General Zelda thread
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I'm calling this game The Zelda Scrolls
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Wow, I'm surprised they didn't wait until E3.
The game looks great so far, though I'm a little sad we still don't have a full-on trailer yet. Maybe they're waiting on that for E3?
Nice to have some actual gameplay now though, even if it was very frustrating that it was off-camera. Horse combat returning was a given, but it's kinda neat that the slow-motion-horse-jump-arrow shoot from the teaser is an actual move you can do. Curious that they didn't show any sword gameplay on the ground, but that's probably because it's similar to how it has been before. Sailcloth coming back is cool, especially with it working closer to how the Deku Leaf did.
Epona running automatically is actually kind of clever, considering how big the world is. Nice touch that you (apparently) can't run into trees while horseback.
The world looked big already from when they debuted it, but man, seeing gameplay put it in perspective even more. Here's hoping the world is packed with things to do.
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SO HYPED!
A bit sad we only got off-screen stuff and no direct footage, but still, The world looks amazing! It seems like Nintendo is REALLY feeling the concept of a true open world! I'm ridiculously hyped for it if I haven't already been.
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Looks really cool. A Zelda with modern tech behind it, the stuff of dreams. Hopefully won't be any forced gamepad gimmicks.
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I just hope the overworld will be interesting if it's massive. Varied and rich in unique regions with a distinct feel to each, and a lot of soul. You know, not just 5 minutes of traversing forest.
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I just hope the overworld will be interesting if it's massive. Varied and rich in unique regions with distinct with a distinct feel to each, and a lot of soul. You know, not just 5 minutes of traversing forest.
tThe more than ovvious cuts in that video should tell you enough.
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Shadow of the Colossus was pretty empty and I don't see people complain.
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Shadow of the Colossus was intentionally made to be empty though. It added to the lonely atmosphere and made the impact of every encounter with a Colossus that much more exciting.
An example of a game being big and empty for no reason would be Sonic Boom's hub worlds, and everyone complained about those.
Maximum skepticism for a release next year, it's not a Zelda game if there's not a delay.
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An example of a game being big and empty for no reason would be Sonic Boom's hub worlds, and everyone complained about those.
.And Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts.
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An example of a game being big and empty for no reason would be Sonic Boom's hub worlds, and everyone complained about those.
It's a modern day Sonic game complaints are going to be found any and everywhere even if they don't legitimately exist.
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I hope you can jump from Epona and come back to Epona after shooting.
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I like that people are trying to find reasons to justify the bland overworld showed in the footage, but I'll keep whatever comments I have until the final game… Which I honestly think would not change very much from this. I would have more faith, but there hasn't been a great 3D Zelda game in a long time.
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I think I'm with Hiroy on this.
Reserving judgment, yada yada, but I feel like we were led on like this before by Twilight Princess. Itll be great if the world was filled to the brim with secret grottos, treasures, etc., like LttP on a grand scale, but an SoTC-style empty field really doesn't mesh with Zelda…Also didn't like the comment about MM: "The three day system is intact" ...As opposed to what? It better well damn be intact!
Hopefully the worst they do is some kind of easy mode saving system that's completely optional. -
I love what I see visually…..but I will wait to reserve judgement and all that jazz.
It's always great to see Miyamoto and Aonuma hanging out.
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@CCC:
Also didn't like the comment about MM: "The three day system is intact" …As opposed to what? It better well damn be intact!
Hopefully the worst they do is some kind of easy mode saving system that's completely optional.I took it as more of a joke. Like, it has taken them 10 years to be able to change the stuff they want about majora's mask but don't worry, the 3-day system is not one of them.
I can see peoples fears about the big empty world and i'm hoping that they have the sense to not make it like the sky in skyward sword but more like the ocean in wind waker HD. I don't expect things to be jumping out of every corner but it can feel more involved and filled if there are random elements involved. But i will reserve judgement until we see more.
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It will be revealed that hordes the size of those in Hyrule Warriors will be found roaming around Hyrule to address complaints of being an empty world.
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If they make it like a grassy Great Sea that would be ok.
