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[Ansatz]

That is a damn grass field, not a city! What do you expect? A crowded field full of people passing by, buildings, monsters and all kinds of stuff flying around?? Seriously, I will never get that "empty spaces" hate...Get out of your room and you will see that in the real world there are plenty of "empty space" around...

You can tell some posters don't really understand where I'm coming from as a gamer. I'm not interested in that sort of experience, I want my games to have a high density of interesting (mechanical) ideas as Blow puts it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwBl7Rnkt78&t=14m55s

Watch for ~60 seconds then pause it and read all the notes, even better go back and watch as he demonstrates this level by verbalising his mental thought process while playing it.

Basically, if I take a screenshot of that area in the gif there would be no bubble to put text in because nothing actually happens, there is nothing about the terrain you can analyze so if you'd hook an instrument to my brain it would read a flat line. I get absolutely no mental stimulation from this scene, it's as if you removed literally every object in that diagram in the video (spikes, movable blocks) and only kept the blocks that act as floor, you would render it a boring and pointless level. That's what this gif represents.

In contrast, every screen in ALBW contains a meaningful gameplay element and I loved how wall merging changed up exploration and how you interact with the world, especially the interplay between the light and dark world. ALBW is amazing because its world is compact so they can fill it to the brim. Generally, the more ideas you can cram into a single 'screen', the better, so that my mind is always busy processing something mechanically interesting. 3D Mario games are the best examples of this game design practice, it's why EAD Tokyo are simply the best. I want Zelda to be a leading example of this style as well. You can call it obstacle course, artificial/gamey environments or whatever but Skyward Sword outdoor areas had the perfect formula: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRd5hd2BlC0&t=2m54s (watch for ~30 seconds)

 

[Kissenkopf]

Judging a game on a 5 second gif.

Do some of you just hope this game will suck?

Of course, because it is from Nintendo. They don't want any Nintendo game to succed and they are afraid of a game which MAYBE has an fantastic overworld which tackles the one of Witcher and Skyrim.
Btw Witcher 3 has a lot of empty spaces too. Where you just run around in a forrest or swamp and the only thing you do in it is killing some monsters but it is still fantstic to walk through it. So the point of a barren overworld is so damn stupid. Every open world game has large fields...otherwise it wouldnt feel very open. -_-

 

[ReyVGM]

Here's a question for you then. If Aonuma's "open world twist" is related to those giant boss monsters showing up in the wild, would that make traversal more fun for you? Maybe there are always signs that something may show up... you feel the earth quake as you're riding and you know something is about to burrow out of the ground or you see a huge shadow begin to cover you and a giant bird is about to swoop down and attack you.

And these events can permanently change the game world- if you're traveling across a bridge over lake Hyrule and a giant lake monster pops up, threatening to destroy the bridge, does that not add a lot of strategy and gameplay to simple traversal? Is that something which would make traversal a lot more palatable to you?

I think that's essentially what Aonuma was trying to get across when discussing that 2014 trailer... and I think it would make empty fields and areas feel more useful and natural- if a giant monster can permanently destroy things in the world you'd want to draw it out to open areas, right?

You know, I would be fine with those overworld bosses as long as they only happen once per boss.

But if I'm going through the field and the same boss that requires me to spend 5 minutes fighting him appears for the 20th time, then that's not going to be fun.

It reminds me of that cave Gohma in Spirit Tracks. It was cool the first time, but after 10 times I was just like "god, I just want to get to the other side".

 

[Skittzo0413]

You can tell some posters don't really understand where I'm coming from as a gamer. I'm not interested in that sort of experience, I want my games to have a high density of interesting (mechanical) ideas as Blow puts it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwBl7Rnkt78&t=14m55s

Watch for ~60 seconds then pause it and read all the notes, even better go back and watch as he demonstrates this level by verbalising his mental thought process while playing it.

Basically, if I take a screenshot of that area in the gif there would be no bubble to put text in because nothing actually happens, there is nothing about the terrain you can analyze so if you'd hook an instrument to my brain it would read a flat line. I get absolutely no mental stimulation from this scene, it's as if you removed literally every object in that diagram in the video (spikes, movable blocks) and only kept the blocks that act as floor, you would render it a boring and pointless level. That's what this gif represents.

