Adam Tyner

Parity after deciding to port it to the Switch. There's no way the in-game slate wasn't meant to represent the Wii U gamepad.

slop101

Yo, how do you turn off subtitles?

lopper

It's looking like I'll be picking up a Wii U from the old Craigslist in the near future. Would love a reason to buy a Switch, but good god Nintendo just makes everything so fucking difficult.

bluetoast

Wasn't planning on this just yet, but the insanely high reviews and the fact that my Wii U has been collecting dust means I'll probably pick it up today.

slop101

Anyone?

The Questyen

I'm pretty sure you can't.

slop101

I'm super early in the game, so maybe only that intro had subtitles.

Still, why do they do that? They're speaking English, and not some otherworldly language. They should totally let you turn it off, even before it stars up. Weird.

Horizon started with annoying subtitles too, but at least they let you turn them off after the intro.

fumanstan

From what i've seen (a bit later in the game), not all the dialog is actually spoken so it probably made sense to just always have subtitles.

Adam Tyner

I'm still verrrrrry early in the game, but my favorite thing so far is being uphill, letting a bomb roll down into a camp, and detonating it when I'm laughably far out of reach from anyone's weapons.

slop101

Hey, how do I get the U tablet screen to display the world map?

Adam Tyner

As far as I know, it doesn't. The only purpose the gamepad serves is for off-screen play and as a gyro for some puzzles. Eiji Aonuma:

...which I don't buy, seeing as how Wind Waker and Twilight Princess both had map/inventory on the second screen with borderline-zero complaints. When BotW was first unveiled, it did have a map on the gamepad.

slop101

Could've sworn I read something in a preview that said you could use the gamepad's screen for a map.
Oh well.

And their excuse is lame, since there are SO MANY U games that have you looking up and down, like the Kirby game, where you can pretty much ONLY use the gamepad and can't really look up at your TV screen.
And having it just for a map is far less disruptive to the game than having to press a button for it.

fujishig

So Aonuma is saying the whole WiiU gimmick (a second screen that you can look at while playing) was terrible? Sounds about right, I guess. I wish they told that to the freaking Star Fox devs.

lopper

Did a quick Google and it looks like the last time they had a world map on the tablet might've been E3 last year (maybe?).

Adam Tyner

Wasn't there last year, at least if Zelda Informer is on the money.

DVDTalker76

Yes, why oh WHY didn't they have this amazing revelation during development of the Wii U itself?

(if ever there was an example of a corporation saying straight out that yes, we've been spinning you with complete BS over this entire product lifecycle )

Adam Tyner

There's no argument that Nintendo rarely figured out how to take full advantage of the gamepad, and they've even said as much. Hardly "spinning you with complete BS over this entire product lifecycle". In no way is Aonuma speaking for the entirety of Nintendo besides.

fujishig

It's not that Aonuma is speaking for Nintendo, it's that this would have/should have been the crowning jewel of the WiiU (had they not needed a launch game for their new system) and he's admitting that the basic concept of the WiiU didn't work for this game so they just ignored it.

Of course he couldn't say something along the lines of developing this game for the Switch meant that they couldn't use the second screen. You can't tell me that putting a map and info on the second screen would be too distracting.

Adam Tyner

Oh, I agree with you 100%. I even believe the speculation/rumors that the lack of gamepad features has more to do with porting to the Switch than anything else.

I just feel like wtsang's "we've been spinning you with complete BS over this entire product lifecycle" is not grounded in reality. Plenty of folks from Nintendo have owned up to the gamepad not being utilized the way it should've. They loved the idea of translating the DS' dual-screen experience to the living room and, I guess, assumed that they'd figure out what to do with it eventually.

slop101

I think the half-assed the touch screen in this version, or rather no-assed it, as you can't even use it to input your horses name. That's just being lazy.

DVDTalker76

The BS is in their continued insistence that they have to build "innovation" into their consoles (i.e. handicap them) in order to compete. With the Wii U both the console itself and several important titles lost out.

Star Fox is the perfect example. Here is an entry in one of their beloved franchises, completely destroyed because Miyamoto himself, I believe, insisted Platinum build the game around the damn thing instead of just making a good StarFox game. This was near the end of the lifecycle, not the beginning. No concession that the Pad was a goof, and the fans lost out on a long-awaited title.

DVDTalker76

Also, this is not realistic. It's spin. Someone has already pointed out that the previous U Zelda titles used the GamePad as specified, to good results. They didn't want there to be anything better about the Wii U version over the Switch - that's all.

The Cow

So, you're riding through the desert on a horse with no name?

fujishig

What does the Switch bring to this that the WiiU doesn't have, besides being a little prettier and portable, anyway? It doesn't use any of the other switch features, right?

Adam Tyner

Nothing, really.