Woods of Mystery

Come here for all of the latest news about The Legend of Zelda Series. Whether it be in the form of announcements from Nintendo or snatches from interviews with those in the know (including the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto), you'll find it here. If you have an important news item regarding the series that isn't up here, send it to me:

Update - Further details on The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass can now be found on the Zelda Series page.

23/03/2006 - Today in California, the Game Developers Conference (GDC) took place. During the proceedings, Nintendo's Satoru Iwata held a keynote speech. Among the issues discussed, including an extension of the 'Virtual Console' idea to incorperate old Sega and Hudson titles, a brand new Zelda title for the Nintendo DS was announced! Although rumoured for a long time anyway, it's nice to have full confirmation of the title's existence. Although still not much is known about it yet, one or two interesting tidbits have emerged from the speech.

The most obvious is the intriguing title: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. This is very likely another Zelda game where the title relates to an important item (other examples include Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker.) The game is also said to share the same visual presentation as The Wind Waker - cel-shading techniques. The final detail is that the game is aimed at a release later this year. If this holds true, Zelda gamers will have an excellent line up for Christmas 2006 with this and Twilight Princess.

Source: Revo-Europe.

15/03/2006 - Shigeru Miyamoto has finally confirmed the long-rumoured news that Twilight Princess will have a unique control set when played on a Revolution, which will be unavailable on Gamecube. Not only will this offer gamers a completely fresh way to play the game, it's also a nice insentive to buy a Revolution (if you needed one that is.)

More solid details on this, and plenty more besides, will be revealed at this years' Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in early May.

Source: Revo-Europe.

25/01/2006 - Nintendo Power interviewed Yoshiyuki Oyama (the brains behind Twilight Princess' enemies.) No specific enemies, outside of those included in trailers, were discussed. However, a couple of interesting tidbits of info were leaked.

When asked about Ganon's role in Twilight Princess, Yoshiyuki Oyama has this to say:

 "I know that everyone's wondering what going on with Link's old nemesis. All I can say now is, we're preparing more than you could possibly ever, ever, ever expect...."

Intriguing to say the least. Just what lies in store regarding Ganon?

At the end of the interview, Oyama left Nintendo Power with these final words:

"And how will my monsters ensure that Twilight Princess is the greatest Zelda game ever? Wait and see. You won't be disappointed."

Expect the difficulty to be taken up a notch as well for both regular enemies and bosses. Oyama assures us they will not be in the least bit pushovers.

Source: Hyrule.net

18/12/2005 - Nintendo recently released it's total sales to date for its various franchises. Zelda came third on the list after Mario and Pokemon.

The current Top 5 franchises for software sales to date is as follows:

1. Mario Franchise: 184 Million Units Sold

2. Pokemon Franchise: 143 Million Units Sold

3. Zelda Franchise: 47 Million Units Sold

4. Donkey Kong Franchise: 44 Million Units Sold

5. Metroid Franchise: 11 Million Units Sold

Source: Revo-Europe.

Update: Apparently, this news came from a Japanese gaming magazine and was poorly translated. After a more thorough check however, it appears that the magazine was stating that no plans had been made for a Zelda, or in fact Mario, Movie at present. Even so, the good news is that the Metroid Movie is still going to be made! Well, there you have it - some good news and some bad.

19/11/2005 - Following the news that Nintendo have struck deals to help bring their top-tier franchises to the silver screen earlier this year, Nintendo's head of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime was interviewed by Club Nintendo. When asked what Nintendo had planned, Reggie stated that a film adaptation of the Metroid franchise was planned. However, it is currently unknown how far through the film making process the project was.

Most interestingly Reggie continued by saying that, after the Metroid project, The Legend of Zelda Franchise would be next inline. Finally, he mentioned that this in turn would possibly be followed by a brand new Mario movie.

So, to conclude, that's three Nintendo movies under consideration in this order of priority:

1. Metroid

2. Zelda

3. Mario

Nintendo's movie endeavours in the past have been hit and miss, but there have been many more hits that misses. The Pokemon Movies were all hugely successful, but the original Super Mario Bros. Movie was a huge letdown to fans. However, that might have been due to the use of real actors as opposed to being more of a feature length cartoon. Which of the two directions the new Mario Movie will take, if indeed it is made at all, was not elaborated on in the interview unfortunately.

Meanwhile the news of a possible Zelda Movie however has already sparked off more than a little debate as to whether it will be of great benefit to the series or a terrible mistake. The main initial concerns are over the chance of Link being given a permanent voice, a move many would view as diabolical.

