Good Morning,
like two years ago Nintendo is using the Game Awards as a platform to showcase the new big Zelda game a little bit. Just this time they had to resort to some Treehouse guys, instead of having Miyamoto and Aonuma play the game themselves. Anyway, there is a new trailer and new gameplay video.
Trailer
Gameplay
If you don't want to get "spoiled" any further and just dive into the game with the knowledge from E3 or even less, don't watch the trailer.
The gameplay video on the other hand is basically spoiler-free. They just run around in some forest / ruins area and fight against some new monsters like Lizalfos. The focus is on diverse fighting tactics, e.g. using stealth instead of charging in, using projectiles and the like. Well, I never really care for the fake attitude of the Treehouse people (it all feels so acted with these guys), but it does bring across a good point with the whole fighting. Going back to the NES games this year, it made me realize, how much tough enemies can make a difference in a Zelda game. It has been neglected a lot in later Zelda games and it's nice to know that it's not all just cannon fodder anymore. I'm especially interested to see some real tough enemies in dungeons, e.g. Darknuts.
There are some new weapons in here, namely Electric / Lightning Arrows (used by the enemies) and a Lightning Rod in Link's inventory. So, there's one more set of Elemental Arrows and Rods. I wonder, if these will always come in pairs, since there's probably also an Ice Rod.
Well, the trailer does show new things and at beforehand I expected two things that could be showcased. One was villages and the other was gameplay of actual dungeons (not shrines), because those are essentially the two big misunderstandings of E3. People thought that this game doesn't have any villages or many NPCs. And it should be no surprise that the trailer is basically plastered with village footage, though nothing of it strikes me as particularly interesting yet.
The biggest challenge will be making these villages not generic, which is a big issue with games like Skyrim. What good are lots villages and people, if they don't have a story to tell and if they are not relevant to the overall picture? It gives you something to explore, right, but it might also feel meaningless. We'll have to see, how well Nintendo will handle this.
You can also spot a dog following someone around. It might be just that this is just like in Twilight Princess, where you can play with dogs, or it might be that Wolf Link is just a special dog, while you can have others.
What got me excited the most was probably a glimpse at seasons or the possibility of it. They do show trees transitioning to fall colors. And with a Zelda game of this size I always imagined that seasons should become a thing again. It doesn't have to be an active gameplay element like in Oracle of Seasons, but in the very least it should keep the world more dynamic. Something like in the Fishing Pond of Twilight Princess is good enough, as long as it works worldwide.
There is also a new bird race, who are traveling through Hyrule, and the one in the trailer looks suspiciously similar to Link in his gear:
He even has the Skyward Sword air pants, as well as a bow and potentially other gear. He boards that flying ship that we've seen before in the E3 footage. It's interesting and he seems to be of importance to the story, at least the trailer makes it look so. The new bird race might be a new version of the Rito, but they also might remind you of the Fokka enemy from Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, which were present in the Great Palace.
At the end Link also bows down to someone, who might by Zelda or Hylia. Teaser. Well, right now I'm getting some Skyward Sword vibes from all this and that's not positive, because I'm not a fan of the story in that game. Update: You can also spot another woman, who looks a lot like a female Link. It might be that this is just Zelda in a different outfit, but she seems to be holding the Sheikah Slate.
I will talk about all the aspects of the new footage in individual posts later on, when I have more time!
like two years ago Nintendo is using the Game Awards as a platform to showcase the new big Zelda game a little bit. Just this time they had to resort to some Treehouse guys, instead of having Miyamoto and Aonuma play the game themselves. Anyway, there is a new trailer and new gameplay video.
Trailer
Gameplay
If you don't want to get "spoiled" any further and just dive into the game with the knowledge from E3 or even less, don't watch the trailer.
