Balancing It All Out.

[Master Link]

I came up with this idea whilst reading the thread about having redeads in Skyward Sword.

Many of us admit that what we have seen of the overworld so far is bright and happy, and don't get me wrong, I like this, a lot. But one idea I have had is that for some gamers, it might get a little old to be in a place like that all the time (besides dungeons of course). They might just get complacent, or fell that they have noting to fear or make their adrenaline rush. The idea that I came up with is that Nintendo needs to have a vast, dark underground region, or something similar, like a shadow temple, to balance out all the light.

We have not seen a true, fear-based shadow temple since Ocarina of Time, and I assure you, even though that temple was unnerving and frightening, it got my adrenaline rushing and I had fun going through it. If it was a place like an underground region, it could just be an extra explorable place with optional items, upgrades, or pieces of heart. Think of the bottom of the well in OoT. there were many rooms in there that you did not have to enter or explore to obtain the Eye of Truth.

What are your thoughts about having something to balance the game out?


It would certainly add depth to the game!

 

[666]

Nice one man. 3 layers- sky, land underground i like it.

 

[Kungfuyu24]

Zelda (Overworld & Sky) + Metroid (Underground labyrinth) = Kid Icarus?

Personally, I don't want three of Nintendo's most popular franchises to overlap TOO much.

 

[Con-man]

Yeah, I think an underground world would be awesome, it would definitely add something new to the franchise.

 

[Phantom Zelda]

That could be really fun if they did it right and gave us a bunch of sidequests to do down there. It would be different also which would be cool

 

[Xinnamin]

While I seriously doubt that we're going to get an underground in addition to both Skyloft and Hyrule, I do really hope that we get some sort of dark and spooky overworld area. I'm certainly hoping for a shadow/death/general-spookiness based dungeon again, as the Shadow Temple was one of my favorites in the game just for its atmosphere, but I'd be content with any spooky area so long as we can get a decent chill out of it. Maybe the return of the Lost Woods, only this time as a dark foreboding place with minimal sunlight and dead shrubbery due to a dense canopy and undead monsters and skulls of lost dead travelers scattered about. Maybe another mine/inner-mountain area with minimal lighting and loads of hidden shocks. Heck maybe ruins of a village wiped out by unfortunate series of events under a perpetually clouded sky and redeads sulking about (kinda like future Castle Town in OoT). At the very least give us a few mini-dungeons similar in atmosphere to the Bottom of the Well.

Nintendo hasn't given us a good enough scare in Zelda for a while, with most of the death/dark areas not nearly as scary as they could be or should be. I'd love to get seriously freaked out by the atmosphere of an area again, not to mention I bet they could still make it beautiful with the SS style =D

 

[Zeruda]

I'm sure there will be something dark and spooky this time around. What we saw was mostly bright and vivid, yes, but if you recall, there was also an image of Link battling a big scorpion, and the hues in that had a lot of darker colors. The art style chosen really has a lot of potential. With this type of coloring and shading, many feelings can be achieved by various hues. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a dark and spooky area. Not only would it be easy to achieve with the coloring style, but this game also focuses on an older Link, so while it may not try to be another T-rated game, I'm sure that we can expect something similar to OoT's spooky Shadow Temple and Well. Not saying it'll be the same, but probably something similar.

It might even be easy to create something spooky like OoT's Hyrule Field at night. SS's coloring style has a potential to have a lot of interesting night-themes that could be creepy. I don't think they'll focus too hard on spooky parts in the game, but I definitely think there will be an area that will leave us with a good impression. This style is perfect for creating so many themes- daytime, dawn and dusk, forest areas, ruins and graveyards... everything. When Nintendo uses a new art style, they usually try to make it really stand out, so I think we can expect a wide variety of themes, spooky being one of them. I'm sure this game will be balanced in terms of visuals.

 

[MOTLEYlink]

It is kind of a good idea to add a underground portion to the world. I think if they where to do this, they could make exploring the underground area compleatly optional. Kind of like the Cave of Ordeals in Twilight Princess.

 

[Eskhandar]

Yeah, imagine that.
A huge *** portion of overworld that is completely optional to even find. Filled with many sidequests and interesting stuff!

 

[WeeGee]

How do we know SS won't be the perfect balance of dark and light? I feel 100% correct when I say, "SS will have a dark tone when you go down to Hyrule."
Looking at the teaser art from 2009, you WILL notice that the colors ARE DARK. This could only mean the story will be dark or the game will have some dark tone to it. And wait... The demo was bright!! That's because Nintendo wants more vibrant colors, duh
Also, it WAS a sandbox world. Some people don't even know that yet

 

[Raven]

you know what I'd like to see them balance? a solid weather system. I want snow storms and lightning and wind flowing across hyrule field, I want rain and sun and fog. To this day there has never been a Zelda game with a deep system for the lands weather I think they could do a lot better than before cough cough TP, but that game did show a few lightning storms which were impressive. I just think they should flesh more of that stuff out. It would be neat if their was a village up in the mountains and on the second day up their it snows and the whole village is covered. But really i just want to see a full fledged snow region with a town or settlement... The developement in the scenery would make hyrule an even more beautiful place. also I like the idea of there being rooms in dungeons that you dont need to enter to beat the dungeon but still have importance, you could miss them and then stubble upon 1 in a later playthrough. and lastly they should create more river rafting opportunities that mini game in TP should have been in more than one area. They should expand on the rivers in hyrule, id like to see some other features besides feilds... they should balance out the natural features across the entire game as well. A cliff here a beach there, a river there and a field there, ya know??? balance it out, instead of 6 separate and very empty feilds.

 

[Beeker]

This would be a great idea to balance the two concepts of light and dark out. One thing that sorta reminds me of this is Wind Waker. With its art style, it was very bright most of the time, but in places like Ganon's Castle and The Earth Temple, the colours were dark and gave them more of a dark, dungeon-y feel to them. I think Zeruda's right when it comes to the potential of the art style. They could do a lot with it like they have in the past with previous styles.

We are also in need of a very scary and chilling dungeon/area like the Shadow Temple and Castle Town(future). That would be interesting explore one of those places, and it is rather fun to be scared once in a while.

 

[Bendi_Link]

what if, in skyloft when there is a lightning storm in hyrule you can see it in the clouds in skyloft and such

 

[Master Link]

Please Don't misunderstand me. I think that the art style is great and has very much potential. The one thing I am saying is I think that Nintendo needs to have a "scare" factor for some part of this game, whether it be optional or not.

One other idea I love is Raven's. It would be great if we could see more terrain features and utilize them. I, too, have felt like the weather is slightly bland.

 

[Link-182]

Well, you're all in luck cuz I think it was Miyamoto that said that the weather changed the mood of the game, and what moods are there? Happy, grim, sad, angry?
We've seen happy, but we haven't seen these other moods. And besides happy bright mood, every other mood leads to believe there will definately be darker areas of the game.