The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

[falafel]

Oh god i can't fucking bear it any more

[Shay Chaise]

It masks your footsteps, so it's a good chance to stealth a tough camp but yeah, cosmetics and atmosphere aside, it's a frustration. You can climb in rain, by the way, you just have to time your jump on the fifth or sixth step. You'll gain a bit, then slip a bit but the overall gain is not far off normal climbing.

[falafel]

So I got pissed off at the rain and went for a suicide run at Ganon with no idea what to expect and no preparation at all and kicked his arse.

That was a bit of a surprise. Was mainly going for catharsis / having a first gander at the castle.

Might stop there actually. I still havent got past the first 50 pages of Swann's Way, so.

[Mister Six]

Thanks Colacentral and Thursday. I'll get on track for that thing, whatever it is.

[Kelvin]

So I got pissed off at the rain and went for a suicide run at Ganon with no idea what to expect and no preparation at all and kicked his arse.

That was a bit of a surprise. Was mainly going for catharsis / having a first gander at the castle.

Might stop there actually. I still havent got past the first 50 pages of Swann's Way, so.

Had you done all the divine beasts, out of interest?

[falafel]

Yes, so, that helped. But not all the memories.

After 30 minutes' reflection: it is absolutely true (for me) that this game gives all of its pleasure through the exploration and discovery. Remarkably so. I thought the story was egregiously one-note but it kind of has to be structureless because of the totally arbitrary order in which you can unlock most of it. The world of the game is a completely peerless execution of the concept. The game is a rock solid classic.

That said, it loses copious points for me because the cloth from which it is cut holds no nostalgic value; and apart from the Guardians, the copious purple gold and blue, the pond ladies and the occasional baroque flourish, the design of it struck me as pretty generic. Executed impeccably, but not very characterful in itself. It was the sense of scale and endless possibility that drew me in, and kept me for weeks at what would otherwise have been a pretty dreadful time in my life. I will always be grateful for that. If someone could plonk a decent story over the top of that, with emotional heft, decent voice acting, a bit of intellectual rigour, a proper cathartic ending, and a cpativating setting rather than a generic fantasy playground, I would be in heaven. But I wonder if that is even possible. This'll do, for now.

[falafel]

Weeks? Months. I have been playing this exclusively since early November with a break at Christmas to whiz through LA Noire. I don't do that. I mean, this is really special. Feels churlish to criticise but at the same time it is even more remarkable how good this is despite fundamental weaknesses that could easily have had me slam-dunk the cartridge into a wheelie bin.

[Kelvin]

a proper cathartic ending

In case you weren't aware, there is actually a better ending if you unlock all the memories. If you don't want to do that, just look it up on youtube. It's not going to transform your opinion of the weak story, but it is a marked improvement over the piss weak ending that you get for just completing the game without the memories.

As for the rest of your post, I agree with the stuff about the story and voice acting. As for intellectual rigeour, I think it depends what you mean: the game definitely has a consistent theme and tone; people finding purpose and hope in loss and failure. That runs through almost all the NPC's and side plots. Melancholy, beaten down people trying to make good. It's not especially deep, but I still appreciated the consistency and clarity of that idea. It's the story that's too shallow and repetitive, rather than the world itself, in my opinion.   

Design; I suppose some of the humans look a bit samey, but the monsters all look incredible, I reckon. Conceptually generic, I suppose, but injected with personality by dint of the art design and quirky animations. Lynels staring you down, bored Lizalfos eating flies out of the air, bokoblins telling each other stories and snatching food up. I think the game absolutely overflows with personality, in spite of it's generic fantasy roots. Maybe that's just because I have such an ingrained affection for Zelda, though. I can't say.   

[falafel]

I do agree that the execution of the design and animation is fantastic. A small detail but i found those little lopsided rock enemies, the slow ones it's easy to get away from, incredibly charming. And can't argue about the melancholy - it's there, and the NPCs do have their own character. But I've never played a Zelda game before and the fundamental aesthetic just doesn't work for me.

