The showcase will be 10 minutes long and be presented by Aonuma. I think the main thing here is Aonuma will go over some of the key gameplay features that were only hinted at but not explained in detail like how the last trailer showed what look to be a vehicle building mechanic (with Link making some kind of car and even a drone large enough for him to ride), and maybe more about some new abilities like being able to rewind time on select objects. This will probably also be where Nintendo might announce a Zelda themed Switch OLED and confirm you can pre-order an Expansion Pass on day 1 (with DLC likely not coming until either late 2023 or early 2024).
10 minutes does seem rather short for a presentation on such a big game, but I think this is deliberate on the devs part as they likely want to keep a lot of things a surprise for players when they actually play the game.
I kinda expect the map of this game to mostly recycle the one used in Breath of the Wild, except with some additions and alterations to the geography in some places.
I suppose we’ll see if 10 minutes is enough to show that this game has some truly unique mechanics and stuff…
qx1511 wrote:
I kinda expect the map of this game to mostly recycle the one used in Breath of the Wild, except with some additions and alterations to the geography in some places.
I suppose we’ll see if 10 minutes is enough to show that this game has some truly unique mechanics and stuff…
I'm thinking of it being like a combination of A Link Between Worlds and Majora's Mask. A Link Between Worlds reused much of the same world map as A Link to the Past but still had changes to reflect the passage of time, and Majora's Mask reused a good number of assets from Ocarina of Time but still made them work super well in MM.
The biggest thing I'm hoping to see is more enemy variety. The series has such a rich history of varied enemies and you spend 80% of the game fighting bokoblins, moblins and lizalfos. Darknuts, ironknuckles, stalfos are all weapon wielding enemies that would be great to fight and loot off and ambient enemies like tektites, leevers and like likes would be nice to see again as well.
So yep being 10 minutes the amount of stuff shown is kept minimal, likely because Aonuma and co. are trying their damndest to avoid spoiling any plot or stuff they deem as a "huge surprise," but we still got a major look at the new abilities.
"Rewind" is an ability that will move physics objects backwards by a certain amount of time, with the main one being shown off is using it on a large stone that fell from the sky to get up high enough to reach the new "sky island" areas (again I'm still holding onto my theory they may be the same islands from Skyward Sword returning after hundreds or thousands of years).
"Fuse" looks to be one of the biggest new additions as it's an ability that allows the player to make makeshift weapons and arrows out of many different crafting materials. Even something as weak as a tree branch can be turned into a hard hitting club by fusing it with a big rock, and fusing crafting materials with arrows basically means things like "fire arrows" and "ice arrows" from older Zelda games are still present, but now you can make them yourself, along with new arrow types like homing arrows to hit fast moving flying enemies.
"Ultrahand" (a fun reference to Nintendo's past with just the name) is "fuse" for environmental objects like logs and fans, allowing the player to make custom vehicles. The main one Aonuma showed off was a wind powered raft for getting across a lake too wide to traverse with base stamina, but reminded people of the car, hot air balloon, and "drone" shown in the previous trailer as examples of things the player can create.
"Ascend" was the last one shown off and it's a new traversal ability where Link can phase through the roof of structures in order to do things like get out of cages (methinks Aonuma mentioned "cages" as that will probably be how the game will tutorialize the ability) or get to the top of mountains that have caves inside (this will likely be a huge help for players going for a low stamina playthrough or be a huge help when conditions become rainy and thus surfaces are slippery).
Aonuma kept glimpses of the overworld, islands, and enemies deliberately brief as yet again there's no doubt he wants players to discover all the new stuff in those departments for themselves. It is still Hyrule but he did at least mention the overworld won't be exactly the same as before (like I said in a previous comment, think something like how A Link Between Worlds reused the A Link to the Past overworld), and the only new enemy shown off was a new robotic enemy called a "Construct," with one ability Contrusts have is they can use Fused weapons too so you'll need to asses what they're wielding (like how one had a makeshift fan that can blow Link off of islands).
And indeed a Zelda: TotK Switch OLED is coming, releasing a few weeks before the game on April 28, alongside a themed Pro Controller and carrying case (I'll probably grab the Pro Controller, it looks cool).
Aonuma also made sure to mention the game's development is complete so they're likely just doing last minute bug testing (I'd be more shocked if we DIDN'T get a day 1 patch), as the game has "gone gold" and Nintendo is about to print carts.
