Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 12:33:35 AM

Login with username, password and session length

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Started by Kelvin, February 14, 2017, 03:13:25 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

falafel


Z

Isn't Silent Hill 2 a game with a really shite remastering? A game that benefitted hugely from playing to weaknesses of the tech it was built on suddenly has massively cleared up textures and a reduced grain filter to justify the 'HD' label.

falafel

I played it on PS2, at the time. No matter. It was only to illustrate a point.

Timothy

Quote from: falafel on March 29, 2018, 11:00:22 PM
Also, Timothy, I had only ever played one Zelda game before and not particularly enjoyed it. I think you might just not like this game.

Yeah, I think so too. I played it and completed almost all the shrines (was the only game on Switch I owned) but for me it's not as good as Majora's Mask or OOT.

Z

So i finally got around to repairing my Wii U and playing this...
Fucking hell, I genuinely did not expect to find this as fun as I do. Not a Zelda fan at all generally, or an open world game player at all but this is just so breezy and fun. You can do a ridiculous amount however you like from the second you get out of the first place. Spent last night just collecting shrines to do tonight. There's so many diversions to take any time I go anywhere and they're all these sweet little bite sized bits of game.

Slightly concerned I'm spoiling aspects of the game by using all my stamina boosters to investigate areas way beyond where I should be and then reloading though.

Dog Botherer

Quote from: Z on May 06, 2018, 02:19:58 PM
So i finally got around to repairing my Wii U and playing this...
Fucking hell, I genuinely did not expect to find this as fun as I do. Not a Zelda fan at all generally, or an open world game player at all but this is just so breezy and fun. You can do a ridiculous amount however you like from the second you get out of the first place. Spent last night just collecting shrines to do tonight. There's so many diversions to take any time I go anywhere and they're all these sweet little bite sized bits of game.

Slightly concerned I'm spoiling aspects of the game by using all my stamina boosters to investigate areas way beyond where I should be and then reloading though.

Any particular reason you're reloading the areas? The game really supports a kind of "fuck it, I'll give this a go then" attitude when playing.

falafel

Yeah, in the end you will have plenty of stamina and be a master chef so just go where you like and you won't be penalised. I dont think it's worth the faff of reloading.

Ed: also I think there's really no such thing as an area beyond where you should be. If you can access it without the environment killing you, you can go there.

Dog Botherer

Yeah, you might have to use stealth to avoid enemies that you might have trouble with but off the top of my head there's not more than a couple of areas that you need to avoid. If it's for environmental reasons, just mess around with food til you come up with a solution.

brat-sampson

I mean, the game's designed such that you can tackle the four 'main' checkboxes in any order you want, or go straight to the finish line and have a crack at Yer Boy Ganon without any of the fucking about. There's nowhere you're 'not supposed' to go that is't actually gated off (e.g. Zora's domain is inaccessible from any direction other than the intended path at first thanks to all the rain and etc)

Bhazor

Quote from: falafel on March 29, 2018, 11:00:22 PM
Re. story: When you put it like that i agree with you completely.

Also, Timothy, I had only ever played one Zelda game before and not particularly enjoyed it. I think you might just not like this game. I have several hundred games in my library and the only two I genuinely regret paying for are Silent Hill 2 and Bayonetta. Despise both of them. Stone cold classics, apparently. Sometimes you have to say to yourself: maybe it's just me.

Mate. Mate. You are getting a fucking bully negging. Mate.

Mister Six

I don't have any affection for, or real knowledge of, previous Zelda games and I'm thoroughly enjoying this. Although that video has revealed to me how little I actually know about it. Shield surfing? Spinning attacks? It didn't even occur to me to use Stasis on baddies, I'm that fucking shit.

Kelvin

You might not be able to use stasis on enemies yet. It's something you can unlock early on, but only if you've met someone by pursuing the main quest task assigned to you by Impa.

Z

RE Reloading
I had very few of those stamina mushrooms and assumed they were rare. Found a fucking load of them since though.

There's no actual dungeons in this game then? That was always the bit I hated about Zelda, rooms and rooms of these fucking tedious puzzles. I'm the one person who liked the sailing in Wind Waker and  more or less nothing else.

Consignia

Quote from: Z on May 07, 2018, 09:18:34 PM
There's no actual dungeons in this game then? That was always the bit I hated about Zelda, rooms and rooms of these fucking tedious puzzles. I'm the one person who liked the sailing in Wind Waker and  more or less nothing else.

There is, but they are all pretty short. There's the shrines which are 0-2 puzzles per one, or the slightly more traditional ones you'll encounter if you attempt to follow the narrative. They're technically optional but they make the end game much harder.

Still, you'll spend a lot more time in the overworld than any other Zelda game.

In other Zelda news it looks like Nintendo are hiring for a new Zelda game: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/jobs/project/kyoto_sec1.html#ld_zelda

Z

I'm trying to roughly follow the narrative.

