Thursday, January 14, 2016

Twilight Princess HD: Hero Mode, Twilight Cave & amiibo (Leak)

Amazon France accidentally leaked some new features of Twilight Princess HD (source), so let's talk about them!


Hero Mode & Inventory from The Wind Waker HD

Hero Mode now got confirmed and it seems to work the same way as in The Wind Waker HD, so it's an option, which you can select right from the start. This is the minimum, but at least it's something!

Also, the inventory seems to have the same touchscreen functionality as in The Wind Waker HD. At this point I would speculate that there is also Pro Controller support, but if there were optional Wii controls, they probably would have put this into the product listing. But let's see.

I still hope that the mirrored game world will be preserved in some way, just to make this the ultimate version of the game, though I probably wouldn't miss it, since I've originally played the GameCube version first and have memorized the world the way it is there. The Wii version terribly confuses me...


Twilight Cave & Wolf Link amiibo

They also have shared some more interesting details. The good news is that there will be a new dungeon, called the Twilight Cave. The bad news is that you will need the Wolf Link amiibo to enter it.


This seems like a slap in the face for me. With every previous remake of a 3D Zelda game I was hoping for a new dungeon, because that's what Link's Awakening DX, the original "remake", offered to lure fans. With Ocarina of Time 3D I was hoping for a Cave of Ordeals, with Majora's Mask 3D I was hoping for a 3rd Skulltula House and with The Wind Waker HD I was simply hoping for something new... Now, with Twilight Princess HD I didn't even dare to ask for a new dungeon anymore, because by now I was convinced that's only something they do for 2D games.

It's nice to be proven wrong with this, finally I'm getting my bonus dungeon! About time! But of course they had to put it behind another amiibo rip-off to ruin the fun... New content should act as an incentive to buy and play the remake for anyone, who has already played the original. But Nintendo probably realized that most fans are buying the remakes anyway and now they add new content as an incentive to buy additional figurines. Nintendo is leeching on their fans these days and this might not end happily...

The only way, where this Twilight Cave amiibo paywall would be justified, is when the Wolf Link amiibo is really needed as a gameplay feature throughout the entire dungeon and not just as a key to enter the thing. After all there will be save data stored on the amiibo, so I'm willing to wait and see, what they have planned here, before I complain too much about it.

It could make sense, if this dungeon was meant for Wolf Link. A wolf-only dungeon was a common suggestion from fans over the years for something that the game is missing, so maybe Nintendo is just following these ideas. And if the Wolf Link amiibo is used to interact with the dungeon in an interesting way, I would accept that. But if it only opens the front door, then Nintendo has some serious issues.

(Also, this might be the place, where you find the largest wallet as a reward.)


Other amiibo

In the very least it seems like they did the right thing with the other Zelda amiibo from the Super Smash Bros. series. They act as small cheats, whenever you scan them, they will refill your hearts, arrows and the like. This is something I like - imagine running low on hearts in the Cave of Ordeals and scanning the Zelda amiibo to heal yourself, haha. It acts as a fun cheat, but as someone, who's not collecting amiibo, I'm not missing out on content.

I'm sure that some of the amiibo fans won't like it, but that's usually a good sign. You should collect the amiibo, because you love the figurines and not because you expect them to unlock new exclusive content in every game.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

What do you speculate The Wolf Link amiibo will do in TP, as the data from the cave is transferable?

Unknown said...

Whoops, I meant Zelda U, not TP. My bad ☹

TourianTourist said...

No idea. We know too little about both the Twilight Cave and Zelda U to speculate.

It could be some customizations like a new horse armor in wolf design, when you've beaten the Twilight Cave. For example.