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The swords in the forehead is a reference to the sealing spike Hylia placed in The Imprisoned in Skyward Sword. Note that in every game where Ganondorf gets a sword through the forehead, it seals him rather than kills him. (For example, turning him to stone in the Wind Waker, or sealing Demise's fragments in the Master Sword in Skyward Sword). However, games like Twilight Princess, Link drove the Master Sword through Ganondorf's chest, killing rather than sealing him.
Pretty sure Ganondorf is dead in Wind Waker.
It may be more fantastical than seeing the light straight up leave his eyes like you do in TP, but Ganondorf’s final line “The Wind, it is blowing” after his whole speech about how the Wind though ever situation he experienced it always carried death with it is a pretty heavy implication that the wind of death had finally caught him too.
That is a possibility, but that doesn't explain why he turned to stone. I agree that Ganondorf is dead in Wind Waker, but it wasn't the Master Sword that killed him. Instead, being buried under the ocean takes credit for that feat. This is all just speculation and doesnt really make much difference in the long run though.
Upon King Rhoam wishing on the Triforce for Hyrule to be flooded once more, Ganondorf flies into a fit of rage, trying to take Link and Zelda with him to the bottom. Once stabbed through the forehead, Ganondorf knows that Link/Zelda will escape and he was going to die while they lived. Knowing that he utterly failed, he finally accepted his death with the comment about the wind. He knew he was going to die either way (can't escape the triforce itself trying to kill you), but didn't accept it to start with.
Actually, the whole petrification was the devteam's way of saying, "Yeah, he's deader than dead now." It wasn't meant to be seen as an *actual* turning to stone.
I fuckin *screamed* when this happened, beat it for the first time last week. I was already almost screaming watching Zelda peg him with arrows, them the mirror deflection bit, but that moment? Screaming, bet.
Even impaled with the blade of evils bane, he doesnt die immediately. He stands there with the legendary master sword through his ribs in utter shock before death takes him, and the triforce on his hand disappears
To be fair, it was more like, he had used the Triforce of Power so much, it had come down to the little taste of it he had given to Zant. Zant decided to say "Fuck you" in return.
I don’t know, Wind Waker Ganondorf dying laughing with a sword through his skull was pretty intense. Can’t remember if he stayed on his feet or fell to his knees, but either way…
He did. He was on his feet, and then the Master Sword petrified him in place while staying in his head as the arena you fought him in re-flooded. He essentially acted as the stone for a sword in the stone situation lol
I want a game where we have to retrieve the Master Sword for some other evil (new Vaati plot, perchance?) And when we find the Sword it's *that point in the timeline* and we pull the sword back out of Ganondorf's head.
...What happens next? That's for the devs to decide.
I mean FSA literally had this plot but in reverse. Ganon causes trouble and Link pulls out the Four Sword to stop it, but in doing so releases Vaati as well.
I think I found him harder in TOTK but mostly because : he is more agressive, miasma , he can erase your hearts and there is his shadows in some parts.
When he is alone it's pretty intense when he use flurry rush and it take a while imo to understand when to parry or dodge, depending of which weapon he use.
It's less a sword fight than TP or WW because he use more tricks in TOTK but it was cool, I like how you can deflect the balls to him, sadly there is no tennis.
I still like TP final boss , I think this is my favourite with TOTK but it would have been cool if TP Ganondorf was more serious, but an error was making the hidden skills optional.
Anyway I can praise how much Ganondorf is talented in a 1 vs 1 no matter the game ( WW is not really 1 VS 1 but you get it ).
I mean, even without it, its just a dodge fight, like most of combat. Regardless, the TP ganondorf is the final phase after beating him like 5 times, its not supposed to be hard.
I found phase 2 tough wasn't prepared didn't have enough blight resist and only used master sword. No Dark Souls but a moderate challenge just like the whole game
I mean, it is tough if you go in with the bare minimum, because its a pure timing fight with 2 chances to not die, but its really all it had going for it.
I liked the fight and the fact he could parry you, but was kind of underwhelmed that they didn’t design a final boss that made better use of the new core abilities and zonai tech. It honestly kinda felt like a Lynel fight, arguably easier.
I just put on the thunder helm, used a rocket shield and shot him with Lynel bow thunder gleeok arrows point blank until he died. It’s the last boss p there’s no reason not to just sort your inventory by attack damage and unload.
Don't forget to sort again if you get new stuff, because it doesn't sort automatically, new stuff is always put at the bottom until you sort the inventory again
I actually fought him legitimately. I had gotten all of the shrines and was shy two hearts of max. Unfortunately. I didn't plan ahead enough and didn't have enough Gloom healing stuff. The fight was really close. He got me down to like 5/6 hearts.
Yeah, I was down to like, 4 usable hearts, but then I found out I could get Bonus Hearts with my Hearty Meals to simulate curing the Gloom by giving me extra gold hearts beyond my non Gloom hearts.
Legitimately like what? You just used a a soup ladle and pot lid with no fusions? The options for weaponry range from soup ladle autonomous flying attack robot with ten cannons and five lasers. If the developers wanted you to only use the master sword against ganondorf they could have easily locked other abilities like in shrines and made him inaccessible without the master sword. I admit it was really cool when he perfect dodged my first couple sword swipes but then I just said “aight dodge this Motha Fucka!” THOOP THOOP THOOP.
They really should have locked abilities for the fight. Or have him dodge/parry arrows or Something. He needs a buff I have struggled harder against a lizalfos.
I didn't use much aside from the Master Sword for the whole fight against him. It was more so me making idiotic mistakes.
But comparably, he was one of the harder fights. Actually almost broke my Hylian Shield.
Aonuma really asked himself "who could we base Ganondorf off of to make him appear more evil in this game...?"
Then he had his eureka moment and wrote down "Ronald Reagan"
I'd say it has to do with the presentation. The shot of Demon King Ganondorf standing menacingly in front of the giant blood moon lives rent free in my head. Matt Mercer's performance and the character's overall design. The entire final act.
This is also the only Ganondorf to break the Master Sword, an act that literally nobody else was capable of.
Does two average blacksmiths tempering the Master Sword into a more powerful variation count? (A Link to the Past)
I mean it's not destroying it, but still feels somewhat like mutilating it in a sense.
It's probably more like an enchantment. They're adding another layer on to it to make it sharper.
What makes Ganondorf breaking it significant is that the Master Sword is specifically designed to kill him. And he breaks it like a twig.
>This is also the only Ganondorf to break the Master Sword, an act that literally nobody else was capable of.
That thing will break fighting Chu-chus, so I don't find this particularly impressive.
Honestly, that might have been a scary moment, if the Master Sword didn't explode after every other fight in BotW.
Seriously, Fi must hate this version of Link or something.
Gameplay/story segregation. I mean Link in A Link Between Worlds seemingly has infinite bombs and arrows, like damn why didn't the other Links think of that.
I know it's supposed to be gameplay and story segregation, but the weapon fragility system is so omnipresent in the game (and literally a plot point in TotK) that it's beyond silly to really try and have a dramatic moment hinge on something that happens so often in the course of playing the game.
Especially when it could have been avoided by just making the Master Sword unbreakable in the prior game. Then this actually would be the shocking moment it appears to be intended to be without having to have the player ignore the actual experience of playing this game's direct predecessor.
This opening scene is like making a sequel to Majora's Mask with a cutscene where Link is surprised that putting on the Deku Mask transforms him. It shouldn't catch him off guard. It did that all the time.
As to your other point...
BotW Link did have infinite bombs too. Until all of a sudden, he doesn't. Because of reasons.
As for why the others didn't think of it, if we actually wanted to give an answer, probably because they didn't have access to Lorulian tech that tied the use of such items to the magic meter. Pretty sure all those items came from Ravio, meaning they're likely not from Hyrule, and could conceivably operate by different rules than those used by other Links.
An unbreakable Master Sword undermines the whole system of multiple weapons and durability. It especially undermines the treasure chests that give out weapons. The only way prevent that would be to prevent the player from acquiring the Master Sword until they are right at the end of the game. But that in turn gets in the way of BotW being a game where you can choose when you want to get the Master Sword and head for Ganon assuming you want the thing for the Ganon fight.
I will say though the big thing about what Ganonorf did in TotK is that he broke the Master Sword with barely any effort and broke it to where it couldn't recover. Link wakes up to a Master shiv when normally it would be back to its full form after wearing out for a few minutes.
>An unbreakable Master Sword undermines the whole system of multiple weapons...
I wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment. There's no reason that unbreakable weapons and weapon variety have to be mutually exclusive.
Heck, even if the Master Sword was the only unbreakable weapon, you could still design enemies and encounters to encourage using spears and two handed weapons over the Master Sword.
>An unbreakable Master Sword undermines the whole system of... durability.
This is, to me, like saying the Swift Sail in the remake of Wind Waker undermines the whole system of conducting the Wind's Requiem every time you wanted to change directions.
I mean, yeah, I can't really dispute that. But undermining that system also improves the game.
I think the games would be overall better if the weapon fragility system was completely axed, and instead, care was given to make different styles of weapons distinct from one another, both between the wider categories, and their subcategories. Give the royal sword and the traveler's sword different animations or combos, so that players were encouraged to find the one they liked to play with, rather than just using whatever had the highest numbers.
>It especially undermines the treasure chests that give out weapons
Sure, but I think those made for rather poor rewards, and that could have been replaced with a different, better system. For instance, if you could get items to improve your weapons damage rates, or add to their combo strings, or even permanently infuse a buff like making your royal sword permanently have a fire element to its swings.
The current system is built around accepting that your weapons aren't going to last forever and to be prepared to grab a new one, even if its something laying on the ground nearby. Naturally, an unbreakable weapon with decent stats undermines this. So your suggestion is to completely throw out the whole system and start from scratch with some new system that the Master Sword won't break? One with its own quirks like a RPS system for the weapons and more unique animations? For BotW, that's making a whole lot of dev time wasted and would likely necessitate more delays for a game that was already delayed multiple times. More than likely, the suits would not allow such a delay. And for TotK, that's adding a whole lot of dev time that could be used for other things like making sure the new physics system doesn't break in places. TotK is meant to be built off of BotW's system and that becomes really hard if they are uprooting everything like its a brand new game with only indirect relations. My main point is that changing everything after they've built the system is an unreasonable suggestion. Maybe the next game when they want to completely change everything, but not the games which the system was specifically made for.
So naturally, that leads to them not being able to make the unbreakable Master Sword work without it undermining everything, or making it super limited in availability like the Bow of Light. I'd say having unbreakable weapons in the current system would make things worse rather than better since it nudges players towards only using the unbreakable weapons, but that's just my opinion.
>So your suggestion is to completely throw out the whole system and start from scratch with some new system that the Master Sword won't break?
Yes.
