• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.

Pre-Release The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Pre-Release Discussion Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
Reader mode
Awesomegames23 said:
It's weird how dendritic the malice is in ToTK, it's like it's trying to spread. BoTW malice seemed much more....I don't know, sedentary?
Click to expand...
I think it spreading is kinda the big point of the story. The first trailer showed it spreading through the caves, the second one showed it spreading onto Link and all over Hyrule Castle, the third showed a mural depicting it spreading across the land, and Death Mountain spewing it everywhere, and the fourth shows it leaping for Link from Ganondorfs chest, and possibly even reaching the sky islands themselves as the weird lines falling off of them may be strands of Malice that has somehow found their way up the islands.
 
Imagine to compensate for all the complaints about BOTW's final boss fight being lackluster/too easy, they made Ganondorf Elden Ring difficulty.

Speaking of Elden Ring, it being a wonderful game and all, I really hope that dragon monster (Gleeok?) and bigger enemies in general offer a bit more... relevance to the area? Like, what if NPCs highlight the dragon being there, terrorizing the travellers and the surrounding area, and then you realize that in order to freely pass Hylia Bridge without interruption, you need to defeat that big "area boss". If you do, you get praise from NPCs in the area and some special item drop from the boss. Otherwise, you will have to painstakingly go all the way around the bridge along the hillside, sacrificing some time to get to the opposite side if you choose not to get in its way. Sort of like overworld obstacles to conquer so that it doesn't feel quite empty or desolate. I personally thought the first game did a mediocre job of it: scatter a couple of lynels here and there, maybe a hinox/talus or two, but unless I'm forgetting a lot here, they're not quite tied to anything—they're usually off in the more quiet areas.

And no, just to reiterate, I'm not saying that the game needs darks souls/elden ring difficulty as that'd be foolish for Nintendo to even consider, but just that "area bosses" could be a cool idea. I don't know, this idea just spawned in my head after seeing how cool, big, and menacing Gleeok looks
 
Mango said:
I think it spreading is kinda the big point of the story. The first trailer showed it spreading through the caves, the second one showed it spreading onto Link and all over Hyrule Castle, the third showed a mural depicting it spreading across the land, and Death Mountain spewing it everywhere, and the fourth shows it leaping for Link from Ganondorfs chest, and possibly even reaching the sky islands themselves as the weird lines falling off of them may be strands of Malice that has somehow found their way up the islands.
Click to expand...
They're also leaning really hard into Princess Mononoke, so the dendritic, almost worm-like structured malice is definitely inspired by the demons.
 
Okayge said:
I personally thought the first game did a mediocre job of it: scatter a couple of lynels here and there, maybe a hinox or two, but unless I'm forgetting a lot here, they're not quite tied to anything—they're usually off in the more quiet areas.l
Click to expand...

There were some moments. The Zora tribe fearing the Lynel on the mountain. The NPC afraid to go in the colosseum. Gerudo discussing medicinal Molduga, lol. From these the Zora quest was the most memorable and presented the Lynel as a real threat, and I want just as you say, more tension around a particular setpiece. And more moments like the infected Naydra at Mt. Lanayru, which was a gorgeous sequence.
 
Last edited:
Magic-Man said:
I wonder what happened to the Lynels and Guardians? They're the two most challenging enemies from BOTW but they're nowhere to be seen in any of the trailers. Please tell me they're still going to be in the game.
Click to expand...

BY2K said:
The big explosion of malice with the enemy inside. I wonder if that's the cutscene of a boss being defeated.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking that malice explosion with the enemy inside is a Lynel. The lower portion of it looks horse like and now with 4 arms. I'm theorizing it was a regular Lynel, got blood moon missile'd and becomes Super Boss Lynel.
 