The gameplay video on the other hand is basically spoiler-free. They just run around in some forest / ruins area and fight against some new monsters like Lizalfos. The focus is on diverse fighting tactics, e.g. using stealth instead of charging in, using projectiles and the like. Well, I never really care for the fake attitude of the Treehouse people (it all feels so acted with these guys), but it does bring across a good point with the whole fighting. Going back to the NES games this year, it made me realize, how much tough enemies can make a difference in a Zelda game. It has been neglected a lot in later Zelda games and it's nice to know that it's not all just cannon fodder anymore. I'm especially interested to see some real tough enemies in dungeons, e.g. Darknuts.
There are some new weapons in here, namely Electric / Lightning Arrows (used by the enemies) and a Lightning Rod in Link's inventory. So, there's one more set of Elemental Arrows and Rods. I wonder, if these will always come in pairs, since there's probably also an Ice Rod.
Well, the trailer does show new things and at beforehand I expected two things that could be showcased. One was villages and the other was gameplay of actual dungeons (not shrines), because those are essentially the two big misunderstandings of E3. People thought that this game doesn't have any villages or many NPCs. And it should be no surprise that the trailer is basically plastered with village footage, though nothing of it strikes me as particularly interesting yet.
The biggest challenge will be making these villages not generic, which is a big issue with games like Skyrim. What good are lots villages and people, if they don't have a story to tell and if they are not relevant to the overall picture? It gives you something to explore, right, but it might also feel meaningless. We'll have to see, how well Nintendo will handle this.
You can also spot a dog following someone around. It might be just that this is just like in Twilight Princess, where you can play with dogs, or it might be that Wolf Link is just a special dog, while you can have others.
What got me excited the most was probably a glimpse at seasons or the possibility of it. They do show trees transitioning to fall colors. And with a Zelda game of this size I always imagined that seasons should become a thing again. It doesn't have to be an active gameplay element like in Oracle of Seasons, but in the very least it should keep the world more dynamic. Something like in the Fishing Pond of Twilight Princess is good enough, as long as it works worldwide.
There is also a new bird race, who are traveling through Hyrule, and the one in the trailer looks suspiciously similar to Link in his gear:
He even has the Skyward Sword air pants, as well as a bow and potentially other gear. He boards that flying ship that we've seen before in the E3 footage. It's interesting and he seems to be of importance to the story, at least the trailer makes it look so. The new bird race might be a new version of the Rito, but they also might remind you of the Fokka enemy from Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, which were present in the Great Palace.
At the end Link also bows down to someone, who might by Zelda or Hylia. Teaser. Well, right now I'm getting some Skyward Sword vibes from all this and that's not positive, because I'm not a fan of the story in that game. Update: You can also spot another woman, who looks a lot like a female Link. It might be that this is just Zelda in a different outfit, but she seems to be holding the Sheikah Slate.
I will talk about all the aspects of the new footage in individual posts later on, when I have more time!
Hmm? Where did you see the name Minstro? I didn't see it at all and people think (for some reason) they're Rito just because their birds. I'd love to prove them wrong. :p
ReplyDeleteThe name "Minstro" was mentioned in the gameplay video, early on. They have another one there named Kass playing accordion and Bill Trinen mentioned that he's of the Minstro race.
ReplyDeleteI think he meant Minstrel, as in a traveling Minstrel, because Bill stated that he was a traveler of Hyrule who played music prior.
ReplyDeleteAh, I misheard then. I wasn't familiar with the word.
ReplyDeleteYou know you can turn off annotations, right? That gets rid of the subscribe tag & whatnot thing.
ReplyDeleteExcept that in other videos these annotations might be useful / meaningful and not everyone has turned them off. Nintendo is spamming them, while they could just save them for the end of the trailer, where people really might be willing to preorder or whatever. It just ruins the trailer.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've already subscribed, so I shouldn't have to see any "Subscribe now!" message to begin with.
However, it wasn't the point of this blog post to talk about Youtube annotations and since I've already downloaded the trailer to watch it without any Youtube annoyances, I might as well remove the complaint from my post, if that's really the only thing that concerns you...