Today saw Nintendo’s Eiji Aonuma debut over ten minutes of new gameplay for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Legend of Zel🌱da: Tears of the Kingdom. While we’ve seen plenty in previous trailers, this was the first time we caught a relatively uncurated glimpse reminiscent of the experience we’ll likely have ourselves in a few months' time. Turns out it’s quite a bit like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Breath of the Wild - but that immedi🦄ate familiarity is the entire point. Tears is iterative opposed to revolutionary.
The showcase seemed laser focused on the skyward topography and mechanical creativity afforded to Link by his selection of new powers. Our heroic twink not only has flowing golden hair and fashionable new garb, but also the ability to reverse time, taking platforms landing on the surface straight back to the places from whence they came. This will be one of the core ways of reaching Hyrule’s new skyward biomes, alongside crafting your own flying machines with its new 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Banjo Kazooie:𝔉 Nuts & Bolts-esque mechan🃏ics. Most objects in the world can be joined to one another, creating all manner of weapons, vehicles, and objects to fight enemies 🅰and solve 🅠puzzles. It’s ingenious, and factors into the latent creativity this game does so well.
Remember all the babies who complained about weapons breaking in Breath of the Wild because they had to experiment and think on their feet? Tears of the Kingdom does. Early in the presentation Aonuma picks up a stick to fight a new enemy known as a C💛onstruct only to have it break in a couple of strikes. He laughs, picks up another, and finishes the job. Those of us who didn’t fancy managing our inventories were used to these encounters, but with the new Fuse mechanic, Link is able to take any object in the environment and turn it into a new weapon. Aonuma uses his existing wooden stick and a nearby boulder as an example, and they join together at the touch of a button with relative attack values shown on screen.
It makes short work of the same enemy, showing us that with a few moments of quick thinking you can turn a terrible situation into a triumphant one. Existing items lik🐈e a spear and pitchfork can be forged together too, basically resulting in a long pole that can poke enemies from afar. Aonuma continually stresses the importance of experimentation here, and how previous frustrations can be alleviated by leaning further into your own decisions. Breath of the Wild was so brilliant thanks to Link’s small repertoire of powers being capable of endless permutations, and even today players are still uncovering new ways to conquer boss battles and solve puzzles. This is a deliberate extension of that philosophy, building on a design that encourages freedom instead of for🤡cing us to use the same mechanics over and over. The sheer scope of Fuse is something we won’t uncover until months after its release.
Bow combat - a woefully underutilised part of Link’s arsenal thanks to iffy controls - has also been given a new lease of life thanks to Fuse. Random objects you’d previously only use for cooking and crafting like bat eyes and jellies can now be combined with your ranged items to auto-aim onto select targets or imbue your weapons with the elements. Aonuma is vague yet again, only hinting at the range of possibilities with an example or two before moving onto a second mechanic that will change how Tears of the Kingdom plays. It evolves essential parts of its predecessor all which recognising why they worked in the first place. I imagine you can tackle the sequel with your traditional methods with relative ease, yet these additional tools will not only make the experienc𒈔e more fun, but likely easier and more rewarding as a result.
Traversal has evolved too, also in ways that alleviate past frustrations while keeping how it operated previously intact. Link can still climb steep cliffs and swim across vast rivers, but it seems Nintendo knew that you were often cuffed to your stamina metre. Run out, and you’ll come crashing back down. Now, Link can use a similar fuse ♉ability known as Ultrahand that can link random objects together with the aim of creating a vehicle. It can be a boat, plane, car, or something else entirely. I al🎉so rarely used my horse in the last game, so this is dope.
If you’re in a cave, or basically any st𓃲ructure with something resembling a ceiling, Link can use his newfound powers to teleport through solid surfaces. It remains unclear if this skill is limited to a cooldown or other such parameters, although it basically eliminates a pet peeve many players took issue with back in 2017. I love a good climb and soaking in the reward of a long journey, so chances are I’ll only fiddle with it on return trips. Or maybe that will be the case, almost like fast travel points or earned shorജtcuts. We still need to have a drive to learn this world through our own hard-fought exploration, while also balancing a need for gradual convenience introduced with new mechanics like this. Or just build a hovercraft to do it all for you.
The Legend Zelda: Breath of the Wild has always been about creativity, an approach far too frequently constrained by the otherwise mechanical nature of its binary systems. Link had to manage so many different parts of his character that you’d often g🐻o for the easiest solution in favour of the most exciting. Tears of the Kingdom, at least from this brief taster, is very eager to change that notion and put control back into the hands of players. We are going to get so carried away with our monstrous creations in this game and I can’t wait to see it.