Serif said:
There were some moments. The Zora tribe fearing the Lynel on the mountain. The NPC afraid to go in the colosseum. Gerudo discussing medicinal Molduga, lol. From these the Zora quest was the most memorable and presented the Lynel as a real threat, and I want just as you say, more tension around a particular setpiece. And more moments like the infected Naydra at Mt. Lanayru, which was a gorgeous sequence.
Click to expand...
Ah yeah. I guess I have forgotten a lot lol. Been well over a year since I last played, so my memory (or lack thereof) served me a bit wrong. But yeah, definitely agreed upon having more of those iconic moments, more tension, spicing up the regular overworld a bit.
 
I really hope that 3 headed fire breathing Gleeok is able to fly and terrorize us at will From the air. I want to be able to hear the scream of it far away as it is searching for me and slowly getting closer. Like the Fell Beast from the Lord of the Rings, and we are forced into hiding in the beginning or ducking into a cave to escape.
the-lord-of-the-rings-nazgul-dragon-fantasy-black-dragon-wallpaper-preview.jpg
 
Skittzo said:
The other golem thing, assuming it's an enemy. Other than that I think you got everything.

Other enemies I remembered that we haven't yet seen are Yiga clan and Octoroks.
Click to expand...

Also missing are Wizzrobes, Keese, Pebblits and Stals if I'm not mistaken. The latter three are most likely going to stay as is with small changes but I'd love to see something like a Grand Wizzrobe, a stronger "boss" variant like they did for the Bokoblins.

There's another obvious one that we haven't seen yet - Lynels. I wonder if they're gonna bring the new variants from Age of Calamity over. Maybe not the elemental variants but Malice Lynels would be fitting. I do hope there's less of a focus on them as the big bad enemy though.
 
0
I was just thinking about the pit located in the Yiga clan where we fought master Koga, wonder how Koga is doing in the underground right now...
 
The newest Zeltik video has some pretty interesting stuff to say about the green spirals. It touches a bit on the “we have to activate new islands in the sky by reaching certain parts of the ground” theory. Which would explain why the labyrinths are on the ground first and then in the sky.
 
Bonejack said:
Short summary of the theory for people who don't have the time to fall into a Youtube hole (and/or are afraid to do so)?
Click to expand...
Here's the two videos that break it down:





But basically:

Because of the architecture of the underground temple in which Ganondorf is found and other small stuff some people believe that he wasn't forcibly sealed. Instead, the temple was built as a tribute and Ganondorf willingly took part in some ritual to turn into a Lich and live forever while his malice can ravage Hyrule above. It's not conclusive but an interesting idea.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
Here's the two videos that break it down:





But basically:

Because of the architecture of the underground temple in which Ganondorf is found and other small stuff some people believe that he wasn't forcibly sealed. Instead, the temple was built as a tribute and Ganondorf willingly took part in some ritual to turn into a Lich and live forever while his malice can ravage Hyrule above. It's not conclusive but an interesting idea.
Click to expand...


Thanks.

Interesting theory, though the big issue with it is:

If that hand that "holds" Mummydorf was made to turn him into a Lich, why would Link get this arm (or a similar one) in order to beat him?
 
Bonejack said:
Thanks.

Interesting theory, though the big issue with it is:

If that hand that "holds" Mummydorf was made to turn him into a Lich, why would Link get this arm (or a similar one) in order to beat him?
Click to expand...
Yeah, not everything lines up as of now but there's a lot of things in the trailers we've seen so far that don't make sense at first either.
 
0
Bonejack said:
Thanks.

Interesting theory, though the big issue with it is:

If that hand that "holds" Mummydorf was made to turn him into a Lich, why would Link get this arm (or a similar one) in order to beat him?
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm more fond of the rock paper scissors theory I came up with. Green beats red, red beats blue, blue beats green.
 
Just had a weird idea triggered by the discussion about summoning the islands with the spirals. If they wanted to merge progression and free-form exploration: could the islands come in sets of progressive difficulty (say 1-8), but which could be summoned from any spiral? Ie the first spiral you interact with will always summon the first set of islands above, and the second spiral you find will always summon the second set, no matter which spiral in the map you find. Could the sky be divided into exchangeable grids? I don’t even think this will be the case, but I’m just wondering if it would even be possible?
 
