DLC for Mario Kart 8 might be DLC done right

... except for that ugly Mercedes kart, that's just unasked for. But it's free, so whatever...

My point is that so far we haven't seen or heard anything about DLC for Mario Kart 8, while there clearly is demand. Imagine a Kong Pack with Diddy Kong, Dixie Kongy, Cranky and Funky Kong! I would pay for that... or a "Scary Pack" with Dry Bones, Dry Bowser, King Boo and Kamek.

But it doesn't look like they planned any big DLC in advance. They might have left out some fan favorite characters like Diddy or Bowser Jr. on purpose, but it's not like they're rubbing it into your face "hey, you want to play with Diddy? then you have to pay extra". It would be more like something that they added in advance, because the fans were asking for it. And if they make it free, it would be even better.

It's the opposite of that Mario Golf game for 3DS. There they announced DLC with new characters and courses on day 1. It's clearly something they planned to do, before the game got released. And that's a huge no-go, but also a disturbing trend in the gaming industry that finally found its way to Nintendo. Jokes like on-disc DLC were common in the past. You should never rip off your customers like that. But I wouldn't want to play golf without a Wiimote anymore, so I'm not buying this game anyway. The rip-off DLC is just another turn-off. Of course with Mario Kart 8 it could be that they don't plan any DLC at all or otherwise they probably would have done it similar to Mario Golf.

These are the golden rules for DLC:

• It should be new content, not content cut from the game.
• It should be something that keeps the game fresh.
• It should be free or at least very cheap.

So, where am I getting with this? After all this is a Zelda blog... and yeah, one of my problems with Hyrule Warriors is that they already prepared three DLC packs in advance... sure, with the Treasure Box edition you get them all for "free", but what if they make more? If I really like a game, I want everything available for it. I want all the addons and stuff. Even if it's just some costumes. And Koei Tecmo can be pretty extreme with that. Dead or Alive 5 had costume packs worth of around $120! That's twice as much as I would pay for the game. And it's only costumes! Not new characters or stages or anything that actually might give a fresh gameplay experience... let's hope they keep it more moderate and interesting with Hyrule Warriors.

Hyrule Warriors: Character Wish List per Game

So, let's say, it's really just the games Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and mayyybe A Link Between Worlds that will have character appearances in Hyrule Warriors, meaning that the post-Skyward Sword'ish Hyrule in the game gets connected to the Twilight Realm and Lands, Termina and Lorule by Cia, which makes the most sense. Let's make lists with potential characters from each of these games. For the fun of it. It seems like every character has a defined weapon, so I'll try to add something that would make sense.

Skyward Sword (current era):

• Scrapper (Scrap Hands)
• Groose IV (Bazooka)
• Fi (Blade Wings)
• Ghirahim (both his different swords from SS)
• Demise (Dark Master Sword)

I'm not a fan of Fi, but having her as some blade spirit character, dancing through hordes of enemies and cutting them in the act, could be pretty awesome. And if the enemy characters will be playable, as many hope, the three dragons could act nicely as large bosses.

Twilight Princess (link to the Twilight Realm and Lands):

• Dangoro (Magnetic Gloves)
• Hero's Spirit (Hero's Sword)
• Yeto (???)
• Ganondorf (Sword of the Sages from TP, dual sabers from TWW, Trident from classic games)
• real Midna (???)

Well, we already got quite some characters from TP. Ashei is a name, I see popping up here and there, but overall I didn't like her that much in the game or any of the Resistance members. Purlo could work as a realistic Tingle replacement, however, his fighting style would be in question. I definitely want Princess Midna (her humanoid form) form as a playable character, because she's so pretty.


