Notes from Nintendo Direct: New Yoshi, Old Zelda Headed to Wii U

I definitely want to get a Wii U eventually, as I'm strictly a Nintendo guy, and my kids are looking forward to getting one as well. The announcement of that Wind Waker HD update certainly makes it that much more of a must buy, but to do so would mean that I'd need to not only buy the system and the game, but also another HDTV to hook it up to as I currently only own one and that's a large reason I haven't yet gotten a Wii U. It's just too much of an investment right now, and who knows if it will ever be affordable for me. I'd much rather see more updates/re-releases such as this for the 3DS like what was done with Ocarina of Time that are much more affordable and can be enjoyed on the go.

windwaker in HD, the screenshot looks amazing, don't have a wii u but if i could get one at the right price i would be in for that

@Wrighteous86 said:

@AxleFGK said:

Yoshi's epic yarn, because Nintendo can't be bothered to come up with something new. rehash those old graphics! woo!

Those old graphics that have only been in one other game ever! Woo!

Maybe someday Nintendo can take as many risks with their series as Halo, Call of Duty, Madden, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, Uncharted, and God of War.

Or maybe someday people will realize that there's no intrinsic guarantee of quality regarding the labels of "old" and "new".

And to think that there are so many people that say that Nintendo can only make really bad games for babies.

Looking forward to this, I really enjoyed Wind Waker apart from

collecting of the triforce shards at the end......

I can't wait till these guys come.

Ahh! Giant Bomb fans. The place where we crap on Nintendo and xbox and praise PC.

I am glad Nintendo is around and these games got me excited.

@AxleFGK said:

Yoshi's epic yarn, because Nintendo can't be bothered to come up with something new. rehash those old graphics! woo!

Those old graphics that have only been in one other game ever! Woo!

Maybe someday Nintendo can take as many risks with their series as Halo, Call of Duty, Madden, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, Uncharted, and God of War.

@GS_Dan: lol... god damnit... Why can't most commenters be as calm as the dude.

Yoshi's epic yarn, because Nintendo can't be bothered to come up with something new. rehash those old graphics! woo!

Well those screen shots look really neat. As for a zelda re-release ok? I don't want to show a new console off with old games in HD though.

Well, its' pretty clear that Nintendo's playbook hasn't changed with the WiiU. Even though every new console brings some excitement back to see what Nintendo can come with next, without any original game announcments (from Ninentendo) it just feels like Nintendo can't break out of the path they have set themselves on. Taking care of Mario and Zelda and related spinoff games seems to be about all they are capable of doing.

In any event, every time a new zelda game is announced these days they seem to say the same thing about "rething the old conventions" etc. But in the end, the game ends up being pretty conventional, in terms of Zelda games. If they want to make the games less linear (which they should!) then look at Zelda 1 and model the game after that. Make it an open world game. Which is where western development has been for years (elder scroll series, etc.).

I really hope this means that the next new zelda game will follow along the wind waker path/art style

also Fuck I think I need to buy a WiiU now.

@xobballox said:

While I'm very excited for Wind Waker as I already said, I really hope the new Mario isn't in space again. Call me crazy, but I didn't like the Galaxy games all that much (at least the first one, didn't play 2) because going from small planet to small planet wasn't all that fun to me. I prefer the bigger, more open/natural environments of Super Mario 64. I'd like to see that done on a grander scale.

That's what sucked about Mario 64 and Sunshine to me, the controls were absolutely incredible, but the levels were just kind of playground with big towers in the center, the level design left so much to be desired after Super Mario World. Glad Galaxy got back to real levels in a Mario game. Galaxy felt far more back on track, but at the same time it hand the open-ness of the last two that let you tackle multiple stars at once, like you could open up new planets and get the star their first then go back for the "proper" one or however you want to put it. Though I do know people who didn't like the flying bits, even if they only lasted like 5 seconds.

@RenegadeMike: Link to the Past in 3D as in polygons? FUCK that, that would the worst thing Nintendo could ever do to one of their old games. Link to the Past is perfect, outside of little knit-picking things like maybe the UI could be a little faster and more informative(maybe be able to equip more than 1 item at a time?), and obviously if the game was natively in 1080p and all that.

If you want a polygonal Link to the Past, just play Ocarina of Time. It's obviously not as good/easier, but it's very, very similar.