I'm just worried they're overcorrecting for the confined garbage of Skyward Sword. -
I like that people are trying to find reasons to justify the bland overworld showed in the footage, but I'll keep whatever comments I have until the final game… Which I honestly think would not change very much from this. I would have more faith, but there hasn't been a great 3D Zelda game in a long time.
@CCC:
I think I'm with Hiroy on this.
Reserving judgment, yada yada, but I feel like we were led on like this before by Twilight Princess. Itll be great if the world was filled to the brim with secret grottos, treasures, etc., like LttP on a grand scale, but an SoTC-style empty field really doesn't mesh with Zelda…Be more optimist guys. Don't throw away your Nintendo soul like that.
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@CCC:
I think I'm with Hiroy on this.
Reserving judgment, yada yada, but I feel like we were led on like this before by Twilight Princess. Itll be great if the world was filled to the brim with secret grottos, treasures, etc., like LttP on a grand scale, but an SoTC-style empty field really doesn't mesh with Zelda…Also didn't like the comment about MM: "The three day system is intact" ...As opposed to what? It better well damn be intact!
Hopefully the worst they do is some kind of easy mode saving system that's completely optional.Twilight Princess had the problem of the main Hyrule field being big and empty, but at least there were distinct regions with their own feel (there was still the volcano region, desert region, snow region, lake region, etc). I'm kind of worried this will just be a super enormous grassy overworld with no varied regions. If it somewhat approximates what TP did, that would actually be okay with me. Sort of. But If you're going to increase the scale so much, and genuinely make it take minutes and minutes to traverse regions on the map, then it stops being okay for it to be totally empty.
I don't even know why people are comparing it to Shadow of the Colossus. A game about minimalism, solitude, and a handful of boss fights.
@Monkey:
If they make it like a grassy Great Sea that would be ok.
Not with me. The only positive thing the ocean in Wind Waker created was a sense of freedom and scale, with awesome music. This worked in a limited way to distract me from the fact that the ocean was actually pretty boring to sail. There are only a handful of interesting spots on the water, and only a handful of interesting islands for that matter. The Swift Sail was such a godsend in the HD remaster because it made you stop struggling with this contrived grandeur. The wind always behind you, and twice the speed of travel. Now I can get a sense of scale without actually spending much time getting from place to place. So if the new Zelda is going to dump us in another massive overworld, unless it's actually filled with interesting stuff to do, it's nothing more than a gimmick of sorts. Fast travel and warping could make it excusable but not an actual good design choice.
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Twilight Princess had the problem of the main Hyrule field being big and empty, but at least there were distinct regions with their own feel (there was still the volcano region, desert region, snow region, lake region, etc). I'm kind of worried this will just be a super enormous grassy overworld with no varied regions. If it somewhat approximates what TP did, that would actually be okay with me. Sort of. But If you're going to increase the scale so much, and genuinely make it take minutes and minutes to traverse regions on the map, then it stops being okay for it to be totally empty.
Those areas were so tacked on though. The desert and snow ones might as well have been accessed through Mario 64 paintings.
In fact one of the biggest problems with TP's overworld was how inorganic it felt. I honestly never got a real clear good view of how it all looked together.
It was like a strange maze of canyons, fields and rocky trails that were supposed to be mountains I think. Death Mountain felt like a slightly inclining brown path.
It's telling that Nintendo never produced an illustrated map for it like they did with even Skyward Sword.
Ocarina had one, Majoras had one. TP only ever got this ugly thing. It was a strange overworld that never worked. -
I know, I'm not saying it had a good field setup. It's hard to compare something like that to a true, seamless world map anyway. But compared to an entire world map of grass, it would sort of be the lesser of two evils for me. I want varied environments.
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I don't think anyone has said it was going to be all grass, you're taking my comment way too literally.
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It's footage from an incomplete game, of course it's going to be near deserted and with nothing implemented. Their goal was to showcase the scale of the world, the ease of movement and combat.
If this were the footage from E3, then yea, let's all board the worry train and call Skyward Sword 2. But it's much too soon to go hyper cynical on this. For me the fact they want you to be able to look around and do stuff while epona moves by itself is telling of the fact there will be stuff to do and look for. At least that's what I'd expect based on that design choice, time will tell.
