Book of Sheikah?

This Sheikah symbol is decorating Nintendo's E3 website for now. We've seen this symbol before on the book that Link was carrying in the short footage from last November's Nintendo Direct and in the new artwork from last week:

This book already caught many people's eyes in November and some even thought back then that the book will be important and could be in the title of the game. And right now it looks like they were right. In the past I speculated that the game might be called something like "Bow of the Goddesses", since the Bow seems to be important, but by now we can assume that the book might be the most important piece in the game and that it's likely related to the Sheikah in some way.

It could be a Spell Book. When I personally think about a huge Zelda game world, Zelda II - The Adventure of Link always comes to mind. This game still has the largest overworld in the Zelda series, but it also had a different way to use magic in the form of spells (instead of items), which may come back in this game. I suppose, you will be able to browse the book with the Wii U GamePad (similar to the Stamp Book in Spirit Tracks) and maybe even activate the spells by drawing symbols. We've already seen that the game has a Magic Meter (or at least a green meter) during the Game Awards 2014 presentation, so it's not too far fetched and could lead to some interesting things.

In any case, I like the mysteriousness of it all. This is great teasing! The Sheikah always have been the most mysterious tribe and people love their mysteries. So, this is ingenious marketing for Zelda fans. Nintendo just has to post a Sheikah symbol and every Zelda fan out there will be hyped. But it's the mystery itself, which makes the Sheikah so interesting and popular. If you take that away, it might not be that anymore. It's the same with Majora. It's all the mysteries behind the mask, which really makes it so scary. Lift those mysteries and you might get a disappointing and unsatisfying story, like the ending of LOST.

Though it seems that those mysteries around the new game won't be lifted in a "Zelda Direct". All they announced today was a Treehouse Live stream for June 14th. This supports my fears that there probably won't be any other Zelda news around the E3. No 30th Anniversary, no more Tri Force Heroes content and so on. Otherwise they would have scheduled a Direct before the livestream, but they really just want to show the game and nothing else.

Hyrule Warriors Legends: Great Sea Map Impressions

After conquering the Adventure Map, I went on to the Great Sea Map and actually just now completed the whole thing. 100% – all A Ranks, all weapons, costumes, Heart Containers, Heart Pieces, Gold Skulltulas and Fairy Clothing. You get all Level 2 weapons here and one costume for every single character in the game, which is nice. It went very smoothly and I suppose that this is the easiest map of the game. It's also not as big as the normal Adventure Map – the Great Sea Map has 7 rows and 14 columns, which makes 98 battles altogether.

There's also a very clear path through the whole thing. Your goal is in the center with the Tower of the Gods and you start right at the north of it on Windfall Island. Then you circle all your way over the map clockwise, to Dragon Roost Island, over Forest Haven and so on. The entire first half of the map is a green zone, which means you get very little Experience here, but you'll face little to no resistance. There are only seven blue squares and two red squares in the center, which adds to the fact that this really is supposed to be the easiest map.

At first it looked like the map wants to troll you with item cards. You start surrounded by costumes, but you can't get any of them, because you don't have any item cards yet. But this situation clears pretty quickly, there's even a path around Dragon Roost Island, where every mission gives you the required item card for the next. And very rarely I had to go out of my way to get the necessary item cards, which feels really nice after the first Adventure Map kept asking you for Digging Mitts and other things you don't have, which can be quite annoying.

There are some missions with Master Quest-ish rules, like "Don't Get Hit!", "Double Damage" and "No Item Attacks", but you can avoid these for the most part and use item cards to temporarily disable the rules. "Don't Get Hit!" missions usually are a real pain, but I didn't have to endure it even once.

