Saturday, January 17, 2015
Friday, January 16, 2015
Hyrule Warriors: Version 1.5 Info
In the past I had some ideas for more quality of life improvements in Hyrule Warriors and it looks like Koei Tecmo actually has taken on some of them according to their update page (see Koei Wiki for an English translation).
You can now delete skills in the smithy and also sell weapons, whenever you want. That's both awesome. There's also a new option to "check skills", though I'm not sure what this means. If it's an option to check what's below a weapon seal, then this would be helpful.
It still would be nice, if you could buy stars and additional slots and pay for seals, but the ability to delete skills is very welcome and should help with crafting good weapons. I have quite some weapons, which are near perfect, but have some useless skills on them. However, the thing I still want the most is the option to pay for seals, because unlocking them is getting very tiring.
However, they also increased the level cap yet again, so I will most likely unlock lots of seals anyway, while grinding the characters to the new maximum. Getting to Level 150 was already slow and boring, since you tend to repeat the same missions (like "Rack Up You KO Count 11 and 12" or "Divisive Plan 7 to 9") again and again, since they are the most efficient. But maybe there are also some new options to level up faster.
They improved the Adventure Mode so that it tells you, how much damage is left in percentage to the next rank. And you also have the option now to restart a mission, whenever you want. Both very useful additions. So far you had to keep track of your damage yourself and if you wanted to restart without loading the map, you had to kill yourself. If they now also add the ability to make saves like in Legend Mode, it would be perfect.
New potions get added. By now I don't really need a Materials+ potion anymore, but a Defense and/or Attack mixture would be awesome. Since I got 999 of Fi's Boots from leveling Darkness characters, I wouldn't even mind, if they'd use silver materials. But the game still needs Kokiri Tunic badges to increase defense on missions without any recommended element. That always has been an oversight and missions with recommended elements can be a real problem.
But I really hope that the new level cap doesn't mean that the Moon Map is going to be even harder... it would be nice to play the game normally again, instead of abusing the Power-up Bow all the time, just because every little scratch can cost you the A rank.
You can now delete skills in the smithy and also sell weapons, whenever you want. That's both awesome. There's also a new option to "check skills", though I'm not sure what this means. If it's an option to check what's below a weapon seal, then this would be helpful.
It still would be nice, if you could buy stars and additional slots and pay for seals, but the ability to delete skills is very welcome and should help with crafting good weapons. I have quite some weapons, which are near perfect, but have some useless skills on them. However, the thing I still want the most is the option to pay for seals, because unlocking them is getting very tiring.
However, they also increased the level cap yet again, so I will most likely unlock lots of seals anyway, while grinding the characters to the new maximum. Getting to Level 150 was already slow and boring, since you tend to repeat the same missions (like "Rack Up You KO Count 11 and 12" or "Divisive Plan 7 to 9") again and again, since they are the most efficient. But maybe there are also some new options to level up faster.
They improved the Adventure Mode so that it tells you, how much damage is left in percentage to the next rank. And you also have the option now to restart a mission, whenever you want. Both very useful additions. So far you had to keep track of your damage yourself and if you wanted to restart without loading the map, you had to kill yourself. If they now also add the ability to make saves like in Legend Mode, it would be perfect.
New potions get added. By now I don't really need a Materials+ potion anymore, but a Defense and/or Attack mixture would be awesome. Since I got 999 of Fi's Boots from leveling Darkness characters, I wouldn't even mind, if they'd use silver materials. But the game still needs Kokiri Tunic badges to increase defense on missions without any recommended element. That always has been an oversight and missions with recommended elements can be a real problem.
But I really hope that the new level cap doesn't mean that the Moon Map is going to be even harder... it would be nice to play the game normally again, instead of abusing the Power-up Bow all the time, just because every little scratch can cost you the A rank.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Hyrule Warriors: 8-Bit Recorder and Portal
crediar has found the last remaining 8-Bit weapons:
They replace the Baton and the Portal, as I suspected. This also means that it really might be the case that the new Adventure Map for Majora's Mask somehow has more to it than first visible. There's definitely more than just five weapons and we will most likely get 16 costumes again. Maybe the moon hides the red zones in the top left corner or there really is like a small Moon Map.
