*UPDATE:* Hey friends! There are a few errors in this video! (oops) I address those mistakes in THIS video: ➡ th-cam.com/video/w0wtifkouZA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=fPQiWuqyTxxPzyQQ Thanks for watching! ~ Hi friends. Thanks for watching! This project is something I had going on in the background since I started working on my first TOTK dungeon video in September. It began as cataloguing NPCs as I encountered them, but then after I finished my TOTK dungeon series and turned my full attention to this video and my ongoing spreadsheet... it turned out that the scope of what I was doing was much larger than I anticipated. So, my apologies for this video taking longer than usual to produce. These games have SO MANY NPCS. I do have notes on all of them, so if there is any specific character that you're curious about that I didn't mention in the video, please do let me know and I'll try to answer as many of your NPC-related-questions as I can. Hey, also check out this wonderful NPC focused video: th-cam.com/video/7b0fIU_S3oM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=2NTSMe7cjb-sHRJF In a way, that video feels like a companion piece to this one. I was sent it while I was working on my own video, and I gave it a watch after finishing the editing process. Needless to say, it resonated with me. I found it to be incredibly heartwarming. Give it a watch, tell 'em I sent you! EDIT: so weeks of research and I could not find a handful of characters for the life of me. (The 10 mentioned in the video) 1 hour on Twitter and someone managed to track most of them down. Villia and Kass remain missing, but 6 of the other characters have been located thanks to @BOOXMOWO on Twitter. That said, the small handfull of characters doesn’t really change the scope of the study or points made in the video, but hey I’m not infallible is the point. With over 400 returning NPCs a few were bound to slip through the cracks I suppose. EDIT AGAIN: Slight correction. In the video I talk about the stable masters, but someone brought new information to my attention which I’ve verified. The stable masters in fact DO recognize Link (or at least state they have record of him using the stables) if you have BOTW save data, but don’t (as shown in the video) if your profile has no BOTW save data. So, I’d argue they could actually be moved into the “Recognizes Link” category, or at least the “knows of” category. Thanks for being cool! Cheers again
Symin also explicitly welcomes Link back to Hateno. You guys keep leaving him out of these discussions and I don't really get why. It's relevant dialogue to bring up.
@@kit76149I didn’t get into Symin’s dialogue specifically because I didn’t want to get into the debate about it Link and Zelda were living together, as that wasn’t the focus of the video. I can definitely see your point and that it would be relevant to the overall discussion though
@sirei01, I haven't checked other languages, but there are some points I'm getting a translator to look into which I'll talk about in an addendum video in the future, as someone in another comment here told me that apparently Bolson DOES recognize Link in the Japanese version of the game. I'm having a translator look into this to verify, but if so then that does change some things.
Man I hate to say it but dude might be dead. He learned music from his master that's pre-calamity. Idk how long parrots live but he might've been pretty old in BotW. He probably set off after his goals were completed in the dlc and disappeared.
@@LP-zn8sc dunno how long rito lifespans are in general since kass is the same species as those resembling raptors/owls/pelicans, but real macaws actually have super long lifespans (they live like 70 odd years, pet parrots famously tend to outlive their owners)! also, we know kass' teacher was pretty young when he survived the calamity, and we don't know When he taught kass, necessarily, it could have been at any point during the hundred years. kass comes across as middle aged but he never struck me as a super old man, he's also a fairly recent father if his daughters' general ages are anything to go by. point is, thankfully, i highly doubt kass randomly died of old age in between games. that being said, who knows, maybe a lynel got him offscreen or something LOL
Hestu is 1 of the more ridiculous ones that "should remember you, but don't". In BotW Hestu specifically mentions how "its been 100 years since someone was able to see me". Now the same thing happens in TotK, but it's only been like 10 years at most, yet makes no mention of either meeting. Considering how rare it is for a human to see a Korok, you'd think he'd remember more about the ones that do.
Oh no I just realized, what if it hadn't been 100 years since someone last saw Hestu, and he just keeps forgetting about everyone that can see him? (half joking ofc)
I find big year estimates like that pretty absurd personally. Zelda, Link and Tulin should look much older if it has been anything above 5/6 years. Still, you're right that it was silly for Hestu to not remember Link. But I suppose they wanted him to introduce himself for new kids playing this who didn't play the previous game.
Hestu was an interesting one for me. On one hand it's really stupid for him not to remember Link given how many visits the vast majority of BotW players will pay him, but on the other hand his existence is literally just for the sake of a gameplay mechanic so it doesn't matter that much.
I believe everyone in Terrytown knows Link as one of the founders of the town, and everyone Link’s recruited does remember too. Now recognizing Link is a different matter entirely, because he suffers from Tony Hawk syndrome
That is hilarious. I never thought of it that way. Even though folks like Penn who say, wow same name! Or, you look like. . . . but there's no way I'd ever get the chance to meet him. (I'm guessing the latter is effectively Hawk Effect)
'Am I crazy or is that same guy who always travels with the princess?' 'You're crazy. Does that short, blonde, twig-like guy look like a legendary hero to you?'
either a bad thing or a very, very good thing lol! i remember specifically 2 people from my time working retail and one was the nastiest man id met, and the other ws a super sweet lady who bought my coworkers and i drinks and snacks :)!
I always found it odd how so very few people in Hateno recognize him, because even if he didn’t interact much with them, he and Zelda apparently spent a lot of time there in the years between the games. I know at least some of them would be able to recognize the guy that’s always two steps behind the princess.
The people who don't recognize him are mostly store owners, with the rest being ambiguous. Aside from customer service people, I'd argue everyone probably greets Link with the same familiarity he's greeted them over the past half a decade (which is to say, he likely let Zelda do the talking).
@@VidiriIt would be okay if the store owners didn't recognise him in the big city. But in the village where Zelda spends a lot of time and Link seems to be always with or at least lived there it makes less sense. There are not many people living in Hateno village. Like didn't Link interact with the npc's(i'm not talking just about store owners here) there at all during these 5-6 years? Because people there with the exception of Symin don't recognise him. There are these gossipers that know a lot that happens in the village how in the hell they don't recognise link or not know who he is?
This simply leads me to the conclude that Link wasn't living there with her. Clavia (the mayor's wife, stops by the house to sweep the floor every day) mentions how the schoolchildren were always visiting Zelda at her house after school, and those students are in the "Explicitly Doesn't Recognize Link" group. Sefaro even asks Link who he is, to which he gives the "I'm a traveler" answer. So it looks to me like Link stuck by Zelda's side when she traveled, but considered Hateno safe enough that he could leave her there to teach while he tended to other duties.
Yes this is the only thing left that still has me a bit puzzeled. I can understand a lot of Hateno not recognizing Link but a larger portion should. At minimum the Mayor's family should have had the Princess and her protector over for dinner or worked together at building the school.
Another point that shows how much Link avoids recognition is the history lesson side quest with Symin at the schoolhouse. Symin absolutely knows who Link is and the role he played in defeating Calamity Ganon, but doesn't bring it up once in his lesson. I would like to think that Link specifically asked the people close to him to not put him in the spotlight.
Really makes puts Hero's Shade/OoT Link 's grief into perspective given that literally no more than 10 people know his struggle saving the world let alone his existence
The Hero's Shade's grief about not being remembered as a hero is actually a misconception. In the actual game he regretted not being able to pass on his skills to the next generation, the bit about him not being remembered comes from the Hyrule Historia book, which seems to just be straight-up wrong about this.
@@zeddessell Exactly, when Young Link leaves to find Navi in the beginning of MM it states that he was made a legend throughout the kingdom he had saved. Also explaining the new shield he had in MM.
@@solidmeboi5487 This isn't even the only time Hyrule Historia is wrong about Twilight Princess's story. The book also states that Hyrule Castle during the endgame dungeon is covered in Twilight, but it isn't. Hyrule Castle is covered in Twilight at the START of the game, by the endgame the Twilight has long since been dispelled.
@@zeddessell That's the tip of the iceberg. So much more wrong with TP's story in the Historia, like saying Ordona existed as a dragon in Skyward Sword, or that the Mirror of Twilight and Mirror of Darkness in FSA are the same despite them literally being almost opposites in function, and saying the Shadow Links in FSA come from TP Ganondorf's hatred despite the fact FSA says they are the sealed demon tribe from prior to FSA and that their form is simply dictated by the fact FSA Ganon wanted to frame Link and cause chaos and confusion. And it's not even just TP/FSA, pretty much every game has major b.s. in the book
@@chrislevack405 I would too, but specifically I’d demented the -sons. I’d remember the house, but not necessarily the client who shows up at the start and end but not in between. At least not by name.
Because link is Zeldas knight, THE knight, THE most outstanding soldier to be made into one and only princesses knight. Link is not an unknown soldier in that world, if they know of Zelda, they have to know of Link, if they know of master sword they have to know of Link, if they know Purah, they know Link, if they know Paya they know Link. It makes 0 sense for people to not recognize Link is some way
But just because they’ve heard of Link doesn’t mean they would immediately recognize that the guy standing in front of them would be that hero they’ve heard of
In terms of Beetle, i actually disagree on his second dialogue box implying he knows you. To me, it reads as him implying YOU should know HIM. A common tactic among salespeople when in more personal solo settings is to quickly establish rapport with the customer by implying either they already know the salesman or implying they should have via reputation. This was more common decades ago with traveling merchants and door-to-door salesmen who often relied on word of mouth to make a sale. Beetle is such a merchant, traveling between stables to sell his goods. He's even gone so far as to personalize his look and his gear to be as eye-catching and memorable as can be with the "beetle" motif. He doesn't bothing to remember folks, but he sure wants them to remember him. This is esspecially true in the first game with its large quantity of traveling merchants in more drab, common cloths. It really sounds like he's saying "you know me, who doesn't know me? Im the traveling beetle themed merchant." It's meant to either establish rapport by reputation, or trick unknowing customers into acting like they do to save face.
I think he does know, or at least figured it out but has to play dumb so others won't put two and two together through him; so he treats link as any other customer because that's how he probably wants to be treated anyway.
You know. . .you’ve convinced me. It’s not as weird as it felt when I was playing. I think it’s the really egregious ones, like Hestu and Bolson along with all the ambiguous ones makes it feel more like they don’t remember. Put that on top of the complete lack of Shekiah everything it gives an eerie feeling to it.
It's familiar, but different. We remember hyrule from BotW, but all the changes made and things we don't recognize make us feel like strangers who missed out on all of that. It's like when you leave home for a long time, and then come back and all of the sudden there's some new restaurants and shops, a new mall that opened up nearby, some new neighborhoods and apartment complexes, people who you knew from high school got married or have kids now. You still recognize the place, but all of these new changes make you feel uncomfortable because you had grown so used to what was there before, if I explain myself well.
This is a great point, and I’ve been through this exact situation. One of my best friends still lives in the neighborhood that we grew up in. At one point I went to visit him after not having set foot in said neighborhood for years (I live in a different city now) and it was a surreal experience seeing all the new buildings and everything that has changed
You know what's genius about it though? Even if it's frustrating. Every single game is simply a legend being told. The ambiguities of the things that aren't relevant to what's happening in the legend currently being told adds to the unreliable nature of legends in general. Which is how the series as a whole operates on. The specifics of what happened in breath of the wild is in the air....because each player is free to make whatever decision they want....so the legend is being told in many different ways in real time as we play and how we play.
Back in BotW Bolson was just doing transactions with you with the house.. He doesn't even bond much with you since he doesn't do the work as well. I myself know guys irl that have the same attitude of "Business-only" acquiantance but after a few months she/he eventually forgets me.. The only time you get in touch with him again was during the wedding and he's not there for you but for Hudson... So it's really not that weird nor something concerning about.. Hestu on the other hand is just a complete idiot.
I found some new information about Hateno! Apparently if you talk to Manny he will say something along the lines of ‘Just…keep the naive, “I just moved here and won’t somebody show me around?” act to a minimum,” which seems to say Link does live in Hateno but deliberately hiding his identity
I just assumed six years passed between events, mirroring our real world time between the games. Its oddly personal because I was 17 when BoTW came out, so I got to play it as the same age as Link. And now again in ToTK, me and this Link are the same age all over again. Awesome!
