Just in time for the San Diego Comic-Con, Nintendo has put out a new Hyrule Warriors trailer featuring all of the announced characters thus far, plus some additional elements. This is also the first trailer to feature the latest announced characters, Sheik, Darunia, and Ruto. This game continues to look awesome:

Oh god. Cuccos! RUN, LANA! SAVE YOURSELF!

The game is due out in Japan in a few weeks, at which point things like the full roster will be revealed. It's almost two full months until the U.S. release date, and I seriously can't wait. Out of all the games due for release in the second half of the year, this is the game I most want.

Just let me play as Dodongo and Gohma. Please? No. Fine... Game still looks rad. I'm pretty psyched Ruto and Darunia made it in. While I'm generally more into the Empires versions of the Dynasty Warriors series, this one is... almost definitely not gonna get one of those. Disappointing, but whatever, this looks way better than I had hoped.

It likely won't get an expansion, as the spin-offs like these generally don't. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it does well enough for there to be a Hyrule Warriors 2 with potentially even more characters, though, if Koei Tecmo and Nintendo are so inclined to make another one.

@hailinel: That's not a very optimistic outlook. Its a Nintendo IP, of course it will do well. Additionally these games do insanely well in Japan/Korea unless they have a western focus.

That's very true.

And what happened to your account?

@hailinel: "You are unable to post because your account has been flagged too many times" or something, I think it was automated because I haven't received an email or a message saying "you're banned." Doesn't matter to me either way.

That's happened to me on a couple of occasions. You should PM Rorie and the mods to ask what's up and get your karma reset.

I WANT TINGLE

And I want Gwonam. Alas, not all wishes can come true.

@hailinel: I think it has happened to me too, don't remember how it was resolved or if I had any agency in that process.

He's probably a summon. You probably have to pay him tons of rupees before he does anything. He'd be like Gilgamesh Yojimbo only with more balloons and glitter.

But I have to say, the appeal of playing as someone other than Link in a Zelda game (spin off or not) is crazy strong. My one hope is that you can play as all the antagonists (as per Warrior games usually allow) because that would be fantastic.

Keep asking for CD-i characters and you're sure to be disappointed.

I'd be shocked if the humanoid antagonists aren't playable. Wrecking dudes as Ganondorf is going to be fun!

The end with the cockoo's was a nice touch.

Zelda and Link are in the game, aren't they?

I honestly can't tell if you're being serious.

Still want to be the King of Red Lions in boat form.

Yeah, this game really does need Tingle. He's such a dumb addition to the series (good dumb). He was honestly kinda lame in Majora's Mask, but once you reach Wind Waker, he's solid gold.

I feel insulted that he'd comparing Tingle to CD-i characters!

So Lana is the new character made specifically for this game? Wonder if Nintendo plans on putting her into any future Zeldas, like the upcoming one for the WiiU?

Yep, she's an original character. I don't know if it's really likely she'll appear in any Zelda titles outside of Hyrule Warriors, though. She's very tailored for this game.

Plus it's a Koei-Tecmo character, so it's not like Nintendo has free reign. Also, the Zelda series is pretty weird when it comes to reusing characters. The best you can hope is some composite character that kind of references them.

The Groose is still not Loose. I love all the guitar shredding remakes of classic Zelda songs though.

This game looks way too awesome. I feel like such a sucker.

I'm pretty sure I heard this Zelda overworld guitar cover on the OC ReMix website in 2001.

This is the first game that sort of has Zelda zettai ryouiki, right? There's a sentence I didn't think I was going to say when I got up today.

Also, this has to become by far the best selling Warriors game worldwide, right?

The head of Tecmo Koei made a prediction that the game will be a million-seller worldwide. I'm pretty sure that's a safe bet.

And actually, I think you're right on the zettai ryouiki. Kind of odd to think about, but it's there.

Can't wait to see Jeff suffer through the Quick Look of this.

All I want is a totally ridiculous spin-off story, akin to Metal Gear Solid's "Revengeance."

@development: I predict a parallel universe / time-travel story that takes the convoluted Zelda plotline and turns it into funny balloon animals.

Bonus points if they have all the heroes comparing notes and moaning about how the same thing happens over & over again to them.

From what I understand, the story involves more of a merging of eras, sort of like Warriors Orochi.

@hailinel: So basically funny time balloon animals.

@mikelemmer: Pretty much.

Wait, why does Link have a different Japanese voice actor? As far as I know, he doesn't speak words. Do they really have to localize his vocalizations?

@video_game_king: They just used a different actor for this game. Not a real big difference.

oh man a cucco Hellmouth portal is a super frightening idea.

Man, I wish the other Warriors game had this amount of polish. It could just be trailer trickery, though, but this looks above and beyond practically every other Warriors game they've done in the past. No doubt thanks to that Nintendo monies.

It's a nightmare in poultry form.

@video_game_king said:

Really, it's bothering me that this is going to be the game where a ton of Zelda characters are going to be voiced for the first time. I'm not one of those people who is like, convinced that Zelda will suddenly be the coolest game in all of video games if they just added voice acting. But I kinda hoped that if it did happen, it would be because Nintendo found a way to work voiced characters into the mainline Zelda series.

Giving voice to these characters because, it's a Warriors game, and those games usually have the characters yelling dumb battlecries, and having Tecmo Koei being the ones to handle a lot of it, is kind of a shitty way for it to happen.

There's a difference between battle grunts and actual voiced dialogue, though. And I imagine that any voiced cutscenes that are in the game will likely feature dialogue like Midna or Fi's gibberish. When people complain about Zelda not having voice acting, it's generally out of a desire to hear the characters speak a proper spoken language.

@bisonhero:

You mean you'd rather that they beat a horde of Moblins to death in cold silence? Is the Hyrule you want populated with sociopaths?

@hailinel said:

You're probably right, but I'm still weirded out seeing Impa and Darunia and whoever with little voice clips, when they otherwise have never had voice samples in other games. Though sure, they basically sound like you'd figure they'd sound. I guess I'll wait and see how they handle the cutscenes.

Though man, I don't know about Lana humming the Zelda theme song. That's a little too meta.

@video_game_king: Ideally, yes. Then Link goes Super Saiyan, and fuses with Goku to become GoLinks, and then some Linkin Park plays or something. And then he merges all the timelines to save Hyrule once and for all, but he has to travel forward in time to save the future and then he rides like a sweet motorcycle and becomes a cyborg.

What if it's the Hyrule national anthem?..........*eyes widen upon realization that this is a really good idea*

@video_game_king said:

Genius!