Okay, this is helping justify another purchase of the game. I mostly want the Wolf Link and Midna Amiibo.

I find it difficult to believe that they'd lock an entire dungeon (at least a worthwhile one) behind an amiibo without having any other way of unlocking it in the game. That would be disappointing, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now based on the fact that they haven't done anything that egregious with amiibo before.

Link's Awakening DX had a dungeon you could only complete if you played it on a Game Boy Color. So it's not new. Besides, the game comes with the Amiibo you would need, so it wouldn't cost you extra. And it would be about time they really required Amiibo for something important

Be careful what you wish for...

Unless the digital version requires you to purchase an amiibo alongside it (which would be absolutely ridiculous) and there's no physical release for the game only, that's not going to be the case for everybody. I can do without important content being locked behind amiibo for as long as they exist in general. I can't why the possibility of overpriced physical DLC would be appealing to anybody.

The amiibo comes bundled with the game anyway, so this shouldn't be an issue for anyone. The only way they pull this off with digital buyers is if the download version comes at a $10 to $20 lower price point to compensate for the cost of a standalone amiibo.

If all copies come with the amiibo why lock it in the first place? Then again there could be more details that we don't know about yet so I'll reserve judgement and hope that common sense prevails.

I'll just pipe in and say "Fuck Amiibo" and every idiot that has made this nonsense take off can... trip and scrape their knee or something.  Nothing too serious, just something unpleasant.

I don't want anything of real value hidden behind an Amiibo because I don't want to buy any stupid Amiibos to access stuff in games that I USED to be able to get with just the game purchase.  Like a lot of DLC, Amiibo content is just a price hike but it is MORE annoying because you have to run around town trying to find the damn thing.  I can understand that those that like Amiibos would want their purchase to have more value.  So then we're stuck in this annoying customer war of incompatible interests like a smaller take on the casual vs. core conflict of the Wii years.  One group wants this but catering to them will turn off the other group that wants the opposite and vice versa.  Microtransactions and free-to-play scams offer a similar conflict where catering to the group that supports them severely compromises the product for those that don't.

Most of my life it didn't feel like I had to fight for the attention of videogame companies in competition with customers whose interests are so different that a company catering to them actually damages the product for people like myself.  Until about ten years ago if you liked games then videogame companies catered to you.  There were different genres that may not have interested you and you may prefer PCs or consoles but there wasn't anything that would get inserted into your game that could ruin the whole thing for you.  There was no casual audience that anyone felt the need to specifically cater to, no day-one or on disc DLC, no always-online anti-consumer stuff, no free to play, no microtransactions, no Amiibos, no franchises moving to mobile.  The worst you had to worry about was a sequel not being very good or focusing on elements that you personally didn't like as much as others did.  Or maybe your favourite genre wasn't as popular so games for it didn't get made as much.  But there weren't major scams infecting every sector of the industry where the buying habits of suckers ruined things for everyone else.

Hell, the whole business model of F2P trying to get the "whales" is oppression of the minority.  They'll cater stuff to a minority of fools because those fools will spend more money than the large majority that isn't buying the product.  One guy spending $100 is worth more than nine spending $10 each so you can tell 90% of your audience to fuck off and make MORE money.  Nintendo can turn off more people with Amiibo than they attract but if those customers spend enough money then it doesn't matter.  Nintendo can essentially switch from selling videogames to selling Amiibos.  A company like Konami for example has essentially left the videogame industry.  Every customer of Konami the videogame company is pissed off about this but Konami doesn't give a shit because they expect their pachinko and mobile customers to make up for literally turning away what was at one point was nearly their entire customerbase.  Gamers were just used for a few decades to create marketable IP that could be used for non-gaming ventures.  Nintendo could alienate every single person that made Mario a name brand but still use that brand to make money.

Honestly I would much rather prefer the amiibo unlock a Fierce Deity tunic that is purely cosmetic and functions as a regular tunic. The dungeon doesn't sound worthwhile and only serves to set off alarm bells for people. It will probably be short and sweet with some unlock at the end.


