Would it be possible for the Wii U to run Zelda U at 60fps?

[hsrob]

spemanig said:

hsrob said:

It's been stated my numerous people that "Nintendo always go for 60fps", THIS IS NOT ALWAYS TRUE.

Zelda games are usually NOT 60fps, even when other Nintendo games on the same hardware were,  this holds true all the way back to at least N64 days. Nintendo will do what they feel is best for this particular game, for them it's all a matter of priorities.

Not much more than 6 months ago people were saying we would never see 1080p60fps on the WiiU aside from 2D Indy titles. Then we got Smash Bros, because Sakurai felt that resolution impacted gameplay when the screen was zoomed out. Luckily we also got 60fps, but that clearly was at the expense of shader/effects use, which we can see if we compare Smash to Nintendo's other recent first party efforts.

I think it's possible that we will get 1080p30fps if Nintendo decides that image quality/distance visibility has an important impact on the gameplay, but how often is this likely to be an issue?

I think it's possible we will get 720p60fps if Nintendo feels it has a significant impact on the fluidity of the combat in the game, but how much combat is there going to be in the game?

I think it's possible that we could get 1080p60fps if Nintendo wanted to but given the level of visual fidelity displayed so far (compared with Smash for example), I honestly don't think that is the direction they are taking.

I think it's most likely that we will see 720p30fps because I feel with Zelda Nintendo is most likely to prioritise the creation of a rich, seamless, continuous world with little to no loading times, above all else.

While I don't agree with people who say that Nintendo "always" shoot for 60fps, there is a precident where franchises that were typically 30 or less moved to 60fps in later entries. Mario 64 and Sunshine both ran at 30fps, but then Mario games starting from Galaxy ran at 60fps.

And framerate effects more than combat. Games simply don't feel as good to play at 30fps. Even if I was just walking and that's it, I'd want it running at 60fps.

Look at Metroid Prime. It was a game that the designers specifically wanted to be easy when it came to combat because the "challenge comes from exploration." It has similar focuses as Zelda and basically the same amount of combat as Zelda games typically do, yet they chose to make the game 60fps. It even has L-Targeting exactly like Zelda's, so it's not like you need the extra frames for "smoother aiming."

Precedent was only a small part of my post, and in fact I only brought it up because people were incorrectly suggesting there was a predecent for Zelda games to run at 60fps. There isn't.

Mario Sunshine and Mario 64 were in an era where there were certainly technical barriers to running open games at 60fps.  Image quality wise Mario Sunshine was up there among the best looking games on the Gamecube so I think doubling the frame rate probably wasn't realistically an option. Furthermore, while Galaxy was at 60fps it  is much more closed-in and had much more reflex-dependent gameplay than Mario Sunshine. i.e. 60fps was more integral to the gameplay in Mario Galaxy

While I said 'combat' I was using that term loosely to any of those 'twitch' gameplay elements that exist in the Zelda franchise which would include sword-play and shooting and neither exist in great abundance or are particularly demanding/technically difficult when compared with games focused around these particular elements.  And while I agree Metroid and Zelda have much in common and share many similar gameplay elements the emphasis and weighting of the elements within the games are quite different, Zelda for example has no where near the amount of shooting that Metroid Prime has and it's well established that shooters are one genre heavily dependent on a high frame-rate. I know you claim it's not necessary for Prime's shooting style but if you've ever played Prime emulated without that smooth framerate, you really notice it.  Furthermore one of the great achievements of Prime is the simple enjoyment gained from the slick and smooth traversal through the game world which I would argue is enhanced by the unshakeable framerate.

With all other things being equal 60fps is always better, but there are games where it matters less and where other considerations can override and I think Zelda falls in that camp.

Finally as I said in my first post if we look at Smash as a comparison I think it gives a pretty good indication of what the WiiU can do at 1080p 60fps and Smash games have always been technically very strong, if not the very best on their respective systems. If Anouma and team have managed to get 1080p 60fps with the visual fidelity we have already seen of Zelda, then they have performed some kind of magic. 720p60fps is certainly possible but my hunch is that it will be 720p30fps and I think that's fine for this kind of game.