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It's footage from an incomplete game, of course it's going to be near deserted and with nothing implemented. Their goal was to showcase the scale of the world, the ease of movement and combat.
If this were the footage from E3, then yea, let's all board the worry train and call Skyward Sword 2. But it's much too soon to go hyper cynical on this. For me the fact they want you to be able to look around and do stuff while epona moves by itself is telling of the fact there will be stuff to do and look for. At least that's what I'd expect based on that design choice, time will tell.
More like Twilight Princess 2. Skyward Sword had the complete opposite problem of feeling a bit like a shitty 3D Mario game with it's constrained environment layout (can't even say overworld there lol).
Which is partly why I'm worried about things, like since Wind Waker they've been veering around a bit out of control and overcorrecting "mistakes" and mistakes."Wind Waker too cartoony??? Oh no let's add some really dumb DARKKK elements to TP and overly copy Ocarina in an attempt to be just as popular again!"
"TP was too large and serious? Ok let's uh….forcibly combine TP and WW's art styles into a confusing mish mash and pretty much eliminate the overworld entirely!"So now have they stopped being panicked chickens creating bigger and bigger mistakes in some neurotic bid to be popular like the amazingly incompetent idiots on Sonic Team (loll at Green Vs Red's denial about them)? Or are we back to just making good games.
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@Monkey:
So now have they stopped being panicked chickens creating bigger and bigger mistakes in some neurotic bid to be popular like the amazingly incompetent idiots on Sonic Team (loll at Green Vs Red's denial about them).
Oh no I'll acknowledge they've dropped the ball more times than I can count on both hands, Sega not helping with some of the bone headed decisions they've made or have allowed to be made with the series. Even the post Adventue Sonic games that I have actually played through and liked, had issues that could've been handled better or mechanics that could've easily been discarded.
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f](http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/12/09/the-legend-of-zelda-wii-u-fullscreen-footage-from-the-game-awards)ullscreen version of the Game Awards footage (as good as it gets anyway)
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
also this (top pic is from the Game Awards footage when he displays the map on the gamepad)
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Cool analysis of the footage
&list=UUfAPTv1LgeEWevG8X_6PUOQ# t=789 -
I'm with Noqanky on this. (Other than her stab at Skyward Sword, but that's what all the cool kids are doing right?)
It's WAY too early to be able to actually say much of anything about this footage other than what they directly showed, and that's that the world is huge.
It's WAY too early to worry about things like what all is going to be in the overworld. I have faith that they know that to build an overworld of the size they're talking about, filling it with things to do is a must. The fact that they mention that there is random plant and animal life in the world has me positive of this. They said at one point the trees sprout apples that you can pick and eat. That, to me, is a sign that they know to stuff this huge overworld with stuff to do. I only think we were shown the game at this point with such an empty overworld is because they wanted such a big reveal for the game awards, so they decided to show this off even tho they aren't anywhere near done with the game.
Plus, one thing as well, Some people have analyzed the world map from that one shot we got of that part of the Map that was on the gamepad and have determined there really were different regional areas and different landscapes at different elevations based on what could be seen and they mapped out roughly where each traditional landmark could potentially be based on visual cues.
So, it's clear we simply don't know enough about the map just yet, but all signs point to them not screwing this one up.
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In a butters voice: well I enjoyed skyward sword…
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I mean, obviously it's an unfinished game. But if it's releasing next year, it's probably further along than you guys imagine. It's probably playable from start to finish in some alpha state already.
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I mean, obviously it's an unfinished game. But if it's releasing next year, it's probably further along than you guys imagine. It's probably playable from start to finish in some alpha state already.
December 2015 is still technically "Next Year" lol.
They could have also wanted to focus on the size of the world and/or the horse riding mechanics and therefore toned down or omitted things from the overworld for the demonstration. For example, they may still be in the process of programming parts of the engine, and too many NPCs/Enemies on screen could cause the framerate to chug. Therefore, they may have wanted that NOT to happen so they removed all the enemies for this demo.
What I'm saying is, there's about 1000 Different reasons a pre-release game could be missing those details. Good idea I think then to wait till we have more info
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There are going to be things missing, things that are buggy, things that are not in a fully playable state. But if it's being released to the public within a year, it needs to go gold weeks earlier, and full 100% "we're done" testing months earlier… and yeah. Basically at this point they need to have a fully featured game. If all we saw was a completely (intentionally) stripped interactive tech demo then that's another matter.
