The internet right now. Credits to CyberKitten05 on SmashFAQs for the idea.
In all seriousness, I get that not everybody likes Minecraft or wanted it represented in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But Super Smash Bros. is still a game where all of gaming can collide, no matter the visual style or the demographics. Well, except hentai or anything that shows too much cleavage, really...
I don't want to brag or anything, but I wrote this yesterday in my prediction:
It's also notable how there's the Minecraft Live 2020 stream this Saturday, which could be why Nintendo is doing a short announcement prematurely. Let's say it's really Steve, then Nintendo might want to use the virtual "Minecon" as a platform for additional advertisement. Get as many Minecraft fans on board with the news as possible...
Nailed it! Absolutely nailed it!
Well, to be fair, my initial theory was that there might be a delay happening because of the difficulties of coordinating with a 3rd party. Luckily, this wasn't the case and it's simply that the "Sakurai Presents" will be shown before Minecraft Live 2020, which makes a lot of sense.
And I couldn't possibly be any happier. I know I'm having an acquired taste here... and many people are outraged right now, especially after Byleth and Min Min. But I'm on the opposite side of things. The first four Challenger Packs didn't do anything for me. I didn't dislike any of them (except maybe Hero and Banjo a little) and I saw their value, but it simply wasn't from any games that I've enjoyed in the past. And because they were all 3rd party, they also didn't really do anything to represent the current Nintendo.
But I was in full support of Byleth, when he/she came out, and I've wanted a fighter from ARMS quite badly, where Min Min became my favorite DLC fighter and my second most used fighter in the game. And another "most wanted" of mine has been Minecraft since the start, where I've kept mentioning Minecraft in Smash for over two years now. I even came up with a Challenger Pack Concept in May of last year, which is pretty close to what we're getting here.
Well, we're also getting the Zombie and Enderman as playable alts next to Steve and Alex. And the Enderman has fully surprised me, because it's literally kind of a stretch (the originals are way bigger), but the Zombie makes a lot of sense, since they are basically just dead Steves.
It also shows perfectly the crazy moveset potential. People, who really didn't like the idea of Steve in Smash, usually went on and on about how he just could be a Mii costume... And sure, a DLC Mii costume is always a good solution for a character you really don't want (looking at you, Geno). Other people wanted Minecraft to be represented via a stage only, because they didn't feel like a fighter would be a good fit.
But the concept of building and crafting things really only can be translated via a fighter and the DLC fighters so far all have been crazy. The most conventional ones were probably Banjo and Byleth, but the others all had some crazy mechanics. And Steve / Alex / Zombie / Enderman will join the madness, they might even offer the craziest moveset so far.
It seems like you don't start with a weapon, but have to craft your tools by collecting materials. So, it probably will be a very defensive moveset and might not be for me, personally. But I thought the same about Min Min at first and I now love playing as her. Oh, and the Final Smash is the most disrespectful thing ever, I love it. Same with the victory animation, where he builds a house for no reason. That's some funny stuff.
And the stage looks absolutely magnificent. I've really enjoyed the Super Mario Maker stage, where you get to play a different stage each time you load it up. And the Minecraft stage will be similar, only with even more variety and good stuff.
But after the disappointment about Skull Kid, who I really was hoping for in the base game, it feels so good to get multiple characters I like in a row. The second Fighters Pass checked off two of my "most wanteds" from the starts and that's incredible. Now, if we're also getting another Zelda fighter, this will be the best timeline... If not, then there's always Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity for us.
Well, more on Saturday! Hype!
As Nintendo has announced on Twitter, the next DLC fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will be revealed in exactly 22 hours. However, this will not be the typical presentation from Masahiro Sakurai, instead the man himself will only give us a few words after the three minute long reveal video.
This most likely means that we're not getting the next Challenger Pack in the next two weeks, but later this year. So, there might be a small delay happening, which could be the result of cooperating with a 3rd party in today's world of home office. Sakurai's message might even be about the current difficulties, where he asks us to understand and be a little more patient.
And with 3rd party additions the possibilities are nearly endless: Steve, Rayman, Crash Bandicoot, Doom Slayer, Master Chief, Ryu Hayabusa, Monster Hunter, Tracer, Travis Touchdown, Dante... It's kind of overwhelming.
