End of an Era For Zelda
Twilight Princess will represent the end of an era for Zelda games, according to Shigeru Miyamoto.From the Eurogamer article: "'This will be, without a doubt, the last Zelda game as you know it in its present form,' Miyamoto is quoted as saying. He declined to reveal any more details as to how the series will be reborn, but did go on to assure fans that Twilight Princess will be absolutely aces: 'Our goal was to make the best Zelda game ever. The most rich, satisfying and [melancholic]. I worked on it personally, moreso than Wind Waker. I haven't invested as much into any game as I have this one,' Miyamoto said."
GNAA outreach program hailed as an overwhelming success.
Impi - GNAA PR Department, South Africa.
In a bold move to bridge cultural divides and to promote racial and sexual tolerance, GNAA president timecop, NAACP president Kweisi Mfumeq and the distributors and broadcasters of popular Naruto anime series embarked on an ambitious project to achieve these noble objectives.
The vehicle selected was the anime series Naruto. In collusion with the distributors on this series, it was agreed to not broadcast episode 146 for the week of August 1st to August 7th, 2005.
timecop proposed and executed the plan to provide an alternative viewing experience, which was aimed at reaching out to the targeted population, and bringing about the achievement of the goals of this project.
Spokesman for Nielsen Media Research Company, Armands Leimanis, estimated that 77439 people downloaded the torrent, which actually was the movie Gay Niggers from Outer Space masterfully disguised as Naruto 146. "Never in the history of mass media marketing has something been so successfully marketed on such a large scale in such a short period of time. timecop has succeeded in accomplishing what marketing gurus around the globe have been trying to do for decades. This is truly genius in motion."
timecop was unavailable for comment as he was on an expedition to photograph spiders.
Dattebayo, in a fit of rage at being excluded from this glorious endeavor, flipped out and made the channel #db on rizon.net +i (invite only) and +k (key). This led to the mass suicide of an estimated 16% of the Naruto viewing population. This is believed to be the single most damaging factor in limiting the distribution of GNFOS to the magical 100,000 leeches. NCAAP president Kweisi Mfumeq condemned Dattebayo's actions and compared them to the KKK and gay bashing organizations.
About Dattebayo and #db on Rizon:
#db is a neo-fascist translating group who foists its misguided translations of Naruto on the unsuspecting and naïve fans of this anime series, in an attempt to promote their own nefarious agendas.
About Gayniggers from Outer Space:
Overview
Sponsored by Carlsberg Pilsner
Produced by GayJack Movies
Distributed by WorldWide GayMovies
Dino De Laurentus & Raymond Hansen Present
A Lindberg & Kristensen Production
"The Universe. Its mighty power. Its evolutionary force, not to be stopped by anyone. In its beauty, this, this is a happy place to stay, filled with harmony and cosmic joy. A free place, where men can express themselves, and be as when they were born. All of this is, because someone cares. Because someone looks after us. When we sleep, when we play. When we act natural. This is a movie about those who risk life, and partners, to guarantee living in a wonderful and free universe. This is a movie about the Gayniggers From Outer Space. The Gayniggers come from the planet Anus, in the 8th Sun System, far far away from here. They are much, much more intelligent than any other creature in the Universe. The most fascinating thing about them is that they, with the help of their super intelligence, and their highly developed telepathic system, Braintapping, will be able to create a world, a society, a perfect world to live in without the presence of women. A MALE ONLY WORLD."
Starring
Coco P. Dalbert as ArmInAss
Sammy Saloman as Capt. B. Dick
Gerald F. Hail as D. Ildo
Gbartokai Dakinah as Sgt. Shaved Balls
Konrad Fields as Mr. Schwul
Johnny Conny & Tony Thomas as The Gay Ambassador
About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being G
Zelda Baseball.
Zelda Konga.
Zelda Golf.
Zelda Party!
Zelda Soccer.
Zelda Tennis.
Zelda Kart.
Dr. Zelda.
. . .
No!!! I always had an odd affinity for Luigi. He just as skilled as Mario, but always gets shunted to the side. Like in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, it's kind of a joke that no one cares about Luigi. I'm gonna miss is little green overalls...
Miyamoto also revealed that Mario is getting a brand new sidekick, but kept firmly schtum on the details.
Now that Link is collecting welfare checks..
Zelda and Link will die.
It's the beginning of the Legend of Ganon.
Maybe now he can get some more time in practicing his musical instruments for Tetris end-scenes!!
Rather than just making a crap spinoff of such a great series, they should retire it with dignity.
