The Switch 2 Edition of Tears of the Kingdom bumps up the open-world game's resolution and framerate, which could get quite choppy when moving between Hyrule's three layers. But the brand-new stuff came via 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Zelda Notes, a section of the Nintendo App that lets you earn achievements, set GPS waypoints, and view 🔯your stats.

And in Tears of the Kingdom, you can even automatically recreate the community's wildest creations with a handy Autobuild feature. All you need is the relevant QR code, Zelda Notes, and voila, you can have access to all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:korok torture devices you can imagine. Although, some players are now using🌱 the feature to summon things Nintendo didn't exactly intend for.

The Switch 2-exclusive exploit was bought to our attention by 'Can You Pet The Dog,' the internet page that – wait for it – keeps tracks of whether you can pet doꦑgs, cats, lizards, or other anim𒀰als in a bunch of games. You still can't pet dogs in Tears of the Kingdom, for some reason, but you can summon them and horses and and pretty much anything else in the game.

from

also explains that you'll need a🍸 modded save file and access to a modded Switch 1 console, plus the base game, before you carry your data over to the Switch 2 version. Then you'll need to find a QR code online hosting whatever item or character it is you want to summon. (I won't link any here for maybe obvious reasons, though they aren't too hard to find by surfing through relevant subreddits and Discord communities.)

Forget blindfolded runs, a Switch 2-exclusive challenge emerges as fan proves you can play Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom with your Joy-Con attached the wrong way

And when it comes to comparisons between the two, with time to reflect I can't deny that Tears of the Kingdom is the bigger, more nuanced, more artisanal experien𓆏ce. It's a natural enhancement of the ideas that Breath of the Wild began back in 2017, an elevation of the concepts and systems that BOTW began. Tears of the Kingdom is more deta📖iled, grander in scope, smarter in its construction. Which makes it really weird that Breath of the Wild is, to my mind, clearly the better game of the two.

Wild Thing

Let's get the obvious thing out of the way: Breath of the Wild is clearly the more revolutionary game between the two. After the tepid Skyward Sword, and then a five year silence regarding any mainline entry, Nintendo suddenly let loose with a sandbox wonderland that set the standard for open worlds for years and remains a strong contender for the best AAA game of the 2010s. I still remember my first few days with Breath of the Wild being little more than a series of open-mouthed "holy shit" realizations ꦬas the game continued to bend and adapt to everything I could throw at it.

Playing Tears of the Kingdom six years later, I could tell early on🙈 that we weren't getting another leap forward of the same scale and scope. Itꦇ was largely very familiar – not that that's a bad thing! But it's also just not as impressive, is it? A great leap, followed by a careful step. Even now, Tears of the Kingdom still settles in the cultural mindset as being "Breath of the Wild 1.5", and that's not necessarily without good reason.

But something being great "for its time" doesn't mean much in the long term, admittedly. After all, that's one of tꦰhe things that matters least to a game's long-term reputation, as it all blurs together and the circumstances around a release fa𓆉de in our memory and relevance alike. Replaying both games recently, I realized that the key difference between the two games – and what makes Breath of the Wild better – is that it's always so much more in control than its younger sibling ever is.

Recall

Breath of the Wild is one of the rubberiest games I've ever played. Sounds weird to say, but I can't think of a better term. You can stretch and bend its physics, rules and world, but it never breaks, folding your ideas into the experience with an effortless shrug, the true master of "I meant to do that". You can manipulate the world for exploration and combat alike, freezing stepping stones into waterfalls and magnetically dragging weapons out of enemies' hands, but these all feel like "as intended" experiences, as indeed t🥂hey areꦉ.

Tears of the Kingdom has far less control over itself, and it makes for a slightly uneven affair. Now that's arguably intentional, but after your fif൲teenth time gluing logs together (the solution to basically all problems), you might start to wish for a game that wasn't quite so accommodating and demanded a little more of you. Likewise, constructs like the economic Hoverbike can often feel likওe you're playing with cheats, moving freely in three dimensions with zero issues, concerns or challenges. And when it does try to assert control, it often goes too far in the opposite direction, like the boring walk-and-talk intro with Zelda in the caves, or that annoying boxing arena boss fight later on.

That's the core difference between the two, and why I feel comfortable calling Breath of the Wild rubbery. Rubber bends, but it doesn't break. It just snaps back to the shape it was before. In comparison, Tears of the Kingdom is more like cling film, or sandwich wrap. More pliant, more v🃏aried, but stretch it too far and you begin to see a few holes emerge. I'𝓰m enjoying both games with the enhanced Switch 2 upgrades, but it's the 2017 classic that'll stay with me far longer.

Find out all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Switch games you can play right now!

Yes, you read that right. Forget about blindfolded speedruns, Japanese Zeꦍlda fan "Peco" has found a new way to challenge himself. As Peco highlights in a recent online , players can actually insert their Switch 2 Joy-Con controllers the wrong way around on the new handheld console and have them 🌞remain functional, effectively allowing them to play games entirely backwards without seeing any of the action firsthand themselves.

While it's akin to a blindfolded run, a playthrough with reversed Joy-Con controllers seems like it'd be nearly impossible – but Peco manages to take on a Lynel in Tears of the Kingdom without seeing his screen once. As a longtime Zelda fan myself, that's an enemy many people struggle with, as is, so seeing a person tackle one without access to the screen is seriously impreꦿssive. Furthermore, it might open the door to a new category of speedruns.

As Peco writes (tra💞nslated by DeepL and Google), the Switch 2 "Joy-Con works properly no matte๊r which way it's inserted" – in other words, it's not unique to Tears of the Kingdom, nor is it something that only Peco could pull off himself. With thousands of shares and views so far, too, it's safe to say the broader Nintendo community might get in on the action and have a go at playing through games with their Joy-Con reversed.

After all, blindfolded speedruns are already a thing, and various players have proven capable of doing them – and quickly, too. In 2024, a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:blindfolded Tears of theꦚ Kingdom speedrunner finished the game in under three hours. "CrystalSaver," the man behind the BlindfoldedGaming website, was also able to beat Tears of the Kingdom 11 months ago in under an hour – 59 minutes and eight seconds, to be exact – as showcased in a video of his full run.

Check out some of the most exciting澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: upcoming Switch 2 games to look forward to.

Streamer Eric "PointCrow" Morino completed a 136-hour stream on Twitch last week, any breaks taken to tend to his bodily needs, such as sleep, done on stream. Accordi𒁏ng to a celebratory – accompanied by the most exhausted-looking photo you can imagine – PointCrow declared he had 100%'d the open world RPG in 136 hours, 44 minutes, and one second. A feat for sure, but not one many would have the desire to complete in the slightesᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚt.

For reference, states a c♈ompletionist playthrough takes players an average of 248 hours. It could be argued that he essentially speedran the whole 🌌thing.

PointCrow himself jokes saying "I only burst blood vessels in both my eyes," and I can't imagine the guy is going to look at a screen again for about a week. A fan even if he plans to do it again 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:on the Nintendo Switch 2, referencing the faster load-times as a benefit. Honestly, the request feels cruel after w🐲hat PointCrow just went through, but he didn't appear to rule it out.

"Without glitches I think it would add another couple hundred hours lol," he replies, which means PointCrow may have another week-long stream in h🌼is future. Well, someone has to do these things for the public, right?

New Zelda: Breath of the Wild speedrun category emerges as player rocks up to Switch 2 preview event, strips Link, and beats Ganon in 7 minutes - "Staff congratulated me"

I'll be honest, I'm iffy at best on Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, and I'm being 💧driven (ahem) up the wall by Mario Kart World's i꧃ntermission tracks getting in the way of circuit domination. What's there to actually play on this thing? I've gone some rounds in Fast Fusion and it's a blast. I've thrown down blobs a⛎nd blocks in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S, which remains a certified puzzle banger. I've installed Deltarune, but I'm too nervous to feel new emotions (real). And then I see it – perfection on a pleasingly block red square – the smooth, rounded purple Nintendo GameCube controller b🥃eckons me to retro bliss.

Back to the past

That's right, Nintendo Switch Online now has 'Nintendo GameCube – Nꩵintendo Classics' on the Nintendo Switch 2 (I'll give you three guesses as to who publishes all this, and the first two don't count). Plenty of superb games have been promised, including Chibi-Robo!, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and both of the perennially underrated Pokemon Colosseum games. But for now, there are three: F-Zero GX, SoulCalibur 2, 🐽and – my beloved – The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Like many, this Zelda was a definitive one in my gaming career. A newcomer to the world of Nintendo 𝔉once the Dreamcast's reign had turned more nightmarish, I'd only before touched The Legend of Zelda: A Link's Awakening on Game Boy. Attracted to the gleaming golden box, and the promise of a bonus disc containing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to catch-up, I scooped it up for a surprisingly low pre-owned price at my local game shop, after simply browsing for random games. It changed my life.

Sure, revisiting Wind Waker via this classic library isn't completely perfect. While it has save states, there's no rewind – meaning this is a pretty straightforward presentation of the original game. It also means it do🌞esn't have any of the add🎉itional features from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD for Wii U which – while the slight art style shift was divisive – make it feel more complete (I'd still🐈 recommend that version to first-timers). And yeah, having to use the virtual console feature's tools to remap the camera controls to feel more modern is a bit of a pain – with them feeling a bit twitchier than I remember. But the original Wind Waker is still a banger, it's as simple as that.

I know that all seems a bit foolish. I readily have other ways to play Wind Waker. My Wii U is literally still plugged in. Not to mention all the other ways to enjoy Nintendo GameCube games with some enhancements available in this modern age. And in my household I do try to ensure I'm never more than 10 minutes from Wind Waker at any time. But, well, I bought the Nintendo Switch 2, so here we are. I'm pootling around Outset ♉village. I'm looking at Link's wonderfully expressive eyes as he sidles along ledges in the Forsaken Fortress. I'm picking up a pig and dousing its farts all over Windfall Island. I'm home.

So far, Nintendo Switch 2's newest, flashiest features have been a bit disappointing to me. But there's promise in how it can (big ahem) link to the past. Nintendo GameCube has loads of excellent games locked to the system that deserve to be more readily accessible to those who aren't sicko enough lik൩e me to jump through hoops to play them otherwise. And, the extra power in the hardware means revisiting original Switch games with performance issues promises to be far slicker. I'm eying up Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Is it finally time to finish the fight?

Want more adventures? Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games ranking!

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening earned its stripes not for its ambition, but because it understood that smaller can be better. It's widely regarded as one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Game Boy games ever, and thanks to a keen understanding of its strengths, the remake proves it one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Nintendo Switch games of all time some 32 years later. You don't need to mess with perfection, anಞd it turns out that all Nintendo's first handheld Zelda game needed to delight a new generation of schoolyard kids was a bit of polish, a bit of love, and a ton of respect.

We're on island time

Recalling these playground memories, one game stands out in particular. Gripped in our sweaty little hands, our Game Boys were, of course, loaded up with our own copy of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Each day we'd bike furiously to school hours early to sit side-by-side exploring Koholint, absorbed in these minisculꦦe adventures that nevertheless felt enormous and fateful, and most importantly, our own.

As the first ever Zelda game made for a handheld device, the personal aspect of Link's Awakening was very important to me🐷. After all, much of the appeal of the Game Boy was that it was mine and mine alone. It was not a shared TV in our living room, or the PC monitor in my dad's office where I'd play Wolfenstein 3D and Reader Rabbit. The Game Boy, in all its monochromatic glory, was a personal portal to adventure, unlike anything I'd experienced.

For years afterwards, me and my friends, and many others outside my main group of friends, including older cool kids, would bond as we played through the same game, trading tips and experiences, racing through RPGs, and, when the mood would take us, hauling our TVs to each other's houses so we could return back to those cold mornings on the schoolyard.

Many years later, I would gift 💝that same friend a map of Koholint Island as a thank you for being the best man at my wedding – those early days cemented in our most momentous milestones.

Link's Awakening is about traveling to another world, an uncanny manifestation of imagination, and all of that is encompa🐠ssed in the experience of exploring the island, discovering the secret of the Wind Fish, and realizing that your experiences there were no less real or valid or consequ꧂ential as Link's.

To that end, Link's♕ Awakening was and remains a singular experience within Zelda canon, a title that challenges its player to consider the ephemerality of game worlds.

Beyond worlds

The spectre of maturity has haunted the Zelda franchise ever since that fated GameCube demo whet appetites only for Nintendo to deliver (the objectively fantastic) Wind Waker and its cartoony graphics. It's a game openly inspired by Twin Peaks, and one of the few Zelda titles that genuinely gets metatextual (shoutout to Majora's Mask).

That one of its most conceptually challenging and interesting titles is a low resolution Game Boy game with an alligator who loves dog food, a chain chomp with a bow, and a mermaid who's lost her bathing suit top is testament to how themes can be conveyed through often conflicting visual design and tone.

