The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[Sheikah]

12 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

I'm comparing the profitability of two games that sold the same amount of copies and using it against your over-simplistic statement. Saying 'MK Switch sold more than MK 64 therefore gaming = more profitzz' these days is meaningless, and that's being polite. If that argument had any merit whatsoever, why not compare Lylat Wars to Starfox Zero?

You're still not understanding - still! It's quite extraordinary at this point.

The fact that they both sold 10 million copies does not make them comparable in this way. Not. In. Any. Way.

They are two different products that reached that 10 million sales checkpoint based on very different reasons. Mario Kart did that through gameplay and mass mainstream appeal, AC did that through sheer scale and representation of an Ancient Egypt (which requires a lot of developers). There are games made today which sell many millions and have even fewer than 50 developers, but instead you picked AC Origins, likely because you already knew a lot of people made it.

Your whole argument seems to be "Mario Kart 64 sold 10 million with 50 staff, AC Origins sold 10 million with 1,000 staff - games make less profit now!" It's just such a ridiculous argument because these are so very different games. The reason for the difference has nothing to do with the passage of time (and games being more profitable back then) and entirely to do with the desirability of each game. Mario Kart is a much more popular series - it's just the audience was much smaller back then. That's why Mario Kart Switch, with its much bigger audience of available customers, has sold 52 million copies, while AC Origins, like you said, sold a "paltry" 10 million by comparison.

Quote

You are, as usual, shifting the goal posts and hilariously missing the point. AAA gaming is (in general) far more expensive to produce these days than 20 or 30 years ago. That's my point. It's more nuanced than "more profit in gaming now".

Mate, there's nothing hilarious about this. It's sad.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Sheikah

[Ronnie]

2 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

Mario Kart did that through gameplay, AC did that through sheer scale and representation of an Ancient Egypt (which requires a lot of developers). 

Yes people bought Origins because of tourism reasons, rather than the fun gameplay. Got it.

Have a good night. 

[Sheikah]

Just now, Ronnie said:

Yes people bought Origins because of tourism reasons, rather than the fun gameplay. Got it.

Have a good night. 

I mean, yeah? Nothing special about the gameplay at all. AC Origins wouldn't have sold anything like it did if it wasn't a painstakingly realised Ancient Egypt. People fucking love pyramids, you know.

[EEVILMURRAY]

I have Pharaoh a New Era on my left monitor right now.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Shopto have more collectors editions if anyone is after one

[Ashley]

so you can taste the tears?

 

[Ronnie]

Never change Japan.

[Ike]

At least it’s something practical? Though you need to buy the collector edition to get the knife & fork for a complete set.

[Dcubed]

The world’s smallest shovel!

[EEVILMURRAY]

2 hours ago, Dcubed said:

The world’s smallest shovel!

It'll break after 10 uses. 

[Helmsly]

Zelda direct incoming:

 

[Julius]

2 minutes ago, Helmsly said:

Zelda direct incoming:

 

That's 15:00 tomorrow for us UK-based folks. 

Yep, definitely the time for this, and definitely excited! Just some six and a half weeks to go and I feel like we know virtually nothing about the game, and while that makes me a little nervous (because, c'mon, very companies go the route of showing too little unfortunately!), I'm sure it's for great reason. 

Absolutely cannot wait to get lost in Hyrule once again  really curious to see what they've chosen to show in what I imagine will be a highly curated 10 minute segment. Got to imagine it's some confirmation of dungeons, probably putting a name to whatever the shrine alternatives have ended up being, and maybe talking about some differences in the world, as well as Link's new abilities? 

Also, anyone want to put odds on people coming out of this showing and complaining that it doesn't look like it's had six years of work put into it? And then odds on those odds for those people being the ones that didn't enjoy BotW in the first place? 

[Ronnie]

10 minutes of gameplay is perfect.

No need for a big 30+ min blowout of a game where they show everything it has to offer. Discovery and exploration is the main draw of BOTW and presumably TOTK.

[Julius]

8 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Discovery and exploration is the main draw of BOTW and presumably TOTK.

Calling it now: we haven't seen gameplay because the game is actually a first-person shooter, that's why it's taken six years!   

Little do those poor Koroks know that they're about to fall victim to Link's war crimes...

