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It's been a long time since we last saw Zelda Wii U.

I'm thinking about it everyday. Every single day. It's noon here and I've already thought about it multiple times and watched E3 2014 and Game Awards footage also. That is to say, I have an unhealthy obsession with it. My life seems to revolve around it.

God I've been scanning this image for so long, longing to go in there and never come back.

This... This is creepy. Are we just... Are we just not going to talk about this?
 
In hindsight, an open-world Zelda probably was a mistake. Nothing but trash.
See, Nintendo just doesn't have the capacities to pull it off. Rockstar had a thousand people working on GTA V, but Nintendo don't fire (and therefore hire) people on a whim. Expect a Wind Waker on land.

Xenoblade X says you're wrong.
 
I can't believe it's been only 8 months since that footage was shown. It feels like years ago, and the game is still at least over a year and a half away.

I wonder if the game is gonna be a bit different from what we saw at last year's Game Awards.


Most of the things is in that video are not even going to be in the final game judging for how much the final version of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess changed from the first time they were shown, two games with lengthy development times such as this one.
 
I'm can't wait to come back to this thread when Zelda Wii U comes out for Wii U and isn't for NX.
That said Zelda games usually go dark for awhile after announcement, although missing E3 is out of the ordinary.
I'd say we don't have anything to worry about and they're just working away on it, and will go on the Nintendo path of showing it when it's ready.
 
I'm not too worried. Judging by reactions to the first two sets of footage, the prevailing complaint was "this game looks boring/empty." That's because Nintendo appears to be approaching open world design right by first deciding what the world needs to be, then looking at how they can fill it, rather than purely designing the world around things like puzzles and dungeons (which can lead to a rather limiting scope, restricts the sandbox feel, and makes the world seem artificial).

That we haven't seen a lot of footage since then, for me, underlines that they're now focusing on filling up that world, and don't want to give us any more early development glimpses at the unfinished world - they want us to be blown away by the near-final product instead.
 
Pretty sure the game is essentially done. Normally I wouldn't be this cynical but I'm sure it's bring prepped for NX because anouma went out of his way to stress it'd make the 2015 date then poof be nevermind all that. Usually "trouble" in development can be forseen for quite a ways... not really buying it needed more time in the oven
 
I'm not too worried. Judging by reactions to the first two sets of footage, the prevailing complaint was "this game looks boring/empty." That's because Nintendo appears to be approaching open world design right by first deciding what the world needs to be, then looking at how they can fill it, rather than purely designing the world around things like puzzles and dungeons (which can lead to a rather limiting scope, restricts the sandbox feel, and makes the world seem artificial).

That we haven't seen a lot of footage since then, for me, underlines that they're now focusing on filling up that world, and don't want to give us any more early development glimpses at the unfinished world - they want us to be blown away by the near-final product instead.

I like the way you think.
 
We can guess all we want, but only Nintendo knows the real deal.

Don't take their word too, because they'll lie if they have too. They denied the 3DS XL days before the announcement...

My guess: Winter 2016, WiiU release and NX release with some extra gimmick.
They know it will sell alot more this way. Wii/GC already proved it.
 
Being VR would most definitely make it a lot better than the Wii U version. Don't forget, Nintendo did say that the NX was going to have a huge new feature, same as Wii had motion controls and Wii U had the Gamepad.

VR is not plausible, the console would need to be very powerful and very expensive. The feature is likely the shared library, imo.
 
Its moved to NX which is why they wont show it, they will show it again at the NX reveal early next year

They absolutely fucking better not. I will rage extremely hard if that's the case.
 
FTFY, the game was confirmed to still be coming to the Wii U, so it's no maybe.

Eh, that confirmation was made this E3. I don't expect to see the game again before next E3, and a year is plenty of time for plans to change.

Mind you, it's still *probably* coming to Wii U (albeit not exclusively, unless Nintendo is idiotic and/or insane), but I'm not counting those chickens until next year.
 
