I mean, I respect the hell out of it for basically inventing JRPGs, having great music and art, and some of my favourite series are parodys of it (Earthbound/Mother).
But lord help me, I just cannot get into this series. It’s stories and world building suck. It’s so very, very chuddy in its values and characters. All about birthright and bloodlines (Something that’s putting me off the Zelda and Fire Emblem series too as I get older). It’s also got that Square Enix sexism stink that I find myself being less tolerant of the older I get.
Please feel free to roast me for this opinion, it’s just my personal preference after all.
If you like the Dragon Quest series I would love to hear why, because I want to like it. Maybe I just haven’t played the right one. I’ve only played 8 to completion on the PS2 back when I was a kid, and I tried the Demo of 11 but wasn’t really gelling with them changing the iconic presentation of their battles, if that makes sense (a nitpick, I know)
Windwaker Link is probably one of the best examples of ‘earning the mantle’ I’ve seen in a Japanese game tbh
Earning the mantle?
If I’m remembering right it’s outright pointed out, I want to say by the King of Red Lions, that this Link has no connection to any of the ones to come before him other than being willing to stand against Ganon the way he did, and that’s what gave him the mark of Courage
A couple LoZ’s do the same kind of thing where Link has to actually earn it rather than being born that way; but Windwaker Link’s the first place my mind goes when I think “Links who bear no blood or birthright connecting them to the chain; merely the will”