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To be fair I enjoyed the exploration of TotK too. It was a big part of it, it’s just that the ‘look at what I made’ is easier to encapsulate in an image/gif
The first sky island, and the first time in the depths, we're really cool.
But after that, there's nothing to discover about either, and the overworked is BotW again.
I was craving like, a Zonai city in the sky, home to a scientist character who can contextualise your new toys and new powers, like she's the person who makes the devices and there's a city of characters who actually use them.
Instead, the game basically makes it canon that your new abilities ARE a new gameplay layer bolted on top of the world, and not diegeticly contextualised within the world itself, by having the plot explanation literally be "someone put that there for link to play with"
I hope EoW does a better job of making Zelda's new powers feel like part of the story and the world she lives in.
To be fair, I don't think it's necessary, the problem they need to address is the issue of players being overly relaxed in the game, which is basically a negative product of the complete liberalization of totk, in fact a lot of the negative issues about totk can be solved by changing the maps, I'm just worried now if they're going to see that liberalization lead to players becoming less and less inclined to the idea that they need to understand the functionality of every prop and item in depth to explore the maps and solve the puzzles well.
It already does imo. The cute artstyle and isometric viewpoint makes weird mechanics seem more natural, like the Minish Cap and Four Sword before it.
Storywise too. "You get a staff from a fairy that lets you use the power of the triforce to echo things in the world" is more organic to Zelda's world than " wheels and rockets mysteriously fell from the sky and you can glue them together to make wacky vehicles".
Zelda even summons a Phantom in Smash, it's not a new thing for her.
Posted this over on the other forum, but in hindsight, ALBW as a testbed for more freedom with the item rental system feels extremely rudimentary looking at what we have now with TotK and EoW. The Zelda team has really come so far in terms of shattering that convention.
Though I think with the echo limit, EoW won't be quite as freeing as TotK - but I think that's a good thing for a game with a way smaller play space and without a complex physics and chemistry system. It still looks to translate that kind of emergent gameplay to 2D Zelda.
Posted this over on the other forum, but in hindsight, ALBW as a testbed for more freedom with the item rental system feels extremely rudimentary looking at what we have now with TotK and EoW. The Zelda team has really come so far in terms of shattering that convention.
Though I think with the echo limit, EoW won't be quite as freeing as TotK - but I think that's a good thing for a game with a way smaller play space and without a complex physics and chemistry system. It still looks to translate that kind of emergent gameplay to 2D Zelda.
Yeah, I think the nature of it is going to be a more focused framing in terms of ‘blocks’ and the number of echoes you can have in play, seemingly limited by triangles. So rather than ‘glue together an unlimited number of trees to make a ramp’, it’ll be more like ‘the table echo is a one block step allowing you to reach areas two blocks high’, and then ‘you can now use water blocks (limited by triangles), stack them to swim up a cliff.’ Pretty much every usable item echo will likely be ‘block with x properties’ that can be stacked but not glued. Rather than all items having different height, width and depth on top of being wood/metal etc, with unlimited use of glueing them together.
As such I think it will have a lot more specific solutions, but the range of echoes and number of them allowed in play will still allow for player expression in problem solving. But there will be a lot less ‘just skip the problem with a crazy build if you like’. If that makes any sense. I imagine some of the echoes will have more wild fantastical abilities on top of the mundane furniture-based escapades too
I love the purple rift playing off against the mid-tones elsewhere. But I do think the faded Ganon and Link at the top reminds me very much of ‘early 00s PS2 action game cover for NA’. Like an image so unsure of the strength of its core visual that it’s made it a montage instead.
Still, I think Ganon and Link echoes are likely a big part of the endgame. People wondering about where the sword combat is— what if the sword combat is summoning an echo of Link to do it for you alongside you lobbing furniture at enemies?
People wondering about where the sword combat is— what if the sword combat is summoning an echo of Link to do it for you alongside you lobbing furniture at enemies?
That would be really sick, a Mario Odyssey kind of final act. Tbh very likely what they're gonna do.