There's a big amount of "Defeat x00 enemies in 10 minutes!" missions on this map, usually 400 K.O.s, and in the past I always hated these missions, especially when you had to use certain characters for the rewards. But here you can always chose a 2nd character and I was able to easily beat all these missions with Cia, where her C2 makes the job really easy. Even the dreaded "Defeat 1000 enemies in 10 minutes!" was a total joke here. I just stayed in the northwest corner and kept killing all the spawning enemies there (which is different from the Wii U missions, where enemies would usually spawn in different spots). Around 500 K.O.s a Magic Transport Trooper appeared in the center, where the other enemies had spawned, and one single fairy explosion did the rest in an instant. The fairies also make the "Rack up your K.O. count" missions and the K.O. competitions ridiculously easy, because you simply can keep using the fairy nukes all over the place. (I'll make a separate post about the fairy companions soon.)

Anyway, the map made good use of all the new troops, stages and stage variants. They actually used the available stage variants all the time, instead of the original versions, and there even are two more variants that didn't get featured in Legend Mode: a night time version of the Gerudo Desert and some weird red sky version of the Twilight Field. At least the night time version of the Gerudo Desert could have been featured in Legend Mode, though. It would have been a nice fit for the new scenario, where Lana and Tetra meet in the desert. This scenario doesn't have any pre-rendered cutscenes, so the new stage variant could have been used here and it's a shame that it didn't.

But this was it. Looks like they made stage variants for exactly half of the original stages. I would have liked a night time version of Skyloft as well, because I always enjoyed Skyloft at night. It could have been used in Cia's campaign and I certainly would have preferred this over the new Twilight Field, which just looks weird and wrong (they simply used the skybox of the Palace of Twilight for the field and it looks like nothing in the games).

I also enjoyed the Great Sea in 8-Bit, it was pretty neat and sometimes surprisingly accurate together with the missions. For example, the dungeon battle for the Dragon Roost Cavern actually has you fighting Volga and Gohma in Eldin Caves, while you get both the Lvl2 Wind Waker and a Wind Waker item card as the rewards. Pretty neat. It was similar with the Forbidden Woods, though you did get the Map here, instead of a Boomerang item card... Earth and Wind Temple battles both also use the Earth and Wind Temple stage, of course, where the Wind Temple even gives you a Hookshot item card. Though, Forsaken Fortress and Tower of the Gods got split over two screens and are pretty weird, e.g. they used a King Dodongo for the Forsaken Fortress stage, instead of the Helmaroc King. But besides this I thought that the map was fleshed out very well.

Well, that's it for my impressions on the Great Sea Map. The Master Quest Map will be next, which I hopefully will be able to finish, before the Master Wind Waker Map gets released. And I also want to talk about "My Fairy" soon, because this is a very interesting feature.

My Zelda 3DS HOME Menu

On the Nintendo 3DS you can personalize the whole interface in various ways. There are many different HOME Menu Designs available, as well as badges for decoration. And by now I'm quite happy with what I have here as a Zelda fan, so I thought I should show it off:

Since I'm using the golden Majora's Mask Edition of the New Nintendo 3DS XL, this design fits the system very well. Even with other 3DS systems I would recommend it, because it's classy and clean. Most 3DS HOME Menu Designs tend to be very cluttered, but not this one. It also plays the Song of Healing in the background, so even sound-wise it's not too distracting. I got some other Zelda designs for free, but I like this one the most and it was definitely worth the 2€.

Anyway, as you can see, I'm using the bottled 3DS applications, which let the golden Majora's Mask in the background shine trough some more. The rest is organized with folders, where I used a golden / yellow symbol for each. The folder with the gold coin is for 3DS games, the folder with the GameBoy Color is for Virtual Console games and the folder with the Animal Crossing feather is for 3DS applications, bloatware and such.

And of course I have a separate folder just for my Zelda games with a Triforce on it. Let's take a look inside:

There's The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening DX, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, Four Swords Anniversary Edition, A Link Between Worlds, Majora's Mask 3D, Tri Force Heroes and the My Nintendo Picross - Twilight Princess, which I just got today. That's pretty much all there is available except for Ocarina of Time 3D and Hyrule Warriors: Legends. But I have no plans to get these two games as downloads and I only have some of the download versions, because I got them for "free", e.g. Majora's Mask 3D was pre-installed on the system and that's my early review copy of A Link Between Worlds over there.

