Topic: The Legend of Zelda Wii U

[azeke]

...but part of me wants that sweet, sweet pointer control to return for firing off those thin and pointy death sticks.

From what i remember Skyward Sword didn't use pointer control and instead emulated it with gyroscopes for some reason.

[BlackNMild2k1]

So... no one is going to discuss the laser/beam arrow that Link is about to snuff him with?

was it mentioned in here that Auonuma hinted that that might not be Link....?

[Nile Boogie Returns]

After looking at it and taking the time to digest what I felt earlier, I have come to the conclusion that this game is the finest looking video game I have ever seen!


Plenty of hyperbole in that statement for some but the fact remains, this art style hits all the right buttons for me. Never have I laid eyes on a games world on any system, in any generation of gaming and seen/felt what I did at first sight. 



"Oh what beauties she held under her coat. Hiding them in plain view but still only for me. She knows my eyes' music and how her wonders were the symphony clutched. Oh what beauties she held under her coat. May we dance at a distance that grows shorter each evening."

[Chiller]

That does look nice, and I certainly hope that they can create a truly great game.  However, one thing that I always wonder is whether or not they really can capture the expansive feel of the early games.  In retrospect, TLoZ and ALttP felt more expansive than they actually "physically" were.  I think the vastness is perceived, to a large extent.  I suppose the novelty of the games, at the time, contributed to feeling of size.  I liken it to a trip taken as a child, versus taken as an adult.  When I was young, a field trip downtown, or a ride to my grandmother's house felt like a journey.  With as much driving as I do now, those same trips would go by in a flash, and be quite mundane.

To sort of mirror what has been mentioned by a few, already, I hope they don't just make the map huge, without providing substance.  Conversely, I hope they don't swing the pendulum too far in the other direction, and add things unnecessarily to avoid "emptiness".  To really bring back the magic, they need to create a world that seems to extend beyond its own "physical" boundaries.  It must be interesting, and novel enough to not end up just being a tedious impediment to getting from point "A" to "B" (although the early games had the same issue, thus requiring frequent use of warping).  With as many "epic" games as there have been, this will be difficult to achieve, I would imagine.

It will be interesting to see if they can really pull it off, this time.

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

I am excited for it because like many fans I have grown tired of the same old Zelda so it is nice to try something new. The hard core base who just wants more of the same is shrinking so they would be damn fools to continue catering to them. They desperately need to get others back into the fold and bring in new people, an open world Zelda with lots of combat is a damn good start, which is why I am so interested in Hyrule Warriors because sometimes in Zelda you do too damn much walking around not enough slashing enemies.

[Soren]

...but part of me wants that sweet, sweet pointer control to return for firing off those thin and pointy death sticks.

From what i remember Skyward Sword didn't use pointer control and instead emulated it with gyroscopes for some reason.

I think the GamePad can handle the bow and arrow fine, and do some of the the Wii's pointer controls did.

[nickmitch]

Nintendo knows how to crank the most out of their hardware, so I'm sure this game will look amazing, even by other "contemporary" standards.

I'm soooo glad that Nintendo has been experimenting with the Zelda formula.  This game looks great and sounds like it has a LOT of promise.  Totes excite.

[MagicCow64]

I'm not worried about this game falling into the shitty open world design traps that have become prevalent. Even describing the game as "open world" is a pretty huge concession to popular trends on Nintendo's part, and I'm sure they'll do everything they can to differentiate beyond that point.

[Ceric]

If they are going more Open World this time like the Original Zelda as they say I hope they take there Cues from the games in that Family, LoZ LttP LBW, where the world felt a good size but wasn't huge and each area had a purpose and something to make them more then just blank space except where that was the puzzle, LoZ Death Mountain.

[Ian Sane]

I understand the concern about Nintendo recreating typical open world design faults.  I have the same concerns.  But I've really wanted Nintendo to branch out into genres and styles they normally haven't touched.  A big reason for that is that they're so talented I assume they'll do a better job than others.  I'll admit over the years my confidence in their talent is not as high as it used to be but if someone is going to really make an open world game that tops the rest it might as well be Nintendo.  Yeah they might screw it up but they really SHOULD be trying this stuff.  I'll take a Nintendo that tries to be ambitious and fails rather than one that intentionally holds back.