Link's Awakening works because it doesn't seem serious on the surface, so its melancholy explorations of ephemerality hit harder when they become apparent. When Nintendo announced a Switch remake of Link's Awakening, it walked a thin line between introducing a new generation of schoolyard kids to Marin, Tarin, Ulrira, and the rest of the motley residents of Koholint Island.

The remake recaptured the lightning in a bottle that originally transported those millennial children – now the parents o♏f those very kids newly discovering Zelda on Switch – to Link's side as he sought to wake the Wind Fish in the mid-'90s.

Remake reckoning

Link's Awakening isn't alone. We've seen a glut of remakes of classic titles over the past several years, with some of the most prominent, like 2024's Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, choosing wholesale modernizations that challenge the very concept of remake. Others, like 2020's Trials of Mana, retain the classic structure and systems but move into full 3D.

These titles illustrate why terms like "remake" and "remaster" are difficult to define in brief. With Link's🐼 Awakening, however, Nintendo chose slavish recreation over moderini♒zation.

Most of the changes focused on quality-of-life improvements (like making the sword, shield, bracelet, and boots permanent equipment, instead of taking up one of your two precious button slots) and capturing the feeling of the original by adopting a toyish art style – replete with a plasticin𓄧e world ⭕and a tilt shift lens effect to create the feeling of exploring a tiny diorama – that captures the memory of the original Game Boy pixel art graphics, rather than trying to recreate them. To that end, Link's Awakening is one of the tightest and most satisfying Zelda titles in the series.

The Nintendo Switch remake of Link's Awakening retains all this magic because it underst꧅ood that the original game was a perfect little puzzle box, strengthened – not hindered – by the limitations of the Game Boy.

Leaning into traditionalism with Link's Awakening also provided Nintendo with a solid, tested foundation for innovation. As mentioned in GamesRadar +'s 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Legend of Zelda: Echoe💛s of W🌠isdom review, the first ever Zelda-starring Zelda game pushe🎉d the boundaries of what we expect from the series' 2D offerings by adopting the free-forming traversal and non-linearity of its modern siblings, melding modern and classic Zelda into something new – and it likely wouldn't have existed without Link's Awakening.

The original Link's Awake𓂃ning was like carrying a different world around in my pocket, and sitting side-by-side with my bestie, absorbed in his ownꦇ adventure, was a joint experience that's stuck with me ever since. It showed me how video games can bring people together, even when they're single player titles - and thanks to the Link's Awakening remake, that experience has become a living legacy.

Check out all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games coming to the new Nintendo console soon

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Mario Kart World and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Donkey Kong Bananza are even harder to ignore, as is the chance to play both 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Pokemon Colosseum through the Switch 2's GameCube emulator. But none of those titles have felt like Nintendo's emphasis in recent months, which has been more about showcasing flashy third-party games the Switch 2 is capable of running. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077 – still one of the go-to games for ogling on PC and console – will be there from day one, along with the likes of Street Fighter 6 and Split Fiction. Looking further ahead, Star Wars Outlaws will arrive on the Switch 2 in September, which is doubly impressive considering its reputation for turbulence on the Steam Deck.

For Nintendo fans who don't own another console, the Switch 2's ability to go toe-to-toe with more modern offerings is a blessing. It makes sense for Nintendo to parade the console's beefier innards around, given fans have been begging for a stronger Switch for years. But as someone who does have consoles besides the Switch, I'm having trouble gettinဣg behind this approach.

Switch to Switch

A lot of people (myself included) see the Switch as more of a supplementary console. It's a means of playing Nintendo's first-party gems, gaming when you're away from home or, er, too hungover to leave bed. I suspect I'm not the only one feeling lukewarm about the Switch 2's vast third-party catalog. I've already got Cyberpunk 2077, and don't feel any particular urgency to play it on the bus. The same goes for all of the Swit෴ch 2's flashy ports – I love that the console can run them purely because a rising tide lifts all boats – but personally, being able to re-run the greats isn't enough. That probably won't change for me, as the Switch 2 is unlikely to become my first port of call for third-party releases due to the labyrinthian eShop and its pricier reputation.

While Nintendo is very keen to demonstrate how the Switch 2 can keep up with PS5 and Xbox Series X|S releases, raw power has never been the company's bag. But as PlayStation and Xbox have slowly relinquished their grasp on console-exclusive games, Nintendo has stuck firmly to first-party exclusivity. That has become its greatest strength, providing an identity for the Switch that goes far beyond what it can and cannot run. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Super Mario Odyssey. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Meไtroid Dread. To consistently reach soaring highs for so many long-running series is, frankly, astounding – an enviable hit rate that neithe💞r Xbox or PlayStation has reached this generation.

Mario magic

The Switch 2's first year has some of that magic. Even as a casual Mario Kart fan, I'm itching to race through Mario Kart World. Likewise, Donkey Kong Bananza… look, I really want to punch grass as DK. But looking further ahead, we're thin on the ground. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Pokemon Legends: Z-A and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Metroid Prime 4 are both titans, sure𓃲, but they're also going to be available on the existing Switch. Likewise♕, Kirby Air Riders and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment look neat, but they don't have the same pull that a platforming Kirby game or mainline Zelda title would have.

Even so, that's a fairly convincing spread of offerings. Whether or not you join the crowd rushing for 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders will ultimat🐎ely depend on how much these games grab your attention, and how much you use the original handheld.

Nintendo faces a harder sell than usual because – I'm gesturing wildly – everything is so expensive right now, but given the astronomical demand it's already had for the Switch 2, t♕he future is still looking bright. Hardware improvements mean the Switch 2 will sit better alongside the PS5 and Xbox Series – consoles its predecessor struggled to keep up with – and that will only become more obvious as more third-party titles launch on the handheld. But more importantly, will the Switch 2 be as easy to pass on with two more Nintendo exclusives? Three? Much to the chagrin of my wallet, I doubt it.

Stick with us to stay in the loop for all 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 news as it happens

"Nintendo Switch 2 has made it possible to include lots of enemies in our Warriors games," producer Ryota Matsushita says in a new developer interview video. "Not that just adding more enemies is a good thing, but it heavily contrꦕibutes to the realism and excitement of the battlefield, which helped a ton."

"At the same 𝓀time," Koei Tecmo's AAA games studio head Yosuke Hayashi adds, "it was also important that you could play with higher frame rates than the༺ Nintendo Switch system. We were able to achieve that with this game."

The video includes a brief look at what appears𝓀 to be 60 FPS gameplay footage, marking a major improvement over Age of Calamity, which often struggled to even maintain its 30 FPS ta🐬rget.

It does appear that there is a brief drop in performance during 🐈the footage, but with a higher baseline fra♎me rate – and potential for performance to improve ahead of launch – it's looking like Age of Imprisonment will offer a much better experience than its predecessor.

Age of Imprisonment expands on the story shown in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Tears of the Kingdom's flashback sequences. "As a story that you can only fully experience here, it doesn't just depict the battles of the Imprisoning War via a Warriors game," Matsushita adds. "It also shows life in♌ the kingdom of Hyrule after Princess Zelda is sent back in time."

It's similar to how Age of Calamity served as a prequel to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Breath of the Wild, but there's always been some debate on how well the two stories fit together. This time, the devs have been explicit that the new Hyrule Wa💧rriors offers a "canon" t💯ale. Between the performance improvements and story clarity, it looks like the team is taking the lessons of th🎀e previous game to heart.

Age of Imprisonment is just one of many 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games on the horizon. For everything we'll see on June 5, check out our guide to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Switch 2 launch games.

Historically, every new Nintendo console, including the Nintendo Switch, has come with an unspoken disclaimer: This isn't as powerful as the hardware provided by rival companies. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Legend🥀 of Zelda: Breath of the Wild immediatelꦦy refutes this reputation and has changed video games (especially when it comes to our definition of a good open world📖 game) forever. Power is about what the player is able to bring to a game. Everything else is just window dressing.

Fresh air

When Breath of the Wild was released as a launch title for the Nintendo Switch on March 3, 2017, the acclaim and embrace were immediate. For around two decades, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had been relatively cemented as the finest entry in the classic series (some also include The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in that conversation and they're absolutely correct to).

Breath of the Wild broke up the rankings like a mousey Remote Bomb. The Legend of Zelda has always been a testament to the wonder of exploration – the "call of the wild" that lures you to remote𒀰 places and asks that you test your mettle both within and against nature. Breath of the Wild felt like the apotheosis of this particular sensation.

It was also a necessary shock to the open world genre, something that had always thrived on size. Countless games have been sold on the promise of expansion and, to be fair, there is something to be said about how cool it is to watch a horizon get wider and wider. But it's also been an excuse for hollowness. You run, climb and ride through yet another stretch of digital plain on yet another version of a "fetch quest" and you think "What in the heck am I doing this for? This isn't more fun. This is just…more."

Breath of the Wild lays no claim to being the biggest game ever, but it rarely makes you contemplate your open world purpose. Mostly because there's no time to. Even when you're not trying to solve the puzzles in the latest shrine you just encountered or tackling a Divine Beast,🅺 you're constantly running into challenges – a new enclave of enemies, a new biome or climate to prepare for, a new bit of treasure that hangs just out of reach that requires, not some fix-all tool, but your own ingenuity.

Breath of the Wild even invites you to challenge yourself. Sure, you could r꧂un straight into a gaggle of monsters and swing your sword with abandon, but what if you used the environment around you to dismantle them? It would take longer, but would pay off in pure satisfaction.

This kind of exhilarating gameplay did not go unnoticed by the video game industry at large. Not only did Nintendo eagerly capitalize on Breath of the Wild with a sequel, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingಌdo𒐪m, that doubled down on its inventiveness, but other developers took note. Sucker Punch used Breath of the Wild as for 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Ghost of Tsushima. When directing 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Elden Ring, Hidetaka Miyazaki took Breath of the Wild, alongside a few other outstanding open world games, . When Outcast returned with Outcast: A New Beginning, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:it sought to recapture some of Breath of the Wild's delightful aspects. Even first person shooter 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Halo: Infinite, yes really👍, , ❀before cutting back on its lofty ambitions.

Catching feelings

However, if there was any title that seemed to take an obvious cue from Breath of the Wild, it was from one of the most reliably traditional series in gaming: 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Pokémon's move to🎃 the modern definition of "open world" had been all but inevitable, but many aspects of Legends: Arceus seem drawn from Breath of the W🍒ild's wellspring.

This is especially clear with the ♔"roughing it" sensibilities that require a player to work through obstacles while keeping on the move. Considering that Pokémon games of the past typically stuck to a pace thಞat was dictated by the player, this made for a very refreshing title and likely Pokémon's best in nearly a decade.

In the eight years since its release, esteem for Breath of the Wild has only grown. Though it wasn't the only open world game from that time period to make an impact (games like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Red Dead Redemption 2 were also h🧔uge hits), it is Breath of the Wild that feels like it's seeped into the broader mediumꦗ the most.

It reframed our relationship with the objectives of open world games in a way that's immediately obvious, all while still feeling very much The Legend of Zelda. And though, again, the Nintendo Switch would never have the pure processing power of other modern systems, Breath of the Wild p💞roved that a developer need not feel limited by that fact. Instead, like many of the sequences in Breath of the Wild, it was an invitation to try something ne♚w. A challenge.

With the Nintendo Switch 2 on the way, it's a pretty safe assumption that we'll not just get new main series The Legend of Zelda games, but perhaps dozens of other titles that can trace their roots back to Breath of the Wild. After all, it helped make a Nintendo Switch 2 even possible, as the game was so foundational in the turning of the original Switch into a worldwide phenome🌺non. What remains up in the air, though, is if 🤡we'll ever get a game as forward-looking as Breath of the Wild again, one that wasn't just interested in continuing the The Legend of the Zelda brand but in reinventing how we fall in love with it.

Need another adventure? Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games ranking!

just got its big 1.2 update with mod support over the weekend, and there are already dozens of mods available, which🧸 you can get 💫a broad overview of from developer Wiseguy's video below. In the video description, Wiseguy notes that "all functionality shown will be available in future N64: Recompiled projects as well."

There are mods that briꦿng in nifty features from the 3DS version of Majora's Mask, like letting you swap masks even while transformed, or skipping to a specific hour with the Song of Double Time. There's a cool tweak that alters the onscreen HUD to match modern controller layouts.

There are, of course, graphical mods, including one that disables ☂draw distance culling so you can see enemies and objects at any distance. There's one that lets you move while aiming, giving you the precision of FPS controls while firing the bow. Another lets you use some items while transformed, and yet another lets you save at a𝓀n owl statue without quitting.