In contrast, every screen in ALBW contains a meaningful gameplay element and I loved how wall merging changed up exploration and how you interact with the world, especially the interplay between the light and dark world. ALBW is amazing because its world is compact so they can fill it to the brim. Generally, the more ideas you can cram into a single 'screen', the better, so that my mind is always busy processing something mechanically interesting. 3D Mario games are the best examples of this game design practice, I want Zelda to be a leading example of this style as well. You can call it obstacle course, artificial/gamey environments or whatever but Skyward Sword outdoor areas had the perfect formula: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRd5hd2BlC0&t=2m54s

But like I said, this "scene" is showing you a tiny section of the overworld in any meaningful detail. Probably less than a tenth of a percent, overall. It would take the horse no more than 15-20 seconds to completely traverse this scene.

Mario games have flat sections too, which break up the more interesting platforming sections. This doesn't make the game any worse, in fact it's necessary to cut the levels into different sections and give you a more believable and less annoying obstacle course.

Again, you seem to be pre-judging this game solely based on a few tiny areas we've seen in teaser footage, when Nintendo is well known for showing off very little of the actual interesting areas in a game this far before release.

Think back to the Super Mario 3D World reveal. That was fairly boring and empty, yet the final game had so much of that obstacle course gameplay we know you love.

Going in with preconceived notions based on footage selected specifically to spoil as little of the game as possible is a bad idea.

Edit:

You know, I would be fine with those overworld bosses as long as they only happen once per boss.

But if I'm going through the field and the same boss that requires me to spend 5 minutes fighting him appears for the 20th time, then that's not going to be fun.

It reminds me of that cave Gohma in Spirit Tracks. It was cool the first time, but after 10 times I was just like "god, I just want to get to the other side".

This is a great point, although an easy way around it is to make certain bosses much easier once you find an appropriate item to defeat them with. Like, the beamos-spider from the E3 2014 trailer- if that appears early in the game before you get your "tech arrows" it's much more difficult to defeat, and can wreak a lot more havoc. Then later in the game once you have the right item it can simply be a standard overworld enemy, but still present a danger if you ignore it or don't use the right tactics to fight it.

That's one of the things Dark Souls does really well and Zelda can learn from- every enemy can kill you if you're unprepared or if you don't know how to fight it, but once you get past a certain point they become super easy. Think of the Taurus and Capra demons from DS1, and how they show up as regular enemies later in the game. It gives you a fantastic sense of accomplishment when you can easily dispatch enemies you once considered bosses. OoT had enemies somewhat like that, with the Lizalfos being a miniboss in Dodongo's Cavern (I think). A continuation and refinement of that could make these overworld bosses much more interesting and fun.

 

[primasaurus]

Nintendo giving the middle finger to E3

 

[Ansatz]

But like I said, this "scene" is showing you a tiny section of the overworld in any meaningful detail. Probably less than a tenth of a percent, overall. It would take the horse no more than 15-20 seconds to completely traverse this scene.

Mario games have flat sections too, which break up the more interesting platforming sections. This doesn't make the game any worse, in fact it's necessary to cut the levels into different sections and give you a more believable and less annoying obstacle course.

Again, you seem to be pre-judging this game solely based on a few tiny areas we've seen in teaser footage, when Nintendo is well known for showing off very little of the actual interesting areas in a game this far before release.

Think back to the Super Mario 3D World reveal. That was fairly boring and empty, yet the final game had so much of that obstacle course gameplay we know you love.

Going in with preconceived notions based on footage selected specifically to spoil as little of the game as possible is a bad idea.

I agree that what we've seen so far of Zelda U is a small portion of the full game, but that doesn't mean the area is 'tiny'

I see at least 10 minutes worth of exploration with nothing going on and that in itself is bad. Downtime is alright, but not for minutes. ALBW is my standard, not a single second goes wasted in that game.

But yeah there's nothing more to say about this topic at this point, plus it's only one week left until you're allowed to judge footage of the game.

 

[Skittzo0413]

I agree that what we've seen so far of Zelda U is a small portion of the full game, but that doesn't mean the area is 'tiny'

I see at least 10 minutes worth of exploration with nothing going on and that in itself is bad. Downtime is alright, but not for minutes. ALBW is my standard, not a single second goes wasted in that game.