Again, hugely surprised that I actually want to play this game, but it's the most relaxing thing ever.

popcorn

I'm 15-20 hours into this. Just reached my second mega-beast bit.

I'm not able to give it the unconditional love so many have. A lot of it feels more like busywork than truly rich decision-making; cooking stuff and protecting against hot and cold weather is a bit of a faff. I find talking to any NPC a chore, and am mostly ignoring sidequests on account of them being boring.

The nonlinear design is fascinating and broadly works, but it means the puzzle design never gets truly ingenious, because the designers can't count on you having the necessary tools and abilities. Unless there are more skillchecks than I'm imagining, presumably the beasts will get easier as you do them, because they're all of approximately equal difficulty whereas you're only getting more powerful. Hmm.

It is impressive how much of a departure it is from the previous Zeldas. There's a major Shadow of the Colossus influence (with the giant beasts, obviously, but also in some of the art design), and the shrines are basically Portal test chambers. Oddly, the game it reminds me most of is Metal Gear Solid V, where you come across something of interest like an enemy camp and have to fashion a solution with the tools at your disposal. I'm not finding it as rewarding or complex as MGSV, though.

There do seem to be at least some bottlenecks - problems that can only be solved in one way and smack of the bad old days of JRPG design. As far as I could find on my googling adventures, for example, the only way into the desert city is to buy the ladies' clothes, which feels at odds with the open-ended design ethic. Shouldn't I be able to sneak in via a sewer, or blow open a back door, or something?

popcorn

Finished this. Got the master sword, all four megabeasts, and killed Ganon. 11.6% complete. Jesus Christ, it must take a decade to 100% this fucker.

I think it's pretty good. It's fun. It's accessible. There's always something to do . But it's the most overrated game in a long time. It's a game of systems, but the systems become pretty obvious pretty fast, and then there's nowhere else to go. The dungeons are half-baked and don't capitalise on the game's strengths (the systems). Unlike MGSV, or even Deus Ex, there's little need to get really creative with your solutions, and I just bulldozed my way through most of the challenges. Also loses points for resuscitating the corpses of two last-last-last-gen tropes: the stealth mission and the escort mission.


Dog Botherer

Having played this game inside out (99.91%), there's only one of each of stealth and escort right? And the escort is a sidequest, don't think you even get anything good for it. The stealth mission I didn't mind too much, I'd already had to employ some stealth in avoiding high level enemies at that point so I just got on with it.

Escort mission was a cunt though. Took me half a dozen tries for fuck all reward.

popcorn

Quote from: Dog Botherer on July 12, 2018, 09:26:29 AM
Having played this game inside out (99.91%), there's only one of each of stealth and escort right? And the escort is a sidequest, don't think you even get anything good for it. The stealth mission I didn't mind too much, I'd already had to employ some stealth in avoiding high level enemies at that point so I just got on with it.

Escort mission was a cunt though. Took me half a dozen tries for fuck all reward.

The escort mission I'm thinking of is the one up the volcano, where you have to clear a path for your idiot golem mate and use the call-horse button to summon him along the path. Not a sidequest.

This ended up being doubly annoying for me because I didn't realise you had to use the cannons to hit the megabeast at various points, so I got all the way up to the top and had to go all the way back down again, which took for ever as if you walk five seconds your dunce mate gets out of hearing range. Really felt like something from the PS2 era.

Dog Botherer

Quote from: popcorn on July 12, 2018, 11:13:37 AM
The escort mission I'm thinking of is the one up the volcano, where you have to clear a path for your idiot golem mate and use the call-horse button to summon him along the path. Not a sidequest.

This ended up being doubly annoying for me because I didn't realise you had to use the cannons to hit the megabeast at various points, so I got all the way up to the top and had to go all the way back down again, which took for ever as if you walk five seconds your dunce mate gets out of hearing range. Really felt like something from the PS2 era.

Oh yeah, completely forgot about that somehow. Probably because the Goron area was my least favourite part of the game. Not because of that quest though, just didn't like the story compared to other areas. Felt a bit empty, there's only so many fire lizards you can fight and lava you can dodge.

colacentral

Quote from: popcorn on July 12, 2018, 08:41:22 AM
Finished this. Got the master sword, all four megabeasts, and killed Ganon. 11.6% complete. Jesus Christ, it must take a decade to 100% this fucker.

I think it's pretty good. It's fun. It's accessible. There's always something to do . But it's the most overrated game in a long time. It's a game of systems, but the systems become pretty obvious pretty fast, and then there's nowhere else to go. The dungeons are half-baked and don't capitalise on the game's strengths (the systems). Unlike MGSV, or even Deus Ex, there's little need to get really creative with your solutions, and I just bulldozed my way through most of the challenges. Also loses points for resuscitating the corpses of two last-last-last-gen tropes: the stealth mission and the escort mission.

