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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild |OT2| It's 98 All Over Again

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One, like I said, saying the quality is somehow objective is asinine.
But it is. I mean, design isn´t an arcane magic where the basic components are undescriptable: it can be studied, learnt and analyzed, so you can value it objectively, provided you know the basics to measure it against.

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".
Having a random generator adjusted to some values you deem acceptable and deciding when to use it are all design decissions. You´re making it sound like the devs just flip the switch of "rock generator" and they´re done. And yeah, I agree that there´s the work of environmental artists, but what I´m saying is that it goes on top of an underlying meticulous design. Designing a mountain with intent and then adding coating on top doesn´t negate the underlying intent. And even trees can serve a purpose, for example at the beginning of the game I climbed Mount Hylia without cold resisting gear and the tree placement was perfect to allow me to get some wood and set up camps to keep me warm while continuing my ascend of the mountain. But if you had the warm mallet you may have thought those trees were there just for aesthetic reasons. On Hera I cut a tree and wihout it being my intent it fell down a slope and killed a Lizalfos and a pack of wolves that were waiting for me at the bottom. That single tree at the top of a hill not accessible for enemies was put there for that reason (or as a wood dispenser to make a camp if you didn´t have cold+ gear as the distance to nearby trees could suggest). The more I play the game, the more instances of this initially seeming aesthetic choices having underlying intent I find. And if you go around the world following paths, or climb mountains through the existing paths rather than through random walls, you even find proper level design and pacing.

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 haven´t played Horizon so I can´t compare it to BotW, but glad you are enjoying it, it looks like an awesome game as well.
 
I'm getting bad freezes in combat. Like half a second where everything freezes. Anyone else?
It's happened with me but only when fighting moblins. A couple of times I've hit them and they've fallen down a bit of a slope, and for some reason the game drops to a few frames a second or even freezes for a second.
 
I have never died so many times in a zelda game. I am going to
Zora's Domain
and walking around and out of nowhere, get one shotted by lightning from an enemy. I feel severely underpowered in this game, but i have done just about every sidequest available to me. So either im doing things severely out of order, or i am just terrible at this game.

I also cannot seem to be able to do the dodge flurry attack either. I can do the parry, but the dodge is nigh impossible.
 
It's happened with me but only when fighting moblins. A couple of times I've hit them and they've fallen down a bit of a slope, and for some reason the game drops to a few frames a second or even freezes for a second.

Same, this happens sometimes when fighting moblins only. And sometimes in handheld mode too.

It's most definitely a software glitch, since it only happens with moblins.
 
I'm getting bad freezes in combat. Like half a second where everything freezes. Anyone else?

yeah I think someone has speculated that when killing a moblin sometimes the game will freeze until it figures out how to employ the ragdoll. happened to me mostly when I would kill one on a slope. definitely a software glitch that hopefully gets patched out.
 
I really hate Faron Woods... its always raining and the framerate sucks (Wii u)... and there's a shitty haze over everything when its not raining
 
I'm getting bad freezes in combat. Like half a second where everything freezes. Anyone else?

This happens consistently with those giant moblins on my TV, it's really disappointing and no way should have passed QA, I thought my Switch had broken. Now I'm forced to play handheld when I spot a few of these ahead, only happened recently so may be firmware related.

Happens mid-fight so imagine how frustrating that is. I found an area with 5 of them and had to undock just to get through it.

The framerate is bothering me, usually in other games I don't care as I can't tell the difference usually and the whole 30-60 argument never bothers me, but when it drops to a crawl and even freezes, it just ruins the game as I'm off put from exploring forests or engaging in big battles.
 
But it is. I mean, design isn´t an arcane magic where the basic components are undescriptable: it can be studied, learnt and analyzed, so you can value it objectively, provided you know the basics to measure it against.

The more I play the game, the more instances of this initially seeming aesthetic choices having underlying intent I find. And if you go around the world following paths, or climb mountains through the existing paths rather than through random walls, you even find proper level design and pacing.

And being subjective doesn't imply there isn't intent in the creation? But game design by its nature isn't something that can be broken down purely into objective measures just like any creative medium and level design is no different.

And with anything at this scale there will be plenty of flaws to poke at and deride. I don't think the world is any more notable or standout than any other open world game I've played. The ability to climb on (almost) every surface is a fun dynamic but it doesn't somehow turn the imperfections or ridges on the side of a mountain into some majestic marvel. I bullshit my way up mountains in Skyrim or way back in WoW and I wouldn't call those worlds somehow grand achievements either.