I personally have a feeling that we might be getting another Square Enix character at some point in the second Fighters Pass, mainly because they still haven't released the Chocobo and Geno Mii outfits yet, which is somewhat suspicious. And here my best guess would be Agnés Oblige from Bravely Default, where the "Bravely" games are exclusive to Nintendo systems. But I wouldn't place any bets on this, especially not for tomorrow. It really could be anybody.
It's also notable how there's the Minecraft Live 2020 stream this Saturday, which could be why Nintendo is doing a short announcement prematurely. Let's say it's really Steve, then Nintendo might want to use the virtual "Minecon" as a platform for additional advertisement. Get as many Minecraft fans on board with the news as possible...
Well, we'll see who it is soon enough. And for Zelda fans it probably won't be as interesting as the next playable fighter reveal for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, which might overshadow Smash for the next months, like Hyrule Warriors did four years ago.
GameXplain has posted a translation of yesterday's stream, which gives us some more insights in how certain attacks work (I've update the previous post somewhat). But the lady, who is experiencing the game for the first time as well, points out something interesting before they run into the Guardian. You can spot a Korok Flower at the side of the road:
Of course it was super obvious that they would be going with Korok Seeds, instead of the Gold Skulltulas, in this version of Hyrule Warriors as a collectible. But some people assumed that they would simply be a reskin of sorts. You defeat 1000 enemies and somewhere on the map a Korok appears, where you have a short amount of time to find it in a certain area.
I personally never liked this mechanic and it wouldn't really fit the idea of Korok Seeds at all, which are all about little secrets in the environment. And the Korok Flower might already confirm that this really does work differently here and you do get little Korok secrets like in Breath of the Wild.
Of course they probably wouldn't go with any more "complicated" puzzles, like the block structures, but some of it could work really well in a Warriors game, like the Korok Flowers. Just follow them over the battlefield. Or maybe there are some suspicious rocks that you need to lift or even some targets to destroy. They could also come up with new Korok puzzles that fit the gameplay.
But with this change I'd also expect that you can find multiple Korok Seeds per battle and not just one. Together with an Adventure Mode there could be even 900 Korok Seeds in this game... and I'm totally up for it!
Today we got even more gameplay footage of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, as part of "Game Live Japan 2020", which you can find at NintendoEverything. This footage takes place at the Breach of Demise and at Death Mountain, where more gameplay of Link and Impa is shown, but also a first look at Daruk and Link using the Spear as a different weapon type.
First of all, it seems like every playable character has access to the four Sheikah Slate Runes somehow. Depending on which character you use, the Runes will even act differently. For example Daruk can use large Bombs that split into many smaller Bombs, while Impa does some fireworks with them. You can also use any magnetic objects in the environment via Magnesis, which is pretty cool and explains why the battlefields seem to be littered with those metallic boxes. With Impa, you can even attract multiple metallic objects, including enemy weapons, and form some crazy, large weapon with it (kind of similar to Kid from One Piece).
And from what I could gather, it seems like Zelda is doing all this. So, there is still only one Sheikah Slate and Zelda uses it to provide everyone with the Runes remotely, while she also uses the Sheikah Slate as her main weapon and moveset. But I'm guessing this will be explained early on. She looks a little bit silly, though, almost like she's playing with her smartphone during battle. Maybe she's doing some selfies with some Bokoblins behind her and posts them on Instagram. #MondayMorning
We don't see any gameplay of Zelda, however, where it raises the question of how much it will actually differ from just simply using the Sheikah Slate Runes, but I suppose that her new moveset might feel somewhat similar to her Dominion Rod from Hyrule Warriors.
We do see more of Impa, however, where her moveset revolves around attaching seals to enemies, so she can produce clones. The Sheikah letters below her health bar translate to "F", "S" and "T", which probably means first, second and third. If you have all three seals in place, it even changes her Special Attack, where she creates pile of those "virtual powder kegs", instead of just tossing one.
But they also show us our first gameplay of Daruk, who naturally feels somewhat similar to playing as Darunia, but has his own twists here. He can create these magma rocks at wish, which feels like his C0 attack, but apparently every fighter in this game has certain "character actions", which can be combined with combos. Link uses his bow for this and Daruk the magma rocks.