If you finished it with 11.6% completion then I don't think you were playing it in the spirit it was intended. How many shrines did you do?

Ultimately, it's a game that's amazing if you have the imagination and intelligence to explore the systems creatively and it's pretty standard stuff if you're only a normal person. It's the ultimate reflection of one's value as a person. No shame in finishing it with 11.6% completion if that's your own limitation as a human being. You've actually done your little best.

Kelvin

Quote from: The Boston Crab on July 12, 2018, 04:52:34 PM
Ultimately, it's a game that's amazing if you have the imagination and intelligence to explore the systems creatively and it's pretty standard stuff if you're only a normal person. It's the ultimate reflection of one's value as a person. No shame in finishing it with 11.6% completion if that's your own limitation as a human being. You've actually done your little best.

Shouldn't you be helping Clarice solve a string of murders?

popcorn

Quote from: colacentral on July 12, 2018, 04:49:37 PM
If you finished it with 11.6% completion then I don't think you were playing it in the spirit it was intended. How many shrines did you do?

Ah, the old "you're playing it wrong" routine. I understand it's a world full of shit to collect and do, but very little of it was interesting.

I did enough shrines to get me enough hearts to retrieve the master sword, so - I dunno - a few dozen? They're on the whole pretty tedious, some of them stunningly easy, with none of the ingenuity of classic Zelda dungeon design.

Hecate

Nintendo have lost it as far as I'm concerned.

Breath of Ubisoft was a cynical, westerner pleasing attempt to take everything that was bad about modern AAA gaming, sharpen it into a spike and ram it straight through princess Zelda's heart. Well, maybe not everything, but I'm show-boating.

Cat mario kicks the arse off stupid cap mario any day of the week.

- Play as a cat who is a princess.
- Play as a mushroom with a hat on.

Nuff said.

falafel


Kelvin

Quote from: Hecate on July 13, 2018, 04:08:27 AM
Nintendo have lost it as far as I'm concerned.

Cat Princess (3D World) was, like, 5 years ago? Hardly an age long past.

QuoteBreath of Ubisoft was a cynical, westerner pleasing attempt to take everything that was bad about modern AAA gaming, sharpen it into a spike and ram it straight through princess Zelda's heart. Well, maybe not everything, but I'm show-boating.

Whereas I would say it took the elements of Western open world games (which were all influenced, directly or indirectly, by the original LOZ), and showed a distinctive and, in many cases, superior perspective on them. Outside of the towers, it bears absolutely no resemblance to Ubisoft open-world games, at all. Quite the opposite. BOTW encourages people to discover it's secrets for yourself, it doesn't litter the map with checkboxes and icons.

Breath of the Wild made me want to explore, and made that exploration satisfying, in a way no game has since Skyrim. I absolutely do not accept that it's a soulless echo of AAA gaming. It's focus, it's mechanics, and it's atmosphere are all entirely at odds with the AAA games it was influenced by.   

colacentral

Quote from: popcorn on July 13, 2018, 03:44:14 AM
Ah, the old "you're playing it wrong" routine. I understand it's a world full of shit to collect and do, but very little of it was interesting.

I did enough shrines to get me enough hearts to retrieve the master sword, so - I dunno - a few dozen? They're on the whole pretty tedious, some of them stunningly easy, with none of the ingenuity of classic Zelda dungeon design.

Well, you were playing it wrong. You either speed run it or you take your time living in the world and trying to find everything. I turned the shrine sensor off for all but the last few because it's at odds with what the game is - that's an example of playing it right. It sounds like you did the bare minimum to complete the main story points, a completely joyless way to approach a game where the story is secondary.

I understand if it's not for you, but it's not overrated.

popcorn

#689
Quote from: colacentral on July 13, 2018, 08:35:37 AM
It sounds like you did the bare minimum to complete the main story points, a completely joyless way to approach a game where the story is secondary.

You gotta wonder why the "main" parts are in the game at all when they're "completely joyless" - and why criticism of the main parts is considered illegitimate.

It certainly didn't feel like I was doing the "bare minimum". Whenever I discovered a shrine, I completed it; I activated every tower, discovered a fair few seeds, and I did a fair few sidequests. By the time I got the master sword, I had tired of it all and went and killed Ganon, by which point I had apparently become so powerful I did it in a single try, whoops.

Anyway, I think you've actually identified why the game is less than perfect: the dungeons and the open-world rules don't talk to each other. You're given a set of tools and rules to play with, and encouraged to solve your own problems - except when it comes to the shrines and dungeons, which typically have a single solution per puzzle. You're never actually required to get creative in the areas that are ostensibly the true tests of your heroism.

I guess if you want to go off and collect all 80,000 coconuts the game is really good though. The very fact that I find this challenge completely unappealing is part of my criticism.