Beedle had a reason not to tell Link he knows him. You see, Beedle has to keep his identity as the legendary God of Leg Day secret, after all he has reincarnated alongside the hero and the princess countless times, he was present in Skyward Sword, Wind Waker, Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Botw and now Totk.
Finally someone echos the sentiment I’ve been saying. Most of the characters who don’t recognize Link are “average Joes”, so of course they wouldn’t know a hero who is known for keeping a low profile.
Yes because it makes sense that they wouldn’t recognize the guy that is always guarding princess Zelda. The dude that is her body guard and carries a legendary blade. If they can all recognize Zelda then they can recognize Link too
@@LinkMountaineer She doesn’t have any other personal guards around her. Link was the only with her wherever she goes. This was true even before the calamity.
I also think perhaps Link had interacted with some of the ambiguous NPCs in the time between BoTW and TotK. It was just OUR (as in the players’) first time interacting with them since the first time. Hence why some people seem unfazed or excited to see Link again. It would be weird if each conversation was a callback to past encounters. Real conversations don’t even work that way.
Let's face it, devs and directors doesn't care if in real life things goes one way or another, it's just that there aren't many world changes to support the "Npc explain things" narrative tool, many places in Totk are completely empty and just nothing happens ther, just fillers in between the big locations.
Usually what people are asking is, why does the narrative not reinforce the importance of what you did in the prior game, since you should effectively be one of the most famous people in history? The specificity of phrasing it as specific NPCs having "forgotten" Link seems more to afford the potential to apologize on behalf of the game for its odd choice of tone. The more accurate answer is since it's a stand alone game, they wanted to ensure that Link could patronize most characters he met into explaining things for the player's benefit. The various rationalizations are just that - rationalizations. Link should indeed be incredibly recognized, whether he personally met someone or not. He's a living legend and is shacking up with the leader of all Hyrule.
You can hand wave it off all you like, but the way it's written better aligns with Link's character imho, but I've already laid my argument out in the video. Just because he does something great, doesn't mean he's seeking notoriety
I think there’s additional benefits to having NPC’s forget Link beyond just assisting players who didn’t play BotW. If they had decided to make Link such a widely-known hero, I think dialogue quality would have taken a major hit. Too much dialogue would have to be dedicated to how everyone reacts to seeing Link, whatever reaction they may have. That would have, in my opinion, at least two negative effects: 1. It would add a needless amount of additional dialogue, disrupting pacing and distracting from whatever actually relevant information an NPC may have. 2. It would lead to NPC interactions being incredible grating, because you’d start to see a lot of the same sorts of comments. TotK master works showed concept art for a festival that was originally planned to take place in TotK every once in a while, where people would celebrate the defeat of Ganon by donning blue clothes. Like most cut content in games, there’s certainly a sense that such a festival would have been cool to see. It also certainly shows that Zelda team was at some point considering a more direct acknowledgement of Link’s actions in BotW. But they obviously chose to veer away from such acknowledgement for a reason, and I suspect the reasons I gave above are major contributors. Ultimately, whether the Zelda team made the right call or not is highly subjective. I personally feel they did, I think there are enough ways to justify NPC’s not knowing about Link, and enough pacing benefits to doing so, to make it worthwhile to have them forget him.
I get that logically it makes sense that a large number of NPCs don't remember Link, but it just feels... narratively unsatisfying, I guess, that they don't. Especially having played games like the Mass Effect and Dragon Age trilogies that carry so much over from game to game. I get that this is the first "true direct sequel" in Zelda (Zelda 2, Majora's Mask, and Phantom Hourglass are also direct sequels featuring the same Link, but explicitly take place in a different world/land and only have 1 or 2 returning characters besides Link who appear), but I wish that Nintendo took a leaf out of old BioWare's book and allowed more than just your horses to carry over from save to save. Even if it was something like just adding a simple "oh, it's you" text box to a character's dialogue if TotK detects that you completed that corresponding character's quest in BotW, that would have made this feel just a bit more satisfying. That could have also had some hilarious interactions if you went the speedrun route and only defeated Ganon, where characters like Purah or Impa would barely have any idea who you are.
I do agree that a system that reads your save data to bring things over in regards to character dialogue would have been great, especially since they sorta do play with the idea in regards to your horses and the phot Link displays after the champion’s ballad, but idk I guess I don’t find the lack of notoriety to be narratively unsatisfying personally. I don’t need that from rando characters
Completely agreed. It constantly bugged me personally seeing how most folks didn’t recognize Link at all, although with the reasons given in this video, such was unfortunately justified. At the same time though, it does at least put link in an even better light as a humble hero who never once boasted between games.
By the way, if you like that sort of thing I highly recommend the Trails series. If you've completed the previous game in an arc, it will carry over your save data and actually detect which quests you've completed, and talking to those NPCs in the sequel will give you a response that acknowledges your actions. Hell, some side quests you did in one arc are even acknowledged in different arcs with certain NPCs that travel around the continent. The NPCs in the Trails series are very detailed in general. The amount of dialogue in these games is actually the most of any non Visual Novel games. Easily the best NPCs in gaming in my opinion.
So regarding the Horned Statue I think it might not be able to see and can only sense the essence it trades in, and remember Link lost his hearts in the start so it might be the case that Link appears differently to the Horned Statue because he has less essence than it remembers.
Maybe not even less essence, just different essence. He only keeps the base 3 hearts, so if he talks to it with 30 hearts both times, 90% of the essence is different.
@TheLaXandro On top of that, his arm, and it's implied the rest of him as well, has been soaked in Gloom and then had some other incredibly powerful magic user's arm grafted on, further changing the appearance of his essence
I can’t believe it’s almost been an entire year since tears of the kingdom came out. Feels like yesterday I was counting down the days for the release of TotK. It makes me feel a bit sad too. I lost my childhood cat only a week after TotK came out.
Great breakdown - This is an excellent, thorough analysis! I would also add a couple other reasons why NPCs wouldn’t remember: 1) People can receive several acts of kindness from others over the years, but they’re not going to remember every single person who did something nice for them that one time. So Link’s interaction even if it’s quest related, may not be significant to them. Plus, not realizing who he was when helping them makes him even more forgettable. 2) There’s also the assumption that Link would’ve interacted with every NPC from BotW (I know I certainly didn’t), so if I saw them in TotK, I wouldn’t know them and they wouldn’t know me either… hence leaving the interaction to be ambiguous.
Additionally, the state of mind of the person during the act is kindness could contribute to lack of recognition, such as concern for a missing person.
Why would they not remember link, like be realistic. They should at the very least know that he was the reason Terry town exists, and Bol son is even in business at all. You could even argue that they should know about him killing the blights
@RNGuice ye they probably know of him, but faces are hard to remember if you only see someone once or twice. Hell, I have forgotten all the faces from my high school as it has been years since I have last seen any of them.
OMG exactly this happened to me a couple of years ago- I'm at Walmart or something and this girl goes "hey JP!" And i say hi and "wait.... How do i know you?.... Aren't you normally wearing an apron?" "Yep, i work at Pizza Hut!" And, definitely, outside of the context of her being where she worked and i always saw her, i had NO IDEA until she told me. I knew i recognized her but not from where.
I think Bolson not remembering Link was done on purpose, his character trope in totk kinda suggest he wanted to go on a journey (maybe beyond the sea) but it probably felt short and he was rescued by the people of Lurelin, the way some of his dialogues are it kinda feels like he has partial amnesia
This was masterful work! I think a big reason so many characters were ambiguous about knowing Link is like you said, many players probably wouldn't remember most minor npcs or the writers also probably anticipated a lot of botw players probably didnt meet every side npc. Hestu and Bolson were the only ones that really bothered me. I guess our time with Bolson was a lot more memorable for us than it was for him 🥲.
The only two things that bothered me about Link recognition in TotK were Hateno and Bolson. I feel that the game clearly implies that Link spent most of the 5+ year gap living in or near Hateno. At minimum I expected all the adults to at least know of him. Even if that recognition is as ambiguous as that guy always hanging around our sole surviving monarch. And I would expect the mayor and his family to know exactly who Link is as that is an important thing for the leader of the village hosting the sole surviving monarch to be aware of. Also, you're not taking into account the size of the population. Things are very different in tiny communities like those in Hyrule. People get bored to death in places that small. And that is clearly evident by the healthy number of gossipmongers present there. At some point during the events in Laurel in, Bolson should have shown unambiguous recognition of Link. Bolson made it clear in BotW that Link made an impression on him, and he was involved in both the house quest and the founding of Tarry Town. Aside from those, everything else mostly makes sense. Although I would have written every NPC that was tied to a side quest in BotW to at least recognize that mute guy that helped that one time. Lastly, you have to consider that the people in Hyrule don't have the massive amount of distractions that we do nowadays. There's no internet, no tv, or even any sort of regular entertainment. The few games available are scattered around a rather dangerous world that is difficult to navigate for average folks. They're more likely to remember that one day a few years ago when something of interest finally happened. And even if Link doesn't talk about himself, that doesn't mean others won't. Prince Sidon certainly had no problem talking about his best friend Link who saved his people. So, yeah. A Lot of the shopkeepers, little kids, and most Gerudo not knowing Link at all makes sense. But that's not nearly as believable for Hateno or Bolson or a handful of others.
I don't think the game doesn't show the scale/number of villagers of each settlement/Villages in a 1:1 scale so Hateno could probably have more visitors people in it.. So yes aside from Zelda herself anyone that accompanies her could probably treated as somebody or her bodyguard.. Especially with how "Average" Link looks. With that said.. Link/Zelda isn't probably staying all day/night long in Hateno (Due to how much they travel trying to reach out on each tribe).. I highly doubt that Zelda is even open about who saved her (Since what benefit will it do?) and highly doubt people in there will care anayway since even during the calamity Hateno isn't even that affected much by it... So the Castle being freed by the calamity is just like how America treat Hitler dying/WW2 ended way back then.. It's a big news yes, but as years goes by it just becomes history and people moves on..
Symin also explicitly welcomes Link back to Hateno in English and says "okaeridattandesune" in japanese, or "welcome home" to someone returning. It's odd to do that but I suppose Symin was given returning character privilege or priority here. I'm surprised he skipped over that dialogue honestly.
@@vivid8979 There is nothing to indicate that Hateno isn't exactly the size it is presented at like in earlier games. So as far as I'm concerned it's a 1:1 scale. One could argue for 1:2 scale given that the map was cut in half at one point, but that isn't conclusive. And even then you're underestimating how bored these people would be. Even if you double the population, that's still no more than a tiny hamlet. Everyone will know everyone else's business in no time, and will especially be curious about anyone with greater authority than the mayor. Even with Zelda & Link traveling to the other settlements from time to time, the only established home she has is in Hateno. And everyone in Hateno knows who she is. She even taught at the school she had built. And while she was doing that, Link would be right there with her. You're not going to convince me in any way that the childern and their parents aren't going to be aware of Link under those circumstances. There is no comparison to how people IRL remember WW2 after nearly 80 years and how Hyrule's people remember the end of the Calamity after less than a decade.
Why should Bolson remember Link as more than a random guy he helped build a house for several years ago? We really have no idea what Bolson has been doing since then. For all we know that's the only time he ever saw Link or talked to him until totk.
Honestly since I started playing the game, the only problem I had with NPC's not recognizing Link were people like Beedle, Kilton, Hestu, etc. - i.e. distinct characters that interacted with Link a lot (or, in the case of Kilton, probably * only * interacted with Link) that for some reason doesn't show that it ever met him
Kilton 100% had other customers. There are travellers in BOTW that will give you monster extract if you rescue them and tell you that they got it from Kilton, and there is a side quest at the East Akkala stable with Hoz where he asks for a photo of Kilton because he's heard of him, and Kilton makes people uncomfortable. Link is only ONE of Kilton's customers
37:06 Traysi is awesome, if you interact with her in gerudo town first then interact with her again at the molduking arena she will recognize you and mention that you are disguising yourself!
