Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Breath of the Wild 2) 12th May 2023

[Calashnikov]

3 hours ago, CrichStand said:

If they’re using the BOTW map then an Underworld/Overworld/Sky Kingdom mechanic is pretty much the only way of making it work. Problem is........lBOTW was all about its map and exploration. Without the excitement of exploring the unknown and finding out what’s over the next hill, just wandering around the largely same overworld.......it would be shit. I’m really not seeing how they could make the same Overworld anything other than a total ball ache to navigate around.

The overworld will be mauled into an all new form, as familiar rock formations, mountains and forests will be torn from the land and moved into the sky, leaving an utterly altered landscape behind, with some cavities and craters leading to the Underworld, which will be a mix of tunnel networks, fiery pits and shimmering Ancient Tech shrine-like environments. Underground locations needn’t be dull. Look at Elden Ring. Siofra River and Nokron the Eternal City and all that good stuff. In fact, Nokron being revealed after the comet smashes into the landscape in one concentrated area, causing gnarly rocks to float about the entrance, will be a lot like how I’m imagining Hyrule to look in Tears of the Kingdom, only right across the entire map  

 

 

[CrichStand]

Just crumbled and watched a vid. Here's my take now (although i think that my mirror Hyrule idea is pretty fucking good).......

 

Tears of the Kingdom. Literally. Hyrule is crying out in pain. Its tears are falling. Or in this case.....rising. What once formed is now finally falling away. Time is reversing. Gravity is shifting. Hyrule is literally disintegrating. With each Tear that falls, the topography of Hyrule below changes, revealing unexplored new lands. The lands of Dark Hyrule, the source of all evil. The source of Hyrule's pain and Tears. Its all been foretold because someone once sketched it on a wall deep underground blah, blah, blah. Seven Tears will form and only by collecting those seven Tears can Hyrule as a whole be saved, this was also conveniently foretold on the same bit of wall scribbling. In other words _ Seven Sky Dungeons. Link fucks off with his glider to get them. Off ya go - flying, climbing, opening chests and twatting shit. With each Tear you gain a new ability (oooooh original), that allows you to progress higher into the skies and deeper and further into Dark Hyrule (one big fuck off final dungeon) in order to stop the source of evil and Hyrule's demise.

 

Also, Hyrule's tears explain the Islands that formed in Skyward Sword......or something. Fuck knows. You definitely meet a Sky Guardian thing at some point. Maybe. Dunno.

 

This would be pretty fucking epic but i have no idea how they would pull it off? Real time chunks of Hyrule falling into the sky seems suitably Nintendo and incredibly impressive but surely its not possible? There would have to be elements of Majora's Mask with time passing by properly. If not, the idea seems a bit ropey. Every now and again some more bits just randomly appear above Hyrule?  It also still seems like there wouldn't be much to do and nowhere near as much freedom to explore as BOTW. Flying around little islands seems pretty pap compared to adventuring off across Hyrule in BOTW. Still got to be loads more to all this imo that hasn't been shown yet. And the fact it hasn't been shown yet either means A. Its going to be the greatest and most mindblowing thing Nintendo have ever come up with that literally everyone will ripoff for the next 10yrs or B. Its shit. 

 

Hasn't there been a tendency over the years, for other games to get to market having used Nintendo's ideas before they came out. only in a lesser fashion. I'm thinking this time it was Elden Ring and FROM heard about Tears of the Kingdom's Underworld and had a go themselves.

 

Edit - Just to clarify.....i'm talking about the Tears (parts of Hyrule that are falling away) doing so in real time. As in, Hyrule Castle crumbles away first, so will be the highest Tear in the sky and keep on drifting away upwards from the ground, maybe hitting a maximum distance/height at some point. Other sections of Hyrule will then drift up behind it in real time as the game progresses, getting further and further away. You could go straight for the Castle whilst its low to the ground or leave it for later. As it rises day on day it becomes out of reach until you're correctly tooled up. Big chunks would keep drifting up in this fashion. Maybe you can pause time or reverse it to gain access to areas, maybe some could even be gone for good if you miss them. Traversing the Tears would be way more interesting with the progression of time and abilities and the order in which you take in the game, adding way more depth than just.....BAM.....here's some more stationary platforms to traverse. Maybe this is all way too far fetched? I'm guessing so, but its the kind of thing i've come to expect from Nintendo over the years!

[Stanley]

Elden Ring went into production early 2017 so it’s unlikely. 

[moosegrinder]

At the risk of kicking off a tiresome argument have they said anything about weapon degradation? 

[meatbin]

I hope the weapon degradable system doesn't change.

[thesnwmn]

2 hours ago, moosegrinder said:

At the risk of kicking off a tiresome argument have they said anything about weapon degradation? 

