E3 BREAKTHROUGH: EPIC ZELDA 3-D TO BE RELEASED!

On Tuesday, May 11 Nintendo unveiled the manifestation of many gamers hopes and wishes for the zelda series. To make this game as epic and as incredible as it should be, to give it an appearance and hopefully storyline worthy of the very name and history of Zelda. Zelda is now in fully rendered 3-D with detailed graphics and an expansive world to explore. This came as a total suprise to me, and in many ways a welcome return to the way the game should be portrayed, in a fashion that upholds the epic vision of the series.

WOW! That's huge wasn't it. Seriously, this is what I had always talked about could be the best manifestation of Zelda in the modern era and generation of consoles. If Nintendo makes that, and does it RIGHT, they don't have to worry too much about slumping GameCube sales, or perhaps their next console will employ this game or it's successor. After watching that video about 6 times already I can honestly say I'm as stoked about THIS game as much as I was about the first time I saw stuff about The Ocarina of Time.

From what I know so far, the game utilizes a what would seem drastically altered and modified version of The Wind Waker's gameplay engine. This is likely to be Wind Waker 2 or at least the project that was deemed as The Wind Waker 2. This new Zelda GameCube game appears to be an entirely dissimilar game to Wind Waker's storyline thus indicating it is a separate game entirely. Is it set in the future (Era of The Legend of Zelda - NES/Zelda II:AOL?) or the past (Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, Link to the Past), I don't know. The same eye-tracking system will be reused from Wind Waker. You can knock enemies off their horses or pigs and send them to the ground via what would almost seem to be a jousting like technique.

A new dynamic camera system will be employed to shoot dungeons from new perspectives. Apparently, as Link is exploring dungeons, the camera will pan back to give a more of a classic style top-down perspective and allow the player to see a greater range of the surrounding area, but when you encounter enemies, it will tighten to the normal behind-the-back perspective.

Neither Shigeru Miyamoto nor Eiji Aonuma are directing. They will both be involved as producers, and another director, not yet announced, will take the helms.

Now with this game obviously in the very rudiments of development you've got to figure that they've only begun to flesh out things, but here's a list of things that I (and I imagine many true Zelda fans would want as well) recommend implimenting or including in this ultimate of Zelda games.

The Blade Beam Attack - They tempted us with it in The Ocarina of Time on some old pre-production screenshots I had in the "Z-Files" so I don't see why they can't actually include it in this new Zelda. For those of you newbies to Zelda, the blade beam attack dates back to the early 4 Zelda games, The Legend of Zelda for the NES, Zelda II: The Adventures of Link for the NES, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. In those games when Link's hearts were at maximum he could fire a beam of energy from the Master Sword. Specifically in Zelda III LTTP he could only do this once he actually obtained the Master Sword, not with the initial sword he was given.

It's all about the music! - There is a certain reverance felt when listening to the hyrule overworld theme, this needs to be done to an extent that has never been done before, full CD quality Orchestration, no MIDI, full on arrangement with an entire orchestra of sounds behind it. There are numerous copies of Live orchestrated Zelda based music as well as digital arrangements based upon the original music that is absolutely incredible. It's hard to find but it's out there, in fact I do believe I've personally been able to download everything possible over the last 5 years. They need to bring back a remaster or arrangement of the Hyrule Overworld theme from Zelda II: The Adventures of Link, that one was pretty good too, could be used somewhere. There a song that has always stood out in my mind with Zelda as one of the best dungeon themes ever, it's the Palace 7 "Thunderbird Palace" BGM theme from Zelda II. Truly an incredible piece for the seriously antiquated and primative NES soundboard. At the time it was was very impressive. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the stuff from Ocarina of Time brought back. Dungeon music could be amped up a bit, maybe an epic remaster of the Standard dungeon music from either or all of Zelda's 1, 2, and 3.

Hyrule Culture/Society - Of course we need a diverse set of people occupying this land, as there should be various Towns and small Villages spread across Hyrule in various places. If they can make a game like Morrowind III for X-Box with such an expansive world, then Zelda should be no problem as well. A period set in a future Hyrule akin to Zelda II's world would be interesting. Towns named after sages of Ocarina of Time would fall in line with the series history and maintain the integrity of the Timeline (as peacemeal as it kind of is these days).

Mythos and Legend - There needs to be an embedded storyline that includes the religious and cultural beliefs surrounding the Triforce, the Hero of Time, The Gods of Hyrule, The Master Sword, events from previous preferrably the first 5 Zelda games incorporated into some kind of mythology.

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