Age of Imprisonment – Second Free Update Revealed

We're already getting the version 1.0.3 update for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment this week, the second of the two free mini expansions. It's scheduled for December 18th, but last time it already came out a day earlier, where maybe they are releasing 0AM Japanese time. So, keep an eye out tomorrow. You can find all the info on the Japanese website, and only there, so the official English names are still pending.

However, the update says pretty much in the expectations from last month, where it does check off a number of boxes and fills the obvious gaps, except for the one on the roster that everyone was really hoping for. But the minor version number already indicates that this isn't meant as anything substantial. Still, there is truly more stuff in here to keep you engaged (official English names pending):

• A new Forbidden difficulty mode. Clearing a certain number of battles in this difficulty will unlock additional waves of rewards, similar to the Contribution Level Quests. This includes more pure Zonaite Steel and even increases to the total of rations. There are no checkpoints in the Forbidden difficulty.
  
  
• New Phantom Mode battles. These will randomly alter already cleared scenarios, where they will have an evil eye for their icon on the map. Here Phantom Ganon chases after you. In addition, enemies might be turned into their gloom or even vicious variants. You can earn pure Zonaite Steel as rewards.

Those are truly the equivalents the Apocalyptic difficulty and the Blood Moon battles from Age of Calamity, but more sophisticated. The changed enemies in Phantom Mode could truly prove a challenge and the additional rewards give you a real incentive to clear the entire game in the new difficulty mode, which wasn't the case before.

It will also be great to have something to play on rotation with the Phantom Mode, just to keep the game going for when you want it to. And you get more ways of earning pure Zonaite Steel, which was badly needed.

As expected, they will add more Vicious Monsters and corresponding Challenges as well. These are Lizalfos and Chuchus, where the latter look especially crazy, almost like a homage to Arrghus or Wart from A Link to the Past and Majora's Mask with all those smaller slimes surrounding them.

Curiously, they haven't made any vicious variants of the Horriblins, Gibdo or the Molduga. And they most likely won't add those later, since these vicious monsters are utilized in the new Phantom Mode and Koei Tecmo has explicitly spoken of two updates... I can't say that I'm overly sad about this omission, because these battles have gotten quite frustrating in the last update. And now you can do them all over again in the new difficulty mode... Ouch.

In addition, there will be some more Challenges with new mission types, like battles focused on certain warriors, or a "fight to the death with a powerful foe", whatever that means. Well, it's probably a Challenge featuring the Forbidden Construct, which will be similar to Rauru's battle in the last update, offering you a new weapon as a reward. Which is part of some smaller extras:

• A new training stage in the sky, where you can also perform Sync Strikes.
• New unique skills for the Mysterious Construct, one for all three weapon types. This includes the "Shield Charge", as a counter against dashes.
• The Forbidden Blade as a new one-handed weapon for the Mysterious Construct and the recruits.

The additional unique skills for the Mysterious Construct make so much sense in hindsight, because there were some clear gaps here. You could always use Zonai devices instead, but it's better to have options.

In the first update we got the High Guard's Spear and the Longsword of Light, so with the Forbidden Sword there is now one powerful extra weapon for each category. It also looks quite interesting, like a dark counterpart to Zelda's Blade of Light:

It's actually the weapon the Forbidden Construct is using, hence the name. That's neat, but certainly not the weapon / character that everyone was hoping for. Maybe they will offer paid DLC in the near future, but I'm not really expecting it.

 

PS: The timing is absolutely perfect, since I just finished Metroid Prime 4 two days ago. Yet, I feel like I'm not getting a break here with these back-to-back releases...

Age of Imprisonment – 2nd Update Predictions & Suggestions

This week the first free update for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment has been released and one more is to follow. The goal of these updates is to make the game last longer, where Koei Tecmo is expanding the post-game, but the first update did very little here. So, what can we expect from the second one? Will it be the game's saving grace or simply more of the same?

For this exercise, let us try to stay within realistic expectations. After all, we are talking about free updates here, where there have been no announcements for any paid DLC so far. This alone makes new playable characters, battlefields and story scenarios rather questionable, because these are selling points.

To be fair, the first Hyrule Warriors has received some playable characters in its free updates on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS – Cia, Volga, Wizzro and Medli. But they all served as hooks for the paid DLCs that were released alongside them. You could play with these characters and level them up, but you couldn't get their stronger weapons, alternate costumes, or additional Heart Containers without the new Adventure Maps. It doesn't work like that in Age of Imprisonment, where a new character should automatically come with a number of Quests attached to enhance their state and skills.

Age of Calamity on the other hand didn't give us anything for free. Even quality of life improvements were locked behind Quests that were part of the Expansion Pass, which has caused some criticism at the time (in the very least from this blog). Luckily, this isn't the case here, but we also shouldn't expect this to become a free Expansion Pass. The first update is by no means an equivalent to "Pulse of the Ancients".

Let's just take a look at the numbers of everything that got added this week:

• 6 new Quests
• 5 new Challenges (Lv. 81 to 85)
• 6 new Vicious Battles
• 3 new vicious monster
• 2 new weapons
• 1 new Sync Strike 

It's a drop in the bucket. And it already feels incomplete, where it's likely that the second update will continue from what they have started here. So, we will probably be getting some more Challenges, spanning from level 86 to 90, as well as more Vicious Battles, potentially covering some of the missing vicious monster types.

Those are Lizalfos, Horriblin, Molduga, Chuchu, Aerocuda and Gibdo. This would be six in total, where ideally they will just cover them all and don't do any more experiments with horrible combinations of them, because these were not fun in the slightest.

With unique Sync Strikes there is also a lot of potential to close some more gaps. The most obvious ones are left by Rauru, who doesn't have unique actions with any of the four masked sages, even though he is acting as their leader. Or they could just do more with Calamo.