[bob]

That's 15:00 tomorrow for us UK-based folks. 
Yep, definitely the time for this, and definitely excited! Just some six and a half weeks to go and I feel like we know virtually nothing about the game, and while that makes me a little nervous (because, c'mon, very companies go the route of showing too little unfortunately!), I'm sure it's for great reason. 
Absolutely cannot wait to get lost in Hyrule once again  really curious to see what they've chosen to show in what I imagine will be a highly curated 10 minute segment. Got to imagine it's some confirmation of dungeons, probably putting a name to whatever the shrine alternatives have ended up being, and maybe talking about some differences in the world, as well as Link's new abilities? 
Also, anyone want to put odds on people coming out of this showing and complaining that it doesn't look like it's had six years of work put into it? And then odds on those odds for those people being the ones that didn't enjoy BotW in the first place? [emoji14]

I think we could possibly even name them...

[S.C.G]

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom new trailer reveal today

Now up on the main page.

N-Europe should have the usual roundup article posted shortly after the presentation has aired.

[Julius]

And here it is: 

Just started watching, but hnnnnnnnng, that music! Gimme that erhu  

And from the very top, Aonuma confirms: development is complete! 

Some impressions:

• didn't really think about it before, but the only 30s illustrated that we're going to be looking up at the sky a fair bit. Curious to see how, if in any way, this might have impacted some of their design decisions. 
• Recall is something we've already seen a fair bit of, but I was really impressed by the seamless transition from the ground to the sky islands and how there wasn't really any evident chugging. 
• Fuse is genius, and such a Nintendo way to effectively get around the weapon breaking concern many had, including myself. Makes so many more materials more immediately useful, really looking forward to seeing the combinations available, and hopefully the unique weapon combos people manage to come up with! 
• Ultrahand is awesome too, I was worried about how the mechanisms connecting to world objects might work, but it looks so...seamless. 
• Ascend looks awesome too, being able to freely phase through mountain ceilings is going to be great for when it's raining and climbing isn't as manageable! 
• wow, getting knocked off the sky islands is really harsh if you just fall back down to the ground level! I wonder if there'll be an item or outfit that might help you get back up? 

Overall: exactly the showing I was looking for. The new abilities look hype as hell, it was all very much to the point, and I absolutely cannot wait to try them out! 

In addition, the limited edition Tears of the Kingdom OLED model which was floating around a few months ago has now been confirmed to be real, and launches 28th April. 

In addition, a themed Pro Controller and carrying case have also been announced for launch 5th May. 

Quite like the look of the OLED model, but not a fan of the black bezels of the main unit and the black Joy-Con Grip, when everything is accented in white. 

Might be in for the carrying case and Pro Controller, though...and finally get my anniversary Zelda Joy-Cons out for the first time to play Tears of the Kingdom 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Julius

[Dcubed]

The new mechanics look really cool, especially the Fusion mechanic.  The fact that enemies can equip fused weapons is also genius and will go a long way towards adding some much needed variety to the enemies (which was woefully lacking in BOTW).  That being said though? I'm still not convinced that this game really needed 6+ years of development.  It does still look to be to BOTW what MM was to OoT, so I cannot understand why this blatant asset reuse sequel took even longer to make than the original BOTW?

I'm still convinced that something went horribly wrong during this game's development (and no, COVID is not an excuse).

Edited March 28, 2023 by Dcubed

[MindFreak]

I'm a little worried that crafting is too heavily used in the game and will be a solution to every puzzle. That said, it does look like it can lead to some really cool puzzles and give you total freedom of how you solve them which I enjoy. It'll be interesting to see how much had changed and how the formula is this time around to warrant the long development time. 

[Dcubed]

I will also say, I really appreciate the nod to the Ultrahand in this game.

 

Always makes me smile whenever Nintendo acknowledges its pre-video game era history.  We've seen a serious lack of this throughout the Switch era, so it's real nice to see them show a bit of overdue respect to their past here

Just goes to show that Nintendo still haven't given up on reviving old ideas in a new form.

Also...  Poor Rare...

Edited March 28, 2023 by Dcubed

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

The new mechanics look really cool, especially the Fusion mechanic.  The fact that enemies can equip fused weapons is also genius and will go a long way towards adding some much needed variety to the enemies (which was woefully lacking in BOTW).

Yeah, absolutely agree. The fact that we've now got a much greater variety of enemies to face and further variety to their arsenal really makes it feel like Fuse is going to see a lot of use and not just be throwaway. 

