¡Tenemos Zelda aquí!

So who cares if they're in Spanish? It's Zelda!

April 21th, 2005

Some new Zelda 2005 screenshots and information has come to us from the most unlikely of places--a Spanish magazine. Nine times out of ten, we tend to hear about these sort of developments before our European friends, but Nintendo has been known to seek out foreign venues in the past to distribute information. Thanks to the people at Brotherhood of the Underworld , they've scanned and published images from the magazine along with much of the source text. I speak a little Spanish myself, so I'm going to do my best to translate! I'll be updating this page as the night wears on.

Upper left: The new Zelda will return to have a very absorbing and varied plot, complete with combat, action, exploration, and of course lots of ingenious mini-games.
Upper right: The plot of the adventure is still a big mystery. All that we know is that Link starts the adventure as an adult at the age of 16.
Lower left: Ejii [sic] Aonuma, A Great Talent -- This man may not be as famous as Shigeru Miyamoto, but thanks to his ingenious works on "Zelda: Majora's Mask" for the N64 and the more recent "Zelda: Wind Waker" for the GameCube, little by little he is carving a great future. In all ways, his major work is yet to come. Believe me when he told us that the next "Zelda" will be very special.
Lower right: All of this happened in the offices that Nintendo has in Kyoto (Japan). There I had the immense privilege to play a game of the new "Zelda". And still I am trying to recover from the impression! They could assure me that this title will become an authetic super-classic. But, I am going to come down from the clouds to tell you my experience with this marvel. The history that supports the adventure is still a real mystery and according to Eiji Aonuma, the genius that is behind the project, until May at E3 does not plan to reveal too much. However, Aonuma did reveal an important fact: "For the first time in the saga, the game will start with Link as an adult, specificially at the age of 16." To remind you, in the presentation of all the games our lovable hero starts out as a child and as the adventure happens, he becomes older. This new feature will influence directly the shape of the plot of the game, since Link will be able to take a good number of these(?)...

Upper left: The tasks we will take during the adventure will be the most varied, from watching over cattle to solving puzzles or fighting bosses.
Center left: Although Link will be already an adult upon the beginning of the adventure, he will mature little by little with the passing of time.
Bottom left: (Taken from another site) On horseback we will experience very exciting situations as we will be able to fight hundreds of enemies or, as shown in the picture, perform incredible leaps.
Upper right: Zelda Wind Waker -- The development, system of control, and other aspects of the new "Zelda" will be inspirations for this great RPG. -- Aonuma and his team have much experience on their shoulders, above all because they created the ultimate adventure of Link, "Zelda: Wind Waker", a title which highlighted a different graphics style of captivating, animated drawings.
Middle right: One of the aspects of this game that Aonuma did not like too well was that the water was not transparent, something that they planned to fix in the new "Zelda". Why did they want transparent water? Because according to what Aonuma told me that "to realize transparent water we allow one to look at a finished graphical style that is more beautiful and realistic and, at the time, opens the game in a new underwater world."
Bottom right: Aonuma also confessed to me that in the future he plans to return to developing a new "Zelda" using the graphics engine of "Zelda: Wind Waker."

Top center: The graphics in the game will be impressive. Backgrounds and characters will have a level of detail few times seen on a console.
Top right: We will see a handful of characters during the game. Several of them will be well known, like this species of Goblin that is attacking Link.
Bottom left: From paper to the console, Some ingenious designs -- To create the characters that will appear in the game, (and there won't be just a few, I can assure you) Nintendo has put to work their best graphics designers. As you can tell, casting a glance at the sketches that accompany this drawing, the characters and enemies will show a very attractive appearance and, why not say it, more adult and realistic that is customary. Furthermore, all of the characters will have a very defined personality, and will react in a different manner to our actions. On the other hand, the animations will also be fantastic and, again, very natural. They are being very careful with the most minute detail. -- These are the sketches the were created by the designers at Nintendo. As you can see, the characters have a great look.
Right: Dialogues with tens of people will revolve about the fundamentals of the plot of the adventure and will reveal valuable information.
Bottom right: ...and a couple of combat scenes with Link on horseback and a number of mounted enemies on savage wild boars. And in all they have kept me hallucinating! The first of these, that which takes place in the Hamlet of Toaru, gives a type of tutorial, for what I suspect will be the first place we will visit in the game. However, the intention of Aonuma is that this tutorial would be the most natural way possible and that any...