In other news, DC Comics has decided to kill Superman. In a grand move by DC, they will a world faced with real loss and grief as their greatest hero falls.
"This isn't a ploy." He will be dead and buried, never to return. Superman has been with DC comics for decades, and his death will be a major turning point.
**Skip a month or 2 later**
Superman is back! Which one is he? Cyborg, young clone, black guy in a power suit, or energy-throwing guy with big glasses?
**Skip another month or 2 later **
FACE! The real superman has revealed himself. He never died, but was in stasis! Now he's fighting against the Cyborg to save the Earth.
I don't doubt that in a few years time we'll see another real Zelda game.
Just check out this quote from the BBC review of Nintendogs, had me cracking me up:
"And when it comes to walkies, you must bag whatever falls from Fido's backside, making this quite possibly the first game to have players packaging faeces."
At the end of this game, they're going to reveal that Zelda's really just a disguised hedgehog. Then he'll go on to battle Sonic in later games, at least until they both band together to defeat Master Chief and Crash Bandicoot in a cart race.
Comment of the year
You guys aren't giving him enough credit. This is the man responsible for Mario, DK, and Zelda. Considering the fact that Nintendo already has those two mascots, why would he throw this last one away.
I'm sure he's aware of the fact that hardcore gamers don't like their most famous characters being abused, but he also is experienced enough to balance that with business needs.
He already has his business lapdogs, he doesn't need a third. This is will surely be a creative change.
Help a student gain some exp. http://www.halovariants.com/touchup/index.php
However, I don't think we'd outright see any games like that ever, even if there is a Mario Kart and Mario Golf. Instead I think there are a few different angles that Nintendo might be thinking of taking.
First up is the traditional RPG. Nintendo really hasn't had many of these on their console in the last few generations. The GameCube was an improvement over the N64, but considering the massive amounts of RPGs on the SNES and other current generation consoles like the PS2, Nintendo has fallen quite short of the mark in providing a plethora of worthwhile RPGs.
The Legend of Zelda universe would translate pretty well into an RPG. Turn based battles could be considered a real drag after the live action we're used to, but there are always the real time battles as found in the Star Ocean series and Tales of Symphonia. If anyone could make those feel perfect, I think it is Nintendo.
Another possibility is that the series really isn't undergoing a radical gameplay change or redesign but is instead changing other things around. The themes and characters may become more mature and feature voice acting that the other games in the series have lacked. I'm sure there are a lot of gamers out there who would appreciate a more mature based Legend of Zelda game with all the elements that other modern games have in them.
This could be conceived as radical and revolutionary because it's a complete departure from the "kiddy" style that Nintendo is often tagged with. Maybe it's just me but I don't think the main Zelda demographic is young children anymore. I think the game mechanics make it a little too complicated for anyone that young. The top down games of the past were pretty easy, but the 3D worlds of today require slightly more mastery.
Then again this could be a lot of talk to get the community stirred up about Nintendo and Zelda. Drop a line that a game a lot of people have grown up with and loved and the masses will go ballistic. This does seem a lot like a Nintendo PR grab. They tend to come out and talk about how they're going to revolutionize something or how radically different something is going to be instead of tossing out numbers on their console or how it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
There're a lot of other possibilities, but my money is that the games will take on a much more mature (or at least a lot less childish) nature, transition into more of an RPG, or that this is just a PR media attention grab from Nintendo while they work out the details of what they're going to do later.
Zelda Calibur 2
Super Smash Zelda Brothers
.
For the record, I have no problem with re-using a character in a different genre. I don't give a fuck about Mario as a person, I play games for the gameplay.
He was really proud and happy about Wind Waker, and you people just couldn't take the style. "Oh, it's too kiddy". "Oh, Celda?". And Miyamoto says "FINE, I will make a realistic zelda, I will make the best Realistic Zelda ever, it will be an epic masterpiece of monumental stature and it will rock, and then I'M NEVER MAKING ANOTHER ONE YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARDS". Except all that's in Japanese, but you get the idea.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Good. 3D offered nothing to Zelda. I hope this means that they are going to rethink the "FPS" model for Zelda.
I just got through playing the 2D "Minnish Cap" Zelda game for my GBA. That is a fun game. And it's more pleasant to look at than any 3D incarnation of Zelda.
I'm wondering if the big change he is referring to is an MMORPG version of Zelda. Let me be the first to say KICKASS, and I will probably live in there if they make it.
