Thursday, July 2, 2009

Zelda Wii not radically different?

Miyamoto said to the latest issue of the Nintendo Power magazine about Zelda Wii in comparison to other Zelda games:

I don't think it's going to be that radically different.

People like to take Miyamoto's quotes for gold and recite them over and over again. Like the quote, that Twilight Princess was going to be the last Zelda game of its kind. A lot of people now expected a huge revolution in the Zelda series, totally ignoring Phantom Hourglass, which came after Twilight Princess, and the thought, that his quote probably referred to the controls, since Nintendo was all about advancing controls back in these days and is still today with MotionPlus. Now you will probably see the above quote a lot in the near future and you will see Zelda fans in fear of getting a second Twilight Princess. But what does "not that radically" mean here? It says, that Zelda Wii is going to change, but not in a way, where it breaks the Zelda formula and you won't recognize it as a Zelda game at first glance.

However, it probably means that first person gameplay is out of the equation. It was discussed a lot and Nintendo definitely has tried it out. There was a first person demo of Twilight Princess at the GDC 2007 and Link's Crossbow Training was supposed to be a bridge game in Japan for more first person action. But probably Nintendo screwed the idea, because a first person Zelda doesn't work too well, maybe because there's a lot of action, that requires a 3rd person perspective like horse riding. And "not that radically" of course means, that Link will not turn into a girl and that the game doesn't take place in the year 2342 on a distant planet, but you could tell this already from the artwork:



So far this quote doesn't really give anything away, except maybe that you don't have to become friends with first person gameplay.

But what I still consider to be very important and the key of the game is MotionPlus. I would be very disappointed, if they won't use MotionPlus or just make it an extra feature. This Zelda game should be built from the ground up with MotionPlus in Nintendo's mind. Take Wii Sports Resort with its sword combat, archery and canoeing. That's the least I would expect from Zelda Wii and you can do so much more. Zelda is a game, that wants to drag the player into its world. We already have nice graphics and atmosphere, now its time to step the controller interface up. The Wiimote should become your sword. Twilight Princess failed doing so, because it was developed for the GameCube without motion controls in mind and the Wii controls of the port were too gimmicky. Of course that's not all what was wrong with Twilight Princess and they have to address a lot of things, but none of them would fall into the "radically different" category right now.

Right now, I expect Zelda Wii to utilize MotionPlus and to have a different tone from the other Zelda games.


A source: NintendoLife

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