How many times have you guys looked up a guide to finish a shrine or puzzle? I think I have about 3 times and it feels bad. Figuring out stuff that is tricky is so rewarding in this game.
I have more issues getting into shrines (like at Lake Kilsie) or finding certain quest objectives (like Kilton) than I do figuring out shrine puzzles. They've been fairly easy for the most part, just because you can do most of them in so many different ways.
This is not open for debate and doesn´t fall in the realm of subjective opinions: the world is masterfully designed to the last stone and if a reviewer is unable to understand this, he just lacks the skills to analyze games or has allowed his personal bias to muddle his review.
I think that's the meat of the matter. The level design in this game is without equal. Every blade if grass is there for a reason. And then you have Jim ignoring all that and focusing on exaggerated versions of issues he discovered (like the stamina).
He literally made up issues for his review cause he is biased.
True fact, i have 3 stamina wheels and i can assure you i could climb the same as i do now, when i started with one wheel and a bandana. I simply jump-climb now, for more fun. The notion that stamina, or weapon degradation, or inventory space are serious design issues is hyperboling at best.
How many times have you guys looked up a guide to finish a shrine or puzzle? I think I have about 3 times and it feels bad. Figuring out stuff that is tricky is so rewarding in this game.
I´ve explained why I think it is this way, so instead of quoting an out of context single sentence from my post I´d appreciate if you could provide counter-aguments to my explanation. That is, if you´re interested in having a constructive discussion. But if your post is just a poor attempt to ridicule me or you just lack the knowledge or abbilities to maintain a proper discussion, then feel free to keep on replying with 2 word sentences without even an acceptable gramatical structure.
I think that's the meat of the matter. The level design in this game is without equal. Every blade if grass is there for a reason. And then you have Jim ignoring all that and focusing on exaggerated versions of issues he discovered (like the stamina).
He literally made up issues for his review cause he is biased.
True fact, i have 3 stamina wheels and i can assure you i could climb the same as i do now, when i started with one wheel and a bandana. I simply jump-climb now, for more fun. The notion that stamina, or weapon degradation, or inventory space are serious design issues is hyperboling at best.
Yup. I´m constantly being amazed by how 99% of the stones in the game have a purpose. Such a big world and even the smallest stuff is there for a reason. I feel the same about climbing and stamina, it´s hard to express but even though I have 3 full stamina circles I don´t feel climbing is broken, I still have to climb following the best path (though as you say it´s true that I now jump more too) and as I was gaining more stamina I never felt like I could just power climb anything.
I really enjoy the memory cutscenes, found 5 of them so far.
My approach to the game was to go on a quest to retrieve Link's memories, explore and complete shrines before undertaking the Divine beasts. Although i accidently stumbled upon Sidon, the way the game forced a 'linear' sequence here was very well done imho.
Back to the cutscenes, what's the general consensus on this method of delivering story? From the few I've seen I really want to see more of the 4 champions. I also like the
internal struggle of Zelda I've seen so far. Her struggling with awakening her powers and hinted jealousy of Link supposedly being able to waken his own. Also the call backs to OoT, SS and TP got my feels.
I´ve explained why I think it is this way, so instead of quoting an out of context single sentence from my post I´d appreciate if you could provide counter-aguments to my explanation. That is, if you´re interested in having a constructive discussion. But if your post is just a poor attempt to ridicule me or you just lack the knowledge or abbilities to maintain a proper discussion, then feel free to keep on replying with 2 words sentences without even an acceptable gramatical structure.
If you can't see the absurdity in claiming big giant environments are meticulously designed down to each rock placement (and not just the ones for koroks) rather than just, you know, some environment designers thinking there need to be some rocks here, then, I don't see why I should put in the effort listing out why the game has unfulfilling character progression, or stale bosses, or how complex and authored level design takes a step back to just environments painted in large swathes versus strictly with finer brushes.
edit: Not to mention how asinine it is to state that the quality of the world design is an objective fact.