Bolson has a line of dialogue after you clear the monsters which is "As of today, you and me are pals. And because we're pals, I'm gonna let you help me." Maybe you could argue that his memory isn't very good, but to me it's weird that in BOTW you stop him from demolishing the house, buy all the furniture (he even praises you for buying everything even though you are young), help Hudson build Terry Town, and invite him to a wedding only for him to start calling you a pal during TOTK.
Idk man, their relationship in BOTW is pretty transactional imho. Just because those interactions happen wouldn’t necessarily make them friends any more than I’d be friends with a customer and/or a courier
When you went from "No one in Gerudo Town knew Link because he was in disguise" to "Now, let's talk about shopkeepers and travelers," I think you hit the biggest target without even saying so. "Uh, Link, is he the customer in the heart mask or that dude that looks like a shadow?" Maybe the memory issues are a canonical nod to the NPCs not being able to recognize a dude that wears a different costume every thirty minutes lol. As if Hestu being a big child wasn't reason enough for his memory, Link had a leaf on his face half the time they were talking.
Oh I for sure started with those groups because they were the largest. The Gerudo make up almost a third of that group that doesn’t recognize Link, and getting it out of the way made a lot of sense to me haha. Aside from that, you’re right I didn’t really address outfit changes, though I can’t account for every player playing that way. Truth be told I was pretty consistent in both games with my clothing choices haha, but some players are likely changing outfits far more frequently
@@CaptBurgerson I just happen to be starting the Mattison quest now, and Rhondson's dialogue is the beautiful epitome of your video. She and Hudson are wrapped up in their daughter's needs, barely managing to get into their business mode and talk to the customer before suddenly, verbally, realizing, "Oh wait, it's you!" You couldn't ask for a better example than that.
@@CaptBurgerson Wow you 2 just fixed some of the last issues for me (outside of Hateno). I was never bothered by most of the NPCs not knowing who Link is but Hetsu is one of the few who still bothered me. However, it makes sense that if you are going to be collecting a lot of seeds then the developers expect you to spend most of that time with the Korok mask covering your face! Plus now that I think about it Hetsu always had memory problems in both games. Hetsu seems to have wardered far from the forest for no reason, he doesn't remember how to get home, but after speaking to Link a few minutes the way home just pops back into his head. Then half way to the forest he forgets again and after speaking to Link again the way back home pops back into his head again. I am now conviced everyone makes sense except a few of the people in Hateno village at minimum the Mayor's family should have had Link and Zelda over for dinner and been working closely with them building the school.
i think it should also be considered that Link probably met a handful of the NPCs (like the gerudo jeweller in goron city) only once or twice, before they knew who he was, and then likely didn’t meet them again for a solid four or five years in between games. considering he was traveling with Zelda after that, it makes sense that people would focus on her and not make the connection “that one guy that i sold stuff to/passed through town/helped me out once years ago was actually the legendary hero”. ESPECIALLY if you work in customer service.
I would love to see a video on the NPCs who changed careers in the time between games. Seeing some of the travelers we saw fighting Bokos in BOTW now leading Monster Control Crews in TOTK is super cool!
I'm not sure if it is OK to recommend other channels in comments but there is a video 'What I learned photographing NPCs in TOTK' by Solidarf. He goes in depth about a lot of characters so maybe it will be something that will interest you. If it's not OK, let me know, please, and I'll delete my comment
I had always assumed the "Nobody recognizes Link" thing in TotK was because it was only based on Main Quest interactions and the more world-changing side missions. But it's really interesting to see a breakdown of how many people actually have a better reason for not really recognizing him, and how much of it is Link just being a surprisingly unassuming hero.
This was actually very nice and helped me to understand why not every single persona would recognize Link. This was a video that needed to be made. Thanks.
I think that Nintendo devs probably also realized that not everyone has done every side mission so for returning or first time players this could be your first time meeting them
A lot of people seem to overestimate just how many people would know Link is the Hero, knowing him beyond just a brief interaction. Many of the ambiguous, and probably even some of the "definitely do not remember" characters might actually remember Link... But that memory is limited to "you look familiar", not "oh, hey, you're that guy that bought some arrows from me a few years ago" or "you're that guy that saved me once or twice." Especially if Link hasn't interacted with them since then. I suppose if I wanted to defend some of the questioning of people forgetting Link is actually related to that second part. TotK is somewhat ambiguous regarding what Link has been doing between games. It's often shown that Zelda was travelling around, helping out everywhere. Planning locations for bridges and hiring Hudson Construction to build them, opening trade between settlements, basically doing things you would expect a Princess to do when rebuilding her kingdom, and more with things like gardening with Magda. And a lot of times, it's implied Link was there with her, returning to his role as her appointed knight and protector. And yet through the newspaper side quests, it's also implied there is so much she did without Link's knowledge. If Link had been with her when she borrowed tools to help plant a garden with Magda, then that entire quest wouldn't have really been anything, Link would have known exactly where the tools were, that they were borrowed or "taken" long before Zelda disappeared, and the guy mentioning she did all of that would have seen Link and recognized him. So Link was with her for some of the stuff she was doing, but not for everything she did, and we have no idea how much he was there for. Whatever he was there for, characters should recognize him at least from his travels with Zelda between games, but as for what he wasn't there for, it doesn't matter if it was with someone he met in BotW, it's been years since he interacted with them. Pretty sure Link himself doesn't remember most of them either. Players only remember because we are outside of the game's timeline and can go back and replay BotW right away or look up online who they are. Otherwise, we'd maybe remember one or two of the more memorable ones.
I think they were traveling together, but Link would have to hunt for their meals or fend off monsters from time to time. As for Magda, maybe the trauma of seeing her again made him block out that memory.
I legit had someone who worked at a shawarma place I went to every now and then, recognize me 5 years later at a DIFFERENT SHAWARMA PLACE and I had no idea it was them. And I'm like, how do you remember me, you meet so many people.
when they mention it, i usually do have a vague idea of who they are. but one time one guy mentioned he saw me there a few times over the past week and wondered if they ever gave me a day off (part time but work like 5 days a week) and went home contemplating my decisions
My sister met a celebrity, one she knew of fairly well, and asked him if he worked with our dad. It only took seeing him again on tv for her to recognise him.
I now actually want to see this from the perspective of someone who played btow the day or year of release, beaten it, maybe gone back to play the dlc but never played it since. Maybe they have forgotten as much as the characters in totk.
True story: A close relative used to work in air ambulance. Many years ago, there was a huge catastrophe at sea where he was one of the first people coming to help and pick people up from the sea (or ocean) into the helicopter. Things were going really fast. Not exactly time to chat with the people he saved. 20+ years later, in a gas station, he was about to pay for gas, but the clerk suddenly went: “YOU SAVED MY LIFE BACK THEN” So I think NPCs would totally remember someone who saved their life that one time years ago, because it does happen IRL
There was literally no one around Hyrule Field when Link beat Ganon there though. And no one except for Link, Impa, and King Rhoam knew that Zelda's seal on Ganon was weakening.
@@wildberrysherbert3803highly doubt know one saw the final fight with dark beast ganon Even then there’s no way news of someone bringing back Zelda and saving the world wouldn’t spread like wild fire
@@wildberrysherbert3803 true And they would probably think it was all Zelda who freed herself and beat ganon however Zelda has enough integrity to not herself steal the credit of link’s hard work, at least I’d hope so
And then there is also the Superman-effect: You put on glasses and people suddenly do not recognize you anymore. Happened to me, I am not kidding. Fun video, really enjoyed it 😊
@@katria2412 I think it’s also the fact that in canon, link dresses pretty normally. We as the player tend to get pretty carried away equipping link with the wackiest shit we can get away with, but especially when he’s not in combat, Link pretty much looks like the average hylian.
Good points. :D I appreciate you just straight-up saying Hestu's a dummy for not remembering Link. I think overall, this argument falls less on the side of frustration that the characters couldn't possibly 'not' remember Link, and more on the side of people being disappointed that they didn't make use of the many excuses they had TO remember him in his one and only sequel. The Gerudo interaction with him I actually loved, and I've always appreciated the Zoras and their long memories, but wish they'd taken advantage of that more often.
I roleplay it off as link always wore a hood or helmet hiding his face so most people just knew him as the wandering swordsman who is one of two people in the world with that shade of blonde hair
I'm an introvert, people who work at the local places I frequent will recognize me and some of my neighbors (including ones I have never personally met according to my roomate) know me because I feed and pet the stray cats at my apartment complex.
So places you’re a frequent customer to rather than places you haven’t visited in a while. Sure. Neighbours recognize you because you have a habit that makes you stand out. Do you think if you initiated a conversation with those neighbours who you admit you’ve never spoken to, that they’d act super chummy with you and know you by name?
A+ video! The reasoning you provided behind certain people not knowing Link makes perfect sense, especially with the coffee shop comparisons. You even made me view it more positively as someone who already wasn't very bothered by it in the first place. I had wished for them to have commited to Link living in Hateno VIllage and its people knowing him, but I mostly justified it with the fact that Zelda has been VERY busy in the years between games, and Link being at her side at all times means he wouldn't be spending much time in the village. Beyond that, your points about everyone having their own lives in this chaotic world and Link not being very talkative in his free time do easily explain things. The bottom line is, it really isn't necessary for NPCs to reference one or two conversations that took place years ago in Breath of the Wild, and not only is Link not the kind of person to seek recognition for his achievements, your point about it getting redundant for everyone to acknowledge who he is kinda gives us a reason why; he would just get really tired of it. 😂 It does admittedly bother me a bit when people say Tears of the Kingdom feels disconnected from Breath of the Wild and only list this and the Sheikah Tech as the reasons. You can argue about how well handled these were, and I personally would've liked for some book somewhere in the world to explain how we went from Breath of the Wild's tech to Skyview Towers and the Purah Pad, but it's such a small part of the Wild era's worldbuilding. Most of it is only there to enhance the gameplay experience by providing things such as maps, gameplay mechanics and side quests. Beyond that, all the major characters know Link and still feel like the same people, and there are several references to the Great Calamity and the Champions.
Its logical that shopkeepers wouldn't remember you but they're the npc youll talk the most during gameplay, and you're most likely to seek/return to them that's why it's so easy to feel like nobody remembers you! It's not only logical from a lore standpoint but also for gameplay, reintroducing "the guy who sells stuff™ is going easy on new players so they don't feel confused. I feel like everyone has a favorite npc, and when they don't remember you/or have few interactions, you can feel neglected
A perfect encapsulation of this topic, honestly. You hit EVERY talking point and gave each one just enough attention. This video has made me feel a lot better about TOTK's NPCs overall. Still heartbroken over Hestu though.
Frankly, it makes sense why most NPCs wouldn't recognize Link. Would YOU remember some random guy you met in passing? It doesn't matter if Link saved the world or not, they don't have the Internet or widespread news (well, they do, but cameras aren't a publicly used invention so most of the newspapers wouldn't have photos) so why would they recognize him? Its not like Link speaks up and tells them "hey I'm the hero who saved Hyrule from the Calamity" or anything. And ADDITIONALLY, not everyone's played Botw before. And even those who _have_ might not have spoken to every single NPC during their playthrough. As cool as it would have been for everyone to recognize him, it would be off-putting for literally EVERYONE IN THE WORLD to know who Link is.
31:10 the problem i find with this is Cottla still looks the same as she did in BOTW in TOTK. She was the only child NPC who did not change visually which is...concerning. And her and Koko both looked the same back in BOTW but only Koko grew up larger. I feel this is something to take into account when it comes to how much time has passed.
This video does a few great things. It shows how much Tears actually built upon just the relationships from the first game, it also shows how much of a great silent protagonist this iteration of Link is. On top of that, you basically put into words the feeling I had everytime I heard people talk about Link being forgotten.
That’s not untrue, but tons of stuff gets filmed in Vancouver as well. Deadpool, Supernatural, Fringe, those CW DC shows, X files back in the day, fricken Riverdale of all things, tons of movies. I could go on. I’m almost certain that it’s because studios can get tax breaks by filming here but it’s good for the job market Edit: huh, just found out that Netflix’s live action Avatar: The Last Airbender was also filmed here 🫠
Another thing to consider- being a sequel game means some things in BotW aren’t canon. Maybe these NPCs don’t recognize us because we canonically never met them.