But yeah there's nothing more to say about this topic at this point, plus it's only one week left until you're allowed to judge footage of the game.

You see 10 minutes worth of traversal in that gif? I'm not talking about those areas in the distance towards the end of the gif- there's no way you can say there is no meaningful content or exploration there- in fact, we see a very small section of hilly grass between a large rock face and a small section of woods- there could be all sorts of content hidden away in that section. I would love to do a frame by frame analysis of this gif to show off how little we actually see in detail but I'm afraid I don't work for Gamexplain.

I guess we agree to disagree about this gif, and we'll see in a week how the rest of the game feels in comparison.

 

[Bony Manifesto]

Here's a question for you then. If Aonuma's "open world twist" is related to those giant boss monsters showing up in the wild, would that make traversal more fun for you? Maybe there are always signs that something may show up... you feel the earth quake as you're riding and you know something is about to burrow out of the ground or you see a huge shadow begin to cover you and a giant bird is about to swoop down and attack you.

And these events can permanently change the game world- if you're traveling across a bridge over lake Hyrule and a giant lake monster pops up, threatening to destroy the bridge, does that not add a lot of strategy and gameplay to simple traversal? Is that something which would make traversal a lot more palatable to you?

I think that's essentially what Aonuma was trying to get across when discussing that 2014 trailer... and I think it would make empty fields and areas feel more useful and natural- if a giant monster can permanently destroy things in the world you'd want to draw it out to open areas, right?

It depends. If they felt like scripted roadblocks to my progress, they'd probably wind me up even more. If some monster destroys a bridge and the only way to get to my destination is to take a long way around, I would not be happy!

Weirdly, I think I'd be more inclined to spend time in the fields if there were more subtle mysteries to uncover. Finding clues to things, maybe finding strange NPCs that may or my not have a purpose. For all the flack they seem to get these days, I think that's something that Bethesda's games do really well: in Skyrim, it's infinitely more rewarding to find a hidden shack in a forest that has some mysterious items in it than it is to trigger a random Dragon attack.

 

[Yonafunu]

I agree that what we've seen so far of Zelda U is a small portion of the full game, but that doesn't mean the area is 'tiny'

I see at least 10 minutes worth of exploration with nothing going on and that in itself is bad. Downtime is alright, but not for minutes. ALBW is my standard, not a single second goes wasted in that game.

But yeah there's nothing more to say about this topic at this point, plus it's only one week left until you're allowed to judge footage of the game.

Exploration is meaningless if everything is already out in the open. The point of exploration is finding things that might initally be hidden.

When you look at that gif you might see a boring open 'empty' field. I see a bunch of trees that might contain a secret cave, a bunch of goats that could lead me somewhere cool, an interesting looking structure in the distance that invites closer inspection, etc. Is that not meaningful?

 

[AdanVC]

I'm super hyped for Zelda but worried about what kind of sacrifices they will made in order to make the game run flawlessly considering the amount of environment detail it'll have this time. Things such as interactive grass, flowers, even butterflies... Not sure Wii U could handle all of that without making some kind of sacrifices. Removing some areas, not AA, etc.

 

[Skittzo0413]

It depends. If they felt like scripted roadblocks to my progress, they'd probably wind me up even more. If some monster destroys a bridge and the only way to get to my destination is to take a long way around, I would not be happy!

Weirdly, I think I'd be more inclined to spend time in the fields if there were more subtle mysteries to uncover. Finding clues to things, maybe finding strange NPCs that may or my not have a purpose. For all the flack they seem to get these days, I think that's something that Bethesda's games do really well: in Skyrim, it's infinitely more rewarding to find a hidden shack in a forest that has some mysterious items in it than it is to trigger a random Dragon attack.

That's definitely an fine perspective. I personally think dynamically changing obstacles which change how you can and have to progress through the world would really improve the standard open world formula, and using giant monsters to accomplish this seems like a decent way to do it.

I had another theory that the open world "twist" would be related to the timeshift stones from Skyward Sword- if Link's book/tablet thingy allows you to see into the future or past in any location on the overworld, and then let you time travel to that state, it would encourage exploration even in areas that look completely barren and uninteresting. Imagine being in an empty field, looking through your time-travel book to see a shack or other building standing there in the future, and then going to explore that building which you otherwise wouldn't have seen.

