A Nintendo Fanboy's Fanjoy: Zelda concerts and Nintendo Direct

Me oh my, what a week to be a fan of Nintendo. What a week indeed. In fact there was so much awesome stuff this week that I couldn't even fit it all in the Recaps! That's why I decided to turn the whole thing into a blog instead. This way I can fanboy my heart out, and then some. Strap yourself in, it'll be a ride.

First, I finally went to The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses this week. I've been talking about this for a couple of weeks now, and for good reason. I was here on Destructoid four years ago when the first announced the Zelda concerts, and I've been waiting all that time. I've considered going to London, Paris or Berlin to go see it, but time and expenses always held me back. When they announced a show in Amsterdam I bought tickets right away. Even that's over half a year ago already. Last Wednesday the time had finally come that I could go see the show.

It was, in a word, amazing. Unreal almost. The hall was packed with all of the low countries' biggest Zelda fans, and it certainly showed. Literally about half of the attendees had some kind of Zelda swag on them. T-shirts representing every Zelda game ever made, hats, scarfs (including Link's sweet Hyrule Warriors scarf), tunics, ocarinas, and even a full cosplay or two. I had my own Gate of Time t-shirt on, so I felt like I was in good company. I scored about two dozen new Streetpasses, and when I grabbed my Special Edition Link Between Worlds 3DS a girl sitting a couple seats over from me called out: "Hey, I have one of those too!" A kid wearing a Triforce beanie recognized my Gate of Time and asked me whether Skyward Sword was my favorite game in the series. Like I said, it was almost surreal to see an entire audience of people almost exactly like me. When we all left after the show to go our separate ways, you could still spot groups of attendees at every train platform, going everywhere.

The show itself was just as great. Just about every iconic Zelda tune was played. Many of these songs are practically ingrained in my memory, and hearing them being performed by an orchestra like that is just magic. Goosebumps all the way. They managed to give the songs a really great kick to make it that much more epic. The visual aids were fantastic too. They managed to take every little thing from the games they represented, from the final boss to being attacked by chickens.

My personal favorite Zelda game, The Wind Waker, was featured more than any other game, and they even had some songs I never expected to hear. Let's just say I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Molgera has the best boss music in the series. My favorite moment from the show was when the conductor revealed that she had a replica of the actual Wind Waker baton (to roaring applause) and then even used it to conduct the Wind Waker movement. It's pretty safe to say the audience was blown away at that point.

I was also pleasantly surprised that they featured the two most recent games during the show. They had a short bit of the Tri Force Heroes Main Theme, and a full medley for Link Between Worlds. Of course there's almost 30 years worth of music in the Zelda series at this point, so it's inevitable that some songs will be left out. Indeed, several games were left unrepresented. Despite that, I could only think of one song that I truly felt was missing, that being the Ballad of the Wind Fish. Everything else would've been awesome had they been there, but I didn't really mind that they weren't. At the end of the day, barring that one omission the show was perfect.

- Problem solved.

So yeah, the Zelda Symphony was pretty damn great. Definitely one hell of an experience. However, that was just Wednesday. When Thursday rolled around we got another round of Nintendo goodness in the form of Nintendo Direct. Before I get into that, I do have to mention that a Nintendo Direct without Satoru Iwata doesn't quite feel right. Something's definitely missing now that he's no longer with us. Just goes to show what a great impression he made, not as President of Nintendo, but just for being him.

That being said, the announcements in the Nintendo Direct were some of the best we've seen in some time. Hell, it was probably better than Nintendo's E3 presentation.

To start off, Twilight Princess HD. Just last week I mentioned that Twilight Princess is one of my favorite Zelda games, definitely Top 5. I think Twilight Princess had some very neat ideas in dungeon design and some of the coolest items in the series. I remember the giant snowed over Yeti mansion where you get the big fuck-off ball and chain. I remember the City in the Sky filled with those creepy Another World creatures, where you get a second Clawshot (which sounded lame for about 5 seconds until you realized that you could fucking Spider-man your way around the dungeon now). Twilight Princess has a lot of things like that, so getting that all in HD sounds right up my alley. If they make improvements like they improved Wind Waker in its HD version, it's going to be glorious. Also HD Twili Midna midriff. Hype.