[Kelvin]

That's fair enough. It is, fundamentally, a world of goblins and elves. I just think that Nintendo inject a lot of unique personality into it that elevates the games above it's fantasy roots. I mean, typically in fantasy worlds, characters are basically just archetypes, but in Zelda, while that's true of the main story characters, the NPC's are much more unconventional and distinctive.

I can instantly remember the man who became obsessed with chickens once his wife left him, or the builders who only work with people if they have the same name as them, or the man whose introducing his own system of money to bring down the establishment, or the beaten down man roaming Hyrule for treasure with his bossy sister. They aren't deep characters, at all, but I feel like it's that consistently "odd" characterisation that gives the series a distinctive personality of it's own.

edit: I know you're talking about the aesthetic, though. I'm just talking more generally.

[falafel]

Oh yes, definitely agree. Some nice little quests. Not sure what it is. I think I'm asking too much.

If I compare this with The Witcher 3, it felt more like I was moving a playmobil figure around a ginormous set and crafting adventures with my imagination rather than being told a story. It captures a childlike sense of play quite amazingly. And there are those more grown-up touches to the minor quests you mention. But i could have done with a bit more meat. Correct me if I'm wrong but I suspect Zelda is slightly hamstrung by being necessarily a straightforward hero's journey. Is Majora's Mask a bit more complex than that though?

[Kelvin]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I suspect Zelda is slightly hamstrung by being necessarily a straightforward hero's journey. Is Majora's Mask a bit more complex than that though?

To be honest, although they do all follow the classic hero's journey, and more specifically the narrative structure of an ordinary boy setting out to save someone, BOTW does have, in my opinion, the weakest main story of any 3D zelda game. In none of the games is Link himself given any real character, but Wind Waker, Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess all feature simple but engaging stories, with a few good twists and decent reveals. Majora's Mask is a fairly simple story, but elevated by it's incredibly rich and layered themes of loss, death, sadness and decline, all of which get explored in different ways throughout every major and sub quest. For my money, Majora's Mask remains one of the best, and most interesting, games ever made, thematically.

Similarly, in terms of main characters, BOTW is easily the weakest of the 3D Zeldas. Wind Waker, Majora's Mask, Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, have much more likeable and engaging main characters - although, again, none of them are deep in any meaningful sense; they''re just endearing archtypes with more of a reason to care about them.     

[Thursday]

Link's potential is wasted in BOTW, there's an idea there in him coming to terms with his memories, who he was, how he failed, but they never really emphasise this the way they could.

[Shay Chaise]

Many of your criticisms of the main quest stuff were very much shared by fans of the 'traditional' Zelda games. It does lack the momentum and episodic structure of Ocarina or Twilight Princess, etc. It's pretty common in many mainline Zelda games for there to be a major shift or rug pull or acceleration or subversion of the traditional quest structure, so much so that this has become expected - and arguably, that's one way in which BotW is subversive. It's structurally nothing like any Zelda before. Equally, in terms of tools and weapons, it's a completely different approach. You really not gradually building your moveset, you get it all at the start, pretty much, and you just learn how to get more out of what you have by experimentation.

The open world also serves as a parallel to that approach. It's wide open from the start (which you can't say of The Witcher or whatever which gates a lot through both levelling and narrative) and it is very much for you to write your own story. I can barely remember anything about any quests, but I can remember countless moments where the systems and 'emergent gameplay' (soz) made for stories I've never had in any other open world game. I really like The Witcher but it's basically a drip feed of fetch quests leading to cut scenes. There's nothing mechanically interesting to it, there are no emergent moments. You can't create your own stories. The lack of characterisation is - arguably - deliberate, too, and reinforces the idea that you create the narrative. You are Link Freeman, if you like, except that HL2 had a really strong sense of momentum. Hmm, I hope you get my point.

I think your Playmobil analogy is a cracker. That's exactly what it feels like to me, a giant toybox. I'm pretty much a mechanics guy, though I do enjoy detailed world building, whether or not it's explicit, so it's right up my street. Funnily enough, I do really love Skyrim but of all the hours I've put in, probably 1% of that is following quest lines. It's mostly just walking around and seeing what happens.

