The Legend of Zelda: Ganon's Story

The Legend of Zelda: Ganon's Story is a play on the practice at this wiki whereby we reverse roles; like making Bowser the sole protagonist of the game. Being a bit of an expert on the Zelda universe, however, I don't really want to make Ganon seem like too much of a hero. Therefore, I decided to make the actual hero Link, but make Ganon a playable character in flashbacks that appear periodically as Link uncovers them to learn the origins of his most powerful enemy.

You'll probably notice this is a fairly artsy game even by Zelda standards. This is probably because my favorite game is Zelda: Twilight Princess, and I love the ambitious, profound features of games in the Ico series.

Basically, I want to combine these two games with the most expedient and advenurous games in the Zelda series, like A Link to the Past or A Link Between Worlds. A game of art crossed with a game of classic fantasy.

Plot
Within the Zelda timeline, this game would take place directly after the events of Twilight Princess. Ganondorf's power has strongly faded after his defeat at the hands of Link, and though his body survives, his memories have faded. As a result, despite the fact that he still has all his previous power, he lacks the direction to use it.

One day, Link is wandering through the forest with just a sword to defend himself if necessary. As he goes along, he begins to get a bad feeling. He draws his sword and continues on to see Ganon in a distant clearing, clad in rags compared to his usual dark and ornate cloak. Link is careful to remain out of sight, but he decides to follow Ganon to see if he's planning anything. However, Ganon doesn't seem very active, but rather seems defeated and confused. The new feature Link notices the most is an unusual, glowing crystal embedded in Ganon's chest.

Link is still curious and continues to follow Ganon (it is during this time that the player learns the game's basic controls). After a while, though, Ganon spots Link and decides to attack him not out of recognition of his old enemy, but out of frustration and the desire to be left alone. A fierce battle ensues (during which time the player learns combat), during which Link strikes the crystal in Ganon's chest, causing it to explode strangely. Ganon then surprises Link and knocks him to the ground, running away into the woods. Link loses him, and decides to go consult Zelda as to what step should be taken next.

Zelda is concerned by the vague actions of Ganon, and encourages Link to track him down as quickly as possible, acting on the logic that if Ganon is indeed planning something hostile, he will quicken his plan now that he knows they are on to him.

Soon after beginning his search for Ganon, Link locates a Memory Shard, an ethereal manifestation of Ganon's lost memories. Through obtaining these crystals, Link is able to observe a part of Ganon's path to villainy in chronological order for every shard he picks up. During these flashbacks, the character plays as Ganon and works to a certain point in his past, at which point the player picks up with Link again. Link endeavors to find as many of these shards as he can, reasoning that if he discovers enough of Ganon's story, he might be able to find him in the present. This journey takes him to the depths and high peaks of Hyrule, where the greatest of secrets hide.

In pursuing this task, Link learns of the life Ganon grew up with as the crusading king of the Gerudo, and learns that his craving for power is more compulsion than desire. Nonetheless, the player will get to experience Ganon proving himself a strong and willful king.

Ending
By the time the story's climax would roll around, Link would possess half of Ganon's memory shards while Ganon would possess the other half. Eventually, they meet, and seeing Link with half the shards, Ganon would try to seize them himself. However, both their crystals would fly into the air in the struggle, fuse together, and overtake the both of them, sucking them into a time warp.

This would lead leads to the final boss sequence, which would take place in various locations from various games in the series, not just this one. A fierce battle would ensue, and at its end, the crystals woud go haywire following Link's triumph. In a mere few seconds, Link would see all of Ganon's life experiences going backwards through time, before the two would return to the real world.

Exhausted and wounded, the two would simply look at each other from a distance, and Ganon would say something along the lines of this:

"You should know...the power of the Triforce isn't always a gift.  Remember that."

And then the game would end with Ganon walking away, and Link walking away in the opposite direction.

Gameplay
The gameplay for Ganon's Story would probably be similar to that in Twilight Princess, but it would incorporate elements of games like Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, which influenced Twilight Princess during development. That influence would lie mainly with the fact that outdoor areas and boss battles would have large scope, with lots of long bridges and climbable structures.

In addition, combat would be refined compared to Twilight Princess. It would have at least as many specialized maneuvers, but it would also make use of detailed animations and slightly more realistic fighting physics.

Unsurprisingly, this game would feature plenty of items famous in the series, and I would bring back the item rental system featured in A Link Between Worlds. There would be various explorable caves in the overworld that would require the use of certain items to reach the end, thus making renting necessary until the player can obtain the items permanently.

The key feature of gameplay in this game is that it would consist of long stretches of gameplay as both Link and Ganon; Link's gameplay would take place in the real world and would be roughly like what you see in other 3D Zelda game, but with a better blending of combat and world, and less combat-centric gameplay. Ganon's gameplay, on the other hand, would revolve more around the use of magic, and the dungeons would have a darker, more mysterious feel.