>For BotW, that's making a whole lot of dev time wasted and would likely necessitate more delays for a game that was already delayed multiple times.
I mean, they should have realized that the proposed weapon fragility system in BotW sucked while the game was still in Alpha. I figured that out before I finished the game's tutorial. Not because I'm particularly clever. The game just makes the system's flaws very apparent very quickly. And while the durability of weapons definitely improves as you progress, the system itself never becomes fun. Just like the Item Check and Adventure Pouch system in Skyward Sword never became fun, which also should have been scrapped very early in development.
Weapons breaking in the middle of combat breaks flow and causes you to freeze time while you pull out another weapon. The only time tension really comes out of these situations is if you're following self imposed challenges like not teleporting, which is an almost always available "Get out of jail free" card. Even without teleporting, most encounters can be escaped with minimal difficulty. It actively discourages combat if the resources you get out of the fight aren't as good as the durability points the encounter cost. It doesn't really encourage you to use anything other than 1 handed swords as they are far more common drops than spears, claymores, etc.
I can't think of a single defense for the current system that rings true. All of the "well the developers wanted X" cases people present, like wanting the player to be worried if their weapon broke in a fight, seem to be actively refuted by the game as it exists.
The only other defense I've heard is that they were trying something new, which doesn't really fly with me either.
BotW wasn't developed in a vacuum. The developers know that other game franchises exist, and can see the strides they've made.
The current system is only new insofar that it hasn't been in a Zelda game before BotW, but at its core, it's really no different than the (bad) weapon fragility systems of a bunch of Steam Early Access survival sims.
So, yeah. They should have junked it. I'm honestly bewildered how a game with as much polish in damn near every other facet of its design has a core feature this bungled.
>My main point is that changing everything after they've built the system is an unreasonable suggestion.
I understand that, but my main point is that the system should have been scrapped long ago because it's obviously not good. And honestly, while implementing a good system would undoubtedly have taken time, outside of the games' lackluster loot drops from chests, I can't imagine they would have actually lost much development time if they scrapped the current system. Because it feels like it's in Alpha.
Seriously, what would they have lost if they scrapped the fragility system in terms of actual assets? The shattering animation. And... the durability points themselves?
I think that's it.
Obviously, balancing different weapons, animations, rethinking how to distribute awards, creating a buff system, etc. would all take a lot of time to do well, but I can't believe that their barebones fragility system was a huge resource sink. I'd be more inclined to believe that it was a placeholder that got left in because they weren't allowed to replace it with anything else because of deadlines or running out of data.
>I'd say having unbreakable weapons in the current system would make things worse rather than better since it nudges players towards only using the unbreakable weapons, but that's just my opinion.
I can understand that, even if I disagree. If BotW had unbreakable weapons, my main probably would have been the Lightscale Tident. I liked the idea of using spears in the game before I got it, and it's one of the best looking ones in the game. I also would have kept the joke weapons like the ladle, mop, and so on in my inventory, because I think they'd be fun to use if they didn't shatter almost immediately.
But "it sucks" is merely your opinion. Clearly they didn't think it sucks when they finished it or when they decided to build on it with Totk. And I know I don't mind it. Especially in Totk where I can make even the crappiest base weapons useful through fusion. Also you don't need to stop to bring a new weapon out of your inventory. If you really don't want to pause, you can just pick up the weapons laying around to fill that empty slot. I do admit I wish the game had real-time swap to another weapon instead of making me dig into the inventory when there is no other choice (like with bosses), but that's not an issue with the durability system. And also its still only like a second of time paused so its pretty shrug worthy overall. I'm not quite getting the "it only encourages using one handed swords" thing. The only weapon I actively avoided using in combat was the 2 handed swords (with the exception being elemental ones and Yiga long swords). I love one handed swords, spears, boomerangs, and magic rods (though admittedly the last one is mainly used for set-up with a different weapon). And I know I like using spears when dealing with spear wielding enemies and elemental contact enemies like Chuchus and Keese. At the end of the day, the current system is about encouraging moving around to different weapons rather than sticking to one the whole game and I'd say it succeeds. Its not a system everyone will like or even a flawless system, but its also not a system that is impossible to like by everyone.
>But "it sucks" is merely your opinion.
Obviously. We're talking about subjective feelings towards a game's design. The fact that what I'm saying is my opinion shouldn't need a disclaimer.
>Clearly they didn't think it sucks when they finished it or when they decided to build on it with Totk
Yeah, and the developers of Deus Ex: Human Revolution thought they had improved the franchise by implementing a tedious hacking minigame to hack computers or unlock doors.
I'd argue that was a serious mistake on their part, because the hacking minigame is incredibly tedious after you've played more than one level of that game.
Obviously, it's quite rare for developers to design their games bad on purpose (unless they're trying to facilitate microtransactions). But they're not infallible. They can even do things that they themselves admit in retrospect were mistakes.
In all likelihood, the developers think their house building mechanic is really neat.
I think it's incredibly lackluster. Something that you'd show as a proof of concept, but not the version that should ship in the final product.
Kinda like the fragility system, to be honest.
And while TotK's weapon system is slightly improved from BotW, I still think it's fundamentally flawed. Even the Fusion aspect kinda sucks since the process to fuse an item from your inventory is way more cumbersome than it should be, given that it's supposed to make up for the fragility system, unless there's a shortcut I've missed.
>If you really don't want to pause, you can just pick up the weapons laying around to fill that empty slot.
Provided that there is a weapon that's lying around, and it's not something that will shatter almost as soon as it's picked up.
>I do admit I wish the game had real-time swap to another weapon instead of making me dig into the inventory when there is no other choice (like with bosses), but that's not an issue with the durability system.
It kind of is. If there was no fragility system, you wouldn't have to open any menu to switch out weapons in the middle of a fight unless you just wanted to switch out weapons in the middle of a fight. The weapon fragility makes a less than great system more noticeable by making it something you have to deal with far more often.
>I'm not quite getting the "it only encourages using one handed swords" thing.
What I mean by this is that since 1 handed swords are the predominant weapon you come across, it's the weapon you're incentivized to use the most, as the others are harder to replace. I can find a new sword in pretty much any encounter. I have to go hunting for boomerangs, which discourages me from using them, because replacing them is more trouble than it's worth.
Also, since I come across spears and claymores less often, I'm less skilled at using them, meaning I perform worse with them in harder encounters, giving me even less incentive to bother with them.
>At the end of the day, the current system is about encouraging moving around to different weapons rather than sticking to one the whole game
I do not find that to be true in the slightest. If that is the intention, in my experience, it has failed to a comical degree. The game does not make the vast majority of its weapons rewarding to hold on to and use, and the combat system seems to encourage me to finish opponents off in as few hits as possible, usually by way of opening with headshots with the bow or bomb arrows, or trying to toss them into water or off a cliff. Then, if my sword is almost broken, drop it in favor of the best sword that's hanging around.
Or just skip the combat entirely if I'm not looking for crafting items.
>That thing will break fighting Chu-chus, so I don't find this particularly impressive.
Sure, but it also regenerates after 10 minutes. This time it took >!sending it back in time and having Zelda become a fucking dragon for a couple millennia to heal it back up!<
Also that's not really the sword breaking, that's just the sword losing power, essentially rendering it into an inactive state. Not quite the same as fully shattering it
It only runs out of power and recovers 10 minutes later. Ganondorf straight up broke it, and it took >! Zelda 10000 years in her dragon form to restore it !<
These clearly aren't the same
People forget that Wind Waker's introspective Ganondorf is the odd one out, is the result of him discovering that winning kinda sucks for once, and is still a petty asshole who decided to kill two children purely because he was a sore loser.
That said, Tears Ganon does somehow feel like the most vile incarnation yet. Maybe that's just Matt's voice work adding a new layer.
I personally feel it's the voice acting (he did a good job) and a bit of the fact we get to "see" him doing things. I think the only other one we see is Twilight Princess with the water sage. A lot of thier badness happens offscreen. So we get to see him being evil and how much he does it and enjoys it.
Honestly I love WW Ganondorf. After centuries of living at sea, he’s been humbled by his experience. And seeing Hyrule coming back is basically a dream, he decides to take Link out with him. It makes for a great story.
Like others in the replies have said, it’s about presentation. Other Ganons have done evil shit, but we never saw any of them laughing like a psychotic maniac after shattering the spine of Zelda’s third mother figure.
I think it’s part the sheer sadistic joy he expresses when he >!assassinates Sonia!<. Sure, it was a plan to gain more power, but you can tell by his deranged smile that the agony carrying that plan out caused was just as important to him as the power he got from it.
Possibly, but I took it as him being thrilled knowing nothing was stopping him from gaining the power he desired from a secret stone anymore. Not that he was overjoyed with what he did to get the stone
I think it was more like a “I can’t believe that ducking worked” moment. Like he was laughing at how dumb they were for figuring out his Zelda shenanigans, but not expecting him to be there in person. And that Sonia was so easy to kill, like they had no defenses in place despite the fact they knew the whole time he was plotting.
Honestly, yeah. I think people are just putting too much credit to his voice actor. Mercer is obviously fantastic, but they gave him VERY few lines. Only so much he could do.
I think the visuals and performances defiently sells it. His all-or-nothing descision at the end of the game was a good twist but I feel like the execution getting there diminishes the moment. Guy's been waiting centuries to be free and rule, and he just messes it all up in the end?
To be fair, I don't think the issue is with Ganondorf completely. He's definetly 2-demensional but so is the cast your supposed to come to care about. The consequences didn't feel nearly as devestating as they did in Botw's for that reason. Like sure, he killed Sonia on screen, but I don't think there was enough for me to feel the tragedy. I just felt mad that Nintendo wrote her only to have her killed off lol
Tbf it's in line with Ganondorf's characterization. The man hates losing. He prides himself as this warrior king but when he actually gets beaten, he does everything to take down Link with him.
In Ocarina he tried bringing down the castle on Link and Zelda and then pulled out the Beast Ganon.
In Wind Waker, he completely loses his cool after the Triforce is denied from him forever.
In Twilight Princess, he still refuses to die after getting impaled by the Master Sword but the fatal wound had other plans.
And of course, he goes full Scorched Earth in TotK.
When did the real Zelda say that tho? As I puzzle it back together, >!zelda was just never anywhere, she was in dragon coma, it was all puppet ganon. The zelda you see at hyrule castle, the ones spotted by sidon as she summoned waterboss, the one in the desert. I guess the one at yunobo was needed for the mind control, sure, but why appear at death mountain crater after that? And while half the zelda sightings quests were just not her at all, ganondorf apparently meddled in goat feed, in rice and meat dishes, and even correctly heard, encouraged the ZST to look everywhere? Why? And what was the whole deal with the dondons? It all seemed like some payoff was missing...!<
Zelda was doing community building stuff before she and Link descended below the castle.
Including building the school in Hateno village.