Somone already did something like this. Back around 1998, some guy made a multiplayer online version of Legend of Zelda-a Link to the Past by reusing all the SNES game sprites and tiles. It was pretty cool. After a while, Nintendo caught on and sent them a cease-and-desist, and they changed the name to GRAAL, and slowly changed all the graphics. I guess that people still play Graal to this day. It was a good idea. I hope Nintendo does this.
You guys are pathetic. I bet most of you read the title and assumed you knew what the article meant. He means Zelda is changing in the same way it changed between A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, and Mario is changing in same way it did between Super Mario World and Super Mario 64. As new features become available, games can take advantage of new gameplay possibilites not available before. The best example of this was the transition between 2D and 3D. Miyamoto is suggesting the Revolution is opening new doors to expand both the Mario and Zelda series. You guys should actually think about what you're saying.
All games need to be reimagined from time to time to prevent them from becoming stale and boring; series like Tomb Radier, Doom/Quake, Mortal Kombat, Grand Theft Auto, and so forth become less enjoyable to continue to play because the same quality (and same game dynamics) become less enjoyable to play with each successive game.
Now, the Zelda and Mario games have avoided this problem in the past by having 'themes' that each game is based off of that warp the same basic gameplay; OoT, Majora's Mask and Wind Waker have all played rather differently while still maintaining the same basic gameplay dynamic; Super Mario Sunshine played much differently than Super Mario 64 while still being true to the series. Eventually some of the core elements would have to be adjusted in order to keep the new games interesting.
Personally I have no clue as to what the eventual change will be. With what we know about the Revolution (which isn't much) one could assume that the Revolutions controler may offer some feature which could have a dramatic effect on the gameplay; or quite possibly Nintendo could be planning to take advantage of online gameplay. Any controller that Nintendo would produce would probably be based on what it would do to improve gameplay for Zelda and Mario primarily so this isn't too far of a stretch. I do know that Nintendo has had several small teams experimenting with online gameplay and one could assume that they would have played around with their most successful franchises first; I wouldn't anticipate either a MMO game nor a Quake-Syle Deathmatch game but something far simpler.
At the end of this game, they're going to reveal that Zelda's really just a disguised hedgehog. Then he'll go on to battle Sonic in later games, at least until they both band together to defeat Master Chief and Crash Bandicoot in a cart race.
Link.
If there was ever a man who earned the right to take whatever new directions he sees fit, it's Miyamoto. To put it mildly, the man knows what he's doing.
Anything you might ever need to say about anything has already been said better by Penny Arcade.
I like how my joke got marked as "off-topic." If you didn't think it was funny, try maybe "over-rated."
Comment of the year
Every Zelda game after the SNES version has not been worth picking up off of a discount game rack. It's sad to see such a great game slaughtered, This should have been announced 2 console generations ago.
I'm going to present a few speculative ideas as to where the series could go after Twilight Princess, but before that, here are the main Zelda games to date, sorted by type and numbered according to release order:
The Legend of Zelda (#1)
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (#2)
A Link to the Past (#3)
Link's Awakening (#4)
Oracle of Ages (#6A)
Oracle of Seasons (#6B)
Ocarina of Time (#5)
Majora's Mask (#7)
Wind Waker (#8)
Twilight Princess (forthcoming)
I don't count Four Swords Adventures in here (which would be #9) as it was more of a multiplayer action game with levels with a Zelda theme than a "real" Zelda.
Notice, the later eight games don't actually have that much in common with the first two. The three primary developments in the series were, undoubtably, the original NES Zelda, Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time.
But it's kind of amazing, really, how much the series changed between the original NES game (#1) and LttP (#3). In contrast, the differences between LttP and Ocarina had less to do with gameplay and more to do with control and perspective. Those eight games are what Zelda has come to mean to players: a primary exploration gimmick, sequential dungeons with bosses that usually require the dungeon item to beat and caught up a Heart Container and a McGuffin when defeated, the hunt for hidden Pieces of Heart and minor McGuffins, get-this-to-go-there Metroid-style game progression, and a fairly leisurely game world when it comes to monsters and difficulty.
It's easy to forget, however, that much was changed between The Legend of Zelda to Link to the Past, things that cannot be explained away just by moving to the SNES, or the intervening (and even more different) Zelda II.
The biggest of these are:
1. The game was actually hard. The first Zelda is a good workout, and it gets much tougher (some may say too hard) in the Second Quest. Pieces of Heart are almost meaningless in later Zeldas; I eventually completed all of Ocarina of Time quite easily with only the three hearts I began with, and only had trouble during the fight with Ganon (and Nayru's Love took the edge entirely off of that). But in the original Zelda, the first thing you do is get *all* the Hearts you can easily get before even stepping foot into Level One.