Ocarina of Time & Majora's Mask (link to Termina):

• Shiek (some Ninja weapon stuff)
• Darunia (Megaton Hammer)
• Saria (Fairy Ocarina)
• Ruto (some water magic stuff?)
• Nabooru (halberd or dual scimitars)
• Shadow Link (Shadow Master Sword)
• Phantom Ganon (Phantom Staff)
• Twinrova (Fire & Ice Rod)

• Deku Butler's Son or the Deku Princess (Deku Nuts or Deku Leaf)
• Darmani (Goron Fists)
• Mikau (his guitar, spear or Fin Blades)
• Tingle (Tingle Balloon)
• Skull Kid (Flute)
• Fierce Deity (Double Helix Sword)
• Majora's Wrath (Blade Whips)
• Gomess (Dark Scythe)
• Garo Master (Dual Flaming Blades)
• Igos du Ikana (Broadsword)

To me it would make sense to only use Termina, since this world has counterparts for most characters from OoT. But I doubt that they would leave out all the stuff from Ocarina of Time. Especially having Darunia with the Megaton Hammer and Nabooru as fighters would be awesome, I'd really like to see these two. On the other hand I definitely want Mikau instead of any other Zora, but we don't really need Darmani AND Darunia... as for Saria, the Dynasty Warriors series actually has characters fighting with musical instruments, so she might become something similar.

A Link Between Worlds (link to Lorule):

• Ravio (Tornado Rod)
• Hilda (her staff)
• Osfala (Sandrod)
• Yuga (Painter Staff)

Imagine a Ravio in the style of Link in this game and Hilda in the style of Zelda! ALBW could also act as a portal to lots of classic 2D Zelda stuff including characters from the Oracle games. After all these games are all from the same timeline. With that being said, I'd actually like to see some characters from the Oracle games as well:

• Din (Rod of Seasons)
• Nayru (Harp of Ages)
• Farore (Book of Secrets)
• Onox (Ball & Chain)

Farore fighting with a magic book might be too similar to Lana though. It's the same reason, why I didn't include Veran, because we already have Cia.

There's also the open question of mounts. Some Warrior games had them and it would be interesting to incorporate horse battles like in Twilight Princess. Next to Epona you could have Moosh and Dimitri as mounts, the Bokoblin boars from TP or even Loftwings.

Hyrule Warriors: The Soul Gate

The story is coming together more and more. Remember, how the previous hero was said to have split the great evil into four parts, one hidden in the current realm of Hyrule and three of the vanished into time and space? It looks like Cia is using the Soul Gate to retrieve the three other parts by opening portals to these places. One obviously leads to the Twilight Realm and the Hyrule from Twilight Princess, the Era of Twilight. A second one seems to be connected to the N64 Zelda games. I'm guessing it leads to Termina, because of the moon, so this is the Child Era.

How it links to the world of Skyward Sword is not entirely clear, but I still like to think that the game takes place some time after the game, like in the Era of Prosperity, where the Hyrule Kingdom got established. Even if it's placed in an alternate dimension, this alternate dimension still could have had Skyloft and the like. This might even explain, why we have the Statue of the Goddesses still on Skyloft, as it gets destroyed.

But I hope that the Skyward Sword era doesn't have its own portal, because I still would like to see a link to Lorule, so that we get Hilda, Ravio and Yuga as playable characters. Of all the remaining games, A Link Between Worlds would be the one with the most potential, still fitting into the overall style of Hyrule Warriors.

(Update: by now it's confirmed that the Skyward Sword era has its own portal and also that A Link Between Worlds wasn't taken into consideration, because the game wasn't released during the planning stages of Hyrule Warriors!)

Of course it could just be that Cia opened portals to many different time periods by trial and error, so we span the entire timeline. But with games like The Wind Waker or Spirit Tracks it's obviously not so easy to fit them in, without changing the style of these worlds and their characters completely. They obviously aimed for the more realistic 3D Zelda games with this. Mainly because they can easily reuse the assets from these games. I still hope that Lorule finds its way into Hyrule Warriors though, it would also make a great system, where Hyrule is connected to Lorule, Termina and the Twilight Realm at the same time. Also, Ravio and Hilda could look really awesome and badass, if you made them look more realistic.

However, this all means that we can say good-bye to certain character ideas including Medli, Vaati and Byrne ... well, actually that's it from my list, most of my character ideas have been from the more realistic Zeldas anyway. Onox could still fit in somewhere and he matches the Warriors style too perfectly to ignore him. Or simply have a boss similar to his design. After all he is just some pimped Iron Knuckle.

Hyrule Warriors Character Craziness!