Top left: The world where the adventure takes place will be enormous, much bigger than the others in "Zelda". So we will visit numerous places like this forest.
Center: This game will be two or three times bigger than "Ocarina of Time."
Bottom left: ...that go deep into it learns the basic controls rapidly (which are like those incorporated into "Ocarina of Time" on N64 or the more recent "Zelda Wind Waker") while having fun performing the different tasks. For example, one of these tasks would consist in helping a pregnant woman to move heavy objects around her house, labor that helps players to get the knack of the analog stick. Toaru is divided into different regions, its size is considerable and moreover is populated by a good number of habitants with whom we can speak. -- The second place you can explore is the Ranch, and it is a type of mini-game in which Link rides a horse to make it steer the cows into the stable in a limited amount of time. I had a great time trying it! Anyway, the part of the game that impressed me was that which happened next. I tried to have a frantic battle on horse against a giant enemy and its henchmen. They wore beautiful armor and were mounted on wild boars. To defeat him, Link has to fire arrows or hit them with his sword, but to do so...
Top right: Zelda Ocarina of Time -- This adventure, for many the best of the series, also will clearly have an influence on the new "Zelda". -- The first adventure of Link on the N64 is considered one of the best RPGs of all history. It was the first time that the saga appeared in 3D, and so much of the new graphic style was the cause for jubiliation that benefited this work.
Right: One of the characteristics that was put into the new "Zelda" was the control system (revolutionary at the time) which was incorporated into "Ocarina of Time". For example, to have the button (in this case it will be the trigger L) held in, we are permitted to confront automatically when we are in a full battle, something rather useful in dire circumstances.
Bottom right: Somewhere else, Link would jump automatically when required in some given situations (such as running to the edge of a platform, for example), which is the same that happened for the first time in "Ocarina of Time".

Top left: The dungeons will place us in serious jams one more time, and furthermore we will encounter a good number of those! This will be better for those of us who go in well prepared!
Top right: The battles will take place in real-time, for which they will be very dynamic and diverse. Link is able to employ a great number of arms.
Right: "'Zelda' will have an aesthetic very much like manga drawings."
Bottom left: If you remember, you will be sure to relive the first images that you saw of "Zelda" for GameCube at the SpaceWorld fair in 2000, what was served to demonstrate the technical capacities of the console. Since then everyone has been begging to and screaming at Nintendo to make a Zelda with graphics like the realistic ones, something that they would complete in part with this game. And I say only in part because Aonuma thinks that those characters "seemed to be marionettes without personality. I prefer our new look, close to the manga style." And the truth is that noticing the results, there is good reason to say that.
Bottom right: ...first you have to get sufficiently close to him and, further, avoid the attacks of his companions. It was a thrill! The field of battle where the action occurred was enormous and I had to ask myself about the size of the map in the final version of the game. The response from Aonuma was clear: "The expanse of the title was two or three times bigger than 'Ocarina of Time', perhaps more, and we are intending for the adventure to last 70 hours." And having an idea that the size of "Ocarina of Time" was already gigantic, I could not imagine how big this world would seem to us! Ultimately, I took the moment to...

Top left: The sense of humor "made by Nintendo" will be well presented and from time to time we will crack up laughing with laughable situations, such as this one here.
Left: The camera system will permit us follow all of the action without problems during whatever type of situation, though we see this in full battle.
Bottom left: ...play another part of the game, very short, in which Link needed to confront a duel on horse with another rival in the style of classic Medieval jousts. The battle took place on a stretch of bridge constructed over a canyon, a valuable spot. In fact, and weighing the actual state of the plot in which you encounter the new "Zelda", the title already presents a graphical style that is sensational. On this thought, the leader Aonuma revealed to us something interesting: "We don't want the game to present a graphics style exaggeratedly realistic like some have tried to do with a CG, but rather that it has an air that seems like the Japanese manga comics." In all, with the coming illusion and the care of Aonuma and his team on this game, it is impossible to not realize this is a big game. The fans of the adventures of Link will be content.
Top right: Zelda DS -- Thanks to the new technical possibilities that the Nintendo DS offers, they will have a unique version of this game. -- After questioning them about this version of the game, Aonuma told me that in the beginning the concept of the game "Zelda DS" will be somewhat different with respect to that which we will enjoy on the GameCube. "Zelda DS" resembles more the concept of interaction between players similar to that already seen in "Zelda Four Swords" on the GameCube, and players will be able to play simultaneously thanks to the Wi-Fi technology incorporated into the console. Moreover, this title also will make good use of the two screens and the touch screen.
Right: On the other hand, when I asked him about the connectivity between different versions, Aonuma answered that "to connect two versions, you need to develop both titles with a common link. And this is somewhat difficult to achieve . If encountered with a great idea to connect the two versions we will do it, but at the moment there is nothing." It seems that there is not much optimism in this respect from Aonuma, but I bet that the launch of this game is still far away, so they have time to think up something. Anyway, I am sure that the final form of the game is a hit.

~ The Missing Link