Great Deku Tree 2-in-1 LEGO Announced

 

Remember the Zelda LEGO leak from early 2023? As with the Nintendo Switch OLED Tears of the Kingdom Edition, which also got leaked around that time, this was the real deal and we finally have an official announcement now. There is going to be a LEGO set of the Great Deku Tree from both Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild.

Unlike the Super Mario stuff, which was made for toddlers, this is a lot more advanced and something for serious collectors and builders. But using The Legend of Zelda was without a doubt right choice to level up Nintendo's partnership with LEGO.

There are so many fantastic details with this. You have the Master Sword, Hylian Shield, Deku Shield and Ocarina of Time as items. You have figurines of the Hero of Time (adult and child), Champion Link, and the Zelda from Breath of the Wild. And there is a Sheikah Slate slate.

In the Ocarina of Time version you get Deku Babas, the Sprout of the Deku Tree, a Gossip Stone, and a part of the "Inside the Deku Tree" dungeon with a Skulltula and a treasure chest on the backside. There also seems to be a mechanic, which lets you drop the Skulltula on a rope. The Breath of the Wild version on the other hand has Hestu and many small Koroks, as well as Walton's spot on top of the tree, the Spore Store on the backside, and a terminal for placing the Sheikah Slate.

This is a 2-in-1 set, meaning that you can't build both simultaneously, it's either one or the other. So, if you want the other at some point, you will have to dismantle it all and then start building from scratch.

The Ocarina of Time version does have Link's house from the Kokiri Forest in addition, however, essentially as this small separate set, where I'm hoping that you can build this in any case. Because then you would have at least something to display the Ocarina of Time figurines and items, even if you have the Breath of the Wild Deku Tree assembled. But I'm not sure about that.

Well, I loved LEGO as a child, but unlike my love for Nintendo this didn't transition into adulthood and I haven't played with LEGOs for over 25 years. Basically, LEGO became uninteresting once I got my Game Boy and Nintendo 64 in the late 90s. But this really has me excited, I totally want this, where this will make three different periods of my life come together in one big nostalgia package.

You can find and preorder this set on the LEGO website. It's 2500 pieces and costs 299€, which is utterly insane. You can get a Nintendo Switch for that money... But if you're buying big, valuable figurines you will end up in this price category as well and this LEGO set is also something that you can put in a display cabinet once you're done.

It's an unreasonable purchase nevertheless, but at least I'm able to afford it, which would have never been the case back when Ocarina of Time was a thing. And from the looks of it, you're able to get these LEGO sets much cheaper from other stores and retailers, so it might be a good idea to wait a little while.

What I'm not going to do is buy two, where I had considered that after the leak, because then you can display both variants right next to each other. But certainly not for that price... And then you have a reason to rebuild it from time to time, which is part of the fun.

They know their target audience for this, though, which has certainly added to the price, alongside the license. It's people who grew up with both LEGO and Zelda, who are now "responsible adults" with more money than time, unable to resist such a blast from the past.

Tears of the Kingdom Adventure Log, Entry 36

All good things must come to end and so does my journey through this iteration of Hyrule, after over a year. As my last steps towards completion, I've filled out the recipe book and finally found that last Korok, who had escaped me for way too long. But I've also went back to my house to come up with something more satisfying, so that Link will have a nice place for his well-earned retirement.

Tears of the Kingdom Adventure Log, Entry 35

Today is May 12th, 2024. One year has passed since the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch. And I'm still here playing this game, trying to achieve a mostly-blind 100%, but at least I've gotten very close to this goal. By now I have become a master chef in Hyrule, with a well-fed Malanya as my reference, and I'm only one Korok short of the 100% on my map.

Tears of the Kingdom – Anniversary Artwork

Today marks the first anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. And to celebrate Nintendo has shared the above illustration on Twitter, which shows a key moment from the game. You can consider this to be quite the spoiler, but since an entire year has passed, I guess that it's fine...

Well, there are those who may want to 100% everything before they beat the game and that can take a while, as evidenced by this blog. But those are the exception and I was confronted with far worse spoilers, where people put the final final boss into Youtube thumbnails after a mere month.