Though I do realize that it's really the scope of Zelda that I want to be bigger.  It doesn't have to be an open world as much as a larger one.  Skyward Sword feels incredibly small.  The different areas don't even connect directly.  Zelda needs to feel like a world to explore.  If open world is how they feel they have to achieve that, it's not a bad approach in theory.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Aonuma talks Zelda & Puzzles
http://kotaku.com/the-new-zelda-might-not-have-the-puzzles-you-expect-1590544423

Schreier: I just have to slip in one question that a lot of people are wondering—Mr. Aonuma, you've talked a lot about changing traditions and shifting away from the series formulas. Can you give me one example of a tradition that people are familiar with in Zelda that you've changed in a big way for the new Zelda that you're working on for next year?

Aonuma: So you know we've talked a little bit today about the puzzle-solving element in Zelda, and how that's kinda taken a different shape in Hyrule Warriors. But I think people have come to just assume that puzzle-solving will exist in a Zelda game, and I kinda wanna change that, maybe turn it on its ear.

As a player progresses through any game, they're making choices. They're making hopefully logical choices to progress them in the game. And when I hear 'puzzle solving' I think of like moving blocks so that a door opens or something like that. But I feel like making those logical choices and taking information that you received previously and making decisions based on that can also be a sort of puzzle-solving. So I wanna kinda rethink or maybe reconstruct the idea of puzzle-solving within the Zelda universe.

So maybe instead of push this block into this hole or light those 3 candles, it's a more complicated system of previous choices leading to current solutions. (i.e. if you helped a certain NPC earlier in the game, they offer you something that makes things easier later. or maybe some NPCs say something earlier that offer clues as to how to proceed later). Those just some quick ideas, but I think you get what I was thinking.

[MagicCow64]

Aonuma talks Zelda & Puzzles
http://kotaku.com/the-new-zelda-might-not-have-the-puzzles-you-expect-1590544423

Schreier: I just have to slip in one question that a lot of people are wondering—Mr. Aonuma, you've talked a lot about changing traditions and shifting away from the series formulas. Can you give me one example of a tradition that people are familiar with in Zelda that you've changed in a big way for the new Zelda that you're working on for next year?

Aonuma: So you know we've talked a little bit today about the puzzle-solving element in Zelda, and how that's kinda taken a different shape in Hyrule Warriors. But I think people have come to just assume that puzzle-solving will exist in a Zelda game, and I kinda wanna change that, maybe turn it on its ear.

As a player progresses through any game, they're making choices. They're making hopefully logical choices to progress them in the game. And when I hear 'puzzle solving' I think of like moving blocks so that a door opens or something like that. But I feel like making those logical choices and taking information that you received previously and making decisions based on that can also be a sort of puzzle-solving. So I wanna kinda rethink or maybe reconstruct the idea of puzzle-solving within the Zelda universe.

So maybe instead of push this block into this hole or light those 3 candles, it's a more complicated system of previous choices leading to current solutions. (i.e. if you helped a certain NPC earlier in the game, they offer you something that makes things easier later. or maybe some NPCs say something earlier that offer clues as to how to proceed later). Those just some quick ideas, but I think you get what I was thinking.

What I'm hearing is that this game will be just like Riven. Yup. For sure best game ever.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Aonuma talks Zelda & Puzzles
http://kotaku.com/the-new-zelda-might-not-have-the-puzzles-you-expect-1590544423

Schreier: I just have to slip in one question that a lot of people are wondering—Mr. Aonuma, you've talked a lot about changing traditions and shifting away from the series formulas. Can you give me one example of a tradition that people are familiar with in Zelda that you've changed in a big way for the new Zelda that you're working on for next year?

Aonuma: So you know we've talked a little bit today about the puzzle-solving element in Zelda, and how that's kinda taken a different shape in Hyrule Warriors. But I think people have come to just assume that puzzle-solving will exist in a Zelda game, and I kinda wanna change that, maybe turn it on its ear.

As a player progresses through any game, they're making choices. They're making hopefully logical choices to progress them in the game. And when I hear 'puzzle solving' I think of like moving blocks so that a door opens or something like that. But I feel like making those logical choices and taking information that you received previously and making decisions based on that can also be a sort of puzzle-solving. So I wanna kinda rethink or maybe reconstruct the idea of puzzle-solving within the Zelda universe.

So maybe instead of push this block into this hole or light those 3 candles, it's a more complicated system of previous choices leading to current solutions. (i.e. if you helped a certain NPC earlier in the game, they offer you something that makes things easier later. or maybe some NPCs say something earlier that offer clues as to how to proceed later). Those just some quick ideas, but I think you get what I was thinking.