A new Zelda could mark a return to the difficulty the series began with, and was also seen in Zelda II and Link's Awakening. (One problem with that, however, is that the current head of the Zelda series has said he doesn't like the original game's difficulty.)
2. The original Zelda had meaningful choices, something not seen a lot of in adventure games these days. Not that anyone really chose the Red Potion over the Heart Container, of course, or ever picked to lose a HC instead of 50 rupees if they could afford it in one of the Second Quest's infamous Money-Or-Life rooms. But the point is, that adventure games with meaningful failure states are quite rare.
My own personal favorite idea for how this could be made done (something I spent a fair bit of time playing around in Zelda Classic trying to figure out) is a system where each dungeon has *two*, mutually-exclusive, items, which allow the player to reach different areas in each game depending on the choices he's made.
3. As said before, starting with Link to the Past, the design began to resemble Metroid in progression. You get an item (usually in Level One) that lets you reach Level Two, the item in Level Two lets you reach Level Three, and so on. There are places where this skips, but most of the items work like this.
In the original game, however, you could explore, if I count right, 126 of the game's 128 overworld screens before going into even the first dungeon. And there's something to be said for this degree of player freedom, even if it's unfashionable in the game industry these days. The thing I loved best about the original game, that's never been duplicated in any of the later installments in the
Boy, I steered clear of Wind Waker because of all the bad things I heard about it. However, I hit a bit of a slow period and a friend of mine loaned it to me. I really regret my decision to pass it up. It's seriously one of the best games I've ever played.
In fact, I think if it hadn't been a Zelda game, the industry would be raving about its innovative gameplay and terrific graphics. Unfortunately it seems like the community really wanted OoT on steroids. Well, that's what it's getting with Twilight Princess. I'm sorry to read that Miyamoto wasn't happy with WW, but I certainly got a lot of fun out of it.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
It's off-topic because you don't even fucking now the game you are "joking" about. Why the hell are you even in the games section, you seem to also think Crash Bandicoot is Sony's mascot.
lactose lol
Early in the series, each game was hugely different from the predecessor. But after Ocarina of Time, each console game has been adhering to the same basic mechanics, and I'm assuming that Twilight Princess will do the same. That would make 4 games following the same model. While that is the norm for most game sequels, the Zelda series used to experience a huge Doctor-Who-like regeneration with every game.
I doubt that the new era that Miyamoto is talking about has anything to do with becoming darker or becoming an RPG, but that it means the end of the scheme that the series has followed since OoT. Transitioning to 3D was an expected step at that time, but I don't know what the next step could be. I'm guessing that it will be dependent on the features of the mysterious Revolution controller.
I'm really looking forward to Twilight Princess, and I love the current era of Zelda, but I'm also hoping that Miyamoto's comments mean a return to Zelda's tradition of constantly changing yet being consistently awesome.
Ever since Link to the Past I've wanted Ganon to die and stay dead. What was this stupidity of going even further back in time or forward and Ganon always gets resurrected? It's not like he was an especially charismatic villan. I want him to die so my victory will matter more.
As an old zelda fan, this is interesting. Is this "the last in this genre" like what Eidos said about Tomb Raider before Angel of darkness? Or maybe what Nintendo could have said about Super Metroid before making the Cube version?
If the next game will be the beginning of a new Zelda era, than wouldn't it make sense for it to be because of the new control mechanism that will be part of Revolution?
Think about it, of the non-handheld Zelda games, the last transition was from 2D to 3D and was marked with the series moving to the N64. This wasn't done out of malice, but it did represent a new era for the Zelda series; arguably one that was very beneficial.
The core of the franchise will probably be unchanged; Link will still battle Gannon over golden triangles while Zelda looks on from her cage, but the gameplay will change significantly.
I'm personally hoping that they keep the "sandbox" style intact but make it a bit less linear.
Is anyone else amused at how seriously some people seem to be taking this? Hell, I've spent weeks on end playing Zelda games, but I don't get all offended when someone cracks a joke about Link and Zelda doing it "cuckoo style".
God, I hope not. Friends don't let friends succumb to 16 hour gaming sessions without food or water ... or showers for that matter.
the death of Tingle.
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
Enter a young boy by the name of Greg Gannondorf.
You might be GANNON-BANNED (first warning).
It's the beginning of the Legend of Ganon.
Almost. Another source claims that Zelda and Link will become dancers along with Mario in Super Step Bros., the sequel to DDR Mario Mix. This game will continue the Legend of Max.
"Definitely"