I had a really frustrating play session there where I died 15 times in 90 minutes and made no progress. Just lost in an empty vast mountain range, and since it was raining I couldn't climb my way towards where I needed to go, and fast travelling would have only taken me backwards. The rain seemed to last forever, every enemy could one shot me... and yet this was the path to my next objective, as far as I could tell.
My enthusiasm is cooling a little bit as the systems sink in and I get used to them. The game world is definitely too large and empty. You spend a lot of time climbing mountains to avoid strong enemies, or finding vantage points to sail over them. There's just too much traversal time through areas with absolutely nothing at all in them, too many opportunities to
avoid gameplay. And having all of the puzzles sequestered in the shrines doesn't help the liveliness of the overworld either.
Secondly, the weapon system (which I've liked) showed it's ugly side. I was raiding a high level area with mobs that can kill me in one hit. I was able to stand my own because I had a boomerang with a 36 attack stat. So I throw it at one of the dudes, well into my little sortie, and this time I fail to catch it. I flies off the cliff behind me and there's no way I'll ever find it. My next strongest weapon? Level 4. I went from being on a fair footing in terms of attack (but not defence) to having no hope and just having to fast travel away. In the last 4 hours I still haven't found as strong a weapon so I haven't been able to go back there. It's very strange to play a modern game that's so punitive in terms of loss of power. It's not bad... but I can see the frustration now.
Lastly, I was way too hard on the voice acting earlier. Later on in the game, and it is in fact serviceable, like the trailer suggested it would be. Zelda is very up and down, but at least she does have some ups. Other supporting characters are okay too. It's just some of the stuff at the start gave a terrible impression. So that's not as big a deal as I was making it out to be.
I think a lot of people will end up feeling like this, and I've certainly flirted with these feelings. It wasn't until I rocked up at my first village and started chatting to NPCs that I had that whimsical "Yeah, this is zelda" feeling.
And I mean, 12 hours in and no sign at all of any dungeon anywhere has me a little worried too. Where the hell are they?
I never noticed any slowdown in WWHD. Here it's absolutely appalling at times. Makes the game substantially less responsive. If you're sensitive to this framerate stuff buckle in... it's not pretty.
I've been going
but apparently that's the wrong decision. Oh well, I'm playing completely blind which is the great thing about all this. If I make mistakes I make mistakes.