Slashdot Mirror
Zelda on the Wii To Include Sword Swinging
IGN has the news that the Wii version of Twilight Princess has been retooled to allow you to swing Link's sword. The bow and arrow has been moved to the 'B' button, alleviating one of the big complaints hands-on users had at E3. From the article: "Miyamoto felt that that shooting the arrow with the D-pad was too difficult, and the B button allows for quicker and easier shooting. It's unclear if the game will require the new control scheme or if players will be able to chose between different methods of control. Nintendo Dream closed off by asking Miyamoto to name the version of Zelda he personally prefers. The master game maker said that he'd play the Wii version, but added that both versions will be fun."
that you'll have to spin in your chair to do the higher level spin attack?
Start stocking up on the Dramamine!
I can't believe there was ever a stage where the wiimote wasn't a sword swing!!
what's the point of coming up with a unique control system, then just using it like a conventional controller?
Does Red Steel not have something pretty weak too - i.e. you swing the wiimote, but the sword on screen swings in a standard way, regardless of how you actually swung the remote?
Why are you even considering buying the Wii, then? Get the gamecube version.
I mean, did you think it was just a glorified lightgun? The wii will require interactivity!
Browsing with classic discussion, noscript, at -1 and nested
no hidden comments and I only mod UP
The wiimote being swung like a sword does sound good, but I don't know if it'll work with Zelda's feel. I'm sure they've tested it and it feels more natural than the B button, but I hope both options are there still.
The problem comes in that Zelda is not an FPS. I'm sure there's not a way to move your shield up for the block except a button. But maybe the sword swinging will work. However no matter how you swing the sword, Link will only have a couple attack animations. I hope it'll work, and if so that's great but I want a little more indepth Zelda for this type of thing. Actually a bigger problem that will come up with the system is will it allow lefties to hold the wiimote in the left hand and the nunchuck attachment in the right hand. If they allow that it'll be gravy.
What I'd really like to see is a game where you are in FPS mode but the entire game is Oblivion style, swords and shields, some bows, all controlled by the motion. that means you can hold the sword in one hand and swing it, but at the same time guard. And the best part would be the shield should basically cover your view, and hit detection on the shield should be spot on. So if a guy swings from the left, and your shield is on the right you can block it, but at the same time you can attack back, however it wouldn't be a strong attack in game, no matter how you swing your wiimote.
The Wii controller isn't a sword, there's not that much weight extended several feet from your arm. It's not going to take physical training for most people to use this. More importantly, given the motion detection and location detection described so far, a small twitch of your wrist should be enough to move the cursor across the screen.
So while you CAN pretend to really sword fight, you don't NEED to do so. Nothing to complain about here.
Nintendo Dream closed off by asking Miyamoto to name the version of Zelda he personally prefers. The master game maker said that he'd play the Wii version, but added that both versions will be fun.
What? What kind of stupid question...? What did they expect him to say?
"I think I'd prefer the Gamecube version. Playing with the Wii controller just isn't intuitive - as a matter of fact, don't bother buying one. I wasted my time helping produce it, and it's embarrassing to me. Death, come quick come quick come quick..."
People screaming "NOOOO" should remember that the Wii plays GCN games. As I recall, the only difference between the two versions of TP is the control scheme, so all you'd be missing is the control scheme you don't like.
(this is assuming that the Wii version requires the sword-swinging, and doesn't merely have it as an option, in which case none of this matters)
Sword shmord! I want to be able to play the Wiimote like an ocarina!
Never underestimate the arm/hand strength of a lonely gamer.
Swords aren't actually that bad. Most one hand and hand and a half swords made for actual use top out at about 5lbs with most of those being around the 3lb range. Two handed swords can creep up to 8-10lbs (with a few, like the kwan do - a type of pole sword, being really heavy), but the high end of the scale isn't that common.
Prolonged use can be an issue, but for bursts of less than an hour it's not much of a problem at all. Unlike what most people think, using a blade is generally as much about finess and timing as it is about force, and you tend to use your full body instead of just your arm.
Granted, I'm a little bigger than your typical geek, but I've trained people who were 105lbs or so and it didn't take them all that long to build up the necessary strength and endurance.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Has anyone ever noticed that Link is left-handed? I wonder if Nintendo is going to allow Link to hold the sword in either hand to match the players unidexterity? I'm not an experienced swordsmen by any means, but I think I would have a hard time playing a game that forced me to use my left hand for something like that since, like the majority of the population, I'm right handed. And I think it would be pretty awkward swinging my right arm and watching Link mirror my motion with his left.
