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Monday 05 September 2011

Four Free Zelda Poster in Official Nintendo Magazine UK

In Zelda news

At the newsagent today, I spotted the latest Official Nintendo Magazine. Now I don’t know if it’s just me, but ONM has become the kind of magazine that you buy, remove the free gift, and throw away the magazine. Their freebies seem to be much cooler that the magazine itself, what with its overly-generous review scores. Regardless, I couldn’t resist buying this month’s issue - the free gift is too good for Zelda fans to ignore!

Four Zelda posters are included, dating from Ocarina of Time right up to Skyward Sword! They are all A3-sized (think four A4 sheets of paper) portrait posters, and you get the following:

* The iconic image of Link fighting Ganondorf from Ocarina of Time (used quite prominently in the recent marketing for OoT3D).
* One of the stained-glass window images from The Wind Waker (the one featuring the purple bird).
* The well-known movie-poster-montage-style image from Twilight Princess featuring Link, Epona, Wolf Link, Midna, Zant, Zelda, shadow creatures etc.
* A new piece of artwork from Skyward Sword, showing Link flying over the lush countryside on his feathery steed.

I was quite blown away by this freebie. Each of these pieces of art make excellent posters - there are no lazy “character art on a plain background” posters included, which is often the case with magazine poster sets. They aren’t full-sized posters, but certainly big enough to look great and be appreciated from a distance. I think ONM need a pat on the back with this one. The only problem is, as with all free posters from magazines, they are double-sided. So you’ll have to choose between OoT or Skyward Sword, and Wind Waker or Twilight Princess (I went with Skyward Sword and Wind Waker). Unless you buy two copies… £8 for four great posters? not too bad a deal, really. Are you obsessed enough?

~ Espy

Tags: Merchandise

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Monday 29 August 2011

Golden Zelda Wii Remote Plus, CD, To Be Bundled With Skyward Sword

In Zelda news

Looking forward to Skyward Sword? Aren’t we all. But isn’t there something in the way of you playing it? Say, a Wii Remote? More specifically, a Wii Remote Plus? You need one to play the game, and as there hasn’t really been any great games that use the upgraded controller (which has the same functionality as a Wii Motion Plus extension, only built into the remote), this may finally be the time that you lay down the cash for your own. Well, the money-grabbers at Nintendo are way ahead of you.

Nintendo are releasing a special edition of Skyward Sword, featuring the golden, Zelda-themed Wii Remote Plus we saw at their E3 press conference. It will set you back $70, if you live in the US. Problem solved! Now not only will you be able to experience 1:1 sword motion, you can do it with 100% more Zelda in your right hand. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there will be an accompanying golden nunchuck, so you’ll have to put up with clashing colours. Sorry, perfectionists.

Also, the first run of both versions of Skyward Sword will contain a CD featuring music from the Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony Tour (also mentioned at E3). Certainly a nice, free extra!

~ Espy

Tags: Skyward Sword, Consoles, Wii, Events, 25th Anniversary Symphony Tour

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Sunday 21 August 2011

Skyward Sword Dated for US and Europe

In Zelda news

First of all, sorry for the delay of this very important news. I’ve been too busy trying to balance my work/vomit life to have the time to write this up. It’s not been pretty.

Nintendo have announced the dates that hotly-anticipated Zelda game Skyward Sword will reach American and European shores. It will hit America on November 20th, and Europe two days earlier on the 18th.

This won’t surprise anyone, as mid-November is when all the big Christmas games get released, but at least we can now start an official countdown!

~ Espy

Tags: Skyward Sword, Consoles, Wii

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Zelda Symphony Tour London Date Announced

In Zelda news

In news that completely slipped under my radar (sorry), Nintendo recently announced a London date for their 25th Anniversary Symphony Tour. Previously thought to have only one 2011 date (in Los Angeles), Nintendo have confirmed that there will instead be three 2011 dates, with the second in London and the third in a yet-to-be-announced European country, before the show goes on tour properly in 2012.

The London date will be on the 25th of October at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo, and prices range from £38.50 to an extortionate £110.50 VIP ticket, which includes a meet-and-greet with the stars of the show (presumably including Zelda composer Koji Kondo?) You can buy tickets here: http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/36004702D26C5B5D

~ Espy

Tags: Events, 25th Anniversary Symphony Tour

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Thursday 21 July 2011

New Skyward Sword Trailer Shows… Nothing New

In Zelda news

As it is Comic Con in San Diego right now, and as Comic Con seems to have transformed into a mini-E3 recently, Nintendo have released a new trailer for Skyward Sword. Hooray! Shame that it’s largely footage from the previous trailer. Boo.

On the plus side, I think the footage of Link swinging on a rope is new. And it’s now 100% CONFIRMED that the game will feature a man unnecessarily wearing a helmet in his own house and sticking a fork into an unidentifiable metal object. That’ll set the fans at ease.