What I'm hearing is that this game will be just like Riven. Yup. For sure best game ever.

In my head I was thinking of MYST like puzzles, especially when talking about using Logic, mixed with open world and non-conventional Zelda puzzles, but I think lots of gamers, especially the younger ones, might get stuck very often, unless there are visual/audio/physical cues for when you are near something you can interact with.

[Ian Sane]

I think the puzzles would be greatly improved if the annoying sidekick character didn't outright tell you the answer before you've even had two seconds to think about it.  In later Zelda games it comes across like Nintendo really doesn't want you to get stuck and it was taken to a ridiculous extreme in Skyward Sword.  Videogames in general have tended to move towards telling the player exactly what to do so Nintendo isn't the only guilty party here.  I don't want to go back to the days of having no idea what to do and puzzles having completely obtuse and illogical solutions.  We found a happy medium somewhere between then and now so they should just go back to that.  It's okay if some people get lost or stuck in Zelda.  The game is supposed to offer some challenge to the player and in the days of the internet no one can get stuck on a puzzle anyway.  If they're really stuck they can always go online and look up the answer.  And frankly Skyward Sword was so patronizing to the player that I imagine anyone who would need that level of handholding to move on probably can't even read the answer in the first place.  Give your audience a little credit, Nintendo, and while we're at it don't assume I forgot what a damn rupee is every time I load up my save.

Since the Zelda series is pretty old a lot of the puzzle tropes are pretty easy for longtime fans to immediatly identify.  But new fans aren't as hip to the conventions and Nintendo would naturally want to make to game accessible to newcomers as well.  That's quite a challenge and the best solution I can think of is to have the more predictable puzzles near the beginning of the game and have more original puzzles towards the end when newcomers will have had a chance to get familar with Zelda's gameplay and the less dedicated players have already quit.

[Stratos]

I think the puzzles would be greatly improved if the annoying sidekick character didn't outright tell you the answer before you've even had two seconds to think about it.

Just give an option of an easy and hard mode. Hard mode removes the annoying side-character's commentary and hints. Then in easy mode the fairly/princess/chatterbox character can blather all they like to help you out.

[NWR_insanolord]

This would be a prime opportunity for microtransactions. Want your sidekick character to shut up? Just pay $5 right here.

[nickmitch]

For 30 minutes.

[Kytim89]

Hopefully we get boss battles on a grander scale than those of God of War 3. As for the art style of the game, I was hoping Nintendo would go with the more dark and gothic style of Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess married to the style of the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series. Overall, the game is very impressive and once it gets here then I will be the first to buy it (twice).

[Stratos]

I will be the first to buy it (twice).

You are already pre-ordering the Ultra HD remake that will release in 10 years? Must be an awesome pre-order bonus.

[Toruresu]

I think I don't want to be Link on this game, but maybe some other Hyrulian guy/girl. Would be great if after playing the game, maybe following clues on the legend of "the hero of time" you eventually find you are his reincarnation, or something like it. But at the beginning we would clearly know we are not playing Link.

[Nile Boogie Returns]

I may be alone in this but I kinda want to know where this game lies in the timeline before I make a decision on if I want to play as "Link". I am one of the few people who LOVE all the timeline stuff. Could be set long after Twilight Princess as the boss in the trailer sorta resembles the Fused Shadow. Or maybe early Hyrule being that the world looks "new", so after Skyward Sword but before Minish Cap. 




Hyrule Historia made me love the overall story and now I want all of the stories to mesh yet still be unique.

[Adrock]

Maybe it's the aftermath of Ocarina of Time that explains the nonsense "Hero is Defeated" split. If that isn't Link in the teaser, this could be why.

[NWR_insanolord]

They could do a new break in the timeline at Ocarina of Time and have a new timeline that's the result of playing OoT through the Fire Temple but not feeling like dealing with the bullshit of the Water Temple and drifting away from the game, never completing it.

[ShyGuy]

Okay, so with a spider robot thing and a cyber-arrow, does this Zelda happen in a more futuristic setting? I know it has been dabbled with in the past, most notably the Ancient robots of Skward Sword, but what if we see cars and guns and Links gets a Akira style cycle model E-P0N A ?

[Nile Boogie Returns]

maybe it's after Spirit Tracks which had machinery and locomotives. Its also possible that it's Twilight Princess due to the fact that there was that that dungeon with the machinery and electricity. also it was confirmed that it's a Link in the trailer and Nintendo would simply trolling us.