The Legend Of Zelda - General Thread

I'm not even going to bother discussing this point, sorry.

All I'm going to say is, if and only if Switch has a Zelda game developed from the ground up for it, you'll see the difference. For now it's admittedly impossible to tell because all of those crispy and vibrant visuals the game has might look good for Wii U.... just not the maximum potential Switch can offer. Same case with Twilight Princess on the Wii, whose features felt tacked on because it was a GCN game first.

How many launch titles ever show off a system's full potential?

edited 17th Jan '17 9:06:12 PM by Perseus

If they want to speed up development for the next game they can just give it to a studio with a faster development cadence.

Like has been mentioned, they have a good relationship with Platinum and they could probably make a great Zelda. I mean, Kamiya's not doing anything right now as far as we know, and Bot W is pretty much finished at this point so...

Breath of the Wild is a Wii U game at its core. That's reflected in its graphics and scope. It is also a Switch game because it's launching on the Switch not as a late port or remaster. It's called being multiplatform. You know, like how Call of Duty is a PS, XB, and PC game. It's not a new concept.

None does. BOTW should actually have been released long ago. Read my posts on this thread circa April 26-28 2016 (can't remember exact day), where I explained why I was disappointed that it had got delayed yet again back then. I'm not going to bring it up again because I do know how to control my own Single-Issue Wonk.

A game like BOTW (but smaller scale) should have been released on the Gamecube, but better late than never.

It should have, but it wasn't, and now it is what it is.

/repeats eyeroll

edited 17th Jan '17 9:19:58 PM by Perseus

Yes, it's obvious Aonuma means that it'd be the first Zelda game designed for the Switch specifically. Which BOTW isn't.

Not that it really matters anyway. It's still the first Zelda game on the Switch that's coming out not that long from now.

Moving on, I'm trying to think of more items for my Zelda Classic game. Namely, how to implement Shields properly. The character is a mage and has no literal shield, so the best I can think of is a temporary magic one that lasts a decent amount of time(note that the game will have you start with a magic ring due to using magic spells more often). I'm not sure if that is balanced enough, though. I mean, magic users can use shields as is. And his "armor"(tunics) is a cape anyway(it's Quest 64-based, to clarify).

I'm actually pretty worried about the next game after BOTW. Given how much they are emphasizing the overworld, to the point where even the story is seemingly an excuse to explore to your heart's content, it would be hard to follow up on it by providing something new while still retaining what makes BOTW great.

If they're going to follow up on BOTW, they can't make another "world-destroying evil that somehow can be put off" storyline, yet the Zelda team clearly doesn't have the talent to write anything else beyond the standard Hero's Journey.

Plus, how are they going to come up with new items that are actually versatile and not either rehashes of previous items or overspecialized "use on target" gadgets?

And they definitely are not going to go back to the smaller, more linear format nor something repetitive with islands like WW.

Questions, man.

You sure just made quite a few assumptions about what BOTW will be like, what it's strengths and weaknesses will be, what the overall limitations of the developer's abilities are, and what direction the series we take in the future.

They should just set an entire game inside a giant dungeon.

That's what I've been saying. Miyamoto said that back when Oo T was in pre-production he didn't know whether the N64 was gonna be strong enough to have a huge overworld, so he thought that if necessary the game could take place entirely in Ganon's castle.

Which is an idea that I find immensely appealing as a Castlevania fan and I want it now.

Like a labryinth?

Wasn't Phantom Hourglass like that?

There was a full overworld and stuff to do outside of that mega-dungeon too.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was inspired to do something similar to the Ganon Castle thing when he made the Temple of the Ocean King though.

Phantom Hourglass wasn't like that at all. It just had a dungeon you had to keep returning to in-between each regular dungeon, except it had more floors each time, and was annoying because you had to keep redoing everything on the earlier floors every single time you enter. And had a time limit. The structure of the game was otherwise the same as a normal Zelda game.

edited 17th Jan '17 9:59:19 PM by KuroBaraHime

I also like the "giant dungeon" idea.

Though maybe not technically all one dungeon, but a bunch of interconnected, labyrinthine areas that feel like dungeons, "item on target" puzzles and all.

It's like what Skyward Sword attempted but only went halfway there.

Are you going to bring up the "item on target puzzles" every post?

I just realized that there's a minor contradiction in what I've seen of the game.

• They want a free, open-world adventure where you're entirely capable of running straight to the final boss.
• There's apparently more than an excuse plot.

Is it just me, or are these at complete odd ends of each other?

I believe you're told about the Calamity Ganon right from the start. You're told that its big, it's bad, and it ruined everything for everyone. That's really all you need to know to go (try to) kill it.

Yeah, it's weird but I wouldn't necessarily say that it's contradictory. They just likely planned out a different scenario for if you challenge Calamity Ganon right from the start.

It'd be pretty cool if it worked like Chrono Trigger. You have a main plot you can follow until the you reach the end where you're supposed to fight the final boss, but you can run off and fight the final boss at almost any point during the plot, and you get a different ending depending on how far into the plot you were when you beat it.

I can totally see that be a thing in Bot W as well, although maybe without the multiple endings.

Pretty sure the main plot will be about restoring the Master Sword while killing Ganon is just the goal.

I brought up that possibility earlier, although I was thinking more about Demon's Crest.

They're not necessarily at odds with each other, no. You can have deep stories and give the player a lot of freedom. In fact, there's a lot of overlap between the two these days, such as Fallout and Elder Scrolls.

To put it another way: You know Mass Effect? The story wouldn't really be harmed if you could theoretically just fight Sarin from the get-go.

Of course, this is an "in theory" thing, too. From what I gather it's essentially an epic beef gate. The game doesn't absolutely prevent you from killing Ganon with the first stick you pick up, but it's so difficult that most players won't ever achieve it.

If I understand correctly, it's essentially "completionism vs speedrunning". The more effort you put into searching the overworld for all the goodies, the more reasonable a challenge the final boss is. So the player has to decide where they want to spend their energy.

So... will we have naked Link if we beat the game really fast, then?