Did something unusual for me and picked up the Pokemon DLC and started it before finishing Tears of the Kingdom. Needed a break from TotK for a while anyway. Since it’s only been out a couple days I don’t think I’ve gotten too incredibly far into it, but it’s still good ol’ Pokemon fun so far. I just really wish Game Freak would put more effort into fixing the optimization (if they can) because almost a year in it still chugs in places it really shouldn’t.
I think instead of a new 3D Mario right away we’ll get a port of Wonder, especially if it’s not backwards compatible. If that’s the case, that BotW demo they supposedly showed off at Gamescom may be a hint at a BotW port, though why they would port BotW instead of TotK at this point would be beyond me, especially when BotW was a launch title for their previous console. A different Zelda remake may be a good bet, like an HD/4K version of one of the N64 Zeldas. I still think the new F-Zero may be saved as a launch title for the new console to show off the new hardware. Either way, they need a solid, brand new entry in one of their big franchises or something new and original (a “killer app”) to promote immediate adoption, especially if they’re apparently releasing so many good games to sunset their previous console. They can’t make the same mistakes in the launch lineup that they did with consoles like the GameCube and Wii U.
My initial thought reading it was “spiritual sequel to Glover?” but this is definitely not that. As you said more like the Addams Family’s Thing. Kinda creepy in a way.
Still working on preparing for the “final push” in TotK, didn’t play a whole lot again this week. When you only have around 25 shrines to go, finding them on a map that big without a guide can get really tedious, especially when most of the ones I’m finding now are in caves. They really like putting them in caves in this game, I’m noticing.
I may also start up one of the strategy RPGs I bought in Steam’s little strategy game sale the other week. I bought a bundle that includes Symphony of War, Dark Deity and Tyrant’s Blessing. Not sure which to try first, though. I had Symphony of War and Dark Deity on my wishlist already, but Tyrant’s Blessing also seems interesting.
If it is F-Zero, and it is true that Nintendo showed off their new hardware at Gamescom, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new F-Zero game is a launch title for the new console. F-Zero would make a good title to show off improved graphical and processing power, especially if the new console is supposed to keep up with the Xbox Series/PS5.
Well, the way Tunic works is that you don’t really decipher the language on your own to straight up read the characters, you work with pictures and other visual/environmental cues to figure out what it’s telling you. It would be akin to going to an Asian country that doesn’t use the Roman alphabet without any knowledge of the language and having to navigate things by pictures or trial-and-error until you start to pick things up on your own. You don’t decipher the words themselves, you pick up on the context, if that makes sense. It really was a large part of the fun of Tunic.
Seeing the trailer I’m immediately reminded of Tunic, with its sort of top down, 2.5D perspective and what appears to be being thrown into a world where deciphering just the basics of what’s going on is half the challenge of the game due to a lore-based language barrier. Where Tunic was very much an homage to 2D Zelda, this game looks to take that concept in a more original direction. Looks interesting. I’d think about getting it if my backlog wasn’t a mile high.
I prefer grids myself, I’ve never gotten very far in gridless strategy games I’ve played (Mario+Rabbids, Valkyria Chronicles) because I just have too hard a time keeping track of what I can do with any given unit when I don’t have the grid for reference. That said, I can understand the appeal to some as an immersion enhancement, as others have said, and as something of a “modernization” of turn-based strategy allowing for more freedom of movement. Cool if you enjoy that kind of thing in strategy, but just not my jam. I was raised on Fire Emblem in the genre, lol.
The Zelda timeline is an interesting example of emergent narrative, at least until recently. Before the Hyrule Historia, fans could see underlying clues of a general history of Hyrule and an order in which the games take place, but developers themselves wouldn’t confirm the existence of a definitive timeline. Even so, the fans speculated endlessly about where the games fit in - were all games canon or only some, was there a split or a unified timeline, and were these the same Link, Zelda and Ganondorf or were they continually reincarnated? Finally the Hyrule Historia gave a confirmed canon timeline with not one but two splits, all games canon, and with confirmation of several reincarnations of at least Link and Zelda. Considering how resistant to doing something like this Nintendo and the Zelda team were at first, I’d pretty well guarantee that the release was in response to the emergent narrative that developed and not something they had initially planned from the outset of the series, especially not before Ocarina of Time.