We Love Subtitles! And The Legend of Zelda Series Have Plenty of Them!!!
We think it’s safe to say that The Legend of Zelda seris has mandoratory subtitles. We love subtitles here at Kentendo Chronicles, as the title suggests. So I’ll go through each of them in the Zelda series! Main series only, no spinoffs - even the ones that are canon! Let’s see what we can find in terms of themes!!
The Legend of Zelda
The only Zelda game without a subtitle! It makes sense for it not to have one.
2. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
The only Zelda game with a non tradtional title, dropping “The Legend of…” entirely from the main title.
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The only Zelda game with different subtitles between the Japanese and US versions. The Japanese subtitle was Kamigami no Triforce, which translates to ‘Triforce of the Gods’ (a much cooler title if you ask me!).
4. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
5. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
6. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
7. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
8. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
9. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
10. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
11. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
12. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
13. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
14. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
15. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
16. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
17. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Yes, we left off Four Swords, Four Swords Adventure and Triforce Heroes. Despite them being canon, I’m considering them spinoffs to the main series. Games such as Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - a musou game, is both a spinoff and non-canon.
Now let’s see what we can glean from all of these subtitles! They seem to fall nicely into four categories:
Key Items
Plot devices
main characters, and
Abstract (meaning it vaguely describes some element of the game)
There is room for debate here for some of these but I think the chart above does well to compartmentalize each subtitle into the four respective themes.
The Key Items subtitles refer to an in-game items that Link acquires in those respective games - the Ocarina of Time, the Wind Waker, and the Phantom Hourglass. Tears of the Kingdom would have been in this category if Link actually acquired one or several of the Tears as key items, but as such, it’s more of a plot detail in my estimation.
Main characters subtitles are pretty self explanatory:
Adventure of Link = Link
Majora’s Mask = Majora
Oracle of Seasons = Din
Oracle of Ages = Nayru
Twilight Princess = Midna
Plot details are just things to do with story. A Link to the Past basically spells out the plot (and hints at the core gameplay mechanic). Triforce of the Gods would be more abstract - on top of being a much better title!
Would you classify any of these differently?