Talking about the box art, am I the only going nuts with my completionist needs because of that heart piece? I WANT TO COLLECT IT BUT I CAN'T IT WILL ALWAYS REMAIN ON THAT BOX
That would be really sick, a Mario Odyssey kind of final act. Tbh very likely what they're gonna do.
Talking about the box art, am I the only going nuts with my completionist needs because of that heart piece? I WANT TO COLLECT IT BUT I CAN'T IT WILL ALWAYS REMAIN ON THAT BOX
Also I love Zelda’s cloak/boots paired off against her more typical white/pink outfit and gold circlet. She looks exactly like she’s grabbed some outdoorsy stuff on the way out of the castle, while still being a simple silhouette.
I wonder if this is where any rumours of a LTTP remake spawned. It does look like a reimagining of that Hyrule from LTTP/LBW. Or at least, in terms of where its landmarks roughly are in relation to each other, rather than specifics.
I wonder if this is where any rumours of a LTTP remake spawned. It does look like a reimagining of that Hyrule from LTTP/LBW. Or at least, in terms of where its landmarks roughly are in relation to each other, rather than specifics.
I wonder if this is where any rumours of a LTTP remake spawned. It does look like a reimagining of that Hyrule from LTTP/LBW. Or at least, in terms of where its landmarks roughly are in relation to each other, rather than specifics.
I think the only thing I'm not really a fan of is the designs of the hylians, they just aren't animated enough for my liking.
With that out of the way. This looks SO good. BOTW design philosophy in a 2D zelda, the world looks so much less flat than in Links Awakening. I was sold completely when Zelda just jumped on a tree, which sounds funny.
It's less 2d v 3d and more isometric v freecam.
Gameplay looks really fun, and I wonder what else they're hiding.
I saw someone suggest trial dungeons with limited summon choices, which I think is a must.
Only real concerns are:
1) How did link's awakening performance hold up in the end? Hopefully they've taken time to refine it so there arne't issues
2) I hope that the list of summons is better curated than BOTWs. In the end so many of the fusions were +x damage and really clogged up the inventory.
I think this game is taking place somewhere between ALttP, LA, OoS, OoA and ALBW. I think it may even be the same Link featured in the latter games. One of the big giveaways is when Link jump’s over Ganon’s Trident attack, which means he must have Roc’s Feather. We’ve never seen that item used outside of LA, OoS, and OoA. And he doesn’t have it in ALBW either.
I know that may be a bit of a grasp here, but it’s usage of the same map and the version of Ganon we’re seeing here certainly places it on the Fallen Timeline. So currently, I’d say we’re looking at:
ALttP->LA->OoS->OoA->EoW->ALBW
Also, it’s notable that ALBW was absent of of the races seen in all of the games prior to ALBW as well as the games that followed, being LoZ and AoL. Those races being Koroks, Kokiri, Goron, Gerudo, Sheikah, Sea Zora, and Rito. And we’ve seen several of those races already just in this trailer alone: River Zora, Zora, and Gerudo.
So I’m feeling pretty confident of my current placement on the timeline down the game here.
I know all of this could be very, very wrong, but I’m loving theorizing as I always do for a new Zelda game.
It makes sense to have a Hyrule that feels familiar. The hook of the game is playing from Zelda's perspective, and if they made a Hyrule that is totally different it wouldn't hit the same way.
But it's going to be different for sure, we already see a Gerudo town and other new locations.
I wonder if this is where any rumours of a LTTP remake spawned. It does look like a reimagining of that Hyrule from LTTP/LBW. Or at least, in terms of where its landmarks roughly are in relation to each other, rather than specifics.
Here's what I'm thinking: Echoes of Wisdom started as A Link to the Past remake.
A common assumption after Link's Awakening (2019) was that we'd get another remake, but that it would be the Oracles games. What if the plan was to hop back, instead of forward, and remake Link to the Past? After all, the classic 90s formula was proving its popularity and the lead staff for Link Between Worlds and Triforce Heroes weren't available, either, which was a potential bar to Aonuma's stated aim in 2017 of creating an evolved style of 2D Zelda. While development resources were always available for more 2D Zelda, through Grezzo, the bar seemed to be whether the big new idea was there.
