In what ways will Zelda Wii U be more ambitious than Xenoblade X?

[bigtakilla]

DevilRising said:

bigtakilla said:

So, in my last thread I mentioned Xenoblade X could be the most ambitious title on Wii U, and people have not been shy to let me know that it isn't, Zelda U will be. I'm just wondering how? 

Let's look at what Xenoblade X is giving us:

More realistic graphics

Full voice acting

VERY few load screens (in fact the people I've watched that's played it say the only real load screens are when fast traveling and before cutscenes)

Online Multiplayer

Fully accessible massive world (you see it, you can go there) with day/night cycle and dynamic weather

Customization of a party of characters and vehicles.

Armor and weapon crafting ala Monster Hunter, but gear can be worn and seen as "advertised" to allow shops to release new equipment

 

So what's LoZ Wii U going to do to compete with that? 

 

 

Off the top of my head, the (final) polished art style of Zelda U will look better than Xenoblade, for sure, and the graphical fidelity in general will be gorgeous. Nintendo knows better than anyone how to squeeze amazing graphics out of their own hardware (just look at Mario Galaxy on Wii, which easily looked as impressive as most PS3 games, at least in art style and "flash"). The early, vague demo footage that we've seen, already looked, in some ways, more "organic" than Xenoblade, even if the art style is "Cartoonier".

Zelda does not need, and I would personally prefer that it not have voice acting.

We have no idea what kind of load screens Zelda U will have, but keep in mind that Twilight Princess, for example, was technically a 2005 Gamecube game that got delayed a year and released on Wii hardware. Taken in that context, it was and IS still a very technically impressive game, with some amazing lighting and some excellent enemy and boss models. It easily looked better than most Xbox games (first gen, not 360). As for loading itself, TP had a huge world for it's time, MUCH better than what we had been given in OoT and WW, but it did have load times between areas, because it had to. Hardware limitations. Wii U is not so limited. So it's very possible Zelda U might just have exactly what you described: no real load times, except or fast traveling or saving.

Zelda games are traditionally single player, and do not need any online elements.

"Fully accessible massive world: you see it, you can go there". I'm not sure if you paid attention, but that is PRECISELY what Aonuma claimed would be possible in Zelda U. That was one of the only things they DID really talk about, in otherwise very vague game information, was how big the game would be (Miyamoto stated that the entire game world of TP would fit into one corner of the overall game map  for Zelda U), and how you'd have free reign to approach things you could see on the horizon. I think that is going to be one of the selling points of this Zelda, if what Aonuma was hinting at was true, and that is a game more like Zelda 1, where you can just adventure around, and go where you please. I'm sure there will still be places you can't go until you gain a certain item, but you'll at least perhaps have the option of GETTING there and maybe dying like an idiot first. Who knows? But they have said the game world will be massive, and more of an "open world" experience.

Zelda has never been about a party of characters, as it's not a true rpg, but rather an action/adventure game.

As for crafting/customizing weapons and armor, who knows? They did introduce some kind of mechanic like that for Skyward Sword, one of the game's finer points. One would hope that will be the one mechanic from SS that caries over. But even if it doesn't, old school Zelda style where you just FIND items, is just fine.



As for how else Zelda U might be "better"? Off the top of my head, I would say gameplay and gameplay physics/mechanics. Zelda games have almost always had VERY tight controls, and very good in-game mechanics. One of the only instances of which I can say this hasn't been the case, specifically for 3D Zelda games, is that damn "auto-jump" feature that they invented for Oot. I have never personally liked that, and would LOVE for them to introduce manual jumping, or at least an ITEM that lets you manually jump (such as the feather item from Link's Awakening). Allowing the player to control jumping like that would add a whole other dimention to dungeons, to the complexity of fights/action, especially if they added some kind of wall-run or wall jumping. I'm not saying make it Mario or Prince of Persia, as jumping has never been what the Zelda series has been all about. But it certainly WAS nice to have the abiltiy to jump in Zelda II and Link's Awakening.

But regardless, I would imagine the in-world physics and mechanics of Zelda will be tighter and more polished, simply because 3D Zelda games typically have been superior in those areas over most other 3D action games.

 

 

But really, why the comparison? They're two different types of games. Both are ambitious. And both will have their fans, both will be enjoyed. So why start a thread to argue about which will be "better"? Better is subjective, and depends entirely upon what you want out of a game experience. For me personally, while I respect and admire what Monolith accomplished with the first Xenoblade, it just wasn't my type of game, gameplay-wise. It's essentially a single player MMO, in a way. Not really my thing. For me, Zelda is more my style, because I love the solid action gameplay, and I love having a huge game world to be able to roam around and explore, and if this game really IS going to bring the focus back more onto THAT element, exploring a huge world, then I'm very excited for that, so long as they don't find some dumb gimmick or some other way to muck up the works.

But that doesn't mean one game is "better" than the other.

So because you don't want voice acting, and Zelda isn't really made for online play, but rather a single player experience taking the time to create these are not very ambitious goals of a series that is going all out on it?... Also, the story of Xenoblade X will also likely be FAR better.

And combat mechanics will be better in LoZ? With as much depth as the battle system has, and as much customization as XenoX has? Lol, c'mon.