A Link Between Worlds is Released!

A week ago, on November 22nd, 2013, the latest The Legend of Zelda game for 3DS, A Link Between Worlds, was released!

I already finished it. But you know.

Okay, thing is, guys, I have SO much going on. ALBW is probably a 20 hour game if you're REALLY giving it credit, but it took me a week to beat while dedicating every moment of my free time to this glorious new game in my Zelda collection. I can't write a post now... but oh my gosh...

If you've seen the ending of A Link Between Worlds, I can imagine you have at least a bit of an idea how darn badly I really want to write a full post right now.

However, writing something like that takes time that I don't have, ESPECIALLY today. And I probably won't for at least another week, which, as you all know, probably will be at least another month in my time.

I hate it -- November is Zelda Month, and I should be giving it the credit it deserves with a nice post! -- but I can't do anything about it.

So I'll be back as soon as I'm able to bring you a good post about this new, fantastic game. (I'm also beginning to question why I see to be a representation of the opposite of the "Zelda cycle" these days: with both ALBW and The Wind Waker HD, I was wary of the games and didn't like them much at first, but then I absolutely adored them when they were actually released... isn't that strange?)

Have a good final November day, everyone. See you soon. Enjoy A Link Between Worlds, and seriously, you HAVE to complete it if you haven't yet! That ending... it might be one of the best in Zelda history! So go!

E3 2013 Wishes Fulfilled and Unfulfilled

I promised you a post later in the day... and here it is. A bit later than you were probably expecting, but it's here.

So, yeah. We had Nintendo Direct today. For some reason, the website I was using crashed, so I ended up using their Australian website to watch it, but it still worked. I spent most of the time chatting in the Shoutbox of Zelda Dungeon throughout the presentation, but then some other guy who lived in Japan started spoiling everything because his live feed was somehow ahead of ours and I had to leave until after. XD

It was better than last year; I can tell you that already. No matter what, it was better than last year. Why? BECAUSE WE HAD SOMETHING BESIDES MARIO, THAT'S WHY.

The presentation started talking about the upcoming Pokémon games with a huge shock: there's a new type of Pokémon. Fairy type. I heard some speculation about that, but I was surprised to see it actually come true. Then they talked about Super Mario World 3D and Mario Kart 8, and I think a bit of a new Donkey Kong Country...

...But this is a Zelda blog, right? So we don't care about that stuff. What I was really looking for came soon enough, though.

A new The Wind Waker HD Trailer. A new Super Smash Bros. Trailer. And then... finally, after the presentation was over, a trailer -- and the official title -- for A Link to the Past 2, AKA Zelda 3DS.

Let's start with The Wind Waker HD, shall we?



That trailer doesn't show it, but they talked about some new features that they're adding as well, one of them being a faster traveling system if you hold A on the boat. Seems convenient, and I'm very glad it's being added for the people who complain about how slow sailing is. Even though the slow speed never REALLY bothered me before, I'll probably use this fast travel thing.

Then they showed... the Tingle Bottle.

Alright, so, when I first saw it, I kind of missed something, and only noticed its features. It can be used in game to send a message to Miiverse with a photo from the Pictobox attached. You toss it into the ocean and it disappears. I actually thought that was pretty cool to begin with. You know? Not a bad idea. Not like it's overwhelmingly awesome, but it's interesting...

And then I realized it was replacing the Tingle Tuner.

NO, NINTENDO. I WANTED THAT TINGLE TUNER IN WWHD VERY BADLY. VERY, VERRRRY BADLY.

You can't even 100% the game without it! Ugggh!

Well, that kind of annoyed me. But... *sigh* whatever...

Next up was Super Smash Bros. 4.

And my goodness, we were certainly in for a surprise.




FREAKING VILLAGER.

THE FREAKING VILLAGER

FROM ANIMAL CROSSING

IS IN MY SMASH BROS. GAME

I just... like...

Wow.

Hahahaha, oh, but that's not the best part. I mean, there are returning characters as well, and there's Megaman, but the above trailer still fails to show THIS:



THE WII FIT TRAINER.

I'm not joking, though: I'm going to play as her. If I don't feel like playing as my usual Zelda characters for once, I'm playing as her. Srsly.

And what about Link himself? He... well, I'm not a huge fan of his look, in all honesty. Just look at this:

I don't even know what's happening to Link in this picture... but I don't like it. Something seems just... wrong. About his face, or... I don't know! But he looks awful in that picture. He's some sort of combination of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, and it's strange...

But, then, sometimes he looks cool:

 

That looks good to me! But the above one... eh...

Well, anyway, it doesn't matter, hahaha. I'm excited regardless. I'll probably buy both the 3DS and Wii U versions regardless. XD

Lastly... Zelda 3DS.

