I just had a horrible/amazing idea: what if Nintendo finally made Link have a voice, and what if that voice was Nolan North? Would the everyman of game voice acting be able to pull off one of Nintendo's classic silent protagonists? Or would it be an awful mixture, hearing Nathan Drake coming out of Link?
Mr. Drake and Mr. North, in their respective forms. As we all know, North has done a lot of voicework for games recently, most notably as Drake in Sony's ever-popular Uncharted franchise. However, the sheer amount of games that North has worked on is nothing short of astounding. He's Desmond Miles in Assassin's Creed, Jason Fleming in Shadow Complex, Will Grey in Dark Void, and hell, he was Hades in the original God of War. For the full list of North's accomplishments, turn your attention here.
This is never going to happen, but what if he was Link? Mr. North as Link: impossible?Yes, I know: Nintendo would never in a million years have Link voiced, but I feel like the age of the silent protagonist is coming to a close. This realization came to me when Gamespot had its "Greatest Game Hero" contest a few months back. Gordon Freeman won. Gordon Freeman! He's barely a character within the context of the Half-Life games, being only an arm and some piece of weaponry. Within the game, you never see his face, he never responds to anything Alyx says, and he might as well be an emotional amoeba for all we know. The saddest part of it all is that it seems that Alyx is falling in love with him. Craziness, I say!
But, back to Nintendo. Link has never been voiced, and has never made any response even in text to other characters. He, like Gordon Freeman, is completely silent within the game world. Other Nintendo characters share this silent protagonist theory, such as Samus and Mario. If Link were to talk though, could he sound like Nathan Drake and be voiced by Nolan North? Also, could Ganondorf be voiced by Mark Hamill, or would we just hear the Joker? If he can be the Joker, why not Ganondorf? Anyway, I'm very interested to see what Nintendo does with the next Zelda game for Wii. Having Nolan North and Mark Hamill as two of Nintendo's greatest characters is almost completely impossible, but it's fun to dream. The bottom line of all this is that the next Zelda better have voice acting, and it better be good.
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