#eiji aonuma i am in your WALLS

[alethiometry]

oooooooo windwaker grandma has me in my FEELS

[mochapanda]

tears of the kingdom was never made to replace botw in the same way majoras mask was never made to replace ocarina of time and yall need to fucking get over it

[beardycarrot]

Things I want to see in BotW

I’ve covered the things that I know are in Breath of the Wild and am excited to encounter, but there are also a few things that I hope will be featured, even if some of them are unlikely.

Repairing Weapons

The Wind Waker introduced the ability to pick up weapons dropped by enemies or otherwise found in the environment and use them in combat, though the actions you could take with them were limited, and you couldn’t take weapons out of the room they were found in. Breath of the Wild expands on this in a huge way, with tons of weapons that can be found and kept, each featuring a different play style and special moves. The drawback is that weapons have limited durability, and will eventually break. All the weapons I’ve seen so far break fairly quickly, but they’re also all from the first area, and are barely proper weapons to begin with. Rough wooden clubs, primitive spears held together by string, rusty swords that have been exposed to the elements for decades. Obviously, weapons later in the game will have much greater durability... and, hopefully, some will have infinite durability.

Presumably, an important part of the game will be restoring the rusted-out Master Sword to its former glory, at which point it will either have infinite durability or have to be periodically maintained. I kinda like both ideas, but I definitely prefer the latter. If you’re able to repair the Master Sword, then maybe it would be possible to repair other weapons. It would be awesome if there was one of each type of weapon that, instead of being destroyed when the durability runs out, simply becomes a broken weapon that you can repair. A lot of people seem to think that the Master Sword will have infinite durability, and while I agree it’s pretty likely, I’d much rather you have to repair it. I mean, if you can just use the Master Sword all the time, why would you bother with weapons that can break?

References

I want this game to be ABSOLUTELY TEEMING with references to other Zelda games. I want to look at a table and see the Carpenter’s Saw sitting on it. I want a decrepit old mansion to have a peeling painting of a Loftwing hanging on is sagging wall. I want to see kids playing while wearing Bunny Hoods. I want to go over to a pond and say, “hey, I recognize that frog!”, be it a bulging Eyeball Frog or a bright purple choir member or Don Gero himself. I want a little old woman to be grinding grain in a windmill or watermill, whistling the Song of Storms to herself. I want a sidequest to catch bugs for a kid who’s sick in bed. I want an “ancient coin” that looks suspiciously like a Kinstone to be a rare crafting material. Seriously, the series is thirty years old, let’s celebrate and get some references up in here!

Dynamic NPCs

I want characters to be more reactive to the world around them, including your actions. Running under cover when it starts raining, hiding from monsters, yelling at you for trampling their crops. It’s unlikely, but I’d love it if they commented on your appearance. “Hey, isn’t it kinda hot to be wearing something like that?”, or “Dude, PUT SOME PANTS ON!” Similarly, I want to see Link react to the environment the way he did in the cold areas shown in the E3 demos. Jumping from foot to foot when not wearing shoes on hot sand, wrinkling his nose as he passes through a smelly swamp, raising a hand to shield his eyes when looking towards the sun. Looking uncomfortable when riding a horse with no pants? That goes for the NPCs as well. Also the horse.

Epona

Speaking of horses, I want Epona to be in the game. I remember hearing that Eiji Aonuma supposedly said “you can find Epona”, but didn’t find any clarification on what that means, or even if he really said it. Does it mean there’s an orange horse with a white mane somewhere in the wild that you can tame? Or that there’s a horse already named Epona that you can acquire from an NPC, maybe with really good stats? I think I’d prefer you to find an Epona-colored horse on her own somewhere, with a better chance for good stats than most wild horses, but maybe significantly more difficult to tame.

Green Tunic

I’ve heard the phrase “the green tunic is in the game”, again presumably from Eiji Aonuma. I’m... actually kinda excited to see how it will look? Breath of the Wild will be the first Zelda game I’ve ever played without having seen Link in the green tunic from promotional materials before the game came out. I’m also curious about the blue tunic. It’s this Link’s signature look, appearing in all the artwork and merchandise... but you don’t start the game with it? Link is shown wearing it in flashback scenes, Zelda wears an outfit in the same color, a few characters have been shown wearing matching blue scarves... What’s the deal? The color seems to be associated with the Sheikah in this game, so what exactly does it all mean? Are these characters the new Knights of Hyrule? Does this have something to do with Hyrule Warriors, which Link wore a blue scarf in?