As for new Challenges, it would be nice if there was an equivalent to the "Rack Up Your K.O. Count" missions from the first Hyrule Warriors, where your goal is to score as many K.O.s as possible within a given time limit. They have done something similar in the first update with the Poe collecting, which was a lot of fun and probably one of the best additions so far.

Another very interesting Challenge was "The Struggle for Ash Swamp", where the Ash Swamp is one of two battlefields in the game that don't have a story scenario on them. The new Challenge emulated that and let us explore the battlefield in its entirety for the first time. And here it would make sense if they were to follow this up with the second side battlefield: Damel Forest.

This one is remarkably similar to its counterpart in Age of Calamity, but you only ever get to play parts of it in Age of Imprisonment, never the whole thing. This is a shame, but it doesn't have to stay like this. How about a Challenge where they are out to explore the mysteries of the ancient Zonai and run into a horde of possessed Constructs? A big horde. And let Mineru talk a bit about hiding sky islands in large thunder clouds.

That's it for the obvious additions, following the first update. However, if this were to be all, it certainly would be disappointing, especially when it comes to making the game last longer. But there are a couple of features still missing from Age of Calamity, where it would be nice to have them in Age of Imprisonment as well.

One of these things is the Apocalyptic difficulty. This is a no-brainer, really, and probably the simplest way of prolonging the game: let the players do it all over again in an even harder mode. There were also the Blood Mood battles, which increased the difficulty of the story scenarios. The only problem is that many of them are already under a Blood Moon, so they would have to come up with a different explanation or variant.

Another possibility could be randomized, rotating missions. Age of Calamity did this via its Vicious Monster Battles, but these are now fixed, so they are cleared normally like any other Challenge. And the new ones can be quite infuriating, where you probably don't want to replay them regularly anyway.

An alternative could be something like horde battles, based on "The Battle of Hyrule Field" scenario in chapter 5, where you fight off the Demon King's army. Those would randomly take place on different battlefields and even make use of a random selection of monsters.

Maybe these could even be used to threaten your territories after you are done with all the normal defense missions, where these now span the entire region and not just small parts of the map. But this could potentially be annoying.

And if there is nothing else left to do in a Warriors game, there is always grinding and weapon building. But the latter is very tedious and could use some improvements to make it more fun. Most importantly, you should get more Zonaite Steel after clearing a battle, not just one. The new Quests from the first update give you a piece of pure steel for each type, which was a nice gesture, but not a solution to the problem. Maybe they should add a Quest which unlocks more steel drops per battle. Alternatively, they could introduce some general Aside Quests that will keep rotating forever and let you obtain three pure steel per turn.

They should introduce a weapon shop among the services. Here you could buy more copies of any weapon that you've already obtained once, including one-time rewards, like the High Guard series or the new Longsword of Light. Right now, if you were to dismantle any of them, there is no way of getting them back. And that's unfortunate.

But that's all just peanuts. We know what the people truly want and that's more playable characters, first and foremost Sonia and Ganondorf. This is what would draw attention back to the game. But as stated initially, it may not be the most realistic thing to expect from these free updates.

Both characters also have clear story reasons as to why they were not playable to begin with. Honoring the canon of Tears of the Kingdom is what prevented Sonia from becoming playable, while following the structure of Age of Calamity, where everything on the map is from the perspective of the good guys, is what prevents Ganondorf.

Neither problem is particularly easy to solve. And in the context of the free updates we might be setting us up for disappointment when we are expecting either one. However, in case of Sonia, there is an alternative: Zelda could inherit her Longbow of Light as a second weapon / moveset for herself.

It makes sense from a story perspective and Sonia could even assist Zelda here in spirit, quite literally. And so far Zelda always had a second weapon type in all the Hyrule Warriors games, even a third with the DLCs. It's strange how now she has only one, even though she has become the main character. Inheriting Sonia's bow would remedy that and it also would be a meaningful addition.

In any case, there should be a second bow available. While there is Zonaite Steel specifically for bows, Raphica is the only recipient of these so far. And that is also rather strange. Since the first update has filled out some gaps in the base game, there is a good chance that we might get another bow with the second. And Sonia's is the obvious candidate here, whether as a new weapon for Zelda or in form of the queen herself. If there's one big highlight in these free updates, it will likely be this.

Another candidate for a bow moveset could be Calamo with the Forest Dweller's Bow, where fusing materials to arrows has been a big feature in Tears of the Kingdom, one that has yet to be utilized in Age of Imprisonment. But it would probably turn out quite similar to his default moveset. 

As for Ganondorf... Yes, there is a lot of demand for him on the internet right now, but if they were to make him playable, then they should do him justice. And making him some bonus character, where he becomes a puppet for the good guys during the post-game, isn't that. With Ganondorf we are definitely looking at paid DLC territory, because he would effectively require his own game mode and map to properly realize a Demon King campaign.

There is some interesting potential here, though. He could become the antithesis to the heroes, where he is always fighting for himself and therefore doesn't perform any Sync Strikes. The L button then could be used for a weapon swapping feature, where you can swap between his sword, club and spear on the fly, which is what makes him stand out as a boss. But let's discuss this after the second update...

With Age of Calamity they also had no plans to release any DLC, but once they saw the demand they brought the team back together and made it happen. And history could repeat itself here, where Koei Tecmo has a history of listening to the fans. For the most part.

These free updates, however, are seemingly just there to tie up some loose ends, where one might think that this game got rushed out for some reason. After all, they had announced this for the winter season, originally, where it's not winter yet... So, let them complete the unfinished post-game first and then they can think about a proper expansion.

Age of Imprisonment – First Free Update Revealed

We are getting the first update for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment and it's already happening in two days, on November 27th. You can view Nintendo's announcement on X, and the Japanese website for more details. Koei Tecmo had previously announced that this game will be getting two free updates to make it last longer and this is the first of them.