Unrelated to the current discussion but I'm playing Minish Cap again on NSO and I had to remember a certain boss that would be a great fit for TotK:

760ca44650a2e4491b9bf584c3b44975.jpg

Given Minish Cap was also directed by Fujibayashi...
 
Amadeus said:
Since the Zelda team takes inspiration from the Ghibli movies, I hope we'll have a castle in the sky at some point in the game
Click to expand...
That would be very cool, yes.
A few years back I dreamt about a Nausicaä game in the style of BotW.
Now we have at least the free-flying part in TotK.
 
I still hope there are legit dungeons in this game. Doesn’t have to be the “lock & key” approach of traditional Zelda games which involve finding a new item that is critical to beating that dungeon. But I definitely want something on a grander scale than the Devine Beasts but also more puzzle focused than Hyrule Castle was. I think the latter was cool in BoTW, but seven or eight of those wouldn’t quite that dungeon itch for me.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
Unrelated to the current discussion but I'm playing Minish Cap again on NSO and I had to remember a certain boss that would be a great fit for TotK:

760ca44650a2e4491b9bf584c3b44975.jpg

Given Minish Cap was also directed by Fujibayashi...
Click to expand...

Now I'm wondering if those new flying enemies are actually Gyorgs, they look weird enough to be fish based.
 
Lelouch0612 said:
The Mononoke inspirations are pretty obvious in Tears of the Kingdom and it does extend to the malice which seems "alive":

n8xdp0hir0671.png
Click to expand...
I'm glad we are talking about the Mononoke influence again! Maybe like Ashitaka, this Link has a limited amount of time to fix his injuries, before he's completely consumed by evil / malice. Rewinding time to cure his wounds ?
 
spelga51 said:
I'm glad we are talking about the Mononoke influence again! Maybe like Ashitaka, this Link has a limited amount of time to fix his injuries, before he's completely consumed by evil / malice. Rewinding time to cure his wounds ?
Click to expand...
Going back to Majora's Mask dynamic is everything I could ever dream of, sadly it's very unlikely to happen. But I could see a modern time loop mechanic working very well in a BOTW sequel.
One way to make the existing overworld fresh would be to make events happen at specific times, just like how everything is scheduled during the 3 days in majora's mask. You wouldn't explore Hyrule in space, but in time. And yeah at the end of the cycle, Link's arm can't handle the malice anymore, or Ganondorf launches his massive assault and everyone dies or the Blood moon crashes :p
Also, would be a nice way to solve weapon durability. In a time loop, we can make weapons non-breakable, but when you go back you lose all your existing weapons, and you will have to craft new ones with whatever raw material you can collect in the next cycle.
 
I'd been anticipating a time loop mechanic to replace the blood moon, but from the last trailer it seems very much like they are doing blood moon again.

But something curious about those scenes, there are multiple green spirals in the background of them, which means if the green spirals have an enabled/disabled state, it won't be represented if they are using a video file. I think they avoided showing any sheikah stuff in the Botw blood moon scenes for that reason.
 
Last edited:
maidhhc said:
Just had a weird idea triggered by the discussion about summoning the islands with the spirals. If they wanted to merge progression and free-form exploration: could the islands come in sets of progressive difficulty (say 1-8), but which could be summoned from any spiral? Ie the first spiral you interact with will always summon the first set of islands above, and the second spiral you find will always summon the second set, no matter which spiral in the map you find. Could the sky be divided into exchangeable grids? I don’t even think this will be the case, but I’m just wondering if it would even be possible?
Click to expand...
I think this is definitely possible as an option that the Zelda team explored as a way to combine the two, it would also allow them to tell a progressive story in real time while keeping the world completely open. I think I remember reading a similar idea surrounding the idea of if there were dungeons in the game, that no matter which one you tackled first the player would always receive “x” situation type thing To either progress a game play mechanic or story element.