It also does seem like every character gets a special way of moving around faster, where Link gets his shield surfing and Daruk can roll around like any Goron. But he can also combine it with Daruk's Protection for some flashy action. Link can also use the Paraglider to fly around like in Breath of the Wild, which is awesome, but it's unclear how this will translate to the other characters. At least Impa has a sailcloth of her own.
The gameplay also confirms that the fighters can have different weapon types, like in the original Hyrule Warriors. In this case we see Link using a spear, where I suppose that he will also get a two-handed weapon type as well.
They also show the three elemental rods for the first time, where you can summon an area attack via a cylindrical reticle. These rods are part of another set of items, where the last item is food, probably to heal yourself. The item usage is also much quicker than in Hyrule Warriors, where here you press a button (like L) and then the A, B, X or Y button for the respective item. So, no browsing through a list of items with the D-Pad... And it looks very funny how Daruk uses these rods, almost like holding up a tooth pick.
There is also a first glimpse at a Guardian battle, which really gets classified as some sort of boss, but sadly the cut the footage off there. But it seems they are as sturdy as you would expect them to be. Link even reflects its beam, which does very little damage here, while it would subtract a third of their health in Breath of the Wild.
Before that battle you can also briefly see a Korok flower, which probably confirms them as a collectible in this game. I'd personally prefer it, if they would work similarly to Breath of the Wild and not like the Gold Skulltulas in Hyrule Warriors, because the "defeat 1000 enemies and rush to a certain location" requirement was rather annoying. It would be more fun to have little secrets all over the battlefield.
Apropos battlefields, while there are certainly some differences and you can't explore everything freely, it all looks like it has been taken out of Breath of the Wild directly. And that's a huge step up from the battlefields in Hyrule Warriors, which felt more like very loose translations. Places like Zora's Domain or Skyloft looked very awkward in comparison to their originals, where it's nice that Age of Calamity does things more faithfully. It really shows that they've been working together with the Zelda team.
Today was Koei Tecmo's long live stream at the Tokyo Game Show 2020, where they've showed us nearly 14 minutes of gameplay footage from the first level of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and the new "Champions Unite!" trailer. Good stuff and I've taken some notes, so let's go over them.
First of all, the game looks great and feels very, very close to Breath of the Wild, almost as if you're playing a mod for that game. It's still a Warriors title underneath so and you can also see some enemies pop in here and there... But they've overall done a great job, where the game feels much more impressive than the original Hyrule Warriors.
Mainly, there is a greater attention to detail in the environments. For example the "keeps" can vary in size now, are filled with all sorts of things and feel a lot more like a natural part of the battlefield than some artificial choke points. And it's actually super interesting to experience Hyrule Field like it was 100 years ago with all its villages in tact. One of the keeps, which was basically a small village, even reminded me a lot of Hyrule Castle Town from Ocarina of Time with the well at the center and you can also spot the Lon Lon Ranch area during the footage in the background, where it will be nice to explore this in full glory later on.
Another issue that I had with the original Hyrule Warriors and that was seemingly addressed here are stronger enemies. Those were for the most part absolutely pathetic in the first game. For example the mighty Dark Nuts and King Bulblin from Twilight Princess became a total joke in Hyrule Warriors and I did not like that... Here it seems like a Red Moblin is even sturdier than they were in Breath of the Wild. And that's good. I don't expect that Lynels will take you five minutes to beat them, but they should give you a hell of a fight nonetheless. And if the Red Moblins were any indications, they probably will.
The upscaled Bokoblins in the keeps felt a little bit silly, however, because that's nothing that appears in Breath of the Wild and they simply could have used Moblins in their place. But for now it seems like they will simply stick to all kinds of enemies from Breath of the Wild, so the size variety could be a good thing.
Anyway, I love how destructible the environments have become. Well, you could cut grass and blow up rocks in Hyrule Warriors, but that was about it. Here it seems like you have about the interaction that you get in Breath of the Wild and even some more stuff on top, e.g. blowing up the giant skull caves or the enemy towers, which wasn't possible in Breath of the Wild.
And for this you can use Bombs from your Sheikah Slate, which basically provides you with the item feature from Hyrule Warriors. Instead of Bombs, Bow, Boomerang and Hookshot, you get Bombs, Cryonis, Magnesis and Stasis. What's interesting here is that not only Link can use this, but also Zelda (who has the Sheikah Slate as her main weapon) and the other Champions as well. You can see how Daruk uses Stasis in the trailer...