For the most part this seems to focus on the post-game, so they will add more Challenges and Quests to it:

• New Vicious Battles: Silver Bokoblins, Sludge Like and Flux Construct
• New Weapons: High Guard's Spear and Longsword of Light
• New Sync Strike between Zelda and Calamo
• The ability to perform Sync Strikes with Flux Constructs and a new Challenge featuring them
• A Challenge that lets you fight against Rauru for real
• A Challenge about collecting many Poes 
• A Challenge where you can go for over 2000 K.O.s

In addition, there will be a number of other improvements. For example, in the training chamber you can now swap characters and weapons on the fly. Or you can display open Aside Quests in the mission preparations.

By the way, the High Guard's Spear is the missing piece in the series of weapons that were provided as a save data bonus. There you had the High Guard's Sword and Claymore, but not a matching spear. You will be able to use these new weapons as the Mysterious Construct or with any of the recruits.

For some reason the version number will be 1.0.2, indicating that this is meant as a mere patch. Normally, with small content updates you would expect this to be version 1.1.0. Maybe some of the contents were already part of the game and simply weren't properly integrated or finished yet. The High Guard's Spear and the missing vicious monsters are an indicator for this.

In any case, the timing of this is impeccable. I've just arrived at the post-game last weekend and it truly feels a bit lackluster, where I will be welcoming any additional Challenges, especially ones that offer new things to do. But this is very little overall and if there's nothing to make the weapon building any easier (either lower requirements for the levels or a faster way to obtain more Zonaite Steel), then this won't be a saving grace.

Hopefully, the second update will add more substantial things, like new story scenarios and movesets or even characters. 

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Echo Favorites Added

Today Nintendo has launched updates for all Nintendo Switch games that will receive Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade, whether that's for free or as a paid Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, for tomorrow's launch of the new console. Some titles, like Xenoblade Chronicles 3, also got a compatibility fix. Most of these updates only relate to the Nintendo Switch 2, but some games also got some general improvements on top, where you will profit from them on the Nintendo Switch as well – the updates are downloaded in any case.

Tears of the Kingdom, for example, has received the paraglider fabrics for the four new Sage amiibo of Sidon, Riju, Tulin and Yunobo, which will also be released tomorrow. And both it and Breath of the Wild now support Portuguese as a system language option (voices will be in English, however).

But the big winner in all of this is The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, because its version 1.1.0 contains what's by far the most requested feature for the game: the ability to favorite echoes and then display only your favorites. This is the message in the game for the new feature:

This functionality gets unlocked once you've obtained 30 echoes. There is no limit to how many favorites there can be, so you can mark all of them, even though this would defeat the purpose. You can also manage your favorites from within the Notebook, which is a bit more comfortable. And you can sort your favorites in the same ways as all the echoes. There are even new background visuals for the favorites in quick menu, so you can tell its state on first glance:

Overall, this is a fantastic addition, which can make managing your echoes much simpler, instead of only relying on the "most used" sorting. Ideally, there also would have been filters for certain echo types (e.g. fire enemies), but this alone will help quite a lot.

The exact same thing was even part of my update suggestions for the game from last year, where this is would have been nice to have since the beginning. But better late than never... And I'm still planning on replaying the game in Hero Mode, once I have a Nintendo Switch 2, where I will certainly make good use of the favorites going forward.

And it's a shame that they didn't bother with adding this feature to the looooong material list in Tears of the Kingdom, where you had the exact same issue. Or that they didn't bother with improving anything in Breath of the Wild, where it could make good use of all the quality of life changes from Tears of the Kingdom. These are the Zelda games where they are selling these new Nintendo Switch 2 Editions, after all. But maybe this will still happen later on... Tears of the Kingdom will need one more update for the Mineru amiibo anyway.

If the favorite feature in Echoes of Wisdom gets received well, which it should, then Nintendo may even consider doing similar improvements to the other Nintendo Switch Zelda games. And they really should. No game is ever perfect, but they can strive to be.

Breath of the Wild – Improvements Needed from Tears of the Kingdom

On June 5th both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will receive major updates that allow them to be played with nicer graphics, better performance and additional features on the Nintendo Switch 2 (see here). In case of Breath of the Wild we will be looking at version 1.7.0.

Well, we're talking about Nintendo here, where it's rare that they are fixing their games once they are released, unless we're dealing with critical issues. But they do it from time to time, so there are the occasional updates for your quality of life needs... And the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is a great chance to bring over a number of such improvements that were introduced with Tears of the Kingdom, where they had learned from their mistakes in Breath of the Wild.

Of course, we would have heard of such improvements by now if there were any, since Nintendo invited the press to play many of the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games. So, this is likely another missed opportunity to do one or more of the following:

• When using the quick select you can now sort and drop your weapons, bows and shields
  
• Whenever you can't take an item out of a treasure chest, because your inventory is full, it displays the quick select to let drop something and make room.
• The Travel Medaillon can now be upgraded at the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, so that you may place up to three of them at the same time.
• The armor inventory limit has been increased to 150.
• The Sheikah Sensor now has a height pitch, making it easier to track things in a vertical space.
• There are no glitched treasure chests any longer that cannot be accessed.
  
• When you touch the ground after gliding, riding, swimming or boating for a longer period of time, randomly spawning foes won't appear instantly any longer.
• Not all Lynels will evolve into the silver / golden tier, so you can still get all their pictures and weapon tiers at the end.
  

This is all some minor stuff, really, but it made Tears of the Kingdom more enjoyable overall, where it would be a shame if Breath of the Wild never saw the same level of polishing.

 

There are also some bigger things that they could change or add, but this is really entering true remaster territory. It starts with the main menu, where the vertical inventories allow for a much quicker navigation.

And they should also add Sticky Frogs, Sticky Elixirs and the Froggy Armor, which always has been one of the most-wanted features for the game. Climbing in the rain wasn't the big game changer in Tears of the Kingdom, because the Zonai vehicle stuff lets you traverse terrain easily, but this addition would see a lot of use in Breath of the Wild. Another much desired feature was the Recipe Book, giving you a nice overview of everything you can cook and also an incentive to really try out all the different ingredients.

