Zelda Confirmations: Nintendo Direct Discussion

[Luthien]

Unfortunately for us Zelda mains, it seems most of the demo footage featuring Zelda was shot with a rather conservative player. Unlike other mains who got to see their characters perform a variety of moves in free-for-all environments, we mostly only get clips of her double jumping (probably attempting to set up kicks... which could bode well). But there are a few things we do know now!

Zelda Info Segment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrWL4EuCp5E&t=57m05s

New Down-B confirmed

Phantom Slash

• Chargeable - the longer the attack is held, the further distance the Phantom lunges (and likely the harder it hits)
• Counts as a projectile - can be reflected and collected by villager

Teleport Cancelling confirmed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrWL4EuCp5E&t=42m42s

Video footage of Zelda performing a teleport cancel vs. Luigi. Unfortunately, this means we still have no idea what the landing lag for Farore's Wind is. Hopefully it's been reduced, since the start-up seems to be unchanged and distance, if anything, seems reduced.

Falling animations unchanged - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrWL4EuCp5E&t=71m25s

Footage of Zelda getting mauled by bullet bills and... not countering with a single attack.

Din's Fire - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrWL4EuCp5E&t=72m24s

Zelda pops off a weak Din's Fire at point blank range.

Taunt and more Phantom footage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrWL4EuCp5E&t=73m56s


I'll add more information as I rewatch the video. Feel free to add or discuss!

 

[Katy Parry]

Thanks! As much as I was disappointed, and still am, I do like the idea Sakurai is trying to make each character have potential on their own. I guess he realized transformation characters were, in a way, a waste, because like Melee for example, typically Zelda was left behind for Sheik. She was rarely played. Again with Pokemon Trainer/Zamus.

I'm really interested in knowing more about how her Down Special works. Does it go farther the longer you charge it?

 

[bloodbuzzed]

I think this is really good for Zelda. Her two normal jumps seemed to cover a lot of range and the Phantom attack gives players so many possibilities for offensive or defensive purposes. I think with Sakurai making her her own character he is going to be buffing her in areas she has lacked in Smash history and which Sheik was supposed to compensate for (such as weak and unreliable recovery)

 

[Ixbran]

So my theory regarding the Phantom was partially right, sweet sauce. I'm sad to see Zelda and sheik as separate characters though, I had hoped the transformation would have just been mapped too a taunt button or something.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Transforming characters are NOT a waste.
People were too dumb to shift, and Sakurai basically appealed to them.


Not complaining, Zelda will be stronger, it's just about to see how much stronger she got.
I'm definitely using her though.

 

[Katy Parry]

Transforming characters are NOT a waste.
People were too dumb to shift, and Sakurai basically appealed to them.

Not complaining, Zelda will be stronger, it's just about to see how much stronger she got.
I'm definitely using her though.

I agree, I'm still getting over most of this whole mess. Trying to wrap my head around it all.

 

[Erotic&Heretic]

Wait, what is that "teleport cancelling" thing?
I managed to see the direct, but my phone doesn't want to show me that part...

Last thing I remember is looking at a faster Farore's Wind with a faster start animation. (but I can be wrong)

 

[Loachy]

She warped onto the very end of a platform and slips off a la ledge-cancel
That's what it looked like to me

 

[BJN39]

So yeah, I've changed my mind somewhat about Phantom. I mean it was obvious any new move Zelda got at this point would be a buff. Which she needs. I'll try to get back here and go in depth on my research of the move.

But aside from that, a couple moves for Zelda were confirmed through a flickr page that just put out a ton of new smash 4 pics, including Dash attack, and LIGHTNING KICKS! In a new boss pose. https://www.flickr.com/photos/48280274@N02/page3/

(Lightning Kick: https://www.flickr.com/photos/48280274@N02/13729795164/ "This looks familiar...": https://www.flickr.com/photos/48280274@N02/13729365425/ )

 

[Katy Parry]

Her Dash Attack was also confirmed in the photostream. At least in the GameExplain video I watced. It has a shine, like Ness' dash attack.

 

[Sonicguy726]

I'm really interested in knowing more about how her Down Special works. Does it go farther the longer you charge it?

It looks to cause when zelda charges it the second time it seems to go alot further

 

[Empyrean]

She warped onto the very end of a platform and slips off a la ledge-cancel
That's what it looked like to me

That was indeed a ledge-cancel. Makes you wonder if it was intentional or not, because it sure does mislead a lot of people into thinking it's a new technique. Regardless, Zelda could benefit a lot from a teleport cancel, it would significantly improve her mobility.

 

[BJN39]

Okay, now I'm VERY sure that Farore's wind startup was speed up. Just look at these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bECg6LmUi0Q (Brawl Farore's wind. Used a bunch. )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNlBLJVYrEs (@24 seconds. Farore's wind.)

I'm also pretty sure the distance is the same.

Also, after very closely looking at Din's fire in the Smash run clip, it's huge at low distance. :o Like, bigger than zelda entirely.

It looks like Sakurai is actually buffing certain aspects of her specials!