Ah, the convoluted mantras of a nintendo fanboy...
The wii is the revolution, comrade! Backwards compatability to the NES! Everyone is welcome! Use either controller! It's open to all users! Family friendly games as well as more mature content! Online! The entire userbase will be satisfied... but use the fucking wiimote or I'll gut you like a fish!!!
The Wii controller is never used as a 1:1 motion replication like you see in the advertising trailers. The amount of motion you need to put in is very small; you can leave your hands by your sides or in your lap or wherever. Of course, you're still welcome to flail around if that's what you really want to do.
How often do you actually swing the sword in the Zelda games? You're not constantly swinging the thing, assuming you're any good. You're going to be doing a few flicks every once in a while.
Zelda is more about solving puzzles than beating up enemies. I somehow doubt that you'll find flicking the Wiimote every couple of minutes to be a big deal.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I dunno, man, I just started a brand new game of WW last night, and went through the whole sword-fighting tutorial. I'm starting to see why Nintendo would want to move away from that, the whole button combos thing is starting to feel almost as confusing as a Metal Gear Solid control setup. Now thankfully WW is a fairly easy game, at least on the action end of things, so you're really not required to memorize all the different sword slashes, but if you really wanted to play with them while fighting enemies, it's a real pain in the ass. I mean, even simple things like whether to do a simple sword slash, a jab, an overhead slash, or a jumping slash gets hard to remember, and usually the button scheme has little to do with the actual movement, so you pretty much have to memorize it, which means it'll take a half a second or so to recall how to do it, and in the middle of a nice sword battle, you don't have time for that. I think swordplay with the Wiimote should be much more tactile, the gestures will be much more representative of the actual sword motions than simply hitting a combination of buttons, so sword dueling should be much more fun and involved this time around.
Fatigue shouldn't be a problem. Zelda games tend to only have intense sword battles in short spurts, most of the series is about problem solving, anyway. I could imagine fatigue being an issue in, say, a Wii-based Ninja Giaden, but even then, the controller is very lightweight, and as other people have pointed out, even real-life sword technique requires very little wrist motion. A few degrees of wrist motion translates to a few feet at the other end of the sword. I did about a semester of fencing... I was pretty bad at it, but it's really not a very tiring sport, in the least. The most tiring thing about it is probably the weight of the protective gear.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
I was watching Hellboy with my girlfriend, and we had both been talking about how some movies couldn't be made before CGI.
But during the movie, Hellboy grabs a stone sword from a statue and starts cutting through the CGI tentacle god. I noticed - because I've used cutlasses, epees, and other swords - that he literally cut through it as if it weren't there (which it wasn't, he swung the sword before the CGI monster was added).
My technical question is: exactly how are they going to deal with sword resistance - when I chop through a tentacle, or for example let's just use a chicken here, or an octopus, there is resistance which:
a. slows my sword, even when I'm in a very fast spin attack; and
b. puts pressure on my wrist, arm, and shoulder due to that.
Now, are we going to have to live in a world of "massless" monsters, and then they'll have to change iron golems into marshmallow golems?
Or will the Wii controller have some feedback loops, like heavy vibration and sounds and the image on the screen slows to represent what really would happen?
Just wondering.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Something tells me you already have one oversized arm....
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
They originally wanted all swinging to be done through the Wiimote, but then found that it tires you too quickly, so they just constrained it to "special" sorts of attacks, or something like that.
Well, real swords do that. They're heavy. Your wrist and your arm and your shoulder get tired.
Personally, I rather look forward to more realistic swordplay. I've had it with teeny young girls swinging giant two-handed swords in glowing arcs as they attack, or throwing halberds (those things are heavy) as if they were toothpicks.
I would hope you can choose to have "realistic effects" if you want, quite frankly. Sure, turn them off if you can't handle it, but leave them for the purists like me who just don't want all the scars you get from that kind of thing.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The real difficult part is feedback. You swing a sword from right to left. Halfway through the swing, on screen, your opponent puts out his sword and blocks the attack. Your hand keeps going. Now your hand is all the way on the left, but on the screen, your sword is in the middle of the screen, confusing the heck out of the player.
Regardless, the reason the Wii version of Zelda didn't have real-time sword tracking is because it was an up-port of the GameCube version. Nintendo simply mapped all the GameCube buttons onto the Wii-mote, and then let you use the pointer for aiming arrows (which worked spectacularly well when I tried it at E3, I was pulling off headshots within ten seconds of pulling out the bow and arrow).