Biggest Surprise
The Legend of Zelda (GC)
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Read our take from E3 2004 >>
Every year, E3 holds a number of pleasant surprises. Last year, the industry was rocked with the announcement that Sony would enter the portable gaming space with its own handheld. This year, the surprises came largely on the software side. We were delighted to stumble across unexpected gems like Yoot Saito's Odama on the GameCube and Payback on the Game Boy Advance. We were also pretty surprised that Ubisoft was so far along in developing Splinter Cell 3 and that Namco announced that it would be localizing its fun and quirky junk collection game for American audiences. But in the end, all of that paled in comparison to the shock we received when Nintendo sprung the new Legend of Zelda trailer on us at the tail end of its press conference.
The surprise of course, wasn't that Nintendo was making another Zelda game for the GameCube. It was believed for a long time that a sequel to the cel-shaded Wind Waker was in the works, presumably starring a cute, adolescent Link as the hero. The surprise was that this new Zelda game didn't share the hypersaturated look of The Wind Waker and that Link was no longer a little boy. It didn't take long into the trailer for everyone to realize that, as Shigeru Miyamoto said himself, "Link has grown up."
;)
And grown up he has. The one-minute trailer showed Link gallantly galloping into battle on horseback and knocking other mounted enemies off their steeds with sweeping slashes of his sword. A number of environments were highlighted in the trailer as well, such as a moonlit castle, dynamically lit dungeons, a forest filled with an eerie mist, and a dusty plain with a red-tinged dusk sky overhead. The trailer ended with Link brandishing his sword with a flourish, then sheathing it with characteristic panache while striking a hard pose--at least, as hard of a pose as a man with a green do-rag could possibly strike. Those who bemoaned the cartoonish look of The Wind Waker and its fairy tale-like feel appear to have gotten their wish for a Zelda game with a noticeably grittier look and feel.
The other Biggest Surprise finalists:
Yoot Saito's Odama (GC)
Splinter Cell 3 (PC)
Katamari Damacy (PS2)
Payback (GBA)
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