Do you find it annoying that you've never heard Link talk in a Legend of Zelda game? Or do you appreciate that Nintendo has never ruined the classic character by associating him with a clueless voice actor? If you're on the latter side, you and production head Eiji Aonuma have something in common.
When Sonic the Hedgehog started talking like he was hyped up on vicodin, a little something inside all of us died. So we can definitely understand when Aonuma said, in a Nintendo Power article, that he didn't want to ruin the magic and mystery of Link's persona.
Above: If we were in this position, we'd shout "Oh s***!" But Link is so much cooler than us
"Personally, I don't want to have Link speak in the game. We haven't had him talk at all up to this point. It's part of the series history. It would just, to me, break the image of Link to have him speak," he said.
It's a bold move. After all, the modern lazy gamer today expects to not have to do any work. They don't have to figure out tough puzzles (that's what the Internet is for), they download cheats, and their attention can only be held so long when it comes to reading in-game dialogue.
Nintendo has become legendary for its "less is more" approach to voice acting. In a world where you also have games with hundreds of hours of recorded dialogue, literally enough to fill up an entire season of a TV show, there are Wii titles out there that literally just have a few "it'sa me!" and "yipee!" sound bytes. And yet LINK [] Charles Martinet probably makes more than a lot of the other video game voice actors out there.
Above: Charles Martinet, voice of Mario. Never has a voice actor become so famous for saying so little
Aonuma said that he also doesn't really want other voice acting in the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, because it would be too weird if everyone else talked but Link didn't.
Unfortunately we were unable to figure out who the guy is who makes Link's grunting noises in Super Smash Bros to comment on this story.
Source:Destructoid
Aug 13, 2010
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