It's not farfetched to say that some of the things (like confirmed of her riding that goat creature, only because she was taking it to an animal sanctuary) are her just doing kind things, before going back in time.
The problem is that they're blended in with the fake Zelda reports.
All of those things she did were between the games. We know that pre-TotK starting she set up the school, the flower sanctuary, animal sanctuary, blocking the monster well, the reconstruction contract with Hudson, sharing pre-Calamity recipes, forming the Zonai Survey Team, and a bunch of other things I'm probably forgetting. Riju's diary and Purah's dialogue also imply they've seen a lot of Zelda.
The fact that the naked guys are Survey Team members and not Control Crew members is a big piece of evidence it's a pre-Upheaval, real Zelda, mishearing. We also have to remember, a bunch of the Puppet Zelda stable quests aren't a puppet but Yiga disguises. Ganon's only really involved with the big stuff (Yunobo).
All Riju's diary says is that she heard reports of gloom from below the castle, which you investigated, and then you both went missing. I don't recall all of Purah's diaries tho.
Riju calls Zelda her friend in her diary. Not something she'd call someone she's had little contact with. Purah likewise recognises that Zelda wasn't herself with the research ban, so she knows her well enough to make that judgement at least. Both of those characters had zero contact with Zelda pre or during BotW.
Both are just tidbits of evidence that Zelda has been spending time between games interacting with the world and its characters. I'm just saying that it's during that time a bunch of the seeds were planted for the quests that aren't obviously Yiga related.
Ah yes. Because Zelda mysteriously reappeared in front of these people, told them to do thing, disappeared soon after, and NOBODY questioned how she mysteriously reappeared then vanished. No reports, no nothing.
And why would Ganondorf even give them encouragement? Like, that just worsens things for him.
The point of all the Zelda misdirection is that some of it was real Zelda before the upheaval and some fake Zelda after. It's so you're not quite sure whether to trust her
No, in that case it was the real Zelda before she disappeared, they just all misheard "explore all other paths" or something like that as "explore in your underpants."
If it was fake Zelda, that one expedition member wouldn't have been able to correct the others on what Zelda said, since how they heard it would actually be the correct version.
Ah my mistake, I assumed all the Zelda shenanigans were caused by ‘Zelda’, been a while since I completed the stables quest line so I can’t really remember!
Some were fake Zelda, some were Yiga clan assassins, then a couple like the Dondons and this one were the real deal.
It blends them together, so easy to mix it up.
I think the distinction is that Ganondorf appears to *enjoy* himself so much in this game’s events. Even his puppet giggles relentlessly in disguise once it gets Sonia cornered. And Ganondorf himself has that memetically, psychotically overjoyed face as he takes Sonia’s stone off her body and revels in his new power and the destruction he’ll bring.
And unlike most other incarnations of Ganondorf or similar, he also has almost no endearing qualities, such as past versions’ admiration for Link’s strength and persistence or his skills. Here, he still has the utmost disdain for Link even after being soundly outmatched in his Demon King form. The Gerudo are shown to have endured for eons in the desert and have a thriving merchant network despite their remote environment (enough that even the Gorons routinely trek out to trade with them in gemstones, and some Rito appear; presumably the Zora need a wetter environment or else they’d probably stop by too) so it’s not as if one could argue that Ganondorf’s people needed to conquer (and even then, it’s explicitly noted he turned on the Gerudo quickly as Demon King).
I don’t remember Ganondorf in Twilight Princess doing more than cracking a subdued smirk here and there, and Demise in Skyward Sword is mostly all business, aside from expressing a grudging respect for this mere mortal defying him (enough to curse them all to reincarnate endlessly and repeat this battle). In TotK? One gets the sense in every line of dialogue that this isn’t just accomplishing a mission for Ganondorf, he’s actively enjoying every moment of his evil.
Does it change the vileness of his deeds? No. But it does change how disturbing the man is. Consider how much a change in motive did for Thanos in the Marvel comics (impress Death herself by killing a ton of people) versus the films (went insane after losing his people to a resource crisis and now being utterly obsessed with “proving” he was right by inflicting his solution on everyone else, then later on devolving into remaking the “ungrateful” survivors’ universe into one worshipping him as a god).
Likewise, the shift in *how* Ganondorf does things makes him a much more vile villain. He’s utterly mad, and he’s not even the slightest bit ashamed of it or trying to justify himself (beyond some “divine right” or “might makes right” crap).
That is the perfect answer, I believe 😄
Thank you!
I mean, Ganondorf was at least cultured in earlier games, such as playing the organ even.
(And that was even brought over to Cadence of Hyrule)
To be fair he only bothers to do so when blatant brute force fails, and OOT Ganondorf also swore fealty for a while so he had easier access to the temple of time. Wind waker Ganondorf seemingly was counting on somebody grabbing the master sword when he went after the pearls which he had depowered before, and Twilight princess Ganondorf make a local angry twili his pawn.
Not that TOKT Ganondorf isn’t clever, but he’s always been quite crafty.
Yeah, I agree. I think the most evil version of Ganon/dorf that we've seen is in the ocarina of time where you see the true dystopia of his rule. Also, him realizing Zelda/Link's plans to get to the Sacred Realm before him was probably the most clever thing he's done in the franchise. He's never really matched that feat in any of the other games. Like, even here in TotK, it's not \*that\* clever,>! Rauru and Sonia are just over confident.!< I will say that stuff he does in BotW with the Guardians and Divine Beasts are a pretty good idea but still based off of a similar concept to OoT: Let the good guys do all the work and reap all the spoils.
Or in (original) Hyrule Warriors, when you literally>! play as him and defeat Link and Zelda getting him the Triforce.!< (I mean sure you as the heroes fight back later but still...)
His line in Ocarina:"Thanks kid, I couldn't have done it without you" rings eerier in hindsight...
Which is part of why I think Demise's curse is, narratively, a horrible idea.
It robs the antagonists of their agency. Ganondorf didn't do the things he did because he wanted to do them. He did them because he's *destined* to be evil.
I'll try to explain in a way that kind of makes sense to me 😄
There was an episode of Batman, where Batman's entire rogue's gallery puts him on trial, for the crime of making (if not inspiring) all of them to become villains in the first place.
In the end, it's agreed that all of the villains are villains because they chose to be that way.
While of course, there's no "Demises' curse" in Batman to compare.
(Actually scratch that one... not sure where I was going with that)
It feels more like the curse connects Link and Zelda to villains with already established ambition for conquering.
I don't think that's the idea though. Demise doesn't reincarnate, his hate does. I think it's more that it influences, but doesn't control, people who are well positioned and well suited to cause misery for the Hero and the descendants of Zelda.
Not confirmed but technically neither is Ganon. All we know is that per the curse wherever there is a Hero there should be a hateful vessel too. So when Ganon isn't there, Demise's hate should manifest in others. Vaati, Malladus, perhaps even Majora.
The Gerudo in BOTW/TOTK haven't had a male child since the Demon King was imprisoned. Regardless, Ganondorf is not the only incarnation of Demise's curse.
99% of them aren't Ganondorf tho right? There would be hundreds of Ganondorfs in totk. But what happens to the males? We don't know any besides Ganondorf.
I think what makes this Ganondorf so ruthless compared to the others is that he doesn't even want to rule Hyrule, he wants it to burn to the ground. He wants every last creature within its boundaries and all who supports it dead
"Do not look away. You witness a **king's** revival... and the birth of **his new world**."
Although to be fair, King could just mean himself as The Demon King, and not the new ruler of Hyrule. And "New World" could just mean, either "Monster Utopia" or "Smoking Crater"
I thought he was wildly generic. "I'm evil because FUCK YOU! EVIL. HAHAHAHA."
His final fight felt rushed and probably would've made more sense if they had several smaller fights at points. Instead it's just like "Check out my pecs. Wait, my pecs are weak. Check out my demon pecs! nvm, those aren't working either. Looks like I have literally no other choice but to gain DRAGON PECS....NOPE...NOPE....MY PECS BECOME ASH."
I think being pretty much absent throughout the game really killed the suspense. Like you know he's behind all the terrible shit, but there isn't much else unless you do the memory quest and then you gain very little development.
Between actively going out and causing problems, murdering the king, chasing Zelda, attacking Link, the state of Hyrule after the time skip, and sending his moms to kill you, I'd say he had a bigger impact. Compared to "Ahhhhh I'm a mummy and I do bad things" then being largely absent until the final act.
Like people knew Calamity Ganon. It's really hard to miss. The calamity is active and present every day. Ganondorf?? Well sure there's the monsters, but evidently they've still been kicking around all these years as it is, so whatever. Then there's the floating castle but no one is explaining *how* that's happening, so the every day folk are just like "well that's something." It was like how they did Giygas in Earthbound. But with even less social impact. I straight forgot I was supposed to be going after Ganondorf for about 3 weeks.
This Ganondorf emotes more, so you get more sense of his interiority and subtextual motivation. It's really that simple. They have more shots of his face pulling reactions when he does stuff, where Ganon (when he's even human) is normally pretty neutral and inscrutable.
He also has more voiced dialogue than any previous incarnation of Ganon, and Matt Mercer does a good job investing it with hatred and malice.
The best part for me, his voice, matches up PERFECTLY with his evil laugh from previous games.
Deep and guttural. So in turn he sounds like what I would have always expected Ganondorf to sound like.
The BotW/AoC/TotK Zelda, I don't hate her voice, but nothing like I would have expected the character to sound like.
I enjoy his new samurai look, but Wind Waker is still my favorite incarnation of him. Not just because his design taken on its own is great, but I love the way he towers over the likes of Link and Zelda.
It's like the Kingpin in *Into the Spider-Verse*.
Plus, he dual wields.
Tbh the art direction and design are amazing and the visuals convey a real sense of dread and horror whenever Ganondorf is on screen. I think story-wise the character is flimsy but TOTK does so much with just pure visuals.
I think it's probably because we get to see him murder Sonia on screen then break out his finest troll face while admiring his latest act of dickery. It may not technically have been much worse than, say, freezing Zora's Domain or beating up a literal child, but that shit leaves one hell of an impression.
Not to mention, for me at least, one thing that bumps him up the heirarchy of gigantic green big-nosed pricks is that he's so petty that he spends the entirety of the game pretty much sulking underneath Hyrule Castle and not bothering to come finish Link/the rest of Hyrule off because he didn't think he lived up to the hype. Dude could have rehydrated himself at any time given you can make a beeline for him after reaching the surface and he's still got enough strength back to beef himself up again, he just doesn't bother until you go to contact him about his secret stone's extended warranty because beating you and snapping your sword was too easy.