There also could be the more sophisticated sky diving mechanic, even though you wouldn't be able to utilize it as much. And finally, a remaster should add some additional shrines to offer more warp points. The Rito Stable, Kara Kara Bazaar and Deplian Badlands immediately come to mind here, where all of these areas got shrines in Tears of the Kingdom.

Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo Switch 2 Editions Announced

Last year we had some rumors that Nintendo might be working on a new version of Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch 2. Not only turned this out to be true, but they are also going to release an enhanced version of Tears of the Kingdom at the same time, as part of the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition program. You can watch a full overview trailer on Youtube, which wasn't featured in the Nintendo Direct, and these editions will launch together with the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5th.

"The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" and "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition." That's quite a mouthful. I would have called these "2nd Edition" if it weren't for the fact that this is the third version of Breath of the Wild, counting the one on Wii U, which already had less features than the Switch version.

Anyway, those are not full-fledged remasters. Like with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, these are the same old Nintendo Switch games with some graphical updates installed on top of them. They don't go into any specifics here, only mentioning higher resolutions and frame rates, as well as HDR support, but I suppose it will be similar to Metroid Prime 4 (either 120FPS or 4k in 60FPS). They also have improved the texture quality for Breath of the Wild and the load times of both games are now much faster.

In addition, both games will now support a second save file, which comes with the usual number of automatic and manual save data entries. This will allow you to start a new game without losing your old data or using a second user profile on your system, which is handy. Your old save data will also carry over. Plus, it sounds like you will technically be able to continue on your adventure on an old Nintendo Switch after playing on the Switch 2, but the data in the second save data slot won't be accessible in that case.

If you have the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, then you will get access to these updates for free, as long as you stay subscribed. So, this will work similar to DLCs like the Booster Course Pass or Happy Home Paradise, where the access to them can be revoked. We've seen that there is going to be a new version of Breath of the Wild, version 1.7.0, which enables all this and may only be offered on Nintendo Switch 2. Version 1.6.0 was already exclusive to the Switch and never made it onto the Wii U (it contained the VR feature).

There has yet to be a confirmation on this, but it looks like the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Breath of the Wild won't come with the DLC on the card. At least the box or the website doesn't mention anything about the DLC (Update: the site even warns about in-game purchases). Curiously, there have been editions of the game that also came with the DLC on card, so this would feel like a rip-off if it were true, because you would still have to pay more for Breath of the Wild than Tears of the Kingdom if you want the full experience.

 

ZELDA NOTES

There is an additional aspect here and this is the new "Zelda Notes" app, which is similar to the NookLink app for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. You will be able to access it via the existing Nintendo Switch Online app.

This offers a variety of new features for both games, some of which are useless gimmicks, but others are actually quite interesting. The not-so-interesting stuff is an amiibo boost, where you can scan any amiibo a second time per day after using it five times. You can also edit your screenshots in the Photo Studio. And there is an Item Sharing feature, which seems to be the spiritual successor to the Tag Mode from Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, where you can trade consumable items and weapons with your friends.

The Autobuild Sharing is probably more interesting, because this lets you turn your builds into a QR code, which then can be scanned and transferred into the game by other players. This is really nice to have and makes we wish that Link's Awakening will be added to the Zelda Notes app at a later date, because this would be awesome for sharing Chamber Dungeons.

Then there's the Play Data, which keeps track on a number of statistic and even features a set of medals that you can earn based on them. So, both games are now basically getting achievements, the uncreative kind. I'm mostly curious about how this will behave in relation to your existing save data. Both games do track a number of hidden statistics, mainly in relation to the level scaling system, and maybe everything this new play data needs is already there. It would be very unsatisfying if the hundreds of hours I have put into both games were for nothing with these play statistics.

Many players are not even done with their existing playthroughs, but maybe the Navigation app will help with finally getting to the 100%. It's essentially like all the fan-made guide maps out there, or apps like the Breath / Tears Companion. So, this isn't anything new, but the main advantage is that this can be connected to your game, so the apps knows what things you have already found and what you still need to discovers. It's very convenient and absolutely perfect for finding your last missing shrines or Korok Seeds.

For those who have already completed the game or aren't as interested in collecting golden poops, there are also the Voice Memories, offering a new experience. These play special diary entries in certain locations, featuring Princess Zelda, King Rauru and even Master Kohga. However, these are not an actual part of the game – you have to visit the corresponding locations in the game and the app will then play the voice entries. It's a bit weird and disconnected, which reminds me of the Tingle Tuner in The Wind Waker. There you also had these little story segments happening on your Game Boy Advance, but with nothing visible in the game. It's weird. Still, this might be the most worthwhile addition and a good reason to revisit all these locations, where it looks like there will be a lot of them.

My Thoughts & Plans

Overall, these new editions make a lot of sense. They could have gone with completely new remasters of these two games and they certainly would have sold well, where in case of Breath of the Wild I also had a number of ideas how to improve the game while they are at it. And some of that may still make it into the upcoming update... (More on that later.)

But I also dreaded the idea of there already being a third version of the game, while I haven't even started Master Mode on the Nintendo Switch yet. Turns out that this is actually a good thing, because when I now replay this massive title for the fourth time, I will be able to do so with better frame rate, nicer graphics, and some new features, which is a great incentive. Collecting all 900 Koroks again will also be easier with Zelda Notes.

But I'm not sure I ever want to replay Tears of the Kingdom, unless there is a major remaster, which gives you a new experience. This game was just too much for me. I will check out the new Voice Memories in any case, which should work in the existing save files, and then let's see how these new medals will work. Luckily, I will be able to play the upgraded versions right away, once I have a Nintendo Switch 2, with the NSO Expansion Pack. Though, in the long run it makes sense to purchase the upgrade packs or even the physical editions, so you don't require the subscription. I also own the Booster Course Pass and Happy Home Paradise...

