Breath of the Wild Tech Demo Vs Actual Style

[Justac00lguy]

Of course this was going to come up at some stage I mean how could it not? It's quite similar, in a way, back to the Spaceworld 2000 tech demo of a realistic-ish Zelda title, but the actual reveal was very contrasting to what the mass amount of fans expected and I guess it's the same case here.

I think it was 2011(?) when the tech demo was shown, and much like what I referenced before, it showed a more realistic looking Zelda title for the first time in HD; however fast forward three years later and the finished product is very different to what a lot of people expected they'd see. The question I have to ask now is what visual style do you prefer? Were you in anyway disappointed with the final product in comparison to what could have been?

 

[VitaTempusN92]

I personally love both art-styles. However, it would have been better if they went with a more "different" "unseen" art-style that Aonuma supposedly had suggested so I find it unfortunate to see that he lied and we're getting a SS + Xenoblade Chronicles style for Zelda U instead. I mean, if I wanted to play a game with similar art-style to Zelda U, all I have to is play either SS (a game I already played and beaten) or XC.

 

[niteporter]

I never really expected the style to be like in the tech demo. It sure looked like a lot of polygons, but there wasn't anything new about it. I was bored actually.

Twilight Princess taught me a lesson. I was really looking forward playing this game ever since its unveiling at the e3 in 2004. Because it looked so cool. While playing it I was really disappointed, graphics weren't that great artistically and the game play felt old-fashioned. I missed the quirkiness, the exaggerated game play and unexpected graphical choices all the previous iterations had in my opinion (except for Midna!). I understood what Nintendo meant, when they said, the graphical style needs to represent the game play directly.

After Twilight Princess I was sure about what kind of game play I want in a Zelda game. A fitting visual interpretation of this kind of game play would be bright, fluid, artistically interesting and full of life. This new style of Zelda Wii U looks so promising in my opinion! High quality (I am a huge HD fan), quirky an really beautiful! Couldn't ask for more, actually!

 

[Ver-go-a-go-go]

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't disappointed when I found out that Zelda Wii U featured yet another SS-esque art style. I didn't see the infamous Spaceworld 2000 trailer back in the day, since I barely knew what the internet was, I obviously had no way to access the content. But I think I can now fully appreciate the disappointment that came when the next 3D Zelda game was announced and it was absolutely nothing like what we had seen previously.

Now, please understand that I'm not knocking the quality of WW, SS, and now Zelda Wii U. This conversation isn't about how good those games actually are; it's about how they look. And as shallow as that may be, we live in a gaming world where technical prowess when it comes to visuals is one of the biggest factors when it comes to if your game will actually sell or not.

Having said that, I thought the tech demo back in 2011 was gorgeous. It did have the TP style, sure, but everything just looked so much better than what TP could ever offer. You could tell that the shading methods that Zelda seems to be all about these days had been applied, but that WW and SS clearly weren't the inspiration. Whereas 3D Zelda from now on will clearly be based in what WW founded for whatever reason I can't understand, this demo offered a look into just how great a Zelda game would look if they opted against another rainbow-blast art style with extreme emphasis on bright colors. People always seem to think that bright = beautiful, but this tech demo showed that not everything HAD to be bright in order to look attractive. Untrue criticisms of TP being "nothing but brown" didn't apply to this demo, and since we were seeing Zelda in HD for the first time, it looked absolutely spectacular.

But honestly, no matter how much I hoped..... I already knew when I saw it for the first time that this was all we'd be seeing of it. All it took for me was a single floating quote that said "this isn't necessarily what Zelda Wii U will look like" to arrive at that conclusion. I really don't know how I already knew, but I think SS as a whole just set it up for me. I was so, so sure that the TP style was going to stay around for a bit when that first SS piece of artwork was revealed (for good reason - that picture was border-line false advertisement, although I understand games in development still change). And when it turned out that the piece of artwork in question looked nothing like the actual game, THAT'S when my disappointment hit an entirely new level, because I just downright hate how SS looks (moreso than WW, even). I think I accepted right there that, for some reason, there's just some kind of fetish with the Zelda developers when it comes to what WW started, and they have no intention of ever changing that besides the one-off TP.

If you love the style, that's fine, more power to you. But as someone who's first Zelda games were OoT and MM, and whose favorite game in the series is TP, I'm just so sad that we're staying on this path from now on. I accepted when we saw the first SS trailer that my expectations and original interpretations of the Zelda series, a series that would get a bit darker and cooler like OoT and TP in contrast to SO MANY OTHER colorful Nintendo franchises like Mario, Kirby, Pokemon, Yoshi (the list goes on), just didn't apply anymore to the modern Zelda series.