What if that big new idea only shaped up during development of a LttP remake and Tears of the Kingdom? One thing that would've been apparent from an early stage for Aonuma was the increasing fan interest in playing as Zelda. Demand for this only increased after TotK was teased in 2019, but what if Aonuma didn't settle on trying that direction in the 2D series until a later stage in Tears' development?
One thing which makes me think that Tears was fairly advanced before Echoes of Wisdom moved in this direction is the similarity between the Echoes' selection and the UI in TotK. It looks like creative cross-pollination to me. Let's say we've arrived in 2020 or 2021, and TotK's core mechanics and UI are well and truly shaping up, and fans are still asking about playing as Zelda. What if, at that point, the creative ideas behind Echoes of Wisdom's gameplay coalesced into something solid? You play as Zelda, who recreates objects and enemies in the world for varied, emergent gameplay.
But there's a catch: Grezzo have already been working on remaking A Link to the Past in Link's Awakening's engine. Rather than scrap that work, Aonuma decides to utilise it as the base for the new evolved gameplay style. After all, reimagining a familiar Hyrule with new gameplay is exactly what the broader Zelda team are already doing, and they know it's worked previously, too. Plus, it means they don't waste development work and could have a new Zelda adventure ready to go not too long after Tears of the Kingdom.
sure, that's a complex head canon. It could be as simple as deciding that, for Zelda's first game, they wanted to reuse classic elements - classic Link, classic Ganon, a classic overworld - and defamiliarise them through new gameplay. That certainly seems to be a key theme of Zelda this decade.
I'll admit that, even being super excited at finally getting a 2D Zelda and a Zelda as a protagonist in the series, my first reaction to the echo system replacing traditional combat was a bit disappointed. (Not enough to make me not want the game or anything, but you know, a drawback.) But having slept on it, I think it'll be exciting to completely shake it up for the game. Right now, I'm excited to see how dungeons and boss battles (assuming they're in) are going to play out. I think this could be a blast.
In the grander scheme of things for the series, I'm super excited that 2D Zelda is back and hopefully the new entry is successful enough to warrant - well, at least somewhat less of a gap than 11 years between new entries. Although I think after this one, they might need to switch up the art style again. This game looking like LADX seems to be a bit controversial and, while it doesn't bother me and I enjoy the art, it would surely get stale for a third game on an new system. And it'll also be fascinating to see where they will go with that!
Oh that's fun - Classic Zora and Nu Zora having a chat. Didn't realise that's what we were seeing.
edit - it also looks like we're going to have a less static, more dynamic presentation than Link's Awakening, which obviously followed the GB game very closely. The shot of Zelda speaking to the Deku Scrub has zoomed right in so you get a very close up view of the world and the background, which isn't something that happened in Link's Awakening.
You have my support. Nintendo, make it possible for us to buy those t-shirts, and the ones from Miyamoto too. I would basically buy two of each and wear one of them like ... all the time.
Tri has four triangles here. In the upper right corner, you can see the Moblin icon is marked with two triangles.
After summoning the echoed Moblin, Tri has only two triangles. The echo is denoted on the overworld by the two triangles used to summon it.
The other two triangles zoom from Tri to summon a second Moblin echo. Tri doesn't have any spare triangles, so Zelda can't summon more echoes (until the Moblin echoes are dismissed/killed/etc).
So in theory there's dungeons (likely), do you think it's possible that the reward for clearing a dungeon could be another triangle part for Tri?
It would kinda make sense to give the players the option to expand how many Echoes one can create.
And it would allow for increasing difficulty-scope for later dungeons, as the devs could plan with the players being able to summon and combine more Echoes.
I'm wondering if they'll do a Zelda direct for this before it releases. There is a lot they haven't showed us yet, hopefully we'll see it.
IMO, everything looks/screams budget title for this. Which isn't surprising since that's the case with pretty much every first party release this late into the life cycle (except for Metroid Prime 4). This game reuses assets from Link's Awakening and same map design as LttP. I'd say this should be priced accordingly, but this is the company that charged €60 for Link's Awakening.
It's still surprising they went with a new game instead of Oracle remake, which would have been even cheaper for them to develop. But I'm not complaining! This is pretty much an entire new gameplay concept we haven't seen before, it has the potential to do great things.