The bottom line for me is this: 'It can't be any worse than the Final Fantasy Movie...can it?!'

Source: Revo-Europe.

16/11/2005 - Japanese gaming website Level Up have a new report that suggests that Twilight Princess may well feature over 100 hours of gameplay, when the main adventure and side quests are combined.

Zelda director Eiji Aonuma mentioned that, even though the play time will depend on how many sidequests the player undertakes, he expects the game will be the most expansive Zelda adventure yet. He even went as far as to say that the overall length of Twilight Princess dwarfs both Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker - no mean feat.

Finally, the report concludes that the gameplay mechanics used in Twilight Princess will ultimately shape the future directions of the Zelda franchise. Very mysterious, yet intriguing.

Source: Revo-Europe.

14/11/2005 - Taking place last week were the Golden Joystick Awards - from London's Hilton Hotel, Park Lane. The awards began in 1983 and since then have celebrated the best in gaming for every passing year.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess won the MCV One To Watch For Xmas award (ironically, Twilight Princess also won the One To Watch For 2005 award at last year's Golden Joystick Awards.)

Nintendo also won the coveted Publisher Of The Year award. The list of awards and award winners in full can be found below:

PlayStation 2 Game of the Year: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
GameCube Game of the Year: Resident Evil 4
Xbox Game of the Year: Halo 2
PC Game of the Year: Half-Life 2
The Carphone Warehouse Handheld Game of the Year: Super Mario 64 DS
Best Film-Based Game of 2005: Resident Evil 4
BBC Radio One - Colin and Edith's Best Game Soundtrack of 2005: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
The Sun Online Online Game of the Year: World of Warcraft
Publisher of the Year: Nintendo
The In Stock Magazine Retailer of the Year: Play.com
The Game One Gaming Innovation of the Year: PSP
The MCV One to Watch for Xmas: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Sun's One to Watch for 2006: Resident Evil 5
Hero of 2005: CJ from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
Villain of 2005: Officer Tenpenny from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
The Girl's Choice for 2005: The Sims 2
Editor's Game of the Year: Resident Evil 4
Unsung Hero of the Year: Fahrenheit

Source: Revo-Europe.

04/09/2005 - In a recent Japanese radio interview, legendary games creator Shigeru Miyamoto spoke out about some Legend of Zelda issues among other things. Here's what he had to say:

Interviewer: The new Zelda, it's not really good news that...

Shigeru Miyamoto:  Please allow me to interrupt you by saying that you will have to be patient, really. This will be, without a doubt, the last Zelda game as you know it in its present form. I worked on it personally, moreso than Wind Waker! I haven't invested as much into any game as I have this one. Our goal was to make the best Zelda game ever. The most rich/satisfying and melancholy. We've really improved it in just a few months. Everything's coming together much quicker. We may have some last minute ideas...

Interviewer: You're going to move it to Revolution?

Shigeru Miyamoto: No, it is a Gamecube title.

He also spoke of  the next installment in the Mario series and the air of mystery surrounding Nintendo.

Source: Revo-Europe.

16/08/2005  - Nintendo announced this morning that the hugely anticipated Zelda: Twilight Princess has been delayed until 2006. The game will be released after the current fiscal year (March 31st 2006) and the delay is due to the team wanting to add new features and make improvements to the game. Here's the official announcement from Nintendo:

"Our development team has decided to take extra time to add some incredible new elements to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. As a result, the game will now launch in 2006 globally. We recognize there may be some disappointed fans, however we firmly believe this additional time will result in a much more enjoyable gaming experience."

This news has already split opinion in two over whether this decision is good or bad.

If you want my personal opinion, this is a good move. Nintendo previously stated that their goal is to ultimately make this a Zelda game that betters Ocarina of Time, so they really need this extra time to make sure that's just what they will achieve. Many people have already said that this is a bad move from a financial perspective on Nintendo's part as it 'needed' this game in time for Christmas to keep the Xbox 360 at bay. Whilst this does seem to ring true, I'm sure Nintendo would not have made this move unless they really felt they needed to and I therefore back their decision.

As for what these 'incredible new elements' might turn out to be, more than a few ideas are already circling the web. Nintendo have said that the extra time is to add 'new levels, more depth and even higher quality' to the game, but many gamers are taking this delay as meaning something far bigger than just these enhancements such as possible Revolution bonuses or even that the game will be ported over and ultimately developed for the Revolution. However, nothing bar the delay has been confirmed yet.

A small selection of Twilight Princess screens can also be found in my Image Gallery.

Source: Nintendo-Europe.