This type of "layering" throughout an entire game world likely isn't feasible in this day and age but it would be a very novel take on the open world genre. Hopefully whatever Nintendo does have gives you the same incentive to explore and pay attention while traversing the world.

 

[Ansatz]

Please stop with this argument. Zelda is an adventure game, not a fucking platformer.

Then what is Tri Force Heroes?

It has all the typical gameplay elements of a 2D Zelda, but they structured the level design like Galaxy's linear obstacle courses instead of an interconnected overworld.

I fucking loved that game. That's what I want, a series of obstacles, enemies and puzzles with no fluff in between. It's like Mario games yes but the actual gameplay isn't platforming per se.

 

[Anth0ny]

This excites me as Zelda should be simple and not a bloated checklist like most of those.

I really don't want anything like that. The only one to really impress me is Witcher 3 and they're very different. Most of those things are just a boring slog to me with no real game design.

I kind of hope it's nothing like the typical modern, open-world AAA experience.

Even if that means aspects of the game feel archaic.

While typical modern open world AAA games are shitty in a lot of ways, there is also greatness to be found in the sheer vastness, scale and content of them. I'm thinking mostly of Rockstar games here, less Ubisoft.

If Nintendo can take some of that and combine it with their trademark polish and unique spin on things, we could be looking at a great game here. But, again, I doubt they'll be able to pull it off and blame it on "HD development being too hard" and "We were too ambitious" or some shit.

You'll be one of the first to lose your shit when the first trailer drops.

ehh, that original Skyward Sword trailer was pretty shitty. As much as I love Zelda, I don't think that's a sure thing.

Especially if it's full of mother fucking empty fields.

 

[ReyVGM]

Nintendo giving the middle finger to E3

Nice driveby.

 

[Z3M0G]

You are being way too optimistic, look at all this empty space all around Link.

The camera sweeps almost 360 degrees and there is nothing going on in that section of the world, it doesn't matter if they use that space well for fights at some point because exploring it in this state is utterly pointless.

That's some wacky thinking... you could probably rep-produce the same with every open world game ever made...

To me the landscape being revealed by the camera looks loaded with interesting areas to explore...

And you can't see enough of his immediate surroundings to know it is full of nothing, it's all rolling hills... and what's wrong with having a nice open field anyways?? :/

 

[Angry Chair]

Then what is Tri Force Heroes?

It has all the typical gameplay elements of a 2D Zelda, but they structured the level design like Galaxy's linear obstacle courses instead of an interconnected overworld.

I fucking loved that game. That's what I want, a series of obstacles, enemies and puzzles with no fluff in between. It's like Mario games yes but the actual gameplay isn't platforming per se.

If you were talking about a platformer, I would agree with you because I just want to go from level to level but Zelda is more than a dungeon crawler. Connecting areas with land, sky, or sea is not fluff and there is going to be plenty to explore in the overworld. This new Hyrule field(?) isn't just a flat plain that connects areas in a straight line and we have seen people, livestock, and enemies roaming around and I guarantee there will be treasure to find and mini-dungeons to beat. Plus you can't have vastly different areas without having some distance between them.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

I'm super hyped for Zelda but worried about what kind of sacrifices they will made in order to make the game run flawlessly considering the amount of environment detail it'll have this time. Things such as interactive grass, flowers, even butterflies... Not sure Wii U could handle all of that without making some kind of sacrifices. Removing some areas, not AA, etc.

At least the NX version should be smooth if they prioritize it properly but I have those concerns as well and made them in the newest Zelda thread.

 

[Kerotan Frog]

"We have nothing else..."

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

"We have nothing else..."

They already said there will be more.

 

[brandonh83]

The game must be awesome. Seems risky to concentrate on Zelda, but I guess it's all part of a bigger plan.

They're not risking anything except making website/fanboy wars lists and that's about it.

 

[TheJoRu]

I see at least 10 minutes worth of exploration with nothing going on and that in itself is bad. Downtime is alright, but not for minutes. ALBW is my standard, not a single second goes wasted in that game.

But yeah there's nothing more to say about this topic at this point, plus it's only one week left until you're allowed to judge footage of the game.