I have long loved the discussions around the timeline, but I sincerely think that the creative managers of the series have absolutely nothing to do with it in reality. We must take each episode as the variation of the same story or all of the world of a common narrative universe.
I loved this graphic style in Link’s awakening because it lent itself very well to the dreamlike context of the game, but I would have liked it to remain specific to this dream. I guess the advantage of reusing the same style is to be able to save time and facilitate development, but in this case I hope that the technical problems of the previous game will be corrected because they were quite abnormal given what the switch is capable of doing.
One of the things I really liked about the trailer was the music. I can’t wait to learn more about the game. And I wonder who manages direct supervision at Nintendo.
I wonder if I can take a power from the furthest point from the map and take it to the opposite side of the map, that would make the possibilities gigantic.
One of the things I really liked about the trailer was the music. I can’t wait to learn more about the game. And I wonder who manages direct supervision at Nintendo.
I loved this graphic style in Link’s awakening because it lent itself very well to the dreamlike context of the game, but I would have liked it to remain specific to this dream. I guess the advantage of reusing the same style is to be able to save time and facilitate development, but in this case I hope that the technical problems of the previous game will be corrected because they were quite abnormal given what the switch is capable of doing.
One potential advantage of reusing work and knowhow from Link's Awakening should hopefully be efficiency gains and improved technical performance. Digital Foundry speculated that the frame drops in LA were caused by the game hitting bottlenecks when streaming in and decompressing data, which is why the performance stutters were noticeable in the overworld (more data to load, more freedom for the player to move between multiple areas quickly) than dungeons (self-contained, smaller areas with less data to load and less scope for the player to traverse multiple areas quickly).
Perhaps one reason we've got a variation on Link to the Past's overworld is because the more open and less segmented design is easier for this engine to load in without performance problems. Link's Awakening was split into discrete tiles back on the GameBoy, which meant the game could pause briefly and load each individual tile, which in turn meant the world was designed in a very compact way, with very different areas packed closely together, which might be where some of the data loading problems come from in the remake.
I wonder if I can take a power from the furthest point from the map and take it to the opposite side of the map, that would make the possibilities gigantic.
Yeah, I'm wondering if, like the open-world games, you have a limitless inventory and so once you learn an echo, you can always use that item; or if they limit your inventory so that you need to juggle echoes and decide what to keep. The latter would demand more strategic thinking from players. Plus, if you can echo everything in the game, that's one hell of an inventory, and I can't help but wonder if they'll avoid the sprawl of the open-world games to help differentiate the experience. Obviously, inventory expansion for weapons is a feature of the open-world items, but Fuse materials aren't limited by any ceiling. Perhaps your Echoes inventory can gradually be expanded.
Certainly, Echo to me seems very similar to Fuse, in that it encourages both deliberation and dynamism: for both abilities the game pauses to invite you to think through what you can do in any given scenario, but once you make your selection the impact is immediate.
Here's what I'm thinking: Echoes of Wisdom started as A Link to the Past remake.
A common assumption after Link's Awakening (2019) was that we'd get another remake, but that it would be the Oracles games. What if the plan was to hop back, instead of forward, and remake Link to the Past? After all, the classic 90s formula was proving its popularity and the lead staff for Link Between Worlds and Triforce Heroes weren't available, either, which was a potential bar to Aonuma's stated aim in 2017 of creating an evolved style of 2D Zelda. While development resources were always available for more 2D Zelda, through Grezzo, the bar seemed to be whether the big new idea was there.
What if that big new idea only shaped up during development of a LttP remake and Tears of the Kingdom? One thing that would've been apparent from an early stage for Aonuma was the increasing fan interest in playing as Zelda. Demand for this only increased after TotK was teased in 2019, but what if Aonuma didn't settle on trying that direction in the 2D series until a later stage in Tears' development?
One thing which makes me think that Tears was fairly advanced before Echoes of Wisdom moved in this direction is the similarity between the Echoes' selection and the UI in TotK. It looks like creative cross-pollination to me. Let's say we've arrived in 2020 or 2021, and TotK's core mechanics and UI are well and truly shaping up, and fans are still asking about playing as Zelda. What if, at that point, the creative ideas behind Echoes of Wisdom's gameplay coalesced into something solid? You play as Zelda, who recreates objects and enemies in the world for varied, emergent gameplay.
