Link is the recurring hero. He come from all walks of life and ends up saving his world. He doesn't really have a strong character as he doesn't talk, link is you, the player.

Zelda is also a reccuring princess, each game is set in a different 'age', the villain Ganondorf, who later turns into ganon, is always the same guy, pestering the lands, losing to one link, coming back stronger, losing to another link, etc. It is a perpetual cycle. Whenever evil in the form of ganon arises, a new hero in the form of link (you) arises to fight it back.

Ocarina of time shows us the origin of Ganondorf. The minish cap occurs WAY before this era, the windwaker way after this era.

Each game is chronologically connected in the greater scheme of things, sometimes timelines branch, due to the power of the ocarina of time, that split the eras into two different time-space continuums.

Twilight princess occurs after ocarina of time in one branching timeline, windwaker in another, majoras mask, featuring the same link as from ocarina of time, occurs in another dimension immediately after ocarina of time.

Zelda is always descended from the same princess before her, hyrule is always there but changes form due to the huge amounts of time thus geological upheavals between each era, and link also descends from every other link before him in all prior eras.

The only elements that are always the same in all games, that survive all the ages are; Ganon, the triforce, the land of hyrule itself(which may change appearance due to natural phenomena) and the master sword.

Everything else is re-born, re-created etc.

Gangans

I agree with everything you've said except the branching timelines bit. I'm not saying that you're wrong, but it is open to interpretation. Ganon's dialogue in Twilight Princess makes direct references to Ocarina of Time. The Wind Waker makes direct references to Ocarina of Time. I believe that Twilight Princess falls between Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker. The struggle that took place between Link, Zelda and Ganon in Twilight Princess was not referenced to in Wind Waker, but it still fits in. It is highly probable that not many were aware of the struggle between Ganon and Link in the Twilight Princess, since the people of Hyrule town even seemed unaware of what was really going on inside Hyrule Castle. According to interviews in old issues of EGM, Twilight Princess takes place roughly 200 years after Ocarina, while Wind Waker takes place about 400 years after Ocarina.

I'm disappionted that the Wii is region coded...I haven't bought one yet although I would really like to. Trouble is, I live in Japan but their are certain games I want to play in English (Fire Emblem, Super Paper Mario, Metriod Prime 3) yet my wife is Japanese so she wants to play all the Japanese games (in which the Wii has a very different library, that's a good thing).

Region coding is such an outdated precaution.....Sony has already dropped it with the PS3. Looks like I'll have to wait for Nintendo's next-next generation console.

The news of Nintendo's stock overtaking Sony was a fairly strong indication. The even more recent news of Japanese publishers focusing on the Wii and suspending most PS3 development (until the installed base increases) is, a shocking wake up call. There is no denying the as of this moment in time, Nintendo rules the console and portable market worldwide. Not bad for a company that every analysist said wouldn't be able to compete with Sony and Microsoft after the Gamecube's generation.

The absence of a Dragon Quest game on Sony's platform is as significant as Final Fantasy VII's defection from the N64 to Playstation in 1997. Nintendo may still be missing alot of third party hits in it's library, but it does now have a library where almost every genre is getting a triple A game within the next two years.

The point is: this is the day Nintendo fanboys have been waiting for since the final days of the Super NES.

- Now that Nintendo is #1, can the Wii match the glory days of the NES and Super NES?

- Is the market so different now that it's literally impossible for one company to dominate?

- Considering how Nintendo ran their business during their golden age, if they could dominate the games industry, would we really want them to?

One unfortunate thing about the GBA is number of amazing games the system has thatnobody knows anything about. The system is completely dominated by Pokemon games, but for anyone who has ever paid attention to the GBA's library, the is so much more. Below are five great games that I'm sure no one has played:

Ninja Five-O

Car Battler Joe

Warioland 4

Metal Slug

Astroboy

Can you name 5 GBA games you love that are not particularily popular?

I thought Project Hammer looked kinda dumb anyway...l8bitz

Exactly. Usually, Nintendo cans games when they're ot working out. It probably was an extremely mediocre experience. Anyone crying over the cancelation of this game is an .........well I don't want another TOS violation so you fill in the blank.