Hyrule Warriors: 8-Bit Fairy Revealed

So, crediar actually found the model of the 8-Bit Fairy in the update data of Hyrule Warriors:

She even has an 8-Bit Blue Potion / Bottle to carry Link around, nice! But I suppose during the combos you will see the normal Link.

Hyrule Warriors: Tingle Costume for Volga?

You might have seen this interview already, where Aonuma advised the Hyrule Warriors team not to include Tingle, after they had trouble implementing him.

(It's actually funny, how things bounce around the internet. I found this months old interview googling for "Hyrule Warriors Tingle" and posted it on GameFAQs to support an argument, why Tingle is not a safe bet for the Majora's Mask DLC. This got some happy reactions including one guy tweeting the interview. NintendoEverything then picked up the tweet and posted it on their recent news. And now it's on pretty much all Nintendo News sites... and people send me the interview or make new threads on GameFAQs with the interview... but so much about that. :D)

Three new costumes will be part of the Majora's Mask DLC pack and I'm actually hoping that characters, who haven't seen any original costumes yet, will get some treatment here. So, anyone but Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, Lana or Cia. And with the interview I have more hopes again that Fierce Deity Link won't just be a costume, but fully playable character. There's even lots of similarities between him and Twili Midna.

And as much as Fierce Deity Link could just be a costume, the same goes for Tingle. There could just be a Tingle costume for someone and that someone is... Volga! Take a look:

Their faces are very similar. You have the small pointed goatee at their chins and you have these black squinching eyes. And he even has this chain with a red pendant, which is very similar to how Tingle wears his clock. Volga is just a manly dragon Tingle! And maybe this design choice was even intentional by Koei. Now put him in a green costume with that clock for some lulz. It's perfect.

While I wouldn't mind Tingle as a playable character, I would love a Tingle costume for Volga!

PS: I also update my previous post, where I speculated about the MM DLC, with this idea.

Hyrule Warriors Twilight Princess DLC 100%

Whew... that was annoying. The Twilight Map was hell. Every little mook can cause multiple hearts of damage. One little mistake and your A rank is gone. It's the recipe for frustration, but luckily I found the solution in form of the Item Power-up mixture. It works on any battle and with any character. Just snipe every enemy, which can be targeted, with the Sacred Bow from a safe distance and blast mooks with the Power-up Bombs. It takes its time, but it's never too slow for the 15 minute time limit.

I haven't exactly gotten the 100% yet. I got all weapons, costumes, Heart Pieces, Heart Containers and Skulltulas, but I'm still missing a few A ranks, as well as the medal for receiving 100 amiibo gifts. I only have the Link amiibo (got one for free from Nintendo), so the latter takes its time. I could just keep changing the date on the Wii U system, but I'm not in a hurry to get that medal, since I think I will play the game long enough to get it eventually. The remaining A ranks on the Twilight map shouldn't be a big issue; for the most part it's missions, where you get costumes, which I have played very early on. By now all my characters are at Level 150, so things go down a lot more quickly.

Well, all characters but one: Twili Midna is still around Level 60. Since she's not required for any missions, I only play her for fun. And it's even better, if I can combine fun with breaking some weapon seals. I'm hoping to get a Legendary seal for her at one point, because then I probably use her more often.

Apropos weapon seals... I really hope one of the updates gives us the possibility to pay for seals. Make it like 10 Rupees for every K.O. at max to unlock them. I always want to know, what's under the seals, in case it's something useful. Sometimes you can test it, if there's an open slot and you already have the same skill on another weapon. If you try to transfer it, it will complain that you can't have the same skill twice (as opposed to having two skills from the same category). But that only works in rare cases and actually breaking the seals is usually not worth the effort, because there are only one or two skills in each category that I find useful, so the majority of the time you get junk. But if you could simply pay for the seals, it would save a lot of time and disappointment.

For the other characters my approach was to focus on one character at a time, after uncovering the Twilight Map. I would level the character to Level 150 and then complete his or her missions on the Twilight Map. While leveling up I also managed to break more Legendary seals for most of the characters. They are actually not that useful, if you only have them on a Lvl 3 weapon. Especially on the Twilight Map the difference in damage output is only minor. They are more useful, if you prefer a Lvl 1 or 2 weapon because of its looks and you want these weapons not to lack in power.

And of course I still haven't A ranked the Boss Rush. But that's because I haven't played this missions with any Level 150 character yet. And I probably won't return to this nasty mission, until all the updates got released. Maybe there will be a defense mixture or something else, which additionally helps you with fighting.