I really liked Zeltik’s theory, and it’s the best theory I have seen that try’s to tie most things together with the sky islands. I believe, with any theory, there are some things he may have gotten right, theories that try to explain this many variables and then rely on, “If this is true, then this also could be true”, are a great way to tell an interesting story but start to lean to heavily into speculation.

I do like that he provided other options along the way this time which reiterated the fact that this was more speculation based on what little information we all have at this point, rather than try to present his theory in way that ignored obvious flaws to try and prove his theory correct like 95% of the other Zelda YouTubers do. He always seems to point out new and interesting details that we all some how miss and then tops that with a completely different perspective most times than I have, which leads me to think of more new ideas on my own, that’s why he is the GOAT.
 
Last edited:
Another interesting thing I noticed about the Malice in Zeltik's video was when he was showing the NPC by the tent towards the end of the trailer, if you focus your attention of what's to left of the tent and behind it, you see streams of malice shooting out from the ground in funnels. It looks like there are several different spots of Malice shooting up from the ground. Others have pointed out the new pools of Malice dotted around Hyrule in the trailer, but this is the first instance we see the Malice actively moving, beyond the Malice lifting Hyrule Castle and coming from Death Mountain.

malice-erupting-f.jpg


To me it implies that the Malice may indeed be connected through a series of tunnels underneath Hyrule much like lava would behave in an active Volcano region.
 
I'm listening to Kit & Krysta talk about the Zelda trailer, CE, amiibo and price, and they're talking a lot about promotion around BOTW in the last few months leading up to release and it's very interesting. Apparently the 2017 trailer went through a ton of revisions, and there was a lot of debate over whether or not to announce the expansion pass early. I remember seeing it and thinking it was a weak move, but they think the next time we get somewhat of an info dump about this game that an expansion pass will be mentioned.

I'm basically putting my worst fears out in the open and seeing what happens with this post. I know it's a pie-in-the-sky wish for no Expansion Pass this time around, but I think people will get really pissed if they announce one within the next month. That's when I'll feel the frustrations of people saying "it's an iterative BOTW sequel what is taking so long?"

Do we think there will be one? And if so, will we hear about it before launch?
 
Also, the statues with the green spiral look like Hylia's in botw imo. Hard to tell but they seem to have a similar shape.
 
0
ZeldaPY said:
I think this is definitely possible as an option that the Zelda team explored as a way to combine the two, it would also allow them to tell a progressive story in real time while keeping the world completely open. I think I remember reading a similar idea surrounding the idea of if there were dungeons in the game, that no matter which one you tackled first the player would always receive “x” situation type thing To either progress a game play mechanic or story element.

I really liked Zeltik’s theory, and it’s the best theory I have seen that try’s to tie most things together with the sky islands. I believe, with any theory, there are some things he may have gotten right, theories that try to explain this many variables and then rely on, “If this is true, then this also could be true”, are a great way to tell an interesting story but start to lean to heavily into speculation.

I do like that he provided other options along the way this time which reiterated the fact that this was more speculation based on what little information we all have at this point, rather than try to present his theory in way that ignored obvious flaws to try and prove his theory correct like 95% of the other Zelda YouTubers do. He always seems to point out new and interesting details that we all some how miss and then tops that with a completely different perspective most times than I have, which leads me to think of more new ideas on my own, that’s why he is the GOAT.
Click to expand...
Zeltik, Monster Maze and perhaps Ratatoskr are all I need, really.
 
Majora's Mask mechanic + Fury Bowser mechanic in one game :p

A game like that would give a ton of people anxiety attacks.
 
0
Okayge said:
And no, just to reiterate, I'm not saying that the game needs darks souls/elden ring difficulty as that'd be foolish for Nintendo to even consider
Click to expand...

