Tears of the Kingdom – Sheikah Tech and Slate?

So far we hadn't seen any kind of Sheikah technology in the sequel to Breath of the Wild. Link and Zelda seemingly were not carrying the Sheikah Slate while spelunking into the depths of Hyrule, and Link receives his new magic gauntlet gadget to replace it. Meanwhile, in the shots of the overworld we couldn't see any Divine Beasts, Sheikah Shrines, Towers, Guardians, or the pillars that stored the Guardians... it was all gone.

This created quite a mystery, since everything was still in place when we left off at the end of Breath of the Wild, save for a malfunctioning Vah Ruta. We could only speculate, where a simple explanation is that it all wasn't needed any longer with the threat of Calamity Ganon gone. So, it all simply dissolved, having fulfilled their original purpose, much like the Sheikah monks do.

However, the Sheikah, Zelda, and everyone else should be well aware that the threat of Calamity Ganon could return in the future, so maybe they decided to discard of all the technology, considering how it can be taken over by Ganon's Malice and be turned against Hyrule... Alternatively, some unknown event could have led to the disappearance of the Sheikah constructions.

We don't know what happened, but the new trailer now has turned things on the head by revealing that Sheikah technology might be still a thing in the sequel after all. We can see Link standing on a platform made out of Sheikah technology and surrounded by Guardian tentacles:

One of the tentacles hands him some kind of spool with a green glow at the end, indicating that it has something to do with the new magic system. The rest of the room seems to be inside a Sheikah house and it all looks hastily cobbled together, where it's likely that this was all done by Robbie. According to Zeltik's analysis the letters on the platform spell "transport", where this could be an elevator that leads underground. Maybe Robbie is also using Sheikah technology to dig into the earth.

We also see new towers in the trailer, which can have either a red or blue glow, where these might be new Sheikah Towers, but we can't say for sure. It may be something else entirely and they certainly don't look the same, but like the "elevator" made out of Guardian parts it may be something improvised by the Sheikah, basically as a replacement for the old towers that have disappeared.

What's Sheikah technology for sure is what Zelda holds in her hand in her official artwork:

That's a Sheikah Slate, but not the Sheikah Slate from Breath of the Wild. This one looks a lot more like a Nintendo Switch, which is certainly a nod to how the original Sheikah Slate was going to represent the Wii U GamePad. But what happened to the it? Does Link still have it in the beginning of the game? Or was it also lost, together with the Divine Beasts, Shrines, and so on? In any case, either Zelda has found a second Sheikah Slate, or someone made her one, most likely Purah.

It's of note how the back of device looks more sophisticated, almost like the Sheikah symbol is a device of its own attached to the slate. This could be a new function, where in the concept arts for Sheikah Slate you can find the idea of a mechanical dragonfly, which was going to work like the Beetle in Skyward Sword.

Ultimately, they decided against including it, just like the Hookshot, but the changed environments with the sky and underground, which will certainly be much more difficult to traverse, it could have made the development team reconsider these items...

But why introduce a new Sheikah Slate, with potentially new abilities, if we're not going to use it? Well, it could indicate that Zelda is playable in the game after all and the Sheikah Slate will be her main tool, much like in Age of Calamity, while Link gets the new magic hand. For the early game, where they are spelunking, I could easily see how there is a coop mechanic, similar to Spirit Tracks, which lets you swap between Link, who uses weapons, and Zelda, who uses the Sheikah Slate.

But let's not get our hopes up just yet, because it could also be just a mere design choice and the slate gets destroyed by Malice within the game's prologue, much like the Master Sword, while Zelda just disappears into the darkness for the rest of the game.

In any case, it's interesting that we will be dealing with Sheikah technology to some capacity in the sequel. In the very least we will get an explanation as to what happened to most of it.

Tears of the Kingdom – Towers, Shrines, and Vortexes?

We knew since the first teaser trailer in 2019 that the sequel to Breath of the Wild is going to re-use the same Hyrule and that the Sheikah technology structures will have disappeared. The old towers are gone, there are no visible shrines, and the Divine Beasts have disappeared, which is all still true for the latest trailer. And this makes sense, of course, because you wouldn't want to do the same things again in the sequel.

