Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Nope.

I vote yes. If the demo doesn't show anything, we can still both say "but that didn't prove anything" and add more pages to the thread.

I hope it'll have seasons and landscape changes. That would be great.

Can't say I see it working that great for a 3D game.

Especially an open world one (they have enough assets as is without making three other versions of every tree, grass, and shrub). Nintendo just has to catch back up to the rest of the industry with this game. Seasons would be costly and not hugely significant to improving the quality of the game at large.

Seasons would be a neat addition, and Zelda games used to be known for their highly detailed worlds. Not sure if the current Nintendo will do the same. Their games as of late have been cheap releases rather than big budget titles.

It'd be interesting if it had seasons, day and night, and random weather effects all in one game. Though it might require a whole lot more work, especially for a game of this size...

@CM30 Day and night have been in every 3D Zelda game apart from Skyward Sword, and random weather was a part of OOT and WW iirc as well (don't recall any of that in MM or TP). Seasons shouldn't be difficult to implement. Trees with green leaves, trees with orange leaves and tree without leaves should be enough. It doesn't have to snow or something like that during winter, but if the trees shed their leaves, that should be enough.

Seasons would also give the weird impression that you're taking forever to defeat whatever evil is attacking.

And that said evil also taking forever to attack.

Maybe the whole "save Hyrule" thing isn't as urgent as it seemed.

@Octane: Skyward Sword did have a limited day/night system, though that was only present in Skyloft. (And, if memory serves, it wasn't brought on gradually by the environment, but by Link taking a snooze.)

@Trinexx Yeah, that's not a dynamic day and night mechanic. It wasn't present in the overworld and you could only change the time of day by sleeping, so it was limited to skyloft, that pumpkin place and beedle's island.

Like this? (NSFW)

It's never as urgent as it seems, not with how people like to go off doing sidequests and playing mini games while the forces of whoever are trying to conquer the world/destroy everything. Might incentivise people to think 'oh god, I need to actually get back to the quest!'

You mean a mechanic similar to oracle of seasons? Like during the winter there is a snow ramp that let's you get up a cliff you normally couldn't, and during the spring there is a cave in the cliff wall you couldn't get to during winter?

Its easily doable on a technical level, and easy enough on a workload level... But I doubt it. Season cycles would take even longer than day/night cycles, how tedious could that get? The only sensible way to deal with that would be to retread the oracle game gimmick and have an item that changes seasons... And while that's of course a possibility, I don't feel it has a particularly high probability of happening.... Although the bit from the first showing about trees growing fruit could lend this ossibility a sliver of evidence.

Now, as for changing the landscape in considerable ways? There is a lot of possibility there. Nintendo has been consistently working on a real time asset manipulation tool.

That is, they have been refining a way to change in games assets in real time, in response to player input. This is a high tech and all around much more immersive solution than the current standard of swapping out normal models and textures for 'damaged versions'.

It started out in the original Wii sports with the tennis target mini game. It was then used to further extent with excite truck, for the real time vehicle da!age that actually responded to the size, shape, area of impact, and force of impact to create completely unique crash and crumpling animations every single time... On the Wii's obsolete CPU (meanwhile the vastly more powerful ps3 uses ps1 era model swapping methods for motor storms crashes... Whut?)

The technology returns in Wii sports resort, and enables the player to satisfyingly cut objects in real time, in whatever shape they desire, as opposed to the old preset model method, (like cutting signs in oot)

Finally, the technology makes its way to Zelda with skyward sword.

At first, it seemed it was just used for cutting things with the sword, like bamboo and signs. But then Nintendo applied it to the terrain. The gust jar was used to interact with certain sand materials, that would deform in real time, retain whatever shape the player gave it, and behave like any other peice of terrain.

The game started with the simple concept of simply !pving the sand to uncover what's beneath it... But soon used it for brilliant design moments, such as carving a path in a sand bank, to roll a bomb down a precise player created path.

With the power of the Wii u, this technology can be applied to a fantastic scale, to literally be large scale very considerable changes to the landscape, done in real time by the player. Not some garbage where you blow a whistle, and a cutscene plays while a path appears. No, carving the path in real time with your own hands, Something not done anywhere in videogamees despite every console having the power to pull it off... It could be mind blowing.

However... I.... Dont have that much faith in new Nintendo having the design chops to pull this off... Instead of Zelda U being the natural culmination of this brilliant technology Nintendo has been fostering over the years... I get the feeling this is where it will be forgotten, and lost to time....

I didn't guess seasons but I did guess that maybe their special mechanic they've been alluding to might involve changing the landscape in some way.
Personally I'd love it to be something like there's no towns or castle at the beginning of the game, and they're built throughout the game. I doubt they'd do that. But I think it'd be cool.
I loved the Colony 6 thing in Xenoblade.

^ Me too, I loved the idea.

Its also the first time there isn't a single rumor regarding gameplay, characters, etc (well, there where faaaar in the past. But not the last 6 months or so). Either Nintendo has upped the security to the max, or people really don't care anymore. I would have loved some rumors myself, but now I just wait untill E3 (wich is just around the corner).

As for the seasons: The return of the Rod of seasons (and the Minish cap, to get small) please!

The Minish Cap isn't happening in an open world game unless Nintendo has a thing for killing themselves with work.

Yeah, it's mostly about theming. You can make shrinking work in an open world game, but for a game aiming to expand the series outward like Zelda U is, it just doesn't make sense to then focus in on individual blades of grass. The game will read cleaner if it tells the player 'ride out and explore' and not 'slow down and zoom in here' or, for that matter, 'meticulously scour the landscape for invisible collectables' with the lens of truth.

The Minish Cap would work in openworld. If they make it like Xenoblade Chronicles X. Link in normal size would be the same as "sitting in a Skell of Xeno X", and Link in mini would be when you're leaving the Skell. And it would work anywhere, except if you're already tiny and inside a cave (can't get back to normal size then obviously). It just needs a change in appearance, but the Xeno X graphics engine should work.

And turning the formula around an adventure with Link and the Mask of Giants would be possible as well.

PS. I want Skulltullas back.

I know, let's bring back the minish cap, the rod of Seasons, the harp of Ages, the ocarina of time, the wolf, the loftwings, that flute from spirit tracks, boats, the dark world, merging into walls, Marin, subrosia, the seed shooter, the cane of Somaria, the cane of byrna, the cane of Pacci, Nayru's love, Din's fire, Farore's wind, the transformation masks, the fairy companions (all of them), midna, the oocca, burning bushes with a candle, the spinner, Fi, the four sword, the phantom Hourglass, a recurring dungeon for the phantom Hourglass, "Them", the stamina gauge, bees, item rental and regular items from dungeons, Sheik, 2d platforming, tips in broken English, every minor character from Ocarina of Time, the four guardian giants, the spirits of light, the fire and ice rod, the seed satchel, both maku trees, the Deku Tree, gorons, zoras, their tunics, every enemy from every game, all Ganon incarnations and Linkle.

This will be the best game ever!

@SKTTR That's feasible, but the implementation in XCX was built around on-foot stuff first as opposed to the other way around. That, and the Skells didn't really change the landscape all that much thanks to their size, just your ability to reach more of the landscape.

Now if we want to go full time Giant's Mask however....