The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii-U, Switch) 2017

[KHCast]

I never said they do need to tread lightly, just that I don't see them all of a sudden now including LGBT representation heavily much like how I don't expect Disney to do so all of a sudden now despite how progressive society is becoming. Would it be bad if they did it? No, but given the history of these companies, I still think we're a while away before we see something like say Zelda and a female link clearly kissing(though we don't even see that with the male link) or anything too obvious. I just mean game changing in regard to the company themself not the game. Nintendo flat out putting openly gay characters in their games would definitely be a historical marker for them.

[Wraith]

There's barely any romance with Zelda as is aside from a few specific moments across the games. Something as innocent as an implied crush a female Link has on Zelda shouldn't trigger much of a reaction. There are people that deny Link and Zelda have a thing going on as is, so those people that want to deny it will just keep denying it, and the people that want to get something out of it will.

[Nepenthe]

^ That's the kicker. The franchise doesn't have a lot of romance going on as it is, so even if you did change Link's gender there would still be practically nothing that would change. And all of that's still ignoring the fact that it would be possible for Nintendo to just make Zelda a male if a particular game's storyline was interested in implying something between them a la SS anyway. Honestly, this just seems like a non-issue.

[Shade Vortex]

Honestly, I gotta say: I advocate Link becoming one of two things: A full fledged character or a full fledged avatar. The middleground they seem to be treading in pleases neither crowd more often than both- no matter what you do you aren't going to please everyone, so you might as well go the full mile with it, one way or the other.

So I for one would be happy to have gender options or other such customization because that'd be pushing the angle of Link being an avatar, meanwhile I'd also be satisfied with more stuff like SS or WW where those Links had very specific character traits and mannerisms that made him more of his own character. Heck, SS had very specific choices which limited what Link's answers coudl've been down to four choices at most, iirc. So some games push more towards one direction, while others push it more the other way. TFH is the most customizable Link yet.

[Blacklightning]

6 hours ago, Gambling Idol Luka said:

No they'd get every voice actor to say every single word in every language to make it work

easy

It's funny you should mention that, because Fallout 4 was actually approaching something like that - one NPC in the game (your robotic butler, go figure =V) has literally hundreds of lines recorded just to address your character by name. It's hardly perfect, I'll grant that, but I feel like it's still a neat stopgap until vocaloids become sophisticated enough to stand in for actual voice actors. And honestly, that was more than enough for me - it was a huge surprise just to hear the game acknowledge me at all, I'm completely fine with the rest of the NPCs referring to me by a title if one NPC or a handful have a sizeable name vocabulary to draw from =V.

[McGroose]

7 hours ago, JezMM said:

I will admit the only downside to voice acting is the fact that I always liked that characters addressed you by your chosen name in the Zelda games.  There is just simply no way to elegantly replicate that with voice acting until synthesised voice software radically improves.

Good point, but I could see them following the Kotor route by having all of the non-humans or non-real language speakers be the only ones to speak the protagonist's name while everyone else simply refers to you as some other title.

If I recall, Fallout 4 kind of succeed without doing that but it would only do that if the name used was one of many pre-selected names on a large list of them. You couldn't call yourself "dumbfuck" and expect the NPC to say your name.

[Diogenes]

45 minutes ago, Shade Vortex said:

Honestly, I gotta say: I advocate Link becoming one of two things: A full fledged character or a full fledged avatar. The middleground they seem to be treading in pleases neither crowd more often than both- no matter what you do you aren't going to please everyone, so you might as well go the full mile with it, one way or the other.

Personally I'm fine with the middle ground, and I don't think it'd feel much like Zelda if they went to either extreme.

[Regulus]

In regards to the potential for a LGBT Link, let's be honest, it's unrealistic. Zelda is a kids game and can you imagine how conservative parents and news media would react?

It isn't about gamers not being progressive, it's about being realistic.

I think a female Link is perfectly possible. They could literally just make a male character romance crop up if you play as femlink, kind of like what rpgs like KOTOR did with Bastila and Carth.

[Marcello]

Fire Emblem has gay romance options.

