Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Did you watch 100% of videos at E3?

I know they didn't officially say it but I think one of their staff did in an off-hand comment.

Their staff says a lot of things, like Gamecube games on Virtual Console. It doesn't mean squat unless it's a 100% genuine official announcement

When did anyone say that?
Maybe that was intended at one point and then abandoned.

I literally dreamed that I found new Breath of the Wild footage on YouTube. This is where my dreams are at :/

I'm wondering if the U version will have 'data packs' similar to Xenoblade X to help with how the game runs. From the footage I've seen there's still a lot of pop-in.

@-SD- Well if the NX is a disc based home console, Nintendo may bring in the forced disc install approach that the XB1 and PS4 have to make the game run properly. Don't know whether cartridge based would have the same impact if we're talking very large (memory) cartridges, @WebHead or @skywake would probably know.

I firmly believe that the NX is cart based, so that would indeed remove the need for data packs, if that is the case.

The U however is going to need as much help as possible it seems to run something of this scope.

Don't the disks take up to 50GB?

They could do this in 50GB, easy! Bear in mind, most of the size comes from textures and audio. Actual models don't take up that much space. So just having a big world doesn't necessarily mean that much for size.

You're not alone there. I once dreamed a reveal trailer for the Skull Kid coming to Smash.

@Dezzy We're using XCX as logic for BotW. That needed 4 data packs to run smoothly so I'd imagine things will be the same if not more for BotW.

@Grumblevolcano

Yes, but only because they'd ran out of disk space. I'm saying it's entirely plausible that Zelda will be able to manage with under 50GB. That's why I brought up textures and sound.
Just texturing big landscapes doesn't require that much memory because you use tiled textures. That's why No Man's Sky is only 6GB in size! It's a wide variety of unique and large textures that takes up space. Xenoblade was huge because NLA is huge and varied and the enemies are huge and varied. I doubt Zelda will compare on those 2 fronts. Although I'd like to be proven wrong!

I think it's fair to say that a cartridge based system wouldn't need that sort of thing. And for cartridges we're talking 32GB or so which could work. But I'm not particularly convinced that the NX will use cartridges. We're a few years too early for the return of cartridges for home consoles IMO.

Easier way to improve load times on the NX would be to:

• Give it enough internal storage so you can install the game on the HDD/SSD
• Give it enough RAM so that you can load more of the game at once

Man, you guys pick the most boring stuff to talk about...

I once dreamed that I was playing as Link in the middle of an NES game of my mind's own creation, though it was comparable to Castlevania.

The weird thing is, I've never played a Castlevania game other than the Mirror of Fate demo years ago.

Edit: I think my mind tried creating an 8-bit haunted mansion that was a combination of Castlevania, Fatal Frame, and some Silent Hill. XD

Would you like to talk about grass a bit more?

One of the things I really love to see in adventure games are scary segments. I wonder if we will have anything spooky in BotW. Maybe some callbacks to Majora's Mask?

I agree. I'm no fan of turning Zelda completely into a horror game, but the best Zelda games have a wide variety of different experiences, including thrilling sections. OoT had the Bottom of the Well, Twi Pri had that bizarre story segment that used Link and Illia puppets. Majora's Mask, of course, needs no mention.

The advantage adventure games like Zelda have over full-blown horror games is that the scary moments can really take hold of you when you least expect it. Majora's Mask was filled with more frightening themes than any other Zelda game even without Ikana canyon, but it was still mixed in with a lot of funny, charming, touching, puzzling, heartwarming, intense, and bizarre moments that you never expect them. Remember in Majora's Mask when a 3-5 year old girl had to deal with her Dad turning into a monster? Imagine exploring in Breath of the Wild, and coming across a fate like that, due to the chaos created by calamity Ganon? I actually get the sense that this game is going to be very dark and chaotic; I just hope that the game isn't competely saturated with that depressing feeling.

I know some may disagree with me, but that really comes down to the core of why I love the Zelda series so much: the sheer variety of the player-experience, and the variety across different games in the series. I really hope Breath of the Wild has the same magnitude of variety within its massive scope of content.

This is distinct from that, but Twilight Princess had lot of horror influence in the characters were designed and animated. From the start of the conflict, with Ilia being shot with an arrow, to how normal people were corrupted into dungeon bosses, to the very end of the game where Zant violently snaps his neck, that game had dark violence all over it. Even the way normal sword strikes are animated (dark red flash) and the SFX that accompany them remind you of the stakes.

But, more to your point, I love when action / adventure games have horror segments. If you have a "horror game," that diminished the impact right there because it already removes the element of surprise. Real horror can only work when it is a change of pace in the game. Sadly, I don't think this'll happen in an open world game, as that very structure discourages horror.

@Grumblevolcano XCX is a lot bigger than Breath of the Wild though. Breath of the Wild is no joke in terms of world size and it's one of the biggest worlds yet, but XCX was easily several times larger. Combine that with the magical compressing abilities that Nintendo usually has and I think it should fit on a standard disc. Do we know whether the Wii U is able to read dual-layered discs? If so, they may opt for that.

Can we talk about how this is a terrible map layout for a sec? Like, that's not how you make an open world.

This is how you make a true open world: No impassable oceans between zones, no random rocky outcroppings to separate the zones, and just plain no "zones!" Just one, contiguous landmass where the player can head anywhere.

More than anything, this is Zelda U's strength against other faux-open world games (not to mention its greatest similarity to Skyrim). There won't be an impassable ocean in the world. Will there be a water barrier? Sure, but it's only in the corner of the map and it only cuts off one island from the mainland.

Rant over.

@Haru17 Zones are stupid anyway; why's there a lava filled island next to the arctic zone? Zelda is guilty of this as well though, but Xenoblade X's world looked too ''artificial''.