Why Must Read The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia?

I purchased this The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule History because Zelda is one of my favorite game series of all time and I wanted to complete the trilogy of this collection (the other two books being Art & Artifacts which is okay and the Encyclopedia which is fantastic). I mainly wanted this book because I have never understood how the games fit together and are related, and this book goes into the timeline with diagrams and explanations, which you can see in one of my pictures. That part is great, and I won't spoil the fun by going into any more detail other than to say the author isn't making any official declarations and supposes different split timelines, as in different outcomes to battles and evil-sealings which splinters the realities into different paths so that two games can coexist together when they suppose completely opposite things happened in their beginnings. The other picture is a view of the pages from the side. The dark spot in the left to middle is the actual History, the timeline and explanation part. The part to the left of that is the details of Skyward Sword for Wii. Everything to the right of the dark pages is art and concept stuff. That is to say, there's a TON of filler in this book. If you're looking for hundreds of pages of history, you're not going to get it. I played Skyward Sword, and it was my least favorite Zelda game just because of the motion controls, so I wasn't into that part of the book, and it's a major part. This book does have some good information. One section offers the suggestion that the Ocarina from Ocarina of Time may be made from the same blue stone material as the time stones in Skyward Sword. (In that game you push a mine cart with special stone in it, and everything around the stone is transported back in time, so the desert around you turns to lush green grasslands. It was my favorite part of the game.) I would have never put the two items together. I want more of stuff like that, and that's my biggest complaint with the book: the stuff I really enjoyed about the book was also the smallest portion of it. I still highly recommend this book to collectors of Zelda stuff. It's a big book with shiny gold letters and looks good on my gaming shelf with the rest of the collection. 4/5 stars