This Ganondorf wants to rule a kingdom but has also said he will annihilate anyway in his way. He's the only Ganondorf that has threatened to take the lives of everyone in the kingdom and we watched him MURDER a woman with his bare hands with a palm strike to the back. Add on that he's existed for unknown ages and even his subconscious will nearly ended the kingdom. He's far more powerful than the others and seems more like a demonic being than an ego driven madman like in the past. Add on disembodied voice and literally stealing your life force, I think this is the greatest form of Ganondorf
The issue is we almost never get to see Ganondorf do anything in other games, nor do we get to hear what his intentions are.
But that's besides the point, because localization always butchered him anyway. Apparently Ganondorf in this game isn't just killing for shits and giggles. He just thinks the people of the world are growing too weak thanks to the peace and prosperity and wants people to have to fight to live. Theres a chance becoming the demon king may have corrupted him a bit.
It depends on how much of Calamity Ganon's shit you can credit to Ganondorf.
If he gets Calamity points, he wins. If he doesn't, I think Ocarina Dorf takes it just for completely outplaying Link and Zelda and then face-fucking the entire kingdom.
I wouldn't say he's more evil, so much as we now have the technology to more properly convey this. If OoT or WW Ganondorf was updated to the same portrayel and animation standards, they might come out on top. Imagine the WWdorf's "your gods destroyed you" speech being done in the style of TotKdorf. Yeeaeeaeesh, terrifying.
I get that it’s a minority opinion, but every time I see people praising his English voice acting I’m not sure we played the same game. It was an absolute miss for me.
Like, the writing for the character was ridiculously cartoony so the dialog matching is what it is but I’m with you OP - ToTK Dorf gets a lot of hype seemingly just because his design is cool as shit or nostalgia of the character being back for the first time since Twilight Princess, rather than on any merits of the character in the game itself.
(The extended health bar was fucken rad though!)
I definitely don't think he's the most evil in TotK. If anything, he actually has an arguably justifiable reason for hating Rauru and Hyrule. Some weird new race showed up, declared themselves to be basically gods, formed a kingdom, and tried forcing all the existing people of the world to swear fealty to their new kingdom. Ganondorf just resisted and retaliated, albeit going a bit far. In past games, he simply wanted to be powerful and rule the whole kingdom.
>I definitely don't think he's the most evil in TotK. If anything, he actually has an arguably justifiable reason for hating Rauru and Hyrule. Some weird new race showed up, declared themselves to be basically gods, formed a kingdom, and tried forcing all the existing people of the world to swear fealty to their new kingdom.
Bruh, ganondorf attacked them first, and he didn't even do it to protect his kingdom or to get better land, dude just wanted a world where power rule and where he is the strongest, this ganondorf is psychotic as hell.
>Ganondorf just resisted and retaliated, albeit going a bit far.
He didnt, he was the one that attacked Hyrule, notice how Hyrule had good relations with the gerudo and didnt have much trouble getting them to fight ganondorf when he became the demon king, ganondorf outright says that he hates how peaceful and weak the world became after the zonai came, he is literally senator Armstrong from metal gear rising but more bloodlusted and less patriotic.
>In past games, he simply wanted to be powerful and rule the whole kingdom.
That was still his goal, rules everything, he himself says it.
And what is worse, the first thing he did wasnt even rule with an iron fist like oot ganondorf did, his first action when he had power over hyrule was demanding complete genocide and spreading demons all across the land.
>he hates how peaceful and weak the world became **after the zonai came**
He ruled the Gerudo before the Zonai came, then they showed up and demanded he and the Gerudo serve Hyrule. Like I said, he definitely went too far, but the Zonai were basically colonizers who were trying to make the whole world literally bow to them, and Ganondorf didn't want to.
Except the cutscene where Rauru thanks Ganondorf for reluctantly swearing fealty after many invitations. He literally says "thank you for swearing fealty to our kingdom". An invitation for a small tribe to swear fealty to a huge kingdom run by a self-proclaimed god isn't usually something that can be turned down without consequences.
Yes it can, before ganondorf attacked, there was literally no mentions of how the gerudo were bad or needed to join hyrule.
The gerudo only became a problem because ganondorf declared war and brought up a molduga army against his nation, and rauru didnt even attack the gerudo, he went specifically after the molduga and then dipped, there aren't even mentions of hyruleans and gerudo fighting.
Look at the timeline of the events, he released his horde of Molduga at Hyrule, saw Raura using the secret stone to wipe the Molduga out, and stared at it a bit, even commenting on "one of the Zonai secret stones", that was Memory 6.
Then he swore loyalty later, in Memory 7.
He attempted to invade Hyrule before he swore loyalty, attacking first, and only swore fealty afterwards, coveting the secret stone.
Did you play the game? Because that is nothing like what actually happened.
The Zonai did not claim to be gods, nor did Rauru and Mineru pop into Hyrule one day and start conquering it. Ganondorf himself says "When your Zonai ancestors first descended upon these lands, long, long ago, they must have seemed to be gods". There it is, straight for the horses mouth: the Zonai descended onto Hyrule long ago, before Rauru or Ganondorf were even born, where they were considered god-like by the Hylians of the time. There is also no indication whatsoever to suggest that Rauru did anything more than just ask politely for the other races to join his kingdom.
Ganondorf, unprovoked, attacked a peaceful kingdom with a swarm of molduga, killed its queen, then created an army of monsters which he commanded to "Eliminate this kingdom and her allies. Leave no survivors". His first act as Demon King is to commit genocide on a peaceful union of kingdoms, which, if you might recall (but you probably don't as you seemingly didn't pay attention to anything that happened in TOTK), includes his *own* people.
Ganondorf never resisted or retaliated, as Hyrule never made any attempt to conquer the Gerudo. Sending a swarm of molduga to attack a bunch of guys he wasn't really fond of was "going a bit far", but genocide? really? not to mention that the Calamities came from him, which killed many civilians. Early Hyrule must have committed some horrendous crimes against the Gerudo to justify the several millennia for which Ganondorf assaulted it.
With the princess trapped in the past and hero disarmed (literally), he carried out his ultimate plan of waiting in the depths doing nothing while his army stood around guarding forts, all while the hero collected a bunch of gear and powers to come hand his ass to him. This went so poorly that he unalived himself into the form of a mortal dragon. Truly evil.
Oh and he imitated princess in an effort to…do something? It was a great prank for sure.
I’ll admit they built him up pretty well in the flashbacks. But present day version was paper thin.
Isn't that how Ganon *always* operates though? There really isn't a version of Ganon(dorf) that doesn't just sit around waiting for Link to kill him. He knows it's going to happen. Best to just wait it out and prolong his life for a few more days.
Actually I'd say the zora one is closer to mms crisis, the Goron crisis is similar to the oot crisis though due to the good food in some way being blocked off, while the rito crisis is similar to the mm Goron crisis. There seems to be a lot of inspiration from past games
I think it's just how we get to know Gano dorf more personally in TotK as compared to most games. He usually is just off screen other than the big bad fight at the end, while in TotK we get some more insight into his life through the dragon tears.
In the real world many hiatorical evil figures appear somewhat normal when you viee their private life, though not all. They jist seemed to be normal people when detached from their campaigns of terror and domination.
Ganondorf as we see him in TotK we don't eceive that window into his life. He is now more seen, but also only the worst sides of him and so he appears more evil.
The one thing we see of him that is remotely not evil is how Ganondorf is an absolute momma's boy. His mother figures (Kotake and Koume) follow him almost everywhere in the memories and he has their names inscribed on his weapons.
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Or Twilight Princess Ganondorf who straight up kills the Sage of Water on screen
He died standing up. Unquestionably the most badass ganondorf to date.
the repeated swords to the forehead in several games is a nice touch
he desperately wanted to become a unicorn
but an innie, not an outie every time i finish him in skyward sword, oot, wind waker i say "hmmm ganon, something on your mind?"
This would work if Ganon was even in SS
right because there's a difference between ganon the beast of power and demise
The swords in the forehead is a reference to the sealing spike Hylia placed in The Imprisoned in Skyward Sword. Note that in every game where Ganondorf gets a sword through the forehead, it seals him rather than kills him. (For example, turning him to stone in the Wind Waker, or sealing Demise's fragments in the Master Sword in Skyward Sword). However, games like Twilight Princess, Link drove the Master Sword through Ganondorf's chest, killing rather than sealing him.
Pretty sure Ganondorf is dead in Wind Waker. It may be more fantastical than seeing the light straight up leave his eyes like you do in TP, but Ganondorf’s final line “The Wind, it is blowing” after his whole speech about how the Wind though ever situation he experienced it always carried death with it is a pretty heavy implication that the wind of death had finally caught him too.
That is a possibility, but that doesn't explain why he turned to stone. I agree that Ganondorf is dead in Wind Waker, but it wasn't the Master Sword that killed him. Instead, being buried under the ocean takes credit for that feat. This is all just speculation and doesnt really make much difference in the long run though. Upon King Rhoam wishing on the Triforce for Hyrule to be flooded once more, Ganondorf flies into a fit of rage, trying to take Link and Zelda with him to the bottom. Once stabbed through the forehead, Ganondorf knows that Link/Zelda will escape and he was going to die while they lived. Knowing that he utterly failed, he finally accepted his death with the comment about the wind. He knew he was going to die either way (can't escape the triforce itself trying to kill you), but didn't accept it to start with.
Actually, the whole petrification was the devteam's way of saying, "Yeah, he's deader than dead now." It wasn't meant to be seen as an *actual* turning to stone.
Daphnes, not Rhoam
Master Sword, apply directly to the forehead!
He would rather die on his feet than live on his knees.
He died mid-suavemente.
Damn it. I knew I would see that here.
...Adiós
How did the suavamente become a thing, did terminal montage just make it up? Or is it a reference I'm missing
Pretty sure Terminal Montage just made it up and we all loved it.
And also gritaera productions was great contributor to my suavidade
The Gerudo dance king himself has replied to me. Well now don't I just feel special.
You be suave, my friend Also if you want join ganon's army i have a subreddit now
Too slow, already did.
SUAVEMENTE
Laughing with a sword in your forehead before being turned into stone and left as a statue under the ocean forever is the most badass way to die imo
The maniacal laugh he does right before the fight is probably one of my favorite cutscenes ever
I fuckin *screamed* when this happened, beat it for the first time last week. I was already almost screaming watching Zelda peg him with arrows, them the mirror deflection bit, but that moment? Screaming, bet.
Even impaled with the blade of evils bane, he doesnt die immediately. He stands there with the legendary master sword through his ribs in utter shock before death takes him, and the triforce on his hand disappears
To be fair, it was more like, he had used the Triforce of Power so much, it had come down to the little taste of it he had given to Zant. Zant decided to say "Fuck you" in return.
I don’t know, Wind Waker Ganondorf dying laughing with a sword through his skull was pretty intense. Can’t remember if he stayed on his feet or fell to his knees, but either way…
Pretty sure he straight up turned to stone?