Anyway, I also kept the downloadable trailers for A Link Between Worlds (still labeled as "The Legend of Zelda" at the time) and Majora's Mask 3D for the collection (I got a 32GB SD card, so space is not an issue). The rest are badges for decoration. I thought the Pearls of the Goddesses from The Wind Waker HD looked really nice next to the Rupees from Twilight Princess HD with their similar colors. And of course I had to put the Fierce Deity's Mask right next to Majora's Mask (3D).

I got tons of more Zelda badges, many complete sets, but I don't really use them, because I want the menu to stay clean. In case you wonder, where you can get these badges, it's a free-to-play application called Nintendo Badge Arcade. You can do a free play every day, where you aim for fake badges. Every ten of those you earn a free try, but sometimes they also give up to three bonus rounds. If you use this often enough, you can get many badges without ever paying. I very rarely spent money on this thing, though it's easy to lose yourself in the idea of completing sets, so be careful with it. Just gun for the badges that you want for your menu.

Zelda Wii U Delayed to March 2017, NX Dual Release

Well, the rumors were true. The new The Legend of Zelda game will be released for both Wii U and NX. However, the NX won't be out before March 2017 and this is why we have to wait until then to get the game. It really sounds like they postponed the Wii U version just for the NX release, which is yet another slap in the face for all Wii U owners. Thank you for this, Nintendo!

Earlier this year I made a suggestion that they should release the Wii U version this year for the holidays and then release the NX together with the NX version of Zelda as a launch title in 2017. And apparently that's what they could have done, but they won't, because they want to have it all for the new console. And don't tell me that the game is going to get "better" in this time period. Twilight Princess sure didn't get any better, when they took an entire year to port it to the Wii. The game probably is ready, they just don't want to remove its impact as a launch title. But this way they will also anger all Wii U owners and cement the notion that not every Nintendo system is worth buying.

Anyway, it looks like I'm kind of getting my Zelda Direct wish, because The Legend of Zelda will be THE ONLY GAME on E3. That's crazy. I wonder, if they will still have the Treehouse Live shows. Probably not, after all the public incidents they had with its staff... But they also could just play Zelda all day long, where they probably will show too much of the game.

And I'm afraid that any 30th Anniversary plans have officially died with the release in March 2017, which is when the 30th Anniversary span is already over. The anniversaries are all marketing moves and without any big game release in the background, Nintendo won't invest in that. Maybe they will prove me wrong, but they probably will keep doing the Pokémon Anniversary throughout the year, because there they are actually able to release new games in time. And without Zelda U they probably would have already done it this March, when they had lots of new Zelda stuff available. Twilight Princess HD could have gotten the 30th Anniversary banner.

It also looks weird for the "NX". They are not showing the system at E3, their new big video game system? I guess, I could have been right that they didn't want the Zelda reveal clash with the console reveal, but I wouldn't have suspected that they give the entire E3 to Zelda! Or they are simply not ready to show the new system yet. And that doesn't look good, if they keep it too close to their chests. But at least they seem to be confident in the new Zelda game, if they're willing to wrap an entire E3 around it.

The "good" news for me personally is: I will have enough time to complete Hyrule Warriors: Legends (the last DLC will be out in November) and replay all 3D Zelda games, before the new Zelda hits.

Still no Zelda Picross

Well, that's a close one... I just want to get the My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess game, but I'm exactly 10 points short. Nintendo really wants you to use the Miitomo thing, apparently. I currently don't have a working Smartphone available, so I can't just grab the Miitomo points. But I can wait one more week.

And for one month this certainly isn't bad. Well, many of these points were from the pre-registration and Nintendo account linking early on, but you can also get up to 120 Platinum Points per week by doing the following:

• Collect the coins on the ground
• Visit Miiverse
• Visit the eShop
• Visit the official Nintendo Homepage

The latter is actually not listed in the missions and you just receive the 30 points automatically. Some people might miss this though, so it's probably good to mention it.

