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The Legend of Zelda WiiU "confirmed" for 2016. Wolf Link amiibo compatible.
- Thread starter mocolostrocolos
- Start date
Jonneh3003
Banned
It's only 720p though, and even if you believe that it's still clear that low res and no AA affects how he looks like, because he will not look like this at close up:
compare that with
and notice how the mouth only looks like a line of pixels. There is obvoiusly lost information and you can't even see his lips in the Zelda U photo. And I am definitely sure he will have some kinds of lips.
I thought the above was a screenshot from Lunar Silver Star on Sega CD
This game is going to be really something. I have high hopes that with this new Zelda game Nintendo is going to deliver a game as magnificent and extraordinary as Ocarina of Time was back in 1998. I have that feeling... A feeling I didn't had at all when Skyward Sword or Twilight Princess were revealed. This new Zelda has something beyond those two games already and we haven't seen literally nothing of it yet! Graphics and artstyle make it stand way more than other realistic open world games such as The Witcher 3. 2016 could be the great return of Nintendo and Zelda.
setting yourself up for disappointment
we've barely even seen the game
and there will never be another OOT. or a generation that breaks ground like the N64 gen.
but yeah I think this game will be pretty good. hopefully better than TP and SS
Tyraniboah
Member
Where are we getting the idea that the NX is launching next year? If they just distributed development kits then why would anyone think one year dev time would be enough for new hardware?
Also where is the "Link is now female" thing coming from? I don't care whether it's true or not and I think making Link female would be a unique and welcome change for the series (or at least this game)....but I haven't seen anything indicating it.
Also where is the "Link is now female" thing coming from? I don't care whether it's true or not and I think making Link female would be a unique and welcome change for the series (or at least this game)....but I haven't seen anything indicating it.
It started with the reveal trailer showing Link with a pony tail and looking awfully androgynous.
ReyVGM
Member
The fact that WiiU is pretty much barren and dead for most of 2016. Nintendo can't wait until late 2017 to launch the new console. If the NX doesn't come in 2016, the latest it will release is spring 2017, but they will definitely not wait until fall 2017 like usual.
Ports can be done in less than than that. Besides, you don't need a dev kit to start developing games. You just let devs know your target specs and they'll work on a PC with that in mind.
Link looked more feminine than usual in that E3 trailer, and people just started spewing bullshit about it was a girl.
DecoyOctopus
Member
Made a high-quality gif of the whole sequence.
Looks like you can even see link's quiver under his shield on the right side. In other games the only items we actually saw on link's person was the sword and shield. Now's we can clearly see the sword, the shield, the bow, the quiver, the book, and the hood (yeah, hood counts. You can take it on and off). Compare this to the E3 reveal, and you'll see that pretty much all of Link's gear is strapped to Epona. His bow, shield, and a much smaller sword. At least it appears to be much smaller. Could possibly mean we get to change what's on our person and what's in storage whenever we want.
Either way, I think item usage is going to be seeing some big changes this time around. I think there's going to be a lot more customization. Skyward Sword was already halfway there, so I think we're going to see a far more in depth version of similar ideas.
Either way, I think item usage is going to be seeing some big changes this time around. I think there's going to be a lot more customization. Skyward Sword was already halfway there, so I think we're going to see a far more in depth version of similar ideas.
Always-honest
Banned
Brrrr, looks incredible. And i hope it will also be on the NX. Will buy the best version possible.Made a high-quality gif of the whole sequence.
LegendofLex
Member
Totally agree. I think this would lend itself well to the idea of Epona as your mobile item bag. I've written extensively about this before:
On more equipment options
On items and dungeon design
Tertullian
Member
Looks basically exactly the same as it looked a year ago. I'm not sure what people are swooning over. I was hoping that after, what, 9 months, we would get some footage that suggested some kind of progress.
Made a high-quality gif of the whole sequence.
Soooo beautiful.
I think this is just b-roll footage from the reveal and that 2016 isn't going to happen.
crooked spin
Member
Progress towards...?
What the flying f... are you talking about? 1) we have barely seen the game, like, at all. 2) this snippet was like 5 seconds long, so you can't barely see anything. 3)what would you expect to see from low-quality, 5 second snippet footage? lmao
hprshredder
Banned
They distributed devkits last month which fits in the exact timeframe of the Foxconn rumors, but it's not just that. Also, they wouldn't need 3rd party support at launch if they had this Zelda game + a new Mario + Retro Studios game + real Animal Crossing + a plethora of different possibilities! Not saying it'll all come at once, but within the first year of launch we may see a holy trinity of Mario/Zelda/Metroid.
