really good. So I have an idea inspired by Budokai Tenkaichi's Devilmite Beam. Zelda's Final Smash has been renaed from Triforce of Wisdom to Seal Evil and now how much damage it does is variable based on how evil the opponent is. So for Ganondorf it will do massive damage, but against someone like Sora it'll deal consdierably less damage. It'll still be a great final smash as it's still easy to hit with and auto KO's, but won't be nearly as devestating to half the cast. Plus, it'd just be fun to see which characters are ranked as more or less evil than others from the Smash roster.

And that's it from Zelda. Tell me what you think and if you have any ideas to incorporate elements of Zelda's scant few abilities from her own games...I guess I should mention I took absolutely nothing from Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure, her first actual playable appearances, but I don't think Nintendo will ever seriously acknowledge those games exist.

 

[Kirbeh]

To be perfectly honest, I don't see this as being any better than her current representation. If anything it feels a bit more cluttered and lacking focus.

As much as I enjoy the Hyrule Warriors interpretation of pretty much all the Zelda cast, I don't see it's absence in the move set as a glaring omission given that they're outsourced spin offs that receive no acknowledgement (much to my disappointment.)

On the other side of that however, I think if you're going to include the rapier you should fully commit and just make it Hyrule Warriors Zelda or at the very least Twilight Princess Zelda who we know actually wields a rapier even if we don't get to really see her in action.

I'd also argue that the Light Arrows would make for a better new special move, both functionally and as a means of representing her character.

Overall, the issue remains that there are simply too many versions of the character to try to squeeze them all into one definitive interpretation.

For all their hesitation to move outside of the core triforce wielders I think we'd benefit from at least getting more versions of Dorf and Zelda. We already have 3 Links after all, and the former 2 have a lot more variance from game to game.

 

[Jotari]

To be perfectly honest, I don't see this as being any better than her current representation. If anything it feels a bit more cluttered and lacking focus.

As much as I enjoy the Hyrule Warriors interpretation of pretty much all the Zelda cast, I don't see it's absence in the move set as a glaring omission given that they're outsourced spin offs that receive no acknowledgement (much to my disappointment.)

On the other side of that however, I think if you're going to include the rapier you should fully commit and just make it Hyrule Warriors Zelda or at the very least Twilight Princess Zelda who we know actually wields a rapier even if we don't get to really see her in action.

I'd also argue that the Light Arrows would make for a better new special move, both functionally and as a means of representing her character.

Overall, the issue remains that there are simply too many versions of the character to try to squeeze them all into one definitive interpretation.

For all their hesitation to move outside of the core triforce wielders I think we'd benefit from at least getting more versions of Dorf and Zelda. We already have 3 Links after all, and the former 2 have a lot more variance from game to game.

We technically have two Zeldas too, since Sheik is still a thing, even though Sheik has even less to draw from than Zelda (and of the two things Sheik does they're ignoring one of them, where's the Harp Nintendo? I know you know about it, it's in the Melee opening!).

I didn't consider going full rapier since I'm so satisfied with her attacks already. But thinking about it, yeah, that could work for her ground moves. She could still perform the same jab with her off hand and have the rapier be the final hit of the combo. Her forward might not be able to sustain the same amount of power if it had such reach though, which is a problem. Her down tilt and dash would probably need an overhaul, but that's fine. If they did make Zelda a rapier wielder though I can already see a certain part of the fan base complaining that there's too many swordies on the roster again. Having a character wield a weapon for just one attack isn't all that strange for Smash either. Ness, for example, is a baesball wielder. That's how he fights in Earthbound, that's the weapon he uses. But for Smash he just gets the baseball and the yoyo for Smash attacks (no sign of the slingshot so far). And that's fine. He's cool using his psychic powers for most of his normals instead of a bat, but if the bat wasn't there at all I think it would feel lacking on Ness. Likewise, I think Zelda could use her rapier for just one Smash attack and it'd maker her feel more complete, so to speak (though in this parallel the rapier is more like Zelda's yo-yo, with the Light Arrows being the more important part of her identity).

