Tendo City

Artwork for 3d games is always deceptive, though... like how 8/16-bit artwork was deceptive because of how much nicer it looked than the games, 3d artwork is deceptive because when you change something from an image to a 3d character or scene things change... still, this is Zelda. Such concerns no not apply to this game. :)























http://www.landofthelegend.net/?get=news...316&lan=en

Quote:Update
The two clownesk characters are called Raka (long and thin) and Tobi (short and tubby).
The wolf-god like entity remains as of yet unnamed.

These were also new at IGN, though I don't know if they are actually new, they aren't in the above sources' stuff...

SWEET! I want this game!

-TheBiggah-

Seems the domesticated livestock is going a little less based on reality as well. What manner of cowdeer is that next to Link? Looks cool anyway, though I wonder how it's anters grew together into a loop like that. Wow I'm a nerd.

And that weird white animal holding some sort of mystical orb in it's antler hoop? That's the greatest thing ever.

That Goron looks ... different... more warlike? With metal armor plates... interesting though.

Quote:SWEET! I want this game!

Don't we all...

Quote:Seems the domesticated livestock is going a little less based on reality as well. What manner of cowdeer is that next to Link? Looks cool anyway, though I wonder how it's anters grew together into a loop like that. Wow I'm a nerd.

And that weird white animal holding some sort of mystical orb in it's antler hoop? That's the greatest thing ever.

Yeah, ring antlers aren't the most practical idea, are they... :) Fall wrong and it'd never be able to get get up again on its own... :D Looks cool though.

...there's actually several types of bovine that have horns that are known for growing in to eachother and creating rings.

That actually looks more like a cow-cat though, a catallow? Buffacat. Catibou...

this is just my theory but Zelda always goes backwards unless obviously so (Adventures, Oracles, MM) and in the first Zelda game on NES it's actually the last in the time line (the most current) and everyone remembers that on Death Mountain there are falling rocks. Now in OoT when you hit Death Mountain you actually saw these creatures that are rock based that would roll up and charge down the mountain, kinda retrospectively hinting at the falling rocks in Zelda 1 (also, the volcano in one specific part).

So anywhos, with this war like Robo-Goron in the picture as well as the movie clip showcasing a Goron engaged in hand to hand fighting with Link, i'm starting to get the idea that maybe the Gorons are turning a wee bit towards the darkside.

Could the Gorons be the fallings rocks in Zelda 1? Could they actually become Gannondorf's troops?

Maybe not allied with Ganon but remember that the various kingdoms were originally at war with each other and it took OOT's king to make peace between the tribes. After the flood, it may be that the various splintered factions just aren't allies any more. The gorons may not be "evil" per say, but they don't see you as a friend either. Hence, they see you as a threat to their nation. Maybe after fighting with one particular goron a number of times, you eventually earn the title of "brother", and have to run from an army of hugs again?

And that cow thing is interesting, but I'm afraid I can't see the catlike aspects. The ears maybe? Even some dogs have ears like that. That thing doesn't look like it could prey on anything other than grass.

So you still think the flood actually happened in the real world? :D

I see cat-face, or perhaps a ferret-like face.

the more I think about it, the more that picture of the white creature with the orb on its head and the arrow pointing to an organic mechanical vagina just screams 'Light World' to me. It also doesn't look like an enemy at all... like a creature you'd find in a dungeon that performs a specific task such as using its orb head to move objects through telekenetic-like mental crazy things. Perhaps a creature you meet while as a wolf... didn't an interview give something away like 'as a wolf you can talk to animals'? something to that effect.

It's also starting to sink in that in a few months i'll be playing Mario Galaxy, Zelda: TP and Metroid Prime 3 on the same day

I heard your arguments, and I'm sorry but I don't see any evidence at all that Wind Waker was some pseudo world locked away from the "real world".

Look at Phantom Hourglass. That actually involves the search for new Hyrule. Why would they even bother trying to tie it together with future games like that if the whole game was just another Wind Fish's dream?