More on The Wind Waker: Not only was the "Triforce" dungeon cut, but so was the Great Fish Isle, Fire & Ice Arrows, and the Power Braclets Dungeons cut from the game. That being said, it is still one of my favorite games ever, it is a joy to play, great music and presentation, the best Ganondorf, so many cool things to find/see in the world, and each dungeon was a lot of fun. Again, the problem with the game is that there was not enough of it. It is unfortunate. It is like how I love Sgt. Pepper's, but really that album could have been so much more.

Damn, just when I thought I was done with Nintendo, they pull me back in.

You can make the argument that nintendo remakes is hardly "news" and only manchildren care about nintendo now, but c'mon. It’s different when it’s a woman, this is over the line, and Jumpman should have known better.

Maybe they could remaster out the triforce shard/map collecting sequence out of the game and make it a much better game instead of just making it prettier while they're on the task of remastering, actually.

Before I read that it was just a Wind Waker remake I was really excited that they might be doing a full console 3D game in that art style again. :(

Also while a new Yoshi game could be really cool, just in terms of visuals I think it's hurting because with the art style they've gone with I'm immediately comparing it to Kirby's Epic Yarn and it honestly just looks kind of ugly compared to that, with a less consistent and fleshed out art style/direction. Hopefully this is just really early footage though and upon release it's looking better. The stuffed vs not stuffed character/enemy models could lead to some neat gameplay stuff though.

This... is the first news to actually get me excited about the Wii U.

Wind Waker is one of the few games I would care about being remade in HD.

@Katkillad said:

No seriously, how did this entire article get written without mention of the Monolith Xeno game they showed at the end? Sounds like someone didn't watch the whole thing or they never played Xenoblade, the best RPG made in the past several years.

Sounds like someone didn't read through the comments or look at the front page where Alex said he posted the X-trailer on its own rather than inside this article.

You people are seriously so much out for blood (others were raging before you) that you make a hard case for an outsider like me to take you, or the Xeno-games, seriously.

I just hope the gameplay in this Yoshi game is technical like Yoshi's Island.

Also, what the fuck did they do to Wind Waker, I mean texture wise and technically it looks so much better, but they had to throw on a mountain of blooooooooooooooooooom. Here's hoping they added cutscene skips and all the glitches still work. Also now buying a Wii U for sure. I hope they can do the same at least to the other Gamecube Zelda game and leave the same gameplay but put a nice new coat of paint on it.

@Giantstalker said:

Oh boy, Wind Waker.

Worst of the 3D Zeldas, now in HD.

Thanks, Nintendo.

WIND WAKER YESASHFBJKBFAHKFBAHLB

I understand the remake thing. Great. Love it. But they pick the game that was cell shaded and cartoonish. I love Windwaker. I played the crap out of that game. GBA attached and all. Yet an HD remake of a cartoonish game is just upscaling the cartoonish effects. There is nothing more to see in that, no hidden details that were missing because of a lack of horsepower. I personally would have preferred something like an OOT remake. Look how the 3DS game turned out, that game looks fantastic. Fully rendered with the power of the 3DS made it look stellar. We could actually see links sword strap and belt . Why not do a 3D version of Link to the past? Can you all Imagine what that world would be like rendered in 3D and in HD? Personally I feel HD remakes are to fully realize the potential of a game that was missed on the orignial product. Like a directors cut of a film. I am not one of those angry people on the net screaming at the big N. I am just disappointed in the choices they have been making recently. By recently I mean the last 7 years. Misstep after misstep has them in a terrible position that they have no right being in. This is Nintendo, the company that used to rule the world in the 80s and 90s. The company that dropped the Iconic Gameboy name from their handhelds, the same company that refuses to put out games on IOS, the company that abandoned the hardcore dedicated player for my grandpa. The company that named its console something that sounds like a child talking about a his favorite body part. This is why, at least for now, I am not buying a Nintendo console, but sticking with the Microsoft product. Something that my 8 year old self would never have imagined doing.

No seriously, how did this entire article get written without mention of the Monolith Xeno game they showed at the end? Sounds like someone didn't watch the whole thing or they never played Xenoblade, the best RPG made in the past several years.

