| [News] Hey, There's Something to Report On! March 25, 2009 — by |
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This very morning at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, announced the next installment of the Zelda franchise, set to take the Nintendo DS by storm:
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: SPIRIT TRACKS 
Unfortunately the announcement was made about ten minutes ago, so there hasn't been enough time to get videos leaked on to the net just yet. Regardless, here's a few impressions from various gaming sites that were liveblogging the event and informed the general public of the big announcement: From IGN "Iwata wants to satisfy longtime Nintendo loyalists. Nintendo DS game. New Zelda game. Link is riding in on a train. Wind Waker style. Awsomeness supreme. Link is able to direct a sidekick character, an armor-clad warrior, with the stylus. Fights huge crab-like boss. It's called The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Will be available later this year." "From the footage seen so far, the game is styled a bit like GameCube's Zelda title, Wind Waker. Link is controlled with the stylus, seen controlling a side kick character clad in armor. He's then pitted against a huge crab-like creature in what appears to be an epic boss battle." From 1Up.com "Looks like a fairly traditional Zelda portable game, with puzzle dungeons and Phantom Hourglass-style touch mechanics. The train basically works like the boat in PH, running along the overworld (presumably on a rail defined by players). Enemy control mechanics look pretty nice -- link distracted a big Zora with a controlled shadow guard, then snuck around to hit it from behind." From GameSpy "New Zelda for DS! Video looks like Phantom Hourglass 2. Same art style, dungeons, and Link riding a train. There's an FMV of Zelda knighting Link. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. At least, that's the tentative name. The crowd applauds heavily. It'll be out later this year. Does that mean Japan, or the U.S., too?" From G4TV.com "NEW ZELDA! Cel-Shaded a la Wind Waker. Link just controlled a suit of armor/golem with the touchscreen to fight a boss. Link will use a train to travel. Showing combat while on the train. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Tentative Title... Available later this year." From Joystiq "Remember when they said there wouldn't be a new Zelda game announced today? THEY LIED! We've got Celda link steering a train, instead of his usual aquatic ride. The train has a cannon, like Phantom Hourglass's ship, and it appears to control similarly, with action concentrated on the bottom of the screen. It's a DS title, "tentatively" titled The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks" and it will be available later this year." You read it correctly, folks: the game is intended to be released later this year. I'm willing to bet we'll get at least one delay, but even so I'm excited. Here's hoping we get some more announcements about this soon. I'm especially looking forward to seeing a trailer or two over the next few days - I'll bet we'll get more details as GDC continues. In the meantime, a few more pictures for us to look over.  That's an interesting item Link's got there . . .  And that's an interesting outfit, too.  It seems that ST's train will function similarly to the S.S. Linebeck from PH Well then, this is Alpha, signing off to go scour the internet. That trailer's gotta be somewhere around here . . . Edit: FOUND IT! And it looks pretty cool, too. *Thanks to G4tv.com and IGN for the pictures |