Then there are the meme mods, like the character 🎉replacers letting you play as CJ from GTA: San Andreas or the titular hero from the notoriously terrible Superman 64. You can dab while exploding yourself with the blast mask. There's also a Mario mask that doesn't just turn you into the platformer hero – it lets you use all of his moves, running around Major🎶a's Mask with wild jumping abilities.

Most importantly, Majora's Mask can now run Doom, thanks to a mod that l🐎ets you tap L+R at any time to setup a full beige box desktop gam🍎ing PC and sit down for some demon slaying.

The one I'm most impressed by, though, is the massive map oℱverhaul detailed in the video from Nerrel below, who created an entirely new 7K world map entirely by hand, with "no AI bullshit."

The map isn't just more detailed – thanks to modder Danielryb, it also features enhancements like tracking Link's exact position in the world. (Previously, it just showed his face in th꧟e general are✨a you were in.) Now, it'll track his location down to the exact lily pad he's standing on.

These mods can be very easily installed once you've gr🔜abbed them (many are hosted on ) by simply dragging the .zip files into the game. Eventually, there's set to be a mod browser that'll let you install add-ons without even leaving the game.

There are two unofficial Majora's 𒁏Mask PC ports out there: , and this project, Zelda 64: Recompiled. Both are built by reverse engineering the original game's code and rebuilding it by hand to run natively on PC, with no emulation required, and both happened to release around the same time. You'd be forgiven for confusing the two projects.

Where Zelda 64: Recompiled differs is the fact that it was created through , which automates the usually painstaking process of reverse engineeꦓring the code – though there's still plenty of work involved in building the actual port.

N64: Recompiled is already being used to develop numerous other ports besides this version of Majora's Mask, including Kirby 🐽64, Super Smash Bros., and even the canceled Rareware title Dinosaur Planet, which eventually morphed into Star Fox Adventures. There's no reason these ports can't also feature mod support just as robust as what we're getting in Zelda 64: Recompiled꧂, and it looks like the future for the N64 library is brighter than it's ever been before.

The 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best N64 games are getting even better.

At a preview event in Tokyo where members of the publiᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚc could get 10 minutes of hands-on time with Brꦏeath of the Wild on the Switch 2, Ikaboze loaded up a save file that begins just before the final confrontation with Ganon.

They then proceed to pull off some cool speedrunning tricks like using various power combinations to shoot up into the airꦐ to get some good gliding to get into the are🐓na in minutes.

Once the fight starts, they run rings around Ganon, expertly taking him down in just 🌺a few short minutes, rolling credits just seven or so minutes after booting up the save file.

So, it's not a true any% speedrun since they started on a premade save file, but it's very impressive nonetheless. The is 22 minutes and 58 seconds, which is only three times longer and has you start right at the beginning of the g🌄ame.

As the screen fades to black after Ganon is defeated, you can see a large crowd has gathered to watch Ikaboze. When 🐽he finishes, some of them clap and cheer – even the Nintendo employee was clapping.

"I was surprised by how many people had gathered," he said (translations provided by𓆏 ). "Staff were even filming on their smartphones. This was the first time anyone had completed 💮the Breath of the Wild demo, and staff congratulated me."

Check out all the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games you have to look forward to.

In case you somehow missed the next-gen console-handheld's reveal, Nintendo is making dedicated Switch 2 versions of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and letting people pay for an upgrade pack that unlocks access to tech improvဣements and Zelda Notes, which is included in the Nintendo App.

The Zelda Notes app adds a heap of extra features to the two beloved games - like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:achievements, a GPS map that directs you to secrets, and the ability to share contraptions in Tears of the Kingdom - though you'll have to stare at a second screen to use them (🐻welcome back, W🅰ii U).

noticed one other pretty huge feature in Zelda Notes, however. (Good spot, .) 🦄The app basically contains a daily bonus, too, which gifts you random boons like health recovery or an extra item. Most interestingly, one of the daily bonuses seen in the slot-machine-like wheel was 'Equipment Repair.'

Weapon decay and durability has long been one of the more divisive parts of two otherwise universally loved games. I'm a fan since📖 it actually forces you to keep exploring, poke at the corners of the map, and scrappily experiment with every tool at your disposal. Introducing weapon repair could probably mess up the game's steady balance, but there's only a chance you'll be able to repair anything once every 24 hours anyway.

Nintendo clears up online confusion, confirms physical Switch 2 Edition games come with the original game and next-gen upgrade on the same card

Since last week's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 news, there's been a lot of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:backlash over the pricing of the new console and its games. The price of the Switch 2 Edition versions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom had 🌳already raised a few eyebrows, going for $70 and $80, respectively, assuming that you didn't 💮already own the originals. It should be noted that the upgrades cost $10 each, making the overall Switch 2 Edition price the same as this fee plus the full-price cost of the original Switch 1 game (you'll also get the upgrades for free if you're subscribed to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service).

While the cost makes sense when you break it down like that, it's still a lot of money all at once for anyone who missed the games the first time around, especially given that Breath of the Wild is over eight years old at this point (although as we know, Nintendo games seldom go on sale for major discounts). Adding to this further, Nintendo has now confirmed in a that the Switch 2 Edition of Bꦆreath of the Wild won't include the Expansion Pass DLC, which adds more shrines and things like the Master Cycle and more challenging Master Mode to the game.

"The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition does not include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Expansion Pass DLC. That DLC is available as a separate pur🥂chase," Nintendo says.

At full price, that "separate purchase" will add on an extra $20 to your complete Breath of the Wild experience, bumping up the entire cost to $90. Like IGN points out, no one buying the game this way is going to be spending any more than someone did if they bought the original, but equally, the🔯y're not going to be spending any less, eight years on.

It's a considerable purchase, but with t🌠he newly improved frame rate and HDR support, it does look like this Switc🏅h 2 Edition will be the best way to experience the game if you haven't before.

Be sure to check out more 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games on the way to Nintendo's new console.

The thing I'm least looking forward to about replaying Breath of the Wild on Switch 2 is dealing with the game's hardest boss all over again – especially after being a backseat driver to my partner's own Thunderblight ordeal last weekend. It's one of the most beloved and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Switch games of all time, but I need to be in a specific mood for such a demanding Metroidvania. Backtracking, shrine-gr🐻inding, farming for armor upgrade mat💦erials… sometimes, it's just not for me.

This time, however, I don't have a choice. Chivalry calls me to my partner's side as ꦅshe wages war against Thunderblight Ganon, and through approaching the game with two heads instead of one, I'm reminded of how complicated yet brilliant Breath of the Wild can be. Especially when you're not the one holding the controller.

Link's life is a battlefield

Our first port of call is a recon mission. I send my partner back into the field and watch as she demonstrates the utter fleet-footed threat that Thunderblight Ganon poses. His fast attacks swiftly knock her flying, Link rolling about the cylindrical battlefield like a dead hamster on its wheel, and even when he manages to get some good hits in to break Gannon's shield, it does minimal damageღ.

My girl is no rookie. She's come prepared with a host of heavier duty weaponry – "they're all so big and slow though," she huffs frustratedly. She also has plenty of elemental arrows, though given how fast Thunderblight Ganon moves and his ridiculously persistent shieldwork, there's little time to aim down her sights before he's fatally zig-zagging. She also has at least fifteen hearts, not including plenty of temporary heart-bestowing meals. On top of gathering more spears – the weapon she'd had most suc🧸cess with so far – and some other non-metal melee weapons, I suggest we start by acquiring different armor to replace Link's heavy metal plating. I🐭t's her most upgraded set by far, she protests, but ultimately we both know it's not the best choice against a foe partial to dealing shock damage.

Suddenly, a brainwave. I vaguely recall one particular 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Tears of the Kingdom armor set being useful in the sequel's thunderstorm-plagued territories, and a cursory Google 🔴search confirms that the rubber armor set can alsoꦺ be found in Breath of the Wild. Off we set for the first of three pieces: the rubber armor bodysuit.

Shock and awe

Arguably the most essential part of the anti-zapping formula, the rubber armor is found in a hidden 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Breath of the Wild shrine on Thundra Plateau. To access it, we need to place four colored orbs into their respective dishes while dodging l🗹ightning bolts and the random fires they can leave behind. Guide in hand, I do my b൲est to instruct my partner on how to go about her task easiest. (What? We have these things on the site for a reason!)

Once we have argued over and inevitably decided upon which is the red and which is the orange orb, the Stasis rune comes in handy for transporting them into the arena. Things are made trickier for the the near constant swarm of angry blue Chuchus surrounding Link mid-hammer swing as he tries to tee the orbs off a rocky ledge and into the plateau itself, all before lightning can strike through our trusty metal hammer. My partner expertly managed to defeat the Chuchus pretty much simultaneously. Her dedicated loot goblin tendencies means that she picks up each Chuchu Jelly piece, a stash of well-earned trophies that turn out to be very useful in the long run...

Eventually, many shattered heavy weapons later, all four orbs are placed correctly, and we can enter the shrine and claim𓄧 our prize. The next two pieces of the armor set are less hard to come by – the rubber helm is simply gifted after helping a Lakeside Stables NPC remove an axe from the roof, and the rubber tights are found in a much simpler hidden shrine.

I can't remember if my girlfriend went back to Thunderblight Gannon right then and there, triumphant yet doomed in her fish head mask and oilslick tights, or if we visited a Great Fairy to upgrade them first. Either way, despite channelling the might of a giant eldritch sea creature through it, the complete rubber armor set's basic stats of nine defensive points in total would not turn Link into a damage sponge. One of the materials needed to upgrade this particular set, however, is Yellow Chuchu Jelly, handily created throughꦐ letting lightning strike a regular Chuchu Jelly… and guess who just got mobbed by a bunch of those an hour ago!

My suggestion to try shooting an electric elemental arrow at a pile of them works a charm, too, though I receive o♉ne complaint from the unsatisfied pilot at the helm of this mission: some jellies seemed to vanish or merge with others upon electrification. A noble sacrifice, I assure her.

From the jaws of defeat...

Feeling I've contributed all I can to the cause – i.e. reeling off guides like an army officer and offering the occasional wince – I leave my partner to the rest. This is her save file, after all; the victory should be hers alone to savour. But no sooner do I swivel back around to play more Assassin's Creed Shadows, the pained wailing recommences. Only this time, it's angrier. "GET THE F**K UP, LINK!" I hear in the background of a cutscene. "GET OFF THE F**KING FLOOR!" I peer over my shoulder to hazard a glance at the TV screen, just in time to hear the dreaded death melody. My girlfriend glares daggers in its reflection. "Maybe try playing it with no sound?" I offer uselessly. Hey, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:it works for me in Lies of P.

I actually wasn't home when she managed to defeat Thunderblight Ganon, but a celebratory text the following morning alerted me of her great victory. "GOT HIM ON MY FIRST TRY," it read. To the very marrow of my bones, I shared that relief. Breath of the Wild can be such a punishing experience to throw yourself into (even from the pa🎃ssenger seat) when you're stuck between wanting to see things through and lacking the patience for the task at hand. The rewards, however, make it all the mor♐e worthwhile.

The power of teamwork proved that there's always a sneaky shortcut to be had in Hyrule, even if the long way is more foolproof for a reason. But the most important thing I've learned from sharing this experience with my partner is that where there's a will, there's definiౠtely a way: simply, wage war against your foes in a pair of rubber tights.

Hyrule Warriors is the next big 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 game in the Zelda franchise!

If you're wondering what ship that is, it's ZeLink, of course – the pairing between the titular princess herself and Link, the series' primary protagonist. While a romance between the two hasn't explicitly been established, especially on Link's behalf toward Zelda, hints have all but confirmed the princess' feelings for the swordsman via tidbits from her diary and other places in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Breath of the Wild and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Tears of the Kingdom – now, though, these might be solidified.

As spotted by a fan in an online , one of the features dropping with the Switch 2 editions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:"voice memories" as they've been dubbed, may point to a new canonical romantic event between Link ꦆand Zelda. "EVERYBODY," writes the player, a screenshot of voice memory locations attached. "ZELDA HAS A VOICE MEMORY AT LOVER'S POND. ZELINK WON. I REPEAT. Z𝔉ELINK WON."

For those who might (understandably) be unfamiliar with Lover's Pond, it's a location i💛n both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom where it's rumored that one ca💎n travel to find true love. A side quest titled "A Gift of Nightshade" sees players unite two lovers at the pond, hence fans' reactions regarding the voice memory and potential romantic connotations it may carry with it. As one person comments, "We are getting ZeLink, gosh dang it."

As a longtime Zelda stan (and admittedly ZeLink shipper) myself, I'd be lying if I said I don't have similar hopes of it canonizing the ship – after all, many players have hoped for romance between the two for literal decades now. There's no telling what the voice memory truly is until June 5, when Nintendo's new console drops after 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Switch 2 pre-orders go live next week (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:unless you're in the United States, where they've been delayed). I know I'll🔯 be waiting very impatiently until t🍌hen.