 

I don't believe they've said anything.

 

I suspect it will stay the same unless they've really torn up the playbook. I think the limited uses is kind of key to hoe they want to balance things.

 

The only thing I could see is maybe offering repair. Say you could take your magical sword back to a town and repair it rather than treking back to wherever you can get a new one from. This way you still basically limit the player in terms of total useful firepower they can carry at any one time (with limited inventory being filled with no unusable weapons.

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, thesnwmn said:

 

I don't believe they've said anything.

 

I suspect it will stay the same unless they've really torn up the playbook. I think the limited uses is kind of key to hoe they want to balance things.

 

The only thing I could see is maybe offering repair. Say you could take your magical sword back to a town and repair it rather than treking back to wherever you can get a new one from. This way you still basically limit the player in terms of total useful firepower they can carry at any one time (with limited inventory being filled with no unusable weapons.

Then it just creates a lot of useless fast travelling, backtracking and grinding to keep the same weapon, which totally undermines the object of the degradable weapons system; to get you to experiment with different weapons and abilities. 

[thesnwmn]

Just now, Stanley said:

Then it just creates a lot of useless fast travelling, backtracking and grinding to keep the same weapon, which totally undermines the object of the degradable weapons system; to get you to experiment with different weapons and abilities. 

 

Oh I agree. I'm not sure why I bothered suggesting anything. Don't really want to wade into this dumb conversation from years ago.

[Kevvy Metal]

1 hour ago, meatbin said:

I hope the weapon degradable system doesn't change.

Yes, complaining about the Weapon Degradation System is like complaining that your guns should never run out of ammo in Halo. 

[robdood]

To attempt to have a (somewhat) adult conversation about the weapon degradation (and I enjoyed it, fwiw): I though the expansion of inventory slots BOTW offered kinda went in the face of it.  Even the starting slots were way too generous.  You have something like 16 slots at the end, it's nuts. 

 

Didn't they say something along the lines of: breakable weapons were put in as part of the 'solution' of how you populate a vast map with meaningful treasures? Breakable weapons ain't it, lads. 

 

I kind like the idea of having limited inventory, of having to scrabble around and used whatever you can at a push, but I'd probably have done it slightly differently.  Two melee weapon slots, maybe expandable to four by the end, and making the weapons more.. purposeful - e.g. a spear could be strong vs armoured enemies - so instead of getting frustrated that weapons keep breaking, its more about a feeling of 'damn I've brought inappropriate weapons, I need to steal something from these guys / use my tablet powers creatively' and having to think on your feet in combat encounters.  Weapons could still break (e.g. use a fire weapon vs a water enemy or something) and surprise you in the middle of combat. 

 

Throwing weapons could've been more of a thing too. Did anyone play Sifu? That ability where you can just hoof nearby objects, but in zelda, with swords on the floor.  Yeah. 

 

[CrichStand]

Watched all the trailers and noticed some stuff I’ve not heard anyone mention.

 

Over the top of Gannon and the evil we see that there is a spiral of green light and words, looping upwards, sealing the evil away. It’s emanating from a magical hand (which clearly seems to be from Twilight Princess) holding the evil down. In a later Vid, Link is seen falling down through the air towards the Overworld and there is clearly a green spiral out in the Overworld itself. It looks like this is how you access the Sky sections. The spirals link to “Tear Tunnels”, allowing you to dive upwards. We see Link dive upwards inside a tunnel of green light and straight through a platform, right after seeing a pool of water forming into a droplet and falling upwards itself. The droplet leaves a crater where it once was. Clearly shows how Link gets into the Skies and also how the pieces of Hyrule falling into the Sky will leave behind a changed Overworld.

 

If you pause the vid on one scene you see a shadow on the cave wall for a split second. Link’s arm now looks just like Gannon’s. It’s been possessed by Gannon/evil.  You later see Link and his hand is replaced with the Twilight Princess hand that was sealing Gannon or Link’s evil arm is now sealed with the same power that sealed Gannon. This power is how you interact with the Overworld Spirals to reach the islands above. Link’s arm and body clearly have markings from Twilight Princess too.

 

On the wall there appears to be a Sky Creature depicted in the clouds, surrounded by light. The creature has long ears that look like Midna’s from Twilight Princess. The creature is also surrounded by 7 icons that seem to depict Tears.  The Seven Sages sealed away the Dark World of A Link to the Past, so it also seems like there could be a Dark Hyrule below ground that you need to seal with the seven Tears. In one Vid you can clearly see the evil streaming out of the top of Death Mountain as well as from the crater below Hyrule castle as the evil spreads underground.
 