I'm not too worried. Judging by reactions to the first two sets of footage, the prevailing complaint was "this game looks boring/empty." That's because Nintendo appears to be approaching open world design right by first deciding what the world needs to be, then looking at how they can fill it, rather than purely designing the world around things like puzzles and dungeons (which can lead to a rather limiting scope, restricts the sandbox feel, and makes the world seem artificial).

That we haven't seen a lot of footage since then, for me, underlines that they're now focusing on filling up that world, and don't want to give us any more early development glimpses at the unfinished world - they want us to be blown away by the near-final product instead.

We need more optimistic minds like you on the gaming internetZ worlds. Hope this becomes true!
 
Most of the things is in that video are not even going to be in the final game judging for how much the final version of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess changed from the first time they were shown, two games with lengthy development times such as this one.

I don't think so. that stuff from Twilight Princess we didn't get in the final game was all shown in trailers. Everything we saw in gameplay was in the final game.
 
Zelda-comparison.jpg


latest

They really need more of those comparisons on this pic. The kind of adventuresque theme that was only left to the imagination in days past.

Ni No Kuni is the almost perfect example of blending animation artwork but Cuphead perfected the formula, so I would definitely kill for a Zelda to be recreated like this image below.

legend_of_zelda_conceptart_OAuM1.jpg
 
While I think Zelda coming to the NX is pretty likely, it may also have to do with the amount of content they want to show. Fans criticized the the last showing of the game for being off-screen and a bit sparse, so, perhaps Nintendo want the next reveal to be a bit beefier. While I do suspect that the game will come to the NX, I still believe that it'll come the Wii U as well.
 
Sales don't bear that up, GameCube version sold far worse than the Wii version. A certain vocal minority (who refers to motion controls as "waggle") didn't like it, but when given the choice of getting the motion control version and the non-motion-control version, the majority chose motion controls. They increased immersion and made first-person aiming faster and easier.

My point was, it's strange to hear people say they wouldn't have time to implement support for whatever new hardware the NX is based around, when Nintendo did it once before.

The Wii was a cultural phenomenon that got the game first. The GC was a lunchbox that was mostly purchased by people who probably moved onto the Wii if they could find one. I doubt you can get any useful info about sales trends from that situation outside of people like buying software for their new toy even if it is available on the old toy.

I played both versions and the GC version felt right at home for me like any other 3D Zelda. The Wii version felt off due to motion controls with only the pointer aspect improving the experience but I am able to aim with analog sticks like in every other game so it wasn't a huge issue.
 
Imagine a whole generation of a Nintendo console without a single mainline Zelda game.

THIS: I am surprised I haven't seen it yet. I feel like this is the more interesting thread. Fwiw no virtual boy Zelda either. I think every other console(except Virtual Boy) has had one and every other home console.
 
I'm not too worried. Judging by reactions to the first two sets of footage, the prevailing complaint was "this game looks boring/empty." That's because Nintendo appears to be approaching open world design right by first deciding what the world needs to be, then looking at how they can fill it, rather than purely designing the world around things like puzzles and dungeons (which can lead to a rather limiting scope, restricts the sandbox feel, and makes the world seem artificial).

I don't think there's one right way to design an open world. In some cases, geography conceived by artists (say, a sheer cliff on one side of a mountain) will influence content (e.g., the designers decide to include a rock-climbing minigame or a lizard mount to scale walls), and in other cases gameplay will require redrawing the map to accommodate specific tools or story events. Ideally the feedback between various designers would be dynamic but also resolved into a single vision fairly early in development. It would be weird to build a highly-detailed map without knowing what the player is going to do in it (and just as weird to chart out a game's worth of puzzles or fights with no consideration for the place where they will be occurring).

I think the concern about an empty overworld are justified not just by the footage Nintendo showed last year (however early) but by the fact that Nintendo has consistently struggled to produce compelling overworlds. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess both had maps too large for the amount of content they contained. Skyward Sword featured a fair amount of back and forth over an empty sky. And the less said about the DS Zelda overworlds, the better. ALBW has the series's best overworld of the past fifteen years, but it's building off a game from 1991!