Searching for more? Here are some of the most exciting澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: upcoming Switch 2 games to look forward to.

Lost at sea

First released on the GameCube back in 2002, The Wind Waker's open-world ocean exploration and🐟 vibrant cel-shaded art style won players over with stunning success. After the darker tone of 2000's Majora's Mask for the Nintendo 64, the cheerier aesthetic was initially not well received by all – but Wind Waker's qualities soon shone through, and it becam🥀e a heavyweight to rival 1998's Ocarina of Time.

So when it came to the ill-fated Wii U in 2013, it was a huge positive for a platform 🐟that sorely needed the win. With a HD visual upgrade and some new quality of life features (including a faster sail for Link's boat), we had the perfect version of a masterpཧiece. Sadly, that's where it remains, as The Switch 2's GameCube library will launch with the original game rather than its upgrade on June 5.

Any port in a storm

I was able to go hands-on with Wind Waker at the Nintendo Switch 2 preview event in Paris. With the new GameCube inspired gamepad, I took control of the adorably elfish Link and ran about Outset Island, jumping on rocks, slashing through grass and snatching the local pigs before hurling them into the ocean and watching them swim back with a stout stroke. I was back, and I made sure the bokoblins who patrolled the forest knew it as 💝I wielded my short blade with the excitement of a 35-year-old man who finally got what he wanted.

In the 15 minutes I was afforded with the game, I can safely say it was as magical as when I first played it all those years go. While the camera controls took some getting used to due to the right stick being inverted to most modern action/adventures, I felt right at home as I ran around outside Link's home and dived int⛎o the sunkissed ocean. However, this iteration of Wind Waker is not without its caveats.

For one thing, the game is not available🌜 to buy on the Nintendo Switch 2. Instead players will require a subscription to the Nintendo Online + Expansion Pack. While the service will also be getting GameCube heavyweights like Soul Calibur 2 and F-Zero GX – with many more planned for the future – the idea of paying monthly inst෴ead of buying outright doesn't sit well with everyone. But the real downside is the version of Wind Waker coming to the service.

Agonizingly, we're not getting the improved HD version. No, that beautifully refined jewel will apparently stay forever trapped on the Wii U as we have to make do with a somewhat modernized GameCube version. We're talking lower graphical fi💞delity, which is particularly offensive when reading on-screen text or scrutinising the seemingly stuck-on features of character faces.

Lastly, the title is only coming to Nintendo Switch 2. This means the wait for Wind Waker on the original Switch is now indefinite, and that's a bitter pill for many to swallow when the OG hardware is no doubt more than capable of running it. The only comfort I can offer is the emulation of the Nintendo Switch 2 𓂃was faultless, boding well for the many other ports in the pipeline.

So, while we will finally have The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on a modern platform, it's one that will require𓂃 further investment, both in hardware💙 and subscription services. And yet, I'll do it. It's not the version the timeless classic deserves, but its timelessness means a weaker rendition still satisfies – and I'll be setting sail with Link again as soon as I can.

Looking for more The Legend of Zelda content? Here's our list of the franchise's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games of all time.

As detailed in a longer overview trailer of the two upgraded games after the Switch 2 Direct, voice memories are fresh additions that'll allow you to "listen to commentary about your surroundings from Princess Zelda and other characters" as you "visit certain locations." This is obviously huge for replayability – you could have explorཧed the maps in their entirety before, but this offers a fantastic new reason to dive in for fresh content. Based on the trailer, it sounds like you'll just hear Zelda in Breath of the Wild, whereas Tears of the Kingdom will also feature Rauru and Master Kohga.

These memories won't play within the games themselves like the memory cutscenes we know and love, as they're part of the upcoming Zelda Notes service, usable within the Nintendo Switch Online app (soon to be renamed to the Nintendo Switch app). This same service is how you'll access 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the games' new achievements, which are also bound to pull completionists back in fo💖r more.

Thankfully, you don't have to be s♏ubscribed to Nintendo Switch Online in order to use Zelda Notes, although there is, of courꦆse, the upgrade fee for the Switch 2 Edition games to contend with even if you own the originals. That is unless you're subscribed to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service, anyway, but either way, that means you're not going to access the upgrades without spending some money.

Be sure to check out our roundup of other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games to see what else is on the way to Nintendo's new console.

"Players of both The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom can experience the thrill of battle and this canonical tale featuring Princess Zelda, King Rauru, and other familiar characters," according to official description of the game Ninte❀ndo provided in its Switch 2 .

Age of Imprisonment follows the story of Princess Zelda when she finds herself flung back in time to a period in Hyrule's ancient history. This is the same tale that's told in flashback throughout Tears of the Kingdom, though certainly we'll get a lot more detail on those events a♉s the focus of a standalone game.

It's a similar setup to that for Age of Calamity, which expanded on the story seen in Brไeath of the Wild's flashbacks. But the♔re are a few inconsistencies between the events of the two games which have made Age of Calamity non-canon in the eyes of fans. There's a dedicated to explaining why it's not considered part of the timeline.

Nintendo seems intent on heading off that kin❀d of debate by immediately branding this as a "canonical tale," and lore enthusiasts are already digging into the possibilities. Broadly, Tears of the Kingdom's backstory has met with some criticism from the fandom, and there's already that Age of Imprisonment can help flesh out the lore into something more compelling. We'll find out for sure when Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment launches this winter.

Check out all yesteday's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 Direct news, or dig into our full list of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games.

Not only will the new editions of the Legend of Zelda gems feature enhanced resolutions and HDR compatibility to render "more vibrant colors," but they also boast higher frame rates – a point that's sure to appeal to anyone who played 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Breath of the Wild on the original S𒁃witch. If you haven't done so yourself, the game often sees massive FPS drops in areas like the Korok Forest🎐, breaking immersion and making focusing at all difficult.

This shouldn't be a problem anymore, come the Switch 2, however, judging by the new trailer for the enhanced Zelda games from❀ yesterday's Direct. Link can be seen running through the Korok Forest in Breath o💦f the Wild as the revamped title's HDR is showcased, a whole solid 60 frames accompanying him, and fans are, understandably, obsessed with the performance. A recent online highlights as much, with players gathering to discuss it.

"NINTENDO MANAGED TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE AND GOT KOROK FOREST TO RUN AT AN ACTUAL STABLE FRAMERATE," reads the original post, a clip of the new and improved Breath of the Wild's trailer attached. "60FPS BOTW IS A DREAM COME TRUE." Comments share in on the excitement, with one joking, "you KNOW they showed that area on purpose." Another 🦋jests that it "only took eight years."

As a longtime fan myself, I have to admit the prospect of Breath of the Wild in 4K with HDR and 60 frames sounds amazing, and I can't wait to experience it come the new editions' drop right on Nintendo's upcoming console's hotly anticipated release itself on June 5. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Switch 2 pre-orders go live on April 8, too, so there's not long left to wait – and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:plan to combat Switch 2 scalpers should hopefully ensure more fans can get their hands on one.

Searching for more? Here are some of the most exciting澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: upcoming Switch 2 games to look forward to.

During its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, the company showed off 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the Nintendo Switch 2 editions of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda:꧟ Tears of the Kingdom, which come with improved framerates (goodbye, cursed Korok Forest) and higher resolutions.

The Switch 2 editions' main difference, though, is its integration into the Nintendo App. While playing Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom on the shiny new console, you'll be able to set waypoints from your phone, get help finding hidden secrets, and, most notably, unlock achievements through the app. Screenshots from the Direct show that the app tracks things 𝔉like the number of shrines you've completed and rupees you've collected.

Nintendo hasn't yet confirmed how much the u🗹pgrades will cost in most territories, though the says you'll need to lay down 1,000 yen (roughly $10) to upgrade Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which is slightly egregious for a relatively minor next-gen upgrade. At least the Switch 2 upgrades will be available at no extra cost if you're subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.

Part of the fun of achievements/trophies is also the fact that they're a cross-game form of progression that's tied to your account rather than one specific title, and they can also force you to play in really creative, unexpected ways to get that 100% completion. The Zelda achievements so far just seem like a series of checklists counting how much stuff you've done across Hyrule, which is a little disappointing since Breath of the Wild was in part so acclaimed because of how it threw away the typical checklist-y desig🤡n of most modern open-w𝐆orld games. You were exploring for exploration's sake - not to tick some arbitrary boxes.

For more, check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games and all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:launch games available come June 5.

The new Hyrule Warriors is all about the Imprisoning War that serves as part of Tears of the Kingdom's backstory, chronicling the betrayal of Ganondorf, leader of the Gerudo, and the foundation of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Breath of the Wild sequel's Hyrule Kingdom. Age of Imprisonment is set to release sometime this winter, and is being developed by Koei Tecmo "with support from Nintendo" – just like the 2014 original and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Age of Calamity.

There's no telling when exactly the game will drop in the winter, but it's coming as a Switch 2 exclusive. If the last spin-off, Age of Calamity, is anything to go off of, Age of Imprisonment might cost at least around $59.99 – but an official price point has not yet been announced by Nintendo. More news on Age of Imprisonment is sure to come soon with the Switch 2 itself releasing on June 5, though.

Searching for more? Here are some of the most exciting 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games to look forward to.

One of the most exciting pieces of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 Direct news was Nintendo's official reveal of Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games. It's explained that "some games that were released on Switch will receive upgraded versions that offer things like improved visuals, unique ways to play on Switch 2, and more." Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are two of these 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games.

In the case of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, the two open-world Zelda games will be given enhanced resꦫolution and frame rate, as well as HDR compatibility to render "more vibrant colors." In addition, a new Ninℱtendo Switch App feature called Zelda Notes will work exclusively with the Switch 2 Edition versions of the games. This app will offer features like guiding you to new shrines (a bit like a Zelda Sat Nav), and let other players autobuild your Tears of the Kingdom creations via QR codes. Finally, we're back to the Fallout 4 pip boy app era.

Nintendo has confirmed that Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrades will cost money. However, in Zelda's case that both game's upgrades will be available free of charge to anyone subscribed to Nintendꦰo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. Plus 🦋Nintendo Switch 2 Edition versions of both games will be made available as physical releases. However, from a look at the Nintendo Switch 2 boxart for the games (), it seems like these will just be the original Nintendo Switch game cartridges with a digital version of the upgrade as opposed to the new version on a new cartridge.

We also finally got the official word that the Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Cons will have mouse controls.

Morrissey served a designer on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Ghost of Tsushima and inFAMOUS: Second Son, worked on Diablo 2 and 3 (including on the story for 2's Lord of Destruction expansion), and more, and as , he had some🅺 big things to say about collectibles during a talk ♔at this year's Game Developers Conference.

He believes there are eight key traits a collectible must have to make it fun and worthwhile: its discoverability, if it offers appropriate rewards, whether it's tied to a fun, skillful mechanic, what worldbuilding it offers, if it has ficti🃏onal justification, character attachment, and if there's consistent placement and a r✨easonable quantity of the things to collect.

The first three criteria, Morrissey reckons, are the most important, wi𝔍th "discoverability" revolving around how players go about finding more.

"If the answer is, 'Well, you just gotta search for them'… that's not gonna be a good time. Nobody is gonna have fun with that. They'll just go online and find wherever the stuff is," Morrisey says, before taking aim directly at the notorious Zelda: Breath of the Wild collectibles: "I'm lookin' at you, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Korok Seeds." He argues things like visual cues and systems to sca🧔n the environment can help make the hunt for collectibles much more engaging.

"Appropriate rewards" is self explanatory, but Morrissey claims he's spoken to a number of creative directors before who've said, "'Hey, we're not going to give you the rewards fღor the collectible'. No one really cares about this, it isn't a big deal,'" only to find that "all the play testers are like, 'Why would I waste my time doing this?'"

While Zelda isn't mentioned here, it's fair to say that both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom's rewards are… questionable. Sure, collecting th🧸e things is useful to expand your inventory space, but going for all 900 (or 1,000 in the sequel) rewards you with a literal pile of poop with no purpose, which, uh, isn't the most fulfilling prize🎀 to receive.

In order, the other points relate to whether collectibles are interesting to pick up (for example with a "fun mechanic that actually gives the players some sort of skill that🙈 they can improve on"), whether they "reveal more about the world of the character," and if they actually make sense to exist within the world. Morrissey concludes that the Korok Seeds successfully do all of these things, but that's where t🅷heir successes end.

"Character attachment" is relevant if the collectibles link to the overall plot, while the consistent locations and "reasonable quantity" cꦗriteria speak for themselves. It's not hard to see why the Korok Seeds didn't win on these aspects – they're scattered over the whole, entire world and, again, there's hundreds of the dang things.

If you were curious what Morrissey does consider a good overall collectible, he puts both Marvel's Spider-Man's backpacks and inFAMOUS' Blast Shards into the A-tier category. They both only miss out on one trait each – the "fun, skillful mechanic" and "consistent loc♊ation" points, respectively.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild trickster finds the weirdest way to get the first Korok, all by luring a bokoblin to its untimely, parkour-filled death.