They could've based the events that "did or didn't happen" on your save file. They already let you 'carry over' your horses and if you beat the Champions Ballad.
@@King_Luigi You don't need to beat Champion's Ballad. You just need to have save data for BOTW on that profile. I haven't beaten the Champion's Ballad on my other two profiles but all my horses carry over anyways.
Link canonically did everything major. Things like botw's true ending are confirmed canon to totk. It assumes a %100 even, since many korok puzzles are undoing ones from botw.
@@InkMossDragon You misunderstand. Note that I said "and" if you beat the DLC. I was referring to 2 separate things there. Horses & the Champion photo.
Great video, which really made me think back to moments where I saw an old friend working in a bakery and I just acted like a normal customer, and it was only when I left that I recognised him. I then said hello but left as it was quite busy. For context he and i were childhood friends for years and I felt really embarrassed for not recognising him. Just goes to show the limitations of human memory. Great introspection at the end
When I played I was like "finally people now know Link". After years of not being a know hero, he is recognized by several. But It makes sense for some people to still not know who he is, how the calamity was ended and by who, or remember If he hasn't seen them in several years when you have a world that big and post- apocalyptic. There's also many more theories like Link's desire for secrecy or the Upheaval decaying people's memories as it did weapons to stumble Link's quest. Several things could be said. It's better for everyone's mental health If we not question Zelda continuity lol.
Link is pretty memorable because like nobody actually walks around with weapons. The actual soldiers all have the same three weapons. He also is like the only human to have a shield, bow and sword on at the same time.
My theory is that most Hylians probably have some awareness of Link or is hero of Hyrule title but they imagine a larger than life muscle bound champion with an awesome sword amazing hair and so on. When you a hear a name like that your first won't be a shorter than average soft spoken blonde haired dude who looks to be somewere between his late teens and early 20's
considering the nonzero amount of NPC's who mention the master sword (and the guy attached to it I guess) or simply call link "hey swordsman" I think you might be onto something...
This was perfect! So many points I never even thought about. It definitely makes so much more sense now, I didn't even remember the NPCs in ToTK that I had in BoTW of course a vast majority of people either don't recognize me or are ambiguous. Even people that I worked with a few years ago I had trouble recognizing when we they saw me out in public recently. Again amazing video!!😤😤🙌🙌
I love that you bring up retail for this, have been thinking the same for a lot of the NPCs that don't recognize Link - I remember working retail, and probably more than half the time, if I recognized them by name it meant they were *dreadful* to deal with 😂 The other half were exceptionally kind customers, but even though Link is a sweetheart to most folks he does seem to be rather in-and-out for shopping. Even for people he's done favors for!
I didn’t really have much of an expectation for every returning NPCs from BotW being able to recognize me in TotK (mainly because I didn’t even talk to every single person I met; just a vast majority of them), but it’s nice to have some pretty accurate statistics on the matter!
Your story about not recognizing your uncle reminds me of the time i ALSO didnt recognize one of my uncles as a kid, when he pulled up with his vehicle as i was walking home from the bus stop to say hi. I IMMEDIATELY went running into the woods and took that way home, and my mom was both proud of me for following my stranger danger instructions but also amused by the fact i didn't recognize him.
I think everyone who says that no one in TOTK recognizes Link has to remember Why would they? First off, *we* know almost everything going on because we have cell phones. We're updated every minute about everything ever. They don't. They live in ancient times. We have to remember that. Hell, back in the fucking 80's getting news wasn't constant, and last I checked TOTK takes place a long time before 1980. Second off, *why* would they recognize him? To most people, Link is that one guy who stopped at their store if that. Yes there was a battle in Hyrule Field Which was empty other than you and Ganon so who's there to photograph it? Link may be taught in schools but then only the kids know who he is So yeah why should anyone know you other than people in main/major quests in BOTW?
And to add on to that, I bet a LOT more people would recognize Link if he was with Princess Zelda. Without that context many might not think twice about the random traveler that looks vaguely familiar somehow (as they probably get that a lot)
Excellent video, couldn’t have put it better myself. I appreciate how hard and time consuming it must’ve been trying to track everyone from between games to get this kind of data. But the hard numbers are what make the whole thing worth it and strengthen the argument. The ambiguous category is incredibly valuable and that group of NPCs being ambiguous definitely does a lot of work that I think is good for players to be able to fill in on their own. I also worked retail at one company in 2 locations for 6 years so I am right there with you on the logic for all the merchants and shopkeepers. And yeah I’ve taken to thinking 6 years is probably the right answer. I know different departments work on different games but if we look at the Splatoon releases they do a “real world time = time between sequels” thing and given the growth of the kids in TotK, the Zelda team probably have a similar philosophy for time.
Really well done and thank you for such a in-depth research. You made me change my mind and I could clarify and understand something I was uslessy upset about.
It's lovely to see a reasonable and open mind in all the unthinking reactionary we often see online. I hope I can also be such when presented with evidence. Have a lovely day .
37:10 this right here is why superman's disguise works so well. You wouldn't think superman is a shy kinda introverted farmboy working for the daily bugle, so even tho they look similar.... you still don't make the connection
Maaaaaan I appreciate the insane level of research and effort that went into this! And it turned out so well!! Nicely done! Also, very much agree with the final analysis!
I really appreciate all the wisdom you put into this video, The video itself is already really good but I really like how many different perspectives and examples you included to support your points
I really can’t stress enough how good this video is and how much effort was clearly put into it. I can’t imagine how long this took to do. Thank you so much for doing this. You raised so many good points, and genuinely changed my mind on a few things, as well. I love the idea that the Hateno villagers see Zelda all the time and she always returns to that house, and that’s why they call it her house, but they don’t realize someone else lives there too 😂
You recomended the npc video and i gotta admit, watching this video reminded me of it (and why i like to watch the npcs and learn about their lives), also amazing research! (on another note the moment you talked about every npc explicit remembering Link in their introduciton speech _that_ already sounded like a chore and annoying game design) I do still think the devs fumbled with Hestu and Beedle, but I can understand the puzzle koroks not recognizing Link, it can be that the ones in the gsi never met link before, after all there's a 100 more koroks, Link had a 1-in-10 chance to meet a new one if you need more empirical evidence: one time when buying yugioh cards as a _teen_ the shopkeeper gave me, at the time, three cards that were amazing in the meta, 6-7 years later I wanted to give these cards to an oc and I couldn't for the life of me remember how that man looked like. I still remember his act of kindness tho
This was an amazing presentation! I love the data, and can't imagine all the effort that went into making this. I wish I had more to add to the discussion, bit this video explains things so well! Bravo! Thanks for bringing us to this!
I think the distribution makes sense, there's just a few egregious examples that are weird. I more have an issue that nobody in Hyrule seems to have seen the giant flaming pig firing mouth lasers immediately after the divine beasts fired four giant lasers at the same time towards the castle in the most visible part of Hyrule.
Honestly the sentiment of people not recognizing Link was always one I didn't feel and was curious why others felt that way. I guess this is what Hestu does to someone.
Hestu and Stable owners not recognizing Link is explainable with beeing a gameplay mechanic. Not solid but gives more focus on collecting stables and seeds.
It was truly a missed opportunity we never had a "link-a-like" named jerry or something who was just a Link-substitute that people could associate as Zelda's other guard.
Ah poor Ratatoskr. “We had a moment”. Sorry mate, Bolson had a moment and we were just there for it. Also, it’s a good point that we barely have the printing press, I did not at all consider how slow information must travel in Hyrule of this era.
Also thanks for this because I saw people claim that TotK doesn't follow BotW and it's some like alternate dimension or timeline and I just cannot understand how they came to that conclusion. Those that really matter remember Link.
Especially for the people who are very personally aquainted with Zelda, you would think they would at least recognize the guy whos always around her. I was expecting at least a "oh, you're Zelda's knight - do you know what happened to her?" But we rarely got that much. I'm also firmly in the "Zelda moved into Link's house, theres only one bed, but two table sets, they're lovers" camp so I totally get that I probably overestimate Link's influence, especially for Hateno.
Dude, you have blown me away with all of your data 😝 this was such a huge undertaking!!! Wonderful video as always, and valid argument (also as always). I love that you pulled actual examples from your life in to support your points too! Psychology actually makes us all pretty predictable lol 😝 great video!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🎉
*UPDATE:* Hey friends! There are a few errors in this video! (oops) I address those mistakes in THIS video:
➡ th-cam.com/video/w0wtifkouZA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=fPQiWuqyTxxPzyQQ
Thanks for watching!
~ Hi friends. Thanks for watching!
This project is something I had going on in the background since I started working on my first TOTK dungeon video in September. It began as cataloguing NPCs as I encountered them, but then after I finished my TOTK dungeon series and turned my full attention to this video and my ongoing spreadsheet... it turned out that the scope of what I was doing was much larger than I anticipated. So, my apologies for this video taking longer than usual to produce. These games have SO MANY NPCS.
I do have notes on all of them, so if there is any specific character that you're curious about that I didn't mention in the video, please do let me know and I'll try to answer as many of your NPC-related-questions as I can.
Hey, also check out this wonderful NPC focused video:
th-cam.com/video/7b0fIU_S3oM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=2NTSMe7cjb-sHRJF
In a way, that video feels like a companion piece to this one. I was sent it while I was working on my own video, and I gave it a watch after finishing the editing process. Needless to say, it resonated with me. I found it to be incredibly heartwarming. Give it a watch, tell 'em I sent you!
EDIT: so weeks of research and I could not find a handful of characters for the life of me. (The 10 mentioned in the video)
1 hour on Twitter and someone managed to track most of them down. Villia and Kass remain missing, but 6 of the other characters have been located thanks to @BOOXMOWO on Twitter.
That said, the small handfull of characters doesn’t really change the scope of the study or points made in the video, but hey I’m not infallible is the point. With over 400 returning NPCs a few were bound to slip through the cracks I suppose.
EDIT AGAIN: Slight correction. In the video I talk about the stable masters, but someone brought new information to my attention which I’ve verified. The stable masters in fact DO recognize Link (or at least state they have record of him using the stables) if you have BOTW save data, but don’t (as shown in the video) if your profile has no BOTW save data. So, I’d argue they could actually be moved into the “Recognizes Link” category, or at least the “knows of” category.
Thanks for being cool!
Cheers again
Symin also explicitly welcomes Link back to Hateno. You guys keep leaving him out of these discussions and I don't really get why. It's relevant dialogue to bring up.
@@kit76149I didn’t get into Symin’s dialogue specifically because I didn’t want to get into the debate about it Link and Zelda were living together, as that wasn’t the focus of the video. I can definitely see your point and that it would be relevant to the overall discussion though
@@sirei01 Only a bilingual can do that properly
Does totk's botw carry over data affect this in any way?
@sirei01, I haven't checked other languages, but there are some points I'm getting a translator to look into which I'll talk about in an addendum video in the future, as someone in another comment here told me that apparently Bolson DOES recognize Link in the Japanese version of the game. I'm having a translator look into this to verify, but if so then that does change some things.
Kass forgot about Link:❎
Nintendo forgot about Kass:✅
In totk you can talk to another rito who will say that 'there was a bard who practiced his arts here'
Kass went on to travel the greater world to share the tale of links adventure through song ✅
Man I hate to say it but dude might be dead. He learned music from his master that's pre-calamity. Idk how long parrots live but he might've been pretty old in BotW. He probably set off after his goals were completed in the dlc and disappeared.
@@LP-zn8sc dunno how long rito lifespans are in general since kass is the same species as those resembling raptors/owls/pelicans, but real macaws actually have super long lifespans (they live like 70 odd years, pet parrots famously tend to outlive their owners)! also, we know kass' teacher was pretty young when he survived the calamity, and we don't know When he taught kass, necessarily, it could have been at any point during the hundred years. kass comes across as middle aged but he never struck me as a super old man, he's also a fairly recent father if his daughters' general ages are anything to go by. point is, thankfully, i highly doubt kass randomly died of old age in between games. that being said, who knows, maybe a lynel got him offscreen or something LOL
But: Dany kinda forgot the iron fleet.
