Category: Twilight Princess

About Twilight Princess

Subscribe Feeds

Move Over Nostradamus

Posted on by

Most people would believe that the experts on seeing into the future would be the fortune tellers in A Link to the Past or Ulrira from Link’s Awakening. However, players of the game who actually believe this malarkey are quite incorrect. It’s not that the fortune tellers and Ulrira don’t see in the future nor that they don’t do a particularly good job; no, they’re just what the doctor ordered when the warrior doesn’t know what to do next, and their advice about the future is worth its weight in rupees. The problem is, however, that they’re simply just not the best at it.

The true masters of the future and beyond are none other than the Bombers Gang. (Who’d you expect? Tingle?) The notebook that each of the Bombers carry is the proof in the pudding. Without their illustrious notebook, how else would Link have figured out just how to reunite Anju and Kafei? Just meeting someone told you whether or not that person needed help, even if they didn’t have the pride to say so, as well as precisely when he or she would need help. Even better, the Bomber’s knew about the upcoming destruction of Hyrule; their notebook had the next three days labelled “1st,” “2nd,” and “Final,” which tells us players that the Bombers Gang is a special cult for mediums and seers into the future. “There must have been some magic in that old notebook they found / for when they placed it in their hands, all the words just danced around.” (Sorry, I began writing this article well before Christmas, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to parody a carol!  🙂 )

We all know that 2006 is going to be an exciting year for the gaming community. The XBOX 360 is already out, and we should be seeing Sony come out with the PS3 as well as Nintendo with the Revolution sometime this year. This year we’ll see the first anniversary of the new fight between the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. And there’s also the promise of Twilight Princess coming out, so us as Zelda fans should be really pleased.

So I couldn’t help myself. I loaded up Majora’s Mask again. I had to see what the Bombers had to say about 2006. Unfortunately, all their book said was stuff about Anju, the Rosa Sisters, and *shudder* ???. I went to go yell at the Bombers for the obvious oversight in their notebook, but all they wanted to do was use a peashooter to pop a balloon and play hide and seek. So maybe the Bombers aren’t that great. Who needs those jerks anyways? 🙂

So I made my own OMG SUPAR 1337 NOTBUK!!!!1111sixty and put down a list of predictions for the future.

I’m sure many of you will disagree with many of the things I’m going to go out on a limb with, and I realize that this post is very much speculation. Just take into account that I’m not as good as the Bombers are!

PS3

Yes, I know I’m talking about a non-Nintendo thing, but let’s face it; no matter how far removed Nintendo is from the competition, Sony and Microsoft affects what will happen with Nintendo. So…

  • In March, the PS3 should come out in Japan, achieving their expected launch date for spring 2006 (even though March is still mostly winter, but I won’t even get into that one).
  • Sometime in Q3, UMD sales will begin to fall. Yes, I know that so far 8.2 million UMDs have been bought since the PSP came out; when you compare that number with the 15 million DVDs the movie The Incredibles sold just in the first half of this year, not to mention the rest of the movies on that list in addition to that, I honestly do not think that UMD can continue being sold separately from DVDs, especially at the ridiculous price they’re being sold at not to mention the gradual reduction of cost of both DVD players and portable DVD players. (I got one for Christmas this year; it only cost $60 after rebate.) However, if Sony begins selling UMDs along with DVDs, even if it costs $5 more, then UMD will be able to do well.
  • Sometime in Q4, my guess is November, the PS3 will finally be released State-side. Unknown when it will hit Europe, but if they’re having a three-quarter difference in releasing it in Japan and the US… sorry, Europe. Looks like 2007 for you. As far as a price point, it would be smart for Sony to hit US$350, but I don’t think they can considering how much new hardware they’re floating; they would easily lose money on the console. (However, it’s been done before.) Look for it to be $400 at the very least, more likely $450. $500 is also a possibility, but I wouldn’t expect it to be more than that.

