BO2W Breakdown 2: What we missed
Alright, my post-E3 excitement has calmed down, and I can approach the video with a clear head. For those of you who haven’t seen my first breakdown, click here.
So, right off the bat, when we see the first flash of Link, we get the BRIEFEST glimpse of his equipment:
This part here. This means that, during the cutscene where Link loses his arm to corruption, he has the Master Sword. This is significant for a few reasons.
He keeps at least some of his equipment from BOTW, even if only for cinematic purposes
The MASTER SWORD, which is BUILT to destroy Ganon, DOESN’T HELP HIM
In later shots, he doesn’t have it. He might have lost it, which would explain why he doesn’t have the means to jump after Zel when she falls in the pit. From a gameplay perspective, this allows the Zeldev team to control Link’s starting weapons while being true to the sequel.
Next, let’s take a look at the corruption here:
It looks almost solid. Stronger in color than the Malice we’ve seen before, for sure, but it has distinct outlines.
Compare it to the much wispier possession the Guardians had in the original BOTW.
This matches up with the first trailer from 2019, where we see the corruption smother a rat.
It’s lower quality, presumably due to the designs still being in development, but it confirms the at least solid-LOOKING aspect of the corruption.
Also, I’d like to credit @tashilover for pointing this out:
I went and took a look and, lo and behold:
They’re right! Link’s sleeve IS rolled up, or at least torn off! But the fact that Link normally wears gloves and guards on his hands suggests that it would at least be difficult to force him to go bare-armed.
We have a couple of options we can figure out from this:
1. that the sleeve was simply destroyed, which is possible, either from the corruption we saw earlier or the light power above. The corruption COULD have eaten it up like acid.
2. that he took off his arm guard and rolled up his sleeve, which means that he either
2a: willingly took the power
2b: needed to take the power to counteract whatever the red corruption did to him.
3. The Zeldevs just decided “hey let’s fix that,” but that’s boring and we don’t do boring here
Next up is Ganondorf. Since I was already checking Link against his 2019 appearance, I thought I’d cross-reference Gan’s apparel as well.
Let’s do a side-by-side comparison with this picture:
And here’s some closeups for reference:
Gan’s crown pierces through his head, which is something I NEVER needed to know but
As we can see, the fleur-de-lis-like shape is its own pendant hanging off of the Gerudo charm from the first trailer.
Between the shots of the Triforce Trio, we see the red corruption increasing in size. It’s hard to show in still shots, but it looks like a mass of writhing tentacles, and almost liquid-y.
Now, let’s look at this shot next:
There is a LOT I missed with this one. Starting with the island here.
In Skyloft, this northeastern isle functions as the source of Skyloft’s water supply.
But here, we see something…odd, in the gray and orange. First off, there’s no water here.
Based on the shape of this orange section, it could very easily be the dried up riverbed of Skyloft. But what’s even more interesting is the odd path cutting through it.
It starts up at the well isle, goes down to the main isle, then zigzags through the orange dust, stopping briefly for a circular spot before continuing. But what is it? It could be a road through the dried up riverbed, or a canal to try to encourage a dwindling water supply to keep its course.
We also don’t know why the water, which came from an endless spring during Skyward Sword for as long as the Skyloftians inhabited it, dried up. It could have been from time, disuse, or even Zonai tampering.
