I'm about 25 hours in (apparently) and I can say it's going to be very hard going back to older zeldas after this. Looking at them, it's as if they were made in the stone age or something. Pressing one button repeatedly to get link to automatically swing his sword around to try to land hits? My god that's basic compared to this. (Obviously twilight princess was the same, just the button press was changed to remote waggle.) This is entirely different, and not just different, but good and it works, very well. Every single thing that involves the sword is tailor made to suit it, especially the enemies, which are far from easy either. To be honest I wasn't looking forward to the combat all that much, (the combat's never that greatly amazing in zeldas I guess? And it's something different so you never know how it may be before trying it), but this really has evolved the entire gameplay. That sprint mechanic is a god send too. Works very well with the stamina bar. Going to be very hard parting with that when playing previous zeldas too.
Apart from those largely noticeable changes, the parts that make up the zelda formula have so far been done extremely well too. Every nook and cranny exists for a reason, every character has a purpose. There is no filler. 100% of it's been very carefully made to make a zelda very dense with content.
the characters have so much character too, and it does look very beautiful.
The little added RPG like extras and how the game uses sound too are both very awesome.
This is no sequel or average AAA game. This is one polished masterpiece completely evolving the series, all in very good ways so far.
The stuff nintendo have been saying about "not being able to go back to using a button for combat" or "very dense zelda" (or whatever, been reading about the game in Japanese so sorry if my wording's not completely correct there) were spot on. (I wish they didn't introduce/spoil as much as they have done though, although the stuff I have done so far that I've seen in trailers, official site updates and Iwata asks and so on has generally always had more to it making me go ?!?!? when I realise it's not just as simple as what they've made me think from glimpses of it haha.)
I need to buy this (And would have already if the special pack thing wasn't sold out instantaneously everywhere here D: )
Also, the special music CD that comes with it too has to have THE BEST arrangement of zelda music to have ever existed. My god. Anyone that's played zelda needs to listen to that thing.