Imagine ALTTP or ALBW had never existed and Nintendo shared this map of their new 2D Zelda game:

What comments do you think we'd see? I'm pretty sure it'd be a lot of this: "Is that it? I'll explore that in five minutes." "Only one town, and it's just a flat square without anything interesting. What were they thinking?! There's like six buildings in the entire game!" "Too much of the environment looks the same." "What am I supposed to do in this world?" "Looks small and uninspired."

Preposterous, right? Those people would be very wrong to assume what this map conveys is all there is to the world, without seeing what's in those dungeons or understanding how the gameplay in that world evolves as you gain new abilities and rent different items. You're not doing much better, frankly. Wanting a dense, compact experience like Skyward Sword is fine, but you're looking at this world and this game from a glance, without any of the atmosphere or a controller in your hands playing every moment of that scene, and you're saying that there's nothing going on. You don't have any context to anything that happens in that GIF. You don't know what gameplay systems are in place that could make those areas that on the surface look boring and empty become more interesting. Maybe you can find things in those areas of grass that you can use for things, like material for crafting things. Maybe this specific area Link is riding through tend to have some special material only found there. Maybe you were in a town earlier and heard from a NPC that in this area around this time of day a rare, wild beast can show up. Maybe there's a secret dungeon nearby and you're looking for it. Again, I get what kind of experience you want and this game may not be able to fulfill that wish, but don't state things you can't possibly know.

So basically; every world, including the real world, can look really dull without the right context. Walking down an empty street is often more fun and interesting with friends around than on your own, for example, despite being the same boring street on the surface. The new Zelda is designed to be open-ended, so if Nintendo are any good at it they will add things that makes it fun and serves the gameplay in such a world. Hint: it doesn't have to be superficial things that scream "FUN!" put into every corner of the game world. Gameplay can be more abstract and deeper than that.

 

[Dark Cloud]

IMO the wait is more difficult to endure when you put it up.

Yeah, it's probably a good thing I keep forgetting! Lol. I can do it now since it's less than a week left.

Either way, traditional controller or not, I am fully expecting it to have gyro. After Splatoon, I am 100% sure it will have one... heck, even 3DS has gyro for some reason.

I've assumed gyro is just standard for every controller now.

 

[Screamapillar]

I don't know why I was so upset by this in April.

Zelda's their big game. Probably the biggest game Nintendo has ever produced. Even if they did have a more traditional E3 showing where they lay out all their content for the next year, Zelda would still be the only Nintendo game people would talk about, anyway.

People want to know about Zelda. Nintendo is literally going into more detail on a single game than they ever have before, and people still aren't happy.

Looking back on my initial reaction from April, I'm actually excited for E3, not disappointed.

A rushed, incomplete NX reveal with no third parties on board, vs a grand showing for Zelda, and then an amazing, complete NX reveal months down the road, is a much better plan.

I think Zelda is going to blow people away.

 

[sinxtanx]

I like empty. Empty is mystery, makes special places special.

I have faith that this game is made for me personally.

one week one FUCKING week

 

[Dark Cloud]

Where's the hype? Less than a week for Zelda U!

 

[Lukedoc321]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

 

[BY2K]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

Wow.

 

[Francokid1]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

Lol.

 

[perfectchaos007]

I like empty. Empty is mystery, makes special places special.

I have faith that this game is made for me personally.

one week one FUCKING week

Yeah the world has a lot of empty areas. A zelda game with lots of distance between towns makes it more real to me. Skyrim had a lot of those areas too and everyone loved Skyrim

 

[OrbitalBeard]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

LOL!!!

 

[Dark Cloud]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

It won't show up on my phone.

 

[JB2448]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

The "Directed by Bill Trinen" got me.

Don't forget.

 

[udivision]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

lol

 

[Luigiv]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

Lol, well played.

 

[Jim_Cacher]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

Amazing

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

It won't show up on my phone.

Mine either

 

[Hockey123]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

lol, this is great

 

[Smellycat]

Less than a week till we finally see what this game is all about. The wait is killing me

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

nvm.. LOL

 

[Wandering Robot]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

Couldn't load it on my phone, but it was worth opening on my computer. Well done, ha.

I can't think about much else besides Zelda at this point, silly as that sounds.

 

[Corporal Hicks]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

I actually felt a few feels toward the end. The point is driven well...if that was your intention or not....

 

[Corporal Hicks]

I'm expecting a lot of boredom if it's as long as it's said to be.

