People rejected toon Link in WW, but the Wii U version looks nothing like that. It's more like a slick Anime crossed with realism in the environments... the end result is very cool. The tech demo from '11 is fine looking but generic. It looks like a standard CGI and doesn't grab your attention in the same way. The '14 trailer looks very fresh.

Regarding sales, I actually think Zelda U will do better than if it had the tech demo style. It's not so much about bright vs dark or realism vs animated. It's about cool vs dorky. Zelda U looks cool where as WW on GC had the image of a stubby little child link. Zelda U should thrive.

The reception of this Zelda is also very good so far. I've only seen good things about it, while there was an enormous backlash after the Wind Waker reveal. It was rejected basically immediately, the situation with Zelda U is very different and much more positive.

TP is the best selling Zelda is it not?

TP is the best selling Zelda is it not?

OOT is if you include 3ds remake sales, but even that one the art direction isn't as "bright" as the WiiU one. Looks like another SKyward Sword performance IMO.

Zelda U just looks too good imo

There are many more variables which make it impossible to determine if art style is the reason why it sold well...remember correlation =/= causation

The tech demo style looked better, and would have sold better, but the new style is still appealing.

Almost exactly this same OP has already been posted before, since e3. The mods here really ought to stay on top of dupe threads, but they don't seem to bother.

No, I do not seriously think that the tech demo style, while I was certainly a fan of it, and would have been just fine if they had stuck with it, would sell more. And people claiming that Zelda is going to sell less, because of it's graphic style, as if they know these things, is fairly ridiculous. For one thing, you have to look at more than just graphics, when considering game sales. If the "(relatively speaking) realistic graphics sell more" argument were 100% true, then Majora's Mask also would have sold like hotcakes. It did not. Want to know why? Because a lot of people (myself included), did not really care for it's "do the same shit over/reset time alot" game mechanic. It wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't one that appealed to a larger Zelda fan audience. Same with WW. I'll admit, I did not (and still really don't) care for WW's graphic style. But that isn't why I didn't get into the game. I didn't get into the game because it just didn't feel "Zelda" enough to me, it had far too much goddamn sailing, and just broke with convention too much, in my mind I guess, to really "get" me.

Then look at Skyward Sword. Good game. But it had it's flaws/quirks that some people just didn't dig, for sure. I personally hated the OVER-use of motion controls. They should have only used them for swordplay, that's IT. They should have done the obvious/practical thing, and used the IR pointer for map navigation and aiming, and the analog stick for flying and swimming and mine cart controlling. Instead, they used motion for everything, except it didn't work well for anything except swordplay, which was very frustrating to me. Outside of that, the game also broke with convention in ways some people didn't like, such as only really giving you four areas of the game world to basically go back to over and over, not to mention that most of the game's boss fights are taken up by fighting the same two bosses 3 times each. It was a fairly good game, with a handful of really neat ideas. But ultimately, it just wasn't, again, a game that appealed to a larger Zelda fan audience.

Now look at why OoT and TP have sold the most. Was it REALLY just because of their graphics? I'm sorry, while I DO personally prefer the evolution of that graphical style, and loved how TP looked (and the tech demo), and that WAS really what I wanted out of the look for this new HD Zelda, the very idea that it was graphics ALONE that sold those games.........is fucking absurd. Ocarina of Time, FOR it's time, was fairly amazing, because no 3D game had been done quite like it yet. While Nintendo couldn't live up to it's vague early promises of a huge game world, instead only giving up a Hyrule Valley hub and some areas to go to branhing from that, STILL, for the 90s, that was a big deal. The world we got was still bigger than most 3D games we had ever played, and the game gave us plenty to do. Then look at Twilight Princess. TP took everything that was great about OoT, and in spite of what some retroactive haters like to claim, did it better. As in everything: graphics, game world, depth of the game world, things to DO in the game world, your ability to explore exponentially increased, more areas, more peoples, more monsters, the dungeons were all unique and far more large and organic feeling, the boss fights were all epic, Link's attack abilities were greatly increased, the amount of items was increased, the amount of hidden stuff in to find in the game (Cave of Ordeals anyone?) was far greater, etc. And it had the neat Wolf Link mechanic slapped on top of all of that as an extra.

In short, people liked TP, and it sold better than MM and WW, in general, because it was a far more wide-open world, far more of a traditional Zelda experience, and it gave people everything they liked about OoT, just whole lot more/better.

So looking at all that, who is to say that Zelda U will sell "worse"? For one thing, while part of me does prefer the tech demo look, on the other hand, those graphcis look gorgeous. We only saw ONE bright, morning/daytime lit area of the game. Other parts, and nighttime lighting, and deep, dark dungeons, are ALL sure to look different than what that one little bit were given does. And even so, what we were given looked amazing. The landscape itself looks plenty realistic, and let's be honest, the characters in OoT and TP have NEVER looked "real". They have always been semi-cartoony or idealized. And who the hell would want photo-realistic looking characters for Zelda anyway? I know I sure as hell wouldn't. As for the "slight cel-shading" look of Link, etc., I think it looks fine. It's better than that Parappa the Rappa look they gave Toon Link, so I'm good with it. He looks like Link. And the game holds the promise of maybe actually fulfilling what I had originally dreamed OoT would be like, a huge, MASSIVE, epic Hyrule land/world to explore.

That enough, and the fact that it's the first TRUE HD Zelda, ought to sell more than a few copies, just fine.

I liked the Gamecube duo where we got colorful style and more realistic style. I hope the Wii U does the same as both appeal to me and I am greedy.