But there's a catch: Grezzo have already been working on remaking A Link to the Past in Link's Awakening's engine. Rather than scrap that work, Aonuma decides to utilise it as the base for the new evolved gameplay style. After all, reimagining a familiar Hyrule with new gameplay is exactly what the broader Zelda team are already doing, and they know it's worked previously, too. Plus, it means they don't waste development work and could have a new Zelda adventure ready to go not too long after Tears of the Kingdom.
sure, that's a complex head canon. It could be as simple as deciding that, for Zelda's first game, they wanted to reuse classic elements - classic Link, classic Ganon, a classic overworld - and defamiliarise them through new gameplay. That certainly seems to be a key theme of Zelda this decade.
brilliant analysis Imho, the core concept of manipulating the map scenario with map scenario element is right there, of course there are differences but there is a fil rouge that connects Totk an EoW for what we can see.
Actually, the more I look at that screenshot, the more it looks like ALTTP. Like, eerily similar, from what looks like the Eastern Palace all the way to the island in the lake.
Then, the rest of the shots looks like a completely different map. There's a jungle, a desert city, etc.
I think the biggest mysteries I have at the moment with the available information:
(a) What other equipment will Zelda be able to use on hand? Her D-pad inventory is looking suspiciously similar to the Wild duology's with primary 'weapon' on right.
(b) Similar to what others have brought up, is building up the triangle count something that occurs through dungeon clearances, something similar to collecting Pieces of Heart, or some other organic progression? (Looking at the video again, it seems that 3 tris are present in the dungeon, Sheikah lab areas, port area that gets absorbed into rifts, one underwater section, learning the sign, and the boss preview. Everything else beyond that seems to have 4 tris.)
(c) How does one dismiss an unwanted echo? Does it automatically occur based on age of echo once you try summoning with no reserve tris?
Yeah but that was a really weird ass game, gameplay wise (DidYouKnowGaming did a video on it), not what people imagine when thinking about a Zelda/Sheik game made by Retro lol
Whenever you met an ennemy, like in a JRPG, you entered in a combat scene facing multiple ennemies, and you would move the wiimote to kill them whenever they jumped at you, like a Whack-a-mole game, and that was it.
Retro staff who worked on the prototype admitted it wasn't really interesting and just an experiment not worth becoming a full game.
Yeah but that was a really weird ass game, gameplay wise (DidYouKnowGaming did a video on it), not what people imagine when thinking about a Zelda/Sheik game made by Retro lol
Whenever you met an ennemy, like in a JRPG, you entered in a combat scene facing multiple ennemies, and you would move the wiimote to kill them whenever they jumped at you, like a Whack-a-mole game, and that was it.
Retro staff who worked on the prototype admitted it wasn't really interesting and just an experiment not worth becoming a full game.
I didn't read all the posts so sorry if it has already been said. Two thoughts come to mind:
1) I think, in this brillant gameplay design and as Aonuma said he hasn't even counted all the echoes yet, which means there are a lot of them, not only each echo can have multiple functions but also each function can me made by multiple echoes, like an ecosystem. So we will not need all the echoes but all or almost all the functions. In that way it clearly makes each user experience kinda unique like BOTW/TOTK.
2) The world map seems to have a lot of similitaries with the ones of LTTP, ALBW and LA. The trip will be different because of the gameplay but it's still almost the same map which can be a bummer.
It's safe to assume Zelda will not only rescue Link but all the disappeared people. How can she do this? Maybe, when you have enough echoes (or functions), Tri or the tri rod will update allowing Zelda to go in the drifts. This may be the key to new world's areas or, I hope, an entire new world map!
I don't know if anyone's talked about this yet, but I think those rift things are this game's analog to BotW shrines.
In the trailer, we see lots of these rifts scattered all over Hyrule that people have fallen into. There's lots of them.
In shots where we get a closer look, we can see the rifts lead to a void filled with little discrete floating islands.