Or should I say... A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS! *gasp*

Yep. The new Zelda game is going to be known as The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Here's the trailer:



That makes its acronym ALBW, which I've been repeating over and over today because it's such an awesome acronym that I can't stand it. XD

Anyway... I'm actually far more excited than I was last time I talked about this! I think it looks interesting! My hope was that I'd get some cutscenes, or at least some artwork... and as you can see, I didn't get any cutscenes... however...

LOOOOOOOOOOK

LOOK AT HOW BEAUTIFUL THAT IS

OH MY GOODNESS

IT'S SO AMAZING

I... I was sooo happy to see that image. It's an INCREDIBLE piece of artwork. I can deal with that. It's not what I wanted, but in some ways, it's better. It also confirms the return of the Master Sword and Hylian Shield... and that bracelet that Link has... maybe it's important?

I loved it so much that I made a new avatar for Zelda Dungeon using it. HoT stands for Heroine of Time, my username, in case you didn't know. ^^

So, yes. We didn't get any Zelda Wii U, sadly, but it's not like that was ABSOLUTELY expected. In fact, I kind of wasn't expecting it, but I was hoping we'd get lucky with a piece of artwork or something simple, you know?

Ah, well, E3, I think, was pretty darn amazing. I'm excited for these upcoming games and I can't WAIT to get a Wii U system... I hope you guys enjoyed E3, and let's hope there's more coming!

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Zelda 3DS - Oh. Yeah. Maybe I should post something.

I FORGOT AGAIN.

Wait, I take that back. I didn't forget. I procrastinated. There is a difference.

I thought of my blog several times over the month and CONSTANTLY told myself to go and post something -- but I kept telling myself I'd do it some other time. Oh, well, it's not like there's anything to post about anyway. It's not like anything important is going on, and I didn't play much--

...What? A Link to the Past? What are you talking about? I haven't played A Link to the--

Oh.

Oh, yeah.

So, there's that thing called Zelda 3DS that I kind of forgot about... I mean, uh, I didn't forget about it, but I didn't really feel like posting about it... XD

Ugh. See, here's the thing. Zelda 3DS -- or A Link to the Past 2, as the community calls it (since apparently it's Triforce of the Gods 2 in Japan? Seriously, Nintendo?) -- is kind of a bit of a big deal. Think about what I would have done a year ago. After all, 2012 sucked for Zelda fans, as I emphasized in my yearly closing post in December, heh. I would have FREAKED. OUT. And then ranted all over the blog about how amazing this was going to be.

Strangely, though, this year, when Zelda 3DS was announced... I didn't feel that.

It was the strangest thing. First off, it looked like a fan project. ...Yes, I know. That's exactly what I said about The Wind Waker HD. Maybe I'm going to think all Zelda games from this point on look like fan projects; I don't really know, since I've only had the whole "find out day of the announcement" thing with Skyward Sword, and I'd been counting down the days for E3 to show us more about that. Well, and OoT 3D, I guess... which, interestingly enough, I suppose I didn't believe THAT was a real game at first, either, thinking it was only a tech demo...

Anyway, it looked like a fan project. Fans have tried to recreate 2D Zelda games into 3D before, although I haven't heard of any super successful ones. Or it looked like a fake. Either way, I didn't believe it.

When I found out, I was still at school. My school is evil and decided to block virtually everything gaming related, including almost every Zelda fansite in existence, so I am completely out of contact there. I knew there was going to be a Nintendo Direct that evening; the day before, there had been rumors about Majora's Mask 3D being announced then. But, of course, I didn't believe the MM rumors and completely forgot about it.

So, at lunch, my friend sent me a text message saying "SIERRA! (Well, real name, whatever.) HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? 3DS sequel to A Link to the Past!"

And, of course, I scoffed and sent her a suspicious message back, saying, "Are you sure?" I was trying to be as kind as possible because she had CLEARLY fallen for some stupid rumor or fake, but I didn't want to seem condescending or dismissive in case she had some kind of real lead here. After that, she said, "Well, yeah, the The Legend of Zelda group on Facebook posted it..." Since I don't know anything about Facebook, I wasn't sure how official this Zelda Facebook group was, although I did feel a bit interested by this fact, especially knowing about the Nintendo Direct. But maybe she had misunderstood the announcement? And then she tells me that NINTENDO ALSO posted it on THEIR Facebook page... And then she shows me a bunch of screenshots that she had saved...

And, finally, she tells me I can use her phone to look at the websites. XD

So I sought her out (since she doesn't sit with me) and the very first thing I did... was go to Zelda Dungeon.

Because for some reason, I trust Zelda Dungeon more than Nintendo's official The Legend of Zelda Facebook Page. You know.

And, sure enough, there it was, right on the front page.

So, yes, the surprise was ruined for me yet again, just like in TWW. Except for TWW, at least it was a fantastically wonderfully unexpected surprise when I got home, where as this was a surprisingly unusually unexpected discovery at school. Apparently setting makes all the diffence. XD I didn't want to freak out there, so I waited until I got home.

...But the excitement never really came.