How many times have you guys looked up a guide to finish a shrine or puzzle? I think I have about 3 times and it feels bad. Figuring out stuff that is tricky is so rewarding in this game.
zero so far. there were a couple tricky ones. i refuse to use guides on zelda. its my one game where i'm like nope, doing it on my own. i did use a guide for the twilight princess master sword chess game though. i must admit defeat to that puzzle
"To tell you the truth, I've been thinking for a long time about how I could work cooking into a game somehow. But the fact of the matter is that cooking, when you stop to think about it, is pretty boring. It's really slow work and there's not a lot you can really do to make it seem very exciting. I guess if you watch television in the US there are a lot of cooking shows and they somehow manage to make it seem exciting. So maybe if, going forward, I can find a way to make cooking seem more exciting and allow people to have fun with it, I would probably try to put it into a game. Maybe if at some point down the road there is cooking in a game, you guys can all look back and say, "Hey. I bet Aonuma did this.""
Well, I guess he finally accomplished his goal, right?
Been playing since launch. This thing of a game is great and all but boy it would have been nice to have the option for motion controls when wielding the sword. Probably not a popular opinion but its one of the few things I liked in Twilight Princess on Wii.
How many times have you guys looked up a guide to finish a shrine or puzzle? I think I have about 3 times and it feels bad. Figuring out stuff that is tricky is so rewarding in this game.
Yeah. It was the first time I didn't just avoid the Lynel encounter and I must've emptied half my food supply, but the bow seems rather good. ^^ I guess there'll be a use for the other victory err... tokens as well later on.
I can absolutely see how people don't like the durability mechanic. Getting a good weapon in a tough fight knowing that it'll hardly survive the next two or three enemy encampments is a frustrating thought. But it's clear the game is fine tuned around this whole mechanic and a weapon loss, even if it's your best weapon, is never tragic and only in very rare occasions a reason to retreat. You get thrown so many weapons at you, far more than arrows even, that I really can't complain. Far more importantly, the clothing and armour seem to be permanent (?), so even if your offensive capabilities suffers due to weapon loss, your survivability is still intact and you can at the very least make a retreat.
I can only imagine that overattachment and hoarding of weapons leads to so much more frustration than just spending all the weapons as they come. The former creates a constant worry about the state of your equipment and a reluctancy to use the good "stuff", which in turn draws out encounters unnecessarily. If you just use whatever weapon you have on the enemies, while only ever keeping one or two strongest ones for the really tough encounters, it seems really hard to get into a situation where the weapon inventory can fail you.
Thanks! I'm maybe through half of the map so far, so no immedate though of even coming back, yet. Nor do I know what to make of those items, but I guess I'll find out. ^^
Ok I'm losing my mind here. What am I missing at Flight Range? I shot all the targets I could see. Is there a hidden one somewhere?
ALSO FUCKING LOL AT BLOOD MOON RESPAWNING THE GODDAMN TARGETS SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK?!
And please don't tell me the targets are here for no reason. That would make no sense.
Yeah. It was the first time I didn't just avoid the Lynel encounter and I must've emptied half my food supply, but the bow seems rather good. ^^ I guess there'll be a use for the other victory err... tokens as well later on.
I can absolutely see how people don't like the durability mechanic. Getting a good weapon in a tough fight knowing that it'll hardly survive the next two or three enemy encampments is a frustrating thought. But it's clear the game is fine tuned around this whole mechanic and a weapon loss, even if it's your best weapon, is never tragic and only in very rare occasions a reason to retreat. You get thrown so many weapons at you, far more than arrows even, that I really can't complain. Far more importantly, the clothing and armour seem to be permanent (?), so even if your offensive capabilities suffers due to weapon loss, your survivability is still intact and you can at the very least make a retreat.
I can only imagine that overattachment and hoarding of weapons leads to so much more frustration than just spending all the weapons as they come. The former creates a constant worry about the state of your equipment and a reluctancy to use the good "stuff", which in turn draws out encounters unnecessarily. If you just use whatever weapon you have on the enemies, while only ever keeping one or two strongest ones for the really tough encounters, it seems really hard to get into a situation where the weapon inventory can fail you.
I usually carry one weak weapon which I use for trash mobs (Bokoblins, Moblins and Lizalfos) and when it breaks I just steal one weapon from the enemies by parrying, flurry attack or bombing them. I love throwing weapons to their faces and watch them break. I save my best weapons for big enemies and I like that I have to use 3 or 4 of them in a fight, it makes the fight more intense and the enemy look more powerful.