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There are going to be things missing, things that are buggy, things that are not in a fully playable state. But if it's being released to the public within a year, it needs to go gold weeks earlier, and full 100% "we're done" testing months earlier… and yeah. Basically at this point they need to have a fully featured game. If all we saw was a completely (intentionally) stripped interactive tech demo then that's another matter.
Lol, the optimism. We live in the day of patches, where testing keeps on going endlessly because, hey, worst-case scenario you can include fixes in a day one update or a patch. 100% done months earlier? I seriously seriously doubt it. Even at around E3 I bet they'll still be testing.
There is no way the game is complete enough at this moment to be considered fully featured. No fucking way. They've probably ironed out all story elements and the processes and all that, but I really really doubt the environments we see now are going to be exactly the same as in the finished game.
Like I said, I'm inclined to believe they'll be way more populated than what was shown. Especially since the priority first is to test the world and make sure it all flows properly and that Link can interact with it as flawlessly as possible. After that is clear, then you start adding elements to that environment. We got horses and some monsters, I'm sure there will be more. -
Maybe it's just like an Ocarina of Time map thing except instead of video gamey land walls it's more like rl or something. So like imagine being able to walk from the Deku Tree to the Zora river and then to Kakariko village instead of following the land wall passages to Hyrule Field to reach them in their separate land wall corridors.
Anyway talking about it seeming bad already is dumb no matter how you try to explain it. I understand being worried about some concept or another, but you guys are talking like open world instantly means empty Twilight Princess grass deserts because….uh.
Lest we also forget that Tiwlight Princess's empty overworld would have really not been so bad had it's actual towns and settled areas not been super lifeless and poorly done (well I thought Ordon village was good, but Kakariko, Goron city, Zora whatever, and the castle town were crap). And had the different ecosystem places be isolated warp points off to the side of the main map.
There were a huge host of problems aside from simply large boring fields.
The fact that this game has seamless transition stuff and not the awkard landwall maze nonsense that connected the fields of TP already makes it a different animal entirely.A different animal that could yet suck, but we have no real reason to think it will yet.
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Lol, the optimism. We live in the day of patches, where testing keeps on going endlessly because, hey, worst-case scenario you can include fixes in a day one update or a patch. 100% done months earlier? I seriously seriously doubt it. Even at around E3 I bet they'll still be testing.
There is no way the game is complete enough at this moment to be considered fully featured. No fucking way. They've probably ironed out all story elements and the processes and all that, but I really really doubt the environments we see now are going to be exactly the same as in the finished game.
Like I said, I'm inclined to believe they'll be way more populated than what was shown. Especially since the priority first is to test the world and make sure it all flows properly and that Link can interact with it as flawlessly as possible. After that is clear, then you start adding elements to that environment. We got horses and some monsters, I'm sure there will be more.I think you misunderstood my sentence. I meant a testing phase where the game is change-locked, hence 100% done. Typically the only thing that happens in this phase is bug fixes; no enhancements are allowed. It's pretty standard in any development cycle. Yes there can be patches but Nintendo of all devs is known for their polish and high quality standards, so it's not like they're going to release something awful.
Anyway my point is just that the game is nowhere near in early stages of development. I would put money on it that you actually can play the entire game start to finish in some fashion already. Yes there will probably be stuff added to the world map and I'm sure there's a lot of unfinished stuff, but yeah. This is also from experience where we get early demos and people go "that sucks but they'll fix it by the release" and it never happens XD.
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I think you misunderstood my sentence. I meant a testing phase where the game is change-locked, hence 100% done. Typically the only thing that happens in this phase is bug fixes; no enhancements are allowed. It's pretty standard in any development cycle. Yes there can be patches but Nintendo of all devs is known for their polish and high quality standards, so it's not like they're going to release something awful.
Anyway my point is just that the game is nowhere near in early stages of development. I would put money on it that you actually can play the entire game start to finish in some fashion already. Yes there will probably be stuff added to the world map and I'm sure there's a lot of unfinished stuff, but yeah. This is also from experience where we get early demos and people go "that sucks but they'll fix it by the release" and it never happens XD.
