Let's flood Hyrule

Next week the infamous E3 happens to be in Los Angeles, and everyone is excited about what's coming next for Nintendo's big franchises, escpecially Zelda. Because most Zelda sites are like totally dead right now, which hopefully changes next week due to some new information, everyone gets excited about the biggest nonsense. A fake interview with Aonuma and artwork about a Zelda game named Valley of the Flood make the circuit, so overblown with stupid fanservice, that it hurts my head everytime I see someone writing, "this is not a fake, it has to be real". Read the interview in the link below and make your own mind. The fake artwork was made by WiiCast, who took the image from the novel Perdido Street Station.

Actually some of the ideas weren't too bad, especially the points about the story. "Project Deluge" is said to be placed between the adult ending of Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker. It covers the prologue of The Wind Waker, where Ganondorf is resurrected and everyone is waiting for the Hero of Time to return. The player now takes the role of a crazy guy, who actually believes, he is Link, but is not. So, no Mastersword or Triforce of Courage for him in his journey against Ganondorf. Of course everything ends up in a disaster and Hyrule being flooded, so you start to explore the flooded world. While this sounds like a cool story, the question is, how should it end? With everyone dead but Ganondorf? Sounds like a contrasty ending to Twilight Princess.

The big problem with this fake is, that Nintendo never really cares about the story, like they do in the interview. The first thing are the new gameplay elements, the story is always developed around them, not the other way around. For example, they want Link to turn into a wolf. A wolf alone looked boring, so they added something to ride on it. And this way Midna was born. You see? So, a Zelda developed around a "cool" story is never going to happen, as well as most of the other fanservice stuff.

And the one thing, I will never understand, is the voice acting problem. Why in all words does everyone and really everyone connect voice acting in Zelda with Link talking? It's even the problem, Nintendo uses for an excuse not to do voice acting in Zelda. Ever played Metroid Prime 3: Corruption? In this game, every single character got voice acted, but Samus. She doesn't speak a word and look, it works fine. I don't see a reason, why they shouldn't handle it the same way in Zelda. Link doesn't have to talk, but all the other characters do.

Back to Deluge, I really like the idea of using Steampunk elements in Zelda, especially the one about a railroad system in Hyrule. I love the picture of Link riding next to a train, defending it from Bulblin bandits, Wild West style. Talking about it, a Western Zelda including Steampunk elements sounds really promising. Iwata even talked about the idea of a Western Zelda, because he enjoyed the Hidden Village scenario in Twilight Princess quite much. So, I wouldn't be too suprised, if something like this will turn into reality, though without a FanFic as the main story.

So, just be patient until next week, I'm pretty confident that Nintendo will show us some of THEIR ideas, how the future of Zelda will look like, on the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Sources:
IGN Boards
WiiCast
Artwork used in the fake image