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

That being said though? I'm still not convinced that this game really needed 6+ years of development.  It does still look to be to BOTW what MM was to OoT, so I cannot understand why this blatant asset reuse sequel took even longer to make than the original BOTW?

I'm still convinced that something went horribly wrong during this game's development (and no, COVID is not an excuse).

Myself and @bob, the soothsayers of N-E 

In all seriousness though, while COVID isn't necessarily an excuse, at a guess it would have noticeably impacted 2 of the 6 years this has been in development for, and the middle 2 at that. I think it's more likely a case of goalposts shifting as a result of COVID (take COVID out of the equation and I'd argue that 4 years is still a huge chunk of time to be working on a sequel!) than it is something going horribly wrong, or maybe they had some ideas for DLC as we know, but they weren't enough for a full game, so further brainstorming was needed? 

Genuine question: is there anything this game could do to convince you that it needed as much time in development as it's had? And anything, at this point, that could get you inside and actually enjoying the game? Without changing it into a fundamentally different game 

I know you weren't the biggest fan of BotW, which is why I'm curious 

50 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

I will also say, I really appreciate the nod to the Ultrahand in this game.

 

Always makes me smile whenever Nintendo acknowledges its pre-video game era history.  We've seen a serious lack of this throughout the Switch era, so it's real nice to see them show a bit of respect to their past here

Thanks for this! I knew Ultrahand was ringing a bell! Love it 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Julius

[Ronnie]

As if there was any doubt, they're literal gameplay geniuses over at Nintendo.

Like @Julius said the way everything is so seamless is fantastic. Ultrahand looks crazy ! I assumed there'd be some menu system to get through to make things but I guess not!

An incredible sandbox game seemingly made even more incredible.Very restrained showing too, great to see.

14 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

(and no, COVID is not an excuse)

Why not?

(not that I think there's anything to 'excuse', for the record)

[Dcubed]

22 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Why not?

(not that I think there's anything to 'excuse', for the record)

Because even if you knock 2 years off of this game's total 6 year development cycle (Which is far too generous to attribute to COVID, but whatever), you're still looking at a 4 year development cycle for an asset-reuse Zelda sequel; that not only reuses the existing engine and art assets, but even the entire map has been lifted wholesale from BOTW (with modifications).  It's remarkably inefficient production compared to not only BOTW itself, but every single previous Zelda title ever made.

Majora's Mask was made basically from scratch within a single year.  Spirit Tracks was made in just two (Though that game reused a lot less assets than MM did), Triforce Heroes was about 1.5 years.  So why the hell has, what is essentially the equivilent of MM, taken 6 bloody years!? They literally made the original BOTW in a shorter timeframe and that was their first ever HD Zelda game!!

Hell, TOTK is even reusing BOTW's soundtrack (as evidenced by this new 10 minute gameplay video).  No Zelda game has straight up ripped music from a previous game unchanged since Majora's Mask and Oracle of Ages/Seasons!

Quite frankly, the 6 year dev cycle does not show in the final product.  That's very worrying from a production standpoint when it comes to the future of the series.  If they're struggling to put out what is oestenably a glorified DLC expansion, how long will it take them to make a completely brand new Zelda from scratch? 10 years!?

Edited March 28, 2023 by Dcubed

[Ronnie]

A game world that needs to be constructed around, for starters:

- rewinding various objects trajectories and being able to ride them/stop them at any point.
- building your own means of transport
- phasing through ceilings

funnily enough, takes a long time to design.

Are you seriously comparing Spirit Tracks, with its sectioned-off gameplay areas, with the above?

2 hours ago, Dcubed said:

It's remarkably inefficient production compared to not only BOTW itself, but every single previous Zelda title ever made.

Once again, you talk as if you know everything the game has to offer. You don't.

2 hours ago, Dcubed said:

If they're struggling to put out what is oestenably a glorified DLC expansion

I wish you'd put this at the top of your post, I'd have known to stop reading there. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Ronnie

[killthenet]

They showed off some cool stuff, the possibilities with the fuse mechanic are potentially endless, and I'm glad they're holding a lot of stuff back so we can experience it first hand, but the presentation didn't really appeal to me - the physics stuff wasn't what I loved most about BOTW, it was the exploration and the atmosphere. 

Still lots of questions, no definitive answer either way on proper dungeons or how active a role Zelda has in the narrative (fingers crossed she's playable in some respect), among other mysteries so I don't think I'll be going completely media blackout just yet, but I'll be very cautious when it comes to reading previews.