That's fine, I'll play the games and hopefully have fun with them from a gameplay perspective. But as for ever being a truly unique EXPERIENCE that I can envelop myself in and never forget, instead of just another fun game? Zelda isn't the series for that when it comes to the factors I hold in high esteem, unfortunately.

 

[niteporter]

Yeah, it seems as if Ver-go-a-go-go and me are on opposite sites of the spectrum in this case. But I have to say this: In my perception this new style is more similar to Ocarina of Time then Twilight Princess is to Ocarina of Time. OoT isn't that "realistic", it just had realistic body size ratios.

 

[Dio]

If you think they could make an open world game look like that tech demo then you are sorely mistaken.
The reason Zelda U uses the style it does rather than the tech demo look is so that the console will be able to cope rendering the entire world at once. I very much like the tech demo look, but there would be lots of loading screens for something like that. I recon if they actually made TP HD they would be able to pull that sort of look off since it is a more linear segmented game.

Zelda U looks good to me, I'd say it's got an animeish style and I do love me a good anime. I was disappointed when SS was unveiled because it was pretty hideous. This new game however looks stunning, it's been made for a system which is powerful enough to make the art style effective.

Disappointed? Me? Definitely not.

 

[Ver-go-a-go-go]

Yeah, it seems as if Ver-go-a-go-go and me are on opposite sites of the spectrum in this case. But I have to say this: In my perception this new style is more similar to Ocarina of Time then Twilight Princess is to Ocarina of Time. OoT isn't that "realistic", it just had realistic body size ratios.

I actually tried my hardest not to say the word "realistic" once in my post, because of several reasons, including common misconceptions of what that type of "realism" is and differing interpretations about what "realism" is in the scope of Zelda games.

I don't think any Zelda game reaches "realistic" levels when compared to other series in gaming. What I do think, however, is that OoT and this new style are most definitely not similar in a meaningful manner. When I think of OoT's art style, I always think back to the starting level - Kokiri Forest and the Great Deku Tree. Both of these sections look like a real forest could look. Yes, it's somewhat murky, but it boasts dark green visuals that give off the vibe this is, indeed, a lush forest. The Deku Tree looks what I image the inside of a hollow tree to look like - a brownish feel with various living organisms, spider webs, the likes. TP does the same thing for the most part, with convincing visuals when it comes to staring over a vast desert, or looking over an enormous snow-covered mountain. No, these games aren't "realistic", which is why I try to avoid the term, but rather they look "convincing". In other words, I would believe that what the game is presenting to me is what these locations would look like should I get to see them in real life.

This new teaser trailer we got is not that at all, hence why I currently think the similarities to OoT and TP are minimal. Everything is, once again, overly bright and colorful, constantly bashing me over the head with "unique" visuals and character designs that I wouldn't believe could actually exist in any shape, form or fashion under any circumstances.

Whether or not you think that's a good thing or not is where personal opinions come into play, but I still firmly believe we have two different camps (OoT, MM, and TP as opposed to WW, SS, and Zelda Wii U).

 

[Salem]

I liked the actual style more.

Also, just because the world seems bright and colourful, that doesn't mean we won't ever see scary, dark and gritty areas...

 

[Mangachick14]

I personally much prefer the actual art-style they went with immensely. The demo looked like TP, and I find TP's palette (Not the actual character models, just to be clear) to be pretty ugly and dull for the most part. To me, it's even more dreary than real life, and I just find it unpleasant to look at. I'm pretty happy with the way Zelda WiiU looks, though I think some of the bloom could be toned-down a tad.

 

[niteporter]

When I think of OoT's art style, I always think back to the starting level - Kokiri Forest and the Great Deku Tree. Both of these sections look like a real forest could look. Yes, it's somewhat murky, but it boasts dark green visuals that give off the vibe this is, indeed, a lush forest. The Deku Tree looks what I image the inside of a hollow tree to look like - a brownish feel with various living organisms, spider webs, the likes. TP does the same thing for the most part, with convincing visuals when it comes to staring over a vast desert, or looking over an enormous snow-covered mountain. No, these games aren't "realistic", which is why I try to avoid the term, but rather they look "convincing". In other words, I would believe that what the game is presenting to me is what these locations would look like should I get to see them in real life.