When the guy who spent the entire first game recovering his memories criticizes 400 random people for not remembering him.
Well he was in a coma for 100 years.
@CZsWorld Fair. BTW, love your videos.
Well to be fair he was having the best nap humanly possible for like 100 year straight
@@Steampunk_enjoyer and his idle animation in breath of the wild is still nodding off to sleep. He’s just like me fr fr
@@spangebred328 same
Hestu is 1 of the more ridiculous ones that "should remember you, but don't".
In BotW Hestu specifically mentions how "its been 100 years since someone was able to see me".
Now the same thing happens in TotK, but it's only been like 10 years at most, yet makes no mention of either meeting.
Considering how rare it is for a human to see a Korok, you'd think he'd remember more about the ones that do.
Oh no I just realized, what if it hadn't been 100 years since someone last saw Hestu, and he just keeps forgetting about everyone that can see him? (half joking ofc)
I find big year estimates like that pretty absurd personally. Zelda, Link and Tulin should look much older if it has been anything above 5/6 years. Still, you're right that it was silly for Hestu to not remember Link. But I suppose they wanted him to introduce himself for new kids playing this who didn't play the previous game.
Hestu is blind. (Idk maybe xD)
i dont think ten years. Because Koko would look much older. I firmly believe six years
Hestu was an interesting one for me. On one hand it's really stupid for him not to remember Link given how many visits the vast majority of BotW players will pay him, but on the other hand his existence is literally just for the sake of a gameplay mechanic so it doesn't matter that much.
I believe everyone in Terrytown knows Link as one of the founders of the town, and everyone Link’s recruited does remember too. Now recognizing Link is a different matter entirely, because he suffers from Tony Hawk syndrome
HE DOES SUFFER FROM TONY HAWK SYNDROME LMAOO perfect way to phrase it
That is hilarious. I never thought of it that way. Even though folks like Penn who say, wow same name! Or, you look like. . . . but there's no way I'd ever get the chance to meet him. (I'm guessing the latter is effectively Hawk Effect)
"Huh, that looks just like the legendary blade wielded by the heroic swordsman who saved Hyrule a few years back. I wonder what he's up to"
This.
"has anyone ever told you that you look like the princess' knight?"
"yeah i get that a lot"
'Am I crazy or is that same guy who always travels with the princess?'
'You're crazy. Does that short, blonde, twig-like guy look like a legendary hero to you?'
if a retail worker rembers you; ***THATS A BAD THING!!***
Unless you’re in a very small town, then it’s up in the air on why lol
The people at the kebab shop I go to remember me and my order preference. T___T
i feel like it’s even worse when a customer points out that they saw me the other day
either a bad thing or a very, very good thing lol!
i remember specifically 2 people from my time working retail and one was the nastiest man id met, and the other ws a super sweet lady who bought my coworkers and i drinks and snacks :)!
that one arrow lady should remeber him though because she thought he was hot (she's right)
I always found it odd how so very few people in Hateno recognize him, because even if he didn’t interact much with them, he and Zelda apparently spent a lot of time there in the years between the games. I know at least some of them would be able to recognize the guy that’s always two steps behind the princess.
The people who don't recognize him are mostly store owners, with the rest being ambiguous. Aside from customer service people, I'd argue everyone probably greets Link with the same familiarity he's greeted them over the past half a decade (which is to say, he likely let Zelda do the talking).
@@Vidiri they dont remember ink at all.... even the school kids that see zelda daily
@@VidiriIt would be okay if the store owners didn't recognise him in the big city. But in the village where Zelda spends a lot of time and Link seems to be always with or at least lived there it makes less sense. There are not many people living in Hateno village. Like didn't Link interact with the npc's(i'm not talking just about store owners here) there at all during these 5-6 years? Because people there with the exception of Symin don't recognise him. There are these gossipers that know a lot that happens in the village how in the hell they don't recognise link or not know who he is?
This simply leads me to the conclude that Link wasn't living there with her. Clavia (the mayor's wife, stops by the house to sweep the floor every day) mentions how the schoolchildren were always visiting Zelda at her house after school, and those students are in the "Explicitly Doesn't Recognize Link" group. Sefaro even asks Link who he is, to which he gives the "I'm a traveler" answer.
So it looks to me like Link stuck by Zelda's side when she traveled, but considered Hateno safe enough that he could leave her there to teach while he tended to other duties.
Yes this is the only thing left that still has me a bit puzzeled. I can understand a lot of Hateno not recognizing Link but a larger portion should. At minimum the Mayor's family should have had the Princess and her protector over for dinner or worked together at building the school.
Another point that shows how much Link avoids recognition is the history lesson side quest with Symin at the schoolhouse. Symin absolutely knows who Link is and the role he played in defeating Calamity Ganon, but doesn't bring it up once in his lesson. I would like to think that Link specifically asked the people close to him to not put him in the spotlight.
Hey link do you want to be in the history books?
...
Your silence speaks volumes!
New favorite headcanon
Link's picture (drawn by one of the kids) DOES appear on the wall after you complete the school quests, though!
@@Swiftbow that's because the kid who drew the picture recognized Links Short King status and had to draw him.
Really makes puts Hero's Shade/OoT Link 's grief into perspective given that literally no more than 10 people know his struggle saving the world let alone his existence
One of the biggest griefs in life is to know you're not important for someone who IS important to you. It's really heartbreaking
The Hero's Shade's grief about not being remembered as a hero is actually a misconception. In the actual game he regretted not being able to pass on his skills to the next generation, the bit about him not being remembered comes from the Hyrule Historia book, which seems to just be straight-up wrong about this.
@@zeddessell Exactly, when Young Link leaves to find Navi in the beginning of MM it states that he was made a legend throughout the kingdom he had saved. Also explaining the new shield he had in MM.
@@solidmeboi5487 This isn't even the only time Hyrule Historia is wrong about Twilight Princess's story. The book also states that Hyrule Castle during the endgame dungeon is covered in Twilight, but it isn't. Hyrule Castle is covered in Twilight at the START of the game, by the endgame the Twilight has long since been dispelled.
@@zeddessell That's the tip of the iceberg. So much more wrong with TP's story in the Historia, like saying Ordona existed as a dragon in Skyward Sword, or that the Mirror of Twilight and Mirror of Darkness in FSA are the same despite them literally being almost opposites in function, and saying the Shadow Links in FSA come from TP Ganondorf's hatred despite the fact FSA says they are the sealed demon tribe from prior to FSA and that their form is simply dictated by the fact FSA Ganon wanted to frame Link and cause chaos and confusion.
And it's not even just TP/FSA, pretty much every game has major b.s. in the book
he is the quietest in a duo of journalists and saves the days in his free time. he is the Clark kent of totk.
Why would Bolson think anything of Link other than “that one guy I built a house for before retiring.”
It was his magnum opus! His last hurrah! And he got all the other -sons together to reform his glory! I would remember that.
I mean, he squatted in front of my house!!!!
@@chrislevack405 I would too, but specifically I’d demented the -sons. I’d remember the house, but not necessarily the client who shows up at the start and end but not in between. At least not by name.
Because link is Zeldas knight, THE knight, THE most outstanding soldier to be made into one and only princesses knight. Link is not an unknown soldier in that world, if they know of Zelda, they have to know of Link, if they know of master sword they have to know of Link, if they know Purah, they know Link, if they know Paya they know Link. It makes 0 sense for people to not recognize Link is some way
But just because they’ve heard of Link doesn’t mean they would immediately recognize that the guy standing in front of them would be that hero they’ve heard of
In terms of Beetle, i actually disagree on his second dialogue box implying he knows you.
To me, it reads as him implying YOU should know HIM. A common tactic among salespeople when in more personal solo settings is to quickly establish rapport with the customer by implying either they already know the salesman or implying they should have via reputation. This was more common decades ago with traveling merchants and door-to-door salesmen who often relied on word of mouth to make a sale.
Beetle is such a merchant, traveling between stables to sell his goods. He's even gone so far as to personalize his look and his gear to be as eye-catching and memorable as can be with the "beetle" motif.
He doesn't bothing to remember folks, but he sure wants them to remember him. This is esspecially true in the first game with its large quantity of traveling merchants in more drab, common cloths.
It really sounds like he's saying "you know me, who doesn't know me? Im the traveling beetle themed merchant."
It's meant to either establish rapport by reputation, or trick unknowing customers into acting like they do to save face.
I think he does know, or at least figured it out but has to play dumb so others won't put two and two together through him; so he treats link as any other customer because that's how he probably wants to be treated anyway.
You know. . .you’ve convinced me. It’s not as weird as it felt when I was playing. I think it’s the really egregious ones, like Hestu and Bolson along with all the ambiguous ones makes it feel more like they don’t remember. Put that on top of the complete lack of Shekiah everything it gives an eerie feeling to it.
Hestu WHYYYYY
It's familiar, but different. We remember hyrule from BotW, but all the changes made and things we don't recognize make us feel like strangers who missed out on all of that.
It's like when you leave home for a long time, and then come back and all of the sudden there's some new restaurants and shops, a new mall that opened up nearby, some new neighborhoods and apartment complexes, people who you knew from high school got married or have kids now. You still recognize the place, but all of these new changes make you feel uncomfortable because you had grown so used to what was there before, if I explain myself well.
This is a great point, and I’ve been through this exact situation. One of my best friends still lives in the neighborhood that we grew up in. At one point I went to visit him after not having set foot in said neighborhood for years (I live in a different city now) and it was a surreal experience seeing all the new buildings and everything that has changed
You know what's genius about it though? Even if it's frustrating.
Every single game is simply a legend being told. The ambiguities of the things that aren't relevant to what's happening in the legend currently being told adds to the unreliable nature of legends in general. Which is how the series as a whole operates on. The specifics of what happened in breath of the wild is in the air....because each player is free to make whatever decision they want....so the legend is being told in many different ways in real time as we play and how we play.
Back in BotW Bolson was just doing transactions with you with the house.. He doesn't even bond much with you since he doesn't do the work as well. I myself know guys irl that have the same attitude of "Business-only" acquiantance but after a few months she/he eventually forgets me..
The only time you get in touch with him again was during the wedding and he's not there for you but for Hudson... So it's really not that weird nor something concerning about..
Hestu on the other hand is just a complete idiot.
I found some new information about Hateno! Apparently if you talk to Manny he will say something along the lines of ‘Just…keep the naive, “I just moved here and won’t somebody show me around?” act to a minimum,” which seems to say Link does live in Hateno but deliberately hiding his identity
I just assumed six years passed between events, mirroring our real world time between the games.
Its oddly personal because I was 17 when BoTW came out, so I got to play it as the same age as Link. And now again in ToTK, me and this Link are the same age all over again. Awesome!
Same here!
unfortunately you're exactly 100 years younger than Link
Beedle had a reason not to tell Link he knows him. You see, Beedle has to keep his identity as the legendary God of Leg Day secret, after all he has reincarnated alongside the hero and the princess countless times, he was present in Skyward Sword, Wind Waker, Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Botw and now Totk.
Finally someone echos the sentiment I’ve been saying. Most of the characters who don’t recognize Link are “average Joes”, so of course they wouldn’t know a hero who is known for keeping a low profile.
Yes because it makes sense that they wouldn’t recognize the guy that is always guarding princess Zelda. The dude that is her body guard and carries a legendary blade.
If they can all recognize Zelda then they can recognize Link too
@@itachi93674 They lived in a house on the outskirts of Hateno and, once again, Link keeps a low profile. They probably saw him as just another guard.
@@LinkMountaineer She doesn’t have any other personal guards around her. Link was the only with her wherever she goes. This was true even before the calamity.
@@itachi93674 You don’t think Hateno would be safe enough she could stroll the village without a guard?
@@LinkMountaineer Considering the yiga exist and can literslly look and sound like anyone they wabt INCLUDING Zelda. No i fo not think so
I also think perhaps Link had interacted with some of the ambiguous NPCs in the time between BoTW and TotK. It was just OUR (as in the players’) first time interacting with them since the first time. Hence why some people seem unfazed or excited to see Link again. It would be weird if each conversation was a callback to past encounters. Real conversations don’t even work that way.
