Here's my pitch for what Nintendo should do for Zelda U
The conceptual problem is "how do you get back to NES-style basics while still doing what a modern game is expected to do, without overtly doing a "retraux" game like NSMB or Link Between Worlds?" How do you create the "feel" of the NES games (desolate and intensely hostile), with the window dressing of the Zelda U Tech Demo?
My answer "Silent World." The story would be almost like the part of Twilight Princess where the whole world was covered in Twilight and so all the "light-worlders" were ghosts, except taking it a step forward. Ganondorf/whoever's evil plan has come to fruition already, and everyone who isn't an animal or a monster is dead. (Everyone. Stalfos. He won't need that saw anymore...) No corpses or anything, to keep it at least T-rated, just vanished off the face of the earth. Everyone but Link. No explanation is given at the start of the game, except a wordless dream cutscene that implies that Link's mission is to go to the dungeons and conquer them to make things better again.
The world would not be as drab or over-saturated as Twilight Princess, it would be colorful like Skyward Sword's, but all wild and desolate. Villages would be overgrown and Hyrule Castle town would be run down. The fields would be infested by Bulbins and Moblins and Lizalfos, the towns by Stalfos, and very few places would be safe. Maybe there'd be one enemy like Metroid Fusion's SA-X or RE3's Nemesis, completely unbeatable, who would randomly roam around the world, occupying only one "area" at a time, and you'd have to run like hell whenever you got on the same spot in the map, and as the game advanced, more than one would appear.
The overworld would be like Monster Hunter, except all interconnected. One giant map, but no big open field or hub (sky or sea), to recreate the "grid-like" maps of the older Zelda games.
It would double as an excuse to not have voice acting. Link is the lone survivor, and is *really* the lone survivor, with the ending being that the magical whatever creates a new Princess Zelda, with an implied Adam and Eve-style reboot for Hyrule.
This game would promote exploration the hard way, because there is no-one, anywhere, to talk to you (which, yes, is more extreme than NES Zeldas, but that's the point). Signage could be placed at the pertinent points to give in-game explanations for special moves or items that would not appear self-evident, and like Link Between Worlds, you could "buy" things (maybe Owl Statue Beaks like in Link's Awakening) that would serve as an extra assist if you *really* need extra help (Super Guide, basically). Maybe you would earn points through hours played and game-overs that would let you buy the super-guide beaks.
Thoughts?
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