We know these islands are accessible to the player because we see it in a later shot in the trailer. But did you notice that most other interior dungeon scenes are set in the same void?
Look here. There's a purple shard particle that's applied over the screen whenever the player is in the void, and we see it in a few other places.
Between this and how many rifts there are scattered all over the map, it wouldn't surprise me if you could jump into them to teleport to small, isolated puzzle rooms like the shrines in BotW. If that's true, though, I wonder what the rewards could be? We know NPCs have fallen into them, so maybe you can rescue them to get context-specific rewards or to advance quests?
If this is true, I hope EoW still has room for a dozen or so conventional Zelda dungeons.
I keep ping-ponging between being excited for this game and worrying that it'll miss what I like so much about 2D Zelda. The unrestricted freedom and exploration of BotW was super refreshing, but I think it's antithetical to the tight puzzle box design that makes 2D Zelda fun. Being top-down and mostly restricted to one plane of movement, I think 2D Zelda is inherently less "adventure-y" than 3D Zelda, and BotW's biggest strengths won't translate over well. Because of that, I'm getting paranoid as I see more and more BotW influence in this game's design. Am I being unreasonable?
I think EoW will definitely have a more freeform approach to puzzles, due to the very concept of the game. You have probably hundreds of objects to summon, would be actually hard to design puzzles that can only be solved one particular way like classic Zelda.
That doesn't mean there can't be dungeons, however. I think this game will be a traditional 2D Zelda in structure but with BotW's style of puzzle solving.
Good catch. Seems like the common thread that we've seen so far is rifts appear to suppress triangles to 3, serving as an effective lock to how much Zelda could pull out from her echo inventory. Maybe the rifts also lock future moveset functions / item uses...?
Rewards wise - honestly hard to say, depends if rifts serve as areas by which additional special function echoes can be learned (water block as an example); I think they wouldn't do a BOTW and lock say pieces of heart behind them, but maybe something that works towards triangle count accumulation?
If this is true, I hope EoW still has room for a dozen or so conventional Zelda dungeons.
I keep ping-ponging between being excited for this game and worrying that it'll miss what I like so much about 2D Zelda. The unrestricted freedom and exploration of BotW was super refreshing, but I think it's antithetical to the tight puzzle box design that makes 2D Zelda fun. Being top-down and mostly restricted to one plane of movement, I think 2D Zelda is inherently less "adventure-y" than 3D Zelda, and BotW's biggest strengths won't translate over well. Because of that, I'm getting paranoid as I see more and more BotW influence in this game's design. Am I being unreasonable?
I think there still will be a standard set of traditional dungeons (mainly considering the LTTP world landmarks), but the means of clearing them will be more in the vein of ALBW through Wild duology in that Zelda will have her hammerspace of echoes to serve as the pieces of the keys to the dungeon environments' locks.
Considering MisterSpo's speculation on how EoW may have been shaped into its current state due to parallel production with TOTK, and the visual identity of both the HUD and parts of the world (the hood and cloak, Sheikah designs etc), it's a legitimate concern to feel the increasing BOTWification of the 2D formula. (It's not a concern I personally share)
Difficult to know - it wouldn't surprise me if there's a chibi-Zelda amiibo and a collector's edition confirmed closer to the time. Maybe we'll get another trailer in July or August.
I don't know if anyone's talked about this yet, but I think those rift things are this game's analog to BotW shrines.
In the trailer, we see lots of these rifts scattered all over Hyrule that people have fallen into. There's lots of them.
In shots where we get a closer look, we can see the rifts lead to a void filled with little discrete floating islands.
We know these islands are accessible to the player because we see it in a later shot in the trailer. But did you notice that most other interior dungeon scenes are set in the same void?
Look here. There's a purple shard particle that's applied over the screen whenever the player is in the void, and we see it in a few other places.
Between this and how many rifts there are scattered all over the map, it wouldn't surprise me if you could jump into them to teleport to small, isolated puzzle rooms like the shrines in BotW. If that's true, though, I wonder what the rewards could be? We know NPCs have fallen into them, so maybe you can rescue them to get context-specific rewards or to advance quests?
If this is true, I hope EoW still has room for a dozen or so conventional Zelda dungeons.