Let's face it, devs and directors doesn't care if in real life things goes one way or another, it's just that there aren't many world changes to support the "Npc explain things" narrative tool, many places in Totk are completely empty and just nothing happens ther, just fillers in between the big locations.
Usually what people are asking is, why does the narrative not reinforce the importance of what you did in the prior game, since you should effectively be one of the most famous people in history? The specificity of phrasing it as specific NPCs having "forgotten" Link seems more to afford the potential to apologize on behalf of the game for its odd choice of tone. The more accurate answer is since it's a stand alone game, they wanted to ensure that Link could patronize most characters he met into explaining things for the player's benefit. The various rationalizations are just that - rationalizations. Link should indeed be incredibly recognized, whether he personally met someone or not. He's a living legend and is shacking up with the leader of all Hyrule.
You can hand wave it off all you like, but the way it's written better aligns with Link's character imho, but I've already laid my argument out in the video. Just because he does something great, doesn't mean he's seeking notoriety
I think there’s additional benefits to having NPC’s forget Link beyond just assisting players who didn’t play BotW. If they had decided to make Link such a widely-known hero, I think dialogue quality would have taken a major hit. Too much dialogue would have to be dedicated to how everyone reacts to seeing Link, whatever reaction they may have. That would have, in my opinion, at least two negative effects:
1. It would add a needless amount of additional dialogue, disrupting pacing and distracting from whatever actually relevant information an NPC may have.
2. It would lead to NPC interactions being incredible grating, because you’d start to see a lot of the same sorts of comments.
TotK master works showed concept art for a festival that was originally planned to take place in TotK every once in a while, where people would celebrate the defeat of Ganon by donning blue clothes. Like most cut content in games, there’s certainly a sense that such a festival would have been cool to see. It also certainly shows that Zelda team was at some point considering a more direct acknowledgement of Link’s actions in BotW. But they obviously chose to veer away from such acknowledgement for a reason, and I suspect the reasons I gave above are major contributors. Ultimately, whether the Zelda team made the right call or not is highly subjective. I personally feel they did, I think there are enough ways to justify NPC’s not knowing about Link, and enough pacing benefits to doing so, to make it worthwhile to have them forget him.
I get that logically it makes sense that a large number of NPCs don't remember Link, but it just feels... narratively unsatisfying, I guess, that they don't. Especially having played games like the Mass Effect and Dragon Age trilogies that carry so much over from game to game.
I get that this is the first "true direct sequel" in Zelda (Zelda 2, Majora's Mask, and Phantom Hourglass are also direct sequels featuring the same Link, but explicitly take place in a different world/land and only have 1 or 2 returning characters besides Link who appear), but I wish that Nintendo took a leaf out of old BioWare's book and allowed more than just your horses to carry over from save to save. Even if it was something like just adding a simple "oh, it's you" text box to a character's dialogue if TotK detects that you completed that corresponding character's quest in BotW, that would have made this feel just a bit more satisfying. That could have also had some hilarious interactions if you went the speedrun route and only defeated Ganon, where characters like Purah or Impa would barely have any idea who you are.
I do agree that a system that reads your save data to bring things over in regards to character dialogue would have been great, especially since they sorta do play with the idea in regards to your horses and the phot Link displays after the champion’s ballad, but idk I guess I don’t find the lack of notoriety to be narratively unsatisfying personally. I don’t need that from rando characters
Completely agreed. It constantly bugged me personally seeing how most folks didn’t recognize Link at all, although with the reasons given in this video, such was unfortunately justified.
At the same time though, it does at least put link in an even better light as a humble hero who never once boasted between games.
By the way, if you like that sort of thing I highly recommend the Trails series. If you've completed the previous game in an arc, it will carry over your save data and actually detect which quests you've completed, and talking to those NPCs in the sequel will give you a response that acknowledges your actions. Hell, some side quests you did in one arc are even acknowledged in different arcs with certain NPCs that travel around the continent.
The NPCs in the Trails series are very detailed in general. The amount of dialogue in these games is actually the most of any non Visual Novel games. Easily the best NPCs in gaming in my opinion.
So regarding the Horned Statue I think it might not be able to see and can only sense the essence it trades in, and remember Link lost his hearts in the start so it might be the case that Link appears differently to the Horned Statue because he has less essence than it remembers.
That is a fair interpretation. It’s a statue containing some kind of spirit, so it likely doesn’t have the same way of perceiving the world as we do
Maybe not even less essence, just different essence. He only keeps the base 3 hearts, so if he talks to it with 30 hearts both times, 90% of the essence is different.
@TheLaXandro On top of that, his arm, and it's implied the rest of him as well, has been soaked in Gloom and then had some other incredibly powerful magic user's arm grafted on, further changing the appearance of his essence
I can’t believe it’s almost been an entire year since tears of the kingdom came out. Feels like yesterday I was counting down the days for the release of TotK. It makes me feel a bit sad too. I lost my childhood cat only a week after TotK came out.
29:08 "1. Avoiding Redundancy"?! In the game that has all the sage cut scenes play word for word and beat for beat?!
Yeah, you’re not going to hear me praising that particular writing choice either
Great breakdown - This is an excellent, thorough analysis! I would also add a couple other reasons why NPCs wouldn’t remember:
1) People can receive several acts of kindness from others over the years, but they’re not going to remember every single person who did something nice for them that one time. So Link’s interaction even if it’s quest related, may not be significant to them. Plus, not realizing who he was when helping them makes him even more forgettable.
2) There’s also the assumption that Link would’ve interacted with every NPC from BotW (I know I certainly didn’t), so if I saw them in TotK, I wouldn’t know them and they wouldn’t know me either… hence leaving the interaction to be ambiguous.
Yeah this as well. It can't be assumed every player interacted with every npc and would remember the context of that interaction
Additionally, the state of mind of the person during the act is kindness could contribute to lack of recognition, such as concern for a missing person.
Why would they not remember link, like be realistic. They should at the very least know that he was the reason Terry town exists, and Bol son is even in business at all. You could even argue that they should know about him killing the blights
@RNGuice ye they probably know of him, but faces are hard to remember if you only see someone once or twice. Hell, I have forgotten all the faces from my high school as it has been years since I have last seen any of them.
The way i see it, if they have a "quest" then canonically link interacted with them.
OMG exactly this happened to me a couple of years ago- I'm at Walmart or something and this girl goes "hey JP!" And i say hi and "wait.... How do i know you?.... Aren't you normally wearing an apron?" "Yep, i work at Pizza Hut!" And, definitely, outside of the context of her being where she worked and i always saw her, i had NO IDEA until she told me. I knew i recognized her but not from where.
I think Bolson not remembering Link was done on purpose, his character trope in totk kinda suggest he wanted to go on a journey (maybe beyond the sea) but it probably felt short and he was rescued by the people of Lurelin, the way some of his dialogues are it kinda feels like he has partial amnesia
This was masterful work! I think a big reason so many characters were ambiguous about knowing Link is like you said, many players probably wouldn't remember most minor npcs or the writers also probably anticipated a lot of botw players probably didnt meet every side npc.
Hestu and Bolson were the only ones that really bothered me. I guess our time with Bolson was a lot more memorable for us than it was for him 🥲.
Absolutely. Bolson is undeniably a pretty memorable guy. Link, maybe not so much?
Thanks for watching my friend!!
I like to think it’s canon that link didn’t help hestu in BotW
@@GameEssays Then make the save transfer system account for it d**nit they had 6 years had plenty of time and resources.
The only two things that bothered me about Link recognition in TotK were Hateno and Bolson.
I feel that the game clearly implies that Link spent most of the 5+ year gap living in or near Hateno. At minimum I expected all the adults to at least know of him. Even if that recognition is as ambiguous as that guy always hanging around our sole surviving monarch.
And I would expect the mayor and his family to know exactly who Link is as that is an important thing for the leader of the village hosting the sole surviving monarch to be aware of.
Also, you're not taking into account the size of the population. Things are very different in tiny communities like those in Hyrule.
People get bored to death in places that small. And that is clearly evident by the healthy number of gossipmongers present there.
At some point during the events in Laurel in, Bolson should have shown unambiguous recognition of Link. Bolson made it clear in BotW that Link made an impression on him, and he was involved in both the house quest and the founding of Tarry Town.
Aside from those, everything else mostly makes sense. Although I would have written every NPC that was tied to a side quest in BotW to at least recognize that mute guy that helped that one time.
Lastly, you have to consider that the people in Hyrule don't have the massive amount of distractions that we do nowadays. There's no internet, no tv, or even any sort of regular entertainment. The few games available are scattered around a rather dangerous world that is difficult to navigate for average folks.
They're more likely to remember that one day a few years ago when something of interest finally happened.
And even if Link doesn't talk about himself, that doesn't mean others won't. Prince Sidon certainly had no problem talking about his best friend Link who saved his people.
So, yeah. A Lot of the shopkeepers, little kids, and most Gerudo not knowing Link at all makes sense. But that's not nearly as believable for Hateno or Bolson or a handful of others.
I don't think the game doesn't show the scale/number of villagers of each settlement/Villages in a 1:1 scale so Hateno could probably have more visitors people in it.. So yes aside from Zelda herself anyone that accompanies her could probably treated as somebody or her bodyguard.. Especially with how "Average" Link looks.
With that said.. Link/Zelda isn't probably staying all day/night long in Hateno (Due to how much they travel trying to reach out on each tribe).. I highly doubt that Zelda is even open about who saved her (Since what benefit will it do?) and highly doubt people in there will care anayway since even during the calamity Hateno isn't even that affected much by it...
So the Castle being freed by the calamity is just like how America treat Hitler dying/WW2 ended way back then.. It's a big news yes, but as years goes by it just becomes history and people moves on..
Symin also explicitly welcomes Link back to Hateno in English and says "okaeridattandesune" in japanese, or "welcome home" to someone returning. It's odd to do that but I suppose Symin was given returning character privilege or priority here. I'm surprised he skipped over that dialogue honestly.
@@vivid8979They do mention they still travel a lot.
@@vivid8979 There is nothing to indicate that Hateno isn't exactly the size it is presented at like in earlier games. So as far as I'm concerned it's a 1:1 scale. One could argue for 1:2 scale given that the map was cut in half at one point, but that isn't conclusive.
And even then you're underestimating how bored these people would be. Even if you double the population, that's still no more than a tiny hamlet. Everyone will know everyone else's business in no time, and will especially be curious about anyone with greater authority than the mayor.
Even with Zelda & Link traveling to the other settlements from time to time, the only established home she has is in Hateno. And everyone in Hateno knows who she is. She even taught at the school she had built. And while she was doing that, Link would be right there with her. You're not going to convince me in any way that the childern and their parents aren't going to be aware of Link under those circumstances.
There is no comparison to how people IRL remember WW2 after nearly 80 years and how Hyrule's people remember the end of the Calamity after less than a decade.
Why should Bolson remember Link as more than a random guy he helped build a house for several years ago? We really have no idea what Bolson has been doing since then. For all we know that's the only time he ever saw Link or talked to him until totk.
Moral of the story: Link is like his world’s Tony Hawk
Honestly since I started playing the game, the only problem I had with NPC's not recognizing Link were people like Beedle, Kilton, Hestu, etc. - i.e. distinct characters that interacted with Link a lot (or, in the case of Kilton, probably * only * interacted with Link) that for some reason doesn't show that it ever met him
Kilton 100% had other customers. There are travellers in BOTW that will give you monster extract if you rescue them and tell you that they got it from Kilton, and there is a side quest at the East Akkala stable with Hoz where he asks for a photo of Kilton because he's heard of him, and Kilton makes people uncomfortable.
Link is only ONE of Kilton's customers
@@CaptBurgerson True, true, I forgot about that 😅😅
Honestly Hetsu being saved by me then five minutes later being like "Ive never seen this man before in my life" is pretty on brand for him though 😂
37:06 Traysi is awesome, if you interact with her in gerudo town first then interact with her again at the molduking arena she will recognize you and mention that you are disguising yourself!
