As the year slowly closes in on Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's release date (November 23), more facts and features of this stunning looking game are unveiled.
The latest bunch of info comes from both the Japanese press and Nintendo Power magazine.
Length
In an interview with Nintendo Power, Miyamoto
estimates the game's size to be larger than A
Link to the Past and the total play time as "at
least 40 hours". There will
also be more than 40 minutes of in-game cinema
sequences to drive the story forward.
Animation
The EAD development team is making extensive use of
motion capture technology. Scenes such
as Link mounting his horse or opening treasure boxes
accurately reflect the movements of a
real person. For the sword fighting scenes, Nintendo
hired a professional Samurai sword
stun actor from Eiga Mura in Kyoto (an amusement park
with medieval, pre-Meiji settings).
Magic System
One of the few things that isn't finished, Miyamoto
says the plan still calls for magic
spells that can be cast on weapons. For example,
casting a fire spell on the bow will
result in flaming arrows.
Team Size
According to Miyamoto, the Zelda team has been boosted
to around fifty members, Nintendo's
biggest development group ever. Nintendo is also
working with outside coders, pushing the
total number of people working on the game to a
whopping 120. Hopefully, this will help
get the game done in time for this holiday season.
New Attacks
Link also has a new attack which produces blazing
circles of red and blue/ white flame
from the tip of Link's sword. In the original Super
NES Zelda,this circular attack was
available at any time, but in the N64 version, when
you use the special attack, it
depletes your spirit energy bar (the one with the
hearts above it), so you have to be more
judicious in its use. Holding the A button, I believe,
increases the energy of the
attack.
New Enemies
Two new enemies have been introduced in screen-shots
in Japanese magazines, one of them
obviously wanting to get to know Link a little better.
This charming guy's attack appears
to consist of leaping on the hero's back and clawing
at him! Called 're-dead', the
cadaverous foe has had his human form transformed by
magic into a monster which feeds on
the bodily fluids of living things - humans no
exception, which would explain his
attentions to Link. Tasty.
Thanks to ign64.com for all the information.