[Regulus]

Just now, Marcello said:

Fire Emblem has gay romance options.

Yeah but its not as widely known as Zelda, which is one of the faces of Nintendo, and I don't think its a kids game.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind a gay Link, I just think it is implausible that Nintendo would ever consider that.

[Marcello]

Both series are for roughly the same age group. And Fire Emblem may not be as big as Zelda, but it's still gotten pretty big. I think Fates has sold multiple millions.

[Patticus]

As overt as the romance in Skyward Sword was, and may be again in future Zeldas, Link will always be an avatar for the player, even as the cast surrounding him becomes more vocal. For that reason, I can never see him having a "real" relationship with anybody, male or female.

How's Japan doing on gay rights and such? If it's still very conservative on that issue, then don't expect any implied bisexual or homosexual relationships any time soon.

[Junko]

Zelda's been delayed.

and they confirmed that Zelda U is a Twilight Princess situation.

 

[Marcello]

Te Legend of Fuck U delayed to Fuck17

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2016/160427_4e.pdf

Fuck.

[Junko]

New Zelda U key art.

[Marcello]

Cool concept art.

This however is not cool:

Quote

The new Legend of #Zelda will be the focus of #E3 2016. 

You have a new console coming damn it.

[Conando]

And the oddest thing is that the game isn't even releasing this year, and is going to be on NX (I would assume at the same time as the Wii U release). I'm a huge fucking sucker and am probably going to pre-order the NX before we know jack anyway, though. I got burned so damn hard on the Wii being sold out for months that I'm too much of a pussy to wait.

[Marcello]

The object people were speculating was some sort of book doesn't seem to be a book. Probably some sort of battery pack for those high-tech arrows (And presumably other similar items.)

[Conando]

Looking at it, it does appear to be mechanical in nature. Perhaps it'll upgrade so you can use other arrow types as well (if it does turn out to be a battery for the arrows).

[Doctor MK]

Not surprised by the dual-console release at all. Little bit surprised that the game is coming out "simultaneously" on Wii U and NX though, surely it would make more business sense to prioritise the NX version to get early adopters buying the new console and release the Wii U version a few weeks later, kinda like what they did with Twilight Princess on Wii and Gamecube respectively.

Still, gonna be interesting to finally get a blowout on this title come E3. I just hope it doesn't eat up too much of the presentation, Nintendo really needs to come out swinging this year and one Zelda game ain't gonna cut it.

[Junko]

 

[QuantumEdge]

So this pretty much means we're possibly getting nothing for the 30th anniversary?  Suddenly, I find myself slightly depressed.  I mean, what could possibly need to be done to make it delayed until (most likely) March instead of a Christmas release?  God, I hope this is actually worth all this waiting...

[Marcello]

19 minutes ago, Athena Cykes said:

 

Only playable game or only playable Wii U game? Pokémon is coming ffs.

2 minutes ago, QuantumEdge said:

So this pretty much means we're possibly getting nothing for the 30th anniversary?  Suddenly, I find myself slightly depressed.  I mean, what could possibly need to be done to make it delayed until (most likely) March instead of a Christmas release?  God, I hope this is actually worth all this waiting...

I'm guessing they just want it to launch at the same time as the NX version

[Junko]

1 minute ago, Marcello said:

Only playable game or only playable Wii U game? Pokémon is coming ffs.

Like you need to know how Pokémon plays???

[Celestia]

25 minutes ago, Doctor MK said:

Not surprised by the dual-console release at all. Little bit surprised that the game is coming out "simultaneously" on Wii U and NX though, surely it would make more business sense to prioritise the NX version to get early adopters buying the new console and release the Wii U version a few weeks later, kinda like what they did with Twilight Princess on Wii and Gamecube respectively.

Yeah, this is the only thing that surprises me about this news. At first I was thinking that maybe the Wii U version would come out later, but not by that much (like, within the same month as the NX version, at best), but "simultaneous" does kind of make it sound like it'll be on the same day. I guess it could still mean "within the same time frame but not literally on the same day", but who knows.