Eiji Aonuma's Zelda Timeline Disclaimer

With the release of Hyrule Historia and the confirmed Zelda timeline, Nintendo essentially opened Pandora's Box - and now there's no closing it. Zelda fans (admittedly, myself included) immediately took it upon themselves to pick out any and all flaws the franchise's chronology presented.

As Zelda fans outside Japan well know, the book has yet to see a worldwide release - but as time passes fan translations continue to surface. As reported by Kotaku, the most recent translation reveals Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma's disclaimer of sorts on the much-discussed timeline. In it Aonuma issues a gentle reminder that, "from the very beginning, Zelda games have been developed with the top priority of focusing on the game mechanics rather than the story."

In other words, while it's fun to think about what order the games are in and to analyze the overarching continuity, since gameplay always takes top precedence when creating a Zelda game (and "story is an appendix to that"), setting the timeline in stone means that certain contradictions are unavoidable and should be taken with a grain of salt. Does it make any sense that Link had seemingly never met Zelda before in the Oracle games (since he's supposedly the same dude from A Link to the Past)? Nope, but that's okay.

"While reading over "The Full History of Hyrule," it's possible that some parts may look contradictory," he said. "For instance, the Mogma race or the beetle item that appear on the very first story do not appear on any other game that takes place in the future. I'd like to ask everyone just to enjoy the book and to be broad-minded, and to think that those parts are the way they are because of the way Zelda games are developed."

Having to overlook a handful of contradictions is a small price to pay for having some Nintendo-approved clarity on the whole timeline business, so let's all take Aonuma's message to heart and forgive the inevitable difficulties the timeline unleashes. After all, it'd be almost eerie if the entire future of this 25 year old franchise had been foreseen and accounted for from the very beginning (or it means those folks have access to a much more capable Fortune Teller than Link does).

Meanwhile, we're still awaiting an explanation on why Link's hair is pink in A Link to the Past. Perhaps the later pages of Hyrule Historia hold the answers.

For more on the Zelda timeline, check out the Nintendo team's discussion of it in this week's Nintendo Voice Chat.

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