Next Zelda Title Delayed Again

John Callaham writes "Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime has officially confirmed that the long awaited Gamecube title Zelda: Twilight Princess will be released this fall." From the article: "File-Amie also said that the game would be a Gamecube title and that there were still no plans to turn it into a game for Nintendo's next-gen Revolution console." He also took the opportunity to mention that the original DS will be phased out in late autumn, in favour of the DS Lite.

Comments

It will likely work for both

[solidtransient]

It will be a Gamecube game, but from what I hear they want to release it when the Revolution ships because of the backwards compatibility that the Revolution should have. I mean why not? right? New Zelda, might as well get that cool new system to play it on. I'd do it.

Re:It will likely work for both

[aichpvee]

Even if they don't add Revolution-specific features it's a smart move on Nintendo's part as a lot of people are going to buy Revolution who don't own GameCube. Given that it is one of the "most anticipated games ever" it's a no brainer to release it when there are more people who are able to play it without buying a system that they'll never play another game on.

Though personally I wouldn't be getting too excited about it unless they've made some serious changes since last time they showed it off. So far it looks like more of the same for the ever more tired 3D Zelda formula. I can't wait till the first Revolution Zelda since Miyamoto has promised that Twilight Princess will be the last Zelda in this mold.

I don't really mind...

[oahazmatt]

...During a time when consoles and games are both rushed out the door before they're ready, Nintendo is taking its time with their products. Sure it may aggravate some people, but only the hardcorest of the hardcore gamers.

Re:I don't really mind...

[cgenman]

The vast, vast ocean was to mask loading times.

Which is a fundamental problem, when it comes right down to it. If you load between islands, that means that each island needs to be far apart that you have a full loading time between them. You also need to have enough time that if the player turns back around, they don't see empty space but rather the island they were just going to. So you need twice a single island load's worth of time between islands. And remember that the island needs to be loaded by the time the player can get a reasonably good look at it, so that's another 1x there...

Now tripling your island's load times is bad enough, but the game frequently has you traveling halfway across the map to get to somewhere... As such your current island unloads, the next one loads, that one unloads, the one after that loads, etc, etc. For a reasonable jaunt around the map you may be hit with 21x the basic load time.

And so you have to give the player something to do during all of that time. Unfortunately, this means more random island encounters you must find, more wind to change the direction of, more underwater treasures to dredge up... More junk to do that slows down the travel further.

I probably would have bit the bullet, shrunk the ocean 80% or so, and added a load pause when the player was within a few feet of the shore. It would have broken immersion, but it would have been a heck of a lot less tedious.

In his immortal words...

[wilgibson]

"A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever." -Shigeru Miyamoto

Re:Short timeline

[tukkayoot]

I think the official explanation is they realized as the game was nearing completion that it played too much like "The Ocarina of Time 2", so they went back to work on it to include some new gameplay to make the experience feel more fresh and original.

Re:Sigh.

[steveo777]

Honestly, this is nothing compared to the wait of Ocarina of Time. That game was pushed back again and again for over a year. What we got ended up being one of the best gaming experiences of all time. I'm not one to get too angry with Nintendo about these kind of gripes as long as they deliver a solid product... and Nintendo almost always does (Mario Party 26, I'm looking at you here).

Honestly, if they're delaying the game, then it's probably 10% P.R., 90% Game/Technical. Zelda has always (yup, even Wind Waker) been worth the wait.

So, Chin-up RyoShin! Cloudy skies are going to clear up, put on a happy face!
Turn that frown, up-side-down!

Misleading Headline - "Again?"

[HarvardFrankenstein]

The headline is misleading, saying that the game has been delayed "again". Saying it was delayed again implies that they had delayed it, set a new date, and then delayed it one more time. They never set a date after the first delay. A better headline would have been "Delayed Zelda Arrives in Fall".

Re:Two Zelda Titles in 2006?

[tukkayoot]

I remember hearing that a Zelda title might be a launch title for Revolution. I assume this would be different than Twilight Princess? Anyone have any information on this?

This seems very unlikely to me. Two AAA Zelda games being released within 1 year of each other? It could happen, especially if Zelda Revolution is radically different from Twilight Princess and is being worked on by completely seperate development teams, but I would think that the Twilight Princess delay would at least somewhat push back the release of the next Zelda beyond the release of the Revolution, unless the Revolution is delayed into 2007 (I don't even want to think about that happening).

Twilight Princess will likely sate our Zelda craving for a while, so releasing a new Zelda game soon after almost seems like a not-good idea. I may still be striving to unlock everything and do all the miniquests when the Revolution comes out, so I won't be starved for a Zelda game the same way I'm anticipating the next real Mario platforming game (which the GameCube rather lacked -- I thought Sunshine was a let down), a Super Smash Brothers Melee, a Mario Party (the type of game that is just perfect for the Revolution) and a Metroid, which seems like a franchise that is evolving in such a way that it also is an ideal Revolution title. Give me all or most of these games at our near launch, and I'll be perfectly content to wait a year for a new, awesome Zelda game.

Obligatory Zelda quote

[Spy der Mann]

Crushed my little Nintendo-fanboy heart. How could they do this?

Well excuuuuuse me princess! ^_^

Re:Damn them!

[LordKronos]

Please. Wind Waker was an awesome game. They did an incredible job with the graphics, and an even better job with the game engine and game play. However, a bunch of thick skulled people apparently were feeling a little insecure about their masculinity, and thought they couldn't play something with cartoon graphics (even though the fact that you are portraying a kid in the game fits well with the kid-cartoon style graphics) and some fun/creative puzzle solving (yes...not EVERY "puzzle" requires chopping someone's head off or doing a hooker) made them feely a little too much like girly men.

As a result, Nintendo had to scrap a brand new rendering engine which had just been written from the ground up for Wind Waker. The process of rewriting it from scratch AGAIN probably accounts for a significant portion of the delay of this title.

But OOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!!!! This ones going to have realistic look graphics. What a totally new concept. Not like we've ever seen that before. Heck, the coders could take a dump in the box and everyone would love it as long the poo was photorealistic.

Re:Damn them!

[rohlfinator]

"However, a bunch of thick skulled people apparently were feeling a little insecure about their masculinity, and thought they couldn't play something with cartoon graphics..."

Right. Everyone who finds any fault with Wind Waker is insecure about their masculinity. My favorite game of the generation is frickin' Pikmin, and I was underwhelmed with Wind Waker after a bit. The graphics were not its biggest problem.

"...and some fun/creative puzzle solving (yes...not EVERY "puzzle" requires chopping someone's head off or doing a hooker) made them feely a little too much like girly men."

Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask had fun/creative puzzle solving. Wind Waker's puzzles were mostly rehashes of the puzzles from those two games, with a few exceptions. Nothing in WW even compares to the Water Temples in either of the N64 Zeldas, or the Forest Temple from OoT. Dungeons in WW felt like a series of independent rooms, rather than single coherent structures. Wind Waker also had too few dungeons, and the (arguably) most boring one was repeated twice. While Majora's Mask had only four dungeons, even the first one was quite challenging. The trading sequence was much more interesting in OoT, and the NPC interactions were better in MM, compared to WW's "sail all over the planet to talk to the same three guys over and over". Finally, WW's combat was painfully simple (I didn't die once on my first playthrough).

As a disclaimer: I don't hate Wind Waker. I highly enjoyed the game, and it's a lot better than most third-person adventures. But there were noticeable gameplay flaws with the game, and it was a bit of a letdown after the excellence of OoT and MM. To suggest that anyone who finds fault with it is a "graphics whore" is just plain shortsighted.