Well yea, I'm sure the skeleton is there, but the fear of people that I've seen here isn't exactly aimed at that skeleton, and instead at how empty the world seems.
And regarding change-locks, I've experienced games where new UI and game elements are added within a month or so of release. Anything can change.
That said, I do have the hope you do that this being Nintendo, they'd have more concern for quality than I'm used to from other developers. -
Yeah I just wanted to point out that it's not like the game is some early prototype right now. Though hell for all we know they showed off a really old build. Personally I'm hopeful that they'll flesh it out more. But it's one of those "cautiously optimistic" cases since I haven't been happy with a Zelda overworld since the N64 era.
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I'm sure it only looks empty because it's a demo. Imagine they tried to show off what they wanted to but stuff was happening constantly. The aim in the demo was to get from point A to point B and show off how beautiful and large it was. It certainly wouldn't be 5 minutes if enemies bombarded them every so often.
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I don't mean to underestimate Nintendo when I believe that the final game won't be much different than what we have seen so far. It's just incredibly easy to place too much expectations into features or improvements that were either never even mentioned or mentioned but greatly exaggerated for the sake of hype. I just think a massive overworld condensed with actual stuff and variety(especially with the great ideas I'm reading here) is a little bit too ambitious and expensive of an idea to pull off.
It's possible and I'm not saying they can't. I just don't see this get significantly better until the final product shows itself in some shape or form.
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I thought it looked really pretty, personally. The fact that it doesn't seem to have any boats or trains (I REALLY hated this one) or birds is a huge plus, too.
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I don't mean to underestimate Nintendo when I believe that the final game won't be much different than what we have seen so far.
Another big issue with pessimism at this stage is what little we HAVE seen.
Here's the map again I posted earlier. This is a cut of the entire Map shown at its most Zoomed out during the video
The Green arrow is Where Link started, the Red X is the beacon they placed to show his destination.
What that means is, everything we saw was confined to that space or less, as it skipped around a few times, so what we saw wasn't one continuous experience through the overworld but a few snippets of one tiny chunk of it.
Even if we assume that the snippets we saw WERE Taken from a part of the overworld that's 85% done or more, and there will be NO significant changes to those tidbits we saw in the final release, there's still that ENTIRE map's worth of overworld we haven't even seen a single solitary hint of.
Even when things look 100% finished on the surface, certain elements are left out or disabled for these kinds of early sneak peeks, either because they aren't fully coded yet and may look to some extent glitchy, or the developers simply didn't want to show off too much at this early of a stage, or a combination of both.
I'm not saying you have to be blown away by the footage or to think this is instantly going to be the best Zelda game ever, I'm simply saying that pessimism at this point is REALLY premature considering both how early this is, as well as how EXTREMELY Little they've shown.
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I'm not saying you have to be blown away by the footage or to think this is instantly going to be the best Zelda game ever
Look. I never really said I don't really expect to see more than just a big field full of grass and trees. It's a Zelda game. I'm saying I still expect alot of empty space between between pivotal points. There's ways to attempt making traversing a large world less boring like randomly generated segments(like RDR), farming "resources" like fruits, ore or catching fish/bugs, and maybe even making different things happen in a day/night cycle. These are more or less the things I'd expect out of any game that has a large amount of space to work with. My issue is even with those standard aspects I mentioned, the world can still feel very bland, empty and maybe even a bit too artificial if you are repeating the same tasks.
I'm simply saying that pessimism at this point is REALLY premature considering both how early this is, as well as how EXTREMELY Little they've shown.
I'm not a pessimist by any means. Just casually observing and predicting how this might end up… Like pretty much everyone who is supposedly "prematurely" doing despite the little info right now.
My expectations might seem a bit lousy, but hey. Maybe they can be blown out of the water. Who knows? -
That map puts to rest some of Foolio's concerns anyway. There's clearly some snowy mountains, possibly a desert in the northwest, plenty of varying water stuffs as well. Maybe a forest in the southwest.