"To tell you the truth, I've been thinking for a long time about how I could work cooking into a game somehow. But the fact of the matter is that cooking, when you stop to think about it, is pretty boring. It's really slow work and there's not a lot you can really do to make it seem very exciting. I guess if you watch television in the US there are a lot of cooking shows and they somehow manage to make it seem exciting. So maybe if, going forward, I can find a way to make cooking seem more exciting and allow people to have fun with it, I would probably try to put it into a game. Maybe if at some point down the road there is cooking in a game, you guys can all look back and say, "Hey. I bet Aonuma did this.""
Well, I guess he finally accomplished his goal, right?
It's not exciting, though. I feel like some enemies just hit like trucks because there is food in the game that can instantly restore a lot of hearts. If the food mechanic wasn't in the game those enemies would hit for less. It's there to add a little more complexity to the world but it doesn't make the mechanic itself more fun.
Has anybody figured out how the creation of potent elixirs work exactly? So I know that a critter and a monster part results in an elixir based upon the effect that the critter part has (and just like cooking of food, you can't have multiple effects, you need to stick to one). Using multiple critters of the same "effect group" (up to four, you need a monster part, after all) results in a more potent elixir, with some critters having a larger "value" of the same effect. On the other hand, using four monster parts and only one part of a critter results in a really weak potion. So you apparently need only 1 monster part and 4 critters, seems clear enough.
What I don't get is how different monster part's rarity / quality play into this. I only tested for a bit (I couldn't be bothered to do the reload-try-reload-try method yet...) because of limited critter materials (I seldom pick those up, plants are more convenient). But I combined four kinds of a critter with say a Bokoblin horn, and then the same four critters with a Moblin horn and the resulting elixirs were identical. Do I have to use a monster part of a "rare" creature that puts up a proper fight like
a Hinox or a Lynel
(minor spoiler of creature names)? I haven't got around to try it with those. Because I was lazy. Does anybody know?
I feel like the targets shouldn't be there if you cant do anything with them yet. Bright targets are inviting the player to shoot them. You're wasting my time and my arrows for no reason.
Yeah. It was the first time I didn't just avoid the Lynel encounter and I must've emptied half my food supply, but the bow seems rather good. ^^ I guess there'll be a use for the other victory err... tokens as well later on.
Those Lynel bows are fantastic, and it gave me a really fun experience in my play session last night.
So I was wandering around the mountains at southern Akkala and happened upon a skull cave. So I paraglided onto the roof and snuck down to the eye holes to see what I was dealing with. Just then it began to rain. I looked into the eye holes and saw something like 6 or 7 Lizalfos, two of which were white. There were no barrels or anything inside, so I was trying to figure out the best way to deal with it when I realized I had a Lynel bow with +14 attack, so I could shoot a few bomb arrows in there to take out the weaker guys.
Well, I had forgotten it was raining, so when I shot my first arrows they didn't explode, and the Lizalfos began to panic and look for me. So I in turn also panicked, and quickly realized I should just jump right in through the eye hole to shoot the bomb arrows in midair while under cover from the rain. It was really badass, I flew through the skull's eye hole, shot four times with 3 arrows each, and took out all but one of the Lizalfos in the skull cave.
I feel like the targets shouldn't be there if you cant do anything with them yet. Bright targets are inviting the player to shoot them. You're wasting my time and my arrows for no reason.
I dunno, considering there's a little house by the entry to the range but no one around my first thought was "this is a minigame I haven't unlocked yet." You can just reload your save if you really needed those arrows.
Yeah, if story is a big reason why you like Zelda, I can totally see why this game would disappoint in that department. For me, I have never cared about the story in this series, so I actually adore their narrative approach here.
The narrative approach is done cleverly here. If you care about story you can get it all first. If you dont, you dont have to bother. As a person known to binge, I have to actively resist going after every memory at once. They're so satisfying to unlock!
BoTW has a good story. Just wish there was more relative to the huge size of the game. I want to do a second play through where I focus only on the main quests. I wonder how that might change things.
If you can't see the absurdity in claiming big giant environments are meticulously designed down to each rock placement (and not just the ones for koroks) rather than just, you know, some environment designers thinking there need to be some rocks here, then, I don't see why I should put in the effort listing out why the game has unfulfilling character progression, or stale bosses, or how complex and authored level design takes a step back to just environments painted in large swathes versus strictly with finer brushes.
