Pre-release Overkill?

[Spirit]

After Twilight Princess's 2004 e3 trailer we had to wait two long years for any new footage.

And before release we did get a lot of information about the land of Hyrule and enemies, but the game after its release still had a lot of content that magazines and sites hadn't touched upon..

With SKyward Sword though, we got a lot of information; we knew about the flying and how peaceful it was, we knew about Lake Floria and that the surface had only 3 unconnected provinces, we even knew about the Silent Realm as well as enemies and new items like the beetle...

The months leading up to SS's release seemed to cover every aspect of the game before any of us played. For me, when i played SS, i was waiting for something new, something that hadn't been reported on. A new province that opened up later on in the game? Hidden skills? New characters? Entertaining sequences like dueling with enemies or fellow knights on your Loftwing....

But no we got nothing and in the end i was wholly disappointed that SS had no tricks up its sleeve, whereas TP and even WW seemed to keep a little back and to itself that it presented the gamer with later on, but SS didn't do that at all for me..


Soo the question is.. was there too much prerelease reporting on SS? did the amount of articles and previews in magazines spoil it for you?

Would you prefer less material written on the next Zelda game before its release?

Discuss.

 

[Big Octo]

Yeah, it's hard to argue that a grand deal of information was disclosed before the release of SS. However, I didn't follow all of it, so of course some things were new to me, like a few characters, overworld content, and what really went on in the Silent Realm. Nonetheless, I read up on much more spoiling content than I had before on any Zelda title. Hopefully not as much content will be revealed pre-release of Zelda WiiU or 3Ds, and if it is, I'll try to stray away from it. Keyword try, as it's very hard to on a Zelda forum.

 

[Dan]

I find a lot of games now are covered like crazy. People are so demanding it's not just limited to skyward sword. You should see all the information released on Pokemon, the new worms games etc, there are lots. Of course some developers don't always do this. I feel it was wrong of Nintendo to show so much of the game like that. At the end of the day it's up to you not to look at spoilers.

 

[surferguy7]

The release information on Skyward Sword was very limited during the early periods. We had to wait from E3 2010 to GDC just to get a new trailer. After E3 2011 we had a decent idea as to what the entire game was going to be like. The info really started to roll in September --> November up until the release.

Did they release too much info? Yeah, I guess. The Romance and Harp trailers were very nice additions, but they really shouldn't have given us trailers for each location in the game.

 

[Terminus]

I like to be surprised. I don't want it spoiled, and it will only be worse on the forums.

 

[JuicieJ]

A lot of info was released, but I feel they did a good job in not intentionally making an insane amount of hype like they did with Twilight Princess. Any and all over-the-top hype came from wild fan imaginations if you ask me.

 

[Ventus]

Too much information was released, but suffering from that surge of info is wholly the players' fault -- reading spoilers and all that is on you for the most part. That said, whether I played SS without reading the text dump or not, I doubt my opinion of it would've changed.

 

[A Link In Time]

There was definitely an overload of prerelease info with respect to Skyward Sword. After E3 2011 I felt as though much of the title was still shrouded in mystery but then Nintendo pulled the plug big time. All of the races were revealed ahead of the game's release as well as most of the bosses including Demise himself! This was a bit excessive. Some of the finer elements were excluded such as Batreaux actually lacking malicious intentions or Zelda being the goddess Hylia but Nintendo essentially handed players the game's entire narrative prior to release. Unwarranted leaks are understandable but for a company to spoil its own game for the most part is ridiculous. Nintendo should tone down the amount of information leading up to the releases of Zelda 3DS and Wii U and like Big Octo I aim to evade major spoilers this time around.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

i think another big problem is trying to restrain yourself from knowing every single piece of information on the game available
as for me,i stopped watching anything of skyward sword after the romance trailer....yet i was STILL disappointed :S

[my expectations skyrocketed after i saw miyamoto's walkthrough]

 

[SNOlink]

Now that you mention it, I felt pretty much the same way. There were no real surprises for me with the exception of the final boss.

 

[HyruleLove]

YES! THIS is how I exactly feel. I was waiting for a surprising moment, incident, character, SOMETHING we werent already told. They definitely killed SS that way, and maybe why thats why I have these mixed feelings about it. I dont think its a bad game, but it wasnt what I had expected. This pin points everything I feel, well, almost everything.

 

[JuicieJ]

Just a question. Why are so many people saying the lack of a surprise in terms of gameplay is a bad thing? We were told what to expect from the gameplay and were given it. I'd say that's much better than being surprised by something. We wouldn't know what the crap it was. The anticipation of getting to use something new is what gets me ready for a game, not being in the dark wondering what the gameplay features will be like. Just curious as to the reasoning, not saying my way is law.

 

[Ventus]

Just a question. Why are so many people saying the lack of a surprise in terms of gameplay is a bad thing? We were told what to expect from the gameplay and were given it. I'd say that's much better than being surprised by something. We wouldn't know what the crap it was. The anticipation of getting to use something new is what gets me ready for a game, not being in the dark wondering what the gameplay features will be like. Just curious as to the reasoning, not saying my way is law.

Well, when they tell you the ins and outs of how the game'll work, you're not having a first time experience when you first get around to playing the game; you already have a gist of how things work so all it comes down to is conditioning yourself for muscle memory. You don't get the same feeling; it's like having the story of an AWESOME work being spoiled for you then reading it versus reading it without spoilers. The feeling is taken away.

 

[Brandikins]

I can definitely agree with this. They simply revealed too much before release. Past Zelda games have not released nearly as much info before release, but maybe it was because of motion controls, I don't know. On the other hand, no one is forcing you to see the information. It's the user's choice to take a break from sites such as this to not see any information.

 

[biggoron_sword]

I told myself at right after they released the subtitle of the game that I would not look at any spoiler. I did come across an avatar/signature portraying Demise accidentally, but as far as I know, they didn't release too much. I know they did, but I don't like telling myself that only because I didn't pay any attention to that kind of stuff.