Hyrule Field

I was very pleased with Twilight Princess, but one thing that I felt was slightly disappointing was the fact that "Hyrule Field" was partitioned by visual and physical blockades along with load screens.

Wind Waker was able to capture a fairly seamless and expansive sea-scape, but only due to the nature of the islands and their distance from one another. I don't know if Twilight Princess Hyrule Field was partitioned because of Hardware limitations, or for the progression of the quest. Probably both.

The Gamecube was able to run the game "Gun" quite well. The landscape in Gun was much bigger (maybe up to 10x as big) than Hyrule Field OOT, and it was all quite seamless, with no load screens.

I'd like to see a Hyrule field more like OOT and Gun in the next Zelda Title.

Good point.

I'm not graphics expert, but it was probably easier to program that way... but you're right, they have the capacity to make a seamless overworld.

I think the visual and physical blockades were definitively to add to the quest, and the exploring. Unlike WW witch was pretty much: go anywhere you want anytime.

Well in my opinion TP did a good job with Hyrule Field, although I do agree that there were alot of partitions. Some of the sections are so cut off from one another that they barely seem like they should be considered the same field.

However the size was nice, and at least the barriers looked quite natural and in some cases were fun to resolve, such as the Bridge of Eldin (although, note to Ninty, the whole "line of identical bombable boulders blocking the way" gimmick is getting old ...Who am I kidding, it's become a staple of the series now haha). My biggest problem with HF is that it's so devoid of things to do and people to see... although the same can be said for the majority of the game.

Yeah! a big field with a lot of secrets!

Does Hyrule Field really matter? You don't actually do much there except for chasing Ganon and that Goblin dude.

it is not that important but in a game all aspects should be great

Instead of having a partitioned hyrule field they should have hyrule field and the other sections with unique names, how can 4 barely connected areas of land be considered the same field? You got a point there. Plus I was to see Lake Hylia, and ANOTHER lake etc.

Love it how in TP there is Death Mountain AND Snowpeak, we need more then one mountain, more then one desert, more then one main city etc. etc.!

The reason for TP's broken field is because Nintendo didn't want Link to explore too far, so they blocked paths to keep the player in line. Zelda games do this a lot but I guess it's recently becoming a bad thing?

The Wind Waker's ocean was one huge loadscreen. Maybe people don't realize this but the reason it seems so seamless is because islands and everything are loading as you sail closer to them. Which is pretty clever, unless you hate it when things pop out of nowhere in the distance. =D The ocean had no way of blocking Link's exploration path so the King of Red Lions did it for it. Which is pretty annoying.

I think if a Field wants to be seamless and open it should learn from TWW's way of loading things. But with the Wii's power maybe it could simply make a strong overworld without any tricks.

SotC easily did constant loading with a huge detailed overworld, and that was on PS2. Wii's power isn't restricting them that much, they just need to find a better way to make it work.

Originally Posted by Zeldablue777

The Wind Waker's ocean was one huge loadscreen. Maybe people don't realize this but the reason it seems so seamless is because islands and everything are loading as you sail closer to them. Which is pretty clever, unless you hate it when things pop out of nowhere in the distance. =D The ocean had no way of blocking Link's exploration path so the King of Red Lions did it for it. Which is pretty annoying.

The islands in TWW don't pop out of nowhere, they appear gradually from beyond the horizon. If you're far from the Tower of the Gods for example, all you see is the top. Anyway, the system is indeed clever, the islands only load properly once you're close enough, and you don't even notice it's loading anything. It would be great if they could get it to work on a field too.

Hyrule Field should have more stuff in it. Things to do and find, people, or something. It's usually just empty, with a few random monsters. Meh.

Originally Posted by TheDarkLord

Does Hyrule Field really matter? You don't actually do much there except for chasing Ganon and that Goblin dude.

Which was exactly my point in my post: we need more things to do You know you're in trouble when the most exciting thing in the field for most of the game are Bulblins with fire arrows.

i dont think they really need a specific hyrule field area anymore. just a bunch of provinces situated in the georgraphic area of the hyrule fields. that way, it would actually make up animportant part of the story etc. not just a path to the next important area.

hyrule field needs to be free adventuring with maybe like a mountain range or forest in the way. not designated paths >.> and towns witH people in em. and maybe more like you know towns? not even towns just like lil villages or a group of travellers who are trying to get from town to town. something interactive in that stupid field....although i do miss running away from peahats and stal childs XD

Originally Posted by Labrynian Rebel

Love it how in TP there is Death Mountain AND Snowpeak, we need more then one mountain, more then one desert, more then one main city etc. etc.!

Speaking of Snowpeak, what a waste of an area I found it. All you do is the main quest and some snowboarding there. I personally expected much more of such a beautiful place. The potential.

Hyrule Field in TP was nice in my opinion, but I wouldn't have said no to a little smaller field packed with more content. Also, having a seamless field would also have been much better.

By the way, was I the only one that expected to find a farm around there? A little hard for me not to since the game was obviously very inspired by OoT.

I wasn't, because you start the game doing stuff at Ordon ranch. It felt like the new version of Lon Lon to me, so I didn't expect to see another.

Personally, I'd rather go back to the old days of Zelda when there was no Hyrule Field, just the Hylian landscape. One that was loaded with lakes, ponds, rivers, and miniature forested areas.

Originally Posted by The Great Panda

Personally, I'd rather go back to the old days of Zelda when there was no Hyrule Field, just the Hylian landscape. One that was loaded with lakes, ponds, rivers, and miniature forested areas.

i agree
but i would still like some hyrule field style big grassy areas

Originally Posted by TheDarkLord

Does Hyrule Field really matter? You don't actually do much there except for chasing Ganon and that Goblin dude.

Hyrule Field is the largest area of the overworld, and therefore, it's where most of the exploration takes place. An expansive Hyrule Field is important to a Zelda game.

When there is a large Hyrule Field, yes, a good amount of exploration happens there (not most). When there isn't, that doesn't mean the exploration is no longer there, it's just distributed elsewhere. Only a few Zelda games even had a Hyrule Field.


But yeah, I want a world that's more connected in the next game, not areas surrounded by rock walls and connected by narrow paths. I'd like it if they could take the type of overworld design 2D Zelda had, which is basically a giant square where everything connects, and adapt it to 3D. Like if SotC's map was smaller and had towns and roadblocks and more variety in its areas. Not roadblocks in the way TP had them, like 53 missing bridges that you can replace as soon as you get to them. I want parts you can't cross for realistic reasons, like you can't cross a river without flippers, for instance. Stuff where you wonder if you really can get to the other side eventually, and you have to remember that place when you get a new item.

I think the Gameboy Zeldas actually did that best.

It's quite hard to make a Zelda game with no boundaries. The disk and the game would have to take so much memory and the gameplay story itself would be HUGE.

I personally found the fields around Hyrule to be quite massive and I liked areas where you could see the bridge above lake Hylia etc.

There was so much more to travelling across the lands than that of OoT.

Play OoT for an hour and then play TP. You shall not be disappointed and you will notice the massive difference.