The recent rumors had me thinking... What if they are not remaking The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, like Grezzo did on the Nintendo 3DS? What if Monolith Soft (or whatever studio is set on this hypothetical project) is actually working on a complete re-imagining of the game? What would that look like? And what could this lead to?
Well, I have been in doubts about the rumored Ocarina of Time remake, but I may stand corrected. Nintendo has just announced a Star Fox remake last night, which was another big part of the same rumors. It felt a bit too convenient after the Fox McCloud cameo in the recent Super Mario Galaxy Movie, since these projects should be entirely unrelated (they even said that the idea came from Illumination, not from Miyamoto himself), but here we go.
Anyway, the Ocarina of Time rumors are getting a lot more support now, mainly from Nash Weedle. My biggest question always has been about the development team, because it seemed unlikely that the main Zelda team or GREZZO have had the time to be working on this. And apparently it's Monolith Soft, the studio behind the Xenoblade Chronicles series, who helped creating the world of Breath of the Wild. I hope they are ready to work on Majora's Mask right afterwards, making them a third Zelda team for years, but first let's see how their version of Ocarina of Time is going to look like.
Nash even had the idea that they are going to split the game up, similar to the Final Fantasy VII remakes. One game for young Link and one game for adult Link. But this makes me only doubt that he has ever played Ocarina of Time before in his life. If something like that were the case, then switching between past and future would mean switching between games, similar to how Oracle of Ages & Seasons worked on the Game Boy Color. And no one wants that. Plus, it makes no sense even from a technical standpoint, since a majority of the game world gets shared between young and adult Link with only a few differences.
However, it could indeed be that we're not dealing with a faithful remake here, but some crazy re-imagining that has only the name and characters in common with the original. A new game based on the classic ideas, with a much bigger world and all that. It's interesting to think about, where this could give the project a whole new appeal, for old and new fans alike. But it would be also at risk at losing the original charm.
Let's see. Like everyone and their mothers, I'm expecting there to be a Nintendo Direct in early June, which is hopefully going to put an end to all these rumors. It's time for the 40th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda to kick in, where I'm sure that it's going to feature some remake next to the upcoming movie.
Nintendo is being weird today, because they are celebrating one of their anniversaries on point. On April 14th 2001, Dōbutsu no Mori was released in Japan for the Nintendo 64, which would later be known as "Animal Crossing". The series has a long crossover history with The Legend of Zelda, where earlier this year we got the 3.0 update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons with Tulin and Mineru as new villagers, as well as various Zelda items.
Today we got a new update (version 3.0.2), which adds a postcard themed after the original game, as well as the "Leaf Statue" item, which serves as a lamp. They've also added the first game's soundtrack to Nintendo Music. It's certainly nothing amazing, but better than nothing
Still, this will make many people wonder what happened to the 40th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, which Nintendo has yet to acknowledge in any way or form. But keep in mind that this is normal... at least when it comes to the Zelda anniversaries.
The main difference is that Nintendo has never done any extensive anniversary campaigns for Animal Crossing. It was just another artwork for the 20th Anniversary, for example. The only two series where Nintendo has done extensive campaigns are Super Mario and Zelda (Pokémon is handled by the Pokémon Company). And Zelda always has to wait a little, so it doesn't clash with Super Mario's.
But the Super Mario Galaxy Movie is in the cinemas now and we will get Yoshi and the Mysterious Book next month, so we're getting there. Expect to hear about the Zelda anniversary in a Nintendo Direct in June. And in the meantime, go play some Animal Crossing. It's chill.
It's happening after all. The Master Works artbook for Tears of the Kingdom was released in Japan back in 2024 and Dark Horse has announced that they are going to publish the English version this year, on October 20th. This piece of news came yesterday and somehow flew under my radar, so this isn't some April Fool's joke.
They are also going to release a "Hero's Edition" with some goodies, which is similar to the one for Creating a Champion. I really liked that one, so I might be getting it as well, even though this looks like a cheap knock-off. That basic artwork of the Sages simply doesn't have the same class as the photo of the Champions. And a map of the Depths isn't all that exciting, because there is nothing in the Depths. But I appreciate the idea of mirroring the previous Hero's Edition, and the Secret Stone collectible is a actually an upgrade.
Whether this was by accident or on purpose, Nintendo had teased us with the return of Bob-omb Blast in Mario Kart World earlier this month. Back then I said that we shouldn't necessarily expect more than this and today they indeed released an update, version 1.6.0, which primarily gave us this mode. There are also some balance changes, but Bob-omb Blast is the main attraction here.
And I'm happy to have it back. This is the best thing that came out of Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and has always been my favorite Battle Mode... mode. You certainly want to use the "Frantic" item option for this one, so you always have the double item boxes for that enjoyable explosion spamming. Overall, this is more similar to the version from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so you have balloons, you won't see anyone holding stacks of bombs, and so on.
It's a fantastic addition, but it doesn't make up for the lack of dedicated battle courses. There are only two of them and only one of those is actually fun to play (Big Donut), where as a result even Bob-omb Blast gets boring quickly. That's one of the biggest complaints I have about Mario Kart World – that they didn't use the space between courses for more Battle Mode goodness. And with the exception of Dino Dino Jungle, I find the modified race tracks too large. I can race around DK Pass for a minute without running into any opponents... And that's lame.
One of the big new features in version 3.0 of Animal Crossing: New Horizons were the "Slumber Islands", where you can create up to three in three different sizes. They let you freely design without the limitations of your actual island, which is perfect to realize ideas that otherwise would have been too large or inconvenient. And one of the ideas I had was recreating an island from The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
It's been two and a half years since I had posted my Dodolint Chronicles and during these two and a half years I have kept playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons more or less regularly. For a while it slowed down to only once per week, but since the announcement of the 3.0 update I went back to playing on a daily basis, in an attempt to finish my vision of a Zelda-themed island. So, let's have a look of how this has been going...
