Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

I'm so pumped for this!

It was entertaining to read this thread so far. I'd be curious to know the ages of people when it comes to the 2D/3D Zelda divide. I have a hunch that the majority of us who really, truly love the 2D games tend to be older and were around to see the original 2D releases, but maybe I'm wrong.

I grew up on the 2D stuff is all, so it's just ingrained in me. Ocarina was a HUUUUUGE game for me, of course, but Link's Awakening, Link to the Past, and the very first game were my childhood (second game can go away lol). Link's Awakening on my GameBoy is probably my most-played game of all time, and I've played the remake on my Switch for more hours than Breath of the Wild and Tears. Yup lol.

I'm a Wii kid, and my first Zelda game was Wind Waker HD for the Wii U, but I adore the 2D Zelda games just as much as the 3D ones. Link's Awakening is one of my favorite games of all time, and Minish Cap, Link Between Worlds, Spirit Tracks, and the Oracle games are also all pretty high up there for me. 2D Zelda always felt like the purest form of Zelda for me, they're so tightly-designed, concise, and replayable, and their puzzle design is usually a lot stronger than in the 3D games.

I loved Link's Awakening 2D top down graphics, I even wanted to see a new Pokémon game make use of a similar art style. I like the idea of making Zelda the main playable character. The series is called "The Legend of Zelda", after all, so it's a fresh and reasonable change. The copy and paste concept didn't thrill me though. It has a lot of potential, but IMO, it feels a bit dull if the gameplay is solely focused around that mechanic, just my first impression so far. I think we're blessed to get a new Zelda game in the first place. I'll take remasters/remakes too, but a new title is always preferable.

I like both 2D and 3D Zelda quite a lot. The different approaches allow the devs to focus on different things while still (mostly) retaining what I like about the Zelda series so much. Namely the exploration, puzzles, endearing characters, and (usually) the plot/writing.

I'm in my early thirties and am technically old enough to have experienced the earlier games on OG hardware, and I did have somewhat regular access to a SNES through a relative that babysat me. However, they only ever owned platformers; I never played A Link to the Past until I got hold of the GBA cartridge in college. I owned Nintendo handhelds from age 10 onward, but my family never had an actual TV console until the Wii. Twilight Princess's visuals caught my eye, and I received it as a gift. It took me two attempts to get into the game, but I fell in love the second time and never looked back.

I've played some version of every mainline Zelda since, except Four Swords Adventures. FSA is included on the Zelda timeline, but some consider this, the OG Four Swords, and Tri Force Heroes to be spinoffs. Sadly, FSA isn't happening unless it's ported in some way. I'd consider Wind Waker a more likely GCN candidate for Switch/Switch Next/2/Neo/etc.

@NinChocolate,

Lol, Its as if they want to say: Links dumb approach didn't work this time, here's Zelda's thinking solution. Reminds me a bit of World to west, where you really have to think how to get a character from A to B (But people hated that game because you had to get every character to every checkpoint individually. Personally I loved the game, even if it was a bit much to get every character to every checkpoint).

@rallydefault

I'm old enough that the first Zelda game I played was the very first one, back in the 1980s when it was new. So there are definitely some nostalgia reasons for why I'm excited about this game taking place in the same Hyrule as A Link to the Past, which fascinated me a lot in my late childhood.

But it's not like I have anything against the 3D games either. After all, my favourite Zelda game of them all is Majora's Mask, and I loved BotW too. It's just that the 3D approach has dominated the franchise for such a long time, so the Link's Awakening remake with its lovely new 2D aesthetic felt like a breath of fresh air. And getting a completely new game with the same visual style but with more creativity in the gameplay is an exciting prospect indeed.

This was probably the most interesting reveal of the direct to me. For one, I’m pretty sure this was Grezzo, meaning they’ve probably been trusted to move up from remakes/remasters to make on full new games which is real cool.

Secondly, this is a pretty telling sign of what the Zelda IP is going to be from here on out. It feels like the team wants to very much continue to push the boundaries of what a player can experiment with in a game. I’m not shocked as the most growth in the Zelda franchise history has been under this format. I understand the disappointment from other fans that they seem to not want to make a new more focused and less open ended games, but the Zelda team seems happy with this format and the sales back it up for sure…

So yeah I’m very intresting to see the overall reaction when it comes out so soon. I’m imagining they meant to reveal this in whatever direct was planned pre-every plan collapsing with the switch 2 delay.

@NarwhalKing Grezzo made Triforce Heroes, so this isn't their first original Zelda title.

This announcement was a pleasant surprise. It's nice to see an ACTUAL Zelda game, per se. I'm even more pleased to see that this is in the style of the Link's Awakening remake. I'm surprised that it's gotten a little bit of a negative reception around here though. Making Zelda playable really should shake up the gameplay, and it's still early. We'll see more soon enough.

I'm expecting Zelda to have to fight a corrupted Link.

Well, needless to say, I've been watching more and more breakdowns and theories for this game and I'm really starting to get excited. Hope I'm just as surprised as I was for cadence of hyrule. That was one I wasn't expecting too much, and I ended up loving it and playing through 5 or 6 times.

Will Zelda speak, unlike Link? I haven’t read anyone bring that up. Unless I missed something, she doesn’t speak in the first trailer or footage. It would feel different for a Zelda game even just to have a playable protagonist who talks!

@Croctopus I honestly could see her being a silent protagonist.

In anticipation, I've been playing ALTTP and afterwards I'll probably play ALBW. Both of which I've beaten a dozen or so times before. If there's time before launch, I might even dust off the ol wii u and play ww or tp. More than likely ww though.

Anyone care to speculate on the play time for this game? Historically, based on howlongtobeat.com, the 2D Zelda games tend to be shorter and mostly on portables, on the order of 15 hours. The 3D Zeldas were on home consoles and tend to take 30+ hours. We will now have a ground-up 2D Zelda on a hybrid console. Which way will it go?

@cwong15 20+ for completionists.

@cwong15 i think this is gonna be the largest 2D zelda we are gonna get !! im expecting about 20 hours main story, and 50 for completionism !! im so excited for this title three monthss ahahhahahhahhhhhh

@OctolingKing13 Most of the Nintendo games in the last year have been pretty short. I guess we shall see.

@ThatZeldaNerd How even. Game's not even out, we barely heard the theme in the trailer, I mean, I'm impressed, but again. How even.

@N00BiSH Ikr i was really shocked too. She did an amazing job tho.