Linkle is a very unique fighter in Hyrule Warriors. It’s rare that a character outside of the canon Zelda lore gains Linkle’s level of popularity, and yet she was brought to life through fan demand when sketches of her in the Japanese Hyrule Warriors art book were first revealed.
It stands to reason that such a unique character would also have a unique stage to boot. The team behind Hyrule Warriors had a very unusual idea in mind for her, but it never came to light. After hearing it laid out, it’s a crying shame, too.
During Nintendo’s Developer Panel at the WonderCon 2016, Hyrule Warriors Legends Director Hiroya Usuda and Producer Yosuke Hayashi revealed some content that didn’t make it into the final game.
“The idea was that Linkle would wander into the Temple of Souls,” Usuda says. “Ghirahim is, for some reason, putting a curse on Link using his ritual dance.”
Of course, you can’t have a stage themed around dancing and not have Ocarina of Time’s grooviest Goron join the mix. Usuda continues, “Darunia and Lana show up and do a dance-off against Ghirahim to rescue Link.”
Plot twist! “Then Linkle comes upon the scene and tries to stop all the crazy dancing in order to rescue Link, but when the three of them finally think they’ve rescued him, they come close to see it’s actually Tingle and not Link.”
Sounding a bit bizarre so far? There’s an explanation for all of this strangeness. “And in the end, it turns out to be Linkle’s dream, and she wakes up and continues on her journey.”
So why did this scenario not make the cut? “We figured that this turn of events was a bit too comical,” Usuda explains. “So in order to keep Linkle’s heroic quality, and also because we didn’t have that much time, we cut this section from the story.”
I would love to have seen this stage in the final game, especially as Hyrule Warriors, being a non-canon title, gives developers the perfect opportunity to implement crazy ideas like this.
I could see how this stage could be considered out of place, however, especially if Linkle were to continue with a serious quest immediately after waking up. It would have been cool to have seen a “dream” series of quests separate from the others (either as an extra mode or as a DLC pack) so that this stage could find its place and so we could see what other bizarre ideas the team could come up with.