You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8E4Y_P5Rv8

~ Espy

Tags: Skyward Sword, Consoles, Wii, Media, Video

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Zelda 25th Anniversary Tour: First Date Announced, Then Becomes 26th Anniversary Tour

In

Good news! The first date for Zelda’s 25th Anniversary Symphony Tour has been announced, and it’s October 21st, at the Pantages Theatre in L.A. Bad news! The tour is subsequently being postponed until 2012, missing the 25th anniversary entirely. Nintendo didn’t give any reason for the delay of the tour, set to travel through the US, Japan and Europe. So if you were looking forward to some live orchestrated versions of the classic Zelda melodies, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Unless you like in L.A.

If you want to get tickets to the L.A. show, you can buy them here: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0B0046F3F2235ED2

~ Espy

Tags: Events

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Sunday 03 July 2011

Aonuma: Don’t Expect Zelda Wii U To Look Like the Tech Demo

In Zelda news

Remember the Zelda Wii U tech demo on display at E3? It looked stunning, and showed off a taster of how Zelda might look and play on the system. Can we expect a Zelda game on that console to look similar, whenever it happens to be released? Well, Wired talked to series director Eiji Aonuma about the demo, and he had this to say:

“You probably remember that when we introduced the GameCube, we showed a somewhat realistic Zelda demo (...) And what we actually created was the cel-shaded Wind Waker. So when we show a graphic demo, people think, ‘Oh, this is what the next Zelda will look like,’ but that’s not necessarily the case.”

So he seems to be hinting that we shouldn’t be confident that the first Zelda game on Wii U will have a realistic art style, as the tech demo does. Some fans did that before, and things certainly got ugly when The Wind Waker turned up on their doorstep…

Aonuma talks a bit more about the game in the full article (also featuring an interview with Mario producer Yoshiaki Koizumi), which you can read here: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/07/wii-u-mario-zelda/all/1

~ Espy

Tags: Consoles, Wii U, People, Aonuma

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Tuesday 28 June 2011

Iwata Asks About Ocarina of Time 3D #3 Available Now

In Zelda news

You know the drill about Iwata Asks. You also know that the interview series is currently hosting a collection of Ocarina of Time 3D interviews (if you don’t, look at the post below!) And thanks to this article, you now know that the third interview is now up!

This interview is with members of Grezzo, the team responsible for updating Ocarina of Time for the 3DS. It includes lots of interesting tidbits. For example, in order to keep the experience as similar to the original as possible, they actually strived to recreate some of the game’s original bugs! Now that’s dedication, albeit in a strange way.

You can read the interview here: http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/zelda-ocarina-of-time/3/0

~ Espy

Tags: Ocarina of Time, Consoles, 3DS, People, Aonuma, Iwata

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Monday 20 June 2011

Iwata Asks About Ocarina of Time 3D

In Zelda news

Nintendo fans may be familiar with the “Iwata Asks” interview series,m a long-running staple of the Nintendo website. The concept is simple: Nintendo head Satoru Iwata asks questions to Nintendo developers. You see where they get the name from? Clever!

It’s common for an interview to be put up for each big Nintendo game, and the release of Ocarina of Time 3D is no exception, having two separate interviews so far. Lots of interesting nuggets are revealed, including the fact that Ocarina of Time was originally going to be a first person game!

The first volume, concentrating on the music of the game, features an interview with long-time Zelda composer Koji Kondo, and Mahito Yokota. It can be viewed here: http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/zelda-ocarina-of-time/0/0

The second volume is focussed more on the development of the original Ocarina of Time, and features a roundtable of many of the original game staff, including, of course, Zelda director Eiji Aonuma. It can be viewed here: http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/zelda-ocarina-of-time/1/0

We’ll let you know when more are published!

~ Espy

Tags: Ocarina of Time, Consoles, 3DS, People, Aonuma, Iwata, Kondo

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Sunday 19 June 2011

Zelda-themed Level in Super Mario 3DS

In Zelda news

It appears that one more Zelda-related nugget of info was revealed at E3, which was mostly overlooked in the wake of the many announcements.

At Nintendo’s E3 roundtable conference, the new Super Mario game for 3DS (appropriately titled Super Mario 3DS) was shown off. But the game has a treat for Zelda fans: the developers announced that in honour of Zelda’s 25th anniversary, a Zelda-themed level would feature. This takes the form of a top-down dungeon with individual, fixed-camera rooms, a format taken from the earliest Zelda games. In one of the rooms, Mario had to throw fireballs at its corners to open a locked door, which sounds like a very Zelda-esque puzzle.

This is just a single level in the game, but it sounds like it might be enough to encourage Zelda fans to buy the game. Well, is it working? Do you want it now?

You can see a brief clip of the level here: http://uk.kotaku.com/5811152/heres-a-look-at-the-zelda-tribute-level-in-super-mario-3ds

~ Espy

Tags: Consoles, 3DS, Events, E3

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