I keep ping-ponging between being excited for this game and worrying that it'll miss what I like so much about 2D Zelda. The unrestricted freedom and exploration of BotW was super refreshing, but I think it's antithetical to the tight puzzle box design that makes 2D Zelda fun. Being top-down and mostly restricted to one plane of movement, I think 2D Zelda is inherently less "adventure-y" than 3D Zelda, and BotW's biggest strengths won't translate over well. Because of that, I'm getting paranoid as I see more and more BotW influence in this game's design. Am I being unreasonable?
I don’t think you’re being unreasonable, it can be exhausting at times to listen through the “classic Zelda is dead” discourse, but one can definitely have concerns about how things would play out if too much of the 3D influence would inhabit 2D Zelda, which has had its unique quirks and ideas exclusive to just that niche of the franchise. If that is not your cup of tea, there’s a clash happening when the developers are clearly infatuated with the new conventions to the point of expanding it all beyond the tentpole releases.
Like, part of the appeal of 2D Zelda, at least for me, has been not exactly that its classic Zelda, but a bit of a break from the sometimes exhausting systemic-driven open world escapades. When LA came out and was the complete antithesis to BotW, it felt so refreshing, and some of that feeling gets lost if you muddy the waters.
But in the end, I don’t mind. If they’re planning on bringing more of that freeform philosophy into 2D Zelda, they’re doing it in all the right ways.
I think there still will be a standard set of traditional dungeons (mainly considering the LTTP world landmarks), but the means of clearing them will be more in the vein of ALBW through Wild duology in that Zelda will have her hammerspace of echoes to serve as the pieces of the keys to the dungeon environments' locks.
Considering MisterSpo's speculation on how EoW may have been shaped into its current state due to parallel production with TOTK, and the visual identity of both the HUD and parts of the world (the hood and cloak, Sheikah designs etc), it's a legitimate concern to feel the increasing BOTWification of the 2D formula. (It's not a concern I personally share)
I'm mostly worried about the "You can do whatever you want and they're all right answers!" approach to puzzles that BotW and TotK often defaulted to, which I think won't work in a game that isn't strongly oriented around exploration.
I didn't notice that the player is capped to 3 echo charges while in puzzle rooms until I read your earlier post, and that gives me a lot of hope because it shows they're willing to constrain the player to force them to come up with novel solutions. That's promotes the kind of "turn this problem around in your head to find solutions" design I'm craving from 2D Zelda.
For me I'm happy to have the freer gameplay and a different progression structure but I'd like to avoid the sprawl. Let it be a focused 15 to 20 hours game, 25 hours tops, and I'd really welcome that. I adored Tears but it was overwhelming and Hylia knows when I'll ever find the time to replay it.
I didn't notice that the player is capped to 3 echo charges while in puzzle rooms until I read your earlier post, and that gives me a lot of hope because it shows they're willing to constrain the player to force them to come up with novel solutions. That's promotes the kind of "turn this problem around in your head to find solutions" design I'm craving from 2D Zelda.
I do think it's likely we see variations on this. I can imagine that in the Rift spaces we might actually not have access to our normal Echoes, for example, and be forced to work more strictly with whatever we find in that space (but perhaps we're then allowed to take some of these Echoes into the overworld; though perhaps that is too much like a find item - clear dungeon - use item in overworld formula). That way you can create dungeon-analogous Rifts that have their own mechanics, but with some flexibility and room to improvise. And I also wonder if they'll limit the amount of Echoes Zelda can 'remember' or have access to at any one time; perhaps the Echoes inventory will expand as you increase the number of Echo charges available to you.
Since Zelda wakes up in a prison cell and meets Tri, it's safe to say that the game properly begins there. Perhaps the soldiers that came to fetch Zelda in the beginnin are turning on her and coming to throw her in prison, believing her to be responsible for the rifts.
Two other shots that might be in the beginning of the game are the one where she's chased by a large rift, and the Impa taking down soliders shot. Perhaps the rifts come and eats up the prison cells of the castle. And Impa is definitely "rescuing" Zelda from the castle, and they're maybe cleaning Zelda's name by saying that the rifts wasn't her fault.
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