Let's decide to call it Zeldarim right now! Nintendo has give us a look at the upcoming Zelda Wii U...
At last we’ve got some actual clips of the long awaited (and as yet unnamed) Zelda Wii U. Well, it’s about time! First of all, it’s gorgeous. The swaying grass, the way the clouds pass overhead, shifting the lighting, and then the magic/energy effects? Just glorious.
From this video, we have definitive proof from the horse’s mouth (perhaps we should leave Epona out of this) that Nintendo will be making good on its promise that Zelda Wii U will have an open world, meaning no transitions between locations. While a seemingly minor detail, the effect it has on the verisimilitude of the world in which the player is engaged is significant. There are no boundaries now. Those mountains in the distance aren’t just a bit of background in one section and the main setpiece of another. You can actually walk to them from where you are. They exist in the game, active, wherever you might be standing. That’s pretty damn cool, I’d say.
Granted, this would not be the first game to employ this technology, but it is a massive step forward for the Zelda series as it skirts the edge of games like Skyrim, which have proven with their success how popular and enjoyable a model this can be for a game world. To see it brought to Hyrule is at the very least intriguing.
The art style is a glorious blend of the realistic character models of Twilight Princess and the fluid cell shading of TheWind Waker, though the bit we see here switches perspective in a way that suggests a cut scene. If not, it would be very interesting to know how such radically shifting angles and/or the dramatization of item use would affect gameplay.
The return to non-sequential narrative is freeing, and as we saw with A Link Between Worlds, makes for a gaming experience unique to each player. Of course, some structure will be necessary, but this renaissance of narrative freedom -- the ability to roam, explore, and let the story unfold few boundaries -- combined with the overdue implementation of the superior gaming technology developed in recent years could reinvigorate the Zelda franchise in way fans have long been hoping to be more than just a legend.
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