Nintendo may well be taking a considered approach to the design of their overworld that will eventually fill those empty fields with engaging content, but fans have good reason to be skeptical.
 
I can't imagine this being NX-only.

Twilight Princess was also flipped because most gamers are right-handed. Zelda purists probably preferred the GC version.

I forgot, is Link right-handed now?
 
The Wii was a cultural phenomenon that got the game first. The GC was a lunchbox that was mostly purchased by people who probably moved onto the Wii if they could find one. I doubt you can get any useful info about sales trends from that situation outside of people like buying software for their new toy even if it is available on the old toy.
The Gamecube version worked just fine on the Wii. If the majority of players thought the Gamecube version was better, they would have had to have bought it to know about how it was better.
 
Sales don't bear that up, GameCube version sold far worse than the Wii version. A certain vocal minority (who refers to motion controls as "waggle") didn't like it, but when given the choice of getting the motion control version and the non-motion-control version, the majority chose motion controls. They increased immersion and made first-person aiming faster and easier.

My point was, it's strange to hear people say they wouldn't have time to implement support for whatever new hardware the NX is based around, when Nintendo did it once before.

You realize that the Wii outsold the Gamecube by insane margins, right? And that the Wii version was on shelves for years longer than the Gamecube version. And the Wii version came out first. And nobody knew how annoying waggle would be when the game came out. Of course the Wii version sold more.

But you ask most people who play Zelda games if they'd rather play the Gamecube or the Wii version today, the vast majority will say Gamecube, unless the lack of widescreen is a deal breaker.

And you act like implementing VR will be as easy as mapping a button press to waggle.

What I'm saying is if they implement something that will be an NX specific feature, it'll likely be just as terrible as Wii Twilight Princess, considering they'd have been working on the Wii U version for 3-4 years and the NX one for much less.

And the reason they could port Twilight Princess to Wii was because Wii's architecture was so similar to the Gamecube's. We have no reason to believe (and we should hope otherwise) that the NX will have very similar hardware to the Wii U.
 
A lot of people are saying this could be a duel release method like they did with TP. I'm starting to wonder if they weren't early enough in development where they could move the entire production over to the NX and use its resources instead of tethering the game to *ahem* last gen hardware?

What if NX is weaker.
 
What if NX is weaker.
It won't be, not unless Nintendo wants to lose the few third party friends that they have left. The NX Console has to meet Epic's requirements for UE4 if Nintendo wants to keep the likes of Sega, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Atlus, Square-Enix, Level-5, & Koei Tecmo.
 
Because it's also on the Wii U.

...and they would show the gimped lower specced version why? They're not going to show footage for a game on something that isn't even the lead platform, especially if it's on a weaker dead platform. However showing NX footage before the announcement is equally misleading since they can't say it's gameplay on a platform that doesn't exist yet without leading people to believe it's WiiU footage.

Plus, this is assuming this will even come out on the WiiU, which makes zero business sense. Why dampen the motivation of the Nintendo diehards to get the latest Nintendo IP on a new platform and confuse the masses as to where to get it as well. The WiiU will be a dead platform with zero momentum by that point anyway. Why waste a port on one of the titles with the biggest pull on a platform that will gain them zero traction and distract buyer incentive from their critical new hardware launch?
 
It won't be, not unless Nintendo wants to lose the few third party friends that they have left. The NX Console has to meet Epic's requirements for UE4 if Nintendo wants to keep the likes of Sega, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Atlus, Square-Enix, Level-5, & Koei Tecmo.

The question seems to be whether NX is weaker than PS4, based on that one rumor.

Though if it's a hybrid console, it could be simultaneously weaker and stronger (handheld form and console form), and the various leakers aren't being clear about it.

Plus, this is assuming this will even come out on the WiiU, which makes zero business sense. Why dampen the motivation of the Nintendo diehards to get the latest Zelda on a new platform and confuse the masses as to where to get the latest Zelda. The WiiU will be a dead platform anyway with zero momentum by that point. Why waste a port on one of the titles with the biggest pull on a platform that will gain them zero traction and distract buyer incentive from their critical new hardware launch?