XBox 360

  • Q1 will see the 360 getting back on its feet after initial problems with manufacturing, distribution, and quality control. The 360 will be a hot item regardless of shortages and overheating problems, so don’t get your hopes up for Billy-boy going down just yet. Once version 1.1 comes out, what should have been the initial adoption wave in November and December will take place a few weeks afterwards. Sales will probably be down late in Q1 as the price will remain high after the “first wave” and well into the year.
  • Beginning in April, begin looking for signs of a second wave of gamers. Since the US$299 and $399 prices are pretty high, it’ll take a bit of time before the not-so-hardcore gamers adopt it.
  • If the end of Q2 is good for Microsoft, then Sony should be concerned; if the 360 isn’t adopted well, Sony will have a good future. Pretty much, this is the Go/No-Go gate for Microsoft and Sony. I believe that this generation will work a lot like the PS2/XBOX generation; one will do extremely well, while the other will only do moderately well.
  • Look for Microsoft to drop the price of the XBOX 360 by $20-50 when the PS3 comes out late in the year.

Revolution

  • Expect Nintendo to publish small tidbits of information in February or March. They need to keep the hype for Revolution high through Q1 since 360 is already in the marketplace. In fact, I would expect a better grasp of the release date and/or the final name to be revealed in this timeframe.
  • This one we know; in May, Nintendo is doing something exciting at E3, and they’re not telling us what. They’re pitching this well in advance, so who knows what’s up with it. We know that they’ll be promoting some super-secret feature about the Revolution. What that is, who knows?
  • Personally, I’m figuring that Nintendo might pull a fast one and go for a worldwide release of the Revolution come Q3. I would expect September, possibly October. They’ll already be behind Sony in Japan, but Nintendo is second there already, so that isn’t much of a threat; however, doing this would 1-up the PS3 here. If Nintendo did that and 360 does well, Sony could be in major trouble, especially if Revolution’s price point is low, especially considering this non-scientific poll. The lowest it could possibly be is US$100, but I don’t believe it will go for that. I predict $150 with a maximum of $200.

Nintendo DS

I’m not expecting anything major to happen to happen in DS-land, but I reckon we’ll get a couple of things going:

  • Come late Q1 or early Q2, I think you should expect to see a new color DS come out. So far, we’ve got silver and blue along with aqua and red being part of package deals. I’d jump out and guess that we’ll see a forest green one, but considering the colors they choose tend to be colors I don’t want, maybe we’ll see orange or yellow!
  • I think by the end of Q4, the DS will experience an advent in gaming. I think you’ll start getting a good number of heavy-hitting RPGs for the DS, and I’d also look for a lot of online Wi-fi games to come out as well. I think DS will enjoy a great Christmas season.

The Legend of Zelda

  • We’re still in limbo on a date, it seems. I expect this to be banished early this year. Expect by the end of February to hear a final release date (or at least a target month) for Twilight Princess.
  • When do I think it’s going to come out? April or May. Reggie is saying April, but I think there’s a chance that they’ll hit after E3 since they can generate a lot of easy hype at the conference. As usual, the price will be the standard game price, US$50.
  • At E3, expect to hear something about the next Zelda game after Twilight. My hunch is that it will be for the DS. Expect them to be mum about a Zelda for Revolution.
  • If they announce a Zelda for the DS at E3, I reckon a good release date for it would be November or December.

Tingle

You might notice that everyone’s favorite evil “Sith Lord” doesn’t have anything scheduled for this year. That’s because I’m predicting that Twilight Princess will not have Tingle anywhere within it. I also don’t expect to see the Tingle RPG released State-side; that’ll be a Japan exclusive. Now they may include Tingle on a DS title, and I’d give the odds about 50-50, but being that I’m wary about that even coming out in ‘06, well… we’ll see…

Or Will Darkness Reign

Posted on by

There’s been a lot of speculating and postulating about the plot of Twilight Princess over the past few months. Back at E3 2005, we found out a huge bit of plot about what’s going on in the state of Hyrule during Twilight, but surprising as it may be to say it, that only brought more questions than answers. We know about the Twilight Realm slowly eating away at Hyrule, and we know about Princess Zelda cloaking herself in her funeral shroud warding away the poisonous air, but why is Link able to survive it? What magic is causing this to happen? Why is this happening? And just how are we going to turn back the tide?

We are even fortunate enough to know the tentative placement of Twilight in the overall timeline—should you happen to believe in timeline stuffs. It’s supposed to go after Ocarina and Majora yet before Wind Waker. As everyone who has played the game knows, between these two points in time, all Evil Realm breaks loose, and Hyrule is locked away, the Great Sea filling in above it. Thus, many speculate, it makes sense therefore that Twilight is supposed to end with this inevitable result that the hero will fail in his quest, that evil will win the day, and Hyrule will flood in the final moments of the game.

