Friday, August 9, 2013

A New Item in the Wind Waker HD? The Quest for Tingle Charts!

We finally got a screenshot of the inventory screen of the Wind Waker HD on the Wii U GamePad:


I like how they arranged the icons. Bottles grouped in the lower left. Tingle Bottle, Telescope and Picto-Box grouped together, as well as the three bag items. I guess, when you touch a bag, the right part with the main items will change to the content of the bag.

But... wait a minute! It seems like there's space for 10 main items. Three in the top row, where you already got the Grappling Hook, the Deku Leaf and the Bombs. Four in the middle row, where you can see the Boomerang and the Bow. And probably three more in the bottom row with the Hammer. Right? Unless the items are arranged strangely (like only two items in the bottom row), that's a total of 10 items. Six items are already displayed, but it's missing only three: the Iron Boots, the Hookshot and the Magic Armor.

The Wind Waker is now mapped to the D-Pad and not part of the item menu anymore. Similar to the sail, you can only use it on the boat, so it doesn't take a space in the item menu anymore. So... what's the last item in there?

I'm getting more and more the feeling that there's actually some new stuff, which Nintendo hasn't told us yet. It starts with the missing the Triforce Charts. What happened to the eight sunken treasure chests, where the Triforce Shards used to be? Are they just gone? Also, Tingle Island is completely useless now, if you don't have anything to decipher. And with the missing Tingle Tuner, you can't get the golden Tingle Statues anymore, as well as Knuckle... so much stuff missing!

My theory is that instead of the Triforce Charts you now have "Tingle Charts". Five of them can be gotten, where you had found the Tingle Statues in dungeons. Three more are in different places. The sunken treasure chests found with the Tingle Charts all contain the Tingle Statues, three of them new. And the Tingle Charts need to be deciphered for 398 Rupees each, much like the original Triforce Charts. With the Tingle Statues you can unlock different prices:

  • 2 or 3 statues: you get the new faster sail
  • 5 statues: Knuckle appears
  • 8 statues: you get the new mystery item

Of course that's just a theory, but it would fit in nicely. The three new Tingle Charts would be gotten on Outset Island, Forsaken Fortress and Windfall Island. It would be the Outset Tingle Statue, the Forsaken Tingle Statue and the Windfall Tingle Statue. The Tingle Tuner had special locations on all three of these islands. Like there was one in a giant pot in the Forsaken Fortress. Or one at the cliffs below the bridge on Outset. In both of these places you could now find treasure chests with the Tingle Charts. With Windfall it's a little bit trickier, because the special spot was on a canopy, where no treasure chest would fit. But there's space. You could put a chest in the prison cell for example.

(Update: so, it turned out that only FIVE of the Triforce Charts are gone, not all eight! That's a perfect fit, you can add the five original Tingle Statues to the open places and you wouldn't have to add any new ones. It's perfect. The Swift Sail won't be available on Tingle Island, so that's out of the equation, but you could still unlock Knuckle with theses statues. And maybe Knuckle gives you the new mystery item then, because only having Knuckle alone doesn't feel like a real reward.)


So, what could the new item be? I have no idea really. Most likely something that utilizes the GamePad. It could be something like the Beetle from Skyward Sword. It would basically act like an artificial seagull, it has the same controls as the seagulls, but you don't need to use Hyoi Pears anymore.

(Update: Another possibility could be the Tingle Bombs from the Tuner. They act like normal bombs, but use 10 Rupees instead of 1 Bomb. Or other items from the Tingle Tuner like the Tingle-Balloon or the Tingle-Clock.)

Of course it could just be that the items are arranged differently in the menu or that there's simply one open spot. Ocarina of Time 3D had two open spots in the menu, where I theorized for hours what it could be, while in the end there was nothing at all. And the eight sunken treasure chests for the Triforce Shards, as well as the five Tingle Statues could be just gone. But luckily we don't have to wait too long to find out.

6 comments:

fred said...

Very interesting once again, thank you for your great articles

TourianTourist said...

Thanks!

K2L said...

Now this is something I didn't expect.

TourianTourist said...

@K2L:
Keep in mind that all of this is just speculation from my part. Might be that the bottom row only has two items and that's it.

And the whole Tingle Chart thing is just my fantasy. It would be a way to get the Tingle Tuner goodies back in. But it could also be that Nintendo just cut all the content and that's it.

We don't know for sure until more info comes or the game is out.

K2L said...

Ah, OK.

By the way, I know this is off-topic, but it's been noted that the Chuchus in Wind Waker are voiced after Japanese men arguing. The sounds heard are the speeches of those men reversed and sped up. A very fun fact, I have to say.

TourianTourist said...
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