I get what you're saying about it being too clunky with two different sets of Smashes, but in an event where Light Arrows are moved to a special or back to final smash then I think the rapier could still work for just the smash moves to give it a bit more specialty. Plus, if we give it to her entire moveset then it looses a bit of the actual mage aspect to Zelda. Another option would be to make the rapier itself a special move. What could it do as a special? Not exactly sure, there's a lot of freedom to do anything when the attack concept is "sword". As far as why I didn't just make Light Arrows a special even though I freed up space for a special, I wanted the attack she used at the end of Ocarina of Time because it's another time she's actually attacked, and it was also something she did specifically in Ocarina of Time, so they actually could have implemented it in Melee if they'd thought of it at the time (I also get to reference her powers in The Minish Cap by calling it the Light Force).

As far as different incarnations of the character go, I really have no issue with having the Twilight Princess rapier on other versions of the character and, in fact, I would actively encourage all the different versions of the character being available at once via different costumes doing the same thing. Hyrule Warriors itself gives you different skins for the different versions of Ganondorf, Link and Zelda and it looks fine. So a Rapier Skyward Sword Zelda or a Rapier Breath of the Wild Zelda would be fine in my book, so long as they're doing all the magic stuff too.

 

[Jotari]

Here are two ideas to replace her current specials with specials that do the exact same thing but aren't stolen from Link.

https://imgur.com/5SYCVba

(I don't know why Imgur has converted this from a gif to a video)
Ball of Light instead of Din's Fire. I don't think Zelda has ever used fire at all in any of her mainline games. Closest I can think of is carrying a torch at the start of Tears of the Kingdom! But she has summoned and utilized balls of light at different times, most noteably here ate the end of Four Swords Adventures. She even seems to redirect it like Din's Fire. How I envision this attack is that it would be a much larger version of Din's Fire. She summons it above her head and it is as proportionally as large. This means it's much harder for enemies to air dodge it, as you can activate it earlier or later than your opponent expects you to.

The second is Light Force to replace Nayru's Love. Yes, the same name I used above but now it's actually referring to the power in the Minish Cap. Zelda uses it to protect herself here not dissimilar to Nayru's Love.

Now, is there any need to actually replace her specials with more authentic Zelda versions of them? Well, no, not really and I highly doubt they would unless they give her a full moveset overhaul which I don't want. Yet, at the same time, the Ocarina of Spells she's used have always been pretty contrived. The truth is that Zelda specials aren't even from Ocarina of Time. They only have the vaguest resemblance to them with the reference only really coming out of their names. Din's Fire in Ocarina of Time is a massive sphere of flame surrounding Link and hitting a wide area. In Smash it's a small projectile that's remotely directed. The only thing in common is "Fire". Nayru's Love is outright invincibility for a short time in Ocarina of Time, while in Smash it's an attack that also reflects. The only thing in common is "Protection." Even the Phantom is used in a very different way to how it's actually featured in Spirit Tracks.

The exception to this is Farore's Wind, however, which is pretty much the same as Ocarina of Time. Not identical, in Ocarina of Time you need to set up a place to warp to first, but as a basic idea of warp it's content is much closer to the original than Din's Fire or Nayru's Love. And it happens to be one of the specials I don't have anything to alter with. And it would be just as weird to leave one of the spells remaining as it would be to take away one of them.

Ultimately, no, Zelda's specials don't need to be changed and they won't be. But in my own personal opinion I'd like to see functionally identical more light based variants of them for the sake of drawing more from her appearances in the series and because they were not all that accurate representation of even the stolen attacks to begin with.

 

[Oracle Link]

Like I dont want smash zelda to have a rapier!
That thing only existed to signify zelda giving up!
Like Giving zelda a sword is somewhat cursed!
I guess ifg you really want the rapier maybe she could use a magic rapier?
Also zelda has Canon moves for all her major attacks!
Yes those are links moves but they fit zelda perfectly fine!
She really only needs her light bow than shes fine!

 

[NintenRob]

Yeah, I like Zelda being a powerful magic user. It feels like we're kinda lacking in pure magic user's in Smash.

 

[Jotari]

Like I dont want smash zelda to have a rapier!
That thing only existed to signify zelda giving up!
Like Giving zelda a sword is somewhat cursed!
I guess ifg you really want the rapier maybe she could use a magic rapier?
Also zelda has Canon moves for all her major attacks!
Yes those are links moves but they fit zelda perfectly fine!
She really only needs her light bow than shes fine!