Could this possibly happen? Are we going to see tradition broken where the hero finally loses?

Before I try to answer that question, let’s take a good look at the context clues, shall we?

Everyone who knows Zelda at all should remember the E3 2004 video which held those memorable words, “Blades will bleed. / Shields will shatter. / But as the light fades… / Will the hero rise again? / Or will darkness reign?” A year and a half ago, when this video came out, the images of these words flashing across the screen were quickly dismissed as a needless pontification. I’m sure most video game titles somewhere—whether in its game trailers, box text, manuals, strategy guides, you name it—inserted one of those phrases doubting whether or not the protagonist would live through the game. You know, something like, “OMG! The land is in trouble, and it is up to you, TEH HERO! Should you fail, the world shall perish!!!111one” Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

Yet over a year later, everyone is now looking at these phrases in an entirely new light. This month’s issue (Dec 2005) of Nintendo Power has an interview with Takumi Kawagoe, the man responsible for many of the preview trailers for Nintendo. When questioned about the plot of Twilight, he answered, “…[N]otice that we dwelled—at just the perfect moment—on the gloomy image of Princess Zelda? Her dark melancholy is just as essential to the game experience. Personally, I hope that Zelda will liven up and regain her cheer by the end of the game, but I suspect that it may not be in Hyrule’s destiny this time around” (70). What wicked webs we weave; just reading those words are enough to send chills through my spine. The imagery here is so doom and gloom, and there is such a foreboding of failure in there; it’s almost scary to think about it.

So it’s really easy to see where the argument is coming from. The PR machine is in full force at Nintendo, placing this dark theme in the game, chugging away with the whole fatalistic ending, reinforcing it at every turn, and that should be the all the proof we need. Or is it?

Despite all of this, however, I think a lot of this is pure PR, plain and simple. I’m going to go out on a limb today with a prediction, and you can all hold this over my head come spring. (If I’m wrong, I’ll quit Zelda Blog you’re more than welcome to come back at me with all the I-told-you-so’s that you can hurl, and I promise I won’t shy away from them either!) Be it known that I do not believe that this game will turn out in such a way; I believe that Ganon(dorf) will once again be defeated and will have to go back to the drawing board once again.

“Why do you believe that, TML?” I hear you cry, to which I respond, “Quiet, you whippersnappers! I was about to explain myself already!” (Ahem.)

TML’s memory isn’t exactly the most efficient machine out there, but some days it works like a steel trap. I had thought I’d remembered a little titbit of information from a while ago, and after a little research, I found the very gem that I was looking for. Just before E3, 1UP posted an interview between Eiji Aonuma and a staffer at EGM, and they discussed the issue of light and dark in Twilight:

EGM: How would you describe this Zelda in relation to the others, besides just “realistic”? Will it be a darker game?

EA: What part of the game demo made you think this might be darker?

EGM: Well, it was more of an impression left by the two trailers. Like the dungeons, or where it’s in the woods, it’s raining and Link is fighting those Skeletal [sic] animals. And just the realistic graphics alone might make it seem darker or grittier…

EA: Actually, that’s not what this game was intended to be. In order to show good-looking bright action, we needed to feature darker aspects, to highlight—literally highlight—the lighter portions. That’s simply because the people [who chose what to put in the trailer] tended to choose the darker areas, and maybe as a result people have the impression that this is going to be a darker game.

EGM: So if it’s not “darker,” what words would you use to describe it yourself?

EA: [Long pause] It’s very hard to say. We’re not trying to make it a very dark game, despite that impression, but we are trying to create a big contrast. For example, it should sometimes be very dark, and other times very bright, so people can enjoy the sheer contrast. And as for the emotions, sometimes people will feel very sad, and sometimes very happy. Those kinds of contrasts are something that I always try to incorporate into a game. Unfortunately, there’s no one appropriate adjective yet. As always, we’re trying to make it a very mysterious game. And now that we’re going to make it photorealistic, I think that can intensify the mystery. (¶ 3-8)

There it is, straight from the horse’s mouth. Aonuma says that the game is dark, but not disproportionately so from the Zelda norm that we’ve grown to love over the past years. The only reason we get this impression of fatalism on Twilight’s part is from the trailers. Guess where our two previous quotes came from? The first was inserted into the trailer itself; the second was a quote from one of the very people who worked on the trailer. Coincidence? I think not.

