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>>/12380/
> It is fun to convert elements (say a cutie mark) into another motiff or make them fit smoothly in something like that.
It translates very well also, as in this specific instance, the King of Red Lions (I'll try and spoiler this) was formerly King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, the last King of Hyrule before it sank beneath the waves, and as King he used the Wind Waker to control the winds, so if he was a pony it would be most appropriate for his cutie mark to be wind-related - and the sail in the game has a wind crest on it. Of course, the sail is bought from an Eskimo, so it's only related by chance, but nonetheless it fits.
> I have some memory seeing it as a kid on a Gamecube or something during a family visit but I have never played it and it's art style was and still is slightly offputting...
Unfortunately with Windwaker, more than anything else in the world really, I'm totally unable to look at it with an objective eye: it was my first real gaming experience. Technically I played the PC demo for Lego Star Wars first, but then Dad bought a Gamecube from a friend along with some games. Our copy of Windwaker came with the Master Quest disk, so I guess Dad's friend must have pre-ordered Windwaker. So I did play Ocarina of Time too, but it didn't ever grab me like Windwaker did, I preferred to just watch my Dad play OoT. My favorite feature of the Master Quest disk was the trailers - the Windwaker trailer on it was and still is one of my favorite things ever:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Blk0fk4Clvc
In my mind this trailer was what introduced me to the game and made me really get into it - but there's no actual way for me to know if that's the case or not! All the memories are very blurry because I would have been four years old. Windwaker was my introduction to videogames, to fantasy as a genre, to a passion about history and sailing, and much more besides. I discussed back in the Season 9 discussion thread, years ago when the show ended, how I related to Twilight moving away from Ponyville and feeling upset about it because when I was nine years old, we moved, and I've still never really gotten over it. Our new house never, and still doesn't, feel like home, and neither does the apartment I've moved out into. I've been back to the village where I grew up, and of course, it's changed, it's no longer home either. Ironically enough, Windwaker itself is about this very theme. Ganondorf seeks to use the Triforce to unflood Hyrule, to bring it back. In the ending monologue, the King of Red Lions compares himself to Ganondorf, in terms of how neither of them could let go of Hyrule - but he chooses to destroy Hyrule and send Link and Tetra away to found their own land, a new land. So, home is not there if I go back. Nowhere on Earth feels like home. But when I play Windwaker, it feels like home. So, that's the game for me: it's the one and only home that I can actually go back to.
> I guess I have gone through in miniature what the repuation of that game went through as whole.
A few years later Dad got Twilight Princess, and that was his favorite Zelda. It might be my predisposition, but it could just as easily be the fact that Windwaker had a profound impact on who I am in general, but I find Twilight Princess depressing and dull, generally speaking. I don't think it's bad, but Hyrule in that game is not a place I'm all that interested in exploring, I don't like the people that inhabit it and I'm not motivated to save them. The Ooca city in that game is really the one part I like, and unlike the Hylians I actually like the Ooca so I want to help them. And fighting a dragon is always cool, of course. That's not to say it's a bad game, but that kind of 'look how grim and how dark I am' approach has remained a strong dislike of mine my whole life, and I first recall really feeling it towards Twilight Princess.
> With lots of Seaponies!
Absolutely!