They replace the Baton and the Portal, as I suspected. This also means that it really might be the case that the new Adventure Map for Majora's Mask somehow has more to it than first visible. There's definitely more than just five weapons and we will most likely get 16 costumes again. Maybe the moon hides the red zones in the top left corner or there really is like a small Moon Map.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Majora's Mask 3D - Three Years of Nothing
Majora's Mask 3D has been in development for over three years, but it seems like nothing much has happened in that time. They added two fishing ponds and that seems to be it. I never even liked the fishing from Ocarina of Time...
I had quite some ideas for this remake in the past including a Master Quest, a third Skulltula House, more uses for the Picto Box, Miiverse integration and more. Yes, the Master Quest was kind of a stretch, but they had enough time. I mean, this was longer in development than some new games.
It doesn't seem like they added any more features or otherwise they would have already showed them. Graphically it's also not any better than Ocarina of Time 3D. They still use textures for stairs like it's 1998. How hard can it be to model actual stairs?
Update:
At least they changed the Song of Double Time the way I wanted! You can now select the exact hour you need, which is super awesome. The new fishing ponds also look great, though I still really want that third Skulltula House.
I also guess that it's still possible that there might be an unlockable Hero Mode. They kept the one for A Link Between Worlds a secret as well. But it probably only will be double / quadruple damage and maybe a mirrored world, because if they went through the trouble of implementing a Master Quest, they would have told us by now.
I had quite some ideas for this remake in the past including a Master Quest, a third Skulltula House, more uses for the Picto Box, Miiverse integration and more. Yes, the Master Quest was kind of a stretch, but they had enough time. I mean, this was longer in development than some new games.
It doesn't seem like they added any more features or otherwise they would have already showed them. Graphically it's also not any better than Ocarina of Time 3D. They still use textures for stairs like it's 1998. How hard can it be to model actual stairs?
Update:
At least they changed the Song of Double Time the way I wanted! You can now select the exact hour you need, which is super awesome. The new fishing ponds also look great, though I still really want that third Skulltula House.
I also guess that it's still possible that there might be an unlockable Hero Mode. They kept the one for A Link Between Worlds a secret as well. But it probably only will be double / quadruple damage and maybe a mirrored world, because if they went through the trouble of implementing a Master Quest, they would have told us by now.
Hyrule Warriors: Majora's Mask DLC revealed
Well, the cat is out of the bag and it's not a pretty one:
I was at least hoping that they would give Tingle a new design, if they ever add him, since he's a recurring character much like Impa or Ganondorf. Because his design from Majora's Mask is easily the ugliest and Koei Tecmo is really good at making awesome new designs for the characters. The fighting style looks funny, but the super ugly Tingle completely ruins it.
Also... this will create hate without end. Nintendo let their fans preorder the DLC without announcing the characters up front and most people probably expected Skull Kid. Especially in the US Tingle gets a lot of hate and Aonuma was actually smart enough to tell the team to keep him out in favor of a different character. But with the DLC they let many people pay for something, which they might not even want, so here it's even worse. They should have announced the characters right from the get-go. This would have saved us a lot of useless speculation, hype and frustration. The only good thing is that you can completely ignore the DLC characters, since they are not needed for missions.
I personally wanted to have Fierce Deity Link and Skull Kid battling each other, so I'm not entirely happy that they both ended up as attacks for Young Link:
Young Link seems out of place, since so far they created their own incarnations of the characters and prevented them from meeting their past versions. I would have liked to see the Hyrule Warriors Link turn into Fierce Deity, but instead they decided to use Young Link from Majora's Mask for this job.
I really hope that at least in Focus Spirit you can play as the full Fierce Deity, where you fire sword beams. This actually would even be true to the original character, where the sword beams were limited by magic and could break through boss armor. They would probably be too overpowered in Hyrule Warriors as they were, but by limiting the Fierce Deity to Focus Spirit it kind of makes sense. You also get to see the nice effect, where Link transforms into the Fierce Deity. So, they kind of stay true to the original concept with all that, if it really works with Focus Spirit. If not, it will be simply a disappointing moveset. And still all of that could and should have been done by a two handed moveset for Link. There's no reason for Young Link to be in this game.