There are a couple of new structures in the sequel, however, where most of them could already be spotted briefly in the previous trailer (so many trailers!), but they are featured much more prominently now. The towers have these beams of light around them, which adds a high amount of visibility to them in the dark. They have red glowing spots on them, but these can also turn blue, which feels very similar to the Sheikah Towers from the previous game.

But they look different, they are in different locations, and they may have an entirely different purpose. It would still be boring to simply do the same thing in different locations, where these might be access points to the sky. The same could also be true for the vortexes of green magic that we keep seeing all over Hyrule. There is one in Hateno for example:

They look like the vortex from the hand that kept Mummydorf down in the original trailer and this is all certainly related. But what are their purpose? They might work like the red tornadoes in The Minish Cap, which shoot you up. Another idea is that they will bring you down into the underworld, but you could just have a cave entrance for that...

They could potentially also just be teleportation points. With the Sheikah Shrines and Towers gone, you need some sort of replacement for this level of convenience. We are talking about over 150 warp points here, which will be missing in the sequel.

Then there are these huge glowing "paintings" on the ground, where we can even see Link riding over one in the newest trailer. We have no clue what these are for, but it certainly looks impressive in the dark. It's likely some sort of puzzle, where you have to make out constellations from above. It would be kind of the inverse of stargazing, so to speak.

Overall it feels like the sky islands will essentially become what the Sheikah Shrines were in Breath of the Wild. So, they will be about testing Link and they will serve as mini-dungeons, some of them maybe even as actual dungeons, because there are some really huge islands to be seen.

The main difference is that this is entirely seamless, so you don't go into a shrine, have a loading screen, and then be in some completely disconnected underground facility. They want the entire game to feel like Hyrule Castle in Breath of the Wild, where one moment you are on Hyrule Field and the next you enter a dungeon. And this would make the game even more impressive.

Tears of the Kingdom – Epona!

One thing that immediately caught my attention in the new trailer is that Link is riding on Epona... "Why is that so special?" you might ask. Well, in Breath of the Wild Epona wasn't really a thing, at least not officially. You could only get her via amiibo. The game would recognize her as the "horse of legend", but there is no real story to her. It's just an extra to please the fans, much like the Fierce Deity armor set.

Of course this could still be the case, but then it would be weird that Nintendo chose to use her in the official trailer. This clearly shows that you're going to ride on Epona and it would be a bit of false advertising if you needed amiibo for that. So, maybe this time she will be part of the actual game.

After all, Tears of the Kingdom is bringing back entities like Ganondorf or the ReDeads, where both also have originated in Ocarina of Time. And it's possible that Epona will this time be a more integral part of the game, just like in some of the classic Zelda titles. I don't think we even have seen any wild horses yet, where it could be that they simply got scared off by all the new monsters and the threat of the Blood Moon. The stables still do exist, however... But maybe horses are harder to come by this time around, but you will be able to get Epona as your trusty steed.

Well, they also need to make sure that Epona, and horses in general, will still have value. In Breath of the Wild they became fully obsolete with the Master Cycle Zero and this game will introduce entirely new vehicles, while you also could just dive down from the skies to most places... So, there needs to be a good reason why you'd want to ride around on a horse, but it still might be more practical than assembling your own car somewhere.

Tears of the Kingdom – New Old Enemies

A clear focus of the recent trailer for Tears of the Kingdom was introducing us to some new enemy designs, as well as new enemies altogether. Ganondorf spreads his minions all over Hyrule, which may take you back to the NES era for several reasons. (He has the same voice actor as the King of Hyrule, by the way, which had me a bit confused the first time I saw the the trailer.)

We already knew that the monsters from Breath of the Wild are going to be modified to some capacity, where most of it seems to be different types of horns and headpieces. There may even be a very specific reason why this game is doing this and not just re-use the old enemies, but we'll get to this in a later post. It looks a bit silly at times, though, and like a lazy effort not to just rehash the same enemies again.

What's not lazy is adding new enemies and we get to see a couple of those. The first one is this new flying creature, which was briefly seen in the previous trailer, but now we get a better look at it:

We can also see it carrying a Bokoblin later in the trailer, which is very reminiscent of the Kargarok carrying Moblins in The Wind Waker. And this may as well be a Kargarok, but I personally believe that this is supposed to be a Vire from the original The Legend of Zelda and the GameBoy games, because it looks much more demonic. It could also be a completely new monster.