Briana White, the iconic English voice behind beloved character Aerith Gainsborough, shares as much in a recent online. Responding to news of the live-action film's 2027 release, the actor says she wants to audition "so🌠 bad" for the role of Princess Zelda: "I just wanna audition for Zelda so bad. Just an audition." Unsurprisingly, fans (it's me, I'm fans) are commenting to express how much they'd like to see White as Zel🍷da.

"PLEASE," writes one, "you did SUCH a good job voicin🐻g Aerith." Another tells White she'd "make a great Zelda."

It's not just fans that think so, either. Fellow voice actors are replying to White to show their own support, too. As Dragon Ball, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Genshin Impact, and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Paul Castro Jr. comments, "Fr y♌ou’d be a killer Zelda!"

Th🔴e idea is𒁃 certainly fun to consider, but Nintendo's own pick for Zelda remains a mystery.

Not much is known about the movie's plot just yet, including Zelda's actual role in it – is she a child or an adult, and which timeline is the film's princess from? There's no telling for now, but I'd argue that White could do a mean 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Breath of the Wild or 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Tears of the Kingdom Zelda impression.

Other popular actor picks making rounds within the series' community include Anya Taylor-Joy, as well as Hunger Games and Euphoria actor Hunter Schafer.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Speaking to Variety in the past, ♋Schafer admitted she'd also love to play Zelda. "That would be so cool," said the actor. "I love the game, personally. I played it as a kid, and I still play it now. Who knows! That would be pretty cool."

Whether it ends up b✅eing White, Schafer, or another talented actor, though, I'm personally just happy we're finally seeing a Zelda-related on-screen production come to fruition – and no, the 1989 animation doesn't count.

The Legend of Zelda movie and Sonic 4 are game for competition with both set for release a week apart

Majora's Mask, in particular, has some impressive runs, like the six-day cycle (which allows you to go back in time once across the entire game) and the shieldless run. However, one player has completed what is possibly the wildest Zelda challenge run yet. MajinPhil is a bit of a legend in Majora's Mask runs; the streamer was the first player to complete a no-hit run of Majora's Mask back in 2021. They then returned last year to up the ante by completing the first no-hit Majora's Mask run 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:while getting 100% in the game.

Rather than retire as the undisputed GOAT of Majora's Mask, MajinPhil d✨ecided to take things even further. And after a year of attempts, the streamer completed a Majora's Mask no-hit run where every enemy in the game was randomized. After over 150 attempts at it, the run was finally completed earlier this week.

To put things into perspective, not only did MajinPhil have to complete Majora's Mask without being hit once (wit𝐆h a single hit triggering the moon crash cutscene and deleting the save file), they also couldn't use the s♊hield to block attacks or they would meet the same terrible fate. On top of all that, every single enemy in the game was randomized across every single run, meaning you could be set upon by a deadly Iron Knuckle at the start of the game.

While the streamer hasn't announced what's next for them, MajinPhil could take things even further, or maybe they'll take their mastery to another Zelda game next time. Regardless, this is one of the most impressive challen🧜ge runs I've seen.

If you've never played Majora's Mask, you really should get on it. It's one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games ever made.

The ad itself stars American actor and comedian John Kassir, and according to Nintendo's f🍌ormer advertising manager and vice president of brand management, Gail Tilden, the final version wasn't exactly what the company had in mind, like, at all. Speaking at a panel at the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo (via the , and spotted by ), she reveals that she initially thought "I can't go through [with] 👍this" when faced with the reality of filming the ad.

"When the agency pitched that there would be a stand-up comedian doing something about all the fun things in this game we all said yes," she explains. "So then I go to this shoot in Los Angeles, and it's this crazy guy in a padded cell, and I'm like, 'This, I can't go through [with] this, because this is not what we agreed to. This is not what we were expecting. We thought [it would b🅷e] a guy standing at a mic in a spotlight.'"

Afterꦅ some calls to the agency and the execs, the team was ultimately given the go-ahead, although Tilden ponders whether that's because "we were there already." The result is a truly baffling watch that doesn't capture the vibe of Zelda in the slightest.

The strange commercial shenanigans didn't end there though, because after that, another ad was filmed, this time featuring two teens loading up the game before spontaneously performing a rap tha🏅ꦇt leads with the line, It's definitely an improvement on the John Kassir screaming experience, but Tilden rather honestly sums up the situation noting that she thinks "neither of them [are] very appealing."

Be sure to check out our roundup of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games, as well as the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Switch games you can play right now.

The Video Game History Foundation recently interviewed Nintend💫o of America legend Gail Tilden for the . Tilden headed up NOA's marketing from 1983 to 2007, overseeing everything from the US debut of the NES to the explosive arrival of Pokemon on American shores. In the wake of Pokemon's success, Tilden's department "kind of took over both merchandise and entertainment" licensing for Nintendo's properties.

"Peo🦩ple were always calling about doing a movie," Tilden says꧑. "You can imagine that the most common question is, 'We’re calling, we’d like to do a Zelda movie.' The answer was always no. Even I personally said, 'Mr. Miyamoto, if Steven Spielberg himself wants to do a Zelda movie, what is the answer?' He said, 'No.' So that was it. The answer was always no."

It's easy to imagine why Miyamoto would've been so adamantly against the idea - after all, this wasn't that far removed from the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. That film's developed something of cult following over the years, but at the time it was regarded as an absolute disaste෴r and captures pretty much none of the jovial tone of th๊e games it's based on.

But then we got The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 20ꦅ23, an animated film that se🎶t the box office alight with a story much truer to the original games. It's after the success of this movie that Nintendo partnered up with Sony to co-finance a Zelda movie led by Wes Ball, director of The Maze R🌃unner trilogy and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. This time, Miyamoto is serving as one of the film's producers.

While Miyamoto didn't want a Zelda movie🦩 to get made back in the '00s, another Nintendo luminary - Metroid lead Yoshio Sakamoto - was "open to pitches on Metroid," Tilden says. bounced around throughout the '00s, and at one point legendary action director John Woo was developing a film.

"We had several meetings" over the Metroid movie, Tilden says. "It took a long time. We would talk about who should play Samus. 'Should it be Charlize Theron? Should it be...?' 'No, she’s not right.' Anyway, it was on and on about who the actresses that they could s𒊎ee as Samus, but we never settled on anything. I think they thought she’s not such a beauty, as opposed to kind of an athlete."

Tilden notes that a Metroid film would've required🍌 a "significant" budget, and "at the tim🐼e, the only female action movie that had come out was Halle Berry’s Catwoman, and it didn’t do well. So John Woo’s company pitched for Metroid, but we did not make a sale. That is the truth of why that particular project didn’t happen." Yes, the death of the Metroid movie is at least partly due to the Razzie award winning superhero film. What a legacy.

Here is every 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming video game movie you need to know about.

Aside from the obvious stuff like the rage-filled moon that's staring at you with bared teeth, the whole game just has this pervasive sense of strangeness that's just really uncanny and unsettling. A few years later, Twilight Princess would inherit some of that spooky DNA, but that game is more analogous to a rebellious but good-natured teenager who hung around Ho🤡t Topic too much around 2006.

No, Majora's Mask is downright scary at times, and yet, one of its key developers, Takaya Imamura, never felt that way at all, telling that: "Some key elements had already been decided, like the moon falling and the mask and that kind of thing. I needed to come up🎶 with a world that they would fit into and that would fit them in turn.

"In terms of the design of the mask and the moon, personally I didn't think of them as scary at 🐎all. I had in mind coming up with a unique design approach for them, but everybody told me how scary they were. People on the team were like 'whoa!'. It's just how it came out, I guess."

It's funny because🉐 the mask and the moon are probably the scariest parts of Majora's Mask... wait, no, that dubious honor has to go to the Gibdos in Ikana C🍎anyon and the scene with that poor girl's mummified father. I genuinely still get the creeps thinking about that.

Anyway, yes, Majora's Mask is a horror game and no one can convince me othe𒁃rwise.

Feel free to peruse our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best horror games for some more frightful fun.

Predicting where Imamura's ideas will take him next is a fruitless endeavor – unless you ask the man himself. During a chat to discuss Omega 6, I asked who his dream collaboration would be for whatever comes next - and in typical fashion, his hypothetical project didn't disappoint.

"To tell the truth, I really really like The Witcher 3," shared Imamura. "I don't know whether we'd get on, b🐷ut I'd love to work with CD Projekt Red on something𝐆. I'd love to do a Star Wars game with them."

At first glance, that reads like a wild game of pop culture bingo. But the more you think about it, the clearer you can see that💃 dreamy space where Star Wars, ♊The Witcher, and Imamura's Venn diagrams overlap – and now, I'm ready to bat for a future where his dream is realized.

A terrible fate

If you ask me to name some of the darkest fantasy games around, The Witcher 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask would both rank very high♔ly. Geralt's quest to save Ciri𒆙 is steeped in tragedy. Even the most straightforward side quest forces you into making morally gray decisions – the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few is a particularly common theme, but that cold logic rarely absolves your guilt when it comes to the fate of the few.

Even the "right" decisions leave you feeling like you've sucked down coldꦓ mud – In The Heart of the Woods twists the knife whether you choose to help a village destroy or bond with the monstrous leshen stalking its surrounding forest, while The Bloody Baron's familial drama is tearful at best and soul-crus𓆉hing at worst.

Majora's Mask isn't as gory as The Witcher, but when it comes to exploring the human condition, it's just as bleak. For those who haven't played one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games, Majora's Mask is set in an eer🎶ie alternate realm to Hyrule called Termina, where a leering moon is just three days away from falling from the sky. Link has just three days to save Termina from its lunar fate, and if you run out of time, it's shown in no uncertain terms that the land and everyone in it is violently destroyed.

On the first day, local carpenters refuse to merit the fact the moon will even fall, and insist on holding the annual Carnival of Time regardless. Some characters are already convinced it's plummeting, but true realization doesn't sink in until it's essentially too late to do anything about it. A postman can't bring himself to abandon the people on his route, despite his terror, while separated fiances Anju and Kafei choose to reunite and spend their last moments together. I♛t's an 𒁏examination of how we respond to imminent death – an unflinching look at the scream before a crash – and to this day, remains one of Nintendo's darkest games.

As the art director for Majora's Mask, Imamura was largely responsible for some of the game's most darker imagery. Th🔯ink of the moon with a human face, which grins and cries over you as it looms, or the intensity of the eponymous purple mask that drives the antagonistic Skull Kid – who is himself a victim in many ways – from childish pranks to abuse and would-be mass murder. It's a tone that Imamura picked up and ran with.

"The direction of dark fantasy itself came from the director, [Yos♉hiaki] Koizumi-san," says Imamura. "But when I got assigned to it, I started sketching the moon, the mask – that was my design – so that was one of the reasons it went in that direction. One of the other [reasons] is just thaꦫt when I start working, I get into it – I'm really fast. So before we knew it, we already had the basis of this world."

With that in mind, I can already see a world where the bleaker tone of Disney's Andor is given life through the Imamura-CDPR collaboration I'm desperately trying to manifest. CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best sci-fi games going – and with the amount of characters in it✤ that want to escape Night City for a life on the moon, I'm starting to suspect the studio is projecting something. Even less needs to be said of Imamura, whose vast vast body of work is almost always set amongst the stars.

So, yeah: this may well be Imamura's pipe dream, but now it's my pipe dream too. Hit me with side quests that force you to choose between entire planets, and𓆏 let me soak my eyeballs in Imamura's take on a galaxy far, far away. Squeeze a few hands of Gwent into that world, and I won'🌼t even ask for a matchmaker's fee.

Zelda and Star Fox veteran says the Nintendo Switch has been a global success, but thinks the House of Mario still has "something" up its sleeve for the Switch 2

Speaking to Edge in the , artist Imamura recalls that he "wasn't too pleased" about helping out with A Link to the 🌠Past when initially drafted in. Not because he had anything against Link and the gang, but more so because he was looking forward to playing the game as a fan – and not dealing with the strenuous process of QA.

"To tell the truth, when I was asked to help out on the Zelda team, I wasn't too pleased about it," he sharꦜes. "I didn't really want to, and the reason was because I wanted to enjoy ꩲthe game when it was finished, as a player. I can remember that feeling even now.

"I also remember that the debugging, the QA, was really tough, having to do the same thing over and over again. I still really don't want to play that game - the testing was that diꦫfficult. Even now, if I just jump i🥀nto the game for a minute or so, the feeling comes back. It's like PTSD or something."

Ouch. Imamura goes on to explain ♑that he c🐈ame to work on the Zelda game as the previous one did so well that then-president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, said he wanted a sequel "done in a year."