Please help me. I don't know what's happened to the Zelda fangirl that used to run this blog. She's missing! And she's been replaced by someone who keeps judging games based on appearances again!

...Yeah. You heard that right. So, uh, I don't particularly like the graphics.

Now, uh, I'm sort of happy. I'm just not, like... overwhelmingly excited, like for SS and ST. I even felt more eager for WW HD than this. I don't know. Something about it just... puts me off.

Oh, well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I never liked A Link to the Past in the first place? (Except for that one post forever ago. But that doesn't count. -.-)

Yeah. Now, believe me when I say I was among all of the others that were cheering for a sequel instead of a remake, but keep in mind that when they said sequel, I was actually imagining something 3D. "But, Sierra," you say, "A Link to the Past 2 IS 3D!"

First off, STOP CALLING IT THAT. THE BEAUTIFUL GAME KNOWN AS LINK'S AWAKENING IS AN A LINK TO THE PAST SEQUEL AND IT IS PROBABLY WAY COOLER THAN THIS NEWBIE GAME JUST BECAUSE I SAID SO. And, uh, when I said 3D, I meant, like, Ocarina of Time 3D.

Geez, Sierra. When will you ever learn that you can't trust tech demos on what the graphics of the next game are going to be? Even if the tech demo was made into a full game? D:

(Which probably means that Zelda Wii U will look nothing like the demo, either. Darn. I love those graphics.)

Yeah, so, I was among those fooled into thinking that Zelda 3DS would look like OoT 3D. Instead we get a remake of a game that never really was a favorite of mine to begin with.

Like with TWW HD, though, DON'T GET ME WRONG. I probably will love this game to DEATH. And maybe I'm just waiting for the excitement to kick in. Maybe it'll come as we learn more about this game. But for now, I'm not impressed by a couple of videos and some cool turn-into-a-2D-painting thingy.

Oh, yeah, I didn't mention that yet. You can turn into a drawing or something. Kind of interesting. I can imagine some cool stuff with that. XD

Wow, no pictures for this post. I'm sorry. I'm kind of in a hurry, in case you didn't notice. It's becoming 11 PM here on the last day of the month.

PROCRASTINATION FOR THE WIN WOOOOOOOOOO

But, yeah. It's probably past midnight in most of you guys' time zones. I wonder if Blogger adjusts to time zones? I don't think it does, but...

...I'm off-topic.

Yeah. So I'm not exactly hyped for Zelda 3DS yet, but any Zelda-related announcement is a cause for celebration. I was talking about it all day the following few days.

I still can't believe I left a post announcing a BRAND NEW ZELDA GAME until now. Oh, how the mighty have fallen... XD

Unnecessary, insincere, and probably false promise: Hey, maybe I'll get on sometime this weekend and write a full post about my thoughts on Zelda 3DS! If I remember. After all, I didn't get to go into much detail here. I want to tear apart every little aspect of the game, including music, more on graphics, and what I think about it being a sequel to the SNES classic. Oh, and I want to complain about Link's voice. Don't let me forget that. That will be first on my list. Objective one: complain about Link's voice.

Alright! Goodnight, everyone! Have a nice... week? The day's almost over, so it probably won't do you any good to say day. :P (...Assuming you read this as soon as I post it, haha. Which is a rather awful assumption.)

Random trivia fact: This is the first post on my blog with the label "A Link to the Past" since March 30th, 2010. See. I told you I don't really care much for that game.

E3 in an Hour!

...Well, technically it's less than an hour now. More like 48 minutes. But that's okay.

Nintendo's E3 press conference, on June 5th at 9 AM PT, is just about to start. I'm excited – I'm hoping more than anything that they'll have new Super Smash Bros. news, or perhaps even some new Zelda footage. I doubt there'll be anything on Zelda Wii U, but maybe we'll get lucky. It's more likely they'll announce a new Zelda 3DS, or, as the rumor goes, a Zelda Wii U HD Collection of many revamped past games.

I'm planning on watching E3 on TV – mainly since the computer is being used right now by another family member. It's on Spike TV (and, supposedly, on MTV2 as well, but I have no idea what channel that is; I didn't bother looking for it last night). You can also watch it at E3.Nintendo.com. That's where I watched a pre-E3 presentation on the Wii U. However, while they say it's optimized for smartphones and the like, I initially attempted to watch it on my iPad, and it wasn't working properly. While both image and sound did come through, they were not synced together for some reason, so about half way through the presentation I switched to the computer. I don't want that to happen again.

Anyway... expect an update from me later today, or at least later this month! That is, of course, assuming that there will be something that I care about there, and not just a ton of Zombie shooters and Pikmin and Mario and... I don't even know what else...

(Yes, it's true: I don't like Pikmin, and most Mario games aren't my thing. And I've played the first Pikmin and Super Mario Sunshine and the original Super Mario Bros., and I'm just awful at them all. I'll stick to my story-driven dungeon-puzzle Zelda games.)