Princess Zelda Takes a Massive Wii

900 miles across? Unlikely...

Posted by Staff
Princess Zelda Takes a Massive Wii
It looks at though Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, is shaping up to be a truly epic affair, with hints from Nintendo in the US indicating an absolutely massive gaming event is on the cards. According to Nintendo, it takes Link 45 minutes to ride across the reworked Hyrule atop his horse.

Although this writer's strong point isn't doing sums, we can tell that this information means a large playing surface is going to be on offer. If it takes 45 minutes, and horses gallop at 40MPH, that makes the distance 30 miles. If the world is square, that would make a 900 square mile playing field. However, we just realised that Nintendo obviously means from one corner to another. This being the case, we initiated the Great SPOnG MS Paint and the 'Bit of Paper' Scientific Test to determine the approximate size of Hyrule in the Legend of Zelda, the fruits of which you can see to the right of these very words. We estimate you'll be looking at about 441 square miles should the world be square and remember, some versions of Hyrule have been square.

All of which means Hyrule in new Zelda should be absolutely huge. Which is good, good news. Expect confirmation as soon as we get it.

Comments

kriv 5 Sep 2006 10:44
1/9
It's not the size, it's what you do with it that counts.
TwoADay 5 Sep 2006 11:11
2/9
kriv wrote:
It's not the size, it's what you do with it that counts.


Says the person with the small...map. That's what we're talking about here, right?

I always thought that these "miles" in games were totally BS though. but whatever.
more comments below our sponsor's message
RiseFromYourGrave 5 Sep 2006 13:22
3/9
Grand Theft Hyrule
warbaby 5 Sep 2006 15:43
4/9
Holy Jesus...

That is a lot of realestate. Now I can understand why there have been so many delays for this game. Props to Nintendo then, chalk up another game to be purchased on release day.
config 5 Sep 2006 16:35
5/9
Oh, the embarrassment!

I realise the writer is meant to be a wordsmith, not a, er, erm, numbersmith ... but graph paper!

You never heard of that hip and funky Greek dude, Pythagoras? While tiling his kitchen, or something, this beardy fellow came up with a dead elegant little rule for the relationship between the sides of right angle triangles;

A^2 + B^2 = C^2

C being hypotenuse (the longest side, nugget)

Given that rectangles are two trainangles glued together along the hypotenuse, you can use this to accurately figure out the area of this map.

So going for C being 30(miles)...

30^2 = 900
Assuming a square map, both A^2 and B^2 will be the same value ... 900/2 = 450

Because this is a square map, this right here gives us the area of the map: 450 square miles - you're out by 9 miles.

To find plain ol' A and B get the square root of 450, which is 21.2132034

So you have a map measuring about 21.21 miles on each side ( sqrt((30^2)/2) )
soanso 5 Sep 2006 18:57
6/9
Wind waker was massive. it took ages to sail from that corner to this corner
but it was BORING!!!

You were just left there waiting with nothing to do, occasional monster attacks you.
It might as well have been tiny with a 30 second loading screen between each section!
Ditto 5 Sep 2006 22:07
7/9
soanso wrote:
Wind waker was massive. it took ages to sail from that corner to this corner
but it was BORING!!!

You were just left there waiting with nothing to do, occasional monster attacks you.
It might as well have been tiny with a 30 second loading screen between each section!


Yeah, but at least there was something to do in the sea!

SPOnG wrote:
According to Nintendo, it takes Link 45 minutes to ride across the reworked Hyrule atop his horse.


The most boring thing about OoT was the f**king field.

This games just going to bloat itself out by having long, pointless riding sequences. Like what they started in OoT and continued in the Wind Waker.

Hummm. Doesn't sound like the hallmark of a quality game to me.
RiseFromYourGrave 5 Sep 2006 23:38
8/9
i know where youre coming from, but i actually liked the travelling, at least in OoT. that includes Hyrule Field, which i thought was beautiful!

i thought it was nice that you had to travel distances to get to some places (before you learnt the boleros and all that jazz on the ocarina), it adds to the feel of adventure. and they spiced it up with the horse, which added speed, general coolness and a new method of combat. you get to know areas, and appreciate them for different reasons. its cool.

i was less a fan of the boat in TWW, but it was still cool. TP will all be on land it seems, you seem to play a lot of the game as a wolf which could make for interesting travelling, maybe more athletic, capable of rudimentary climbing or something. go round the mountain? ill climb that f**k!

<edit> did i mention the music in hyrule field?? sweet reason to like passing through
config 6 Sep 2006 08:06
9/9
The horseback travel in Shadow of Collossus could sometimes get pretty long winded, but the controls were suck that it felt enjoyable the whole way, with Agro tending to take the initiative.
Posting of new comments is now locked for this page.