@Fleet Admiral Lee Hung @TheKnightOfTheSea @playa4321 @Steven @Buusatan94 @Cross_Marian @Owl Ki @Garp the Fist
I tagged everyone who showed interests to the sequel so I'll write my thoughts about an important part of the game.
The Beginning of The Legend of Zelda - Breath of the Wild 2
In this speculation, I'll talk about the exact beginning of the game, when Link wakes up, how the game starts, first short tutorials, the progression till the first dungeon - if traditional dungeons are a thing again - when we go further until the game reached the point of the first trailer: Zombie Ganondorf's comeback.
All Zelda games have something in common: Link ALWAYS wakes up when the game begins. Be it Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, Majora's Mask (okay, it's just partially there), Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword (hell, Link basically foresaw the FUTURE in his dream).
What did we see in the current trailer? At the beginning, we saw scenes which rather show a vision - perhaps short moments what Link foresaw in his dreams. And here he saw Zelda falling to the abyss.
But in which scene could Link wake up from the dream?
First of all, at the end of BotW, Zelda stated that Vah Ruta stopped working:
(4:15 min)
Since Vah Ruta has stopped working, Zelda and Link looked up for the cause of this technical defect, yet they found nothing. Being wondering why it's like that, they found information how to find the cause of this, so they went at the south, straight to the Lurelin Village in which they are supposed to find out more stuff.
Inbetween the travel, Link had this dream, wakes up at the back of the animal - which we see in the first trailer - and that's how the game could begin. Btw, Link will be worried at first but the attention still goes to the cause of Vah Ruta, so he'll forget it at first.
For newcomers, we'll go through a short tutorial in which a squad of bokoblins suddenly attack us. While they introduce us with some stuff from the old gameplay, this tutorial will also show more stuff, ie more combat capacities and perhaps a new weapon system at the start. Link (We) defeat them and so Link and Zelda advance further till they reached the village.
The ancestors of this village are the Zonai! Instead of finding out the cause of Vah Ruta's sudden defect, the villagers told them that they will find the answers in the Spring of Courage (Lake region). They built a temple around the Spring of Courage, named:
Temple of the Forgotten Zonai.
But now, "
why exactly THIS place?" - Easily, look at the pictures:
The architecture Zonai ruins; and the huge dragon head, in which the Spring of Courage is at, reeks like a
real dungeon entrance, I mean, just look at THIS:
Of course in BotW behind the Spring of Courage, there is just a small entrance to a shrine but the thing is, the dev team can always CHANGE this part. Only because they're re-using the same Hyrule, doesn't mean the map is 1:1, otherwise it'd be too predictable.
Therefore, I expect that they retconned the entrance behind the Spring of Courage to be an actual dungeon entrance.
Furthermore, this dungeon is highly guarded by Lizalfos, is this a coincidence? Considering that the team had to cut lots of stuff during the development of BotW, it's highly likely that they planned to make this location a dungeon actually.
Now in terms of story progression, as Link and Zelda found out the dungeon, this dungeon will reveal lots of hidden secret of the history of Hyrule as well as the history of the Zonai AND the Shiekah. We will find out how the King banished them to exile since they had advanced technology like the Shiekah as well.
The temple will be earth, forest and also dragon themed, with a few fire puzzles. More to that, read below.
Enemies:
- Bokoblins
- Lizalfos (a lot of them actually!)
- Bats
- Return of the Deku Babas (new traditional plant-based enemies)
- Dekus
- Worm-like creature, see below (not mini boss)
- Mini boss: Aeralfos
- Skulltulas
Dungeon puzzles:
- Keys will play an important dungeon progression role again
- Closed doors
- Many ancient mechanics to solve puzzles
- Architecture will have lots of smaller and larger rooms; with very complex labyrinth-like structure
- Big key (for the dungeon boss room)
- Fire-based puzzles for the flamethrower
As for the dungeon itself, I actually think that we already saw how the architecture of the dungeon actually looks like:
- You can see pillars which look similar to the ones in the sky islands during the second trailer
- The dragon-head is possibly the first permanent dungeon item which we get in this game. This item can be attached to any shield and the R button will trigger the flamethrower, obviously with a short cooldown, otherwise it'd be too op
We get to see lots of dragon statues in this location, so the first item being a dragon-head just fits to this theme even further
The worm-like enemy is highly flammable which suggests its weakness. I can imagine how we have to solve lots of puzzles with the dragon-head; ie. burning lots of complex puzzles with roots, hiding mechanics to activate doors or other stuff to progress through the dungeon.
Actually, I also think that the bow will be highly useful there too, either we also get the bow in this dungeon, not against a mini boss, or before we enter this temple.
The progression of the dungeon: It has a main floor and we have to process through 3 basements and throughout the progression, we will defeat the mini boss to attain our first item. The last room is small but you have to jump to the big hole on the ground to fall on a much larger room. That's where you have to fight the boss.
The First Boss of This Game: Ancient Guardian Spirit of the Forest - Zo'zalfos
As I said before, this dungeon is dragon themed and considering how the location of this dungeon is already highly guarded by Lizalfos, I think THIS dungeon boss would fit to the dungeon perfectly:
This creature protects an entrance in this room who will attack any invader; it has protected this place for eons.
Battle strategy:
- Its scales are too hard to be damaged by the sword or other weapons
- Its limps are the guardian's weakness of which you can throw arrows at the weakspots. If you hit all weakspots, its scales will shatter of which the head will be exposed. You have to attack the head with your weapon accordingly
- There are plants, moss and roots around its limps which will prevent you from hitting the weakpoints
- Use the flamethrower, or other fire-based objects like fire arrows (rare), to burn these away
- It'll start to climb to the walls if you burned all that annoying stuff to still prevent you to hit its weakspots; you have to be fast and precise to hit its spots
- Repeat this process a few times, meanwhile the boss will be lot more aggressive by each process, and the boss is defeated
After the boss is defeated, you enter the entrance which will bring you to the underground of the first trailer in which Zelda and Link will find Ganondorf by accident. Progress a bit through parts of the underground and they'll reach Ganondorf's location soon. Link suddenly remembers his vision again - which will be the exact part of the first trailer, perhaps Link actually stops Zelda from falling down? I dunno. Anyway, the vision will take a crucial part to this scene imo.
-----------------------------
Anyway, that's how I think the beginning of the story could go on.
If Nintendo plans to make the plot far more linear in which Link may be restricted to enter some regions at first, the dungeon could be a good way to enter the underground.
Let me know what you guys think of this speculation.
At first, I already know that there might be some contradictions, so don't go too hard on me lol. Lemme just know your thoughts.
BTW, Shadow of the Collosus looks amazing as hell. I hope the dev team took inspirations from this game, especially from the bosses.