Bolson has a line of dialogue after you clear the monsters which is "As of today, you and me are pals. And because we're pals, I'm gonna let you help me." Maybe you could argue that his memory isn't very good, but to me it's weird that in BOTW you stop him from demolishing the house, buy all the furniture (he even praises you for buying everything even though you are young), help Hudson build Terry Town, and invite him to a wedding only for him to start calling you a pal during TOTK.
Idk man, their relationship in BOTW is pretty transactional imho. Just because those interactions happen wouldn’t necessarily make them friends any more than I’d be friends with a customer and/or a courier
@@CaptBurgerson he squatted on Link's front lawn for the entire game!! (unless you ditched him at the wedding, of course)
When you went from "No one in Gerudo Town knew Link because he was in disguise" to "Now, let's talk about shopkeepers and travelers," I think you hit the biggest target without even saying so. "Uh, Link, is he the customer in the heart mask or that dude that looks like a shadow?" Maybe the memory issues are a canonical nod to the NPCs not being able to recognize a dude that wears a different costume every thirty minutes lol. As if Hestu being a big child wasn't reason enough for his memory, Link had a leaf on his face half the time they were talking.
Oh I for sure started with those groups because they were the largest. The Gerudo make up almost a third of that group that doesn’t recognize Link, and getting it out of the way made a lot of sense to me haha.
Aside from that, you’re right I didn’t really address outfit changes, though I can’t account for every player playing that way. Truth be told I was pretty consistent in both games with my clothing choices haha, but some players are likely changing outfits far more frequently
@@CaptBurgerson I just happen to be starting the Mattison quest now, and Rhondson's dialogue is the beautiful epitome of your video. She and Hudson are wrapped up in their daughter's needs, barely managing to get into their business mode and talk to the customer before suddenly, verbally, realizing, "Oh wait, it's you!" You couldn't ask for a better example than that.
@@CaptBurgerson Wow you 2 just fixed some of the last issues for me (outside of Hateno). I was never bothered by most of the NPCs not knowing who Link is but Hetsu is one of the few who still bothered me. However, it makes sense that if you are going to be collecting a lot of seeds then the developers expect you to spend most of that time with the Korok mask covering your face! Plus now that I think about it Hetsu always had memory problems in both games. Hetsu seems to have wardered far from the forest for no reason, he doesn't remember how to get home, but after speaking to Link a few minutes the way home just pops back into his head. Then half way to the forest he forgets again and after speaking to Link again the way back home pops back into his head again. I am now conviced everyone makes sense except a few of the people in Hateno village at minimum the Mayor's family should have had Link and Zelda over for dinner and been working closely with them building the school.
"Seven years ago you gave me a baked apple. I could NEVER forget you"
i think it should also be considered that Link probably met a handful of the NPCs (like the gerudo jeweller in goron city) only once or twice, before they knew who he was, and then likely didn’t meet them again for a solid four or five years in between games. considering he was traveling with Zelda after that, it makes sense that people would focus on her and not make the connection “that one guy that i sold stuff to/passed through town/helped me out once years ago was actually the legendary hero”. ESPECIALLY if you work in customer service.
I would love to see a video on the NPCs who changed careers in the time between games. Seeing some of the travelers we saw fighting Bokos in BOTW now leading Monster Control Crews in TOTK is super cool!
I'm not sure if it is OK to recommend other channels in comments but there is a video 'What I learned photographing NPCs in TOTK' by Solidarf. He goes in depth about a lot of characters so maybe it will be something that will interest you. If it's not OK, let me know, please, and I'll delete my comment
@@msSimJohnsonnot only is it okay to recommend that, but I linked that video in the pinned comment and description because it is fantastic!
I had always assumed the "Nobody recognizes Link" thing in TotK was because it was only based on Main Quest interactions and the more world-changing side missions. But it's really interesting to see a breakdown of how many people actually have a better reason for not really recognizing him, and how much of it is Link just being a surprisingly unassuming hero.
This was actually very nice and helped me to understand why not every single persona would recognize Link. This was a video that needed to be made. Thanks.
I think that Nintendo devs probably also realized that not everyone has done every side mission so for returning or first time players this could be your first time meeting them
I guess I personally read 'ambiguous' as 'doesnt remember', but when you lay it out like this, everything makes sense.
17:43 Even if they did remember him they would probably remember him as "Zelda's assistant" and nothing more.
A lot of people seem to overestimate just how many people would know Link is the Hero, knowing him beyond just a brief interaction. Many of the ambiguous, and probably even some of the "definitely do not remember" characters might actually remember Link... But that memory is limited to "you look familiar", not "oh, hey, you're that guy that bought some arrows from me a few years ago" or "you're that guy that saved me once or twice." Especially if Link hasn't interacted with them since then.
I suppose if I wanted to defend some of the questioning of people forgetting Link is actually related to that second part. TotK is somewhat ambiguous regarding what Link has been doing between games. It's often shown that Zelda was travelling around, helping out everywhere. Planning locations for bridges and hiring Hudson Construction to build them, opening trade between settlements, basically doing things you would expect a Princess to do when rebuilding her kingdom, and more with things like gardening with Magda. And a lot of times, it's implied Link was there with her, returning to his role as her appointed knight and protector. And yet through the newspaper side quests, it's also implied there is so much she did without Link's knowledge. If Link had been with her when she borrowed tools to help plant a garden with Magda, then that entire quest wouldn't have really been anything, Link would have known exactly where the tools were, that they were borrowed or "taken" long before Zelda disappeared, and the guy mentioning she did all of that would have seen Link and recognized him. So Link was with her for some of the stuff she was doing, but not for everything she did, and we have no idea how much he was there for. Whatever he was there for, characters should recognize him at least from his travels with Zelda between games, but as for what he wasn't there for, it doesn't matter if it was with someone he met in BotW, it's been years since he interacted with them. Pretty sure Link himself doesn't remember most of them either. Players only remember because we are outside of the game's timeline and can go back and replay BotW right away or look up online who they are. Otherwise, we'd maybe remember one or two of the more memorable ones.
I think they were traveling together, but Link would have to hunt for their meals or fend off monsters from time to time. As for Magda, maybe the trauma of seeing her again made him block out that memory.
It has been stated they remained together
Heck I dont even recognize my coworkers when we're not at work together.
Some do, some don’t. Also Link does briefly appear in some of the NPC’s lives.
Thus I call it the Marty McFly effect
Your love for detail is beyond anything else
Awesome video, like always! ✌🏻
Can relate to working in customer service, sometimes I pretend to know people even though I don’t really remember them 😅
I legit had someone who worked at a shawarma place I went to every now and then, recognize me 5 years later at a DIFFERENT SHAWARMA PLACE and I had no idea it was them. And I'm like, how do you remember me, you meet so many people.
when they mention it, i usually do have a vague idea of who they are. but one time one guy mentioned he saw me there a few times over the past week and wondered if they ever gave me a day off (part time but work like 5 days a week) and went home contemplating my decisions
My sister met a celebrity, one she knew of fairly well, and asked him if he worked with our dad. It only took seeing him again on tv for her to recognise him.
I now actually want to see this from the perspective of someone who played btow the day or year of release, beaten it, maybe gone back to play the dlc but never played it since. Maybe they have forgotten as much as the characters in totk.
"Link is an introvert"
Link: proceeds to talk to every individual person in Hyrule
I had to for science!
True story:
A close relative used to work in air ambulance. Many years ago, there was a huge catastrophe at sea where he was one of the first people coming to help and pick people up from the sea (or ocean) into the helicopter. Things were going really fast. Not exactly time to chat with the people he saved.
20+ years later, in a gas station, he was about to pay for gas, but the clerk suddenly went: “YOU SAVED MY LIFE BACK THEN”
So I think NPCs would totally remember someone who saved their life that one time years ago, because it does happen IRL
There was literally no one around Hyrule Field when Link beat Ganon there though. And no one except for Link, Impa, and King Rhoam knew that Zelda's seal on Ganon was weakening.
@@wildberrysherbert3803highly doubt know one saw the final fight with dark beast ganon
Even then there’s no way news of someone bringing back Zelda and saving the world wouldn’t spread like wild fire
@@israelwilson4022 Whilst it would be pretty hard to miss a giant malice beast I'm doubtful anyone would've actually seen Link there
@@wildberrysherbert3803 true
And they would probably think it was all Zelda who freed herself and beat ganon however Zelda has enough integrity to not herself steal the credit of link’s hard work, at least I’d hope so
And then there is also the Superman-effect: You put on glasses and people suddenly do not recognize you anymore. Happened to me, I am not kidding.
Fun video, really enjoyed it 😊
@@katria2412 I think it’s also the fact that in canon, link dresses pretty normally. We as the player tend to get pretty carried away equipping link with the wackiest shit we can get away with, but especially when he’s not in combat, Link pretty much looks like the average hylian.
Good points. :D I appreciate you just straight-up saying Hestu's a dummy for not remembering Link. I think overall, this argument falls less on the side of frustration that the characters couldn't possibly 'not' remember Link, and more on the side of people being disappointed that they didn't make use of the many excuses they had TO remember him in his one and only sequel. The Gerudo interaction with him I actually loved, and I've always appreciated the Zoras and their long memories, but wish they'd taken advantage of that more often.
I roleplay it off as link always wore a hood or helmet hiding his face so most people just knew him as the wandering swordsman who is one of two people in the world with that shade of blonde hair
This. I always thought that's how Link was depicted in the story. A wandering swordsman wearing a green hood
This will be my new answer to why Superman''s Clark Kent glasses make total sense.
Hestu is a forrest fairy. He has fairy things to think about.
SHAKA LAKA
I'm an introvert, people who work at the local places I frequent will recognize me and some of my neighbors (including ones I have never personally met according to my roomate) know me because I feed and pet the stray cats at my apartment complex.
So places you’re a frequent customer to rather than places you haven’t visited in a while. Sure.
Neighbours recognize you because you have a habit that makes you stand out. Do you think if you initiated a conversation with those neighbours who you admit you’ve never spoken to, that they’d act super chummy with you and know you by name?
@@CaptBurgerson I'm not trying to debate here.
@@mattwo7 that’s fair. I respect that.
Cheers
A+ video! The reasoning you provided behind certain people not knowing Link makes perfect sense, especially with the coffee shop comparisons. You even made me view it more positively as someone who already wasn't very bothered by it in the first place. I had wished for them to have commited to Link living in Hateno VIllage and its people knowing him, but I mostly justified it with the fact that Zelda has been VERY busy in the years between games, and Link being at her side at all times means he wouldn't be spending much time in the village. Beyond that, your points about everyone having their own lives in this chaotic world and Link not being very talkative in his free time do easily explain things. The bottom line is, it really isn't necessary for NPCs to reference one or two conversations that took place years ago in Breath of the Wild, and not only is Link not the kind of person to seek recognition for his achievements, your point about it getting redundant for everyone to acknowledge who he is kinda gives us a reason why; he would just get really tired of it. 😂
It does admittedly bother me a bit when people say Tears of the Kingdom feels disconnected from Breath of the Wild and only list this and the Sheikah Tech as the reasons. You can argue about how well handled these were, and I personally would've liked for some book somewhere in the world to explain how we went from Breath of the Wild's tech to Skyview Towers and the Purah Pad, but it's such a small part of the Wild era's worldbuilding. Most of it is only there to enhance the gameplay experience by providing things such as maps, gameplay mechanics and side quests. Beyond that, all the major characters know Link and still feel like the same people, and there are several references to the Great Calamity and the Champions.
Its logical that shopkeepers wouldn't remember you but they're the npc youll talk the most during gameplay, and you're most likely to seek/return to them
that's why it's so easy to feel like nobody remembers you!
It's not only logical from a lore standpoint but also for gameplay, reintroducing "the guy who sells stuff™ is going easy on new players so they don't feel confused.
I feel like everyone has a favorite npc, and when they don't remember you/or have few interactions, you can feel neglected
A perfect encapsulation of this topic, honestly. You hit EVERY talking point and gave each one just enough attention. This video has made me feel a lot better about TOTK's NPCs overall.