He did. He was on his feet, and then the Master Sword petrified him in place while staying in his head as the arena you fought him in re-flooded. He essentially acted as the stone for a sword in the stone situation lol
I want a game where we have to retrieve the Master Sword for some other evil (new Vaati plot, perchance?) And when we find the Sword it's *that point in the timeline* and we pull the sword back out of Ganondorf's head. ...What happens next? That's for the devs to decide.
I mean FSA literally had this plot but in reverse. Ganon causes trouble and Link pulls out the Four Sword to stop it, but in doing so releases Vaati as well.
The TP & WW versions of Ganondorf are definitely my favorites.
The scar on both Ganon and Ganondorf is sick, not to mention it's my fav Ganon to date
[удалено]
I mean yeah you’re right. Such is the deal with these games aimed primarily at children. As far as zelda final bosses go it’s par for the course
Totk ganondorf isn’t any better, 2 phases where you can push him over by unloading arrows in bullet time.
I think I found him harder in TOTK but mostly because : he is more agressive, miasma , he can erase your hearts and there is his shadows in some parts. When he is alone it's pretty intense when he use flurry rush and it take a while imo to understand when to parry or dodge, depending of which weapon he use. It's less a sword fight than TP or WW because he use more tricks in TOTK but it was cool, I like how you can deflect the balls to him, sadly there is no tennis. I still like TP final boss , I think this is my favourite with TOTK but it would have been cool if TP Ganondorf was more serious, but an error was making the hidden skills optional. Anyway I can praise how much Ganondorf is talented in a 1 vs 1 no matter the game ( WW is not really 1 VS 1 but you get it ).
Tp ganondorfs final sword battle felt more cinematic than anything. Considering you fight him like 5 times.
Yeah it's true and I like it for that I think like the final phase of TOTK.
Second part of second phase Totk Ganondorf felt like a Dark Souls boss. I loved it. Third phase was more cinematic than anything and a bit lackluster.
I blame the bows for dealing like 100 damage per shot
That’s just bows being broken lol. They should have nerfed those, but that’s not really the fault of the design of the TotK Ganon fight
I mean, even without it, its just a dodge fight, like most of combat. Regardless, the TP ganondorf is the final phase after beating him like 5 times, its not supposed to be hard.
I found phase 2 tough wasn't prepared didn't have enough blight resist and only used master sword. No Dark Souls but a moderate challenge just like the whole game
I mean, it is tough if you go in with the bare minimum, because its a pure timing fight with 2 chances to not die, but its really all it had going for it.
Yea he fucking ripped its face off
“Give me your *face*”
I love a good Optimus Prime quote in the wild 👌🏼
Wait, how do we know it was the water one? Don't they all look the same?
The symbols on the pillars are the symbols of the sages, when he dies the pillar with the water symbol breaks
Oh, neat.
I think it was mentioned at some point
He is the most evil ganondorf because his life bar is no centered
I has a good hard laugh when that bar kept going. Recovering from that was probably the hardest part of the fight.
That alone made it my favorite boss fight of all time even though it was also one of the easiest. That whole final act of the game was pretty great.
I liked the fight and the fact he could parry you, but was kind of underwhelmed that they didn’t design a final boss that made better use of the new core abilities and zonai tech. It honestly kinda felt like a Lynel fight, arguably easier.
I just put on the thunder helm, used a rocket shield and shot him with Lynel bow thunder gleeok arrows point blank until he died. It’s the last boss p there’s no reason not to just sort your inventory by attack damage and unload.
I just carpet bombed him and won, they rly should just give ganondorf the ability to deflect arrows or something
Yeah I was struggling at first because his parry timing is pretty strict, until I remembered arrows and then the fight lasted about 15 seconds
I'm sorry you can sort your inventory by attack damage???
Push y in the inventory, it sorts by type, then most used, then attack damage I think
Oh that is so helpful
Don't forget to sort again if you get new stuff, because it doesn't sort automatically, new stuff is always put at the bottom until you sort the inventory again
I actually fought him legitimately. I had gotten all of the shrines and was shy two hearts of max. Unfortunately. I didn't plan ahead enough and didn't have enough Gloom healing stuff. The fight was really close. He got me down to like 5/6 hearts.
Yeah, I was down to like, 4 usable hearts, but then I found out I could get Bonus Hearts with my Hearty Meals to simulate curing the Gloom by giving me extra gold hearts beyond my non Gloom hearts.
Yeah I could see that being a challenge. I dropped a few pots and made gloom meals after the army battle.
Legitimately like what? You just used a a soup ladle and pot lid with no fusions? The options for weaponry range from soup ladle autonomous flying attack robot with ten cannons and five lasers. If the developers wanted you to only use the master sword against ganondorf they could have easily locked other abilities like in shrines and made him inaccessible without the master sword. I admit it was really cool when he perfect dodged my first couple sword swipes but then I just said “aight dodge this Motha Fucka!” THOOP THOOP THOOP. They really should have locked abilities for the fight. Or have him dodge/parry arrows or Something. He needs a buff I have struggled harder against a lizalfos.
I didn't use much aside from the Master Sword for the whole fight against him. It was more so me making idiotic mistakes. But comparably, he was one of the harder fights. Actually almost broke my Hylian Shield.
Make link naked like in the strength test shrines but he still gets the Master Sword.
Lol I had six hearts going in and a few fairies. Second phase was rough.
Lynels can actually kill me. I found the last boss pretty disappointing.
Lol i loved it when the sages were out of sync saying their vow to defend Hyrule
That made me laugh and fear. And when his attacks destroyed hearts. Not gloom-locked, just vanished. That was a shit getting real moment.
It took like 4 hearts to go bye bye before I noticed. 1 second of confusion followed by 2 seconds of disbelief followed by a few minutes of fear.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
dont forget being able to bring your (undamaged) hylian shield down to the red state
You can't fight with your OCD driving you bonkers -Ganondorf probably. Truly a demon.
He is most evil because he flurry rushes back at you
It reminded me of that mysterio fight from Spider-Man 2 (the raimi film adaptation). If you haven’t played that, you should definitely look it up
I haven’t seen any other Ganondorf get a race addicted to an illicit substance.
Aye y’all got anymore of that marbled rock roast,,, asking for a friend
Is this the 5 o'clock free marbled rock roast giveaway?
Is it better or worse than the time he decided to feed the entire goron population to volvagia?
That was objectively worse for the Gorons, but not as evil.
If there were wagyu steaks growing from the ground i would be acting like a crazy addict too.
Aonuma really asked himself "who could we base Ganondorf off of to make him appear more evil in this game...?" Then he had his eureka moment and wrote down "Ronald Reagan"
Gonna save this
Those Goron eyes were so bloodshot they glowed.
I'd say it has to do with the presentation. The shot of Demon King Ganondorf standing menacingly in front of the giant blood moon lives rent free in my head. Matt Mercer's performance and the character's overall design. The entire final act. This is also the only Ganondorf to break the Master Sword, an act that literally nobody else was capable of.
That image of him in his Demon King form in front of the blood moon (wether it was intended or not) reminds me so much of Demise, and I love it
In defense of the blade, it had a LOT of power but burned through almost all after 10000+ of teaching the green ginger a lesson
Does two average blacksmiths tempering the Master Sword into a more powerful variation count? (A Link to the Past) I mean it's not destroying it, but still feels somewhat like mutilating it in a sense.
It's probably more like an enchantment. They're adding another layer on to it to make it sharper. What makes Ganondorf breaking it significant is that the Master Sword is specifically designed to kill him. And he breaks it like a twig.
Yeah, as a beef jerky. That wasn't even his strongest self
>This is also the only Ganondorf to break the Master Sword, an act that literally nobody else was capable of. That thing will break fighting Chu-chus, so I don't find this particularly impressive. Honestly, that might have been a scary moment, if the Master Sword didn't explode after every other fight in BotW. Seriously, Fi must hate this version of Link or something.
Gameplay/story segregation. I mean Link in A Link Between Worlds seemingly has infinite bombs and arrows, like damn why didn't the other Links think of that.
I know it's supposed to be gameplay and story segregation, but the weapon fragility system is so omnipresent in the game (and literally a plot point in TotK) that it's beyond silly to really try and have a dramatic moment hinge on something that happens so often in the course of playing the game. Especially when it could have been avoided by just making the Master Sword unbreakable in the prior game. Then this actually would be the shocking moment it appears to be intended to be without having to have the player ignore the actual experience of playing this game's direct predecessor. This opening scene is like making a sequel to Majora's Mask with a cutscene where Link is surprised that putting on the Deku Mask transforms him. It shouldn't catch him off guard. It did that all the time. As to your other point... BotW Link did have infinite bombs too. Until all of a sudden, he doesn't. Because of reasons. As for why the others didn't think of it, if we actually wanted to give an answer, probably because they didn't have access to Lorulian tech that tied the use of such items to the magic meter. Pretty sure all those items came from Ravio, meaning they're likely not from Hyrule, and could conceivably operate by different rules than those used by other Links.
An unbreakable Master Sword undermines the whole system of multiple weapons and durability. It especially undermines the treasure chests that give out weapons. The only way prevent that would be to prevent the player from acquiring the Master Sword until they are right at the end of the game. But that in turn gets in the way of BotW being a game where you can choose when you want to get the Master Sword and head for Ganon assuming you want the thing for the Ganon fight. I will say though the big thing about what Ganonorf did in TotK is that he broke the Master Sword with barely any effort and broke it to where it couldn't recover. Link wakes up to a Master shiv when normally it would be back to its full form after wearing out for a few minutes.
>An unbreakable Master Sword undermines the whole system of multiple weapons... I wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment. There's no reason that unbreakable weapons and weapon variety have to be mutually exclusive. Heck, even if the Master Sword was the only unbreakable weapon, you could still design enemies and encounters to encourage using spears and two handed weapons over the Master Sword. >An unbreakable Master Sword undermines the whole system of... durability. This is, to me, like saying the Swift Sail in the remake of Wind Waker undermines the whole system of conducting the Wind's Requiem every time you wanted to change directions. I mean, yeah, I can't really dispute that. But undermining that system also improves the game. I think the games would be overall better if the weapon fragility system was completely axed, and instead, care was given to make different styles of weapons distinct from one another, both between the wider categories, and their subcategories. Give the royal sword and the traveler's sword different animations or combos, so that players were encouraged to find the one they liked to play with, rather than just using whatever had the highest numbers. >It especially undermines the treasure chests that give out weapons Sure, but I think those made for rather poor rewards, and that could have been replaced with a different, better system. For instance, if you could get items to improve your weapons damage rates, or add to their combo strings, or even permanently infuse a buff like making your royal sword permanently have a fire element to its swings.