But they are meticuosly designed, that´s what we´re talking about. Even the rocks that are not used for Korok puzzles serve different purposes:
They are there so the player doesn´t see one and know that a Korok puzzle is close without having found the puzzle before.
They sometimes hide stuff and appear rarely (specially if you compare them to other 2D or 3D Zeldas) so lifting them is not a chore as it was in the previous games and has actually some excitement because most times you´ll find something.
They are placed with sense, like in the beach where there are a lot of rocks just because that´s what happens in nature, you´ll find more liftable stones than in a snowy mountain, where you´ll find bigger stones or boulders.
Go to the Hera region and look at the map, at first it looks like a simple mountain but if you pay attention you can locate where Korok puzzles, shrines or enemies will be. Of course it all has a coating of environment design on top which makes it fuzzier than the tight design of smaller/linear games, but the design is there and if you spend enough time exploring a region it becomes evident.
The narrative approach is done cleverly here. If you care about story you can get it all first. If you dont, you dont have to bother. As a person known to binge, I have to actively resist going after every memory at once. They're so satisfying to unlock!
BoTW has a good story. Just wish there was more relative to the huge size of the game. I want to do a second play through where I focus only on the main quests. I wonder how that might change things.
One thing that the story in this game does really, really well is actually underscore the whole "amnesia" angle. Like, the way
the champions talk in the memories or during the dungeons
really makes it feel like you and they were very good friends, yet you recall so little about your friendship with them that it still feels to you like they are strangers. I don't really know how they did it but this is probably the one time that the "amnesia" angle in a game has actually made me feel like I've forgotten actual, tangible experiences from the game world and story.
Exchange boring with exciting and you get my take on the one boss I fought so far. ^^ I've found the heavily contrived Zelda puzzle items with too little overworld usage quite annoying. If they want to pack a gimmick into the boss fights, I'd rather prefer they build it especially into the boss environment, not give us something asinine as the rail sliding cog from Twilight Princess.
It's not exciting, though. I feel like some enemies just hit like trucks because there is food in the game that can instantly restore a lot of hearts. If the food mechanic wasn't in the game those enemies would hit for less. It's there to add a little more complexity to the world but it doesn't make the mechanic itself more fun.
The cooking itself isn't exciting. But it gives an additional layer of meaning to the overworld exploration. Even if you find nothing else but a spot where certain ingredients are obtainable, you'll have found something of value in the world.
I have only read Jim's review, and never have I disagreed with a review of his as much as with this one. There are several things, like the weapon degradation system, that I can see his issue with, even if I don't agree with it personally, but in other aspects I get the feeling that he didn't (want to) consider why things are the way they are and how they might be steps up from typical tropes. One aspect is the shrines. He calls them out of place and just there because they need Zelda dungeons, but in saying that he completely ignores the fact that these shrines are part of the landschap and have been used as landmarks around which civilisation has gathered (see
basically every village, but also the ones that are used as Holy places like the one with the Goron strength test
) and serve as a cross-era location for every new her to underground the trials that test his resolve. Another aspect is the towers. He throw a shitpost-like comment about them in at the end of his review, basically degradating them to Ubitowers. He completely ignores that these towers are often defended by a powerful set of enemies and are often situated in a location or a construction that demands skill in scaling it or in avoiding/combatting enemies. Never have they felt anywhere near as triviale to reach as AC towers, and they also only reveal the lay-out of the map: they don't bombard the map with icon, which is the biggest problem with Ubitowers imo.
My impression is all in all that his review is unfairly dismissive of some design decisions without even considering them, which makes the review feel quite weak to me.
Pretty much. The "Ubitowers" comment makes me scratch my head the most, because it ignores everything about how they work and are approached in game for a superficial optical resemblance. Including his other comments about "needing two full circles of stamina" (I'm 45 hours in and just got the third quarter of the second) and climbing the towers being dreary, I honestly think Jim didn't really "get" climbing in this game. I worked myself up very high mountains with just 1 1/4 stamina, that's no problem at all. You just can't go up in a straight line, but there are always (literal) nooks and crannies you can use. And if you try to climb each tower straight from the bottom, you're doing something wrong.