Quote:Why would they even bother trying to tie it together with future games like that if the whole game was just another Wind Fish's dream?

Because they don't care about the story?

That's like the opposite of what that action would indicate.

Remember, they aren't making some whole new storyline for Phantom Hourglass, they are directly continuing an existing one.

Obviously they do care about the story or they wouldn't even bother writing one, and especially not the good ones I've seen in games like Majora's Mask. They would just make it basic Mario type with Ganon as evil badman and you go around just solving stuff. You wouldn't even have dialog and much less be suddenly presented with cut scenes describing important story events. Ganon would just "die" and the end, you wouldn't actually be presented with storyline. In short, it would be Adventure and you would be killing dragonducks.

Nintendo may not think story is very important, but they seem to give every indication they actually care about it.

Remember, Donkey Kong was pretty much the first game to actually have a fully realized in-game storyline.

Your comment doesn't follow very well...

At any rate, I remember lazy's long storyline hypothesis of the "preserved actual reality" with the ocean land superimposed as a huge world that existed and popped like a bubble on the water when the real world's timeline was finally freed. It was very compelling, and a good idea for a story. There's just no evidence that's at all what the writers of Wind Waker intended, and a lot to indicate it actually was intended to be part of the real world.

By "the story" I am of course referring to the over-arching story which constantly comes up to explain the connection between numerous games that all have the same characters but take place in very different times/places.

And apparently they seem to care about that because otherwise they wouldn't bother linking all these games to each other. Why else would they intentionally point out that LTTP is "long long before Zelda 1" in all the previous (and put it right in the name) in a way that seems to explain where Ganon came from (more or less) and how Hyrule originally claimed the Triforce before it got divided up (the hero Link did it). And then they make Ocarina of Time and intentionally make it during the "imprisoning war" that was mentioned in LTTP. Then they make Wind Waker and intentionally make OOT a LARGE PART of it's main storyline. Don't tell me they don't think about the storyline of the other games when they make it. THEY can't even get away with saying that :D.

Oh and that goron gives me flashbacks of Shadow of the Collosus. I can't believe someone actually BOLTED that stuff to his anatomy. Well, gorons are made of stone, so it's likely not an infection issue.

Quote:By "the story" I am of course referring to the over-arching story which constantly comes up to explain the connection between numerous games that all have the same characters but take place in very different times/places.

I completely agree, all indications are that they don't care one bit for the overarching story. Every game has its own story, but how they all fit together... meh, who cares? They don't! Between translation issues (there MUST be some, and I've heard of some possible ones, but not what the original Japanese versions said), nebulous long-term plots (what is this I've heard about some official Japanese timelines calling LttP the LAST game in the series? When the US one was clearly stated to be set long before LoZ and its direct sequel AoL? Confusing...), and just a general disregard for the timeline (there is no official timeline that makes sense. The Zelda.com site for a while was pushing a "there is only one Link" timeline that made no sense and went against everything we've come to understand about the plot... offical statements from Nintendo of Japan are usually either contradictory or nonexistent about how the overall plot fits together...

For fans like us all of this is incredibly frusterating, and leads to the endless speculation and effort that goes into fan guesses at what the overall timeline is, but with no official timeline that makes any sense at all, and with translation issues looming over that for the older games ("How much of this is actually what they meant?"), I think that getting a real, complete, and consistent timeline for the series is impossible.

The worst offender is of course Oracles, which I think has been pretty much shown to not fit anywhere in the story... but each title has its own issues.

Quote:For fans like us all of this is incredibly frusterating

This is not something that I've ever wondered about before. Or cared about really.

You've seriously never wondered about how the games relate, and about how the overall plot goes? I mean for something like Mario sure, but Zelda? Games like Zelda have a higher standard, you expect some kind of continuity... though I know that it is common to have all kinds of issues with your timeline, or one so messy that plot holes are inevitable (also see the Castlevania series...).

