I'm confident official news and visuals are coming at some point this year, so:
I want to know if anyone else who's been playing Zelda for a few console generations now has possibly the biggest expectations from the franchise for the 3DS?

Personally I always expect a better than last experience, but considering the hardware of the 3DS and that visually the game could compete very well with every Zelda released to date, I don't think my expectations have been greater.

I expect a WW/PH/ST style game with some great dungeons and design. Nothing special. I belive that art-style would look great on 3DS.

I agree the toon link style would look great in 3D. I wonder though, they are releasing WW HD and I bet the game comes out within at most 6 months of that release, would it be too repetitive from the next two Zelda's to release?

It was the same scenario for NSMB2 & NSMBU. Nintendo doesn't seem to care.

But come to think of it, I remember Miyamoto saying something sbout wanting a sequel to ALttP.. If that'd turn out to be the new 3DS Zelda, I'm going to die from excitement :0

I a bit torn on a 3DS Zelda.

On one hand I kinda expect it to be like the two DS ones. I mean, they haven't been talking up like they have been with the WiiU one, so I don't expect anything big.

On the other hand though, Super Mario 3D land has shown that they are taking the 3DS seriously. Sure, it was designed as a handheld title, but there is no denying that Nintendo themselves consider it as a "main" mario game, so a console like Zelda could be possible.

I guess so huh? Look at DKCR & DKCR3D. With the tech in handhelds improving I guess maybe we'll see first party titles almost mirror eachother now. Wow.

@Jamouse Well Zeldapedia does say it will be based off of the last few console games in scope. I'm not sure what quote they source that from but I'm rather expecting it. This game will follow the OOT remake. I'm sure they will want to make it even more impressive as a new Zelda game.

This quote has me curious:
“We are already preparing a new game, a game in the series for the Nintendo 3DS, but don’t think that it is a direct sequel to the Zelda titles released on DS”
Eiji Aonuma on November 5, 2011

i really hope they'll make a MM remake for the 3DS, that would be so awesome.

The greatest expectation the fans have had of the series? How anyone could follow up ocarina of time. And they did. Flawlessly.

I expect a game in generally the same style as Ocarina of Time 3D. Aka more advanced than the DS Zelda games (partly due to being in real 3D), but less fancy than the home console ones. Kind of like what we got with Super Mario 3D Land.

Now I'm excited

I know this would never happen, but it would be great to have a Zelda game that was told from the perspective of Ganondorf, his rise, travels inside the sacred realm and inevitable inability to secure the entire Triforce. It would possibly envelope the first part of a dilogy, where the second game shifted back to focus on Link as main character who of course ultimately sets things to rights once again.

Another storyline I think the creative team could focus on could be the timeline during the pinnacle of influence of the Sheikah tribe.

I will admit, however, that a large part of me wished that Lanyru Desert from 'Skyward Sword' could've been enveloped amidst the bubble of a giant timeshift stone. Wanted to find out so much more about that history. The same was true for me about stepping through the time gate into the Temple of Time in 'Twilight Princess.'

On the other side, though, I think these "glimpses of mythology" are the main enduring magic of the Zelda series. Too much detail ultimately stifles the imaginative power reserved to the player, and the people at Nintendo are certainly quite adept at walking this line.

I suppose this is why I've never agreed there should be any kind of extensive voice work applied to a Zelda game, it would inhibit my own imagination if I'm simply being told, "oh hey, he/she/it sounds like this when they speak a particular line of text."

Yeah, sorry, I went there. Just feel if too much detail is spelled out in a game (or book/movie/etc. for that matter) then it just removes a large part of the fun/intrigue.

Anyway, went way off topic --to simply say-- the biggest expectation I have from any future Zelda game is that they leave the inherent spirit of "glimpses of mythology" within the overall storytelling structure; and that it, well, be fun as heck!

I really expect Zelda 3DS to be a visual feast for a change on a handheld and rank among the best visually on 3DS and maybe in the series. I expect some of the fresh change that Aonuma has been talking about since skyward sword development will go into this game and feel very new.

My fandom for Zelda started with Links Awakening so the handheld series has always been maybe the best part for me. Seeing Kid Icarus and 3DLand just really made me realize how amazing they could make a Zelda game if the squeezed all the power from the 3DS to make it a real masterpiece. I hope they will really make use of the 3DS cartridge storage.

Super Princess Zelda. Like the similarly named, Super Princess Peach. In Super Princess Zelda, you go about the land of Hyrule in search of Link and utilize the magical abilities of Zelda, and ninja-moves of her alto-ego, Sheik, to save Link from the evil clutches of Ganondorf.

Groose spinoff game > any other idea

To have a game witg both this

And these

They already made not one, but two Tingle games. I'd say this series has met or even exceeded every expectation I could possibly throw at it.

I'm looking forward to it, but I'm trying to keep my expectations somewhat modest for Zelda 3DS. While they all had their moments and I didn't think they were bad games by any means, the last three original portable Zeldas haven't ranked highly in my list of favorite Zelda titles either. There is one thing I'd love to see come back in the next handheld Zelda, though - Roc's Feather/Cape.

And no Zelda game (or any other game, really) is ever going to match the hype level I had for Twilight Princess; I'm only half-kidding when I say that I was frothing at the mouth in anticipation.

My expectations for Zelda3DS should be a bit more reserved like the DS years, but back then you knew it could only look so good and it certainly was never going to compare to what the GameCube had. But now the 3DS is more powerful than the GCN. I dunno, I think it's gonna be a leap as significant for handhelds as OOT was for consoles. Funny that we now have an oot remake on 3DS. It's a sign!