And honestly that's what a lot of the traversal in this game just makes me think of:

the times when I played WoW where I tried to bullshit my way up mountains to get into regions I wasn't really intended to do. It's amusing but nothing fascinating or marvelous. And that sort of traversal stays mostly the same across the board. You don't really get new interesting ways to traverse the world ever. You don't get a grappling hook to launch your way through the environment. Shield surfing is neat but undercooked and feels a bit unrealized. What if you could actually use other tools to propel yourself while you shield surf or use it to bounce and skid on enemies?
 
Warning: I guess I'll spoiler tag, I talk about the bosses in the game

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed
by how samey they are, both in visual design and the actual battle.
Hated that as soon as I
reached the second beast I figured what the other bosses were going to be.

That's quite a big flaw imo, epic boss fights are something I look forward in all games, and something I wouldn't expect a Zelda game to mess up.

With that said there are still
some epic secondary bosses scattered around, which I loved
.

what's the "official" way to beat the boss on the
flying divine beast
?

The one in the
Elephant
makes you use your
frost rune
, for example.

I feel like i beat the
bird one
by brute forcing it by simply shooting its head with a rather powerful bow over and over and over again.

I really want to know how long I have played this game on Switch. Any way of know?

people are having their playtimes show up in their "profiles" after 10 days. Some had them show up before.
 
I got about a dozen bloodmoons per play session (granted I played in long sessions) it was fucking absurd. I had so many encounters and quests and activities just outright shit on by it. It was so bad for me that I almost quit playing a couple times because I just couldn't take it.
In like 25 hours I've seen three blood moons.
 
I really hate Faron Woods... its always raining and the framerate sucks (Wii u)... and there's a shitty haze over everything when its not raining
It's the tropics dude :P. Did you get to one of the shrines there? After i did that it stopped raining.
 
Dungeons have been my favorite ingredient in the Zelda formula for a long time. I do not miss them here. I really enjoy the shrines. I do wish there were more of them.
 
Gerudo town is my favorite place in the game, everything is so chill. It sucks that Link is underage for the bar, though. Strolling through town I met little Gerudo girls and I wondered, what happened to their fathers? And what of the Gerudo women that marry men (one said she has a husband), do they need to leave town or do they do long distance relationships, or do their men live in tents in the desert?
 
I'm getting bad freezes in combat. Like half a second where everything freezes. Anyone else?

The Moblin ragdoll physics are sometimes too much for the system to handle. Not kidding, either. One time it froze for like 20 seconds - I was in the process of getting up to hard reset when it suddenly picked back up lol
 
Anyone else walk onto Hinox's
palm while he was sleeping, so that when he reaches up to scratch his belly you can hop off and nab the weapons around his neck?

I don't think this was intended.
When he wakes up, you fall through him, and you can get "stuck" inside him and take a lot of damage.
But you can still get the treasure if you're fast enough.

Sort of wish he had more behaviors. This was a really easy fight. Even at the very start any player could beat him by just walking in circles and dropping bombs. Would be cool if partway through he picked up your bombs or your dropped weapons and threw them back at you. I used a giant boomerang most of the fight and took him out pretty quickly. Eventually he started to cover his eye but it still did a lot of damage. Imagine if he caught it and threw it back at you—or even better, threw it over the side of the arena.
 
This motion controlled shrine puzzle is ridiculously awful.
I didn't like the one motion shrine I've found either. I ended up
flipping over the Wii U pad and rolling the ball off the back of the puzzle to bypass the whole damn maze.

I played a bunch over the weekend. Kept getting surprised by the Wii U pad running out of batteries in one sitting lol. I entered and cleared
the Zora area and the dungeon/beast quest there
, and got a few more hearts because I was starting to get oneshot a lot on 3 hearts (I went two stamina upgrades with my first 8 orbs).

I really liked the whole progression of that questline. The run up to
Zora's domain was kind of tedious and cheesy (god fucking dammit Sidonis, stop going HAI YOU'RE ALMOST THERE like 10 times), but the part after it was great. I liked fighting the Lynel. He oneshotted me twice and procced my fairies, but then I ate a 10-minute high defense boost food and then suddenly every hit he did hurt for about 1 heart at most. I couldn't figure out how to lure him to shoot more arrows at me, so I just took him head on. It's kind of funny how the strongest monster I've fought in the game turned out to be the guy who forced me how to dodge/parry properly. I ended up breaking at least 2 weapons and shields on him, but took him down thanks to a lot of parrying and dodging.