Nintendo's often been conscious about screwing over early adopters (see: Ambassador Program). They know that a lot of Wii U owners bought theirs on the promise of a Zelda game.
 
I don't think there's one right way to design an open world. In some cases, geography conceived by artists (say, a sheer cliff on one side of a mountain) will influence content (e.g., the designers decide to include a rock-climbing minigame or a lizard mount to scale walls), and in other cases gameplay will require redrawing the map to accommodate specific tools or story events. Ideally the feedback between various designers would be dynamic but also resolved into a single vision fairly early in development. It would be weird to build a highly-detailed map without knowing what the player is going to do in it (and just as weird to chart out a game's worth of puzzles or fights with no consideration for the place where they will be occurring).

I think the concern about an empty overworld are justified not just by the footage Nintendo showed last year (however early) but by the fact that Nintendo has consistently struggled to produce compelling overworlds. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess both had maps too large for the amount of content they contained. Skyward Sword featured a fair amount of back and forth over an empty sky. And the less said about the DS Zelda overworlds, the better. ALBW has the series's best overworld of the past fifteen years, but it's building off a game from 1991!

Nintendo may well be taking a considered approach to the design of their overworld that will eventually fill those empty fields with engaging content, but fans have good reason to be skeptical.
Nintendo will really have to up their world building, I want npcs with schedules, who do stuff besides standing in the exact same place waiting for Link to come by, I want dynamic world events, wildlife that reacts to other wildlife, npcs that react to wildlife and enemies, dynamic weather besides occasional rain, all of these things make a world feel real. The view of that map when they zoomed out was promising. So they have a lot to live up to.

I can't imagine this being NX-only.

Twilight Princess was also flipped because most gamers are right-handed. Zelda purists probably preferred the GC version.

I forgot, is Link right-handed now?
He is.
 
NPC's on a schedule would be nothing new, per Majora's Mask.
Npcs on a schedule that isn't very clearly laid out to the player. The constricted nature of Majora's Mask campaign made it so that they could pay extra attention to npc schedules.
 
So much for when they said after Skyward Sword they wanted to get console Zelda's to a three year cycle. I don't think it's caught in development hell or anything. Zelda games are just huge and Nintendo doesn't have 150+ people working on single games like other companies do.
 
...and they would show the gimped lower specced version why? They're not going to show footage for a game on something that isn't even the lead platform, especially if it's on a weaker dead platform. However showing NX footage before the announcement is equally misleading since they can't say it's gameplay on a platform that doesn't exist yet without leading people to believe it's WiiU footage.

Plus, this is assuming this will even come out on the WiiU, which makes zero business sense. Why dampen the motivation of the Nintendo diehards to get the latest Nintendo IP on a new platform and confuse the masses as to where to get it as well. The WiiU will be a dead platform with zero momentum by that point anyway. Why waste a port on one of the titles with the biggest pull on a platform that will gain them zero traction and distract buyer incentive from their critical new hardware launch?
Because, as stated by Ogodei, Nintendo isn't one to actively screw over their consumers. The Ambassador Program for the 3DS is proof of this. The new Zelda game was announced for the Wii U, it was reconfirmed to still be coming to the Wii U just 2 months ago, & they would see a ton of backlash (for good reason) if they don't follow through on that. Whether or not it comes to the NX Console & Handheld is irrelevant, it was said to be still coming to the Wii U & that isn't changing. Plus, the game was originally made on the Wii U to begin with. If anything, they'd be porting the game to the NX Console & Handheld rather than the other way around.

The question seems to be whether NX is weaker than PS4, based on that one rumor.

Though if it's a hybrid console, it could be simultaneously weaker and stronger (handheld form and console form), and the various leakers aren't being clear about it.



Nintendo's often been conscious about screwing over early adopters (see: Ambassador Program). They know that a lot of Wii U owners bought theirs on the promise of a Zelda game.
But it's not a hybrid, so that idea is already out of the question.
 
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