 

[Erotic&Heretic]

Okay, now I'm VERY sure that Farore's wind startup was speed up. Just look at these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bECg6LmUi0Q (Brawl Farore's wind. Used a bunch. )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNlBLJVYrEs (@24 seconds. Farore's wind.)

I'm also pretty sure the distance is the same.

Also, after very closely looking at Din's fire in the Smash run clip, it's huge at low distance. :o Like, bigger than zelda entirely.

It looks like Sakurai is actually buffing certain aspects of her specials!

Ah, I'm not the only one who noticed this! Also, the "traveling speed" seems better too. I liked tormenting people with Mewtwo's teleport in Melee, and even if it's slower, I did it too with Zelda in brawl I'm gonna like it for sure.

I didn't noticed for Din's fire though. Seems awesome!

 

[BJN39]

Ah, I'm not the only one who noticed this! Also, the "traveling speed" seems better too. I liked tormenting people with Mewtwo's teleport in Melee, and even if it's slower, I did it too with Zelda in brawl I'm gonna like it for sure.

I didn't noticed for Din's fire though. Seems awesome!

actually, I went and took a closer examination of dins in brawl, it turns out their shockwave visuals are pretty much the same size. Sorry for the misinformation. ^ ^

There is though a part of the animation that is quite a bit larger than brawl's. So there's still a possibility for hitbox size difference, it just can't be confirmed.

 

[Downdraft]

Okay, now I'm VERY sure that Farore's wind startup was speed up. Just look at these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bECg6LmUi0Q (Brawl Farore's wind. Used a bunch. )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNlBLJVYrEs (@24 seconds. Farore's wind.)

I'm also pretty sure the distance is the same.

Also, after very closely looking at Din's fire in the Smash run clip, it's huge at low distance. :o Like, bigger than zelda entirely.

It looks like Sakurai is actually buffing certain aspects of her specials!

Did you notice the sparkles that showed the path Farore's Wind took?
While the startup may be faster, I hope those sparkles don't tip people off.

 

[Erotic&Heretic]

Tried making gifs of Farore's Wind, I'm not that good at making gifs, but so it may be not perfect, but SSB4's desync with SSBB, because it is faster.

Spoiler

About the sparkles.... They seems to appear only on the first half of the travel distance. It may be an error, as she mainly sparkles during the start up animation. At least I hope it is.

 

[ZombieBran]

This is good, it looks much faster and to be about the same distance.
Now if Nayru's Love gets a helping of invincibility frames and Din's Fire is much faster in addition to it's buff I'll be a happy camper.

 

[Erotic&Heretic]

With the addition of the Phantom and the apparent changes to Farore's Wind, Zelda seems to become more of a camper, yes. I quite like the idea, actually. About Din's Fire, the game seems overall faster (to me at least) so I guess/hope it will be faster too. It was way too predictable before.

 

[ZombieBran]

The game does seem faster, especially in regards to shielding and rolls. Dins' Fire needs a real speed buff or else it will be all risk with little reward.
The range increase could help for edge tricks, especially if we can delay or accelerate DF's approach a bit.

In particular, I hope DF can reach truly huge sizes as it travels. Brawl Minus size, even. That way it can punish non-perfect dodges (ideally, it would be incredibly hard to time the dodge).
In my ideal game: Zelda appears to be going in for the DF sweetspot > they dodge > you hit them with the tail end when their invincibility ends > they fly!

Well, that's just my hopes for the move anyway.

 

[Downdraft]

Tried making gifs of Farore's Wind, I'm not that good at making gifs, but so it may be not perfect, but SSB4's desync with SSBB, because it is faster.

Spoiler

About the sparkles.... They seems to appear only on the first half of the travel distance. It may be an error, as she mainly sparkles during the start up animation. At least I hope it is.

Actually, those GIFs are great. Thanks.

The game does seem faster, especially in regards to shielding and rolls. Dins' Fire needs a real speed buff or else it will be all risk with little reward.
The range increase could help for edge tricks, especially if we can delay or accelerate DF's approach a bit.

In particular, I hope DF can reach truly huge sizes as it travels. Brawl Minus size, even. That way it can punish non-perfect dodges (ideally, it would be incredibly hard to time the dodge).
In my ideal game: Zelda appears to be going in for the DF sweetspot > they dodge > you hit them with the tail end when their invincibility ends > they fly!

Well, that's just my hopes for the move anyway.

I agree that Din's Fire needs a speed buff. I wouldn't have minded if they'd just taken ideas from Brawl- and Project M.
Zelda's approaching options need a significant buff, or she needs moves that force opponents to approach.
She couldn't do either in Brawl. Brawl- Max's f-tilt would force opponents to approach.

 

[FujintalksboutDin'sFire]

Okay, now I'm VERY sure that Farore's wind startup was speed up. Just look at these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bECg6LmUi0Q (Brawl Farore's wind. Used a bunch. )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNlBLJVYrEs (@24 seconds. Farore's wind.)

I'm also pretty sure the distance is the same.

Also, after very closely looking at Din's fire in the Smash run clip, it's huge at low distance. :o Like, bigger than zelda entirely.

It looks like Sakurai is actually buffing certain aspects of her specials!