Other than that I'm still hoping that the Majora's Mask Map will aim at an easier difficulty again. While the Twilight Map is doable, it's just a lot more fun, if you can go at things normally and don't have to be afraid to use normal attacks all the time. But I suppose it would make sense to have each aim emulate a different of the four main difficulties, but with a twist. First Adventure Map was just normal and the Master Quest Map was easy, but it had the rules. The Twilight Map is "Hero" difficulty, but it gives double drops. And the Mask Map will have "Hard" difficulty and uses lots of time limits. But we'll see about that soon enough.


Another interesting point is the Wii U ... I really miss the possibility to backup save files. On the Wii it was easy using SD cards, but there's no such thing for the Wii U. Even on the Wii it already irked me that you couldn't backup the savegame of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, where I put around 300 hours into the game. But with Hyrule Warriors I'm looking at 500+ hours now. That's not a savegame you want to lose ... ever.

You can copy your savegame on an external hard drive, however, you have to copy the entire game, since you can't just copy save data on its own, which is annoying. Also, if there's an issue with your Wii U and has to be reset, your hard drive needs to be formatted again as well and the existing data won't be recognized. So, making backups on a hard drive doesn't really help...

Dawn of a New Year – 2015

Happy New Year, everyone!

This time there's actually not much to speculate about the upcoming year, since Nintendo already laid out the Zelda road map for 2015. Fans of Majora's Mask will be happy that their favorite game will finally receive full attention in the first half of 2015 with its remake, DLC for Hyrule Warriors, and the Symphony of the Goddesses.

The start makes the Majora's Mask Pack later this month. The DLC pack will contain two additional characters, who are still unknown, as well as an Adventure Map with the music of Clock Town, as well three new costumes. In February we will then see the final DLC, which contains two new game modes. There's also the question whether Hyrule Warriors will receive a 2nd wave of DLC or not, e.g. Skyward Sword and Ocarina of Time packs. It's doubtful, where the next step will probably be a sequel, but it's still a possibility. In any case, Hyrule Warriors will entertain us for a while longer.

Ever since Ocarina of Time 3D was introduced, Zelda fans were longing for a similar remake of its dark and mysterious sequel. There was even the "Operation Moonfall" petition to show the strong fan interest. In reality, the development of Majora's Mask 3D had actually started right after Ocarina of Time 3D, where it will now find its way into stores, even with a Special Edition.

GREZZO is again the developer behind the remake, which will see some improvements and novelties. We don't know much yet, but we do know that there are two new fishing ponds, which will make the end of the world more relaxing. The team also wants to make the game more accessible, without making it less difficult. And we will see if they succeed once it release this Spring.

There will also be new songs from Majora's Mask in the "Master Quest" program of the Symphony of the Goddesses, which returns in 2015 to North America and Europe (I'll be in Dusseldorf). Certainly an event to look forward to.

The 2nd half of 2015 will revolve around the new Zelda game for the Wii U. This year they already showed us the visual style, the open world, and a battle against a giant hybrid of an Octorok and Beamos. There's a lot more to learn at the next E3 and the game is still slated for a 2015 holiday release, so in exactly one year we might all be playing the new game!

We also know that there's a new 3DS Zelda game in development, probably based on A Link Between Worlds. However, I suspect this game will be shown and released in 2016 to not steal attention from the new Wii U game. Or it may be the other way around if the Wii U title is long in coming.

2014 – The Year of Crossovers

Another year has passed and for a year, which didn't see a new title in the The Legend of Zelda main series, this was probably a very lively one, especially when compared to the voids in 2008 and 2012. It all began end of January, where Iwata announced in an investor briefing that Nintendo is going to be less protective about their character IPs:

We will actively expand our character licensing business, including proactively finding appropriate partners.

And this ultimately led to various cameos for the Zelda series in other video games this year. There was the "The Legend of Zelda Zone" in Sonic Lost Word, where Sonic runs through Hyrule Field and the Goron Mines in the traditional green garbs. Speaking of, a Link costume also made it into Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2, and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

One of the highlights of these cameos was without a doubt Mario Kart 8, however. In its first DLC pack Link was added together with the Master Cycle Zero and the Hyrule Circuit, where you collect Rupees and activate switches for a shortcut.