The main appeal of Hyrule Warriors is playing characters, which you normally can't play as. And in that sense they really failed with the Majora's Mask DLC. Tingle already got multiple games of his own, where you can play as him, and Young Link is playable in multiple Zelda games. Skull Kid on the other hand didn't get playable in both Smash and Hyrule Warriors... which is really disappointing, since he would have lots of potential.
Well, let's talk about the rest:
I made several predictions for the new costumes in the Majora's Mask Pack and "the Ocarina of Time variants for Sheik and Impa" was probably the lamest one. It's still nice to finally have them for the sake of completion. At the same time, it's kind of sad that we only got recolors for Demise and Skyward Sword Impa.
Tingle should have been a costume (for Volga), instead Skull Kid was the one to be turned into a costume, which is kind of disappointing. It looks like Lana is doing the cosplay, who's probably the best fit with her Deku / Kokiri moveset. But in general there are so many nice possibilities for costumes and Koei Tecmo is usually really big with that, so I'm kind of sad that the majority is just some lazy recolors and that we didn't get any additional costume packs (yet).
The Adventure Map looks like it really is using a reset mechanic, which would be awful, if done wrong. I hope that the difficulty at least will be moderate again to compensate for the pressure. But it certainly won't take away the Heart Pieces or costume, but I guess the map will just get covered again, if you fail or so.
It seems that there are no red zones and also less costumes + 8-Bit weapons than in previous maps. I count 13 costumes and five weapons, so at least one of the original weapons is not getting an 8-Bit version (probably the Portal, since the Recorder as the Baton is just too perfect) and three characters are not getting costumes this time. This or there's like a small Moon map, which only contains red fields and the rest of the rewards. This could work also.
However, on the first field it shows only a Heart Piece for Darunia. Which probably means that each character is only getting two additional hearts again for a total of 42. Either they raise the level cap yet again or the remaining hearts will be gotten in future DLC.
Also... no sign of any new stage yet. Clocktown would have been a must.
I was at least hoping that they would give Tingle a new design, if they ever add him, since he's a recurring character much like Impa or Ganondorf. Because his design from Majora's Mask is easily the ugliest and Koei Tecmo is really good at making awesome new designs for the characters. The fighting style looks funny, but the super ugly Tingle completely ruins it.
Also... this will create hate without end. Nintendo let their fans preorder the DLC without announcing the characters up front and most people probably expected Skull Kid. Especially in the US Tingle gets a lot of hate and Aonuma was actually smart enough to tell the team to keep him out in favor of a different character. But with the DLC they let many people pay for something, which they might not even want, so here it's even worse. They should have announced the characters right from the get-go. This would have saved us a lot of useless speculation, hype and frustration. The only good thing is that you can completely ignore the DLC characters, since they are not needed for missions.
I personally wanted to have Fierce Deity Link and Skull Kid battling each other, so I'm not entirely happy that they both ended up as attacks for Young Link:
Young Link seems out of place, since so far they created their own incarnations of the characters and prevented them from meeting their past versions. I would have liked to see the Hyrule Warriors Link turn into Fierce Deity, but instead they decided to use Young Link from Majora's Mask for this job.
I really hope that at least in Focus Spirit you can play as the full Fierce Deity, where you fire sword beams. This actually would even be true to the original character, where the sword beams were limited by magic and could break through boss armor. They would probably be too overpowered in Hyrule Warriors as they were, but by limiting the Fierce Deity to Focus Spirit it kind of makes sense. You also get to see the nice effect, where Link transforms into the Fierce Deity. So, they kind of stay true to the original concept with all that, if it really works with Focus Spirit. If not, it will be simply a disappointing moveset. And still all of that could and should have been done by a two handed moveset for Link. There's no reason for Young Link to be in this game.
The main appeal of Hyrule Warriors is playing characters, which you normally can't play as. And in that sense they really failed with the Majora's Mask DLC. Tingle already got multiple games of his own, where you can play as him, and Young Link is playable in multiple Zelda games. Skull Kid on the other hand didn't get playable in both Smash and Hyrule Warriors... which is really disappointing, since he would have lots of potential.