Anyway... I will be able to play the Zelda Picross next week and maybe share some thoughts about it then!

Hyrule Warriors Legends: Adventure Map Impressions

I'm currently entertained by Hyrule Warriors: Legends, where I'm nearly done with the first Adventure Map and ready to continue on the new Great Sea Map. I'm not rushing through the maps like some people do, instead I will thoroughly take my time with each map, before I move on to the next. So, I've uncovered the whole map and unlocked all the characters, weapons, costumes, fairy clothing, food and Gold Skulltulas available. Only some hearts are still missing, but since hearts are the most useless thing in this game, I won't bother with this until much later.

And that's my biggest complaint: they kept the A rank requirements the same, so you still have to score 1200 K.O.s in less than 15 minutes (though apparently some missions give you more time now), while you're not allowed to take 10 hearts of damage in total for the majority the missions (25 in red zones). The latter always was a stupid requirement, because it makes collecting all the Heart Containers and Pieces completely obsolete. The characters already start with 10 hearts and if you're not allowed to take more damage than this, why collect them? A better ranking system would use a percentage basis or at least give you more room to breath.

They even kept the ridiculous four hearts requirement for the 2nd Skulltulas, but they did change goals in some missions. Instead of getting 1200 K.O.s you alternatively have to get 150 K.O.s with Special Attacks or take five keeps. But from my experience all these things can be quite close together and some missions still have you gun for the 1200 K.O.s. But there were cases where I already got 1200 K.O.s long before taking five keeps. And Special Attacks don't work too well on the (New) Nintendo 3DS, you usually only get quite low numbers with them.

In general, getting enough K.O.s seems to work fine on the New Nintendo 3DS. You never get as many enemies on screen as on the Wii U, which is probably Special Attacks don't work as well, but it keeps loading enemies and I never really struggle with defeating enough in time. Partly, this is due to the new fairy feature, where you can get a large number of K.O.s with a single button press, but even without this the game works surprisingly well.

Except for the "All Attacks are Devastating" missions. Here the important enemies load way too late and sometimes they are right beside you, already performing an attack once they got loaded. I already hated these missions on the Wii U, but there they are just frustrating and super bad. They should have removed all the small enemies, so that it works better.

Besides this the difficulty is quite enjoyable, though, since they have rebalanced the entire Adventure Map. In the original you had to go up to Level 90 to get some of the tougher missions done, but here a third will easily do. For example, I remember how much I struggled with Agitha's tier 3 weapon mission on the Wii U, even when she was above Level 90, while here I could do the same mission on my first try with a Lvl 23 Agitha. Of course, I'm a lot more experienced in this game by now and work more efficiently, but the difficulty has been scaled down significantly. Though, I've heard that the Master Quest map now is a pain instead and the high tier weapon missions are still the most difficult in the game...

In addition, you now can use multiple characters in many of the missions, which basically allows you to really "main" someone. Well, on the Wii U you could always abuse the Coop Mode for this, which is missing on the 3DS, but the character swap works much better anyway. It's just not available all of the time, but often enough to be satisfying. And like on Twilight and Termina Map they now also remove any character restrictions, as soon as you scored an A rank.

Besides all of this, the missions remain unchanged for the most part. You get different rewards for different characters in different places, but the battles themselves were copy pasted from the Wii U. Sometimes you face some of the new characters, such as Tingle, but there are none of the new stages and not even any Owl Statues or any of the new Wind Waker enemies. I suppose, they simply wanted to offer all the same "content" of the Wii U version, but I wouldn't have minded some more variety and improvements here, including the usage of the new stage variants.

