At E3 this year, various journalists noted that the playable demo of Hyrule Warriors for the Wii U had 9 playable character slots to choose from. It has already revealed that four of the playable characters are Link, Zelda, Impa and Midna.
I decided to crowd-source some suggestions from a variety of Legend of Zelda fans of potential characters to fill those five other slots! Sit back as I explain who these people are and why they could potentially fit into Hyrule Warriors world of hacking and slashing.
1. Darmani
So first on my list is Darmani, a Goron warrior and leader from Majora’s Mask. He would make a good addition since the roster so far doesn’t seem to have any heavy hitting characters. Not to mention he gives Link the Goron mask and using a Goron was a lot of fun in Majora’s Mask. It wouldn’t be hard to think up a number of offensive abilities for Darmani since the Gorons have appeared in so many titles and have a lot of lore to cherry pick from.
– Art by http://hyliandragoncatty.deviantart.com
We know Gorons can roll into a ball to race around mountains. This could also be utilised as an offensive ability in Majora’s mask, covering Links body with metallic spikes and turning into a way more awesome version of Sonic. In Ocarina of Time, Link could find the Megaton Hammer which was a Goron’s legendary weapon used to kill a dragon.
Hell, Goron’s are renowned for using bombs to kill dodongos and having awesome black smiths that can create legendary swords. It’s feasible that Darmani could wield the big Goron sword if you didn’t want to give him a hammer.
With that library of skills to pick from, I’d say Darmani would be pretty rad to use in Hyrule Warriors.
2. Mikau
Mikau, a Zora, is another character from Majora’s Mask that gives Link one of his transformation masks. Now while Mikau had a terrible voice actor, the abilities Link gained as a Zora warrior would make him an interesting contender in Hyrule Warriors if adapted well.
In Zora form Link was able to: fight close range with acrobatic kicks and punches; use an impressive somersault kick; wield his fins as a close range bladed weapon; and launching those same fins at enemies for a boomerang style attack. And while I don’t actually remember this ability, this Zelda wiki assures me he had a defensive move that would electrify his body to shock enemies that attempted to attack Link.
Now all you have to do is expand on those abilities, make sure you don’t give him an awful voice and then we’ll have a strange but fun character to control. If you didn’t want to use Mikau, there’s always to option of just creating a generic Zora warrior or even turning princess Ruto into a fighter.
3. Nabooru
Nabooru was the second in command of the Gerudo thieves from the Ocarina of Time. Although we never got to see her fight in the games, Link did face some of the other Gerudos in their fortress. It’s not hard to imagine a crew of creative video game developers could use their combat style with Nabooru in Hyrule Warriors.
The Gerudo in Ocarina of Time would wield a pair of scimitars (curved swords for those of you not up on your sword lingo) and used a lot of circular movements to attack Link with the pair of swords. They were reasonably good at using the swords to defend themselves and used back flips to dodge a variety of attacks.
You can also bet that they’re good archers since they have a horseback archery range and their training grounds are where Link finds his ice arrows. Nabooru also gets mind controlled during Ocarina of Time and wears a kick ass suit of armour while wielding a massive axe, so that could also surely be worked into her attack repertoire.
Nabooru is a bit of a long shot but it still would be good to see her alongside Impa, tearing up the battle field like a pair of ninjas from Naruto.
4. Ice T
Hey if he’s good enough for Smash Brothers, he’s good enough for Hyrule Warriors!
5. Skull Kid/Majora
According to my friend, Dynasty Warriors is known to have a lot of light side/dark side stuff in it which brings us to the following villainous characters. Skull Kid was probably one of the creepiest antagonists from the Legend of Zelda franchise. With the power of Majora’s Mask, Skull Kid nearly destroyed Termina so it would be cool to try and take down an army as him.
It is a bit hard to think of what attacks he would use since you never actually get to fight him in the game.I assume you would have to base his attacks off of Majora’s abilities.From what I remember, Majora mostly used tentacles to whip you to death during the final boss fight as well as generic spinning attacks and awkward punches and kicks.
A bit of a tricky villain to include in the line-up, but Skull Kid wearing Majora’s Mask would no doubt be a massive crowd pleaser.
6. Shadow Link
As the name implies, Shadow Link is a dark version of Link. He uses all the same sword and shield abilities as Link so he would be extremely similar to regular Link. However, lots of Zelda fans enjoy fighting Shadow Link (myself included) and it would be great to use him in battle against Link for a change.
7. Ganon
Ganon has no real need of an introduction since if you’ve played almost any of the Zelda franchise, Ganon has probably been the final boss.
And with so many incarnations, there is no shortage of creative ways to utilise Ganon as a playable character. In his time as a villain, Ganon has been known to: attack using long range magic bolts; wield a single large great sword; wield two gigantic katanas with great speed (think Wind Waker); in his pig form, he has used a spear like weapon and well as three pronged knives; he summons a phantom version of himself to attack using similar abilities; summoned a shape shifting puppet Ganon to battle Link; and using his bare hand infused with magic to attack directly or send shockwaves through the ground.
And those are just some of the abilities I’ve seen. There are a lot of Zelda game’s I haven’t gotten around to playing with even more attacks for Ganon to choose from, so his inclusion as a playable villain is a no-brainer.
Hyrule Warriors will be released on September 20th 2014. In the mean time, who would you like to see as a playable character in this upcoming release?