Anyway, these upgrades also makes sense when you're looking outside the bubble of the Zelda fandom. Even inside the Zelda community the number of players who have fully completed both games is quite low, mainly due to the Korok Seeds. And the more "casual" players are either still in the middle of playing these games or have lost interest at some point, because it was all too much. And these people were certainly taken into consideration when making these new versions of both games, not just the fans. Being able to pick up from where you've left off in 4k graphics and with additional guidance certainly sounds appealing.

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Update Suggestions

No game is ever perfect, but in the age of updates and DLC there is at least the chance that player feedback will be taken into consideration to improve things. However, only two Zelda games got major updates and content additions in the past, Tri Force Heroes and Breath of the Wild, so it's not very likely that Echoes of Wisdom will follow their examples these days.

Nevertheless, it's worth looking into what could be done, where we always should give Nintendo and Grezzo some ideas. These ideas are not meant to be overly ambitious, however, so we want this to be something that could realistically be implemented as part of an update, whether that's free or paid DLC.

Most importantly, the 2.0.0 update should address the performance issues. They are mostly caused by loading things when you walk around in the overworld and there is probably something that can be optimized here. With that out of the way, let's move on to the good stuff...

~ Tower of Hebra ~

This is a new, optional challenge dungeon, similar to the Treacherous Tower from A Link Between Worlds. You will be able to find it in the Hebra Mountains, where it's meant to represent the old Tower of Hera. Tri can't enter the dungeon, so you won't be able to use your echoes or Bind, which means that you have to entirely rely on the Swordfighter Form and Automatons. You will also need the Mysterious Bombs / Bombs of Might in order to enter it.

As usual, you will have to fight through a number of floors filled with enemies. Whenever you beat a floor, it spawns a crystal that lets you refill all your energy. You can always return there, in case you run out, but this will reset the floor above. And there is a new boss at the end waiting, which is of course none other than Moldorm.

After beating Moldorm at the top of the tower, you can enter the Stilled Tower of Hebra, where now you have to reach its bottom. Tri will join you again, so you're free to use your echoes, but you will mainly be fighting the shadow enemies, where the Swordfighter Form is advantageous. You will have to rebattle all three variants of the Imposter Link and fight a new version of him at the end, who is able to use all three of his weapons at the same time.

~ New Echoes ~

The update will feature three new echoes, bringing the total up to 130. These include one new object and two new enemies:

• Vire (4▼)
• Boomerang Boarblin Lv. 3 (5▼)
  
• Energy Crystal (6▼)

Vire returns here from the Link's Awakening remake and it will split up into two smaller bats if it receives too much damage. The third tier Boomerang Boarblin throws a large, circular boomerang made out of bones, just like the Boomeranger from Tri Force Heroes. Both are featured in the Tower of Hebra, but since you can't use your Tri Rod there, they can also be found in a new cave inside the crater of Eldin Volcano. You will first need to clear Eldin Temple to enter it.

As for the Energy Crystal...

You will be able to learn it after collecting all 150 Might Crystals. It's the thing found in front of Lueburry's house, where after the update you will be able to learn it and then place it anywhere to refill your energy, as an equivalent to the beds. The refill takes a bit longer and if it gets hit by an enemy, you will lose energy instead. It will also take all six triangles from Tri to summon it, where there is no cost reduction, so it can't be combined with any other echoes.

~ New Slumber Dojo Trainings ~

There will be a number of new battle challenges available in the Slumber Dojo. For them to unlock, you will need to have defeated all the enemies and bosses featured in them.

• EX Strongest of All: All four Lv3 monsters and a Lynel at once.
  
• EX Imposters' Revenge: All four battles against the Imposter Link.
• EX Lanmolas' Revenge: All three versions of the Lanmola... at once!
• EX Playing a Game: Both battles against Smog one after another.
• EX Guardians' Gathering: Lord Jabu-Jabu, Slime Eye, and Manhandla.
• EX Secret Titans' Gathering: Bori, Volcanic Talus, and Moldorm.
  

This serves mainly as a way of repeating all mini-bosses and optional bosses. But you will also get more options for earning Golden Eggs, where right now "The Final Titans' Gathering" is the only way to do that, which takes a bit longer. And there are some new outfits and accessories as rewards, which leads us to the next sections...

~ New Accessories ~

With the update you can find a variety of new accessories in different places, which give you some new effects to utilize.

• Cloudy Feather: Crumble-Proof
  
• Earrings of Might: Unlimited Sword Beams
• Pegasus Boots: Walk Speed Up
  
• Scepter of Power: Echo Damage Up
• Courageous Compass: Monster Appearance Up
  

The Cloudy Feather makes you lightweight, so that cracked floors don't crumble. But that's not all, clouds also won't dissolve below your feet any longer, which includes your cloud echoes. It's a reward in the Tower of Hebra.

Beating the Stilled Tower of Hebra earns you the Earrings of Might. Wearing them will let you always shoot sword beams in Swordfighter Form, even if you are not at full health or don't have the Level 3 Sword of Might yet.

The Pegasus Boots increase your walk speed to the same level as the Swordfighter Form. You won't go any faster with spinning, however. It can be purchased for 1000 Rupees at the Hyrule Castle Town Shop (the Stone Anklet can now be found in the shop at Goron City).

Holding the Scepter of Power will give a damage boost to all your echoes. The boost is the same for every monster, so it will be more significant for weaker monsters, for stronger ones not so much. It's the reward for beating the "EX Strongest of All" challenge in the Slumber Dojo.

Finally, the Courageous Compass serves as another way to make the game more challenging. Equipping it lets more monsters appear, where it works similar to the +Monsters Effect from the Chamber Dungeon in Link's Awakening. This means that the already existing monsters in the game get duplicated whenever possible. It doesn't work on very strong monsters, on bosses, or in the Slumber Dojo. You can find it in Link's house, so it can be acquired early in the game.