Also...holy shit! It is the dude who said he would suck everyones dick if Shulk got in Smash!

I remember you from my lurker days....what in gods name made you think Shulk would not be in Smash? lool

 

[IntelliHeath]

Normally I do the Nintendo Conference/Digital Event thread, but there isn't one this year. It's just the Treehouse, which I think either DaBoss or Health did last year. Plus I don't have the week of E3 off this year so I won't have the free time to make the thread and will be at work so I won't even be able to post the thread.

I'll be back next year though.

I don't meant to be rude but it's Heath.

And, I wouldn't do any E3 threads other than GIF/WEBM and maybe Food Thread. If anyone want to do E3 food thread then feel free to do.

 

[Dark Cloud]

nvm.. LOL

Yes Yes I finally got to see it! I felt like I had to climb the mountain just to see it lol

 

[takriel]

The Legend of Zelda: Skyrim (not a ripoff)

So hey guys, have you all played TLoZ: Skyrim (nar)? Was it good?

 

[Volotaire]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

Love it.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyrim (not a ripoff)

So hey guys, have you all played TLoZ: Skyrim (nar)? Was it good?

The combat reeks of the traditional Elder Scrolls clunky combat system, I experienced a few quest breaking bugs, most dungeons are very similar in their architecture the main storyline is mediocre and many of the citizens do not react to when you have chosen a side.

However, I sank 100 hours into it because nothing comes close to the Elder Scrolls Games in the aspect of its exploration and discovery. I could wander for a few days searching and discovering new caves and areas.

EDIT: Oops don't know what you're talking about haha.

 

[The Giant]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

Brilliant.

 

[Anth0ny]

http://webm.land/media/tmp/d0a76838-747e-4b2b-97f3-bfbf596a1307.webm

lmao

spot on

 

[KooopaKid]

You can tell some posters don't really understand where I'm coming from as a gamer. I'm not interested in that sort of experience, I want my games to have a high density of interesting (mechanical) ideas as Blow puts it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwBl7Rnkt78&t=14m55s

Watch for ~60 seconds then pause it and read all the notes, even better go back and watch as he demonstrates this level by verbalising his mental thought process while playing it.

Basically, if I take a screenshot of that area in the gif there would be no bubble to put text in because nothing actually happens, there is nothing about the terrain you can analyze so if you'd hook an instrument to my brain it would read a flat line. I get absolutely no mental stimulation from this scene, it's as if you removed literally every object in that diagram in the video (spikes, movable blocks) and only kept the blocks that act as floor, you would render it a boring and pointless level. That's what this gif represents.

In contrast, every screen in ALBW contains a meaningful gameplay element and I loved how wall merging changed up exploration and how you interact with the world, especially the interplay between the light and dark world. ALBW is amazing because its world is compact so they can fill it to the brim. Generally, the more ideas you can cram into a single 'screen', the better, so that my mind is always busy processing something mechanically interesting. 3D Mario games are the best examples of this game design practice, it's why EAD Tokyo are simply the best. I want Zelda to be a leading example of this style as well. You can call it obstacle course, artificial/gamey environments or whatever but Skyward Sword outdoor areas had the perfect formula: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRd5hd2BlC0&t=2m54s (watch for ~30 seconds)

We have very similar tastes (Remember NeoGAF's GOTY 2014 I think?). I completely recognize myself in the sentence "I want my games to have a high density of interesting (mechanical) ideas. That's why Nintendo Tokyo & Kyoto make my favorite games.
However, we have seen so little of LoZ WiiU that it's impossible to call the world mechanically empty so far. If you watch GameXPlain analysis of that 15s footage, there's several intrigiung stuff in that footage already (Notably the tent and the book).
BTW, what did you think of Shadow Of The Colossus? The overworld is empty but the game was still mechanically interesting I thought because of the bosses in that open field. LoZ WiiU initial reveal seemed to go for a similar approach except we know Zelda will pack even more things outside of that. A few days left!

 

[Movalpolos]

Yeah the world has a lot of empty areas. A zelda game with lots of distance between towns makes it more real to me. Skyrim had a lot of those areas too and everyone loved Skyrim

I agree. Everyone loved Skyrim.
Busty Zelda mods incoming.

EDIT: Not meant to be a port-beg!