The health refills are nonsense. Zelda isn't hard and there are plenty of fairies. That is only for stupid people or potentially the Hero mode which you would be cheating essentially and ruining the entire point.

The spectre of on-disc locked content and microtransactions slowly grip Nintendo!


Doom-saying aside, I'm not too bothered by this even if there is no non-amiibo alternative to getting in that new dungeon. Not gonna stop anyone ringing alarm bells, though.

This is the station I get off Mr. Amiibo's wild ride if that's the case.  Probably also my threshold for reconsidering how quickly I adopt Nintendo consoles/handhelds.


I get it, Amiibo is DLC in figurine form.  The problem has always been with the scarcity of amiibo, so which is less important when it's a mundane addition like costumes or character skins.


A little bit different when you're talking about a whole level in a game.

Take this however you will, but I just want to point this fact out. The only version of this game that is up for pre order contains the amiibo. It's not sold out, pre orders are still available, there is no amiiboless version announced yet, so anybody who wants access to this optional dungeon has opportunity to get it. One more fact to note: this is, at least so far, a rumor.

amiibo are awesome.  Nintendo is simply getting back to their roots so many people complained that they had abandoned for so many years.

Sure, add a tacked-on dungeon to the mediocre 3D Zelda game that already has too many dungeons. Meanwhile, Wind Waker (the game we KNOW had dungeons cut) doesn't get a new dungeon. I guess Wind Waker was just unfortunate that it didn't release in a time when Nintendo was desperately trying to shove plastic toys down our throats.

Most unfortunate. We could have gotten a sweet Link and The King of the Red Lions Amiibo.

True, that.

It's a thinly sourced rumor, so who knows, but even it bears out I really doubt it would be a full-fledged dungeon. Not defending the practice, as the Amiibo gating seems to be quickly metastasizing out of the acceptable "Captain Falcon Mii costume" zone, but I'd wage a new TP area would be similar to the cave of trials or whatever, or the challenge tower in Link Between Worlds.

Should I remind people of other instances of dungeon being locked behind another pay barrier? A Link to the Past on GBA. To get to the dungeon in the Pyramid you had to beat Four Swords which required multiple copies of the game. The Oracle games had content such as super weapons, rings, and a true final boss locked behind having to buy the other game to get a code to continue it (password generators exist now, but when they released it was a different story). Color Dungeon was mentioned earlier.


So while I never did get to do the Four Swords dungeon (thanks Nintendo), comparing to the bonuses from the Oracle games and Link's Awakening, this is not going to be much of anything that is a "must-have" for the amiibo. It will justify the amiibo, but not make it essential. The dungeon is not going to be full-length or whatever.

Wind Waker HD:  HD Re-release, minimal new content, no amiibo - $59.99.
Twilight Princess HD: HD re-release, new dungeon, amiibo packed in, $59.99.

I don't see the problem?

WW HD was $49.99 and came with the bonus feature of making me seasick.

It was?  I thought it was full price?

Been awhile since I bought it. ;)

I would just like to add- no Zelda game has "too many dungeons". They're the best part of any Zelda title and we can always use more.

The dungeons are indeed the best part of Zelda so I get what you're saying. However, I too felt that Twilight Princess had too many dungeons. It messes with the pacing and I didn't think a couple of them were that good. For example, I remember not liking Snowpeak Ruins very much. I haven't completed the game since shortly after the Wii launched (I tried to play the Gamecube version in 2010 and I couldn't get through the beginning because it's bad). I am looking forward to running through Twilight Princess again in March.

Oh man, Snowpeak's structure is amazing. How could you not like that dungeon?! I'm homing, of course. I though the first round of dungeons in the game where you obtain fused shadows were not as good as the latter half.

Twilight Princess had the same number of dungeons as Ocarina of Time did (9). The pacing is just very slow in Twilight Princess because you had more going on and getting to each dungeon took a while. Not to mention the side-quests here and there.


Snowpeak was beautiful, but a pain in the ass to navigate.

I'm not a fan of Snowpeak either, largely because I feel like it's a dungeon heavy on backtracking and very weak progression. However, the dungeon I'd cut from Twilight is the Sky Temple. I just can't stand its shitty music and tedious progression, not to mention the lame Double Clawshot dungeon item (which pretty much does what the normal Clawshit should have done from the beginning).