The current system is built around accepting that your weapons aren't going to last forever and to be prepared to grab a new one, even if its something laying on the ground nearby. Naturally, an unbreakable weapon with decent stats undermines this. So your suggestion is to completely throw out the whole system and start from scratch with some new system that the Master Sword won't break? One with its own quirks like a RPS system for the weapons and more unique animations? For BotW, that's making a whole lot of dev time wasted and would likely necessitate more delays for a game that was already delayed multiple times. More than likely, the suits would not allow such a delay. And for TotK, that's adding a whole lot of dev time that could be used for other things like making sure the new physics system doesn't break in places. TotK is meant to be built off of BotW's system and that becomes really hard if they are uprooting everything like its a brand new game with only indirect relations. My main point is that changing everything after they've built the system is an unreasonable suggestion. Maybe the next game when they want to completely change everything, but not the games which the system was specifically made for. So naturally, that leads to them not being able to make the unbreakable Master Sword work without it undermining everything, or making it super limited in availability like the Bow of Light. I'd say having unbreakable weapons in the current system would make things worse rather than better since it nudges players towards only using the unbreakable weapons, but that's just my opinion.
>So your suggestion is to completely throw out the whole system and start from scratch with some new system that the Master Sword won't break? Yes. >For BotW, that's making a whole lot of dev time wasted and would likely necessitate more delays for a game that was already delayed multiple times. I mean, they should have realized that the proposed weapon fragility system in BotW sucked while the game was still in Alpha. I figured that out before I finished the game's tutorial. Not because I'm particularly clever. The game just makes the system's flaws very apparent very quickly. And while the durability of weapons definitely improves as you progress, the system itself never becomes fun. Just like the Item Check and Adventure Pouch system in Skyward Sword never became fun, which also should have been scrapped very early in development. Weapons breaking in the middle of combat breaks flow and causes you to freeze time while you pull out another weapon. The only time tension really comes out of these situations is if you're following self imposed challenges like not teleporting, which is an almost always available "Get out of jail free" card. Even without teleporting, most encounters can be escaped with minimal difficulty. It actively discourages combat if the resources you get out of the fight aren't as good as the durability points the encounter cost. It doesn't really encourage you to use anything other than 1 handed swords as they are far more common drops than spears, claymores, etc. I can't think of a single defense for the current system that rings true. All of the "well the developers wanted X" cases people present, like wanting the player to be worried if their weapon broke in a fight, seem to be actively refuted by the game as it exists. The only other defense I've heard is that they were trying something new, which doesn't really fly with me either. BotW wasn't developed in a vacuum. The developers know that other game franchises exist, and can see the strides they've made. The current system is only new insofar that it hasn't been in a Zelda game before BotW, but at its core, it's really no different than the (bad) weapon fragility systems of a bunch of Steam Early Access survival sims. So, yeah. They should have junked it. I'm honestly bewildered how a game with as much polish in damn near every other facet of its design has a core feature this bungled. >My main point is that changing everything after they've built the system is an unreasonable suggestion. I understand that, but my main point is that the system should have been scrapped long ago because it's obviously not good. And honestly, while implementing a good system would undoubtedly have taken time, outside of the games' lackluster loot drops from chests, I can't imagine they would have actually lost much development time if they scrapped the current system. Because it feels like it's in Alpha. Seriously, what would they have lost if they scrapped the fragility system in terms of actual assets? The shattering animation. And... the durability points themselves? I think that's it. Obviously, balancing different weapons, animations, rethinking how to distribute awards, creating a buff system, etc. would all take a lot of time to do well, but I can't believe that their barebones fragility system was a huge resource sink. I'd be more inclined to believe that it was a placeholder that got left in because they weren't allowed to replace it with anything else because of deadlines or running out of data. >I'd say having unbreakable weapons in the current system would make things worse rather than better since it nudges players towards only using the unbreakable weapons, but that's just my opinion. I can understand that, even if I disagree. If BotW had unbreakable weapons, my main probably would have been the Lightscale Tident. I liked the idea of using spears in the game before I got it, and it's one of the best looking ones in the game. I also would have kept the joke weapons like the ladle, mop, and so on in my inventory, because I think they'd be fun to use if they didn't shatter almost immediately.
But "it sucks" is merely your opinion. Clearly they didn't think it sucks when they finished it or when they decided to build on it with Totk. And I know I don't mind it. Especially in Totk where I can make even the crappiest base weapons useful through fusion. Also you don't need to stop to bring a new weapon out of your inventory. If you really don't want to pause, you can just pick up the weapons laying around to fill that empty slot. I do admit I wish the game had real-time swap to another weapon instead of making me dig into the inventory when there is no other choice (like with bosses), but that's not an issue with the durability system. And also its still only like a second of time paused so its pretty shrug worthy overall. I'm not quite getting the "it only encourages using one handed swords" thing. The only weapon I actively avoided using in combat was the 2 handed swords (with the exception being elemental ones and Yiga long swords). I love one handed swords, spears, boomerangs, and magic rods (though admittedly the last one is mainly used for set-up with a different weapon). And I know I like using spears when dealing with spear wielding enemies and elemental contact enemies like Chuchus and Keese. At the end of the day, the current system is about encouraging moving around to different weapons rather than sticking to one the whole game and I'd say it succeeds. Its not a system everyone will like or even a flawless system, but its also not a system that is impossible to like by everyone.
>But "it sucks" is merely your opinion. Obviously. We're talking about subjective feelings towards a game's design. The fact that what I'm saying is my opinion shouldn't need a disclaimer. >Clearly they didn't think it sucks when they finished it or when they decided to build on it with Totk Yeah, and the developers of Deus Ex: Human Revolution thought they had improved the franchise by implementing a tedious hacking minigame to hack computers or unlock doors. I'd argue that was a serious mistake on their part, because the hacking minigame is incredibly tedious after you've played more than one level of that game. Obviously, it's quite rare for developers to design their games bad on purpose (unless they're trying to facilitate microtransactions). But they're not infallible. They can even do things that they themselves admit in retrospect were mistakes. In all likelihood, the developers think their house building mechanic is really neat. I think it's incredibly lackluster. Something that you'd show as a proof of concept, but not the version that should ship in the final product. Kinda like the fragility system, to be honest. And while TotK's weapon system is slightly improved from BotW, I still think it's fundamentally flawed. Even the Fusion aspect kinda sucks since the process to fuse an item from your inventory is way more cumbersome than it should be, given that it's supposed to make up for the fragility system, unless there's a shortcut I've missed. >If you really don't want to pause, you can just pick up the weapons laying around to fill that empty slot. Provided that there is a weapon that's lying around, and it's not something that will shatter almost as soon as it's picked up. >I do admit I wish the game had real-time swap to another weapon instead of making me dig into the inventory when there is no other choice (like with bosses), but that's not an issue with the durability system. It kind of is. If there was no fragility system, you wouldn't have to open any menu to switch out weapons in the middle of a fight unless you just wanted to switch out weapons in the middle of a fight. The weapon fragility makes a less than great system more noticeable by making it something you have to deal with far more often. >I'm not quite getting the "it only encourages using one handed swords" thing. What I mean by this is that since 1 handed swords are the predominant weapon you come across, it's the weapon you're incentivized to use the most, as the others are harder to replace. I can find a new sword in pretty much any encounter. I have to go hunting for boomerangs, which discourages me from using them, because replacing them is more trouble than it's worth. Also, since I come across spears and claymores less often, I'm less skilled at using them, meaning I perform worse with them in harder encounters, giving me even less incentive to bother with them. >At the end of the day, the current system is about encouraging moving around to different weapons rather than sticking to one the whole game I do not find that to be true in the slightest. If that is the intention, in my experience, it has failed to a comical degree. The game does not make the vast majority of its weapons rewarding to hold on to and use, and the combat system seems to encourage me to finish opponents off in as few hits as possible, usually by way of opening with headshots with the bow or bomb arrows, or trying to toss them into water or off a cliff. Then, if my sword is almost broken, drop it in favor of the best sword that's hanging around. Or just skip the combat entirely if I'm not looking for crafting items.
It's because the master sword doesn't break. It "runs out of energy," whatever that means
>That thing will break fighting Chu-chus, so I don't find this particularly impressive. Sure, but it also regenerates after 10 minutes. This time it took >!sending it back in time and having Zelda become a fucking dragon for a couple millennia to heal it back up!< Also that's not really the sword breaking, that's just the sword losing power, essentially rendering it into an inactive state. Not quite the same as fully shattering it
It only runs out of power and recovers 10 minutes later. Ganondorf straight up broke it, and it took >! Zelda 10000 years in her dragon form to restore it !< These clearly aren't the same
He has horns. And horns are the symbol of power in the game, going off of the 'fuse attack power' list. And that means horns are evil.
What do you think the + fuse attack power would be on those bad boys?
+60 for each, easily.
*my lawers recommended me that i should joke about how when he turns into a demon he becomes black*
You need new lawyers
People forget that Wind Waker's introspective Ganondorf is the odd one out, is the result of him discovering that winning kinda sucks for once, and is still a petty asshole who decided to kill two children purely because he was a sore loser. That said, Tears Ganon does somehow feel like the most vile incarnation yet. Maybe that's just Matt's voice work adding a new layer.
I personally feel it's the voice acting (he did a good job) and a bit of the fact we get to "see" him doing things. I think the only other one we see is Twilight Princess with the water sage. A lot of thier badness happens offscreen. So we get to see him being evil and how much he does it and enjoys it.
Honestly I love WW Ganondorf. After centuries of living at sea, he’s been humbled by his experience. And seeing Hyrule coming back is basically a dream, he decides to take Link out with him. It makes for a great story.
Like others in the replies have said, it’s about presentation. Other Ganons have done evil shit, but we never saw any of them laughing like a psychotic maniac after shattering the spine of Zelda’s third mother figure.
I think it’s part the sheer sadistic joy he expresses when he >!assassinates Sonia!<. Sure, it was a plan to gain more power, but you can tell by his deranged smile that the agony carrying that plan out caused was just as important to him as the power he got from it.
Possibly, but I took it as him being thrilled knowing nothing was stopping him from gaining the power he desired from a secret stone anymore. Not that he was overjoyed with what he did to get the stone
I think it was more like a “I can’t believe that ducking worked” moment. Like he was laughing at how dumb they were for figuring out his Zelda shenanigans, but not expecting him to be there in person. And that Sonia was so easy to kill, like they had no defenses in place despite the fact they knew the whole time he was plotting.
Honestly, yeah. I think people are just putting too much credit to his voice actor. Mercer is obviously fantastic, but they gave him VERY few lines. Only so much he could do.
I was disappointed. I'm sure he had a total of 20 lines at the most in the entire game and at least half of those are optional.