Then there's the thing that's simply wrong in his review, shrines needing to be solved "on sight" or be forgotten. I don't even know how you could get this impression. Granted, not everyone just activates them without getting inside (but even then, you should see that this alone activates the teleport platform), but shrines appear on your map as soon as you get close to them. There is simply no way to miss that, so I'm really curious what Jim did.
Also,
Given the additional "difficulty" of Breath of the Wild, it's more crucial than ever to have a solid health supply, and I've put "difficulty" in quotes because the main way in which this game tries to be tough is to make most enemies highly absorbent and more than capable of dropping Link in one or two hits.
I mean, if you ever fought one of the wizards, a guardian, or one of the mini-bosses on the overworld, you should now that this isn't true at all. If you know what you're doing, all of these bosses become much, much easier.
And let's not even start with inventory being a chore to manage, but Fallout 4 is somehow getting a 9.5.
But they are meticuosly designed, that´s what we´re talking about. Even the rocks that are not used for Korok puzzles serve different purposes:
They are there so the player doesn´t see one and know that a Korok puzzle is close without having found the puzzle before.
They sometimes hide stuff and appear rarely (specially if you compare them to other 2D or 3D Zeldas) so lifting them is not a chore as it was in the previous games and has actually some excitement because most times you´ll find something.
They are placed with sense, like in the beach where there are a lot of rocks just because that´s what happens in nature, you´ll find more liftable stones than in a snowy mountain, where you´ll find bigger stones or boulders.
Go to the Hera region and look at the map, at first it looks like a simple mountain but if you pay attention you can locate where Korok puzzles, shrines or enemies will be. Of course it all has a coating of environment design on top which makes it fuzzier than the tight design of smaller/linear games, but the design is there and if you spend enough time exploring a region it becomes evident.
One, like I said, saying the quality is somehow objective is asinine.
Two, there's nothing meticulous about having a random generator in the background decide whether the rock you're about to pick up has a rupee or a frog underneath it. No shit there are things that have to have more thought behind them in the world design (positioning a row of trees that hide a korok puzzle to stand out on a hillside) but there's an equivalent amount of some dude sitting at a computer just painting grass along a surface to cover the field or someone looking at a map thinking "this is a bit too empty slap some trees here".
I mean I'm playing through horizon right now and that world feels as "meticulous" at a micro level as anything in this game did (which is to say it rarely feels remarkable).
At a macro-level of course you can appreciate how you can see certain landmarks at nearly every spot in the game so they act as actual landmarks but micro level design is full of just arbitrary aesthetical choices for the sake of it.
I mean, if you ever fought one of the wizards, a guardian, or one of the mini-bosses on the overworld, you should now that this isn't true at all. If you know what you're doing, all of these bosses become much, much easier.
And let's not even start with inventory being a chore to manage, but Fallout 4 is somehow getting a 9.5.
The majority of the enemies you fight in later hours of the game are just way fatter and tankier and spongier versions of enemies you've already fought. You end up wailing on a silver bokoblin and just stun locking it for like 10 seconds because it has so much health.
One thing that the story in this game does really, really well is actually underscore the whole "amnesia" angle. Like, the way
the champions talk in the memories or during the dungeons
really makes it feel like you and they were very good friends, yet you recall so little about your friendship with them that it still feels to you like they are strangers. I don't really know how they did it but this is probably the one time that the "amnesia" angle in a game has actually made me feel like I've forgotten actual, tangible experiences from the game world and story.
fair few people you actually knew before the Calamity
really helps, they don't play into the "I don't know who I am and nobody else does" trope and instead you learn very quickly who you are, you just don't know what's happened. I think the Zora's domain part of the main quest really handles it perfectly.
Don't know if it's already known, but I found something out about the spawning of fairies:
They don't spawn at the Great Fairy fountains if you have more than two in your pocket already. Also, it appears that if they spawn, how many do is linked to how many Great Fairy fountains you've already discovered. There used to spawn three fairies, but since I found the second fountain, four fairies are being spawned.
Pretty much. The "Ubitowers" comment makes me scratch my head the most, because it ignores everything about how they work and are approached in game for a superficial optical resemblance. Including his other comments about "needing two full circles of stamina" (I'm 45 hours in and just got the third quarter of the second) and climbing the towers being dreary, I honestly think Jim didn't really "get" climbing in this game. I worked myself up very high mountains with just 1 1/4 stamina, that's no problem at all. You just can't go up in a straight line, but there are always (literal) nooks and crannies you can use. And if you try to climb each tower straight from the bottom, you're doing something wrong.