Another wall carving appears to depict Princess Zelda linking hands with another character to form the two snakes/dragons eating each other logo, that appears to be a major part of the game and it’s marketing. So not one snake eating itself but, two snakes eating each other, which seems to be a big clue as to what the game is about. Importantly the other character linking hands with her, is not shown, which seems to be incredibly relevant and also holds a major key to the game.  If it was just Link why would they cut away RIGHT before it’s revealed? Above them looks to be the Mirror from Twilight Princess, shining out rays of light. In the Center of it 2 Tears (Sages) that reflect the 2 characters. However, unlike all the others, one Tear (one sage) is reversed creating a mirror image of the first. Seems to imply the other character is the key to the whole game. Could be a Red Herring but this seems like it could be part of a bombshell Megaton reveal. Mirror characters? Mirror Hyrule? Does Zelda fall down into a Mirror Hyrule?

 

In other footage you see a huge weird metal structure in the sky. It appears to be hooked onto and hanging from an island above it. It looks like the structure has been lifted up and towed away. Has it come from beneath Hyrule? Maybe certain chunks of Hyrule will drag up Dungeons that were hidden beneath the surface?

 

Man this is really cool in how mysterious it all is. There are clearly big links to Twilight Princess. Surely has to be some kind of Sky Kingdom to tie into the story too. The only way they can do “Hyrule is disintegrating” justice - it has to 100% be done in real time, with the parts getting higher and higher as you play, which looking at the footage actually seems to be the case. Cannot wait to play this game and find out what it’s all about!!! 

[the_debaser]

This will be the best game ever by a huge margin. Absolutely nothing comes close to BOTW and they’ve been developing the sequel for 6 years. May 2023 will be the pinnacle of human achievement. 

[acidbearboy]

BotW was so good that I’m not too bothered about analysing every second of the trailers for info and I will just trust Nintendo to deliver a great game for my £50 and go in blind. 

[JPL]

6 hours ago, the_debaser said:

This will be the best game ever by a huge margin. Absolutely nothing comes close to BOTW and they’ve been developing the sequel for 6 years. May 2023 will be the pinnacle of human achievement. 

You might not like it, but you can’t argue Elden Ring doesn’t come close to BoTW. For me it surpasses it.

 

That’s a good thing though, in that it’s hopefully pushed Nintendo even harder with this sequel.

[Stanley]

12 minutes ago, JPL said:

You might not like it, but you can’t argue Elden Ring doesn’t come close to BoTW. For me it surpasses it.

 

That’s a good thing though, in that it’s hopefully pushed Nintendo even harder with this sequel.

Superficially they are similar in that they are both open world games, but realistically I don’t really see what inspiration Nintendo for take from it to use in Zelda that they haven’t already taken from the Souls games. 

[scottcr]

36 minutes ago, JPL said:

You might not like it, but you can’t argue Elden Ring doesn’t come close to BoTW. For me it surpasses it.

 

That’s a good thing though, in that it’s hopefully pushed Nintendo even harder with this sequel.

nah

[JPL]

19 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Superficially they are similar in that they are both open world games, but realistically I don’t really see what inspiration Nintendo for take from it to use in Zelda that they haven’t already taken from the Souls games. 

I don’t mean they’ll take any gameplay inspiration from it, more that they’ll see the reception that Elden Ring got and use that as incentive to push their own game even further.

[HarryBizzle]

I'm excited for this, going to buy another Switch for it (give me a Pro, nintendo, I don't want 600p 30fps anymore, thanks) and loved the original, but I dunno about TOTK beating BOTW. I mean, nothing's going to have the same impact as that, right?

[Ste Pickford]

Has there been a new trailer, or some other info release, that's brought this thread back to life?

[ZOK]

I’m not sure I’ll even play this new one. I sank well over 300 hours into BOTW, and the idea of doing the same again is mildly terrifying.

[Stanley]

50 minutes ago, JPL said:

I don’t mean they’ll take any gameplay inspiration from it, more that they’ll see the reception that Elden Ring got and use that as incentive to push their own game even further.

The work on Tears of The Kingdom will have been pretty much complete by the time Elden Ring launched, between then and now they will be testing and making sure everything runs smoothly. 
 

I don’t mean to take anything away from Elden Ring, and in terms of inspiration it’s beyond doubt that Souls will have had an impact in the production of the first BOTW, but Elden Ring specifically for the sequel, next to nothing. 

[Flanders]

15 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

Yes, complaining about the Weapon Degradation System is like complaining that your guns should never run out of ammo in Halo. 

Hmmm, but the Weapon Degradation System is like if the guns in Halo ran out of ammo really quickly and there were dozens of different guns so you never get familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of any of them. 
 

Basically, the idea of weapons as ammo it really good, but it could be tweaked so they last a bit longer and are more memorable. I don’t remember a single weapon from BOTW except for the master sword. 