Well, let's talk about the rest:
I made several predictions for the new costumes in the Majora's Mask Pack and "the Ocarina of Time variants for Sheik and Impa" was probably the lamest one. It's still nice to finally have them for the sake of completion. At the same time, it's kind of sad that we only got recolors for Demise and Skyward Sword Impa.
Tingle should have been a costume (for Volga), instead Skull Kid was the one to be turned into a costume, which is kind of disappointing. It looks like Lana is doing the cosplay, who's probably the best fit with her Deku / Kokiri moveset. But in general there are so many nice possibilities for costumes and Koei Tecmo is usually really big with that, so I'm kind of sad that the majority is just some lazy recolors and that we didn't get any additional costume packs (yet).
The Adventure Map looks like it really is using a reset mechanic, which would be awful, if done wrong. I hope that the difficulty at least will be moderate again to compensate for the pressure. But it certainly won't take away the Heart Pieces or costume, but I guess the map will just get covered again, if you fail or so.
It seems that there are no red zones and also less costumes + 8-Bit weapons than in previous maps. I count 13 costumes and five weapons, so at least one of the original weapons is not getting an 8-Bit version (probably the Portal, since the Recorder as the Baton is just too perfect) and three characters are not getting costumes this time. This or there's like a small Moon map, which only contains red fields and the rest of the rewards. This could work also.
However, on the first field it shows only a Heart Piece for Darunia. Which probably means that each character is only getting two additional hearts again for a total of 42. Either they raise the level cap yet again or the remaining hearts will be gotten in future DLC.
Also... no sign of any new stage yet. Clocktown would have been a must.
Majora's Mask 3D New Nintendo 3DS XL Special Edition Announced
So, how many 3DS system does Nintendo expect Zelda fans to buy...? :D Of course this one will sell very well again and they probably just keep doing that with each new Zelda handheld title. I was seriously hoping that they wouldn't go as far with Majora's Mask 3D, since it's only a sequel, but apparently Nintendo is unable to release a new Zelda game without at least two Limited Editions around it.
While I was really mad about the two previous announcement of a Zelda handheld special edition, by now I've gotten used to it. And I'm undecided about it. I might buy this one as well, since I have the money and I like the New Nintendo 3DS for its features. And if I ever get a New 3DS, it should be this one. Don't get fooled though, it will probably be as useless as the Nintendo DSi. In Majora's Mask 3D you can move the camera with the C-Stick, but that's it. But as Nintendo has proven, you can never know...
I'm more sad about the golden Nintendo 3DS XL, which came with A Link Between Worlds. It's about a year old and so far I haven't used it that much. I keep using my OoT3D Nintendo 3DS and I probably will continue to do so. I only use the 3DS XL for certain games, where the big screen is a lot better, e.g. Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D. But with that New Nintendo 3DS XL on the way, it will be entirely useless. I don't want to sell it either, since it has collectible value for me... and who's going to buy that for a good price, now that the MM New 3DS XL got announced?
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Hyrule Warriors: Even More 8-Bit Weapons revealed
crediar has posted even more 8-Bit weapons:
We get:
Hey, I was at least right about the Hammer being the bait on a stick...! :D It's also perfect for the Majora's Mask Pack, since it resembles the Rock Sirloin from the game, which was an item for the Gorons. In hindsight the Clock makes a lot of sense as the scale, because it's already like a pendant. And the Magical Sword was the Naginata after all!
That still leaves the Baton, the Portal and maybe the three original villains. I could imagine the following:
We get:
- 8-Bit Magical Sword as Impa's Naginata
- 8-Bit Bait as Darunia's Hammer
- 8-Bit Clock as Ruto's Scale
Hey, I was at least right about the Hammer being the bait on a stick...! :D It's also perfect for the Majora's Mask Pack, since it resembles the Rock Sirloin from the game, which was an item for the Gorons. In hindsight the Clock makes a lot of sense as the scale, because it's already like a pendant. And the Magical Sword was the Naginata after all!
That still leaves the Baton, the Portal and maybe the three original villains. I could imagine the following:
- Portal: 8-Bit Compass
- Baton: 8-Bit Recorder
- Scepter: 8-Bit Heart on a stick
- Dragon Spear: 8-Bit Bombs on a stick
- Ring: 8-Bit Blue Ring
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