Allow the protagonist to select their gender

[alexgleason]

Rumors say that "Link" was always meant to be an avatar of the player; a "link" between you and the game. He never speaks because, if he did, he might say something that you would not. It is no surprise, then, that Link is a male, since the majority of video gamers are also male. But maybe that trend would be broken if girls had more games they could relate to.

Nintendo has talked about making Link's gender a selectable option many times but never has. One fan took this into his own hands and made a Wind Waker hack that turns Link into a girl, so his daughter could feel more connected with the game. It has been a deep and contentious issue in the Zelda community for a very long time, and for one reason or another, it has barely ever been addressed. (Hyrule Warriors is a spin-off, so I think Linkle barely counts)

I don't underestimate the amount of work this would take judging by the massive amount of hero sprites. However, if you have the time and desire to, I think it would be a great achievement to include a gender selection screen for the hero at the beginning. I think only sprites would need to be changed, no plot or story elements.

[Diarandor]

Dialogs would need to be changed too.

[TeamLJS]

Switching skin shouldn't be hard as I already done that in my project, sprite work would be, yet, if this is feasible, you should take example at how it is done in Anciant Stone Tablet

[Diarandor]

There are 2 options:

1. Reverse the role of hero Eldran and princess Robyne. She would become the hero and he the prince.
2. Create a new female hero, and for consistency, a new prince NPC too.

Option 2 is a 3-months work. I prefer option 2. But I am not sure if we will do it in the end.
Which option do you like more?

[alexgleason]

First I'd like to show an example of a game that handled this well in my opinion: Ittle Dew, an ARPG inspired by The Legend of Zelda.

Ittle (the main character) looks almost genderless. However, she is a girl. I like this because:

1. It doesn't play into gender stereotypes. Ittle isn't an extremely feminine girl, she's just a girl.
2. You don't really expect an adventurer to wear a dress or mascara. She's getting dirty and sword-fighting, so it makes sense to present her like this.

With that in mind, I think Eldran is actually kind of similar.

Eldran really could be a boy... or a girl.

So one possibility is just to reuse the sprites and just change the pronouns.

I do not think the gender of the princess needs to be changed. A girl can rescue the princess. 😄

Please give me some time to think this through a bit more and I will give a proposal. Thanks!

[Diarandor]

-I don't like the idea of having an asexual hero or even cross-dressing Eldran. Poor thing... 😢 Forget about that.
-I've decided that I won't make option 2. That's a ton of work, and we are not receiving enough support/feedback for so much work.

However, option 1 is still doable, since Robyne is planned to be a playable character (someday before year 2053, so be patient... XD). I don't know yet if we will include this character twist or not, but we can decide later. And if we do so, princess Robyne will fight with her skirt! xD

[alexgleason]

Okay, I will be happy with whatever you come up with. 😄 The beauty of a libre game is that others can always add more later.