But there are some weird changes to be found. Like there's one quiz where you have to defeat Ganondorf at the end. But instead of having another strong character at his side, they added a single Bokblin... Koei Tecmo really enjoys trolling you in the Adventure Mode, but this is one of the cases, where they overdo it. If you accidentally kill the Bokblin, the mission will fail and you don't get the Heart Container for... Zanto! Yes, Zanto...! It wouldn't be much of a problem with a more precise moveset, e.g. Link's sword, but Zanto's attacks are all over the place. You can't even risk a weakpoint smash, because this will sure take the Bokblin out... 

Another annoyance with the 3DS version is the sometimes bugged alert stack. The game sure keeps telling you about all those useless Hylian Soldiers in danger, but when your commander is about to flee, it forgets to mention it and suddenly the battle is lost without any warning. The alerts sometimes come way too late. That's not exactly acceptable and I hope that they will try to fix this.

And while they're on it, I would love to have a complete overview of the Adventure Map. Both the top and bottom screens in the Adventure Mode menu just show three rows of the map and you have to go over the entire thing, if you want to see, where item cards are available or where rewards are still left...

It's noteworthy that this map holds the Skyward Sword content. You unlock the Skyward Sword costumes here, as well as the pictures for the Rewards mission, where you fight multiple Imprisoned and Ghirahim, which originally was gotten from the Master Quest map (and now also seems to be a lot easier). I guess that any Ocarina of Time content will be put on the Termina map.

That's it for now. Next will be the Great Sea Map, which is entirely new and therefore somewhat more exciting, since it will make use of the new stages and enemies, which the first Adventure Map didn't. This is also where I'll get more into the whole My Fairy feature

Expecting Zelda Direct

The countdown is on! In less than two months, from June 14 to 16, the E3 will be happening in Los Angeles. Around the time we can expect the big reveals for Zelda and Nintendo's new console. Obviously these are the Nintendo main topics that everyone is anticipating for E3 (besides some Pokémon stuff maybe). And if Nintendo really reveals their new system for this year, they want to set their entire focus on it. At the same time the new Zelda game has been in development for many years now and will be also released on Wii U, which deserves a lot of attention as well. Naturally it also might be a launch title for the new system, but both things will take attention away from each other. Remember that Nintendo already has displayed Twilight Princess for GameCube in full glory one year before they announced the launch of the Wii. But we didn't have any big Wii U demos for the new Zelda game yet...

The solution? Schedule the first official Zelda Direct upfront! They did it with Smash Bros. last year, where they already aired several things on Sunday before E3. And with a Zelda Direct on Sunday they could draw all the attention towards Nintendo first and make everyone familiar with the nice shiny new game, before they drop the NX bomb on the actual E3 presentation. And we still have the 30th Anniversary to celebrate...

The Zelda Direct could go down like the following:

• Completely new gameplay of the Wii U game at the beginning, maybe the rumored female protagonist exploring a dungeon. Something stunning.
• Reveal of the game's official title, no release date yet.
• Overview of several features of the game.
• Development talk.
• 30th Anniversary celebration announcement.
• Reveal of something crazy new for the Anniversary, like a Zelda anime.
• New Tri Force Heroes Anniversary content available for free soon.
• Short showcase / trailer of the content in the upcoming Link's Awakening Pack for Hyrule Warriors (Legends).
• Maybe also some more free content for Hyrule Warriors (Legends) as another Anniversary gift, e.g. more classic costumes.
• Summary.

On the actual Nintendo E3 Direct they can then reveal the new console using Zelda as the prototype. Since we're now already familiar with the game, they can focus on what the console has to offer. That's where they might give a release date for both console and the game. And then they can show off, what other games they have in store for the system, maybe even some big reveal like Metroid Prime 4 at the end.

I'd say, this makes perfect sense. Otherwise Zelda and the 30th Anniversary would clash too much with the NX reveal. In any case I would expect a Zelda Direct at some time this year. By now they air Directs for many different game series, so you would think that they would do the same for Zelda, when they have a big new game and an anniversary to go through.

Of course there is also the possibility that they really only do the Pokémon 20th Anniversary this year and there won't be any celebration of the 30th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda... Never mind me then.