Thursday, June 9, 2011

More Wii U Titles Revealed, Zelda Skyward Sword Gets A Lot More Information

Pikmin 3 has been revealed to be in development for the Wii U, alongside "5 titles at launch" from Ubisoft, who are once again throwing support for Nintendo, being one of the 3rd party developers to have launch titles for the Wii. Ubisoft has stated that most or all of them, which includes Killer Freaks From Outer Space, will be geared towards hardcore gamers. The Wii U has also been revealed to have some good news and bad news: Good news being that Friend Codes will be gone, in favor of game profiles similar to Xbox Live, PSN, and Steam. Bad news being that the Wii U will not be backwards compatible with the Gamecube, the home of the last great killer app, Super Smash Bros. Melee, despite the Wii being backwards compatible. I think there could be a possibility that Wii U will feature a Virtual Console that includes Gamecube games to make up for the lack of backwards compatibility. In somewhat interesting news, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that the Wii U will be packaged with only one Wii U controller. Some have speculated that this means only one Wii U controller can be hooked up at a time (it has already been confirmed that 4 Wii remotes will continue to be able to be hooked up to the Wii U), while others have said that Nintendo is taking the concept of "You" very seriously, promoting the Wii U as a console that is much more single-player friendly.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is rapidly approaching its release date of Holiday 2011, so Nintendo has been throwing so much information at us that it can get confusing. Previously, all that was known was that Skyward Sword would take place even before Ocarina of Time, Link is from a floating land known as Skyloft, and the first teaser image of the game featured a character who can become the Skyward Sword, at some point in the game to transform into the Master Sword. Since then, some more info has been revealed, namely the weapons Link can use, the concept of Skyward Sword being an origin story for the Master Sword, and how Skyward Sword would be the triumph of Wii Motion Plus.

With E3, even more information has been revealed, including Zelda's relationship with Link (childhood friends), the antagonist (Ghirahim, ruler of Hyrule), transportation (Giant birds), and the name of the blue spirit who transforms into the Skyward Sword (Phi). Link will once again traverse dual dimensions, just like A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess. This time, Link will traverse the Siren Realm, a world where he cannot use his sword, relying on other weapons in fear of enemies who can kill him in one hit.

Skyward Sword's gameplay has also improved significantly since the its first appearance at last year's E3 where Shigeru Miyamoto haphazardly played through the game, probably the first time the game had ever been played by him. Movements are much more fluid and enemies have better programming, making the game precision and strategy based, but nothing too impossible. Most bipedal enemies carry a weapon and will block attacks and spiders have already been revealed to require an upward slash and then a stab into their weak spot.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword looks to be the Wii's swan song and is shaping up to be a very good game, ready for release Holiday 2011.

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