Anyway, I've already talked about how the sales for the game have stagnated, where all this current anniversary marketing is a good way of bringing Tears of the Kingdom back into the minds of the people. Of course there is only so much hype a soundtrack and an artbook can generate, where supposedly the above artwork will also be featured in the latter.

But if you haven't completed it already, Tears of the Kingdom may still be the best thing to play your Nintendo Switch right now and to get more mileage out of this console, before we move into new territories. I'm getting very close to completing it myself and it has been quite the journey...

Happy 1st Anniversary!

Update: You can now also get the new artwork as wallpapers from MyNintendo.

Tears of the Kingdom – Master Works Announced

The second big announcement by Nintendo of Japan for the first anniversary of Tears of the Kingdom is a dedicated artbook, called "Master Works". As you may recall, the Creating a Champion artbook for Breath of the Wild was called the same in Japan, so this is a direct follow-up on this.

I didn't expect this to happen, because the Collector's Edition of Tears of the Kingdom already came with an artbook, where this may seem a bit redundant. But of course not everyone has that edition of the game and this new artbook will be a lot more detailed and also contain concept art of things that didn't make it into the game.

One example would be the different short hairstyles for Zelda. I like the first one of the two where they even have ingame footage, because it truly has a regal feel to it, but overall I think they made the right choice.

The timing is still a bit odd. With Breath of the Wild it made sense that its "Master Works" wasn't released right away, because it included all the DLC stuff. There hasn't been any DLC for Tears of the Kingdom, however, so nothing was stopping them from announcing this book a year ago. (Well, a part of me still hopes that they may release Master Mode this year, but it's very unlikely.)

I will wait for an English version of the book, where hopefully Dark Horse will take on the task once more. But there hasn't been an official announcement yet, of course, because the alternative options look either too cute or too boy'ish.

Via NintendoLife

Tears of the Kingdom – Soundtrack Announced

Right in time for the first anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo of Japan has announced a series new items for the game. Two of those are the official soundtrack for the game, which will be released in two different editions.

Both editions come with a total of 344 tracks, spread across nine CDs, where one has the two dragons from the logo on it, while the other eight are marked with the symbols from the Secret Stones, which is quite clever.

This is the box of the normal edition, using the artwork from the game's cover, but without Link kneeling on that sky island.

The Limited Edition uses a variation of Game Awards artwork for its inner box, but also comes with a box cover, which should match the Collector's Edition of the game itself quite nicely. And there is a small Master Sword statue as well as an added bonus.

After I had a good experience with importing the Skyward Sword soundtrack from three years ago, I have now done the same for the Limited Edition, because it really looks great.

Via NintendoLife / NintendoEverything

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Announced

Well, Nintendo doesn't need a Nintendo Direct to announce new games, this one coming on July 18th. They've just posted a video, which is a bit cringe and dwells in the memories of past of Nintendo World Championships events. This never has been a thing in Europe, so other than the rare NES cartridge this isn't exactly some that you may have heard about outside of North America.

To me this looks a lot like NES Remix, which is one of the few Wii U titles that haven't made it onto the Nintendo Switch yet. The core idea is pretty much the same, where NES Remix 2 even had a remixed version of the original Nintendo World Championships. The main difference is that this is all about online leaderboards, because that's always fun, given that you love playing games to absolute perfection (I usually don't).

So, this is simply another title pushing the Nintendo Switch Online service, similar to Tetris 99 and alike, except that this one isn't for free. But it will still be eShop exclusive... unless you get physical "Deluxe Set". I will try to get my hands on the latter, but otherwise I probably won't bother with this.

The NES Remix games were diverting, however, some nice and casual fun, but I never found them all too engaging. I only ever cared about the Zelda and Metroid challenges, because those are the only NES games that I truly like.

It's also weird that they are calling this the "NES Edition", as if they are meaning to create a "SNES Edition" and potentially other editions later on. But there never has been a "SNES Remix" or a "Game Boy Remix", so this would be new territory. I would love something like this for Game Boy games, though.