Two Unknown Items in Ocarina of Time 3D

Watch this video from some German review site. This about ten minutes of footage from a nearly complete save file, so there's a lot of showing and a nice look at the updated graphics. Especially the destroyed Hyrule Castle Town and the stone textured Kakariko Village look nice. However, what's most interesting is the part after three minutes, where the guy shows the new item menu. Here are two screenshots:

Okay, the inventory and statues menu were combined and aren't too interesting. Only notice the new look of the Stone of Agony next to the Gerudo passport. It makes sense that they changed its appearance, because the original version was shaped after the Rumble Pack and this new version works with sounds. It even looks a little bit like a pitching fork.

The item menu works like in Link's Awakening or the Oracle games. So, items assigend to buttons won't appear inside the menu and you switch items between the menu and the buttons. You'll notice how the items don't have any particular order, that's the result from this system. There are twenty free spots inside the menu and four buttons. That's space for 24 items, which is they exact same number as in Ocarina of Time on the N64. But... the Ocarina is not an item inside the item menu anymore, it will be always assigned to the lower left touch button. One free space. And it seems, that the Magic Arrows work like in The Wind Waker. Which means that they are not individual items, but you'll probably just switch between the arrows by pressing R while using the bow. If you look closely, you can see colored points around the bow icon, just like in The Wind Waker. So, three more free spaces. Those free spaces are used up by the Hover Boots and the Iron Boots, which are now normal items just like the Iron Boots in The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Well done. However, there's still room for two more items. You can cleary see that on the screenshot, there are two empty spots and this savegame got all the other items. And it doesn't make sense to just leave space for two items (though Oracles also did that). So, what could it be?

Yes, maybe it's NEW ITEMS!!! There's the Boss Challenge and maybe there's even some new (Cave of Ordeals like) bonus dungeon. And of course these things should give you a reward. Why not some shiny new items? There's only the question, what it could be... it needs to be optional for obvious reasons, but still somehow useful. Let's just take a quick look what other items from the other Zelda games they coul include:

• Telescope / Hawkeye
  Nothing special, but with the new visuals and full 3D models even in the backgrounds some zooming function would be nice. Could be fun with 3D effects.
• Pegasus Boots
  Even more boots. They could make you run faster like the Bunny Hood in Majora's Mask or the dash function in Skyward Sword. This idea is my personal favorite.
• Fishing Rod
  Let's you fish anywhere, like at Lake Hylia or in Zora's Realm. But this wouldn't serve any purpose unless they include new types of fish and a journal for some new sidequest... so I doubt this.
• Ball&Chain
  Or some other alternative weapon... but we already got the Megaton Hammer and the Deku Sticks to serve as an alternative way to strike enemies.
• More Bottles
  Majora's Mask got six, so why not Ocarina of Time? But this would be of course the most boring und uninspired solution.

Source of video: Zelda Informer

Odd Scene in Master Quest 3D Promo

Some months ago the inclusion of Master Quest in Ocarina of Time 3D seemed just to be a small extra, but by now Nintendo promotes it as a big deal. And it certainly is one, I guess the majority of buyers will play Master Quest for their first time. Also, the mirroring and double damage gives new challenge to experienced Ocarina of Time players. So, here is a little promotional video from the Japanese website that introduces the differences.

However... at 1:05 in the video there's an odd scene that shows Young Link inside the Forest Temple. It appears to be the small room in the northern area of 1F, where you fight to Wolfos to get a key in Master Quest. Zelda Informer also acknowledges that this is odd and luckily made a screenshot, which saves me some time:



There are multiple explanations for this. It could be that this was just Grezzo experimenting and not a scene from the actual game. However, releasing material of something, that won't be in the final game, so close to the release would be a strange move. And the promoting probably won't be done by Grezzo, but by some Nintendo marketing party.

Another explanation would be, that they changed the Forest Temple in Master Quest so, so that you can enter it as Young Link. However, this doesn't make much sense and they stated, that the dungeons will be the same as in Master Quest on GameCube. They are already crazy enough, there's no need to make them even crazier. And I doubt this would work so easily without completely changing the entire dungeon. Young Link has to get past the Hookshot parts without a Hookshot. And for what reason would they do that? The Forest Temple is supposed to be the first adult dungeon, there's no place for Young Link here. You can't even return to childhood without beating the temple (or one of the other temples, not sure right now) first.

