In terms of scale and available side quests, do expect that Zelda Wii U will  be on par with what Monolith Soft did with Xenoblade Chronicles X or other open world games or are we in for more Zelda structure with a dash of ALBW sequence braking?

I think it will be quite different. Although the amount of benefits the sidequests got you in terms of reward and story in XCX, no other game comes across it. Every single Affinity Mission gives you something useful. I don't think Zelda U will go this route. I think it might be an expanded SS system, upgrading or swapping out your items. We were told the mechanic was going to change, so we're just waiting for more info. Just as different as XC is from other games, Zelda U is destined to be different as well.

The only thing we can compare it to is that you can go wherever and do whatever you want RIGHT off the bat. This is why XCX stands alone with Zelda U in terms of exploration. Whether Zelda U holds up, we won't know until we have some kind of detail. We do have the world map which proves to be huge, but Zelda U should have more NPC's on the map or more world events than XCX, imo.

Pretty much this, the approach and structure of bothe games will very likely differ heavily.

It's going to be hard for them to top Mira, but what I expect:

- Great Dungeons, better than Ocarina of Time
- Great soundtrack
- Overworld full of live creatures and secrets
- A lot of towns, races and worth side quests
- Great animations

Anything less and they failed.

Given that Twilight Princess already did that, this point seems plausible to me.

I only expect it to be a great game under the Zelda name and that Aonuma manages to creat his best game to date. He and his team are doing their best, I'm sure about that, and they deserve to make something memorable.

- Harder more unpredictable bosses.
- An overhaul of the magic system to make it more fun
- Improvements on Twilight Princesses sword techniques
- Different ways to traverse the world
- Masks (not necessary but would be cool)

Very different but I think the overall game will be of a fairly similar scale content-wise.

It won't be as big in literal size of course. But there'll be more puzzles and interesting gameplay stuff that will no doubt compensate for that. I don't think having Hyrule be that big would really work. Just the size of 1 Xenoblade continent would be fine.

My expectation for Zelda is 0% affected by X. I love my Wii U, but Nintendo has proven that this generation is NOT about living up to their potential and offering everything they can. It's more about simple, compact, fun experiences, or just about doing whatever they feel like. Zelda might be just as grand as X, if not even more so, but the only thing deciding how far Nintendo chooses to go with any title is their own desire.

100% Agree.

That it doesnt have a teribad storyline, expressionless characters and repetitive fetch quests. Keep the amazing world and exploration tough.