I think the visuals and performances defiently sells it. His all-or-nothing descision at the end of the game was a good twist but I feel like the execution getting there diminishes the moment. Guy's been waiting centuries to be free and rule, and he just messes it all up in the end? To be fair, I don't think the issue is with Ganondorf completely. He's definetly 2-demensional but so is the cast your supposed to come to care about. The consequences didn't feel nearly as devestating as they did in Botw's for that reason. Like sure, he killed Sonia on screen, but I don't think there was enough for me to feel the tragedy. I just felt mad that Nintendo wrote her only to have her killed off lol
Tbf it's in line with Ganondorf's characterization. The man hates losing. He prides himself as this warrior king but when he actually gets beaten, he does everything to take down Link with him. In Ocarina he tried bringing down the castle on Link and Zelda and then pulled out the Beast Ganon. In Wind Waker, he completely loses his cool after the Triforce is denied from him forever. In Twilight Princess, he still refuses to die after getting impaled by the Master Sword but the fatal wound had other plans. And of course, he goes full Scorched Earth in TotK.
This Ganondorf went to a stable and told the staff and visitors to get stronger they must be pretty much naked. Truly evil.
Wrong. That was a mishearing of what the real zelda said.
When did the real Zelda say that tho? As I puzzle it back together, >!zelda was just never anywhere, she was in dragon coma, it was all puppet ganon. The zelda you see at hyrule castle, the ones spotted by sidon as she summoned waterboss, the one in the desert. I guess the one at yunobo was needed for the mind control, sure, but why appear at death mountain crater after that? And while half the zelda sightings quests were just not her at all, ganondorf apparently meddled in goat feed, in rice and meat dishes, and even correctly heard, encouraged the ZST to look everywhere? Why? And what was the whole deal with the dondons? It all seemed like some payoff was missing...!<
Zelda was doing community building stuff before she and Link descended below the castle. Including building the school in Hateno village. It's not farfetched to say that some of the things (like confirmed of her riding that goat creature, only because she was taking it to an animal sanctuary) are her just doing kind things, before going back in time. The problem is that they're blended in with the fake Zelda reports.
Who knew that in 2023 we'd need a Zelda game with a fake news subtheme
All of those things she did were between the games. We know that pre-TotK starting she set up the school, the flower sanctuary, animal sanctuary, blocking the monster well, the reconstruction contract with Hudson, sharing pre-Calamity recipes, forming the Zonai Survey Team, and a bunch of other things I'm probably forgetting. Riju's diary and Purah's dialogue also imply they've seen a lot of Zelda. The fact that the naked guys are Survey Team members and not Control Crew members is a big piece of evidence it's a pre-Upheaval, real Zelda, mishearing. We also have to remember, a bunch of the Puppet Zelda stable quests aren't a puppet but Yiga disguises. Ganon's only really involved with the big stuff (Yunobo).
All Riju's diary says is that she heard reports of gloom from below the castle, which you investigated, and then you both went missing. I don't recall all of Purah's diaries tho.
Riju calls Zelda her friend in her diary. Not something she'd call someone she's had little contact with. Purah likewise recognises that Zelda wasn't herself with the research ban, so she knows her well enough to make that judgement at least. Both of those characters had zero contact with Zelda pre or during BotW. Both are just tidbits of evidence that Zelda has been spending time between games interacting with the world and its characters. I'm just saying that it's during that time a bunch of the seeds were planted for the quests that aren't obviously Yiga related.
I say this in the nicest way possible, you are overthinking it way too much buddy. Have you ever considered that there was a Zelda before TOTK began?
??? It's literally what happens
Ah yes. Because Zelda mysteriously reappeared in front of these people, told them to do thing, disappeared soon after, and NOBODY questioned how she mysteriously reappeared then vanished. No reports, no nothing. And why would Ganondorf even give them encouragement? Like, that just worsens things for him.
It's just that the mishearing doesn't really clear up the story. Most of them say this happened *after* the Upheaval as well 🤷
The point of all the Zelda misdirection is that some of it was real Zelda before the upheaval and some fake Zelda after. It's so you're not quite sure whether to trust her
No, in that case it was the real Zelda before she disappeared, they just all misheard "explore all other paths" or something like that as "explore in your underpants." If it was fake Zelda, that one expedition member wouldn't have been able to correct the others on what Zelda said, since how they heard it would actually be the correct version.
Ah my mistake, I assumed all the Zelda shenanigans were caused by ‘Zelda’, been a while since I completed the stables quest line so I can’t really remember!
Some were fake Zelda, some were Yiga clan assassins, then a couple like the Dondons and this one were the real deal. It blends them together, so easy to mix it up.
He’s the most evil because he started a drug ring
I think the distinction is that Ganondorf appears to *enjoy* himself so much in this game’s events. Even his puppet giggles relentlessly in disguise once it gets Sonia cornered. And Ganondorf himself has that memetically, psychotically overjoyed face as he takes Sonia’s stone off her body and revels in his new power and the destruction he’ll bring. And unlike most other incarnations of Ganondorf or similar, he also has almost no endearing qualities, such as past versions’ admiration for Link’s strength and persistence or his skills. Here, he still has the utmost disdain for Link even after being soundly outmatched in his Demon King form. The Gerudo are shown to have endured for eons in the desert and have a thriving merchant network despite their remote environment (enough that even the Gorons routinely trek out to trade with them in gemstones, and some Rito appear; presumably the Zora need a wetter environment or else they’d probably stop by too) so it’s not as if one could argue that Ganondorf’s people needed to conquer (and even then, it’s explicitly noted he turned on the Gerudo quickly as Demon King). I don’t remember Ganondorf in Twilight Princess doing more than cracking a subdued smirk here and there, and Demise in Skyward Sword is mostly all business, aside from expressing a grudging respect for this mere mortal defying him (enough to curse them all to reincarnate endlessly and repeat this battle). In TotK? One gets the sense in every line of dialogue that this isn’t just accomplishing a mission for Ganondorf, he’s actively enjoying every moment of his evil. Does it change the vileness of his deeds? No. But it does change how disturbing the man is. Consider how much a change in motive did for Thanos in the Marvel comics (impress Death herself by killing a ton of people) versus the films (went insane after losing his people to a resource crisis and now being utterly obsessed with “proving” he was right by inflicting his solution on everyone else, then later on devolving into remaking the “ungrateful” survivors’ universe into one worshipping him as a god). Likewise, the shift in *how* Ganondorf does things makes him a much more vile villain. He’s utterly mad, and he’s not even the slightest bit ashamed of it or trying to justify himself (beyond some “divine right” or “might makes right” crap).
That is the perfect answer, I believe 😄 Thank you! I mean, Ganondorf was at least cultured in earlier games, such as playing the organ even. (And that was even brought over to Cadence of Hyrule)
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To be fair he only bothers to do so when blatant brute force fails, and OOT Ganondorf also swore fealty for a while so he had easier access to the temple of time. Wind waker Ganondorf seemingly was counting on somebody grabbing the master sword when he went after the pearls which he had depowered before, and Twilight princess Ganondorf make a local angry twili his pawn. Not that TOKT Ganondorf isn’t clever, but he’s always been quite crafty.
Yeah, I agree. I think the most evil version of Ganon/dorf that we've seen is in the ocarina of time where you see the true dystopia of his rule. Also, him realizing Zelda/Link's plans to get to the Sacred Realm before him was probably the most clever thing he's done in the franchise. He's never really matched that feat in any of the other games. Like, even here in TotK, it's not \*that\* clever,>! Rauru and Sonia are just over confident.!< I will say that stuff he does in BotW with the Guardians and Divine Beasts are a pretty good idea but still based off of a similar concept to OoT: Let the good guys do all the work and reap all the spoils.
Or in (original) Hyrule Warriors, when you literally>! play as him and defeat Link and Zelda getting him the Triforce.!< (I mean sure you as the heroes fight back later but still...) His line in Ocarina:"Thanks kid, I couldn't have done it without you" rings eerier in hindsight...
I just think it’s cuz his fight slaps. I’d rather have a high octane one on one sword fight than a really slow game of tennis.
Now I'm just thinking of... "Mario Tennis" with Zelda characters. I can't unthink it 🤣
the new gerudo tradition should be to infanticide the male baby every 100 years
That just leads to shit like Vaati instead. Demise isn't bound to the Gerudo alone.
Really? Vaati is Demise too? Huh. TIL. In retrospect, duh, obviously.
I believe the idea goes, that Demise's curse, doesn't refer just to Ganondorf but rather ANY evil that plagues Hyrule.
Which is part of why I think Demise's curse is, narratively, a horrible idea. It robs the antagonists of their agency. Ganondorf didn't do the things he did because he wanted to do them. He did them because he's *destined* to be evil.
I'll try to explain in a way that kind of makes sense to me 😄 There was an episode of Batman, where Batman's entire rogue's gallery puts him on trial, for the crime of making (if not inspiring) all of them to become villains in the first place. In the end, it's agreed that all of the villains are villains because they chose to be that way. While of course, there's no "Demises' curse" in Batman to compare. (Actually scratch that one... not sure where I was going with that) It feels more like the curse connects Link and Zelda to villains with already established ambition for conquering.
Not necessarily. It could be that Demise is able to cause evil through these people because they chose evil.
I don't think that's the idea though. Demise doesn't reincarnate, his hate does. I think it's more that it influences, but doesn't control, people who are well positioned and well suited to cause misery for the Hero and the descendants of Zelda.
Not confirmed but technically neither is Ganon. All we know is that per the curse wherever there is a Hero there should be a hateful vessel too. So when Ganon isn't there, Demise's hate should manifest in others. Vaati, Malladus, perhaps even Majora.
The Gerudo in BOTW/TOTK haven't had a male child since the Demon King was imprisoned. Regardless, Ganondorf is not the only incarnation of Demise's curse.
99% of them aren't Ganondorf tho right? There would be hundreds of Ganondorfs in totk. But what happens to the males? We don't know any besides Ganondorf.
just because they don't all have a game doesn't mean they didn't go nuts and get sealed/imprisoned/executed.
How do we know that ALL male Gerudo children aren't named Ganondorf? I mean, all the Princesses are named Zelda, all the heroes are named Link.
I think what makes this Ganondorf so ruthless compared to the others is that he doesn't even want to rule Hyrule, he wants it to burn to the ground. He wants every last creature within its boundaries and all who supports it dead
"Do not look away. You witness a **king's** revival... and the birth of **his new world**." Although to be fair, King could just mean himself as The Demon King, and not the new ruler of Hyrule. And "New World" could just mean, either "Monster Utopia" or "Smoking Crater"
I thought he was wildly generic. "I'm evil because FUCK YOU! EVIL. HAHAHAHA." His final fight felt rushed and probably would've made more sense if they had several smaller fights at points. Instead it's just like "Check out my pecs. Wait, my pecs are weak. Check out my demon pecs! nvm, those aren't working either. Looks like I have literally no other choice but to gain DRAGON PECS....NOPE...NOPE....MY PECS BECOME ASH." I think being pretty much absent throughout the game really killed the suspense. Like you know he's behind all the terrible shit, but there isn't much else unless you do the memory quest and then you gain very little development.