No Young Zelda

This is kind of a weird one, but I want Zelda as Link remembers her to be exclusive to flashbacks. It’d be awesome if Zelda was a Very Old Woman in the game, or even already dead. I don’t want her to have remained sealed away the entire time that Link was, remaining young throughout. That’s what I’m expecting... for you to find her in Hyrule Castle, the last thing keeping Ganon sealed. It would be so much more interesting if she was forced to live through the last century, though, watching Hyrule ravaged by monsters and reclaimed by nature. I want to see Zelda and her grandchildren. I mean, it’s not unprecedented: in Spirit Tracks, Zelda is the granddaughter of Tetra from The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass.

Stealth

There’s nothing I love more in a game than a good parkour mechanic. Unfortunately, if something like that was present we’d already know about it, so I’ll have to hope for my second-favorite gameplay mechanic: stealth. I’ve seen no confirmation of this, as I’ve been doing my best to avoid spoilers, but it definitely looks like the purple display in the bottom-right corner of the screen is a measure of how much noise you’re making. I always prefer to take the stealthy approach in games, but mandatory stealth sections aside, that’s never really been an option in Zelda. If there’s a way to sneak into enemy camps, take out the sentries, then slowly pick off the rest without raising an alarm, I want to do it.

Rewarding Shrines

At E3, it was stated that there would be “around one hundred” shrines in the game, and the ones I’ve seen seem to be the equivalent of one or two puzzle rooms in a traditional Zelda dungeon. That’s a lot of puzzles, man! At this point, however, I’m not sure what the point of them is. They seem to award something that goes into Link’s chest and results in a weird... confused heartburn look, from him. I’m not entirely sure what that is, but then there are also shrines that give new runes to use on your Sheikah Slate. I originally thought that four of these being on the plateau where you start was just something they did for the E3 demo, and that they would be spread out like items in a traditional Zelda game... but have since heard that you do, in fact, get all four of these right at the start of the game? Huh. I can only hope that there are many more runes spread throughout the game, and other cool rewards from shrines.

Runes

Of course, I can’t say “I want more runes” without wondering what kind of runes there might be. Runes seem to be completely replacing the traditional Zelda items used to solve puzzles, with the ones seen so far being bombs, a magnetic gravity gun, the ability to stop things in time, and the ability to turn water sources into columns of ice, all Golden Sun-like. The item I most want to see return as a rune is the hookshot, as that’s always been my favorite Zelda item. Maybe have it able to latch onto any wooden object, and completely do away with those obvious hookshot targets? Something similar to the switch hook from Oracle of Ages would also be cool: a rune that allows you to swap places with an object, or even just switch two objects. I’d like to see some kind of jump augmentation, or more realistically, the ability to generate wind currents. It would be great for both puzzle-solving, and allowing you to fly more freely with your sailcloth. I’m holding out hope that the game will feature a mirror shield, allowing you to reflect things like light, magic, and the beams fired by Guardians... but assuming that such a shield would have limited durability, it can’t be expected to be consistently available for puzzle-solving, so I would settle for some kind of reflection rune. Some kind of mind control (whether it works on any enemy, or just those created with Sheikah tech) would be amazing.

Carrots

YEAH I SAID IT. This game has apples and honey and mushrooms and peppers and poultry, all sorts of cooking ingredients... SO WHY NOT CARROTS. Link deserves a carrot. Guy’s been asleep for like a hundred years. I’d also like to see the return of some materials from other games. Bee larvae, wood hearts, monster guts. If we’re talking Zelda food, then there’s gotta be pumpkins. Oh, and what about fish?

Fishing

I’ve heard nothing on this topic, but you can’t have a Japanese game featuring cooking without fish being available. I’m not sure how it would work... Maybe you just snag fish as you swim, similar to how you gather other materials? Maybe there’s a dedicated fishing hole? Ideally, I’d like something similar to Twilight Princess, with a fishing pole that you can use in any body of water that you find. For some reason, prior to the release of Twilight Princess, a lot of people were discussing the possibility of fishing up a boss. I think that idea would be a perfect fit for Breath of the Wild, with all the huge monsters you’re supposedly able to randomly encounter while out exploring the world. I want to fish up a Gyorg.

Hair Styling

I mentioned this in my “excited for” post, but I really want this game to feature customizable hairstyles. At the very end of the E3 trailer, Link is shown gliding through the desert for just a few seconds, with a different hairstyle. It’s entirely possible that Link ran into a Gerudo or something, who showed him how to do his hair up to better deal with the desert heat. I hope that it’s not context-sensitive like that though, and that somewhere in the game you can find, like... Tingle’s Hair Salon.

Wow, this post turned out kinda long, and I’m not even sure I covered everything. If everything goes at planned, at this time in three days I’ll be drawing the curtains and popping BotW into my Wii U for the first time. I really have no idea what kind of things will be in the game... but I’m hoping for a hookshot. And carrots. And stealth. And...