Friday, August 8, 2014

Oracle of Ages & Seasons hidden within Hyrule Warriors!

Lana surrounded by pages of a magic book

We all know that Hyrule Warriors used four Zelda games for their source material and characters: The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. And I'm thinking that the Oracle games also took a great part in that. Not as a direct material source, but as an important influence for their original characters.

I came to this conclusion thinking about the potential sequel (already...), where naturally they would go for Majora's Mask and A Link Between Worlds first, but maybe also some other games. However, I realized that the Oracle games got mostly covered already. Lana is basically a mix of the three Oracles, while the three antagonists Cia, Valga and Wizro are quite similar to Veran, Onox and Vire. Let's take a look:

  • Farore: takes care of the Maku Tree and uses the Book of Secrets ... that's all Lana
  • Nayru: uses a harp to open time portals ... we already got Sheik's harp and Lana's portals
  • Din: wields the Rod of Seasons and likes to dance ... Lana does the dancing, but no Rod so far
  • Veran: sorceress in a sexy dress, who can cast Shadow Links
  • Onox: can transform into a dragon like Valga, Link already got the Ball & Chain
  • Vire: henchman, who likes to fight at distance ... it's Wizro with a devil skin

I'd even say that the villain designs in Hyrule Warriors are much nicer versions of the Oracle villains. And instead of adding the Oracle villains to Hyrule Warriors, they'd rather expand their own ones.

And Lana to me looks like a nice combination of all three Oracles. She has Farore's way of living and a magic book just like her, Nayru's hair and portals and Din's dancing. If they would add the Rod of Seasons as her 4th weapon, it would only complete the picture. If they add Nabooru to the game, we also got Din's visual type already covered.

The one character that's missing is Ralph. But as with the others they'd probably go for their own Ralph. Maybe some guy, who is into Lana and follows her around, while he's jealous of Link. It would create a cliche love triangle, but nothing the games hasn't already done.

There's also the question of rights. The Oracle games, much like The Minish Cap, were created in a cooperation of Nintendo and Capcom and it's not entirely clear, who holds what rights. Nintendo definitely has the publishing rights. But we know for a fact that the music is off limits. The Symphony of the Goddesses was not able to include songs from the Capcom Zeldas, because they hold the rights to the music. Super Smash Bros. Brawl got two stickers from The Minish Cap, but none from Oracles. On the other hand Hyrule Historia got all the artwork from these games ... so, we can't say for sure.

But most likely Koei Tecmo will just continue using the Oracle games as an inspiration, while focusing on Zelda games, which were actually made by Nintendo.

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