[thesnwmn]

1 hour ago, Ste Pickford said:

Has there been a new trailer, or some other info release, that's brought this thread back to life?

 

Nah. Just someone asked about pre-ordering it. So now we're back to the usual back and forth. Got to get ourselves through the week somehow.

[CrichStand]

I still think we’ll discover that Elden Ring possibly took ideas from this. Stuff was leaked and FROM slipped them into their game, just as others have done with Nintendo’s ideas in the past. I mean Elden Ring - Hidden Underworld that directly links to the Overworld. Jump points that allow access to high up areas using a special ability scattered through the world. Both those ideas are clearly in TotK but seemingly used in a far more sophisticated and in depth manner.

 

In other news.......one of Link’s main abilities will be to rewind time, Prince of Persia fashion. You heard it here first!! Sky Islands. Great idea.......until you plummet off the edge to your death or have to climb back up to where you fell from, especially with the verticality on show. How do you solve that? Rewind!

 

Also, the green spiral magic sealing Ganon, is definitely the same green spiral magic placed around the overworld. Link definitely dives upwards using these spirals and then soaks through surfaces above, emerging in a pool of rippling green water. So he seems to have a water ability. We also see him fighting by using a dragon arm that breathes fire. So seems to have a fire ability. Water on one arm, fire on the other. Makes sense, with the themes on show.
 

The games logo has one dragon above and one dragon below forming a circle. Above and below. Again, makes sense with what’s been shown. They’re feeding off each other but also destroying one another forever in an endless loop. Evil and good. Light and dark. Seems like the story will go big on duality, opposing worlds and the two sides of a single coin.

[Stanley]

I’m looking forward to seeing more of it, the game is due in just over three months so I’d imagine Feb is when marketing will begin in earnest. Feb is also a BIG month for games, a Direct for TOTK will turbo charge it. 

[moosegrinder]

Personally I'm looking forward to whatever Amiibos they announce because I need that plastic crack fix.

[CrichStand]

Don’t think I’ll look at anything else they show as I’ve got a feeling what they’ve revealed so far is just the tip of the iceberg.
 

I think the whole Sky Islands thing is only one small part of the bigger picture. None of it makes any real sense in terms of gameplay. The trailers only seem to be showing Hyrule itself right at the start of the game, and what we have seen just seems a bit of a mess atm, which could just be the sign of pure genius.
 

Down on the ground is where the real megaton moments are going to be. Imagine seeing half of Hyrule rising into the Sky and discovering what’s been lurking beneath it, at the same time as knowing that you can climb up to those parts that are drifting away. It would be utterly mindblowing and set a totally new benchmark for game worlds and their design. A world that is alive and totally changes form and shape as you play.
 

The Sky Islands traversal alone makes my head hurt thinking about it from a gameplay/balancing perspective, so fuck knows what else will crack off. Will Link end up flying by the end, soaring over Hyrule with motion controls? Will we be platforming and climbing into the heavens scaling incredible heights? Will we be deep underground exploring lost ancient catacombs with intricate puzzles? Or maybe on the flip side of Hyrule in a reflected world?I haven’t felt this enthusiastic about a game for years and years. The game has got soooooo much potential and so many available design possibilities that are currently open to it, based on what we’ve seen. If Nintendo really deliver, this could easily be the best game you’ll play for the next decade, possibly ever.

[thesnwmn]

Plus if you watch another trailer you'll fall into the massive bender...

You slowly come back to consciousness. Lifting your head off the desk you peel the sheet of paper from your cheek and glance at the scratched writing on it. "Reading Between The Tears: A ChrichStand Theory". Looking to place it on the desk you spot more paper. Pages and pages of a scrawled handwritten notes. Leafing through them you find them to be fevered thoughts on the story and mechanics of Tears of the Kingdom. It's detailed and inciteful, but also muddled and feverish. Your own epic manuscript. But you hardly remember writing it.

 

Regardless It's time to publish your work. Rllmuk will adore you. Scanned in and posted you sit back and wait for people to shower you with likes.

 

No one appreciates your hard work. Not even a comment. The thread continues as it always has...

 

"But the weapons will still break"

"Not going to touch Elden Ring is it?"

"Do takemymoney.com get it to you release day?"

"It'll be better on Steam Deck"

[JPL]

19 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

soaring over Hyrule with motion controls?

Pre-order cancelled. 

[CrichStand]

@thesnwmn 🤣😂🤣 Well you’ve commented and are clearly interested so that’s all that counts.🤣

 

Just remembered, in the trailer Link and Zelda look pretty much identical. Same hair same clothes and seem to be mirrored in how they are setup and shown on screen in places. Zelda falls into a pit, doesn’t seem to be captured by Ganon. Wasn’t there rumours of playing as Zelda. Could be a thing.