~ New Outfits ~

In addition to the accessories, you will also be able to obtain many more outfits, more than doubling than what's in the base game. Most of them are just for the looks, but some come with smaller perks or new interactions.

• Dog Clothes (Let's you talk to dogs.)
• Winter Parka (Protects you from cold.)
• Angler Armor (Creates light around you.)
  
• Cactus Costume (Enemies take damage when they touch you.)
• Showgirl Dress (Attracts attention of enemies.)
• Cheer Outfit
• Island Dress (Marin)
  
• Sheikah Garb (Sheik)
• Pirate Captain (Tetra)

Some of these are just uninspired copies of the outfits in Tri Force Heroes, but since those are pretty much the same thing, they will work nicely in this game as well. The most important is probably the Winter Parka, which you can get from Condé. It lets you pass the snowstorms without freezing.

After completing the "Still Missing" main quest, a new clothing store will open at Hyrule Castle Town, where you can purchase a good number of the other new outfits. The rest of them are rewards from the new Slumber Dojo challenges. In addition, you can obtain some new recolors from scanning amiibo:

• Blue Tunic (any Link amiibo)
  
• Purple Tunic (any Link amiibo)
  
• Pink Pajamas (any Zelda amiibo)
  
• White Dog Clothes (other Legend of Zelda amiibo)

This works the same way as before.

Finally, there should be an option to put down the hood while wearing the Disguise, once you've unlocked the option to change outfits. The modified outfit already exists in the game, where you can briefly play in this look right before you receive the Travel Attire. And Nintendo has used this quite extensively for their promotional materials... It's even featured on the game's box art, but you can't freely choose it for some reason.

~ Miscellaneous Improvements ~

The quick selection of echoes now will offer filters via the X button, which let you display only objects, monsters, or your favorites. The latter can be set via the A button. In addition, the notebook now will provide the same sorting options as the quick select.

On the map you can now view your "Heroine's Path", which is the same as the Hero's Path Mode from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, where it shows your journey via a green line. It records up to 100 hours of travel.

When you are in Swordfighter Form, you can now roll via the R button. This also works when playing as Link in the beginning of the game.

After completing the game, it will show you the total number of side quests, accessories, and outfits available (recolor outfits collected via amiibo will increase the total), exactly like with the echoes and automatons in the notebook.

Tears of the Kingdom – Update Suggestions

It's been stated multiple times by Nintendo that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom won't get any DLC, the game is fully done and the Zelda team has with all certainty moved on to the next project for Nintendo's next system. Therefore, we shouldn't expect to see any major updates for the title, let alone any content additions.

Still, it's Christmas and we can always make a wish. And at some point the game will eventually see an update, even it's in the form of a remaster in ten years from now on. After playing the game for hundreds of hours throughout the whole year, here's everything that I would like to see improved. For the most part this will just be about setting things right, your usual quality of life updates, where I will only be discussing content additions whenever there is an obvious gap. And let's start right away with the biggest omission...

Master Mode

If Tears of the Kingdom were to receive a major update still, then this is probably what everyone would expect it to come out of it. Master Mode is the one big feature from Breath of the Wild that didn't make it over into the sequel, where this seems like a no-brainer.

It's not entirely trivial, however, and they can't just blindly copy what they had done in The Master Trials this time, where you can read all about a potential Master Mode here. The short version is that they need to make sure that enough of the basic red enemies remain, because they come with unique materials. You wouldn't want those to become the rarest, you want the golden enemies to be rare instead.

In any case, a Master Mode would provide a huge incentive to play through the entire game a second time, where this time you may also make much better usage of the different abilities and possibilities that come with Fuse, Ultrahand, and especially the Zonai Devices. This game has a long learning curve and a higher difficulty mode would put what you've learned to test in ways the normal game simply never asks of.

Armor

With 135 armor items in the game, there are many good reasons to swap your outfit constantly, which can only be done inside the inventory. Here, new prompts should be added to certain pieces of armor to allow for more convenience:

• "Equip set": Whenever an item is part of a set, it will give you the option to equip the entire set at once. If certain pieces exist multiple times, it will go for the matching color. If there's none, it simply picks the first.
• "Put down" / "Put up": Once Cece showed you how to change the Hylian Hood, you should be able to alter it yourself in the menu at any given time.

In addition, you can mark your current outfit as a favorite via the X button and then quickly equip it again by pressing the left stick. Now, certain armor sets should be improved in different ways:

• The Tingle, Phantom, Evil Spirit, and Dark sets can now be enhanced to ★★★★.
• The Tingle set can now be dyed, so you can pose as his siblings and more.
• All the tunics and hats from past Zelda games, e.g. the Cap of the Wind and the Tunic of the Wind, can also be dyed now.
• Pieces of the Frostbite and Ember set now will have a maximum defense value of 20, matching those of the Charged set.

Since there is still place this time, it wouldn't hurt to add some additional armor pieces as well. One idea would be to bring back the Great Plateau items from Breath of the Wild: the Old Shirt, the Nintendo Switch Shirt, the Warm Doublet, and the Well-Worn Trousers.

Together with the Well-Worn Hair Band this lets you perfectly recreate the Breath of the Wild starter look. This could be something to get from the Bargainer Statue below the Great Plateau, after you've finished the "Call to the Depths" Side Adventure. So, these items would stay close to home.

(Note: I've also considered bringing back the Gerudo Vai set, but this would require a lot of dialogue changes around Gerudo Town and therefore may not be worth the trouble for Nintendo.)

Another idea would be an armor set that increases your walk speed with each piece, the set bonus being "Dash Stamina Up", which decreases your stamina consumption while running. That's essentially the equivalent to the Climber's set just for when you're on the ground. It's weird that this didn't make it into either game, because this seems like a very straightforward idea based on what's already there. So, let's implement it! This could become a "Postman set", based on Twilight Princess, or something like a "Pegasus set", as a reference to the Pegasus Boots, or even something new.