The last explanation and my favorite one is that this actually isn't a shot from the Forest Temple. As in NEW CONTENT. Yeah, I said it. And I'm a broken record all over this. But this game needs a bonus dungeon. They got everything right so far, there is Master Quest and they even made it harder with the mirroring and the double damage. There is the Boss Challenge as some sort of new sidequest. Now just let there be an extra dungeon and they got every point on my checklist for a perfect remake. And I'm not demanding much, I'm just using the other remastered Zelda games as a basis, like Link's Awakening DX or A Link to the Past on the GameBoy Advance. LADX got updated visuals, a new sidequest (the photo quest) and a bonus dungeon. A Link to the Past also got a new sidequest (the Riddle Quest) and a bonus dungeon (the Palace of the Four Sword), but also improved gameplay mechanics and fucking Four Swords as an extra multiplayer game. Ocarina of Time 3D got the updated visuals, the improved gameplay mechanics, the Boss Challenge mode, Master Quest as a 2nd Quest, so the only thing missing would be a bonus dungeon.

It doesn't even have to be something special. We already got the tricky extra dungeon with the Gerudo Training Grounds. But another Savage Labyrinth / Cave of Ordeals clone would be easily made. Five sets of ten rooms based on the five temples, where you fight all the common enemies and minibosses from that area. There's a way to challenge all the bosses again, so it makes sense to include something for all normal enemies and minibosses as well. That way you could fight Dark Link again, if you want. And you can chose if you want to challenge it as adult or young Link just by visiting the dungeon at the corresponding time. I would hide such a dungeon in the Desert Colossus area or some other area which can't be visited until later in the game.

Ocarina of Time 3D Enhancements

The release of Ocarina of Time 3D is coming closer and more details were revealed yesterday on a special press event.



Master Quest will not only be mirrored, but enemies will deal twice as much damage! Like the mirroring this double damage is something which will add to the ENTIRE game and not just to the 12 dungeons. Remember that Master Quest on the GameCube originally only changed the dungeons and the rest of the game was entirely the same as in the normal Ocarina of Time. So, it is great news, that they found something to change the rest of the game as well. I must say, that these two tweaks are very simple, not to say cheap, on the one hand, but on the other hand they will greatly improve the challenge and the replay value of the whole game. Simple, but very effective. The dungeons will stay the same as in the original Master Quest, only mirrored this time.



Boss Challenge actually isn't a new, separate game mode, but an ingame addition. If you go back to Link's house in the Kokiri Forest, you can go back to sleep and he will dream of the old boss fights. Too bad that Link seems to have tons of nightmares, but more fun for the player. And this is a cool way of including this new mode into the game.



Another ingame addition are the Shiekah Stones. They are similar to the Gossip Stones, but they'll show you "visions" of the future, which are simply videos of how to solve certain puzzles and even how to find heart pieces, etc. It will track which videos you've viewed to get some help. I don't like that this will be in the game, but you don't have to view the videos... it's basically an ingame guide book. What's weird is that they say that you crawl into the stones. Which means, that you can only use them as Young Link and that the stones would be huge... huh.



And the enhancements of the Water Temple are discussed. Instead of making it actually easier, they added colored walls as a guidance. They'll lead to the three locations, where you can change the water level, which should make navigation a little easier. And as you can see on the screenshot, Iron Boots are clearly a normal item now like they were in The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Both of this will definitely help playing the Water Temple without dumping the dungeon down.

I still miss a bonus dungeon. :D

Sources: Zelda Universe, Zelda Informer and IGN

Skyward Sword GDC Trailer Song Inverted

Just listen to this (the inverted songs starts halfway). Yeah, the awesome song from the Skyward Sword GDC trailer is just Zelda's Lullaby played backwards.



It's interesting that no one has noticed this before until now. And Nintendo has a history of remixing songs in similar fashion, for example the Song of Healing on the Ocarina was just Saria's Song played backwards. Of course the timing different, as well as the background music, but the notes are the same. Or Midna's theme already used to be a variation of Zelda's Lullaby. So, you could start speculating about a deeper meaning and everything, but on the other hand, this song really just was simply inverted. We don't know if Kondo is behind this or if just some other guy at Nintendo discovered this and thought "hey, this sounds great". We can't even be sure yet, if this song will appear in the final game or if this just was quickly made for the trailer. Remember the Phantom Hourglass trailers with those awesome remixes of the Dark World and Hyrule Castle themes? Got pretty hyped about them, but then both songs were not present in the final game...