You've all probably heard it by now, but Agitha will be playable...

Yes, the crazy bug girl from Twilight Princess! While this might seem totally random, she actually has her fans. She fights with the parasol and summons insects to attack. But what's really important about these news: it opens the window to total character craziness! If she made the roster, anyone can! The demo had only nine slots for characters, so people were worried that's it. Don't be! Dynasty Warriors 8 has over 80 characters and while it probably won't be so many in Hyrule Warriors, the possibilities look great right now.

Also, in Dynasty Warriors the characters can have very absurd and crazy fighting styles and weapons. Let's say for example a girl that fights with a parasol and insects. Or fighting with a book, or musical instruments ...

About Lana, she obviously was inspired by Nayru (Lanayru) with her design and everything. And they might do the same with Din and Farore. It would be nice to have something similar to the three Oracles here.

For many fans this game will probably become a dream come true, when their favorite characters from Zelda suddenly become playable. So, let's extend my wishlist from last time a "little bit".

Good guys:

• Link
• Zelda
• Impa
• Midna
• Agitha
• Lana
• A Din-Girl
• A Farore-Girl
• Goron Sage / Fighter (Darunia, Rosso, Darmani, ...)
• Zora Sage / Fighter (Ruto, Mikau ...)
• Gerudo Sage / Fighter (Nabooru)
• Kokiri Sage (Saria, Fado)
• Rauru
• Some Deku
• Medli (more realistic, adult form)
• Groose
• Scrapper
• Tingle
• Hilda
• Ravio
• Happy Mask Salesman
• Fierce Deity

Bad guys:

• Cia
• Valga
• Wizro
• Ganondorf
• Zant
• Ghirahim
• Yuga
• Dark Link
• Vaati (the mage form)
• Onox
• Byrne
• Majora's Wrath
• Gomess
• Skull Kid

With characters like Skull Kid, Byrne and Hilda it's not entirely clear, on which side you would place them on, but whatever. I think what defines a character in Dynasty Warrior is his or her weapons. The way the fight. And considering that I certainly wouldn't miss out certain bad guys. I want Onox' spiked ball & chain. I want the blade teetotum creating whips of Majora's Wrath. I want to play with Gomess' large scythe.

I'd also love to see Yuga as a playable character, where you can turn all those pesky Hyrule foot soldiers into paintings... :D

The more I think about Hyrule Warriors, the more it offers things, I wanted to experience for a long time. About nine years ago I actually made a sketch for a Zelda fighting game based on Unreal Championship 2 - The Liandri Conflict. It had playable characters like Link, Din, Mikau, Nabooru, Dark Link, Stalfos, Ganondorf and so on, each with their own weapon and mount. Also, in Majora's Mask I dreamed about picking up certain enemy weapons (like Gomess' scythe) and use them for myself. So, in many ways Hyrule Warriors might be an old dream coming true. But I'll make an own post about that in the near future.

Update: I removed the characters, who probably won't make an appearance due to the limited time space links. It currently looks like all the characters will come from Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. I still have hopes for Lorule and A Link Between Worlds though.

Super Smash Bros. 4 looks unexciting and uninspired, gets owned by Hyrule Warriors

Just today's screenshot perfectly sums up everything I think about Smash 4 at the moment. How lazy can they be? "Hey, I heard, you guys want Link's Skyloft clothes as a costume in Smash 4, so we made it into a color for his tunic..." I just get more and more the impression that Sakurai and his team didn't really want to work on a new Smash Bros, so they're just making Brawl Version 1.1 and be done with it. Take Super Smash Bros. Brawl, swap the stages, add some new characters, replace the Subspace Emissary with that Smash Run mode, ready is the new Smash.

There's nothing new or exciting about this. You can customize the B-moves, which is nice, but only really used for Palutena. Why can't there be different weapons/attacks for Link as well? And otherwise I don't see anything of relevance. One simple thing I wanted is actual costumes. Instead of just changing the color of the character, gives us different clothes. Every other fighting game does it and I didn't how lazy Brawl's color skins were. They did it for the Villager and the Wii Fit Trainer, you can ever swap the gender with these characters(!), so why not for the fan favorites? For Link I wanted his Skyward Sword clothes, for Toon Link the blue shirt from The Wind Waker and his conductor uniform from Spirit Tracks. Instead we get these lazy paint jobs.