Then there's the thing that's simply wrong in his review, shrines needing to be solved "on sight" or be forgotten. I don't even know how you could get this impression. Granted, not everyone just activates them without getting inside (but even then, you should see that this alone activates the teleport platform), but shrines appear on your map as soon as you get close to them. There is simply no way to miss that, so I'm really curious what Jim did.
Also,
I mean, if you ever fought one of the wizards, a guardian, or one of the mini-bosses on the overworld, you should now that this isn't true at all. If you know what you're doing, all of these bosses become much, much easier.
And let's not even start with inventory being a chore to manage, but Fallout 4 is somehow getting a 9.5.
Yeah, I wrote the climbing thing off as him not enjoying climbing, but it is the best climbing I have done in recent years because it transforms any Mountain or building to a climbing puzzles that can be solved either using brute stamina force if you have upgraded that or by looking for plateaus to rest on, which is the puzzel element I mentioned.
Especially wizard battles are awesome early on. My first fight against one was one of the best moments in this game that is filled with awesome moments for me. It really requires more than just lucky because of one-shotting enemies, but is a genuine mini-boss battle with special phases in it.
Also the tower in Hyrule field was absolutely epic. (Will spoiler rag just in case)
It is surrounded on all sides with guardians, and the time I was not yet skill enough to take those down. As a result, I tried to sneaker past them and climb the tower. That worked, until I was 10 feet or so into climbing. The guardians spotted me and their lasers were aiming at me. I had to move fast (jump) to avoid those while also taking care not to run out of stamina. The platforms on the way provided much needed protection from the lasers and a place to regio stamina safe. Then on to the next one, and so on until I finally reached the top! It was an absolute thriller, and is still one of the most memorabele events in the game for me.
That to me prove that the towers are so much more than simple Ubitowers.
Pretty much. The "Ubitowers" comment makes me scratch my head the most, because it ignores everything about how they work and are approached in game for a superficial optical resemblance. Including his other comments about "needing two full circles of stamina" (I'm 45 hours in and just got the third quarter of the second) and climbing the towers being dreary, I honestly think Jim didn't really "get" climbing in this game. I worked myself up very high mountains with just 1 1/4 stamina, that's no problem at all. You just can't go up in a straight line, but there are always (literal) nooks and crannies you can use. And if you try to climb each tower straight from the bottom, you're doing something wrong.
Then there's the thing that's simply wrong in his review, shrines needing to be solved "on sight" or be forgotten. I don't even know how you could get this impression. Granted, not everyone just activates them without getting inside (but even then, you should see that this alone activates the teleport platform), but shrines appear on your map as soon as you get close to them. There is simply no way to miss that, so I'm really curious what Jim did.
Also,
I mean, if you ever fought one of the wizards, a guardian, or one of the mini-bosses on the overworld, you should now that this isn't true at all. If you know what you're doing, all of these bosses become much, much easier.
And let's not even start with inventory being a chore to manage, but Fallout 4 is somehow getting a 9.5.
For stamina it seems he never realized dashing while climbing is really inefficient. Or maybe he never realized you need to look for a place to rest in the middle of your climb
And about difficulty, seems like he forgot to upgrade his gear, he should not be getting 1hko often enough to be a problem. I refused to upgrade at all and only in the late game I was being 1hko. Now the dificulty curve is all mess up because of the food, not because of the enemies hitting hard. If he had argurd how the game encourages you to spam food instead of learning to parry/dodge I would have agreed.
as someone who has been turned off of Zelda for a long time, and is utterly sick of open world games, I can't believe how much this has grabbed me. Late Saturday night just thinking I'd stop as soon as I got 13 hearts, then realizing it's 2AM, then it changes to 3AM because of daylight savings oh shiiii-
I got my soldier armor up to 54 defense now. Wasn't hard at all to get the materials, it's just stuff from things I've been fighting anyways. I also bought the Sheik ninja armor which actually seems pretty nice as a 'wear all the time' thing. Enemies are definitely ignoring me more and holy crap the set bonus makes you move like sanic at night.