Still this is an interesting find, which may blow your mind.

Source: Zelda Informer and Kotaku

Ocarina of Time 3D Trailer and Site Updates

Finally we got a trailer for Ocarina of Time 3D. Watch it on Youtube. Visuals are fine except for the Temple of Time time scene, I still think this looks actually worse than on Nintendo 64.

Also, Europe and US updated their OoT3D sites.
Official Ocarina of Time 3D US Website
Official Ocarina of Time 3D Europe Website

The Europe version includes the nice Flash powered 3D effect artwork, which will also be present on the European cover art, but not the US one.

Which does all of this stuff have in common? Exactly, it offers NOTHING new. The sites don't even mention Master Quest or the Boss mode. There are some new scenes in the trailer (like the Gerudo Training Grounds) and some new screenshots, but we all know this from the original game. I thought Nintendo wants to sell 3DS systems? But updated graphics alone don't get me excited at all.

Also, there's still no word about a potential 25th Anniversary bundle. I'm not going to buy a normal Nintendo 3DS and the game in June, just so that two months later they'll spit in my face with a shiny Zelda themed 3DS bundled with Ocarina. I'm going to wait.

Source: Zelda Informer

Nintendo Selects: Twilight Princess

With no interesting new games to drive the sales and with a successor waiting to be revealed at E3, the Wii is entering its budget age. It's sad to finally see this come true, but on the other hand I actually never got the GameCube until it sold for 100 bucks. And right now Nintendo is falling more and more back into their GameCube schemes instead of being awesome.

However, the console will only cost 149,99 now and is going to be bundled with Mario Kart Wii instead of Wii Sports. Weird move, since most people get a Wii for Wii Sports. Instead this game will be featured in a new "Player's Choice" line called "Nintendo Selects" at the prince of 19,99. And among theses game are also Animal Crossing: City Folk, Mario Super Sluggers aanndd The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. This is how the cover looks like:



Actually it's a miracle that this game kept selling at the price of 45 or even 50 bucks for so long. Metroid: Other M for example is already kissing bargain bins and sells for even less than the price of the Nintendo Selects line. So, this shows that Twilight Princess didn't loose value and kept selling. It's also the third best selling Zelda game and it will keep it coming, since the cheaper version probably will boost the sales. Heck, I might even pick up one of those, just for my collection.

Source: Nintendo World Report (via Kotaku)


Update: Apparently Nintendo of Europe doesn't select Twilight Princess, the game won't be part of this new bugdet title line. I just praised Nintendo of Europe for making the better choices when it comes to covers, but now this. Too bad, but maybe they will add other titles to this series later on.

A Link to the Past as 3D Classic

What a day on Hyrule Blog...! I think this is a record, I've never made so many posts on a single day, today I posted as much as I would normally post in a month. But there has been a lot of news lately and another one is the following:

Miyamoto mentions a possible remake of A Link to the Past for the 3DS. A quote from Edge Magazine:

With an Ocarina Of Time remake on the way in June, Miyamoto says the one game he would most like to see remade for 3DS would be another Zelda classic. “I think A Link To The Past,” he says. “Do you remember Xevious? It’s two-layered and I really wanted to create that at the time. So to see Link To The Past in two layers would be quite attractive for me.”



Okay, and while you're at it, add Ancient Stone Tablets as a 2nd Quest and Four Swords with online multiplayer. Thank you. Or just let GREZZO do the job, they'll probably come up with ideas like that on their own.

Well, the Nintendo 3DS will offer "3D Classics" as a feature in their eShop and I already speculated that they will release a 3D layered version of the classic The Legend of Zelda for the 25th Anniversary on that platform. It could be, that A Link to the Past could get the same treatment. If that's the case, it would be nothing new, just an added 3D effect and probably better visuals. Features like the return of Ancient Stone Tablets or an online version of Four Swords is just something we can only dream of. But it would be an option.

Source: Edge (via Zelda Universe)