Realized this hasn't been brought up yet: 3DS as Tingle Tuner! SOLD.

@JBG4 said:

Take my money Nintendo.

Ya know I remember really liking Wind Waker back when I played it years ago. Yeah the tri-force collecting part really sucked but I was totally fine with the sailing and it being easier (especially since I was a lot younger and not so great at games). I guess it being the first Zelda game factored into this partly but man it just had such an amazing look and atmosphere to it (soundtrack was great too). I ended up playing some of the other games later on (Ocarina, Majora's Mask, A Link to the past and even the first one) and while I also enjoyed them alot (ok maybe the first one not as much but its still alright), none of them quite resonated with me as much as Wind Waker did.

I'm interested in seeing how this remake will pan out and what they might add to it. I agree with some people that it looks kinda off, particularly regarding how the characters look. However, I think i'm okay with how the environments look. Have to wait and see the full game though to be sure.

@Generic_username said:

@DoctorWelch said:

@Generic_username said:

@DoctorWelch said:

@Wrighteous86 said:

@DoctorWelch said:

Wind Waker is definitely not criminally underrated. If anything, people praise it entirely too much for its look while the actually game was extremely boring and easily the most shallow and tedious the franchise has ever seen.

That being said. It's a damn pretty game, and I wouldn't mind an HD remake.

You obviously haven't played the DS games.

Yeah, I thought someone might bring up those or the old computer games made a million years ago. I went back and changed it cause I was speaking to the main console games.

I was going to disagree with you, but the Triforce gathering part sucked so, so bad. Here's hoping they do a little more than update the graphics (they won't) but even so, I'm probably going to end up playing through it again.

Throughout most of the game I thought it was decent. Not great. Just an okay game that look really nice. I just found the dungeons to be extremely simplistic and extremely short for a Zelda game. Then I got to the fucking triforce collection and I wanted to break the damn game in half. It's probably one of the most tedious things I've ever done in a game.

Nintendo has a tendency to pad out the back half of their games with horrible collection, I believe it also happened in Metroid Prime 2, and a fewothers.

The problem with the Triforce hunt at the tail-end of Wind Waker was that it was inserted when they didn't have time to implement the remaining dungeons that they had intended. Though I'd consider it unlikely, there is the remote possibility that some of that cut content might make it into the HD remake.

@DoctorWelch said:

@Generic_username said:

@DoctorWelch said:

@Wrighteous86 said:

@DoctorWelch said:

Wind Waker is definitely not criminally underrated. If anything, people praise it entirely too much for its look while the actually game was extremely boring and easily the most shallow and tedious the franchise has ever seen.

That being said. It's a damn pretty game, and I wouldn't mind an HD remake.

You obviously haven't played the DS games.

Yeah, I thought someone might bring up those or the old computer games made a million years ago. I went back and changed it cause I was speaking to the main console games.

I was going to disagree with you, but the Triforce gathering part sucked so, so bad. Here's hoping they do a little more than update the graphics (they won't) but even so, I'm probably going to end up playing through it again.

Throughout most of the game I thought it was decent. Not great. Just an okay game that look really nice. I just found the dungeons to be extremely simplistic and extremely short for a Zelda game. Then I got to the fucking triforce collection and I wanted to break the damn game in half. It's probably one of the most tedious things I've ever done in a game.

Nintendo has a tendency to pad out the back half of their games with horrible collection, I believe it also happened in Metroid Prime 2, and a fewothers.

Loved Wind Waker ... But not near enough for me to get a Wii-U...

And I get it, I do. These remakes aren't for people like me -- people who've play the original to death -- they're for the people who never got to play them in the first place. But gosh darn it, Nintendo, I want new games as well!

@MarvinPontiac said:

Still waiting for Gears of Yarn.

GET ON THIS EPIC!!!

@Senno said:

So... franchise sequels, yet another sidescroller, just with a different character and a unique (though already done by the same team) look, a remake, nothing really new here.

Personally, I was really hoping for a Mario Golf. Yes I know its a franchise, but it's long been dormant.

The fact that Mario Kart and Mario Adventure will be playable at E3 surprises me that they must be far in development. Wonder why they weren't shown. E3 will be overblown with the new consoles.

They only need be far enough into development that there are playable vertical slices of the games in question in order to be playable for E3.

