The one thing that impressed me certainly the most about Nintendo's E3 presentation of Breath of the Wild was the fact that they finally brought the infamous NES Zelda artwork to life, where Link stands on a cliff and looks at the vastnesses of Hyrule:
I always was in love with this artwork and what it stood for, as you might see from the background image of this site, and already when Skyward Sword got showcased at E3 2010, I had hopes that the game would deliver me this experience, but it didn't. Skyward Sword had some interesting and beautiful playgrounds, but it all was very restricted and confined.
With Breath of the Wild I might finally get the kind of Zelda experience that I always wanted. If you see something on the horizon, you can just go there. Hyrule is fully yours to explore and that feels exciting.
Another vision that absolutely came to life in the trailer was the classic resting place of the Master Sword from A Link to the Past:
Even the light falls in the same angle!
And I wonder, if these aren't the only artworks that Nintendo wanted to realize ingame. For example there is one classic artwork, where Link fights some giant one-eyed worm (probably Lanmola) on the overworld:
That is a stretch, but it's somewhat similar to the Guardians and I like how Aonuma pictured the original Octoroks as giant creatures (funny enough, that's exactly how the Octoroks were portrayed in the Animated Series, which also predated fairy companions, horses and shield surfing). And his vision of the giant Octoroks now lead to the Octobots, which certainly feel like a scary thing.
There's also this:
The way Link has all equipped gear on him including the Sheikah Slate, his current melee weapon, bow and shield, is very reminiscent of this old NES artwork, where he carries around nearly all ingame items. Of course he has still tons of junk in his Adventure Pouch, which you can't see on him, and he certainly won't be carrying a raft on his back, but they probably were inspired by the idea of Link carrying his current gear around.
And one artwork that I really would love to see come to life ingame is this old piece, where Link uses the Triforce against Ganon at Death Mountain:
A similar scene against Calamity Ganon would be epic.
I always was in love with this artwork and what it stood for, as you might see from the background image of this site, and already when Skyward Sword got showcased at E3 2010, I had hopes that the game would deliver me this experience, but it didn't. Skyward Sword had some interesting and beautiful playgrounds, but it all was very restricted and confined.
With Breath of the Wild I might finally get the kind of Zelda experience that I always wanted. If you see something on the horizon, you can just go there. Hyrule is fully yours to explore and that feels exciting.
Another vision that absolutely came to life in the trailer was the classic resting place of the Master Sword from A Link to the Past:
Even the light falls in the same angle!
And I wonder, if these aren't the only artworks that Nintendo wanted to realize ingame. For example there is one classic artwork, where Link fights some giant one-eyed worm (probably Lanmola) on the overworld:
That is a stretch, but it's somewhat similar to the Guardians and I like how Aonuma pictured the original Octoroks as giant creatures (funny enough, that's exactly how the Octoroks were portrayed in the Animated Series, which also predated fairy companions, horses and shield surfing). And his vision of the giant Octoroks now lead to the Octobots, which certainly feel like a scary thing.
There's also this:
The way Link has all equipped gear on him including the Sheikah Slate, his current melee weapon, bow and shield, is very reminiscent of this old NES artwork, where he carries around nearly all ingame items. Of course he has still tons of junk in his Adventure Pouch, which you can't see on him, and he certainly won't be carrying a raft on his back, but they probably were inspired by the idea of Link carrying his current gear around.
And one artwork that I really would love to see come to life ingame is this old piece, where Link uses the Triforce against Ganon at Death Mountain:
A similar scene against Calamity Ganon would be epic.
To be fair to the Master Sword artwork, that scene has been done a few times in the past, so now it's a gameplay trope. While implied in ALttP, the 2D overhead graphics made it hard to realise fully. But the Sacred Grove in Twilight Princess, the ending sequence of Skyward Sword, and the grove in the Temple of the Sacred Sword in Hyrule Warriors all have done that exact iconic artwork too. This piece in Breath of the Wild is following suit.
ReplyDeleteNot that that's a bad thing. It is weird, however, that the grove seems to be a completely different location from the Great Plateau's Temple of Time. Are there multiple Temples of Time in this game?