After thinking about the Zelda Gamecube 'demo', this idea started to form in my head:
Watching that demo, I'm sure that most people thought that if they were playing it, they would be playing as Link - however, I have a different idea:

To continue the series, why not have a game completely out of it? Why not have the player be Gannon? There are two different ways that I can see this develop:
1.) The player gets to be the bad guy (like Wario, but the 'good guy' would be in the game also) - I doubt that Miyamoto would like this direction.
2.) Somehow, Link and Gannon have switched bodies. Gannon has used this to do bad things in Link's name. Now, Link must clear his name and find a way to switch back to his own body.

I'm sure that the first idea is just a little bit too off the wall for Nintendo, so I'll elaborate upon the second concept.

The Next Zelda Game :
A game like this could have a truly amazing introduction sequence. Imagining seeing Link transform into Gannon - all of the special effects would be utilized in the Gamecube (talk about lighting effects). It would also be great if Link started out not knowing what was going on; he would approach villagers and be greeted with fright (since he would be 'Gannon'). Slowly, Link could learn what was going on - that 'Link' (Gannon as Link) was different and doing bad things. I could never write a story equal to that of Zelda, so I'll just stop with what I said in the beginning.

Being Gannon, the gameplay would be a little different. Some of the differences that I see would include different weapons and tools, a little more focus on brute strength, most people would be frightened of you, and your health and magic meters could be replaced with other things. Another thing to add to the game would be to include areas 'based' on areas from Ocarina of Time. This would be great because it could show how different the areas are playing as Gannon - like young Link and older Link in Ocarina of Time. I find no more point in adding anything else to this since the people at Nintendo would have better ideas than me.

The last thing that I have to add is that this would be a great way to add to the legendary series.


P.S. This third option of storyline/gameplay came to me and should be separated from the rest because it doesn't fit in with the rest quite enough. However, it is just a different version of the second idea.

A third option is to have where some outside force has switched Link and Gannon, so they must work together to get their own bodies back. What this could mean for the game is that they player would play as both Gannon and Link. The switching method could be similar to Jet Force Gemini, but what one would do would clearly change the area for the other. Gannon and Link would have different abilities (of course). What would be awesome is that when you switch players, the other player would 'remain' where they are in the level when you switch, so that when you switch back, you would continued on from where you left off - as a special note, it wouldn't be fair to allow damage to happen to the player not being played.

Another important thing that would be great to have in this idea would be cooperative playing, one person would be Link and the other player would be Gannon. In this mode, the two players wouldn't even have to be in the same area, they could be completing completely different tasks. I know that the idea of cooperative mode would probably be too taxing on any system, but it's a fun idea.

Oh yeah, some ideas of differences between Gannon and Link just crossed my mind: while Link has songs to do all kinds of things, Gannon would use spells; Gannon would have unlimited magic, but his spells wouldn't be as powerful; Gannon wouldn't have a shield; Gannon's physical attacks would be much stronger than Link...I gave the idea.

I feel that I have given the general ideas behind my game concept. I'm sure that these ideas could be used in other games, but the ideas would fit best in a Legend of Zelda game.

This thing feels like a rambling now.

The Next Zelda Game
Fred Olson
olsonf@msoe.edu

As you said, only a fool would tell Shigeru Miyamoto what to do. At the moment I can hardly get any work done because I'm playing Majora's Mask, which even made me put down Metropolis Street Racer. People can say what they want about the N64 but Zelda Majora's Mask might be the finest game ever. By the way, I found your ideas very interesting, could in fact have worked out quite well. But then again, let's leave this one up to the master himself.

Idea Reviewer:
-Vegard Aure-