So... franchise sequels, yet another sidescroller, just with a different character and a unique (though already done by the same team) look, a remake, nothing really new here.

Personally, I was really hoping for a Mario Golf. Yes I know its a franchise, but it's long been dormant.

The fact that Mario Kart and Mario Adventure will be playable at E3 surprises me that they must be far in development. Wonder why they weren't shown. E3 will be overblown with the new consoles.

So. The Wii U just got a lot more exciting.

I never thought I'd say that.

I am glad to hear this, Nintendo has games coming!

God damn it. Even though the Wii U may be really flawed , this is a reminder that games are the real power of a console. I bet by the end of its lifecycle, most of us will have bought a Wii U. I don't have the cash for this Nintendo!

Will they include the lost Greatfish Isle dungeon? BY GOD THEY JUST MIGHT.

Wait, is it a disc release of Wind Waker? If so, freaking awesome! I can finally get rid of my regular Wii and not care about Gamecube backwards compatibility. I'm never buying a digital thing on the Wii U though. Tied to consoles... pfft.

So its safe to say that Nintendo has swept StarFox and F-Zero under a rug made of woven cash, right?

I'm not liking how much bloom there seems to be in the HD Wind Waker. Bloom usually makes me want to puke most of the time, though I did find Nintendo Land's use of bloom relatively tasteful. If they kept it at Nintendo Land levels of bloom that would make me happy.

Edit: It's soft lighting, not bloom.

@laxbro19 said:

That Yoshi game looks a lot like the Kirby game that came out two years back.

Same dev team.

@Giantstalker said:

Oh boy, Wind Waker.

Worst of the 3D Zeldas, now in HD.

Thanks, Nintendo.

Nope.

@Generic_username said:

@DoctorWelch said:

@Wrighteous86 said:

@DoctorWelch said:

Wind Waker is definitely not criminally underrated. If anything, people praise it entirely too much for its look while the actually game was extremely boring and easily the most shallow and tedious the franchise has ever seen.

That being said. It's a damn pretty game, and I wouldn't mind an HD remake.

You obviously haven't played the DS games.

Yeah, I thought someone might bring up those or the old computer games made a million years ago. I went back and changed it cause I was speaking to the main console games.

I was going to disagree with you, but the Triforce gathering part sucked so, so bad. Here's hoping they do a little more than update the graphics (they won't) but even so, I'm probably going to end up playing through it again.

Throughout most of the game I thought it was decent. Not great. Just an okay game that look really nice. I just found the dungeons to be extremely simplistic and extremely short for a Zelda game. Then I got to the fucking triforce collection and I wanted to break the damn game in half. It's probably one of the most tedious things I've ever done in a game.

@DoctorWelch said:

@Wrighteous86 said:

@DoctorWelch said:

Wind Waker is definitely not criminally underrated. If anything, people praise it entirely too much for its look while the actually game was extremely boring and easily the most shallow and tedious the franchise has ever seen.

That being said. It's a damn pretty game, and I wouldn't mind an HD remake.

You obviously haven't played the DS games.

Yeah, I thought someone might bring up those or the old computer games made a million years ago. I went back and changed it cause I was speaking to the main console games.

I was going to disagree with you, but the Triforce gathering part sucked so, so bad. Here's hoping they do a little more than update the graphics (they won't) but even so, I'm probably going to end up playing through it again.

I mean the game still has some of the best visuals and best music in the entire series.

@Wrighteous86 said:

@DoctorWelch said:

Wind Waker is definitely not criminally underrated. If anything, people praise it entirely too much for its look while the actually game was extremely boring and easily the most shallow and tedious the franchise has ever seen.

That being said. It's a damn pretty game, and I wouldn't mind an HD remake.

You obviously haven't played the DS games.

Yeah, I thought someone might bring up those or the old computer games made a million years ago. I went back and changed it cause I was speaking to the main console games.

Every time an announcement like this comes out, I realize that Nintendo owns my soul. I don't want a Wii-U at all. But I'm going to buy one. Goddammit.

A little dissapointed they didn't remake Majora's Mask (i'm on team patrick for this one), after the fan-made short clip of what it would look like on the Wii U became so popular on youtube. However Wind Waker is a fantastic game and the art style will look beautiful in HD.