Everyone loves a good mystery, right? And doubly, everyone loves a good
Zelda game. Is it any surprise then that one of the most feverishly debated topics among the more obsessive ranks of the Nintendo faithful is exactly where each of Link's adventures fit in an over-arching Zelda timeline?
At first glance, it might seem like a fairly straightforward exercise, but delve a little deeper and you'll find that the labyrinthine twists, turns and contradictions of the
Zelda mythology add up to one hell of a head scratcher. Is there one Link, or a whole lineage of heroes? What's the 'earliest'
Zelda game? Is
Majora's Mask a direct sequel to
Ocarina Of Time? Or is it actually
Wind Waker? Are Nintendo making it up as they go along?
Type 'Zelda Timeline' into Google and you'll be met with countless fansites and forums dedicated to picking apart the tiniest, most obscure intricacies of
Zelda lore. Heck, there's a thread on our very own forum that is currently a staggering 87 web pages long. To save you from wading through the senseless ramblings of these passionate-but-unhinged enthusiasts, over the next few pages we've done our best to get to the bottom of the mystery. So, give us a second to raise our
Zelda superfan flame shield... and we'll begin.
Out Of Line
First up, let's throw out the two most logical assumptions - that the games line up chronologically in the order in which they were released, or that all the games feature the same incarnation of Link. Sorry, but that would just be too easy. A cursory examination of the various games' instruction books, plots and quotes from Nintendo themselves immediately discount the possibility. The games' stories dart back and forth like a Quentin Tarantino movie at its most obtuse and convoluted. Almost every
Zelda game (with a couple of exceptions) tells the story of a different Link and Zelda in a different time period.
It's widely accepted that certain chunks of the franchise slot together neatly, as follows:
-
The Adventure of Link (NES) is a direct sequel to
The Legend Of Zelda (NES).
-
Link's Awakening (Game Boy) follows on from
A Link To The Past (SNES).
-
Ocarina Of Time (N64) precedes
Majora's Mask (N64) which precedes
Twilight Princess (Wii).
-
The Minish Cap (GBA) precedes
Four Swords (GBA), which itself precedes
Four Sword Adventures (GameCube).
-
Spirit Tracks (DS) follows
Phantom Hourglass (DS) which is a sequel to
Wind Waker (Wii).
-
Oracle Of Ages and
Oracle Of Seasons (both GBC) fit together as one.
All that's left is to slot these chunks together. Easy, right? Series producer Eiji Aonuma stated upon its release that
Four Swords is the earliest game in the timeline. That game, and its direct sequel,
Four Swords Adventures, featured the evil Vaati as Link's primary adversary. Seeing as
The Minish Cap tells the story of how Vaati came into being, we can therefore assume that it's a prequel and the earliest game in the timeline.
In The Beginning
Before
Four Swords was released, Miyamoto and Aonuma insisted that
Ocarina Of Time was Link's first adventure. Surely then,
Ocarina comes next, followed by its oddball sequel,
Majora's Mask. This is where things start to get complicated. When
Twilight Princess came out, Aonuma had this to say, "In
Ocarina Of Time, Link flew forward seven years in time, he beat Ganon and went back to being a kid, remember?
Twilight Princess takes place in the world of
Ocarina of Time, a hundred and something years after the peace returned to child Link's time. In the last scene of
Ocarina of Time, child Link and Zelda have a little talk, and as a consequence of that talk, their relationship with Ganon takes a whole new direction."
Essentially, this means that the timeline splits with
Ocarina Of Time into two parallel dimensions - one which leads to
Majora's Mask and
Twilight Princess, and another separate thread that leads next to
The Wind Waker,
Phantom Hourglass and
Spirit Tracks. Still with us?
Miyamoto insisted at the time that the original
Legend Of Zelda and its direct sequel follow on from
Ocarina Of Time, meaning we can either place them in a 100 year gap between
Majora's Mask and
Twilight Princess, or directly after.
A Link To The Past logically comes next, followed by
Link's Awakening. The start of the latter, which sees Link shipwrecked on a mysterious island, ties in nicely to the end screen of
ALTTP, which tells of Link heading off to explore the world outside Hyrule. The two
Oracle games are the hardest to place, with Miyamoto insisting they can slot in anywhere.
So, that wasn't so hard, right? Well, there's a good number of timeline 'scholars' who would look at this version of events and scoff. Firstly, many fans insist
Ocarina Of Time is basically a remake of
A Link To The Past, detailing the creation of the Triforce and the rise of the evil Ganondorf. They can't really exist in the same timeline as they're essentially the same game.
If you explore the library in
The Minish Cap you'll notice reference to old Hyrulian treasures - the Triumph Forks - and how they were lost in 'The Great Flood'. Could this be a reference to the submerged Hyrule seen in
Wind Waker and
Phantom Hourglass? If so, there's no way
Minish Cap can be the oldest
Zelda yarn.
Muddying the waters further, there are suggestions in
Adventure Of Link that the Princess in that game is the first ever Zelda, making that the earliest game in the timeline. Many fans would also argue that
Four Swords Adventure lines up perfectly as a direct prequel to
A Link To The Past, sharing many topographical similarities with the SNES game and a number of items.
Spanners In The Works
Also, consider the inconsistencies in the location of the Master Sword in all the games, the heated debate about The Imprisoning War mentioned in
A Link To The Past's backstory (is it the conflict depicted in
Ocarina Of Time or not?) and the fact that the geography of Hyrule is completely different in every game and, well, it's Nurofen time.
Zelda head honcho Eiji Aonuma has confirmed that there is a timeline master document sitting around somewhere at Nintendo HQ. Even so, perhaps the most convincing solution to the timeline conundrum is that, well, there isn't one. Outside of the obviously linked games (
Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass etc.), Nintendo are purely inventing and modifying scenarios and mythologies on the fly. After all, with Nintendo, gameplay is always king. Plot comes second.
Still, it's a fun little exercise for us
Zelda enthusiasts. Why not bust out all your
Zelda games, play them back to back and let us know your theory? Sounds like a pretty good way to mark time before Aonuma's next masterpiece touches down this Christmas...
FURTHER READING
If we've piqued your interest in further
Zelda timeline discussion, there are loads of fansites out there expanding on some of the theories we've discussed here. Here are a few good starting points:
www.zeldauniverse.net,
www.zeldawiki.org,
www.zeldainformer.com
And don't forget to stop by the enormous 'Legend Of Zelda: Timeline Princess' thread in the General Nintendo Chat section of our own web forums at:
www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/forums