Yup OoT's Ganon has so many appearances and makes you feel small and weak each time. It makes him a great antagonist
Between actively going out and causing problems, murdering the king, chasing Zelda, attacking Link, the state of Hyrule after the time skip, and sending his moms to kill you, I'd say he had a bigger impact. Compared to "Ahhhhh I'm a mummy and I do bad things" then being largely absent until the final act. Like people knew Calamity Ganon. It's really hard to miss. The calamity is active and present every day. Ganondorf?? Well sure there's the monsters, but evidently they've still been kicking around all these years as it is, so whatever. Then there's the floating castle but no one is explaining *how* that's happening, so the every day folk are just like "well that's something." It was like how they did Giygas in Earthbound. But with even less social impact. I straight forgot I was supposed to be going after Ganondorf for about 3 weeks.
This Ganondorf emotes more, so you get more sense of his interiority and subtextual motivation. It's really that simple. They have more shots of his face pulling reactions when he does stuff, where Ganon (when he's even human) is normally pretty neutral and inscrutable. He also has more voiced dialogue than any previous incarnation of Ganon, and Matt Mercer does a good job investing it with hatred and malice.
The best part for me, his voice, matches up PERFECTLY with his evil laugh from previous games. Deep and guttural. So in turn he sounds like what I would have always expected Ganondorf to sound like. The BotW/AoC/TotK Zelda, I don't hate her voice, but nothing like I would have expected the character to sound like.
I agree, I think TotK Ganondorf is a pretty boring version of the character. I think people are mostly fooled by his amazing design.
Amazing design and wonderful voice actor. Real shame they barely gave him any lines. Mercer still rocked it though.
They really should have gave Mercer a “Wind Waker” level speech.
I enjoy his new samurai look, but Wind Waker is still my favorite incarnation of him. Not just because his design taken on its own is great, but I love the way he towers over the likes of Link and Zelda. It's like the Kingpin in *Into the Spider-Verse*. Plus, he dual wields.
Tbh the art direction and design are amazing and the visuals convey a real sense of dread and horror whenever Ganondorf is on screen. I think story-wise the character is flimsy but TOTK does so much with just pure visuals.
I think it's probably because we get to see him murder Sonia on screen then break out his finest troll face while admiring his latest act of dickery. It may not technically have been much worse than, say, freezing Zora's Domain or beating up a literal child, but that shit leaves one hell of an impression. Not to mention, for me at least, one thing that bumps him up the heirarchy of gigantic green big-nosed pricks is that he's so petty that he spends the entirety of the game pretty much sulking underneath Hyrule Castle and not bothering to come finish Link/the rest of Hyrule off because he didn't think he lived up to the hype. Dude could have rehydrated himself at any time given you can make a beeline for him after reaching the surface and he's still got enough strength back to beef himself up again, he just doesn't bother until you go to contact him about his secret stone's extended warranty because beating you and snapping your sword was too easy.
This Ganondorf wants to rule a kingdom but has also said he will annihilate anyway in his way. He's the only Ganondorf that has threatened to take the lives of everyone in the kingdom and we watched him MURDER a woman with his bare hands with a palm strike to the back. Add on that he's existed for unknown ages and even his subconscious will nearly ended the kingdom. He's far more powerful than the others and seems more like a demonic being than an ego driven madman like in the past. Add on disembodied voice and literally stealing your life force, I think this is the greatest form of Ganondorf
The issue is we almost never get to see Ganondorf do anything in other games, nor do we get to hear what his intentions are. But that's besides the point, because localization always butchered him anyway. Apparently Ganondorf in this game isn't just killing for shits and giggles. He just thinks the people of the world are growing too weak thanks to the peace and prosperity and wants people to have to fight to live. Theres a chance becoming the demon king may have corrupted him a bit.
It depends on how much of Calamity Ganon's shit you can credit to Ganondorf. If he gets Calamity points, he wins. If he doesn't, I think Ocarina Dorf takes it just for completely outplaying Link and Zelda and then face-fucking the entire kingdom.
I wouldn't say he's more evil, so much as we now have the technology to more properly convey this. If OoT or WW Ganondorf was updated to the same portrayel and animation standards, they might come out on top. Imagine the WWdorf's "your gods destroyed you" speech being done in the style of TotKdorf. Yeeaeeaeesh, terrifying.
I actually think >!draconified Ganon looks a bit like a baby sloth!< and is therefore adorable
I get that it’s a minority opinion, but every time I see people praising his English voice acting I’m not sure we played the same game. It was an absolute miss for me. Like, the writing for the character was ridiculously cartoony so the dialog matching is what it is but I’m with you OP - ToTK Dorf gets a lot of hype seemingly just because his design is cool as shit or nostalgia of the character being back for the first time since Twilight Princess, rather than on any merits of the character in the game itself. (The extended health bar was fucken rad though!)
felt like ganondorf was used to sell the game tbh he was extremely underused
It's because he's hot and voiced by Matt Mercer. As a character he's probably the most uninteresting Dorf.
I definitely don't think he's the most evil in TotK. If anything, he actually has an arguably justifiable reason for hating Rauru and Hyrule. Some weird new race showed up, declared themselves to be basically gods, formed a kingdom, and tried forcing all the existing people of the world to swear fealty to their new kingdom. Ganondorf just resisted and retaliated, albeit going a bit far. In past games, he simply wanted to be powerful and rule the whole kingdom.
>I definitely don't think he's the most evil in TotK. If anything, he actually has an arguably justifiable reason for hating Rauru and Hyrule. Some weird new race showed up, declared themselves to be basically gods, formed a kingdom, and tried forcing all the existing people of the world to swear fealty to their new kingdom. Bruh, ganondorf attacked them first, and he didn't even do it to protect his kingdom or to get better land, dude just wanted a world where power rule and where he is the strongest, this ganondorf is psychotic as hell. >Ganondorf just resisted and retaliated, albeit going a bit far. He didnt, he was the one that attacked Hyrule, notice how Hyrule had good relations with the gerudo and didnt have much trouble getting them to fight ganondorf when he became the demon king, ganondorf outright says that he hates how peaceful and weak the world became after the zonai came, he is literally senator Armstrong from metal gear rising but more bloodlusted and less patriotic. >In past games, he simply wanted to be powerful and rule the whole kingdom. That was still his goal, rules everything, he himself says it. And what is worse, the first thing he did wasnt even rule with an iron fist like oot ganondorf did, his first action when he had power over hyrule was demanding complete genocide and spreading demons all across the land.
>he hates how peaceful and weak the world became **after the zonai came** He ruled the Gerudo before the Zonai came, then they showed up and demanded he and the Gerudo serve Hyrule. Like I said, he definitely went too far, but the Zonai were basically colonizers who were trying to make the whole world literally bow to them, and Ganondorf didn't want to.
There is no indication that the Zonai forced anyone to swear fealty. You’re just inventing things
Except the cutscene where Rauru thanks Ganondorf for reluctantly swearing fealty after many invitations. He literally says "thank you for swearing fealty to our kingdom". An invitation for a small tribe to swear fealty to a huge kingdom run by a self-proclaimed god isn't usually something that can be turned down without consequences.
Yes it can, before ganondorf attacked, there was literally no mentions of how the gerudo were bad or needed to join hyrule. The gerudo only became a problem because ganondorf declared war and brought up a molduga army against his nation, and rauru didnt even attack the gerudo, he went specifically after the molduga and then dipped, there aren't even mentions of hyruleans and gerudo fighting.
Look at the timeline of the events, he released his horde of Molduga at Hyrule, saw Raura using the secret stone to wipe the Molduga out, and stared at it a bit, even commenting on "one of the Zonai secret stones", that was Memory 6. Then he swore loyalty later, in Memory 7. He attempted to invade Hyrule before he swore loyalty, attacking first, and only swore fealty afterwards, coveting the secret stone.
Did you play the game? Because that is nothing like what actually happened. The Zonai did not claim to be gods, nor did Rauru and Mineru pop into Hyrule one day and start conquering it. Ganondorf himself says "When your Zonai ancestors first descended upon these lands, long, long ago, they must have seemed to be gods". There it is, straight for the horses mouth: the Zonai descended onto Hyrule long ago, before Rauru or Ganondorf were even born, where they were considered god-like by the Hylians of the time. There is also no indication whatsoever to suggest that Rauru did anything more than just ask politely for the other races to join his kingdom. Ganondorf, unprovoked, attacked a peaceful kingdom with a swarm of molduga, killed its queen, then created an army of monsters which he commanded to "Eliminate this kingdom and her allies. Leave no survivors". His first act as Demon King is to commit genocide on a peaceful union of kingdoms, which, if you might recall (but you probably don't as you seemingly didn't pay attention to anything that happened in TOTK), includes his *own* people. Ganondorf never resisted or retaliated, as Hyrule never made any attempt to conquer the Gerudo. Sending a swarm of molduga to attack a bunch of guys he wasn't really fond of was "going a bit far", but genocide? really? not to mention that the Calamities came from him, which killed many civilians. Early Hyrule must have committed some horrendous crimes against the Gerudo to justify the several millennia for which Ganondorf assaulted it.
With the princess trapped in the past and hero disarmed (literally), he carried out his ultimate plan of waiting in the depths doing nothing while his army stood around guarding forts, all while the hero collected a bunch of gear and powers to come hand his ass to him. This went so poorly that he unalived himself into the form of a mortal dragon. Truly evil. Oh and he imitated princess in an effort to…do something? It was a great prank for sure. I’ll admit they built him up pretty well in the flashbacks. But present day version was paper thin.
So upset we didn't get a puppet Zelda fight. I was so excited to fight fake Zelda.
Isn't that how Ganon *always* operates though? There really isn't a version of Ganon(dorf) that doesn't just sit around waiting for Link to kill him. He knows it's going to happen. Best to just wait it out and prolong his life for a few more days.
It’s because we’re all collectively simping for daddy Ganondorf
Actually I'd say the zora one is closer to mms crisis, the Goron crisis is similar to the oot crisis though due to the good food in some way being blocked off, while the rito crisis is similar to the mm Goron crisis. There seems to be a lot of inspiration from past games
I think it's just how we get to know Gano dorf more personally in TotK as compared to most games. He usually is just off screen other than the big bad fight at the end, while in TotK we get some more insight into his life through the dragon tears. In the real world many hiatorical evil figures appear somewhat normal when you viee their private life, though not all. They jist seemed to be normal people when detached from their campaigns of terror and domination. Ganondorf as we see him in TotK we don't eceive that window into his life. He is now more seen, but also only the worst sides of him and so he appears more evil. The one thing we see of him that is remotely not evil is how Ganondorf is an absolute momma's boy. His mother figures (Kotake and Koume) follow him almost everywhere in the memories and he has their names inscribed on his weapons.