Honestly, my complaints with Snowpeak kind of sum up Twilight Princess in general: it takes for-****ing-EVER to do anything substantial or get anywhere because you have to go through every area twice, often bogged down with lengthy, boring, silent cutscenes. You even have to run through the Lost Woods twice for no apparent reason. It's loaded with so much sheer padding that the entire game feels about 30 hours too long for me. Sadly, Nintendo didn't learn from any of their mistakes in TP and just made them even worse in Skyward Sword.

If you are kind enough to count it within the line, it was a Goddess send that A Link Between Worlds moved like lightning.

I don't think we'll see that with The Legend of Zelda for Wii U.

Why not?  A Link Between Worlds was released after Aonuma announced they were taking the series in a new direction in the January 2013 Nintendo Direct, with the main focus on the series being more open now, which is exactly what Link Between Worlds did.  They also made it pretty clear Link Between Worlds was going to be the precursor gameplay wise to Zelda Wii U since it was the teams first open world game.

If Link Between Worlds eliminated the required padding between dungeons that Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks had, it's not that hard to believe Zelda Wii U will eliminate the padding Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword required.  Especially since they've even mentioned this new focus on being open world is a response to fan complaints about Skyward Sword being full of too much handholding and fetch quest.

Now being Open World is going to open a whole new set of questions and concerns, particularly dungeon design since Link Between Worlds took a hit for allowing players to do them in any order so it'll be interesting how they handle them, but being too slow and bogged down by forced fetchquest to progress shouldn't be one of them, especially since that would kind of destroy the whole point of making an open world Zelda in the first place.

I love Zelda I do, I really do, but I am wondering if it might be time to take the franchise in an entirely different direction and turn it into a real RPG once and for all. Maybe expand the game play, build a new level and skill system, introduce some new characters that go on a quest along with Link, just totally mix it up, not just a spin off like Hyrule Warriors but a total re-brand of the saga? Making it bigger but not changing the core game sounds fruitless, they keep making it bigger but they haven't figured out that larger worlds with less to do is not what people want. New gameplay ideas that are not tied to swinging the remote and pretending to be a sword are not very good ideas either.

I think the open world approach will be a good direction to go in because games like that don't have padding the way recent Zelda games have.  They have lots of stuff and some of it can feel like filler but there are usually lots of optional quests so it's not like you have to do them.  The idea of having to do some fetch quest or re-visit an area as a requirement to proceed is an out-of-date way of making a game longer.

Zelda is supposed to be a grand adventure.  There aren't many games released before it on the NES, or consoles period, that were as huge as it.  Nintendo had tried ideas like motion control sword swinging to keep things fresh but that's not really what Zelda sequels did in the past.  They used to make everything bigger and give the player more things to do.  I think a big part of that came from all the extra things that new and improved hardware would offer.  Note that games like LttP and OoT went bigger while titles like Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask, that didn't coincide with improved hardware, did other things to stand out.  Nintendo essentially didn't update their hardware for 11 years so the games didn't grow with the hardware and they had to come up with gameplay concepts like Wolf Link and motion controlled sword swinging to justify making new Zeldas.  But now they've done a hardware increase so they can make Zelda bigger again.

There are two rules I want them to follow:
1. No blatant padding.
2. Give the player some credit and let them figure out puzzles without the game stopping every ten seconds to tell you exactly what to do at all times.

You don't play many Ubisoft games, do you? Hell, I just finished the most recent Assassin's Creed the other day, and the game locks the final chapter of the game behind clearing out all the optional sidequests in 3 of the world's districts. And before that, I played through AC Unity, a game where the map is so cluttered with icon barf that you can't even see your mission markers unless you clear out all the optional stuff.

So yeah, there's certainly padding in Open World games.

I think the last time I played a Ubisoft game was on the Gamecube. :)

I don't think Nintendo needs to make Zelda more like those games, but they DO need to make a game that is like that on their console. They need to look beyond just Zelda and Mario though.