ABOUT 3D GAMECUBE ZELDA'S RELEASE DATE

It was brought to my attention that GameStop is claiming that 3D Epic Zelda (That's just what I'll call it for new until Nintendo figures out a title) is going to release on October 18th, 2004. This is first of all highly unlikely and completely false as a matter of fact. Nintendo has specifically stated at E3 that this game is only going to release in 2005. One thing about GameStop is they tend to make up release dates from thin air without any official announcement to rustle up pre-orders. Few people pre-order games that are over a year away. Pre-Ordering is an easy way for a retailer to make a quick buck on people's money without giving them anything until it releases in the distant future. Pre-Ordering is good within a timeframe of 6 months or less when an official certified release date has been declaired by Developer and the distributor. A friend of mine pointed out how GameStop was running preorders on Halo 2 last year and said it would be released in January which we all know is false, it has taken until this year for Bungie to actually declaire a rock solid release date that Being in November.

Here's another thing too. As much as we all want to see what Nintendo has up it's sleeve with this new 3D Epic Zelda the longer they keep it under development the more polished and extensive the game will be. This gives the writers chances to seriously flesh out the storyline and add depth to the characters. Hopefully the voice actors will be given decent dialogue to record for the characters. It gives the renderers and artists greater opportunity to add more and more aspects to Link's world, the Kingdom of Hyrule. This game has the opportunity to be absolutely incredible and the longer they take in refining the game, the better the game will be. I know from experience with all the oddities and glitches and what would appear open ended things in Zelda 64 that that game was rushed toward the end of production. A good example of this is how Hyrule Market Town is not even in 3D it's just a prerendered fuzzy image of a market, while Kakariko is fully rendered in 3D. This is proof enough that the game was rushed or that there were conflicting ideas on the format of the towns in Ocarina of Time, so those issues were not resolved by release. As well all the cool stuff from the Z-Files on this site, like the Unicorn Fountain, equiping Medallions, and the Blade Beam attack, were all removed or unfinished before the game was released because the developers were either understaffed or pressed for time.

I Truly suggest that Nintendo go full throttle with this new Zelda project and devote an extensive amount of manpower to this game. This is the kind of thing that they need to make older players who were disenfranchised by The Wind Waker to return to the series. I personally found Wind Waker to be stylistically innovative but unfortunately the total experience of the game was below my expectations. I have a feeling though that this new Zelda will not be, it is the manifestation of these thoughts I had been having about how I would design a Zelda game. In fact at one point in time, I was working on the script and description of a section to The Odyssey of Hyrule entitled NEO ZELDA, where I was going to describe the ultimate Zelda experience.

I honestly believe that 3D Epic Zelda will actually release in November of 2005 just prior to that year's Christmas shopping season. Yes I know that's a long way away, but it resides at the very border of the emergence of new consoles and would represent the final push to keep the GameCube alive before Nintendo unveils GameCube 2 whatever that might be. I have a feeling Nintendo might be opting for the more adult gamers in it's next gen system, and you'll see something very cool in late 2005 that might debut in 2006 to challenge Sony Playstation 3 and Micro$oft Xbox 2.0 Professional Server Edition. It is also possible that 3D Epic Zelda could be a launch title for GameCube 2, but that would seem a little too long based upon the games current state of development as seen in the shocking trailer they unveiled at E3.

THE ODYSSEY OF HYRULE