[Kelvin]

Link's potential is wasted in BOTW, there's an idea there in him coming to terms with his memories, who he was, how he failed, but they never really emphasise this the way they could.

They're still stubbornly clinging to this idea that Link in purely an avatar of the player, and therefore cannot have a personality of his own. Windwaker Link is widely consider the best version, though, precisely because there is more personality and context for him.

More generally, the biggest problem BOTW has, in terms of story, is the way they forced almost all the character development and background into memories you could find in any order, and which therefore lack any real arc unless you find them all and watch them in sequence. I also think the memories are too repetitive in what they tell us, that once you've seen a few of them, they start to merge together a bit.

I don't know how they could solve this while retaining the memory concept, though. Maybe have big plot points only revealed in memories that unlock after you've found a specific set of earlier memories? Or maybe just use the memories to provide more general context about the world and history; a memory about Ganon's origins, a memory about Zelda's family, a memory about the society 100 years ago, a memory about link's family... stuff that would make each memory interesting and insightful in their own way, but which didn't have any over-riding narrative arc; just provided more background and context.     

[falafel]

Yes, the memories. Would have made more sense to me to have the key ones unlock in a specific order, maybe after every 10 shrines, and just have a few geographical ones that give you context. That would have incentivised the shrines too, especially because the harder tests of strength started to get pretty irritating.

[brat-sampson]

They could have disconnected the memories from the locations and simply have them play out in a preset order, regardless of which ones you collected, but I quite liked the way they tied in, so something would be lost either way.

[Mango Chimes]

I liked the memories and especially the fact you could get them out of chronological order. You cunts.

[falafel]

Come on. They were pish.

Just Zelda being all cutesy and adventurous but still basically a weak little girl who needs a boy hero to come and save her. There wasn't even really a story there. Oops Ganon, oops different destinies, oops sword. Pfffffht. That was a fart sound, by the way.

[falafel]

To be clear, I love this game; it coached me through the early months of a break-up and I have put more time into it than any other game I have ever played, but the story was shite and the memories were drivel.

[falafel]

The incredible thing is that I have this strange feeling that I havent actually even got through the tutorial yet. Like I've barely scraped the surface.

Will probably dip back in in a few months.

[Mango Chimes]

Just Zelda being all cutesy and adventurous but still basically a weak little girl who needs a boy hero to come and save her.

Not really. To the extent of being the opposite of that.

[Kelvin]

Yeah, I don't agree with that either. The full set of memories focus on her frustration at being unable to fulfil her duty, either in the way that's expected of her or the way that she wants. I don't really understand how you could interpret her desperate, morose character as cute and adventurous. I really recommend watching the memories and true ending on Youtube, if you only saw a handful of them while playing. They aren't perfect, but they do provide a clear arc for Zelda.

[Thursday]

Honestly i think i hate Zelda in this, although it's really  just the voice.

[falafel]

Ok, watched all the memories.

Hmm. A bit more complex than I had thought but she is still pretty simpering. Doesn't change the narrative arc really either - she's basically just holding the fort.

Ah, it's not terrible. Not really what I played it for.

[madhair60]

I went back to this. Made some actual semblance of progress. Found two combat shrines I was unable to do (one hit and I died, couldn't even scratch the enemy), got a horse and found a stable, traded some korok seeds, and bought some actual non-starting clothes.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to ride this insane high.

[Thursday]

Ahh that's annoying luck, although honestly I feel like you're not quite going to get what you want from this game. "You just don't get it way." I just think you're wanting something slightly different from it and won't necessarily get the same satisfaction those of us who did love the game got from some of the same things.

[madhair60]

Nah I'm actually pretty excited to get back on it tonight. Now that I have a HORSE it's a lot less arduous getting around.

[Kelvin]

The problem is that horses are fun to ride across areas you've already cleared, but pretty counter intuitive to the climbing and exploring that make up the bulk of the game. You can't reach a lot of secrets on a horse, and the idea is that you reach one interesting landmark then see another and head straight for it with your glider, rather than back tracking for a horse.

[Shay Chaise]

Not being sexist but I always thought there's something off about guys riding horses