Do you mean you wouldn't like her to have a rapier as her primary means if attack or you wouldn't like her to use a rapier at all anywhere in the moveset?

 

[Oracle Link]

Do you mean you wouldn't like her to have a rapier as her primary means if attack or you wouldn't like her to use a rapier at all anywhere in the moveset?

I guess she can have one attack with the rapier as a fun nod!

 

[Kirbeh]

I'm still in favor of adding another Zelda to the count.

The current magic based moveset with a few tweaks and maybe the addition of Light Arrows. Keep the ALttP/BW Zelda design but bring back OoT and add SS as costumes.

Sheik

Then add rapier swordie Zelda using TP as the base design and Hyrule Warriors as a costume.

I guess throw in BotW/TotK Zelda as a costume for the base moveset but I honestly feel like she's kind of an outlier. I have a harder time picturing her doing Smash Zelda stuff and feeling natural.

 

[FazDude]

If I were to add a second Zelda, I'd personally go with a BoTW/ToTK set which specifically focuses on Sheikah Slate stuff. I feel like that makes sense for a more cerebral character, which would go well with the Wisdom of the Zelda cast's Triforce (Link, Zelda, and Ganon).

 

[Jotari]

If we're just shifting to other Zelda incarnations in general, then I'm afraid I'm fully on board with Tetra. She's the most distinct form of Zelda we've seen and honestly has a lot more going for her as an alternate persona than Sheik.

 

[Jotari]

Ignore this.

 

[Quillion]

It's kinda funny to see your evolution from ardent, vocal defender of Ganondorf's portrayal of as a brawler, to wanting to see a lot of the character be more faithful to their source material.

That said, I respect that you're making an effort to integrate them into existing designs rather than wholesale throwing them out, good functioning design be damned. That also said, I'd appreciate less "meter" gimmicks too.

 

[Jotari]

It's kinda funny to see your evolution from ardent, vocal defender of Ganondorf's portrayal of as a brawler, to wanting to see a lot of the character be more faithful to their source material.

I'm still a vocal defender of Brawler Ganondorf, but authenticity has also always been something to be valued. There's no contradiction there. I think both are possible.

 

[Quillion]

I'm still a vocal defender of Brawler Ganondorf, but authenticity has also always been something to be valued. There's no contradiction there. I think both are possible.

They both suck honestly. An "authentic" portrayal is usually bloated with references or mechanics with no regard for good moveset design, and a "creative" reference-disregarding portrayal tends to be dull and un-innovative. A middle ground tends to just have the worst aspects of either.

 

[Jotari]

They both suck honestly. An "authentic" portrayal is usually bloated with references or mechanics with no regard for good moveset design, and a "creative" reference-disregarding portrayal tends to be dull and un-innovative. A middle ground tends to just have the worst aspects of either.

I respectively disagree. I think there are designs that manage to fullfill both. Even though I've made a redesign for him, I'd point to Link as accomplishing that. Mario, even lacking morre specific stuff from recent titles manages it in how many of his moves are directly inspired while still maintaining a fuctional moveset. You're attitude is fundamentally one of defeatism where nothing can ever be good enough.

 

[Jotari]

Also zelda has Canon moves for all her major attacks!
Yes those are links moves but they fit zelda perfectly fine!

Going back to this, I have to disagree with the statement. Well, not that they don't fit Zelda exactly, but I dispute that they are in any meaningful way canon moves. Sure, characters do borrow moves from other characters all the time, but Zelda's specials in Smash bare no resemblance to Link's magic spells in Ocarina of Time. Consider, for a moment, if Ganon's up special Dark Dive was renamed to Urbosa's Fury. Nothing changes functionally about the move, it's now just called Urbosa's Fury. Makes sense, Urbosa is a Gerudo so Ganondorf has a basis to use one of her moves. And it's an electrical attack. Is the move suddenly Urboas'a Fury? I think most people would say no, because we were introduced to the Smash Move as Dark Dive to begin with. Zelda's specials are the same. With the exception of Farore's Wind, they're basically gaslighting us into thinking it's actually something from the games when it's not.