... honestly, I'd be completely okay with this. Elden Ring was immaculate, and it had more creativity in its structure and world than any open-world game I've played since BOTW and Red Dead II.

The Zelda team borrowing the difficulty of Elden Ring for some moments in the game would be:

 
Dark Cloud said:
I can’t wait to see how the labyrinths have changed and if there’s anything underneath them
Click to expand...
I would bet on it. At least under the ones in the Hebra region and in the desert. The one north of Akkala was already floating and I think you could go to the lowest level of it. Would be interesting if something awakens in them.


Christo750 said:
I'm listening to Kit & Krysta talk about the Zelda trailer, CE, amiibo and price, and they're talking a lot about promotion around BOTW in the last few months leading up to release and it's very interesting. Apparently the 2017 trailer went through a ton of revisions, and there was a lot of debate over whether or not to announce the expansion pass early. I remember seeing it and thinking it was a weak move, but they think the next time we get somewhat of an info dump about this game that an expansion pass will be mentioned.

I'm basically putting my worst fears out in the open and seeing what happens with this post. I know it's a pie-in-the-sky wish for no Expansion Pass this time around, but I think people will get really pissed if they announce one within the next month. That's when I'll feel the frustrations of people saying "it's an iterative BOTW sequel what is taking so long?"

Do we think there will be one? And if so, will we hear about it before launch?
Click to expand...
I am sure there will be one. Personally I now hope a possible bigger story expansion comes with the next hardware (including a 4K patch) but that depens when it this hardware would launch.

Maybe they could make Zelda the playable character in the expansion and we play her side of the story which is only referenced in the main game during major events.
I am not too keen on switching between characters in the main TotK game. It may be too disruptive and if the skillset is very different, it might be confusing (honestly, each time I boot up BotW after a while, I have to get used to the controls again - it is a little overkill).
 
So I haven’t kept up too much with the speculation in and out of this thread, but have people been discussing the possibility that the voice in the trailer wasn’t Ganondorf, but maybe Demise?

There are things that keep making me think this may be the case. Demise was sealed away in the Master Sword, which is now badly damaged. The game has many callbacks to Skyward Sword already, and shares the same director, not to mention Skyward Sword HD was released ahead of TotK. I also am just not sure we can assume the dried (assumedly) Ganondorf corpse is the speaker in the trailer.
 
WestEgg said:
So I haven’t kept up too much with the speculation in and out of this thread, but have people been discussing the possibility that the voice in the trailer wasn’t Ganondorf, but maybe Demise?

There are things that keep making me think this may be the case. Demise was sealed away in the Master Sword, which is now badly damaged. The game has many callbacks to Skyward Sword already, and shares the same director, not to mention Skyward Sword HD was released ahead of TotK. I also am just not sure we can assume the dried (assumedly) Ganondorf corpse is the speaker in the trailer.
Click to expand...

Obviously, who you believe said the VA lines in the trailer depends on whether you believe Ganondorf or Demise is the main villain in the story.

It definitely seems the body is Ganondorf because of the Gerudo symbols on him, the jewel on his forehead, and the fact that Malice, which spawns Ganon, flows out of him (also in the first trailer, a man is depicted riding a horse, and the man is holding a trident). The broken Master Sword releasing Demise's conscious is an interesting theory that holds some weight, but its execution might be awkward. Would Ganondorf unleash Demise from the Master Sword and ally with him or would Demise take control of Ganondorf's body? Two big villains would be cool, but there doesn't seem to be a big difference between Demise and Ganondorf so suggesting the villain is Ganondorf but then it actually being Demise doesn't seem like much of a twist.
 
Reader mode
Status
Not open for further replies.
Staff Communication
Please note that this thread is completely spoiler-free, and that includes tagged spoilers. If you want to discuss spoilers, we refer to the spoiler thread.
Last edited:


Back
Top Bottom