Exactly.Ah, so maybe we'd have the "main," classic Zelda storytelling kind of thing with Link, where he starts out in his village and goes to save the princess (just as an example, to make sure I have this right). It would feel almost no different than the other Zelda games from Link's perspective, because all the other games have likewise been from his perspective. So he starts out on his adventure, and then he gets to a point and we switch to another character.
We see from this character (maybe the Stalfos you were mentioning) that prior to Link setting out, this character has a problem. It may be that he wants to discover his purpose in life, or avenge a loved one, or maybe he has amnesia and needs to recover his memory, but this sets him out wandering trying to accomplish his completely separate goal. As he goes, we might see in the background of a cutscene that Link is walking to the first temple (for the sake of knowing when events in the game are happening in relation to each other), but the two characters probably don't see each other and even if they do, they don't meet up with each other.
Maybe two characters may pass each other in castle town, or end up at the same bar and briefly talk, but they never meet because of their missions and nor do they become aware of the missions. They just interact with each other as they would with any other person.
It sounds cool, and it would definitely allow us to get to know the world of Hyrule better (and require better NPCs). OH! You know how in Majora's the people would react differently to each of your forms? That would probably apply here as well. And having multiple characters would allow for multiplayer if we chose.
Exactly. This is also what I meant by perspective. Link is more or less a naive guy who upon seeing any creature, will just attack/kill it. After all, that's what we have done thousands of times when playing as Link in every game to date.
That could definitely work. Also, I haven't decided on whether the characters' stories are all entwined in a single play-through (like FFXIII) or if you can select who to play as from the main menu (like Sonic Adventure 2).
Well I'm quite fond of a playable Stalfos idea and it seems the others are too. We've played as a Deku Scrub, we've played as a Goron, we've played as a Zora, we've played as a wolf, we've played as a rabbit, we've played as a minish-sized Link, we've played as a Moblin (kind of), we've even played with Zelda (ST), but we haven't played with a Stalfos.
The thing that attracts me so much to Stalfos is that they were once people, but through some dark art of sorts, have been reanimated. Are they just a shambling corpse with no will, or might they (or at least one) have a purpose? With Link as the main character, the Stalfos' purpose in this game could be to teach him about morality, though not from a mentor's perspective, rather through unprecedented and unarranged events. What's so interesting about having five playable characters is that Link is the direct link to us, but because we're controlling the others also, we are linked to them to, so essentially they all becomes "Links" to the world which we're experiencing, and since all five are linked together through different means, we become the 6th character. We control them, but they act within the world, teaching us about different lessons to be learned.
If you want to come up with a new race, by all means do so. I don't plan on replacing the Stalfos character at this point, but the new race could take up another slot. If you were assuming we were going to go the: Link, Deku Scrub, Goron, Zora, Stalfos route, then you're mistaken. Only Link and the Stalfos are confirmed. Clownbot brought up a Deku Scrub idea, so we may roll with it if it gets enough support, but I'd really like to avoid using a Goron and Zora. Let's work on a new race, so what's your proposal?
