Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are both fantastic games - and Tears of the Kingdom really does feel (to me) like they just took Breath of the Wild, and added a few more years of dev time to it.
Where do you think Nintendo will take Zelda from here though? Can they keep with the same new formula? Should they? Will a more traditional game feel disappointing after this?
I don’t really know what I want myself. I think they should try something different though. At the same time, I can’t help but think I’d be disappointed if the next game was more similar to something like Twilight Princess. Have they boxed themselves in?
I’d like to see a tighter Zelda/Link fusion, where Zelda’s time powers are weaved more into Links combat.
A hard game where Link dies and dies and dies, but Zelda keeps rewinding time and bringing him back to life, where he learns from his mistakes (similar to PoP:SoT).
As the game progresses and the combat gets harder, Link gains the ability to slow down time in order to better plan his attacks as they happen. He’s not moving super fast like the Flash when time is slowed, for he is slowed down too, but he can simply react better; dodge a sword by anticipation, plan a jump off an enemy’s head with better timing, turn a dodge under a weapon into an attack in the same stride, all the while preserving his momentum.
By the end of the game, he can literally stop time, and he does so endlessly at the game credits, as its the only way to free Zelda from her time prison. Zelda and Link effectively switch places, and the next game is Zelda trying to free Link