The water fight outside the beast was FUCKING AWESOME. Sidonis finally redeemed himself as someone useful and not just an annoyingly cheerful guy.

The dungeon itself was good. I was already told that the dungeons are shorter than most Zelda dungeons, but it was still pretty full of puzzle solving and pretty clever design, so I was fine with it.

The boss fight was okay. I liked the Lynel fight more, probably mostly because I didn't have Mipha talking in my ear the whole damn time. The fight itself was okay but Mipha talked too much.

Overall I'm really enjoying it. Trying to scrape together the money to
buy a house now.
 
I didn't like the one motion shrine I've found either. I ended up
flipping over the Wii U pad and rolling the ball off the back of the puzzle to bypass the whole damn maze.
I tried to do this but the motion controls were so bad in portable mode that I couldn't even do this properly. In the end I got lucky by sending the ball flying qnd getting it to land where it needed to as I was tlrage turning the console.
 
I swear the game is programmed to have it start raining as soon as you start fighting any Stone Talus. Fuck that so much. I could be climbing all over that thing, SotC style, but no, I'm just gonna spam bombs because lolrain.
 
Dungeons have been my favorite ingredient in the Zelda formula for a long time. I do not miss them here. I really enjoy the shrines. I do wish there were more of them.

120 shrines isn't enough? wha? I found myself wishing there were fewer, but more substantial shrines/dungeons, or even better, more areas like Hyrule castle.
 
When it comes to cooking, it seems like critters and monster parts can ONLY be used in elixirs, and other ingredients can ONLY be used in food dishes. Is that correct, or is there ever any time that, for example, a mushroom or herb can be used in an elixir to bring out its status effect?

Also, do different types of monster parts have different effects, or are they pretty interchangeable?
 
I swear the game is programmed to have it start raining as soon as you start fighting any Stone Talus. Fuck that so much. I could be climbing all over that thing, SotC style, but no, I'm just gonna spam bombs because lolrain.
Hard mode from DLC 1: The rain never ends.
 
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.

You thought that was a thriller? Wait until you try and reach the shrine in the Forgotten Temple. Hehe...
 
I swear the game is programmed to have it start raining as soon as you start fighting any Stone Talus. Fuck that so much. I could be climbing all over that thing, SotC style, but no, I'm just gonna spam bombs because lolrain.

I absolutely love that fight <3 <3 <3

I didn't even enjoy SotC that much but I love the not so subtle homages to it.

There are MANY moments clearly inspired by the game.
 
I've been trying to find Korok Forest for ages now so I can upgrade my inventory slots. Is it in the Lost Woods? That's all I can find following the Hylia River north.
 
You thought that was a thriller? Wait until you try and reach the shrine in the Forgotten Temple. Hehe...

I remember finding that place on accident, running my ass away, coming back prepared
and then there were still way more Guardians in the temple than I thought and ran out of Ancient Arrows part way through and ended up sneaking my way to the shrine.
 
When it comes to cooking, it seems like critters and monster parts can ONLY be used in elixirs, and other ingredients can ONLY be used in food dishes. Is that correct, or is there ever any time that, for example, a mushroom or herb can be used in an elixir to bring out its status effect?

Also, do different types of monster parts have different effects, or are they pretty interchangeable?

Usually, that's the rule, however
there is a side quest asks you to find a strange behaviour guy, and after you finished that quest, it is possible to cook monster parts into dishes.
 
So I beat the main story last night.

I don't even know where to start. I think this is the first open world game that isn't an MMO, to keep me engaged for so long. I put 60+ hours in and there wasn't any part of that where I felt like I was really bored.

I think that all the stuff that got toned down from the previous Zelda games like dungeons and dungeon bosses are a necessary trade off for things that really carry the series forward.

Shrines and Korok puzzles are awesome and really make every journey in a random direction seem worth it.

I really liked what they did with the music this time around and I hope they continue doing the ambient open world themes with more traditional village theme music.

I don't want to rank it against my all times favorites, but it's the best game I have played this year. It just has so much going for it and I really hope the DLC adds some meaningful content for me to enjoy.

I'm really thinking about just starting up a new game 3 heart only run, since combat difficulty really tanked in the last 20 hours of the game.
 
eventide island

the last ball, the one that came off the hinox, I accidentally dropped it in the quicksand and it seems to have vanished. I looked around where the hinox was to see if it respawned there and I can't find it.

Any ideas?
 
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