A lot of ideas look stupid on paper, but it's how they're pulled off which counts.
Stranger was once described as "a strange creature which is based on a Horse and Gorillia and a talking boat"
(paramiteabe, 06-18-2003, scroll down - Yay, old hype) before fans knew a lot about him. Seems the talking boat bit was dropped, maybe would have been a bit too weird even for Oddworld (or not? Maybe they could've made that boat into a character, gave it some sentience - It shoots by itself after all), but it worked for Zelda. And most of the rest of Stranger's design worked really well.