There is only one Sheikah Slate in Breath of the Wild, but I've always wondered how the four Champions piloted their Divine Beats, where it kind of makes sense that there actually were multiple Sheikah Slates and each Champion got one of their own. But I'm curious how this will be explained. And even if every Champion gets their own Sheikah Slate, what about the other playable characters? Speaking of, we got our first look at the seventh confirmed character...
Impa! So beautiful! So amazing! She really looks like her granddaughter and she utilizes a wild mix of Sheikah ninja art, mainly by employing a group of clones, which is kind of similar to how Maz Koshia fights you in Breath of the Wild, just without the technological weaponry. But I love how she has a Sheikah Paraglider and fights with kunai. It's a very flashy moveset and that's the kind of stuff you want from Hyrule Warriors. I also love how extremely different this Impa looks and plays when compared to her counterpart from the previous game.
In the footage it also didn't seem like Impa can use the Sheikah Slate items, at least they never used any of these moves with her, so it simply might be that certain characters come with a Sheikah Slate and others don't. (Update: everyone gets to use the Sheikah Slate Runes remotely.)
But as an alternative there seem to be additional items. In the footage Impa obtains a Fire Rod after defeating a Fire Wizzrobe, but they didn't show this item in action. It certainly would be nice to go all crazy with those fireballs again.
There also will be a second bonus weapon for Link: the Training Sword, which you will receive, if you have a savegame of Breath of the Wild on your Nintendo Switch.
Like the Lucky Ladle, it's nothing too special and apparently you will be able to get both items at a later point as DLC.
Oh, and the Mini Guardian, who follows Link around, is absolutely adorable. It seems to be more of a feature, however, and not another playable character. So, the theory that this might become this game's "Proxi" could be right, though it doesn't seem to talk, it only beeps.
The only major complaint I had with this demo was the music. The Breath of the Wild battle music on a loop might work for a little while, but it gets repetitive fast... Hopefully, the other stages will offer some better variety here, since Hyrule Warriors used to have excellent music that makes even the most mundane tasks a blast.
Well, overall this was amazing stuff and I can't wait to play the game later this year. They also showed off the "Treasure Box" items, which is the Japan exclusive Limited Edition of the game. A Paraglider cloth, a Mini Guardian key chain and a frame with the game's main art. It doesn't seem like we will be getting any of this, but it also doesn't seem like we're missing out here. In fact I never was too fond of the Limited Editions for Hyrule Warriors, because it came with very cheap stuff... But let's see.
Right now there is no real reason to believe that any of the 29 playable characters from Hyrule Warriors will return in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Of course we don't know for sure, because we've only seen very little of the game so far, but it does seem like the focus sits entirely on Breath of the Wild, where characters like Link, Zelda and Impa are getting new designs and movesets based on the latest and most successful episode of the Zelda franchise.
This would be quite unusual for a Warriors title, however, where Koei Tecmo likes to bring most of the previous cast back with every new iteration. Having many playable characters is kind of part of the deal. On the other hand, putting characters like Toon Link, Marin or Midna into Age of Calamity might feel very out of place... Hyrule Warriors became a mashup of all sorts of art-styles, where 30 years of Zelda history were coming together in one big all-stars title. And we already have all of this on the Nintendo Switch with the Definitive Edition of the game, so Koei Tecmo could focus solely on Breath of the Wild with this new Warriors game to create a more cohesive and serious experience.
But if characters from the first game swere to return somehow, it would make sense to re-design them in the art-style of Breath of the Wild to make them blend in better. The biggest candidates for this are arguably these two ladies:
Lana and Cia, the two observers of time, keepers of the balance of the Triforce. It makes sense that they still would exist during the era of Age of Calamity or at least have somehow access to it with their magic. And they both could get full re-designs based on Breath of the Wild with new movesets and everything. Their magic always felt quite "technological", like for example the Summoning Gates, where this could blend in quite well with the whole Sheikah technology theme.
I would not expect them to appear as part of the main story, though they could possibly be used to create alternate realities, where the Champions didn't fall or where characters from 100 years are summoned by them and so on. They could act as the catalyst for the big, new Adventure Mode.
This could also create a bridge to a possible "Hyrule Warriors 2" in the future, on Nintendo's next console, where everything of Hyrule Warriors and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity would be coming together...