Studios like Retro may have had early access to the specs and tech as well as other closely related developers. Nintendo's in-house development teams would have known before that. Keep in mind the Zelda delay was announced within two weeks of the NX. Based in their holiday and 2016 lineup, it's pretty clear they have the B-teams releasing filler while the A-teams are working on games for the NX to have at launch.
Nintendo will release the NX next year because it needs to compete, and the Wii U will never be competitive. When your software sales are directly tied to your hardware sales and your hardware sales are low it puts you between a rock and a hard place. I'm not saying Zelda won't come out for Wii U as well (though it would only make sense for it to come out after the NX version), but it would be a huge missed opportunity for Nintendo to not include that as a launch title.
In regards to the Wii U, Iwata himself said he believed a weak launch to be part of the problem in getting the Wii U to catch on, and that in the future they would focus on having a much stronger launch. Miyamoto said that in regards to [the Wii U's hardware/software sales] numbers, they've never looked this bad.
They're getting BTFO by consoles released a full year after the Wii U, and one of them is practically nonexistent in Japan, a huge market for video gaming.
The NX is coming next year because you can't announce a console and release it 18 months later. In the words of GameTrailers' Kyle Bosman (who by the way has a very compelling video on this subject you should watch) "That don't work no more." It's too long that Nintendo fans have to feel like what they're playing with is old news. 2016 could be a golden year for Nintendo, but they need the NX to make it work, and I believe it's coming in 2016.
Nintendo needs it now, not later. It's beyond clear that the Wii U isn't the focus anymore and the games prove that. We've seen nothing but the same since 2014, and the new announcements since then have been small (Amiibo Festival, Mario Level Editor, Mario Tennis) or ports of Japanese 3DS games etc. They're obviously gearing up for something big and they've even had to put it in the E3 presentation and the last direct. The hype is there, and they'd be wise to just blow it up next year because Nintendo fans are like a pack of rabid dogs for some positive news at this point and I'm one of them.
dampflokfreund
Banned
Wait for TGA. I have a good feeling.
Great post.I made a comparison for those saying it's a downgrade, apart from the fact that the old screnshots were bullshots at 1080p downsampled from 1440p or something.
I pasted the new screenshot next to link and epona in the old one at the same size, since it's unfair to compair a close up to a far away shot.
And then cut out some grass (since grass is all that's seen in the new screenshot and it's the only thing comparable apart from Link and epona.) and then pasted it next to grass of comparable close up-ness in the old screenshot and then adjusted the colours to make it easier to compare.
To me the grass looks the same. It's lacking the red flowers and some kind of other grass, but that could just mean that they don't use the exat same grass/flowers everywhere, which at least I think is a good thing so it don't look exactly the same evrywhere.
Looking at link's face, things usually look distorted at a lower resolution than what's needed to see all detail, so it's a bit strange to draw conclusions from that to what Link's face looks like now
Regarding the light, it's obviously different times during the day, so it's a bit unfair to compare the light.
Lighting is different in the sense that the reveal trailer and the 5 second teaser from yesterday take place in two different times of the day. Lighting quality is the same.
Textures aren't computationally heavy and there's nothing simple in what is being shown in Zelda U.
If by art style you mean GI for the sun, advanced shaders, an incredible amount of (great looking) grass that reacts to wind and explosions, advanced hair tech for Link and Epona, self-shadowing everywhere, full res particles, incredible animations etc in an open world game, then yes. It's all art style.
/s
gamerMan
Member
setting yourself up for disappointment
we've barely even seen the game
and there will never be another OOT. or a generation that breaks ground like the N64 gen.
but yeah I think this game will be pretty good. hopefully better than TP and SS
Why not? If anyone can do it, it is Nintendo. Nintendo perfected 2d gaming. Nintendo perfected 3d gaming back with Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time why can't they perfect "open world" gameplay? A lot of of open world games lack polish around the edges and get repetitive. Most people forget that the best open world game ever was the original Zelda on the NES.
Nintendo seems to be listening to the feedback. Drop me in a world that looks like this and let me explore like the original Zelda and this game will be a masterpiece.
Tertullian
Member
Progress toward literally anything would be nice, don't you think?
Well, yeah. We've barely even seen the game, when it's been in development for years and years and is approaching its original release date. We waited months to see anything whatsoever, and all they had to show us was a 5-second snippet.
