Are Link and Samus plain stupid or just forgetful?

[TiefBlau]

This is something that I find weird in Metroid and Zelda games. In Metroid Samus can gather up somewhere around 300 missile slots in her arm cannon, a few dozen energy tanks and super bombs, power-ups like guns and visors, and then she loses them all by the next game. I know Nintendo needs to do this to keep the games from being broken easy at the beginning but realistically how can Samus possible lose all the upgrades to a suit she wears as a second skin?
The same goes for Link from the Zelda series. Yes there are more than one "Links" in the series since there's no set timeline, but Ocarina of Time and Major's Mask are supposed to be sequels. So how does Young Link from Hyrule head off to Termina and forget his bomb bag, sling-shot, lens of truth, boomerang and ETC. How could he think of leaving those in Hyrule and go off to a new and dangerous land?
I know I'm knit-picking but its a little annoying if your that kind of person, what do you guys think about this mental issue these game characters seem to be infected with? Also leave some comments on why you think i'm wrong or dumb if that's the case.

What's that? You mean the protagonists of just about every single game in existence lose all their skills and abilities in the sequels to said game?

Hold the presses.

 

[AdamRBi]

I can speculate all day, but I can easily sum it up.

1) Between Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask Link a) Didn't have ANY of his adult weapons due to him being a kid again, and b) could have lost any or more of his items in between games or discarded them during a time of peace.

2) Samus is known for barely escaping explosions and having her suit functions malfunction. It's lazy, I know, but it works as a reason to under power the character at the start of the game. I love how they changed that up in Other M, and the concept of waiting for orders to be able to use a weapon that could disrupt the at that time to the characters unknown nature and stability of the Bottle Ship was actually a really good one (with the exception of one or two upgrades).

I love it when games subvert this trope of loosing your power-ups, best example being Banjo-Tooie where you have every power up from the previous game, but in most cases it would make the characters too overpowered for any real difficulty curve.

You should be at least happy they try when stories fall in to continuity, I don't think they've ever had a game where they outright ignored it sides from a few.