The fact that they can depict it as more than an ugly weird maze already puts it over Twilight Princess.–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Look. I never really said I don't really expect to see more than just a big field full of grass and trees. It's a Zelda game. I'm saying I still expect alot of empty space between between pivotal points. There's ways to attempt traversing a large world less boring like randomly generated segments(like RDR), farming "resources" like fruits, ore or catching fish/bugs, and maybe even making different things happen in a day/night cycle. These are more or less the things I'd expect out of any game that has a large amount of space to work with. My issue is even with those standard aspects I mentioned, the world can still feel very bland, empty and maybe even a bit too artificial if you are repeating the same tasks.
The trick is to kick some sort of bizarre Animal Crossing hypnotism into the otherwise banal stuff. Which we know Nintendo is capable of there.
Making much more interactive dungeon items would go a long way. Link's Awakening is still the golden standard on that. Just about every dungeon item meant you could access new stuff on the overworld.I still want to harp on the key being making some really good towns. The expanse of an overworld can be made not so bad with good towns.
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For a game with a large overworld like this we need more towns than just kakariko and hyrule center. Twilight princess had 5 towns if you include zora's domain and death mountain. I want a lot more than that and i want them to do things. In twilight princess they did little with the towns with the exception of hyrule center. But in majora'smask there was a reason to explore it's 4 1/2 towns. It was often worth talking to everyone. Wind waker did the same thing but only had 3 towns.
Assuming we get a zora village, a goron village and hyrule center again i hope we get more the double of that. Kakariko village is likely but i want to see ordon return as a proper farming village with a local market and you can help out on the farm for rupees.
On that note rupees need to be more of an important thing in this game. They did it well in ALBW so hopefully they are worth something here as well
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@Monkey:
That map puts to rest some of Foolio's concerns anyway. There's clearly some snowy mountains, possibly a desert in the northwest, plenty of varying water stuffs as well. Maybe a forest in the southwest.
The fact that they can depict it as more than an ugly weird maze already puts it over Twilight Princess.–- Update From New Post Merge ---
The trick is to kick some sort of bizarre Animal Crossing hypnotism into the otherwise banal stuff. Which we know Nintendo is capable of there.
Making much more interactive dungeon items would go a long way. Link's Awakening is still the golden standard on that. Just about every dungeon item meant you could access new stuff on the overworld.I still want to harp on the key being making some really good towns. The expanse of an overworld can be made not so bad with good towns.
The thing is the design choices that we know they are making:
- Big Overworld with focus on exploration
- Non Linear Dungeons
- More like the first zelda for modern audiences
The clash is between the non linear part and the focus on exploration, for those two to coexist there needs to be either tiered dungeons, like "go to these first four in any order, then you can go to the next four with their items and stuff"
About towns, what would you feel if they made the hub town in skyward sword more like clocktown, with schedules and events and stuff? As I think that the choice of "one town" was made for practicity, but failed giving it a good amount of stuff to do.
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The thing is the design choices that we know they are making:
- Big Overworld with focus on exploration
- Non Linear Dungeons
- More like the first zelda for modern audiences
Considering that makes it sound like the first game, I dunno about modern.
The clash is between the non linear part and the focus on exploration, for those two to coexist there needs to be either tiered dungeons, like "go to these first four in any order, then you can go to the next four with their items and stuff"
About towns, what would you feel if they made the hub town in skyward sword more like clocktown, with schedules and events and stuff? As I think that the choice of "one town" was made for practicity, but failed giving it a good amount of stuff to do.
Even Majora didn't have one town though, Zora Concert Hall, Goron City, Deku Palace, and even Romani Ranch could be counted as other settlements. Not to mention the various little houses here and there.
Skyward Sword literally only had Skyloft. And no Clock Town alone wouldn't have fixed the Bad Mario 64 feel of everything around it. -
If they do have dungeons that can be completed in any order, I hope they can really make it work. Link Between Worlds didn't. You can't have ideas that build on each other and become more complex over time that way, or make hard-earned items feel like they mean anything if you don't need them to get anywhere (or if you can just buy them whenever you want from a purple rabbit).
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Dunno about you guys, but I'm able to wait till 2016/17 for the new Zelda game. When did they start working on it? After Skyward Sword? That's only three years, like nothing in Nintendo years.
They have to polish it until it's perfect.
