Young Link and Zelda’s faces are terrible. They put a lot of work on the main cast (Link, Zelda, Sheik, Ganondorf), they put half as much effort on Saria who looks decent, and then for every other NPC (Castle Town) they just… didn’t do anything? Are the Castle Town characters even from the same game at all? I’d be fine with a style of the same level as Saria, but the DLSS5 yass faces for young Link and Zelda are just bad. Sheik looks a little over designed but not awful (after all, we don’t even see the face, that helps), Ganondorf looks the best of them all. Adult Link might be okay but I didn’t look for a stable shot of him for too long - I just don’t quite get why they made so much touch-ups on young Link’s outfit, fabric textures and all, but apparently close to nothing on adult Link? ETA slowed down the trailer, adult Link looks fine (glimpse of the red tunic design fluff looks sweet), it seems that only young Link and Zelda are super weird overdone. Maybe it’s not that bad.
New UI and UX is the most expected. The reuse of the Breath / Tears / Echoes item selection menu leaves a terrible taste, but since we have a much more limited item selection, maybe this is the best case they could have thrown this on. Should be fine, that was the most basic thing to update. Quest log presentation is nice UX update.
The touch-up on the combat system and animations is gorgeous, the sword swings and the hammer swings feel great. The monsters look amazing, bosses too, much better than the human characters. Darunia and Ruto look borderline uncanny valley but they might be okay in game.
Environment detail quality is fine. I’d be fine with less sparky ultra detailed textures and materials and fabrics, this isn’t quite my taste and Kokiri Forest might be a little too busy, but I would be okay playing a game like that. The few shots we saw of the Spirit Temple, as well as the Gerudo Hideout, the field, seem to be great, Castle Town and all that - textures and detail wise, it looks fine.
BUT… Maps are 1:1. Utterly, extremely disappointed on that. Like… The Deku Tree has a flat ground, flat walls, flat everything. It looks like the dungeons literally took the 64 maps and slapped a new hyper DLSS5 texture on it. They added a dedicated jump button, but the dungeons will have all the same flat surfaces and the same ledges to grab and everything - what even is the point of the jump button if everything else is the same? Where are you even going to use it that’s new here, where are you going to jump that the OG didn’t already do if the polygons on the map are literally the same? Castle Town also using the same map with no change, the same square, the same alley, is the worst, the most “zero effort” spot. They might have added more details to Hyrule Field, touched up the hills and river banks, but it looks like everything else, every map, every screen will be 1:1 identical - except the Hyrule Field map which appears to be just a little shorter at the bottom for some reason under the ranch? Did they cut the river from the Gerudo valley entrance a little shorter and made the field match, since there might be much less or no field transition scene? Hyrule Field was at the very least the one place I expected to see get bigger, but no, it’s shorter.
This suggests that the whole game will be 1:1 after all. Every single heart piece location, gold skulltula? Exact same. Every single dungeon room? Pull a guide from '98. Volvagia strat? Identical. Now I have to wonder what they’ll replace the stone / shard of agony with, because it’s looking like they didn’t spare any thought for that sort of thing. And most of all - absolutely zero change anywhere, no lore update to match the more recent games, no environment design update beside the ultra realistic UE5 standards, zero new location in the world, no extra room in any dungeon, no moved item, no extra background lore, not a single inch changed on any wall or floor. Nothing on the Sacred Realm, no change in the Forest or Shadow Temples, the most we might get is a couple new lines walking next to random NPCs. The presence of the Triforce mark on young Link seemed to hint that they were going to adapt a couple things from later lore, but I don’t believe in that anymore, I’m expecting identical dialogues, even the cutscenes are 1:1. They straight up looked at all the “Nintendo, hire this man” comments on every UE4/UE5 Mario / Zelda Youtube video and said okay and nothing else. ^actually they said we’ll do that ourselves and This Man is getting a C&D^
Dump the texture pack on Ship of Harkinian and bam, that’s this remake. This is the 3DS version a second time. Like, just take the 3DS version and put the same control / menu touch-ups, that would have been fine.
Since all the work is clearly done, Majora’s Mask should obviously be expected next year, no change (but this one would have been a more obvious choice to leave 100% untouched).
Only change I think I’m spotting is the item screen, there appears to be a spot for a 5th bottle, since there are 5 spots at the bottom with the same design? And I assume that 5th bottle takes the spot of either the masks / item swaps or the ocarina, sending them somewhere else - it would make sense for the ocarina to have a dedicated button.
