Breath of the Wild What if Zelda U had an ingame journal / log?

[the8thark]

We all know Wind Waker and Minish Cap and their figurine collectathons. What if Zelda U has something similar. But done in a whole different way.

This would be a log or ingame journal of sorts. Think similar to the Metroid Prime scan log. Link would add log entries in every time he first

• kills a monster
• chats to an NPC
• does an event
• looks at something new
• etc etc

This would serve the same purpose as the figurine collectathons in the past but would not be a chore to get them. You'd slowly get them as you explore the game.

This would remove the tedious treck to hand the pictographs in or gambling with seashells but with the same end result of the game's content collated in a nice easy to understand and interesting format.
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[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

Something like the bombers notebook but applied to a lot of things besides preset NPCs? Sounds interesting.

 

[ihateghirahim]

Coukd be a sweet use of the gamepad

 

[Lauriferous]

This is a great idea, not to mention it'd be extremely helpful.

 

[the8thark]

Something like the bombers notebook but applied to a lot of things besides preset NPCs?

Kind of. It'd be more like Wind Waker's figurines. But instead of taking a photo and handing it in, you'd just have to kill the monster or that to the NPC or visit the location or inspect the thing and you'd automatically get a journal entry describing it in detail. In your journal you can read anytime.

Eliminating all the photo taking and handing on or gambling (like in Minish Cap).

 

[AncientPoe]

I'm sort of divided on this. On the one hand, I think the creation of some sort of journal or travelogue is pretty cool, but on the other hand I feel like it makes Link suddenly turn into an irritating blogger, writing a line or two about every little thing. It's a silly grievance, but I can't help feeling it. What if instead of having a journal entry for every single thing, the journal entry was created as one big entry at the end of every daytime cycle (so, onset of evening or night) using a sentence generator that more or less put in the same sentences (with perhaps slight differences based on things like items held or health at the time of a fight) that encompassed everything that happened in that day cycle. Then as players read other player's journals, they would end up somewhat different from each other, telling a story of each person's own unique play experience. For instance, one portion of an entry may look like this from two different players.

one who had an easy time with a boss:
"Today I ran across the boss of the Fire Temple. I quickly spotted his weakness. I was able to bring him down without too much trouble."

and one who had to use a fairy:
"Today I ran across the boss of the Fire Temple. It was much stronger than I thought it would be. If it wasn't for the equipment I carried with me, I might not have made it! (But let's not tell Zelda that, she only worries.)"

 

[AncientPoe]

Plus, to me this idea smacks as a "collect a journal entry for every monster in the game" style collectathon and I just really don't want to do that again. There are so many games that have done this, it doesn't feel epic or cool anymore, it just feels like a chore.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

I agree with Salesman. I'd prefer it to be more like the bombers notebook to help us keep track of what sidequests need doing and who's been helped. Especially in big, big world like that.

 

[Jeffers]

I'm not sure I like this idea. Whenever I play games that have those (Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XIII come to mind) I find myself just clicking through those to get rid of the little notifications. Something more like the Bombers' Notebook might be a good way to go though.

 

[the8thark]

I'm not sure I like this idea. Whenever I play games that have those (Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XIII come to mind) I find myself just clicking through those to get rid of the little notifications. Something more like the Bombers' Notebook might be a good way to go though.

Think of it more like the Metroid Prime journal. I guess you could compare it to the WW pictographs too. But you'd never have to hand in the pictographs as the information is automatically put in the journal. Also you would have a game option so you can choose if you want notifications everytime to "scan" or look at or use something and get a journal entry. If you hate seeing noticifations for every one all the tiime you can just turn them all off. Problem solved.

 

[Ronin]

This sounds identical to the quest system in Xenoblade. There's a folder under the "journal" directory that lets you keep track of quests completed or underway. The whole "defeat Monster X" and "chat with NPC X" was implemented in a great way to invest countless more hours into the game, apart from an already lengthy story. I'd love to have something similar to this in Zelda U, optional quests to complement the story and stimulate exploration.

It's not just small additions like this, Nintendo could learn a whole slew of innovations from Monolith Soft.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

This sounds identical to the quest system in Xenoblade. There's a folder under the "journal" directory that lets you keep track of quests completed or underway. The whole "defeat Monster X" and "chat with NPC X" was implemented in a great way to invest countless more hours into the game, apart from an already lengthy story. I'd love to have something similar to this in Zelda U, optional quests to complement the story and stimulate exploration.

It's not just small additions like this, Nintendo could learn a whole slew of innovations from Monolith Soft.

They used to do sonething like that with Pokemon. It would have a vid of some of the stuff you did when you turned the game back on.

 

[the8thark]

This sounds identical to the quest system in Xenoblade. There's a folder under the "journal" directory that lets you keep track of quests completed or underway. The whole "defeat Monster X" and "chat with NPC X" was implemented in a great way to invest countless more hours into the game, apart from an already lengthy story. I'd love to have something similar to this in Zelda U, optional quests to complement the story and stimulate exploration.

It's not just small additions like this, Nintendo could learn a whole slew of innovations from Monolith Soft.

I get what your saying and that would work amazingly in ZeldaU.

What my original idea here is though, is exactly the same as the Diablo 3 journal. It's not a quest planner or organiser. It's more like a world of Hyrule encyclopedia where whenever you kill something or talk to something or use something it's encyclopedia entry would be automatically added in. Imagine WW figurines. But if all the enemy ones you only had to kill them to get the figurine. No taking the pictograph, no handing the pictograph in. Just kill the monster and boom you get the figurine (or journal entry in this case). For NPCs, just chat to them and boom their journal entry is there.

 

[Dio]

It could be similar to the Witcher 3's journal.
Every monster you meet gets added and the information about its origins, habitats and weaknesses are added.

This is the same with a character and as you progress in the story, more is added to their character profile.

I would really like to see something like this in Zelda U.

 

[AncientPoe]

It could be similar to the Witcher 3's journal.
Every monster you meet gets added and the information about its origins, habitats and weaknesses are added.

This is the same with a character and as you progress in the story, more is added to their character profile.

I would really like to see something like this in Zelda U.

yeah but not the weaknesses though. I like finding those out myself. That's one thing Zelda games have almost always done well, is make a lot of obscure weaknesses to random items for many of the enemies. Like bombs/hammer against Chu Chus in Wind Waker, or the Captain's Hat against Igos and his crew, or any one of the undead masks against redeads, or the forward stab against Stalfos in Ocarina. I love the little intricacies.