Speaking of the original The Legend of Zelda, any fan of that game will have immediately recognize the new boss enemy that is standing on the Bridge of Hylia:

The three-headed dragon with fiery heads is certainly meant to be a Gleeok, where this will be its first appearance in a 3D Zelda title, much like the Lynels before in Breath of the Wild. They were certainly well received and it will be interesting to see more of the classic enemies and bosses re-imagined, like Aquamentus, Lanmola, or Digdogger. And we may see some of the enemies again, who already transitioned into 3D before, just with new designs, like Gohma, the Dodongos, Manhandla, Darknuts, or Like Likes.

One enemy that will seemingly return are the scary ReDeads from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. You can briefly see one standing up during one of the Blood Moon sequences:

The ReDead has often been seen as an obvious omission in Breath of the Wild, simply because Hyrule is in ruins, which throws you back to the destroyed Hyrule Castle Town in Ocarina of Time. Poes are also a good candidate here.

The enemy variety of Breath of the Wild has often been criticized, where similar to Skyward Sword it banks on different variants of the same few monsters over and over again. There were simply Bokoblins, Lizalfos, Moblins, Keese, and Chuchus everywhere and Tears of the Kingdom has a lot of room for improvement, which hopefully will be fulfilled.

We will still see a lot of Bokoblins, that's for sure, but there is also the new "Boss Bokoblins", which can command a group of Bokoblins, maybe even spawn new ones. This feels more similar to what Age of Calamity has partially done, where it introduced bigger and badder versions of the enemies in Breath of the Wild, like the Giant Chuchus.

We also get to see a new golem-like enemy in the sky, made out of boxes. It is reminiscent of Eox, the boss of Mutoh's Temple in Phantom Hourglass, but still quite different. It seems more on the lines of Gohdan, where this is an apparatus of the gods to test Link's strength and resolve, because it is using the same green magic energy as Link. The same was also true for the "Eyegores" that we saw in the second teaser trailer and overall these feel like the freshest additions so far.

It's likely that the sky will feature a completely different set of enemies, where the style contrasts the rest of the game, similar to the Sheikah Shrines in Breath of the Wild. And these golems will most likely be to this game what the Guardians were to Breath of the Wild, only that they are not corrupted by Ganon's Malice.

Tears of the Kingdom – amiibo Announced

Other than the Collector's Edition, Tears of the Kingdom will get an amiibo of Link at launch, where there must be some sort of clause at Nintendo stating that all major versions of Link have to be turned into one. Well, this figure based upon the following artwork:

There also exists a big statue of it, which was seen a Nintendo Live 2022 (take a look here). But I personally would have preferred if they went with this artwork instead:

The one we will be getting still looks too similar to the ones from Breath of the Wild, with the blue Champion tunic, where they should have gone for something more unique if it truly has to be the fourteenth amiibo of Link. And I'm not exaggerating here, there have been thirteen different amiibo of Link so far.

What to do with all these many amiibo? Well, this tweet from Nintendo of Europe gives a good insight, so check it out. Generally, it sounds like amiibo will be used exactly the same way as in Breath of the Wild, so you can scan them to obtain weapons and materials. The German version also mentions that there will be pieces of equipment, so it probably will give unique armor again as well.

But there is something new, because you can now customize your Paraglider with fabrics. And different amiibo will unlock different fabrics for the glider. For example, the new one gives you something that looks like the Champion's Tunic:

The Rider Link amiibo from Breath of the Wild gives you a fabric based on the Hylian Hood:

The Zelda & Loftwing amiibo from Skyward Sword HD will make your Paraglider look like the Sailcloth from the game, which is quite clever:

And finally, Young Link from Majora's Mask makes it look like Majora's Mask. Let's hope that the Majora's Mask armor item will return as well, for a nice combo:

I wonder if there will be more or if  this is all of them, but I suppose that Nintendo was just giving examples and there also might be a Windfish Paraglider and the like. It also makes you wonder whether the customization of the Paraglider is truly limited to amiibo or not. Maybe you can also colorize it at the Kochi Dye Shop in Hateno Village this time?

