The Links that never were

Rewinding a few years to the unveiling of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker I, like many others I'm sure, was a bit taken aback by the immense shift in style that game had developed. When we'd last seen our Hylian friend, he was looking quite a bit more Ocarina of Time-ish in a demo showed off at Nitendo's Spaceworld 2001 show in which we were treated to a few glorious seconds of Link and Ganon fighting in large castle.

Link from Zelda 2

Unlike many others that ranted on the interweb though, I wasn't ready to kill at the thought of a cartoony Link. What I did think about were the possibilities that could have been, possibilities of a different Link, albeit still in toon-shaded form. Miymoto himself stated in an interview that the new look of Link was a throwback to the old instruction booklet art from the 8-bit Zelda games. While one can see the inspiration from that in the current Wind Waker style, it made me think of the other Links that might have been, such as the slightly older Link of Zelda II with long brown hair. I bet he not only would have looked pretty cool cell shaded, but with a bit of an older look to him, I'm sure people wouldn't have made such a big deal out of the graphical change.

Well, it turns out I hit a bit closer to home that I may have thought! What you see below is a scan from a limited edition art book of the Wind Waker that was only released in Japan. While I myself don't own the art book, I have a few of the scanned pages. There's two main styles shown, with a kind of transitional, in-between third style as well. On the one side we see the Wind Waker Link we've grown to love. On the other, the exact Link that I thought would have been so perfect for this type of game, an older, taller Link that closely resembles that of the Zelda II manual (or even the old cartoon).

Character sketches of Wind Waker Links

While I certainly don't mind the squat elf that we got in the final game, I can' help but feel a bit of a pang of sadness at what might have been had they decided not to shrink him a few feet and make his eyes grow to the size of saucers. That being said, the great thing about Mario and Link is that they are always being reinvented, and while that style didn't win out in the past, I hold out hope that maybe someday, after the launch of Twilight Princess, we may find another toon-shaded Link hit consoles, maybe even the Wind Waker himself in his teen years, a bit taller, hair a bit longer, and with better proportioned eyes.

Wow, only three more months until Twilight Princess?? I'd better get to beating Minish Cap!