- Also also; Twili Midna is technically topless. In HD!

And that wasn't even all the Zelda news! A tiny slimmer of Zelda WiiU footage is all I need to keep my hype up, and that's exactly what I got. I'm loving that artstyle to the moon and back. And just as a bonus, us here in Europe got to download Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks for the WiiU Virtual Console. I love Phantom Hourglass more than most, so there's no way I'm passing that up for a couple bucks. Spirit Tracks I don't like nearly as much, but might as well complete the set, right? Between my 3DS and WiiU I now have nearly every Zelda game easily at my disposal. Finally, an update for Tri Force Heroes to seal the deal. Just today I beat the last of the Challenges in Tri Force Heroes (solo, I might add), so a new set of levels is much appreciated. Add a Linebeck costume and a Fierce Diety outfit in the mix, and my Zelda craving has been soothed. Although I will say that that Linebeck outfit sounds like a great way to get yourself blacklisted. It's rude as hell.

Man, that's a lot of Zelda. Can't complain though. Let's talk about other things.
I mean, I found a lot more stuff to be excited for. Every time new footage for Xenoblade Chronicles X is shown my penis gets that much harder, and this Nintendo Direct was no exception. The game looks absolutely amazing, and I still can't wait to get my hands on it. It's hard to believe that it's less than a month away now, but very much appreciated. Pokken Tournament is coming and it looks like a fighter I might actually buy. Typoman is releasing next week and it still looks like the best thing since LIMBO. Star Fox Zero is fucking Star Fox Zero. Linkle is the cutest character the Zelda series has ever seen and her dual crossbows look like a lot of fun (wait, did I say I was done talking about Zelda? I lied). Dragon Quest VIII is a JRPG that I've always wanted to play but never could. I'm glad that's one more game I'll be able to cross off that horrible list next year.

And that's it! So much stuff I'm looking forward too, it's not even funny.

How could things possibly get any better than thi-
...
Wait.
I feel like I'm forgetting something. But I think I covered everything, didn't I? Zelda Symphony, Twilight Princess HD, Xenoblade, it's all here. Yet I can't shake this niggling feeling that there's something else I forgot to mention. I'm sorry, my mind is just a bit cloudy at the moment.
...Hold up. Cloudy?
CLOUDY?!

OH SHI-

It's Cloud fucking Strife in fucking Smash Bros., fuckers! I don't even know what the fuck is going on anymore. FUCK.

Seriously though, he looks very cool. I'm still a little doubtful about the originality of his fighting style at this point, but just the fact that he's here in Smash is absolutely insane. On top of that, Sakurai once again shows that he knows how to honor a character. I haven't even played FFVII in a long time, but even I saw a lot of familiar stuff in Cloud's moveset. Limit Breaks, Omnislash as his Final Smash, Midgar as his stage, Odin splitting said stage clean in half, it's amazing. Cloud even gets his Advent Children outfit and shut the fuck up I liked Advent Children.

Above all, with Cloud and Ryu here, all bets are off. Apparently not even presence on a Nintendo console is a relevant factor anymore. I guess you could see Cloud as a Final Fantasy representative, which obviously has an important history with Nintendo, but Cloud himself has only had a small cameo on a Nintendo console. Considering that Bayonetta now has two full games on the WiiU, I'm more hopeful than ever about her inclusion.

In the mean time, I'll be fangasming over Cloud some more. You know, just as soon as I'm done doing the same over all that Zelda goodness, Xenoblade, Star Fox, Dragon Quest, Pokken, Typoman and everything else.

I've said it before and I'll say it as many times as I need to: nerd joy is best joy.
After this week, I have enough nerd joy to last me a lifetime.

- Us heroes, we have so much to do

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