"At the time, I was already on another project, and I got called in, yet again, into a Zelda project halfway through," he says. "Again, I wanted to experience it as a player, notꦬ actually work on it, but hey, t༺here you go."

There you go, indeed. Next time you play A Link to 🐻the Past, maybe spare a thought for Imamura, who gave up playing the game stress-free so you could experience it unlike he did.

No longer of Nintendo𒁏, Imamura is gearing up to release his own 16-bit retro adventure game called Omega 6 The ༒Triangle Stars, which is due to release next month.

"I couldn't resist": Nintendo legend Takaya Imamura on trying but failing to keep a huge console secret, his hopes for the future of Star Fox, and a lot more.

I'm no game dev, but to me, Tears of the Kingdom feels as close to magic as you could possibly get with a video game. I can't even fathom the technical wizardry that went into it – from the e𝔉ndlessly innovative Ultrahand ability to the massive open world that allows you to seamlessly travel between three enormous layers of the map on what's now (comparatively to its competition) a very underpowered console. It's this latter point that fans are highlighting now that the debate about the Switch 2's potential power is in full swing. 

For context, leaks and rumors up to this point have suggested that the Switch 2 could be about as powerful as the PS4 – an internal Activision email which surfaced in 2023 suggested it'd be "closer" to this mark in terms of its performance. Some rumors have claimed it could be about as powerful as the PS4 Pro, although it's worth notin🧸g that The Verge&apos💧;s Tom Warren of them all, so if he knows something we don't, it strongly suggests that might not be true. Regardless, not everyone is immediately impressed by these claims, but others think this would still give Nintendo plenty of extra power to work with, especially considering what it's been able to pull off on the Switch. 

"People complaining that the 'Switch 2 is merely as powerful as a PS4 Pro&apoജs; is so funny to me because if the S𒈔witch, underpowered as it is, could do THIS without glitching, imagine what the Switch 2 can do," one fan writes on Twitter, sharing a clip of Link diving through the sky and into the Depths in Tears of the Kingdom. 

Another player has taken things a step further: "Here's the best example of🀅 this," they say. "From the highest possible point in the game down to nearly the deepest. Three layers of open-world map seamlessly loading on the Switch. People are underestimating what Nintendo will be able to do with this new hardware." 

While no concrete specs have been revealed yet, one indie dev who made the last eShop games to release on the Wii U and 3DS has shared an analysis of the apparent 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Mario Kart 9 footage in the reveal trailer, and his thoughts are promising. Amongst other things, he believes the unique textures visible in it are "extremely telling that this system is significantly more powerful" than the Switch 1 – here's hoping that that's the case. 

The Switch 2 Joy-Cons snap onto the console in a whole new way, but Nintendo has been considering using magnets since the OG Switch, as its producer confirmed almost 8 years ago.

'The Legend of Blue Dog' stems from Majora's Mask's dog racing minigame. In that game, Link can pi꧟ck a dog to bet on, gaining rewards if his pick does well in the next race. There are 14 dog♚s to bet on; four white, three gray, three beige, two brown, one gold, and one blue. Each dog's chance of winning isn't a simple one-in-fourteen, however - their color and condition will both affect their performance in the race. 

Every time theౠ dogs are loaded in, they're granted a condition that can augment their speed - essentially, the number of frames that each dog moves every second. Four dogs will get a good condition, increasing their speed a little, while five will get a bad condition, which slows them down. Those conditions build upon the dogs' base speeds, which depend on their color - the gold dog is the fastest, with a base speed of six, while the White and brown dogs are a little slower, with a speed of 5.5. The gray and beige dogs have a speed of five, but the unfortunate blue dog clocks in at 20% slower than that, with a speed of just four.

Blue Dog is so famously slow that he's become something🐼 of a legend within the game's community, a literal underdog widely considered to be incapable of winning the race. As explained in a video from Vidya James, there was thought to be just one, extremely rare, means of securing a W for Blue Dog. In the game's code, the race is divided into three zones - the first half of the track, the second half, and the finish line. These three zones intersect in a small area at the line, and if a dog is found to be in all three zones at once, it wins the race.

The problem here is that Nintendo's zone drawing went a little outside the lines, and a single, extremely thin part of the finish line zone extends across to the other side of the track. The dogs move at a fixed number of frames, so on the vast majority of occasions, they'll simply skip over the fake finish zone. But between jostling for position and their augmented stats, it's theoretically possible for the game to read their position as directly on top of the finish line, even though they've still got half a race to go. If that happens, the race end jingle will play, and whichever dog triggered it will win the race, no matter what their position when they eventually cross the actual finish line. This can happen legitimately, but it is only known to have happened four times in the 25 years since ꦺMajora's Mask was released. So, could it be used to grant Blue Dog a victory?

The short answer is yes, but even then, it's pretty lucky. Vidya James determined that there are more than a trillion possible ways t♚hat the race can play out, making it impossible to accomplish without some help. With that in mind, one of their viewers, Falkush, created a script to allow them to simulate thousands of races in relatively little time. It still took more than 8,000 attempts, but eventually, Blue Dog coincided with the fake finish zone, claiming its first win in recorded history.

That 'win,' however, could be argued to not really count, and Falkush had more work to do. In one of those 8,000 runs, Blue Dog claimed a legitimate 4th place - much better than its paltry speed stat would ever normally allow f♌or. With that in mind, with enough race꧅s run, could Blue Dog ever actually come first?

Falkush decided to min-max the entire field,💞 creating a new script to lock down a game save wh🅷ere the fastest dogs - white, brown, and gold - all had the worst conditions possible, and the slower dogs, including Blue Dog, had their speed enhanced. With the normal leaders of the pack heavily hindered, Blue Dog would have a better chance of winning if his only real competition were the much slower gray and beige dogs. 

Blue Dog began moving up the rankings, securing a second-place finish. Then another, and another. Admittedly, Falkush was running 4,000 races per day across two machines to secure these results, but they suggested a first place could be possible. Eventually, after 30,000 attempts, Blue Dog found an inside line as he jostled with two of the gray dogs, and finally claimed the win. Vidya James points out that this is unlikely to ever be replicated by actual human hands away from an emulator, but regardless, Falkush's efforts have put a 25-year myth to rest, and ended perhaps the greatest losing streak in video game histไory.

Check out our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games.

I enjoyed my time with Lil Gator Game so much that I've been searching Steam for another equally as adorable and wholesome adventure since, but my search might finally be over. Developer MegaWobble just brand-new DLC In the Dark, and it sounds absolutely huge. The "big DLC expansion" as the studio describes it boasts an exciting ne🗹w underground region to explore and all sorts of extra additions to go along with it.

Once it releases, In the Dark is set to include "a brand new story, new items to play with, new friends to make," and more. MegaWobble says the devs are "very excited," but I'd wager we fans are even more 🧔so. After all, the announcement has come seemingly out of the blue with commenters dubbing it "a welcome surprise." For dedicated players obsessed with gathering 100% of a game's achievements, there's also even more good news.

MegaWobble confirms in response to a fan that "yeah, probably," new achievements are in the works, too -  and from the looks of In the Dark's page on , there will be plenty of opportunity for achievements to fit into the region. It almost strikes me as a Wind Waker-y take on other games' regions like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Baldur's Gate 3's own Underdark - there are🉐 hanging vines, rushing waterfalls, and colorful, glowing light sources.

It looks as though Lil Gator Game is staying as cute as ever in the DLC as well, withᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ new creatures to encounter and befriend like a fluffy bear and a devilish pig. I personally can't wait to geౠt my hands on this expansion, but there's no release date just yet. Fellow fans on PC can wishlist In the Dark now on Steam, however, or find the DLC later on the Nintendo Switch eShop, the PlayStation Store, and Xbox.

Need even more to look forward to? Check out these other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games if so.

The origin🐠al GameCube version of Wind Waker is a famously broken game, so it may come as a surprise to you to learn that the HD remake, which patched out most of the glitches, has had a faster speedrun time for so many years.

Part of the reason is the game was s♐ped up in a number of ways for casual audiences, as details. You can skip certain cutscenes, tex🐓t and sailing speed are both increased, and the whole Triforce quest is shorter. So, even though there are more skips in the original version, the remaster has enough consistent time-saving features that it's eked out ahead of its predecessor.

The GameCube version was ahead of the remake until 2016 due to how much optimization had been done on its speedru🌞nning route, but then a glitch called Item Sliding was discovered for the HD version which changed everything. It allowed super swimming and opened up strategies for new skips and enabled the remake speedrun to get 20 minutes ahead of the orig♛inal.

Over the next couple of years, a series o𒐪f new glitches and optimizations were found for the original version which helped bring the two times back on par with each other, but it꧒ took some serious experimenting and dedication from the GameCube runners to even stand a chance. They attempted to skip the Puppet Ganon boss using a technique that had previously only been done in a tool-assisted speedrun (TAS). It requires frame-perfect inputs and happens right at the end of the game, so the pressure is on.

By September 2020, the GameCube record was just a minute behind the Wii U's. But in 2022, an exploit using a Wii U pro controller was found which let HD players skip more cutscenes in the game, setting them far aꦅhead of the GameCube runners again.

All hope seemed lost until earlier 💎this year when two glitches🌄 were discovered on the GameCube version of the game that allowed two skips to be set up more quickly and consistently than before, closing the gap on the two speedrun times once again.

These changes combined with a new strategy for clearing the Forsaken Fortress dungeon made it just about possible for GameCube runners to get ahead of Wii U players again, and a new re🌄cord was set November 10, 2024, eight years since the last time the original was faster than the remake.

While I don't sꦗpeedrun myself, I love the competitive and collaborative spirit that emerges when game communities take on these challenges – it's a joy to watch it all unfold.

As well as a new speedrun, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:we could be getting a Wind 🉐Waker film 🌠as the Sonic 3 writers set their sights on Link&a💎pos;s sea-faring journey.

You should check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best speedruns ever if you want to see more games getting broken.

Pat Casey and Josh Miller penned the screenplays for all three Sonic the Hedgehog films, and the third one featuring everyone's favorite broody man Shadow topped the North American box office in its first weekend. But the Blue Blur never slows down - the threequel is still doing bonkers business over the holiday period and is currently on track to overtake the last f💃ilm.

Off the back of that success, when asked about what the writing duo would like to adapt next in an interview with , Pat Casey name dropped Golden Axe, "another good Genesis multiplayer game." Miller then added wholesome puzzle-platformer A Boy and His Blob to the list, which fits the well-worn film genre of 'l🔯ittle child and magical creature go on an adventure.' Casey also suggested "the 7-Up game about the dot having a platforming adventure." Cool Spot. He means Cool Spotܫ, the game about the, err, giant circle from the fizzy drink's logo, which I won't blame anyone for not knowing.

But things got a little juicier when the duo moved on to a slightly more serious answer. "I think another easy one I think we can answer because the movie's already happening and we're already not doing it would be🀅 a Zelda," Miller said. "I remember always when we played Wind Waker, we were always like, man, I mean, it would probably be weird if they made a Zelda movie to start with Wind Waker versus the more classic Hyrule💖. But we both loved Wind Waker and it's so cinematic. Yeah. So after they make this Zelda movie, I guess we're putting it out there in the world, maybe we can do a Wind Waker spin-off."

Wind Waker isn't the worst place to start for Link's big screen adventures. Its cel-shaded art style and chibi character probably translate to an animated film better than the series' slightly more mature, Twilight Princess-style games. But Nintendo has already announced that its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming The Legend of Zelda film wil🥂l be shot in live-action, which probably rules out any Wind Waker influences.

Even if Miller and Casey don't end up fulfilling their wish, another Sonic movie is basically inevitable at this point since the Sonic 3's post-cr𓆏e♛dits scenes tease two new major arrivals.

Here’s every upcoming video game movie you need to know about. 

When the game was announced in June, I was extremely excited. After 38 years of being the damsel in distress, the princess waiting for her hero to come and save her, the bystander in a series which bears her own name, Zelda was at last the star of h𒁃er own game. We've had glimpses of a playable Zelda before Echoes of Wisdom, but only ever in spin-offs including the Hyrule Warriors games, Cadence of Hyrule, and a couple of those cursed CD-i games. But for the first time in a mainline entry, Zelda receives a call to adventure and she sets out on her own hero's journey.

I have to praise Nintendo for the mechanics of Echoes of Wisdom. Zelda doesn't solve🎃 problemᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚs with raw bravery and rushing into battle with a sword. She's associated with the Triforce of Wisdom, after all, and Nintendo kept that in mind when designing this game. It's up to us to use our creativity with the different objects Zelda can summon. To truly embrace her time in the spotlight, I made it my mission to play Echoes of Wisdom solely as Zelda and to ignore her Swordfighter Form entirely.