Materials / Inventory

Whenever you're sorting through your materials or weaponry, it should stay on the currently selected item, instead of jumping to the first. If you're using the quick select menus via the D-Pad, you can now quickly jump to the beginning and end by pressing L and R respectively. New sorting options for "amount" and "value" are added whenever you are selling something.

Hearty Blueshell Snails and Hearty Durians return from Breath of the Wild. The latter will be a much rarer find than it used to be, however, and they will also be needed for some of the new armor enhancement (see above).

The drop rate of certain materials gained from enemies should be increased, mainly the tails of the three different elemental Lizalfos, but also Gleeok Guts from all three "normal" Gleeoks.

Zonai Devices

The update should add three more Zonai Devices that come in capsules, bringing the total to 30. These are all things that can already be found in the game, inside certain Shrines of Light, but in order to use them outside of the shrines you currently have to fuse them to a shield or weapon and then break them apart at Tarrey Town, which isn't all too convenient. Here's what should be added:

• Board
• Float
• Propeller

The first two are objects made out of rubber, which are really good for making swimming vehicles, because they don't drift underwater, unlike some wood constructions. There is the "Float", which is a giant rubber ball, and the "Board", which is a rubber plate. You can find both of them in the Jonsau Shrine ("Deep Force"), but the Floats are also used in the Rasiwak Shrine ("Flotational Brilliance"). That's really it, making them quite rare for something so useful in the game...

It would be nice to have them more accessible, where they should be added to some Device Dispensers (or maybe have a new one somewhere at the ocean) and also to the Crystal Refineries once you've completed your Energy Well. If you have fused a Float to your shield, it should also bounce you up when you're doing a shield jump into water, but this will use up the attachment. So, it will act like a Spring Shield, just on water.

The Propeller is basically a big fan, but unlike the other two additions this won't be the exact thing, because the propellers found in shrines need electricity to work. A Zonai Capsule variant should run on its own, making it much easier to build vehicles with it. So, this would be a half-new addition.

Otherwise, the Portable Pots should now last five cooking before they dissolve, instead of just a single one. As it is right now, it feels so restricted that you may not even bother with them, so this really needs a buff.

Autobuild

The Autobuild history should get expanded to allow for 15 favorites now. Or make it more, but we can all agree that seven entries are not enough...

Two more Yiga Schematics will be added to the game (for a total of 36) – the "Gloomdredger" and the "HOVERDOOM MK. 3". They can be purchased from the respective engineers at the Yiga Clan Hideout.

Summoning

If you hold down on the D-Pad (the whistling button), it will now open a quick menu for summoning and dismissing your Sage's Vows, so you don't have to go into the inventory to do that. It pretty much works and looks like the other three quick menus, but you can quickly summon and dismiss via the X button.

In addition, you now will be able to teleport your horse to you. For this the Horse Beacon gets added to the game, an expansion for the Purah Pad, which works similar to the Ancient Saddle from Breath of the Wild. (They could also bring this back, but the Ancient Bridle and Saddle didn't work on all horses and basically made all the other bridles and saddles obsolete, which is why this is now a separate item.)

You can obtain the Horse Beacon from Robbie after having all the different types of horses in your Hyrule Compendium. It will also work more closely to the Sage's Vows, meaning that you can summon and dismiss your horse. If you haven't taken out any horse, it will summon the last one you've used. And if you dismiss your horse, it will be put back into the stable.

Dream Home

Other than the missing Master Mode, there is only one area in Tears of the Kingdom that is truly lacking something and that is the house building. There is so much potential here, where you could achieve a lot with very little, that it almost hurts. In fact, the other box houses made by Hudson Construction already show how it could be done...

image source

First of all, the room limit should be doubled from 15 to 30. And to make good use of this extension, there will be a variety of new rooms to pick from:

• Window Room (2x1)
• Small Window Room (1x1)
• Balcony (2x1)
• Roof (2x1)
• Small Roof (1x1)
• Large Roof (2x2)
• Cedar Tree Patch (1x1)
• Leaf Tree Patch (2x2)
• Tree Nursery (2x1)
• Monster Showcase (2x2)

The windows can be opened and closed via an interaction inside the room. The Tree Nursery lets you plant any fruits that come from the sky (Fire Fruits, Ice Fruits, Shock Fruits, Splash Fruits, Dazzlefruits) to grow their little trees and harvest more of them after a while. The Monster Showcase is a smaller version of the one found in Tarrey Town. Here you can order and place additional monster sculptures.

Also, the wooden exteriors of the rooms now come in four different colors: green (the default), red, blue, and yellow. You can switch the color when picking a room.

Miscellaneous

The map should keep track of any giant monsters that you've defeated, which are required for obtaining the Monster Medals. In addition, the locations where you've put up signs together with Addison should also be marked on your map. The Hero's Path should now let you select any point on it to start playback from there.

Scanning any Zelda-line amiibo now will directly give you its corresponding Paraglider fabric, given than you don't already have it. Afterwards it will return to its default behavior. This way you can get the exclusive items right away and then can chose to ignore the amiibo feature, if you want, because everything else can be obtained elsewhere in Tears of the Kingdom.

When standing outside of Shrines of Light that lead to a Rauru's Blessing it will show you an entrance that matches the blessing chambers.

Finally, the Master Sword durability glitch should be fixed, where it doesn't last as long as it should after using Fuse for the first time.

Let's Update Skyward Sword HD

We got a new Zelda release in the digital age of downloadable content and you know what this means: it's time to assess what Nintendo should do via a free update in order to improve the title. And there's always something to improve. Of course we all know that Nintendo is probably done with Skyward Sword HD and won't fix anything, because it's Nintendo (as we all know), but this shouldn't stop us from giving them ideas. So, let's go over some suggestions...