You're saying these things like they undermine my point, when in fact they just reinforce it.
I hope so, man; I hope so.
there's nothing going on here that's in any way beyond the Wii U's capabilities
I'll break it down
- by GI I assume you mean the bloom and macro shadows. nothing crazy
- the grass looks like a special renderer that reacts to some vector fields
- "advanced hair tech" is just cloth physics. that shit work on the PS2
- self-shadowing happens because of dynamic shadows which again is nothing crazy
- particle systems ain't really expensive unless you have like a billion huge particles
- animation quality has nothing to do with how computationally expensive they are, and animation technology is probably the most optimized part of 3D rendering after rasterization
- all in all Zelda U looks like it's less technically demanding than GTAV, and that game runs on the 360, a console that is weaker than the Wii U
Made a high-quality gif of the whole sequence.
Finally a good gif!
Nitpicking: The swamp doesn't look like a swamp, is sparse.
My uncle, who works at Nintendo, told be all the dungeons were completed. j/k.
We have to realize that Nintendo has 2 games to make here, a huge open-world game, and intricately designed linear dungeons underground. Most open-worlds do only the former.
dampflokfreund
Banned
Please not like the first Zelda. Just exploring a world without a storyline, without memoryable NPCs etc just everything that made 3D Zelda great
If its just like NES Zelda in HD I will not like the game at all.
Hopefully its not too open. Being able to go anywhere from the start would kill my motivation.
crooked spin
Member
Certainly the game gets closer to completion every day, whether they're showing it off to us or not, and I guess that's all I can expect. Nintendo moves in mysterious[ly annoying] ways.
Lord Azrael
Member
You understood his/her point the exact opposite way of what they said. He/she was saying that Zelda U looks good not just because of the art style, but also because of the impressive tech behind it.
ahhh feck I totally did
w/e hopefully someone who still hasn't got the message will be helped
Yep. I was wrong. ;__: But gladly so!
No i mean global illumination.
There aren't many games with better looking grass or that use better tech for it, and most definitely none of them run on PS360.
Then Rockstar must be full of idiots because hair on RDR horses look nothing like Epona's. Also, a list of PS2 games with hair that looks as good as those seen in Zelda U would be very nice.
Didn't say it was crazy, but many games (even "linear" games) don't do that.
And yet a shitload of games use sub res particles, especially in open world games.
Animation quality is memory heavy (ask Naughty Dog) and requires a insane amount of work, otherwise all games would have great animations. Go play Fallout 4, then come back here.
Lol, it definitely isn't. GTA V also runs like shit on the 360.
I do agree that Zelda U shows nothing impossible for the Wii U though. It never did.
Wait, now i'm confused. Were you being ironic or what? :lol
In the end we're all going to die. Nothing matters. I can't tell anymore.
Always-honest
Banned
Haha, yep. I'm glad you were wrong too
crooked spin
Member
I'm just a simple artist but surely there is no GI being computed in real time in current videogames? Light probes and the like to mimic it, plus GI passes baked into textures?
Lord Azrael
Member
If I take the word 'impressive' out of my post does it better reflect what you meant? Because it sounds like you were saying Zelda U looks the way it does thanks to more than just art style. Correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe you don't think it looks impressive though, which could've just been me putting words in your mouth.
Yeah it's obvious that the tech is greatly helping the art style along
If you formalize it, Zelda U is just using the Wind Waker art style which is painterly landscapes with cel shaded characters. But thanks to the tech, Zelda U to WW is like WW to PH/ST. Huge fidelity increase.
If you formalize it, Zelda U is just using the Wind Waker art style which is painterly landscapes with cel shaded characters. But thanks to the tech, Zelda U to WW is like WW to PH/ST. Huge fidelity increase.
no one can do it. nothing will define a generation like mario 64 or ocarina of time ever again. there will never be a jump like SNES -> N64 ever again. we will never be totally blown away like that ever again.
and that's fine. those are once in a lifetime games.
nintendo has also been behind the curve the last two gens. them "perfecting" open world gameplay on their first real try on their first HD console would be nothing short of a miracle. I get the feeling they're going to do many things wrong with this game just because they lack the experience everyone else has with developing open world games.
I do fully expect them to make a great game, though. they've been killing it with the wii u.
Mmm, maybe they share some similiarities but i don't recall grass in WWHD reacting to wind and explosions like in Zelda U so there must definitely be something else going on.I think it's based on the same tech as Wind Waker HD. There's similarities.
