The Mystery of Marin

I’m trying to make a word catch on in the world of video game analysis: luigification. It’s when a character starts out being derivative of another but then gradually becomes distinct in. I’m not sure if Luigi was necessarily the first character to undergo this transformation, but he’s definitely the most famous, even if Capcom has been luigifying Ken ever since Street Fighter II. I’d say that luigification can even take place in an instance like Mortal Kombat, the first incarnation of which features Scorpion and Sub-Zero as palette swaps but with unique movesets. Over the years, the series has further differentiated so that they look different in ways that aren’t limited to color schemes.This post will be about an unusual form of luigification in which the character in question, Marin from Legend of Zelda, isn’t gradually differentiated so much as she keeps spawning lookalikes that move away from the identity she had when she was first introduced. It’s weird. In the entire Legend of…