00:00The Ocarina of Time remake recently dropped a lot of gameplay,
00:05and after re-watching the footage, I found some interesting gameplay aspects definitely worth talking about,
00:10and also rattle off some specific details you might have missed.
00:14There's been some discussion online about how hitstun works differently in the remake,
00:19but the bigger question is the sword swings themselves.
00:24Almost all the times that Link strikes an enemy, it sounds like this.
00:30But after hearing and seeing this clip, I had to reconsider how Link deals damage.
00:37This strike sounded completely different, leading me to think that there is a critical hit system in the remake,
00:42especially since the Stalfos was not initially in a vulnerable position.
00:49Same here with this Deku Baba, where the forward stab attack didn't have this effect,
00:55but the slash through the stem made the critical hit sound.
00:59This is reminiscent of the sound cues of critical hits from the Wild Era games.
01:07It's not completely clear how this works yet, but it's definitely some food for thought to think about.
01:13It's pretty clear across all the gameplays shown so far,
01:17they wanted Link's traversal options to be all-around faster and more fluid than the original.
01:21This includes the new run function after rolling,
01:24vault jumping while climbing,
01:26and the swim dash, which it looks like you can partially steer.
01:29On a similar note, Link seems to have a new feather in his hat now,
01:33with fans speculating that this is a version of Rock's feather from previous games.
01:38This would give more canonical sense now for his ability to jump freely in the remake,
01:42giving another layer of extra movement freedom not possible in the original.
01:46Once this menu appeared in the presentation,
01:49many players immediately rolled their eyes with disdain,
01:51seeing this menu immediately brought back war flashbacks of the endless scrolling through items and menus.
01:56But I'm telling you right now, this is not the worst-case scenario.
02:00Ocarina of Time doesn't have nearly as many pieces of equipment as in past titles,
02:04so there's no way this would be as offensive as it was back then.
02:07I still would have preferred to have a small radial menu though.
02:10Okay, let's talk about the Megaton Hammer.
02:13This was shown off briefly in trailers,
02:15but it was also shown off in additional clips from the official Japanese website.
02:19In the original game, Link could smash vertically and swing horizontally to the right before.
02:24But now, Link can swing his hammer in both directions.
02:29I can already smell the Nintendo-coded puzzles
02:32that likely require you to push things to specific directions,
02:36either left, right, or straight forward.
02:38But I also have this second Spidey sense tingling
02:41that this also might have motion control functions as well.
02:44They already have motion control aiming on one piece of equipment,
02:47and Nintendo sure does love implementing this wherever they can,
02:50so I have this nagging feeling that this just might happen.
02:56Shielding in general has gotten a major upgrade,
02:59where you can see Link tanking an entire Iron Knuckle Axe Strike
03:02and reflecting a Beemos laser with a mirror shield,
03:05both which were impossible before.
03:07I almost feel like defense is too strong from what I'm seeing.
03:11But there's also not quite enough information to come to that conclusion yet,
03:14so we'll have to see what it looks like in the final game.
03:17Combat and movement aside now,
03:19let's point out several small details I found in the gameplay,
03:22such as...
03:23The Ocarina system.
03:25If I'm understanding this correctly,
03:26there might be five ways to play the Ocarina,
03:29which is bonkers.
03:31One, you can play it simple,
03:33using the controllers, old school style.
03:35Two, you can hum or sing with your voice.
03:38Three, you can use an actual Ocarina and have it detect your notes,
03:41which the game will actually teach you by following Link's hands and breath,
03:45which is amazing.
03:46Or, you can probably use any instrument,
03:49which will be fun for social media.
03:51Four, you can use the alternative version of the Ocarina,
03:54which has buttons instead of holes for a more tactile experience.
03:57And five, in Zelda Notes,
03:59there's a new function of a free-play digital Ocarina.
04:03What's strange is they didn't mention two things shown here.
04:06One, it seems like learned songs in the game
04:09seem to be reflected as playable songs in-app.
04:12And second, it shows the option of play only the beginning,
04:16which is the only part of the song the game needs to hear
04:18to play it back from your phone into the microphone as a sort of shortcut.
04:22If true, this is great for lazy players that don't want to remember songs.
04:26At last resort, there's even a new check songbook function,
04:30so you don't have to go all the way back to the main menu to remember every damn song.
04:34And even a skip song button.
04:36The Ocarina system seems way more robust now.
04:39Another small thing they added for all Ocarina songs
04:42is that Navi now dances along with the tune,
04:45with my personal favorite so far being the Sun song.
04:48Navi does these silly little side flips.
04:53Another kind of small funny detail I noticed
04:55is that Epona has been yossified?
04:58Epona's eyelashes are very long now.
05:01I think Nintendo is really trying to get across that she's a girl,
05:04if you didn't know that already.
05:06Talking tech for a second,
05:07volumetric fog is shown before approaching the Deku tree.
05:11Excluding opinions on art direction,
05:13like Aonuma mentioned,
05:14this kind of jump in technology is big for the Zelda title.
05:18Always known for never having the highest graphical fidelity,
05:21they are really trying to push the series' visuals forward this time.
05:24On a similar note,
05:25the world and environments look great,
05:27but lighting off objects and texture mapping specifically are on another level.
05:32From the detailed tatami matte style of Link's tunic,
05:35the brightly lit frost vapors coming off Kotake's ice beam,
05:39the iridescent flakes in Goma's eye,
05:41the sequin-like Zora scales shining off Link's Zora armor,
05:45the stitch work on Ganondorf's leather and Gerudo garb,
05:48and the walls of Jabu Jabu's belly looking like it's trying to breathe through a layer of saran wrap.
05:52You could tell the Zelda team put a lot of effort into every texture in the game.
05:57Those are just some of the things I found interesting about the massive gameplay drop that Nintendo gave us.
06:02But with the game releasing within a mere two months,
06:05our time to...
Comments