How Nintendo Land’s Zelda: Battle Quest Works

Posted on June 05 2012 by ralphpotato

If you kept up with Nintendo’s conference at E3 earlier today or checked out the news here at Zelda Dungeon recently, you would have noticed the one mention of a Zelda related game in the new Nintendo Land. Not much was shown during the keynote, so Kotaku took some time to try out the demo and captured some gameplay for us to see. He goes into detail about the first official high definition Zelda themed title. Hit the jump for more information and to check out some videos.

Poster

If you would like to see the video, head on over to the post on Kotaku here.

The basic premise of The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest is you play as your Mii dressed in Link’s garb and you must complete the level. During Nintendo’s roundtable, it was confirmed that both a single-player and multiplayer experience are going to be available. As you will be able to see from the video, the player with the Wii U GamePad is an archer, and the player(s) with Wii Remotes wield swords.

As one of the purposes of the game is to show off the Wii U’s new features as well as the interaction between the GamePad and the regular Wii Remotes, you will notice the player using the GamePad utilizes the screen on the controller to play the game. The other players use the television screen, though the GamePad’s screen is mirrored on the television as well.

In Kotaku’s video, Stephen Totilo describes some of the mechanics of the game and the way the GamePad works. First, as the archer, the player moves the GamePad around to aim, and uses the right control stick to fire an arrow (by pulling back and releasing the stick). By moving around, the player might start facing away from the television screen too much and if this is a problem to the player, the left control stick can freely move the direction of the screen. Additionally, the archer has to reload every once in awhile; this is achieved by holding the controller parallel to the floor.

In the game, all of the players, archer and swordsmen/women alike work together to complete the level. Though the people with the swords seem to be taking out most of the enemies, the archer provides backup and is necessary to move on to other parts of the level. This is done by shooting two small shapes near the door to unlock it. Also, the entire team shares a collective bank of hearts, so it is important to give support to the other players whilst trying to beat the level.

Finally, Stephen Totilo talks about how impressed he was with the graphics and stating that this was really the first time an official Nintendo title was in high definition. You will probably not be able to tell from the video, however the Miis in-game are textured with a fabric look, “stitching” was the word he used in the video. This move to the better quality gaming will definitely give Nintendo’s games a boost.

The last thing to mention is the possibility of Nintendo Land being bundled with the Wii U, much like how Wii Sports is bundled with the Wii. This idea was talked about during Nintendo’s roundtable earlier, though nothing was confirmed. If you’re looking for more footage of Battle Quest check below for some more videos!

You can hear a “Dark World Theme” remix (from A Link to the Past), though it is likely this is background music and not from the game being shown on screen.