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

At first, it went well. I had a great time choosing violence. Drown🎶ing Bokoblins and (my personal favorite tactic) holding Buzz Blobs right in front of monsters' faces to stun lock them never get🤪s old. But the game becomes a bore if you try to play like this all the time. This became clear once I got to boss fights. It's tough to fight them without making use of Zelda's transformation into pseudo-Link – almost as if Nintendo wants me to play as Link in these moments.

That really ticked me off. Why shouldn't Zelda be able to defeat the game's most formidable monsters without the need for Link? Why is a fight with Zelda's p♍ower alone borderline impossible? It made me feel like regardless of how strong Zelda became, she'd never be able to prove herself in the moments where it mattered the most.

The real gut punch was💙 the final fight against Null. Zelda's role is to hold back🧸 Null while Link gets to go all out and face it head on. Zelda's adventure was to… save Link so he could take all the glory? My part in that fight felt less than equal to what Link's AI was doing and that didn't sit right with me. That was meant to be Zelda's time to shine, but ultimately her journey was to serve Link as the overall hero.

I want to see Zel𝓀da come into her own as a character and as a protagonist. There have been so many different versions of her throughout the series, each with their own backgrounds and struggles, but she's always reduced to either a damsel in distress or a sacrificial pawn for the sake of plot or Link's journey. Echoes of Wisdom is the epit𝓡ome of this issue. For the first time, we get to play and see Zelda through an active perspective, all for it to culminate in her taking a step back. Zelda's heroic nature shouldn't need to depend on Link, nor should she have to step aside in her own story to make way for Link.

Sheik's all that

Part of me thinks that if you're going to make a game where Zelda and Link are given role reversals, it isn't enough substance to merely engage with the gender stereotypes the two have embodied throughout the series – but if you're going to go with it, you should at least commit to it until the end. The other part of me is jumping up and down in glee because Nintendo is finally delivꦛering on what so many fans have wanted to see for years. Maybe it wasn't satisfying, and maybe it ended up undermining its own message, but it's a start!

Echoes of Wisdom does a great job at establishing Zelda as an independent character with her own strengths, at first. She's a beloved princess who fits perfectly into the image of a demure, mindful royal figure. But she's also ready to use her smarts, willing to throw herself into the unknown and jump into action for Hyrule. She can even reject that reserved image of royalty and do such rebellious things like smash vases and chuck rocks at people. But by the end of the game, she's no longer the foc🌌us as everything she goes through is just a journey to put Link as the center once again🔜.

I want more of Zelda exploring Hyrule and helping the people sh𓂃e's been raised to serve. I want Sheik to return so we can see Zelda juggling her royal status with her alter ego. I want a Zel𝓀da who can defy the fate prescribed to her in every game - one which Nintendo refuses to part from. Nintendo has shown it's willing to finally let Zelda take the lead in her own story and I won't let it back down from this. Whether it's Zelda, Sheik, Tetra, or a new reincarnation of the character, show us that Zelda is capable of proving herself without needing Link. Nintendo, show some wisdom: use the potential you've planted within Zelda and let her live up to the weight of the series' name.

See where Echoes of Wisdom landed on our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games of 2024 roundup

Obojima is a stunning 5E campaign sett🌺ing for D&D boasting over 250 pages of whimsical goodness to explore, and unsurprisingly, it managed to raise over two million bucks via its . The setting, which 1985 Games cre🍎ative director Jeremiah Crofton admitted in an last year is akin to that of "Ghibli and Zelda," isn't just visually breathtaking - it's packed to the brim full of content for players to enjoy, too.

There are entirely fresh mechanics for potion crafting, for one, which 1985 Games says are "reminiscent" of cooking in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Breath of the Wild. With over 130 ingredients plus 180 craftable potions, it sounds as though it'll never get old - but there's more. There are eight subclasses new to D&D with Obojima💧, along with a diverse plethora of backgrounds, feats, races, spells, weapons, and more to discover while journeying.

🍸Despite its cozy visuals, however, Obojima is no stranger to fast-paced action. With more than 60 new monsters to slay and various familiars with unique abilities to employ, it seems like the campaign setting never gets boring. I mean, you can play as a literal Origami Mage - what more could someone aspire to be on the battlefield? There's also a Sheep Dragon, and yes, the airborne beast is exactly what it sounds like it is.

If the enchanting tabletop experience sounds like it's up your alley as much as it is my own, you can snag a copy for $50 right now on . There's plenty of merch to explore there as well, from spell and potion card decks to gorgeous sets of dice I personally can't wait to ge༺t my own h✤ands on. For any fellow enjoyers of stickers and pins, there are a good few of those to snag via BackerKit, too - and snag I shall.

More? Here are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best tabletop RPGs you can play right now.

Majora's Mask is an iconic 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo gem that stands the test of time as one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best N64 games ever, but there hasn't been a complete, documented codebase for the beloved title - until now. ZeldaRET, a team of volunteer fans working to decompile the original and create just that, has finally "reached 100% completion" for the US N64 version of the game. Their work started in 2021, which marks over three years of progr🎃ess to date.

A ZeldaRET member has since made a celebrating the big news, explaining that there's "still tons of work to be done (other versions, more documentation, fixing fake matches, etc.), but [this is] an incredibly satisfying end to years of work." For anyone (like me) who wasn't previously acquainted with decomജpiling or what it means, the team explains the pro𓄧cess on its official , calling it "a type of reverse engineering."

Decompiling involves "analyzing the compiled binary data that is on the [game's] cartridge to produce human-readable code that has the same result." As for the project's goal, and what doors decompiling opens in general, it's about making things more accessible for players. The code can "🃏be used for knowledge of the game" relevant to speedrunners or those looking to learn, "or for changing parts of the game to make it act differently or do different things."

This means th🌞at modders can more easily make alterations, switching up the base Majora's Mask experience to suit their tastes. For anyone wondering what this means for a potential PC port, however, "decomp would only be the first step" toward one - and ZeldaRET isn't interested. "The goal of this project is NOT to make any kind of port, such as to PC," writes the team, although "someoꦜne else might take our work and make a port."

It's taken years, but Banjo-Kazooie fans have finally finished decompiling the code of Rare's classic 3D platformer, paving the way for new community experiences

The Zelda timeline is, frankly, rather confusing – there's a whole♔ timeline split after the events of Ocarina of Time depending on whether or not Link is defeated, so certain games only fit into the🌼 equation in one of these realities. Echoes of Wisdom, it turns out, is one of these. As , the official Japanese has now been updated to include the series' latest 2D romp, and it turns out that it's part of the 'Hero is Defeated' branch.

Specifically, it's sandwiched between The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (the co-op-focused 3DS game) and The Legend of Zelda (the first one), although it's also worth noting that the "Decline of Hyrule Kingdom" is slotted in directly after Zelda's own adventure. The timeline doesn't explain how many years each of the games are separated by, which could help explain a plot discrepancy some have pointed out on ResetEra which – without getting into spoilers – relates to the kno🌠wledge (or lack thereof) of the Triforce in the games in question. 

As you'd expect, this timeline is constantly changed as more Zelda games are released, so it won't remain in this exact state forever. Recently, Nintendo also altered it so that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were totally separated from the rest. Obviously, those two games are connected, with the latter being a direct sequel to the former, but Nintendo hasn't offered any explanation as to how their existence could tie into the events of the rest of the series. Maybe another game will be released later down the 🎃line that could help make the connection.

Legend of Zelda mastermind Eiji Aonuma says he always focuses on gameplay before story: "I've never really made a game where you think of the story first."

Summersett voiced Zelda in Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, and speaking to GamesRadar+ at the Golden Joystick Awards last week, we asked how she'd ꦯfeel about the princess being the sole playable character in an open world-style game like we saw in 2017 and 2023, respectively. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she's very keen about the idea: "I mean, that'd be amazing, wouldn't it?"

Continuing, she notes: "I'm so happy for the fandom that they got Echoes of Wisdom, of course, but I mean, yeah, there can always be more playable Zeld🌠a as far as I'm concerned."

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was very positively received when it launched earlier this year – we gave it four stars out of five in our own 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom review. It also saw th🐭e return of the more traditional 2D-s🗹tyle Zelda games, with an adorable art style like the 2019 Link's Awakening remake.

All in all, it was a fantastic time, but there's no doubt that man🥃y Zelda fans out there are hoping for it to mark the start of more princess-focused games, thank you very much. Here's hoping that Nintendo is taking notes – considering that the series is over 38 years old and so little of it has featured playable Zelda in any capacity, it's definitely about time she got a bit more spotlight, right?

Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto always knew that Navi was the "biggest weakpoint of Ocarina of Time" and once said "I wanted to remove the entire system."

"I think the way we give hints is still a little too unfriendly," Miyamoto admitted in an inওterview for a 1999 ♛Japanese strategy guide, which has been translated by . "Speaking plainly, I can now confess to you: I think the whole system with Navi giving you advice is the biggest weakpoint of Ocarina of Time. It's incredibly difficult to design a system that gives proper advice, advice that's tailored to the player's situation. To do it right, you'd have to spend the same amount of time as you would developing an entire game, and I was very worried we'd be digging ourselves into a hole, if we pursued perfection there…"

Miyamoto went on to say that "if you read Navi's text, she says the same things over and over. I know it makes it sound bad, but we purposely left her at a kind of 'stupid' level. I think if♎ we'd tried to make Navi's hints more sophisticated, that 'stupidity' would have actually stood out even more. The truth is I wanted to remove the entire system, but that would have been even more unfriendly to players. You can think of Navi as being there for players who stop playing for a month or so, who then pick the game back up and want to remember what they were supposed to do. It's a brazen excuse, I know. (laughs)"

These days, Ocarina of Time is not considered a particularly difficult game, but when it was new players were still coming to terms with the very idea of solving puzzles and fighting monsters in a 3D space. Miyamoto comes back to the struggle of balancing the game's difficulty level several times over the course of the interview, noting that despite all of Navi's hints about the puzzles, he "heard many people saying how theyꦑ couldn't solve them without a strategy guide."

A universal solution to the problem of difficult puzzles is tough to implement - just look at the response to G✤od of War Ragnarok's overlyꦬ generous hints if you want a♉ modern example. "We've found that t൩he sections people need hints for vary from person-to-person," Miyamoto said of Ocarina of Time. "There's no consistency. That can't be helped, though, in a game like Zelda which combines action and puzzle solving."

While historically Nintendo has downplaye🐲d the influence of other popular games on its own work, in this interview Miyamoto did cite Japan's most beloꦛved RPG series as a lamppost for making challenging games. "Even in the Dragon Quest series," Miyamoto said, "people don't praise [designer Yuji] Horii and [director and programmer Koichi] Nakamura for the exquisite balance; it's rather that the unforgiving difficulty in some places ended up making it more memorable."

Zelda games since Ocarina of Time have still struggled with how much to emphasize difficulty in both puzzles and combat over the years, and some of the series' later hint systems𒁃 - yes, I'm looking straight at Fi in Skyward Sword - would end up being even more annoying than Navi was in the first place. With the success of Breath of the Wild, it seems Nintendo has grown more confident in letting you figure th🔜ings out for yourself and find your way into impossibly tough battles, and I think the final boss of Tears of the Kingdom might be the toughest fight in the history of the series. But the fact that some of you are probably already typing up comments about how easy that battle was is a perfect illustration of how hard it is to get the balance right.

Ocarina of Time still ranks among the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games ever.

If you've been around video game internet in𓆉 the past week or so, there's a good chance you've seen a video of an impressive Link cosplay made slightly less impressive by the facꦿt that the cosplayer struggles to unsheathe Link's sword from its scabbard. It's obviously tongue-in-cheek; the cosplayer who goes by Sakigake gets into Link's classic attack stance before theatrically trying and failing to draw their sword, proclaiming in the caption, "It was impossible. I will practice."

Even still, after the video went viral (H/T ) and explained that, at least in Super Smash Bros., Link actually moves his scabbard down toward the ground, thereby moving it out of the way for the entire length of Link's sword to be removed. It's not exactly clear if Sakigake did the same for their cosplay, but they did and say they w🐲ould "use Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a reference and try to make it look cool next time."

Either way, you can see in the below video the problem has been resolved. "Now it's possible," reads the machine🧔-translated caption.

Sakigake didn't specify exactly what they did to make Link's sword more readil🔥y unsheathable, but at least we know they'll be ready for battle the next time they stumble upon a Bokoblin camp.

Meanwhile, Legend of Zelda mastermind Eiji Aonuma says he always focuses on gameplay before story: "I've never really made a game where you think of the story first".

Speaking recently with the , Aonuma describes how 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo goes against the grain with its games and focuses on gameplay before even touching on the story. "I've never really𓆏 made a game where you think of the story first and then go into gameplay," says the producer. "First when you think of the gameplay, what you're trying to think of after that is how you can get players to understand that gameplay."