Well you're not wrong.
No you're right, that's what i meant, i quoted your post because it was the one he was responding to. I think it looks mighty impressive, especially considering it's a Wii U game, and imho in 1080p+AA and with some tweaks (like a better lod system and more detailed trees) it could easily be mistaken for a PS4 game. Anyway i added an "/s" to my previous post to make more obvious that i was being sarcastic when i said it was "only artstyle"
Many current gen games and even some last gen titles use GI, just not "full dynamic" GI of course (light sources are usually baked). Unity has recently proposed a solution but it isn't exactly "dynamic", it's real time relighting so it looks good but has its limitations (let's call it"half-realtime" xd). Right now the only way to have entirely non-baked light sources is to use voxels cone tracing, but it's extremely expensive and unfeasible on current gen hardware. IIRC Q-games is using an in house solution based on this tech for The Tomorrow Children, but they can only use it for 2-3 bounces.
Made a high-quality gif of the whole sequence.
so good
Just imagining that scene during a storm with rain and lightning and wind wildly whipping the grass, oh my
gamerMan
Member
What makes this game so impressive is coming up with an art style that looks so different from anything on the market. This is done through a highly specialized toon shader written that when light interacts with the model it creates a painterly look.
Similar to Xenoblade, I think the most amazing thing about this running on the Wii U is the sheer scale of the world. Since a lot of the world is visible and not obstructed by buildings, it is difficult to cull it out effectively.
The geometry of the world is too large to fit in memory. When you add in the texture maps, you are looking at a huge amount of data to put into memory. You can't render the whole world, you have to create an algorithm that only renders part of the world at the appropriate detail. I think people are impressed with the detail it is rendered out in.
I am interested in seeing the LOD and culling system they are using to get this all to fit into memory. Also, it will be interesting if they can keep the framerate locked.
brainchild
Banned
This kind of reductionism can be used on any game this generation. If you wanted to, you could say that there have been no new paradigm shifts this generation in terms of rendering technology, and that would be factually correct. Polygons, soft shadows, self-shadowing, global illumination, physically-based rendering, tessellation, ambient occlusion, digital molecular matter, voxels, ray tracing, etc. have all been implemented in some way, shape, or form in the last generation of games.
However, as I'm sure you know, just because technology has been utilized in the past, it doesn't mean that new methodologies that iterate on said technology are undeserving of merit.
There may be no new fundamental rendering tech in Zelda U, but there isn't any in any other current gen game either. In the era of fully programmable pixel shaders, we are far past the point where new graphical effects are only possible on the latest GPUs. If we're simply talking about the ability to render an effect, regardless of context, then the Wii U can do anything the PS4/XBO can do. In fact, the 360/PS3 can do anything the PS4/XBO/High end PC's can do, if we're only considering the possibility to render an effect in a vacuum of variables.
So, when someone praises a game this day and age for its tech, it's not necessarily because it's using new tech; it's because it was implemented elegantly and efficiently, usually on a scale that hasn't been seen before. There are many games this gen that tout PBR as their next-gen tech (even FAST Racing Neo for Wii U has this), but you'll notice that not all of these games look equally as good. In the case of Zelda for Wii U, there are many things on the tech side that it does beautifully, but most of them have been executed with a similar degree of competency... except for one; the grass tech.
Now, technically, it is true that many games have animated grass, it's certainly nothing new (Crytek has been doing this for over a decade). However, the implementation in Zelda U is on an entirely different level. This is an open world game with a huge draw distance, and not only is the grass densely packed all over the land mass, but each individual blade animates independently, responds to changes in air pressure (which could be anything from explosions to full on wind simulation). Quite simply, it's the most convincingly animated grass I've ever seen in a game.
It has little to do with the Wii U hardware, and mostly to do with the programmers. Could it be done on other systems? Of course! But it doesn't make it any less impressive. It's impressive from a programming perspective, and at the very least, the Wii U is powerful enough to realize the potential of the software tech. Downplaying the advancements of the tech simply because it's on weak hardware comes across as intellectually dishonest.
Made a high-quality gif of the whole sequence.
It's so beautiful! Thanks for the nice high quality gif!
Remember the entrance to the temple of wind, where you had to equip the boots to progress? The grass was bending to the wind there. The blast of an explosion made the grass "flatten" too if I remember correctly.
It would be AWESOME to have another Zelda game around the time of Zelda I and II. It's not a remake though. C'mon. It's not.