Also... compile a list of playable characters, which fans wanted for the game... Dark Samus? Make that an assist trophy! Ridley? We just copy the stage from DOA:Dimensions! Midna? Assist Trophy! Ghirahim? You can bet, he will be an Assist Trophy as well... Impa? We just give you Sheik again as its own playable character!

I do in fact like that they separated Sheik and Zero Suit Samus (the latter probably my most anticipated character in the roster), but I'm sick of Sheik and seeing the exact same characters for Zelda again. Only the princess offers something new with the Phantom Smash, but they all have the same lame Ultra Smash again and so on.

But the less I get excited for Smash 4, the more I get excited for Hyrule Warriors. Wanna play as Midna or Impa? Not a problem there. And with the announcement of Agitha you can be sure that Hyrule Warriors will offer every fan favorite from the Zelda franchise. Hyrule Warriors does, what Smash 4 doesn't.

It's really just Brawl Version 1.1, it doesn't feel like a new game. Like the next big step for Smash. And those ridiculous Amiibos certainly don't help with the situation either.

Grezzo Working on a Legend

Good news today, everybody!

Grezzo recently teased what their upcoming project is in their latest job openings:

It says "Would you like to make a legend with us?" with the Densetsu kanji being used like in each Zelda title and with a golden shine. That's a pretty big tease! But I'm happy to learn that we have Grezzo back on Zelda again. The more people working on the franchise, the better.

But... they are hiring programmers and planners and according to sunny_red51 on GameFAQs they need the programmers for "character control, camera, UI support, map management, game progression management, etc." and the planners for "text supervision, script and data creation supervision, and level design supervision" ... and while it does sound like stuff you'd expect for a Zelda game, it doesn't really sound like a remake as in Majora's Mask 3D.

Of course they could add lots of new content to Majora's Mask 3D, but will they really? On the other hand, I fully expect to see a follow-up to A Link Between Worlds, using the same engine to create a new game. Like a new Four Swords game or something else entirely. And since the main Zelda team seems to be very busy working on Tek Arrows, it might be that they outsourced that to Grezzo. They are good at taking something existing to make something new out of it. Like they essentially did with Ocarina of Time 3D and the Four Swords Anniversary Edition. Just that this would be the next big step, which I already suggested in the past.

That might also explains, why Aonuma is so hesistant with Majora's Mask. They need Grezzo to do something new instead. Of course it could still be that they are making Majora's Mask 3D. Maybe they plan new environments or something like MM Master Quest. Or they are working on BOTH a new Zelda 3DS game and Majora's Mask 3D, which is why they need to hire more people. That would be the best case scenario, where I would explode in a fountain of joy.

Zelda 3DS / Wii U Release Rythm

With Majora's Mask 3D I'm starting to think that they are going to wait for a Spring/Summer 2015 release to pass the time between Hyrule Warriors and the new Zelda game for Wii U. Aonuma already announced that the new Zelda game will get a playable demo at E3 next year, which means the game won't be released before then. Considering how little they showed us at this year's E3, it's very likely that Zelda U is aimed at a holiday 2015 release.

Also, by releasing Majora's Mask 3D some time after Hyrule Warriors, it creates a nice alternating pattern for Zelda between the two Nintendo gaming systems:

• Wii U - The Wind Waker HD (October 2013)
• 3DS - A Link Between Worlds (November 2013)
• Wii U - Hyrule Warriors (September 2014)
• 3DS - Majora's Mask 3D (Spring/Summer 2015)
• Wii U - Zelda U (late 2015)
• 3DS - ALBW follow-up (2016)

You get a game on the Wii U, then one on the 3DS, then one on the Wii U again and so on. Also, there's something new for Zelda fans regularly without any big pauses. The longest pause is between A Link Between Worlds and Hyrule Warriors, where we're currently in. But this year we also get lots of Zelda stuff in other games like the Zelda level for Sonic Lost World, Link's costume in Bayonetta and of course Super Smash Bros. 4.