So we’ve debunked the chance that these are guaranteed insights into the game, but the fact that the timeline still places us smack dab in the middle of Ocarina and Waker is still potentially troubling. Fear not, for I’ve got another trump card to play on this one. The opening scene to Wind Waker tells of the time period in which Twilight Princess is supposed to fall. Waker tells us that “…a day came when a fell wind began to blow across the kingdom. / The great evil that all thought had been forever sealed away by the hero / …once again crept from the depths of the earth, eager to resume its dark designs. / The people believed that the Hero of Time would again come to save them. / …But the hero did not appear.” Aonuma, now at the pilot’s seat for the Zelda series, is a stickler for timeline concerns; he’s the guy that wants to unite the Zeldaverse behind a single timeline, so if we’re at the point where evil has to win in Twilight, why then do we have Link? Sure, we can reason that perhaps Link isn’t the Hero of Time in this game, or perhaps the legends of the past have been twisted and distorted over the years, but I really don’t think that’s the case here. We’ve know that Link will make a valiant effort in beating back the Twilight Realm and that he’ll slowly restore more and more of Hyrule to its former glory late in the game, so it seems to me that Link can’t be completely disregarded in the legends. He deserves a mention, even if he failed. It wouldn’t be that “the hero did not appear,” but it would be that the hero appeared but failed in his quest. Aonuma, who values timeline, wouldn’t let a discontinuity as major as this slip past his radar screen.

Lastly, and here’s the killer question, are we as players honestly ready to have evil win the day? Given that the game is slated to be 70 hours in length, are we going to fight all this way, dedicate so much of our lives to this, and still be satisfied when, in the end, all of our work was for naught? Sure, such an ending would be an emotional experience, but, with a show of comments, how many of you actually come out of a movie ending with evil winning with this warm feeling in your stomach? Any time this happens, the first thought that comes to mind is that they’ll fix that in the inevitable sequel. Matrix Reloaded and (dare I mention it?) Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith both have sequels in which the plot inevitably ends have much brighter endings. Sure, we have Wind Waker to finish it off, but being that Twilight is supposed to be the “ultimate” Zelda experience, are we really going to be satisfied with Waker finishing off the legacy that this hypothetical Twilight would begin? Don’t get me wrong; I love Wind Waker. I merely find the thought of Twilight’s evil ending overshadowing the “good ending” of Waker a pinch irksome.

So there you have it, the case for a happy ending. I don’t think we’re ready for Ganon(dorf) winning just yet. However, do not misread what I’m saying here. Link or Zelda could very easily die in the last battle just after Ganon(dorf) is defeated or somewhere during the game; in fact, I would not be surprised were it to happen. Sure, the victory would be bittersweet, but it would nevertheless be a victory. I think, despite all the politicking that Nintendo is doing, trying to portray this darker element of Zelda, I don’t think we have to fear about the fate of Hyrule just yet. There may be moments of sadness or even tears coming out of Twilight, but I do believe that Ganon(dorf) won’t be as lucky as some of the pundits believe.

One Hundred

Posted on by

According to a Japanese article, “between the single-player adventure and all of its hidden side-quests, there are over 100 hours of gameplay to be experienced. Also on the subject of size, it’s said that the game in general is much bigger than any Zelda before it. Finally, the article goes on to relay that the fresh and new gameplay mechanics introduced in Twilight Princess will set the benchmark for the next generation of Zelda” (emphasis mine).

If you remember, the last time we heard an indication of length, Aonuma guesstimated 70 hours. Whether his estimate was strictly storyline or included side-quest tallies as well, I can’t say for certain, but I think something interesting to point out is that, out of all the RPGs I have ever heard of (the only games that are typically measured in “hours”), I have never heard of any non-MMORPG lasting 100+ hours. (You all can correct me if I’m wrong, but even Final Fantasy X didn’t advertise that, and it was a huge game. Perhaps I’m trying to count my cuccos before their hatched, but I believe that this not only sets a benchmark for Zelda, it will set a benchmark for all RPGs to come.

Who’s The Master Quester Now?