Still heartbroken over Hestu though.
Frankly, it makes sense why most NPCs wouldn't recognize Link. Would YOU remember some random guy you met in passing? It doesn't matter if Link saved the world or not, they don't have the Internet or widespread news (well, they do, but cameras aren't a publicly used invention so most of the newspapers wouldn't have photos) so why would they recognize him? Its not like Link speaks up and tells them "hey I'm the hero who saved Hyrule from the Calamity" or anything.
And ADDITIONALLY, not everyone's played Botw before. And even those who _have_ might not have spoken to every single NPC during their playthrough. As cool as it would have been for everyone to recognize him, it would be off-putting for literally EVERYONE IN THE WORLD to know who Link is.
31:10 the problem i find with this is Cottla still looks the same as she did in BOTW in TOTK. She was the only child NPC who did not change visually which is...concerning. And her and Koko both looked the same back in BOTW but only Koko grew up larger. I feel this is something to take into account when it comes to how much time has passed.
Oh yeah, customers at retail jobs always expected you to recognize them and like..... why would I though?
This video does a few great things. It shows how much Tears actually built upon just the relationships from the first game, it also shows how much of a great silent protagonist this iteration of Link is. On top of that, you basically put into words the feeling I had everytime I heard people talk about Link being forgotten.
It's crazy because me, myself do not remember talking to half these characters so I don't expect them to remember me 😭
35:19 That's funny considering most of our film studios are actually in Burbank and a good chunk of on-location filming happens in the rest of LA.
That’s not untrue, but tons of stuff gets filmed in Vancouver as well. Deadpool, Supernatural, Fringe, those CW DC shows, X files back in the day, fricken Riverdale of all things, tons of movies. I could go on.
I’m almost certain that it’s because studios can get tax breaks by filming here but it’s good for the job market
Edit: huh, just found out that Netflix’s live action Avatar: The Last Airbender was also filmed here 🫠
Another thing to consider- being a sequel game means some things in BotW aren’t canon. Maybe these NPCs don’t recognize us because we canonically never met them.
They could've based the events that "did or didn't happen" on your save file.
They already let you 'carry over' your horses and if you beat the Champions Ballad.
That kind of falls apart when it comes to terry town, which you can't help found without talking to Bolson.
@@King_Luigi You don't need to beat Champion's Ballad. You just need to have save data for BOTW on that profile. I haven't beaten the Champion's Ballad on my other two profiles but all my horses carry over anyways.
Link canonically did everything major. Things like botw's true ending are confirmed canon to totk. It assumes a %100 even, since many korok puzzles are undoing ones from botw.
@@InkMossDragon You misunderstand. Note that I said "and" if you beat the DLC.
I was referring to 2 separate things there. Horses & the Champion photo.
Great video, which really made me think back to moments where I saw an old friend working in a bakery and I just acted like a normal customer, and it was only when I left that I recognised him. I then said hello but left as it was quite busy. For context he and i were childhood friends for years and I felt really embarrassed for not recognising him. Just goes to show the limitations of human memory.
Great introspection at the end
When I played I was like "finally people now know Link". After years of not being a know hero, he is recognized by several. But It makes sense for some people to still not know who he is, how the calamity was ended and by who, or remember If he hasn't seen them in several years when you have a world that big and post- apocalyptic. There's also many more theories like Link's desire for secrecy or the Upheaval decaying people's memories as it did weapons to stumble Link's quest. Several things could be said. It's better for everyone's mental health If we not question Zelda continuity lol.
23:05 Trees live indefinitely and if that's the case for Hestu, he's probably 500 years old at this point so his memory's probably gone
He’s definitely over 100 at the very least. In BOTW he states it’s been over 100 years since someone else was able to see him. So yeah, he oooold
Doing the writing for the writers I see
Link is pretty memorable because like nobody actually walks around with weapons. The actual soldiers all have the same three weapons. He also is like the only human to have a shield, bow and sword on at the same time.
Counterpoint, in both games just about every traveler walks around with weapons actually
Awesome video, Capt! You put SO much work into this and it is super impressive. I agree with your logic too! Thanks for enlightening us!!!
My theory is that most Hylians probably have some awareness of Link or is hero of Hyrule title but they imagine a larger than life muscle bound champion with an awesome sword amazing hair and so on. When you a hear a name like that your first won't be a shorter than average soft spoken blonde haired dude who looks to be somewere between his late teens and early 20's
considering the nonzero amount of NPC's who mention the master sword (and the guy attached to it I guess) or simply call link "hey swordsman" I think you might be onto something...
This was perfect! So many points I never even thought about. It definitely makes so much more sense now, I didn't even remember the NPCs in ToTK that I had in BoTW of course a vast majority of people either don't recognize me or are ambiguous. Even people that I worked with a few years ago I had trouble recognizing when we they saw me out in public recently. Again amazing video!!😤😤🙌🙌
I love that you bring up retail for this, have been thinking the same for a lot of the NPCs that don't recognize Link - I remember working retail, and probably more than half the time, if I recognized them by name it meant they were *dreadful* to deal with 😂 The other half were exceptionally kind customers, but even though Link is a sweetheart to most folks he does seem to be rather in-and-out for shopping. Even for people he's done favors for!
I didn’t really have much of an expectation for every returning NPCs from BotW being able to recognize me in TotK (mainly because I didn’t even talk to every single person I met; just a vast majority of them), but it’s nice to have some pretty accurate statistics on the matter!
Your story about not recognizing your uncle reminds me of the time i ALSO didnt recognize one of my uncles as a kid, when he pulled up with his vehicle as i was walking home from the bus stop to say hi. I IMMEDIATELY went running into the woods and took that way home, and my mom was both proud of me for following my stranger danger instructions but also amused by the fact i didn't recognize him.
I think everyone who says that no one in TOTK recognizes Link has to remember
Why would they?
First off, *we* know almost everything going on because we have cell phones. We're updated every minute about everything ever. They don't. They live in ancient times. We have to remember that. Hell, back in the fucking 80's getting news wasn't constant, and last I checked TOTK takes place a long time before 1980.
Second off, *why* would they recognize him? To most people, Link is that one guy who stopped at their store if that. Yes there was a battle in Hyrule Field
Which was empty other than you and Ganon so who's there to photograph it?
Link may be taught in schools but then only the kids know who he is
So yeah why should anyone know you other than people in main/major quests in BOTW?
And to add on to that, I bet a LOT more people would recognize Link if he was with Princess Zelda. Without that context many might not think twice about the random traveler that looks vaguely familiar somehow (as they probably get that a lot)
@@Vidiri Exactly. No one knows the people who protect our government officials, why are we expecting people with *less access to news* to do the same?
@@awesomedude5558 Also, it seems like no one's actually aware that Link's actually been found and that he's deliberately hiding his identity.
This was genuinely fascinating and very insightful! Thank you for your time and effort!!
It's ok, flower blight ganon don't have to remember what happened at that shrine to those flowers. Best it stays that way 😅
Excellent video, couldn’t have put it better myself. I appreciate how hard and time consuming it must’ve been trying to track everyone from between games to get this kind of data. But the hard numbers are what make the whole thing worth it and strengthen the argument. The ambiguous category is incredibly valuable and that group of NPCs being ambiguous definitely does a lot of work that I think is good for players to be able to fill in on their own.
I also worked retail at one company in 2 locations for 6 years so I am right there with you on the logic for all the merchants and shopkeepers.
And yeah I’ve taken to thinking 6 years is probably the right answer. I know different departments work on different games but if we look at the Splatoon releases they do a “real world time = time between sequels” thing and given the growth of the kids in TotK, the Zelda team probably have a similar philosophy for time.
Really well done and thank you for such a in-depth research. You made me change my mind and I could clarify and understand something I was uslessy upset about.
It's lovely to see a reasonable and open mind in all the unthinking reactionary we often see online.
I hope I can also be such when presented with evidence. Have a lovely day .
37:10 this right here is why superman's disguise works so well. You wouldn't think superman is a shy kinda introverted farmboy working for the daily bugle, so even tho they look similar.... you still don't make the connection
Maaaaaan I appreciate the insane level of research and effort that went into this! And it turned out so well!! Nicely done! Also, very much agree with the final analysis!
I really appreciate all the wisdom you put into this video, The video itself is already really good but I really like how many different perspectives and examples you included to support your points
I really can’t stress enough how good this video is and how much effort was clearly put into it. I can’t imagine how long this took to do. Thank you so much for doing this. You raised so many good points, and genuinely changed my mind on a few things, as well. I love the idea that the Hateno villagers see Zelda all the time and she always returns to that house, and that’s why they call it her house, but they don’t realize someone else lives there too 😂
except the kids and npcs that visit zelda see her daily dont know him or ever seen him before....link doesnt live thee...
To me Bolson came off as the kind of casual friendship that comes from long familiarity. His company has been helping to re/build lookout landing.
You recomended the npc video and i gotta admit, watching this video reminded me of it (and why i like to watch the npcs and learn about their lives), also amazing research! (on another note the moment you talked about every npc explicit remembering Link in their introduciton speech _that_ already sounded like a chore and annoying game design)
I do still think the devs fumbled with Hestu and Beedle, but I can understand the puzzle koroks not recognizing Link, it can be that the ones in the gsi never met link before, after all there's a 100 more koroks, Link had a 1-in-10 chance to meet a new one
if you need more empirical evidence: one time when buying yugioh cards as a _teen_ the shopkeeper gave me, at the time, three cards that were amazing in the meta, 6-7 years later I wanted to give these cards to an oc and I couldn't for the life of me remember how that man looked like. I still remember his act of kindness tho
I don’t even recognize the people I work with once I step outside the shop and they’ve taken off their hard hats and safety glasses😅
I like how reasonable this analysis is
This was an amazing presentation! I love the data, and can't imagine all the effort that went into making this.
I wish I had more to add to the discussion, bit this video explains things so well!
Bravo!
Thanks for bringing us to this!
I always thought that NPCs forgot link because to get the true ending of breath of the wild it was not required for link to talk to them
I think the distribution makes sense, there's just a few egregious examples that are weird. I more have an issue that nobody in Hyrule seems to have seen the giant flaming pig firing mouth lasers immediately after the divine beasts fired four giant lasers at the same time towards the castle in the most visible part of Hyrule.
Honestly the sentiment of people not recognizing Link was always one I didn't feel and was curious why others felt that way. I guess this is what Hestu does to someone.
Hestu and Stable owners not recognizing Link is explainable with beeing a gameplay mechanic. Not solid but gives more focus on collecting stables and seeds.
It was truly a missed opportunity we never had a "link-a-like" named jerry or something who was just a Link-substitute that people could associate as Zelda's other guard.
At first I misread that as a “like-like” and I was like “wait those are in the game” oops haha
@@CaptBurgerson basically a stunt double like the ones captured in "Spaceballs" we could blame the dissassociations on.
@@michaellane5381 I get your meaning, I was just having a laugh at misreading it at first
@@CaptBurgerson np, was just clarifying they wouldn't really look like Link in the way Yiga Zelda's do.
Ah poor Ratatoskr. “We had a moment”. Sorry mate, Bolson had a moment and we were just there for it.
Also, it’s a good point that we barely have the printing press, I did not at all consider how slow information must travel in Hyrule of this era.
Also thanks for this because I saw people claim that TotK doesn't follow BotW and it's some like alternate dimension or timeline and I just cannot understand how they came to that conclusion. Those that really matter remember Link.
Especially for the people who are very personally aquainted with Zelda, you would think they would at least recognize the guy whos always around her. I was expecting at least a "oh, you're Zelda's knight - do you know what happened to her?" But we rarely got that much.
I'm also firmly in the "Zelda moved into Link's house, theres only one bed, but two table sets, they're lovers" camp so I totally get that I probably overestimate Link's influence, especially for Hateno.
Dude, you have blown me away with all of your data 😝 this was such a huge undertaking!!! Wonderful video as always, and valid argument (also as always). I love that you pulled actual examples from your life in to support your points too! Psychology actually makes us all pretty predictable lol 😝 great video!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🎉
I'm glad someone did this, and with the mindset you have.
Great video!