 

Improved Control Options

With Skyward Sword HD Nintendo and Tantalus already have done a good job of making the original game a lot more accessible via the new button-only controls. However, there are a couple of shortcomings and not everyone is happy with how everything works. So, here is what needs to be added to make more people truly enjoy the game:

• There should be separate camera control options for aiming. If you invert the camera, it does this for both the 3rd person camera controls and when you're aiming with items, where this is no way of having the same camera behavior as on the Nintendo GameCube with The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Sadly, Twilight Princess HD also had the same issue and this never got fixed.
  
  
• When using motion controls, it still should be possible to steer via the left stick. This should work when you're underwater, flying with your Loftwing, controlling your Beetle, balancing things and so on. There are players who actually switch between motion controls for combat and the button-only controls for everything else, where it would be nice to have a hybrid-mode option that has this covered for the sake of convenience and comfort.
  
  
• Some people really don't like that you have to hold the L-button to use the camera controls with the button-only setup. It's just not what they are used to from other (Zelda) games and that's understandable. A possibility would be that it activates the R-stick sword and item controls only when you hold ZL, either to target an enemy or just to center the camera, where this also could be a separate toggle in the options.
  

And here are some general changes to the interface and controls that the update should implement:

• Let us use the D-pad to navigate menus.
• Enable quick draw for the bow with the button-only controls.
• When using motion controls, it should automatically re-center your aiming when you switch to an item, like the Slingshot or the Beetle.
  

 

Hero Mode from the Start

If you are hoping to go into Hero Mode right from the get-go, then Skyward Sword HD will disappoint you. While Skyward Sword was the Zelda game to invent the mode (unless you count Ocarina of Time 3D with its Master Quest implementation), its remaster keeps things exactly like they were in 2011. This means you first have to beat the game normally before you can go into the higher difficulty mode. And some people really don't want that.

Of course the Hero Mode in Skyward Sword has a New Game+ functionality to it, where you keep all your treasures and insects from the previous playthrough to make your life much easier. But this can already be skipped by starting a new quest log in Hero Mode, so that's not really a deciding factor.

What might be a problem is that you're supposed to have all the boss fights available in the Lightning Round in Hero Mode right away. That's even part of the challenge here, because you might have to overcome more difficult battles on your way to get the Hylian Shield. But if this is also available right from the start, it might be a huge spoiler for some people, who have never played Skyward Sword before, but also want to play in Hero Mode right away...

A compromise would be that the Lightning Round simply works like in normal mode on your first Hero Mode playthrough and then adds all the options after beating the game once. In any case, Nintendo should let the players have what they want.

Additional amiibo Support

Skyward Sword HD supports amiibo – but only the one that was made for the game and nothing else... Which is a joke, much like the fact that this hides a new quick travel feature. There is no excuse for this and Nintendo certainly won't change this, but in the least they could offer some simple support for all other Zelda amiibo figurines out there.

This would work similarly to Breath of the Wild or the Hyrule Warriors games, where you can scan an amiibo once per day to receive items. These items can be Rupees, hearts, bombs, arrows, slingshot pellets, treasures and insects, but also basic Gear Shop goods, like the Wooden Shield or a Small Seed Satchel. Of course you can only get items that are already available to you in the game, so no early Sacred Shield or something like that. And the likelihood for the latter, as well as rare treasures is naturally lower than some of the other stuff.

What items you may get also depends on the amiibo / character. Revali for example may give you arrows or Bird Feathers on a regular basis, but also rarely a Small Quiver or a Blue Bird Feather. And that's it. This would be very simple and completely optional, but still nice to have, especially in the early game.

Travel Between Surface Bird Statues

If you want to travel around in Skyward Sword HD any faster, then you need the new Zelda & Loftwing amiibo, which is a shame. In the very least, the game should let you quickly switch between Bird Statues within the same area on the surface without having to go back to the sky.

Lightning Round: Chamber Challenge

Last but certainly not least, the update should add this game's equivalent to the Savage Labyrinth / the Cave of Ordeals, where you have to go through a number of chambers full of enemies, which need to be defeated. It's a staple in the Zelda series by now and a simple concept, which could be very interesting to have in Skyward Sword with its more challenging foes. The different rooms could be themed after the different dungeons and areas of the game, similar to the chambers inside the Sky Keep.

To keep things simple, this would become another option at the Thunder Dragon's Lightning Round and work similarly to the Treacherous Tower in A Link Between Worlds, where you can choose between three different challenges, each becoming increasingly longer and more difficult. Unlike during the Boss Battles, however, you're allowed to bring all your Adventure Pouch items into this and make good use of them. 

There could be a total of 50 chambers and you can choose to tackle either 10, 30 or all of them, but the order of the chambers will always be random, much like the boss battles in the Lightning Round. So, you will never know what comes next and this will make things different from similar dungeons in other Zelda games. This would also work well here, because you don't get access to the Lightning Round until near the end of the game anyway, where you're already familiar with all the enemies.

This is what the rewards could be for the different levels:

1. Another Empty Bottle
2. A second Treasure Medal
3. A completely new Medal
   

With the latter there are many possibilities, but it's hard to settle for something that only will become available in the late game and therefore won't be of much use any longer. For example, there could be a Bird Medal that adds more stamina to your Loftwing, but this would come way too late.

An idea could be the "Steadfast Medal", where enemies can't knock you over any longer and this also lets you keep stable on tightropes. This is something that somewhat breaks the game, but it's okay, because you're getting it very late and only through lots of effort, similar to the Hylian Shield, which also trivializes a lot of the fights, because you can just block normally without damaging your shield. There could also be a new Medal that protects you from electricity, which would be a fitting reward from the Thunder Dragon and even be helpful in the late game.

In the Treacherous Tower you actually had to fight Moldorm as a boss, where they could do something similar here with Moldarach. They could even bring back the Moldarach battle from the E3 2010 demo with this, where you fought the scorpion boss inside the Great Tree. This would be a nice throwback and at the same time also change the fight somewhat, because it can't hide beneath the sand any longer.