According to Aonuma, this unique approach helps developers improve upon their games more easily as there are no restrictions set in🌺 place by a predetermined narrative. Instead, the gameplay helps shape the story rather than the reverse. "The story becomes used as a vessel because it has a beginning and end, and the player moves through it," details the dev. It's certainly an interesting way to do it, but he'd not have it any other way.

As Aonuma states, he would find it hard to make games differently and to start the process with narrative rather than gameplay. "I think it would actually be kind of difficult to do the reverse and start with the story, then try to match the gameplay mechanics to that." After playing 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom recen𝔉tly and being a long-time Zelda stan myself, I'm surprised to learn 🌊Aonuma's approach - but it certainly seems to work well.

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom nearly broke Link's 30-year vow of silence, but Nintendo decided to keep him mute because no one knew what he would say

Speaking to (translated by ), series producer Eiji Aonuma explained that since Zelda herself is the main character of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Echoes of Wisdom, she had to lose the a♏bility to talk out loud. "After all, in the Zelda series, the protagonist does not speak. This is why Link doesn't talk either," Aonuma explained.

However, with Zelda newly mute, narrative development got a little tricky. To help drive the story forward, Nintendo and Echoes of Wisdom development partner Grezzo added in Tri - a companion fairy, similar to Ocarina🌟 of Time's Navi - to act as a voice for Zelda. Tri's existence became particularly important once Nintendo realized that getting Link to speak for the first time in three decades was a bigger challenge than expected.

"We made Link talk a bit at first [...] but it felt really wrong," Aonuma says. "We kept thinking 'he'd never say that!'" Echoes of Wisdom director Satoshi Terada agrees, saying that "wh𓃲atever we tried to make him say, it just didn't feel right. No one knew the answer to the question 'what would Link say?' And of course we wouldn't, he has never spoken before!"

Thankfully, that confusion eventually he❀lped build out the story - with Nintendo and Grezzo requiring a setting where it made sense for Link to remain silent ♚despite Zelda's presence in the story, "part of the game's storyline" could be built around him staying quiet.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Echoes of Wisdom review to find out what we thought of this new chapter in the Zelda series.

Now you can pick up The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom for , where the latest Zelda adventure has dropped below $50 for the first time. The MSRP has only dropped as low as $51.99 in previous months, which was still a good deal given it was only released in September this year. We've been stuck at between $53-58 since then and is currently available from retailers like Walmart for $57.84, but as a recent release, it still sits at full price on multiple other sites.

Price cuts on Nintendo games aren't anything new. However, they can be a rarity when it comes to first-party titles. That makes p༒articular offer extra special, especially in the lead-up to Black Friday and the holidays. So if you want to experience Princess Zelda's first official adventure for less, this deal is ﷽the way to go.

Should you buy The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom?

If you're a Legend of Zelda connoisseur, and adored Link's Awakening on the Nintendo Switch, then picking up Echoes of Wisdom is a no-brainer. The newest game utilizes the charming style of the Link's Awakening Switch remake and uses it to tell an entirely new story, featuring Princess Zelda in her first-ever official role as a protagonist. (We don't talk about the Zelda CDI games here.)

Not only is Echoes of Wisdom one of the cutest-looking Zelda games to date, but Nintendo and co-developers Grezzo have designed a whole new addictive game mechanic. With the help of her new adorable companion Tri and the Tri Rod, Princess Zelda can learn the 'echoes' of monsters and items and replicate them at will. This puts combat in the rear-view mirror, and instead of just fighting bosses with a sword and shield, the game constantly challenges you to think outside the box. Why fight a Moblin when you can summon your own to fight for you? Or, why climb a mountain when you can make a ladder of beds and find your own way?

As a big enough Zelda fan that I have an entire display dedicated to the series in my house, I picked up Echoes of Wisdom on day one and it did not disappoint. The game brings back some of my favorite series staples, like the adorable Deku scrubs and River Zora from the older games, and is a breath of fresh air after two open-world games. Finding new ways to traverse around Hyrule, whether it be with beds, cubes of water, or on top of flying tiles never gets tiresome.

There are some frame rate drops throughout the game, which is more a sign the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 is more needed than ever, rather than a poor reflection of Echoes of Wisdom itself. However, on an OLED Switch, the world of Hyrule has never looked more lush and vivid. Even with the now ridiculous amount of games in the franchise on the handheld, it still comes out on top as one of my favorite Switch games.

Games like Breath of the Wild and its follow-up, Tears of the Kingdom, pushed the limits of what a 3D open-world Zelda game can be. However, they just as equally fuelled fans' desire for a return to the classic top-down dungeon crawler many of us fans grew up with. Echoes of Wisdom manages to not only quench the thirst for an old-school experience but also tries its hand at something new that every fan, old or new, will find hard to put down. But don't just take my word for it, our official 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom re♍view received 4 out of 5 stars when it was releas💎ed in September this year.

Our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Nintendo Switch SD cards list is full of some of the best storage solutions for your Switch. If you've already plenty of storage for Echoes of Wisdom, and the rest of the Legend of Zelda games on the handheld, keep our 澳洲💮幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Black Friday Nintendo Switch deals is full of sav🎐ings to be haܫd this November for your favorite Nintendo console.

"It seems an old ROM of a project I was working on with friends leaked online," creator Ermelber quote replied on in response to a article. "It's so funny seeing people speculate about🐼 this as some sort of obscure piece of media by a mysterious Chinese dev, while it's simply just something we made sever🍒al years ago. LMAO."

The demake in question sees a fully mapped out version of Hyrule, completely rebuilt for the Nintendo DS. It might be void of the towns, villages, and other building structures you'd🌸 find in the actual 2017 Nintendo Switch game, but the terrain itself is staggeringly accurate to the world map. Impressive as it is, though, it's the nature of how this ROM was discovered that led many Zelda fans on a wild goose chase of speculation and conspiracy theorizing.

Found on an old DS flashcard purchased on Chinese 🌠commerce platform A⭕liExpress, the ROM file reimagines Breath of the Wild as a pixelated DS game. Reverse image searches revealed that clips of the demake were first published on Chinese DailyMotion-like site in 2019, though the poster of said videos (as well as the identity of the ROM creator themselves) was a total mystery. This layer of intrigue left plenty of room for self-proclaimed internet detectives to work their magic, coming up with a host of theories of varying levels of extravagance.

YouTuber JustJasen posted a detailed deep-dive into the demake, linked above, where he speculates the creator as being based in China. This could have made sense, given how both AliExpress and BilliBilli are Chinese-based companies and that BilliBilli is relatively unknown to Western audiences. When Ermelber, an Italian modder and game developer, claimed the ROM as his own person project made with friends, JustJasen's theory tur🉐ned out to be false – though the two's friendly interactions on reassure me that there are no hard feelings here.

It's certainly been a wild ride for all involved in the speculation, though sadly, nothing super conspiracy theory-worthy after all. It doesn't take away from Ermelber's work in recre🍌ating a low-rez Hyrule being an impress💦ive feat in itself, even if he didn't intend for the world to see it.

After playing Breath of the Wild for 14 hours straight on a long haul flight, I now appreciate the thing I found most challenging about Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.

In Echoes of Wisdom's Lake Hylia area, Zelda stumbl🌱es across two Zoras who come from different tribes and eventually work together to make sure the River Zora and Ocean Zora can co-exist. theorizes that the two Zoras - Inawa and Rogma - might actually be 🧸a callback to the friendship between former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata (RIP) and former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.

Of course, their names are loosely similar. Inawa, Iwata. Rogma, Reggie. Then there's also the fact that they come from two different tribes (Nintendo Nintendo and Nintendo of America) but share simila🎃r goals and ultimately fall under the same umbrella.

"If the developers did indeed reference the friendship between Mr. Iwata and me, I am incredibly touche✅d," Reggie today after spotting the potential callback.

Satoru Iwata was the company's president for well over a decade, leading it through arguably the company's best years (the Wii and DS era) and worst (sorry, Wii U). Reggie was similarly important to Nintendo's legacy, and the two frequently went viral for their public friendship. One Nintendo Direct had muppet versions of the two figures tour the company's offices. And then, to announce the addition of Mii Fighters to Super Smash Bros, the two executives orchestratedꦆ the wackiest 🍎fight scene you've ever seen from a company as big as Nintendo. 

Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best video game Easter Eggs of all time for more hidden goodies. 

Solo developer James Bergeron describes Maple Forest as an "adventure across a sprawling island full of mysterious secrets, colorful friends, and dangerous enemies." Players will make their way across unforgiving barren deserts, dive into the dark depths of lakes and rushing rivers, climb atop windy cliffs, and face formidable foes lurking within subterranean dungeons - it's like stepping into an old 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo hit.

The characters seem just as wonderfully whimsical as the game itself, too. The hero of the story is an adventurous fox with a brave soul who makes up for what he lacks in raw strength with his intelligence. Along the way, this courageous little fox meets a laid-back goat, a beautiful mermaid, a botany-obsessed witc🥃h, and other quirky figures. It sounds enchanting - like a childhood storybook that's been RPG-ified.

from

Unsurprisingly, Maple Forest has already just about doubled its initial Kickstarter goal of $36,000 and is currently sitting at a whopping $70,963. This means that the bestiary, the lance weapon, and house upgrades will all be available in-game, w💛ith ocean adventures coming next at $75,000. If funding hits $80,000, Bergeron will even🦄 add monster ranching - an addition that I'm personally most excited about.

I can't wait to dive into the game "inspired by 90s classics, including Zelda, Secret of Mana, the Soul Blazer trilogy, and more" myself. There's no Steam page for Maple Forest just yet, but interested fans can follow alo🌺ng the Kickstarter page to stay updated. It seems like it'll be available on the Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X when it does come, so I'd definitely recommend keeping an eye on it.

Love a good throwback? Here are some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best retro games of all time.

In꧑ a video showcasing the clips side-by-side, Rebecca Stone highlights portions of both games' maps to portray just how similar regions in Echoes of Wisdom are to the 1991 classic. Despite some changes to the terrain, the newer game's Hyrule is evidently the very same one fans grew to love decades ago. It seems there's just one major difference - Kakariko Village is no longer where it used to be.

As longtime Zelda players point out in the comments, "there are what appears to be ruins" in the spot that housed Kakariko Village in A Link to the Past. There are lots of other cool details of note, too - for instance, as one fan explains, "the Gorons, Sea Zora, Deku Scrubs, and Gerudo all live outside the A Link to the Past portion of the mapౠ, which retroactively would explain why they weren't present in A Link to the Past."

It's true - clouds also surrounded the outskirts of the older game's map, with land nonetheless visible beyond them. This likely left room for Echoes of Wisdom's own more expanded map. Another interesting refe🌱rence to the recent game's predecessor brought up by a commenter reveals that "digging in the place where you find the Ocarina in A Link t🐽o the Past gets you a Might Crystal in Echoes of Wisdom."

Stone's full video is worth a watch - as a dedicated fan of all things Zelda myself, I genuinely found the comparisons eye-opening. They spark a sense of nostalgia and a whole lot of "oh!" moments. I'm just personally sad that some sort of reference to Link🍌's house didn't make it into Echoes of Wisdom myself, but I love the community's reasoning - it "was unfortunately demolished because they forgot to dedicate it as a world heritage site."

Craving more of Nintendo's iconic series? Here are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games of all time.

Last year's open-world 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Legend of Zelda sequel leaves a lot of room for creativity, and boy do some people make use of it - including one player who goes by "saiotoko002" online. In one of his more recent , he highlights how managed to assemble the Harrier II in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo's open-world gem. "There was a request for a fighter plane that flie๊s with an infinite rocket," a translated version of his text reads.

This request is what prompted saitoko002 to build the Harrier II, or as he describes it, "my favorite in MGS2!" According to him, it was his first go at "using it with the infinite wings" - and infinite it is indeed. The clip attached to the creator's post shows the aircraft in action in Tears of the Kingdom, and it's downright awesome. Link uses i𓆏t as one would a real attack plane, setting enemies and even bosses ablaze.

Various Zonai devices make up the body of the Harrier II, from rockets to wings - and it's not the first time saitoko002 has pulled such a massive feat off in the Zelda game, either. A quick scan through his earlier posts shows various Metal Gear Solid-inspired builds in Tears of the Kingdom, as well as some from other franchises like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Armored Core 6💙-es🤡que fighting robots and recreations of the battle droids from Star Wars.

It's almost mind-boggling, and I'm sort of obsessed now with browsing through saitoko002's builds. He's done it all in Tears of the Kingdom, including little movie-style videos such as his action-packed take on a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Pokemon battle between Registeel, Regice, and Yelrock. It's worth taking a look at his profile as well as his channel, where he has recently also branched out to uploading 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Echoes of Wisdom gameplay.

Tears of the Kingdom coach recreates the Olympic decathlon in Hyrule to force Link to compete and find out if Zelda's hero could take home the gold