Posted on by

As I sit here at my computer and I gaze over the lovely vision of all my games within about 10 feet of where I’m sitting, I can’t help but see my GameCube copy of Ocarina of Time. I suddenly remember that, yes, Virginia, there is another version of Ocarina. It’s the version that hardly gets any talk about it because, let’s face it, it wasn’t a new game for all intents and purposes. It was a remix in the classic sense of the term, a copy of an existing game with everything changed, throwing you for a loop in the process because nothing is the way you remember it. The experience feels like a warm blanket in its similarities, yet at the same time you feel as if the game has tossed you out of your house without your key on a cold winter night when you encounter one of those glaring differences.

I am going to be blunt on this one, because it deserves to be said: Master Quest did bring some nice curse words out of me, although it hardly held a candle to what Super Mario Sunshine managed to pull out of me. (My save file for that game has not one shine more than the minimum required to beat the game, and it will forever stay that way.) At every turn throughout Master Quest, whenever I managed to solve a puzzle, the thought once again came to me: “This isn’t how I did it back in Ocarina.” Of course, it was Nintendo’s every intention to do something so cockamamy backwards, but I was completely surprised at just how much they were able to change the game even though the dungeons were inherently the same maps, rooms, and layouts as its predecessor… just with a completely different set of physics. Yet in all actuality, the real mystery of Master Quest has very little to do with this but is something else entirely.

My roommate and I are very big fans of Zelda (even though we differ quite a bit in our taste for games). He started before me way back with the original Legend of Zelda whereas I started playing with A Link to the Past, but that’s still “way back then” to most people. We had a contest with each other to see who could beat Majora’s Mask first. (He won. Not that I’m bitter that he had more time to play. Cough. ;) ) We both enjoyed Wind Waker. (I beat him hands down on that one. Ha!) And we still both maintain that Zelda was best “back in the day,” both of us quickly becoming the “old geezers” in our fandom.

We both know Ocarina of Time nails; when faced with the Shadow Temple, we could probably navigate it blindfolded, with one arm tied behind our back, without the Biggoron Sword either. Yet when it came to Master Quest, we were thwarted at every angle. For those who have played the game, I’m sure you’ll remember on B1 of the Deku Tree the room with the spinning spiked log hovering above a pool of water with a lone platform gliding across it at the water’s surface. The Ocarina answer is to swim in the water, duck down, and press a switch that will lower the water’s level sufficiently to allow you to safely pass under the log. In Master Quest the switch doesn’t do this; instead, it creates a chest which doesn’t help you. Yay. The answer to this one is a sneaky one; instead, you have to (gasp!) simply duck down as you pass underneath the log, and you’ll clear it without a problem. It took my roommate and I four hours to figure this one out. (He discovered it first, not yours truly.)

However I have another friend who didn’t know who Zelda even was until after meeting us in college. She was a late bloomer into the whole Zelda thing; she didn’t play Ocarina until 2003, several years after it was released in ‘98; were she were to play the game again, she wouldn’t remember very much about it. She can’t beat A Link to the Past, I can’t remember her ever actually completing Majora’s Mask, and Wind Waker took her a long time to finish. Nevertheless, her time spent on the above puzzle: two minutes.

We were shocked. And after the shock, we were embarrassed and shamed back to our rooms to pout for the rest of the night. (Pity us. We deserve it.)

As she progressed, we kept taunting her whenever she approached the “difficult” puzzles. Our friend proceed through each one of them without difficulty (even solving the easy puzzles in a much more elegant way), and in no time at all, she had reached the end of Master Quest. We just looked at each other, and we said, “Nuh uh! I never thought of doing the puzzle that way!” While I can’t be absolutely certain about it, but I would reckon that she spent less time on Master Quest than either of us did individually. In short, the masters of Zelda were both severely pwned… by a non-master. (It was perhaps more humiliating than the time I watched the infamous Super Mario Bros. 3 speedrun in 11 minutes… while the player collected 99 lives in the process.)

Looking back on this, I have to chuckle a little bit at the experience. Master Quest really is a game that is meant to play with our minds and really make us think outside the box. All those puzzles that we thought we knew? Surprise! Zelda takes on an entirely different definition of difficulty, and just when you think you’ve got everything Zelda solidly under your belt, the next time is likely to completely revolutionize the way you think.

Twilight Princess may not be designed like Master Quest was, but at the same time, I really look forward to seeing just how that game will change the whole dynamic of the Zelda experience and structure. We may think we “know” Zelda; we have yet to realize that we haven’t a clue.