This new teaser trailer we got is not that at all, hence why I currently think the similarities to OoT and TP are minimal. Everything is, once again, overly bright and colorful, constantly bashing me over the head with "unique" visuals and character designs that I wouldn't believe could actually exist in any shape, form or fashion under any circumstances.

This is - again - a matter of opinion. I don't have any problems being convinced by those leafs and trees in the trailer. And those lightning effects! But I guess you need to "like" a style in order to feel immersed into a gaming world. Guess I'm lucky.

Ganonking is right on a technical level. The tech demo graphics wouldn't work on a world as open as this one is probably gonna be. And the contrast will be much bigger, when those dark and gritty parts of the game will be shown to us.

 

[Link18]

i prefer the actual art style and didn't expect it to be realistic like the tech demo they said it was only a tech demo and didn't represent zelda wii u at all

 

[Terminus]

The tech demo looked like a very good, HD fntasy game that pleased the eye:

Knowing Zeldas history of ditching realistic-looking games in favor of overstylization, I personally was hoping for something like the link we got (will be getting) in SSB4:

Instead, we get the illegitimate child of SS and TWW:

Honestly, this is how SS should have looked instead of the 480p game we got on the Wii.

 

[Ver-go-a-go-go]

This is - again - a matter of opinion. I don't have any problems being convinced by those leaves and trees in the trailer. And those lightning effects! But I guess you need to "like" a style in order to feel immersed into a gaming world. Guess I'm lucky.

I mean, "immersion" and what I'm interpreting as "believable" are two different things. I don't think that, given experiences in the real world and the beauty that real-life nature gives, you could possibly think that the style it presents could directly correlate to what said location would actually be like. Watching the teaser once more, I find that just the shading and lighting gives everything an air of being far too bright and contrasting to be believable in the slightest, as no type of horse, for example, I've ever seen is similar to what it presents. I do understand that it's possible for some people to be fully immersed in entertainment mediums that feature over-the-top styles, and that's great if you do, but it seems like such a stretch to call this style "OoT-esque" or the buzzword "realistic" (that I hate using, by the way).

Ganonking is right on a technical level. The tech demo graphics wouldn't work on a world as open as this one is probably gonna be.

I was actually about to mention that - Do we have absolutely any way of knowing that? It seems like an extreme assumption to me, that the Wii U couldn't take that tech demo on a massive scale. The Wii U is more powerful than the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 4, and those consoles games handled large, open areas just fine while maintaining a graphical finesse that was well received by the vast majority of the gaming community. Unless you get a developer quote or something, I'm going to have to say that there's nothing backing this assumption up other than what others who haven't actually developed a game before perceive based on just a few minutes of gameplay/footage.

And the contrast will be much bigger, when those dark and gritty parts of the game will be shown to us.

Again, people are fundamentally misunderstanding the opposite view here that I'm trying to convey. I'm not looking for "dark, gritty" Zelda, and TP wasn't all about "dark, gritty" visuals. What I do want, however, is an art style that can maintain both colorful visuals and an artistic flair that can immerse a player based on the correlation he or she can create through experiences in their actual lives. It doesn't have to be exact, nor does it have to stay faithful to it 100% of the time.

 

[DarkestLink]

If Link didn't look like such a girl, I wouldn't have any preference. Buuut....yeah, I'd rather have the Tech Demo. And honestly, his hair isn't the biggest issue, though it doesn't help. The real issue is that his face just looks so feminine.

It looks like Nintendo's slowly but surely getting backed into a corner by their fanbase to use the realistic graphics. First they try to make an in between of TP and tWW's graphic styles, which is unsuccessful, then they try to see if Wind Waker has become popular yet, that failed, and now they're doing a middle ground between TP and SS's graphics.

I don't think Zelda U is going to do very well, so my prediction is that the next 3D Zelda after will have graphics between TP and Zelda U...which sounds kinda nice actually. And if that too fails, depending on Nintendo's finances, they might go back to the realistic style. Even then though, I think they'll try to make it as bright as possible.

 

[niteporter]

What I do want, however, is an art style that can maintain both colorful visuals and an artistic flair that can immerse a player based on the correlation he or she can create through experiences in their actual lives. It doesn't have to be exact, nor does it have to stay faithful to it 100% of the time.

I happen to have problems understanding your point of view. The one correlation I created between the Zelda games and real life experiences is a childish desire for adventures: discovering a cave through the eyes of a child, growing to be a hero of some kind. Other then that, I couldn't think of too many similarities. For example, I'm not religious, but I can enjoy those stories about goddesses and whatnot, immersing myself. This is fantasy, right? No need for too many elements borrowed from actual lives.