Young Link and Zelda’s faces are terrible. They put a lot of work on the main cast (Link, Zelda, Sheik, Ganondorf), they put half as much effort on Saria who looks decent, and then for every other NPC (Castle Town) they just… didn’t do anything? Are the Castle Town characters even from the same game at all? I’d be fine with a style of the same level as Saria, but the DLSS5 yass faces for young Link and Zelda are just bad. Sheik looks a little over designed but not awful (after all, we don’t even see the face, that helps), Ganondorf looks the best of them all. Adult Link might be okay but I didn’t look for a stable shot of him for too long - I just don’t quite get why they made so much touch-ups on young Link’s outfit, fabric textures and all, but apparently close to nothing on adult Link? ETA slowed down the trailer, adult Link looks fine (glimpse of the red tunic design fluff looks sweet), it seems that only young Link and Zelda are super weird overdone. Maybe it’s not that bad.
New UI and UX is the most expected. The reuse of the Breath / Tears / Echoes item selection menu leaves a terrible taste, but since we have a much more limited item selection, maybe this is the best case they could have thrown this on. Should be fine, that was the most basic thing to update. Quest log presentation is nice UX update.
The touch-up on the combat system and animations is gorgeous, the sword swings and the hammer swings feel great. The monsters look amazing, bosses too, much better than the human characters. Darunia and Ruto look borderline uncanny valley but they might be okay in game.
Environment detail quality is fine. I’d be fine with less sparky ultra detailed textures and materials and fabrics, this isn’t quite my taste and Kokiri Forest might be a little too busy, but I would be okay playing a game like that. The few shots we saw of the Spirit Temple, as well as the Gerudo Hideout, the field, seem to be great, Castle Town and all that - textures and detail wise, it looks fine.
BUT… Maps are 1:1. Utterly, extremely disappointed on that. Like… The Deku Tree has a flat ground, flat walls, flat everything. It looks like the dungeons literally took the 64 maps and slapped a new hyper DLSS5 texture on it. They added a dedicated jump button, but the dungeons will have all the same flat surfaces and the same ledges to grab and everything - what even is the point of the jump button if everything else is the same? Where are you even going to use it that’s new here, where are you going to jump that the OG didn’t already do if the polygons on the map are literally the same? Castle Town also using the same map with no change, the same square, the same alley, is the worst, the most “zero effort” spot. They might have added more details to Hyrule Field, touched up the hills and river banks, but it looks like everything else, every map, every screen will be 1:1 identical - except the Hyrule Field map which appears to be just a little shorter at the bottom for some reason under the ranch? Did they cut the river from the Gerudo valley entrance a little shorter and made the field match, since there might be much less or no field transition scene? Hyrule Field was at the very least the one place I expected to see get bigger, but no, it’s shorter.
This suggests that the whole game will be 1:1 after all. Every single heart piece location, gold skulltula? Exact same. Every single dungeon room? Pull a guide from '98. Volvagia strat? Identical. Now I have to wonder what they’ll replace the stone / shard of agony with, because it’s looking like they didn’t spare any thought for that sort of thing. And most of all - absolutely zero change anywhere, no lore update to match the more recent games, no environment design update beside the ultra realistic UE5 standards, zero new location in the world, no extra room in any dungeon, no moved item, no extra background lore, not a single inch changed on any wall or floor. Nothing on the Sacred Realm, no change in the Forest or Shadow Temples, the most we might get is a couple new lines walking next to random NPCs. The presence of the Triforce mark on young Link seemed to hint that they were going to adapt a couple things from later lore, but I don’t believe in that anymore, I’m expecting identical dialogues, even the cutscenes are 1:1. They straight up looked at all the “Nintendo, hire this man” comments on every UE4/UE5 Mario / Zelda Youtube video and said okay and nothing else. ^actually they said we’ll do that ourselves and This Man is getting a C&D^
Dump the texture pack on Ship of Harkinian and bam, that’s this remake. This is the 3DS version a second time. Like, just take the 3DS version and put the same control / menu touch-ups, that would have been fine.
Since all the work is clearly done, Majora’s Mask should obviously be expected next year, no change (but this one would have been a more obvious choice to leave 100% untouched).
Only change I think I’m spotting is the item screen, there appears to be a spot for a 5th bottle, since there are 5 spots at the bottom with the same design? And I assume that 5th bottle takes the spot of either the masks / item swaps or the ocarina, sending them somewhere else - it would make sense for the ocarina to have a dedicated button.