As a perfect fit for this "year of crossovers" we saw the release of the next Super Smash Bros. game, both on Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Though, nothing much happened with the Zelda franchise in the next iteration of Nintendo's allstar fighting game. We got new stages with the Spirit Train from Spirit Tracks, the Gerudo Valley from Ocarina of Time 3D, and Skyloft from Skyward Sword.

The Zelda franchise also saw a significant upgrade in the field of items in Smash – the Gust Bellow, the Beetle, Bombchus, a Fairy Bottle, Cuccos, and three new assist trophies: Skull Kid, Midna and Ghirahim. But there were no new playable fighters from the Zelda series and the recurring ones only changed a little, so overall the new Smash probably wasn't all this exciting for Zelda fans.

However, Zelda finally got its own well deserved all-star fighting game with Hyrule Warriors. You could probably even name this the "year of Hyrule Warriors", because this title was huge. Speculating about new characters and weapons, marveling at artwork and of course playing the game, where you can easily invest hundreds of hours – Hyrule Warriors dominated the free time of Zelda fans in the latter half of the year. And it will still keep going. Two more DLC packs are coming in early 2015, one about Majora's Mask and one adding new game modes, where Hyrule Warriors will probably keep the fans busy until the next Zelda game get released.

Otherwise we got a small blast from the past with The Minish Cap on the Wii U Virtual Console, as well as some NES goodness with NES Remix 2 (Wii U) and NES Remix Pack (Nintendo 3DS).

Super Smash Bros. 4 Unexcitement

When I started this blog in 2008, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was huge for me. Sadly I have deleted most of the post from the time, because they were more of a backlogging nature, but they showed my excitement for the game. I invested about 300 hours into Brawl, collected all stickers and nearly all trophies, created many stages and overall had a lot of fun with it. It's probably my favorite game on the Wii next to the Metroid Prime Trilogy.

Now we got this:

I could not replicate the same excitement this year with Super Smash Bros. 4, which just recycled Brawl in many ways (lots of stages, music, almost all characters), but also lacked some of the good parts like most stage editor elements, the Subspace Emissary or the stickers. Overall it feels all very lazy and that should not be of surprise, when the director of the game publicly states that he doesn't want to work on Smash anymore.

It's still a quality game and the gameplay certainly has improved over Brawl, for me it's the best gameplay and controls in the series. But while the core is great, the package feels entirely inferior to Brawl. One of the reasons might be the development of the 3DS version, which probably cut the resources in half. If they didn't make a 3DS version and put all their efforts into the Wii U game, it probably would have a lot more going for it.

Another big reason is Hyrule Warriors, where Zelda finally got its own allstar game. Ghirahim or Midna might not be "worthy" enough to be playable in Smash, but they sure are in Hyrule Warriors. And Koei Tecmo's character design is just absolutely splendid and beautiful, they did such a great job with this game that it's very easy to ignore the new Smash as a Zelda fan.

Beaten Link's Awakening Again

I honestly don't know, how many times I've played through Link's Awakening by now, but definitely over 20 times. The only other Zelda game, where I'm not exactly sure, how many times I played through it, is Ocarina of Time. With all the other games I remember quite well, how many times I played them.

But with Link's Awakening this has become some sort of Christmas tradition for me. It was Christmas 1997, where I got the game. And it was my first Zelda game. It took me months to beat it originally, I got stuck so many times in the silliest situations. I cried, when I finally beat the game, because such an amazing journey came to an end.

Today I beat it in one evening. It's a very short Zelda game and I know all the best routes through the dungeons, but it's perfect, if you want a quick Zelda experience.

It also brings back so many memories, each time I play it. The mystery the game had, when I only knew it from Club Nintendo magazin articles. The imaginations about the island Cocolinth running wild. It was like reading a good book.

I picked up the uncensored, original, monochrome German version of the game, which has the Claude M. Moyse translation humor. He was known for sneaking in some kinky translation here and there, so you get Buzz Blubbs talking about condoms and sharing juices. Or one of my favorite parts is the quest with the mermaid. She actually lost her bikini top and if you dive in front of her, she gets upset... and when she offers you a scale, pervert Link grabs something else first. Good times. :D

What I also enjoy a lot about the game are the secrets. Some of the Pieces of Heart and Secret Seashells are so well hidden that you really have to be thorough to look for everything. This was my first Zelda game and it taught me that there can be a secret behind every wall and under every bush. Sadly Zelda games kind of lost this, by now it's always very obvious, where things are hidden. Take the Maiamais in A Link Between Worlds for example. It's a fun collectible quest, but way too easy.