Praying he actually increased the frame data.
Edit: made it better I guess I should say.

I mean, Din's Fire in Brawl proved that just because you make things bigger doesn't necessarily make them much better....


Honestly if Din's was super good and she could be super campy I wouldn't care too much about the rest of her moves, other than Farore's.

 

[Ryan.]

Glad she's finally on her own, hopefully she'll receive more buffs.

 

[Loachy]

Yeah. I'm hoping for a general speed increase since, as it was mentioned earlier, Sheik was kinda supposed to be Zelda's speed.
It may come at the cost of a slight power decrease but that may not be entirely a bad thing. She may actually be able to combo!

 

[BJN39]

I keep forgetting to mention, that yesterday I did another close cross-check of anything of Zelda in direct, and here's what I came up with:

- Her running seems faster. Read: seems. The way i calculated it was imperfect, (I basically compared the distance in the clip of her running, and made a custom stage to scale in brawl.) but there was a distinct time difference that leads me to believe it's VERY SLIGHTLY faster.

- her second jump is larger. I can't believe I didn't see it at first. It goes about 1.5x higher. It's now in fact, equal in height to her full hop.

Aside from that dins seems the same, and farore's as previously mentioned, seems faster. That's basically all that could be tested.

 

[Downdraft]

I keep forgetting to mention, that yesterday I did another close cross-check of anything of Zelda in direct, and here's what I came up with:

- Her running seems faster. Read: seems. The way i calculated it was imperfect, (I basically compared the distance in the clip of her running, and made a custom stage to scale in brawl.) but there was a distinct time difference that leads me to believe it's VERY SLIGHTLY faster.

- her second jump is larger. I can't believe I didn't see it at first. It goes about 1.5x higher. It's now in fact, equal in height to her full hop.

Aside from that dins seems the same, and farore's as previously mentioned, seems faster. That's basically all that could be tested.

Thanks for your observations. I think I should abstain from critiquing Smash 4 Zelda any further until I either try her or we get more significant footage. Right now, we still have little idea of what Zelda is capable of in this game besides the Phantom Slash, and that attack was used on stationary opponents. Who knows? Phantom Slash might be useful in Smash 4's metagame.

 

[Katy Parry]

Okay, now I'm VERY sure that Farore's wind startup was speed up. Just look at these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bECg6LmUi0Q (Brawl Farore's wind. Used a bunch. )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNlBLJVYrEs (@24 seconds. Farore's wind.)

I'm also pretty sure the distance is the same.

Also, after very closely looking at Din's fire in the Smash run clip, it's huge at low distance. :o Like, bigger than zelda entirely.

It looks like Sakurai is actually buffing certain aspects of her specials!

EDIT: Ninja'd

Looks to be a lot faster. I slowed down the clip and watched it at 0.25 speed, so it shows her jump and she goes through the entire spell.

Praying he actually increased the frame data.
Edit: made it better I guess I should say.

I mean, Din's Fire in Brawl proved that just because you make things bigger doesn't necessarily make them much better....


Honestly if Din's was super good and she could be super campy I wouldn't care too much about the rest of her moves, other than Farore's.

Well now that Din's Fire has a sweetspot, he may be trying to make Zelda more advanced to play, with a high reward. If you sweetspot Din's Fire while their recovering, you might only need to hit them once. Who knows how powerful its gonna be. LMFAO. He did say "to make them fall" when he updated about Din's Fire.

What if its a Meteor Smash? lol so OP

 

[Downdraft]

Hopefully she doesn't become one of the most disliked characters in casual gameplay again.

 

[Erotic&Heretic]

Hopefully she doesn't become one of the most disliked characters in casual gameplay again.

Disliked because "Din's Fire is OP"?
Oh, this reminds me a friend who was angry when I broke the Smash Ball with Din's Fire, yet he love to get the ball with Lucas' PK Thunder...

(I think casual players can also dislike playing Zelda because she is quite technical)

 

[BJN39]

(I think casual players can also dislike playing Zelda because she is quite technical)

IDK where you got this idea, it's simply not true.

Zelda is one of the characters with the lowest technical ceiling, and an extremely shallow depth, in both Melee AND Brawl.

In both games, she centers around using only a few moves, (the only effective ones in her sad move-pools.) and trying to approach. And it only takes like, one set versus a Zelda to know how to handle her. There are no secret tricks she can pull out like most characters aside from Love jump, which puts her in a bad position.

 

[Erotic&Heretic]

Well, I'm probably wrong, as I can't get the idea on many casual players. But two friend (the two only casual players I know in fact) couldn't figure out how to land the hits well, how the AFA worked, and thought that all special moves were useless.
... But maybe I found two strange guys

Dunno, I always thought Zelda's gameplay to be quite tricky to use. It's clearly not "Desync Ice Climbers" technical, but I always found the special moves to be quite versatile.

 

[Empyrean]

She indeed plays weird, in the sense that she's not your traditional fighter, but like BJN said, there isn't that much too her technical-wise. The only game where she has a few techs to use is PM, but that's fan-made so don't expect things to change in Smash 4.