Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I was thinking more Mario Galaxy, but they're essentially the same idea.

I'd be down with a 3D styled four swords quest.

Also doing this. I've finished Ocarina of Time and A Link Between Worlds so far. Almost done A Link to the Past, and then onto the Oracle games and Link's Awakening. Will do the Wind Waker timeline after that.

I've tried playing the gameboy games, but I just can't. Really want to, but the controls are just too tedious and slow for me. Dungeons as dynamic as the gameboy ones require more than two buttons to work with.

To start I personally like the way link looks. Never even crossed my mind he was a female.

All the rest sounds great to me. Make the world too big though Then we wait till 2016. Somewhere between the size of Morrowind and Oblivion would be nice with plenty of nice caves to loot and make money worth it this time please!

Something tells me that the horse shown in the teaser (Is it confirmed to be Epona?) will play a greater role in this game, to the point where warp songs or something like that won't be as useful as they were in previous games.

Any theories on where this game takes place in the timeline? My guess is either pre-Skyward Sword or between Skyward Sword and Minish Cap. I've heard guesses that it's between Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks or after Zelda II.

That's fine by me - I generally eschew any type of fast travel or warping anyways when I have an open world. You can't have a hero's journey without some traveling, after all.

Anyone else think the horse could be The Legend of Zelda's answer to Agro from Shadow of Colossus?

On the topic of the horse, I don't think the horse in the trailer was Epona. What would be interesting is if this game introduced "the first Epona" as Skyward Sword introduced the first Link and Zelda alongside the creation of the Master Sword.

@WhiteNoise17: What do you even mean by that? (Also it's Argo.)

@SomeBitTripFan I meant being your only companion in a vast world or a more personal relationship like Wander and Agro (which I thought I spelled correctly)

This game and Xenoblade Chronicles X will be the Wii U's biggest Game of the Year contenders.

Probably the most immediately obvious GOTYCs on Nintendo since they announced Retro would bring back Donkey Kong Country.

It's just unfortunate that anything less for either would be a notable disappointment for a lot of people (myself included).

Every non-remake Zelda is a GOTY contender, lol.

Phantom Hourglass came out the same year as Mario Galaxy.

nope

Every non-remake console Zelda*

Though ALBW was obviously a contender too.

ALBW actually got a GOTY award from Gamespot.

I still need to get back to ALBW and finish it, but argh, it's so boring.
Wish I didn't buy it just because it was Zelda.

ALBW is a weird mix of old and new that almost works (well I think it works, just not quite in the way it was advertised). My main problem with it honestly is that LTTP isn't the most interesting Zelda to me. I forget who but someone summed it up best as the weird transitional game from Zelda 1 to OOT

My problem with it was that what everyone else called open world I called laziness. Plopping all the dungeons on the map to do in any order you want and then putting a store with every item in the game in the middle isn't innovation.

I consider the original the "weird" one though. The first two tried things out that didn't quite work. LTTP is where they finally got the formula right. Zelda 1-2 are like Final Fantasy 1-3, where FF4 is the LTTP of the series.

I've been thinking a bit about how Nintendo will handle the story this time around. I mean, previously on console Zeldas there's always been some clear motivation why Link ought do what he must do next. In Skyward Sword, first it's Zelda and then it's gathering the blessing of the goddess, and setting these goals was crucial for the narrative – a story-progressing cutscene or event was often thrown in before or after the dungeons. If they mean to give us freedom to pass the dungeons in our own order, then how will the story move forward?

ALBW fell into this trap IMO. At the second act the tale came into a screeching halt, with only an occasional reminder that, yes, Hilda still exists and the realm is in trouble. We barely saw any of the main characters make an appearance during the last seven dungeons. What do you guys think? Is strong narrative a necessary price to pay for an open world?