Quote:You've seriously never wondered about how the games relate, and about how the overall plot goes?

No.

ABF/ the Oracle games are reinvented nonexistent worlds inside the Triforce, watch the opening cinemas of the Oracle games, the Triforce pulls a dimensional shift. This was probably just for the fact of making sure that it doesn't interfere with the actual reality of Zelda's legend. However, the story has a major bond to the entire scope of the legend because in these stories you are directly confronted with the goddesses (in mortal form) who need your help in some way. The in-game story of oracles actually calls both the games a test of Link's courage. The Oracle games happen right after MM (a young Link on a young Epona), which happened right after OoT where Link removed Gannondorf from reality, the subsequent stories after that (MM, oracles) are showing what happened to that Link specifically, when gannondorf found a way to influence reality from within the sacred realm where he was sealed away, the Hero of Time no longer existed in reality. It could be assumed that the oracle games are where the hero of time Link was absorbed by the Triforce and removed from reality. Theorhetically, if we mesh several ideas together, we could assume that the oracle games take place because the Goddesses are being destroyed by gannondorf's influence in the sacred realm, hence the window for Gannondorf to destroy Hyrule and the lack of Link in the 1000 years prior story of WW where Hyrule is stopped and Gannondorf needs to kill off Link's bloodline as well as the sages in order to break free of the sacred realm and control both realities.

The WW Link is a completely different person from the Hero of Time obviously, but with TP being called a sequel to WW story-wise, with PH coming to DS that is a direct sequel to WW, you have to wonder if the TP Link is completely new, or is this the original OoT timeline, after MM, after oracles, where an adult Link finds himself living and working on a farm since he found out that he's not kokiri. It's going to be interesting.

But Nintendo firmly believes in the importance of story. But they are more interested in bringing something different, not a Kojima-film-inspired type of story and scope, but a different method of story telling where the story isn't actually on the forefront of the medium.

Hmm... after MM? But while that gets the age thing right (a younger Link, not a teenage one like some Zelda games), how about the 'the Triforce needs to be in Hyrule City' aspect? I don't think that the Triforce is there after MM... I could be wrong, but I'm doubtful...

Quote:The WW Link is a completely different person from the Hero of Time obviously, but with TP being called a sequel to WW story-wise, with PH coming to DS that is a direct sequel to WW, you have to wonder if the TP Link is completely new, or is this the original OoT timeline, after MM, after oracles, where an adult Link finds himself living and working on a farm since he found out that he's not kokiri. It's going to be interesting.

I'm betting on TP's Link being an all-new Link, not an old one. PH is the sequel to WW... TP? Maybe in some way it continues the story, but I don't think it's the same Link... it's possible, but with the big shift in art style I'm doubtful (in the past artwork has been an imporant way to be able to tell the Links apart... like how character ages in the artwork disproves the "Oracles Link is the LA Link" theory...)

Quote:But Nintendo firmly believes in the importance of story. But they are more interested in bringing something different, not a Kojima-film-inspired type of story and scope, but a different method of story telling where the story isn't actually on the forefront of the medium.

Within each game, yes, these days... but in relation to the other titles? Only enough to sound vaguely possible, not to a degree where it's actually a real, solid timeline.

Not the WHOLE triforce, that's for sure. Ganon still has his piece in the sacred realm.

And yet in Oracles we see a full triangle, or sure seem to...

Indeed, begging the question as to what is actually going on there.

There's also the very important thing to keep in mind that Ganon was brought back from the dead, as if he was killed, in the Oracle games, not brought back from the sacred relm. That suggests after LTTP, since Ganon was killed there and after that game Link obtained the whole thing and apparently surrendered it to the Hyrule leadership. That still leaves the issue of Link looking like a teen in the instruction booklet for LTTP, but perhaps they decided to change him to a kid officially despite the artwork? They did after all give Link in LTTP young Link's voice.