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More Details on Zelda Emerge
Cube.IGN has more details on the upcoming Legend of Zelda title, gleaned from Spanish gaming publication Hobby Consolas. From the article: "From screens printed in the magazine, the new outfit looks to blend peasant clothes of different cultures to achieve an altogether unique style. These same screens show the Triforce emblazoned on Link's left hand. Cool indeed. Link himself looks different from any other Zelda title. Eiji Aonuma wanted Link to sport a manga-inspired look, partly because the Link shown in the Space World 2000 looked like a lifeless puppet." Commentary on the single-mindedness of the fanboi rumormill available on Press the Buttons.
Let's just hope the game meets them. I want WW's climactic ending, but with less fetch-quests (they can be added as side-quests, whatever. I just don't want to search for triforce pieces again), and more dugeons. Eiji Aonuma looks like the kind of guy with a new vision that could accomplish this quite well.
Jumping in Ocarina of Time wasn't totally automatic. You could use Z-targeting to backflip, jump to either side, and jump attack forward. That was enough to get to a few places you shouldn't have. For instance, you can get onto the roof in Kakariko and talk to the guy who gives you a piece of heart without a hookshot -- or the Master Sword, for that matter -- by climbing the watchtower at night (when no one's there) and side-jumping to the left.
I take it from your Z-targeting comment that you don't know much about Wind Waker. Aside from changing to "L-targeting," that game fixed what was most annoying about auto-jumping from ledges by making it harder to do on accident. (Actually, they switched to L-targeting with the rereleases of OoT and Majora's Mask, but that's beside the point).
Honestly, it wouldn't make much sense for Link to jump much. He really shouldn't be able to jump very high at all with all the equipment he lugs around (speaking of which, does it amuse anyone else that the iron boots weigh less in his pack than they do on his feet?). Let's face it, a button that just makes him hop a few inches off the ground wouldn't be any use. If they did make him jump higher, then we'd have a Zelda game full of Mario-style jumping puzzles. Nuts to that.
Jade Empire being better than Wind Waker maybe, but Kingdom Hearts is miles behind even Zelda 2. The real-time battle system of both Jade Empire and Kingdom Hearts still do not compare to any Zelda. All mentioned games are still not as majestic as Ocarina of Time though.
By the way, never compare anything Square Enix to anything Nintendo. Square Enix is the equivalent to Dell in the video game world. They've got their blindly loyal fanboys, but everyone else knows they make crap (even though their old stuff use to be good).