Tears of the Kingdom – Collector's Edition Announced

Before we're getting into the new trailer, let's first talk about the additional announcements around Tears of the Kingdom. As you can expect with this sort of release, the game will receive a limited Collector's Edition – take a look here. It will come with the following five items:

• Gamecard (with clean cover)
• Steelbook
• Hardcover artbook
  
• ICONART Steel Poster
• Pin set with four pins

It's exactly the type of Limited Edition that I personally like to have, where we were getting similar ones in the recent years, for games like Metroid Dread, Fire Emblem Engage, and so on. So, I certainly won't make an exception here, even though the price point is higher this time with around 130€ (apparently), where Nintendo seemingly wants to make the most out of Tears of the Kingdom after its five years of development. The game itself will be at 70€, which is also higher than the normal price for a Nintendo Switch game, but it's the same price as for Breath of the Wild and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

I personally don't mind the price, but I will agree with anyone who says that these items are probably not worth the extra 60€. Even though the artbook looks like it's in premium quality, it could turn out to be redundant, should they decide to release a follow-up to the Creating a Champion book in the furutee. And they could have skipped those pins, if you ask me, but I have never found a real use for them... Maybe there are people who really love those?

Now, all I have to do is to get one of these Collector's Editions, which is easier said than done these days. I hope that they will make an overabundance of them, because with Fire Emblem Engage earlier this year I was just insanely lucky to look at the My Nintendo Store at the right time...

Strangely enough, the Tears of the Kingdom Edition of the Nintendo Switch OLED has yet to appear. If this turns out to be a fake after all, then hats off to the guy or gal who made it, because it had me 100% convinced that this is real. Of course Nintendo could still announce it at a later point, where maybe they didn't want to overwhelm the customers with too many nice / expensive things at once. Like the Splatoon 3 Edition, it probably won't come with the game anyway.

Update: The tear symbol on the pin box is exactly the same one as on the Joy-Cons and to my knowledge we didn't see this symbol before the leak. Also, the symbols on the back of the Joy-Cons seem very similar to those pins. This makes it very much authentic and Nintendo simply might announce it later.

Booster Course Pass: Birdo is Back!

Yesterday's Nintendo Direct gave us a first look at the fourth wave of the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where it will come with a new course based on Yoshi's Island. But that's not all, we will also be getting Birdo as a new playable character, where there are even the different colors available from Mario Kart Tour. And according to a press release from Nintendo the future waves will also come with additional classic characters.

This is fantastic, where the Booster Course Pass is getting better and better with each wave. The visuals have improved, the selection of tracks became more interesting, the different driving modes are finally utilized, and now we're also getting characters back? It feels like Nintendo was going into this thing with the minimal effort to see how it goes, but now that it became a success they are going the extra mile here. It's technically not just a "Booster COURSE Pass" any longer, but who cares? Mario Kart Tour is a goldmine for additional content and they should use all the good stuff there.

Birdo has been one of these weird omissions in Mario Kart 8 (Deluxe), together with Diddy Kong. So, it's great to have her back, though I personally haven't used Birdo all that much, but there is more from where she was coming from...

We haven't seen the altered character select screen yet, at least not that I know, but I'm guessing that they will add either another row or column to it, which makes for six or seven additional characters. This isn't covered with only one character per wave, where this brings me back to an idea that I have shared on this blog multiple times before: a second Booster Course Pass a Donkey Kong Pack!

GCN DK Mountain already exists in Mario Kart Tour, and with it they could bring back Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, and Dixie Kong in the same breath. Technically, Dixie Kong has only been in Mario Kart Tour so far, but so have been the majority of courses in the Booster Course Pass. They could even add some more kart parts, like the Rambi Rider in this case.

We've also already seen the new Piranha Plant Cove in Mario Kart Tour, which could go hand in hand with bringing back Petey Piranha. And Pauline is in Mario Kart Tour, who would be a fantastic addition, but here it would have made sense to add her alongside New York Minute in wave 2...

Other characters in Mario Kart Tour include Nabbit, Kamek, King Bomb-Omb, Charging Chuck, the Hammer Bros., and Monty Mole. My favorite out of these would probably be Nabbit, while Kamek would really deserve it after being scrapped twice, but there is enough content here to really make a second Booster Course Pass and add one character per wave. None of these are terribly exciting, however, where I personally would settle for Pauline, Petey Piranha, and the three other Kongs at the end.

Also, Mario Kart Tour has now a Battle Mode with a couple of Battle Courses, like GCN Cookie Land and DS Twilight House. Maybe the final two waves will add some of those to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as well?