so far, my girlfriend’s main reaction to DQXI has been “is there any way to have it play the NieR music instead….?”
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Disgaea 6 has two dedicated buttons for essentially turning it into an Idle game. I have no words.
It’s still disgaea though so of course I love it
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And you turn and say “No the explicitly blocked you from doing that.”
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Put about 15 hours into BotW. This game has made me tired. It’s started to feel like a job so I think I’m done.
I have done one of the major ‘dungeons’ (Zoras) and seen maybe 1/5 of the map. Found a few korok seeds and did some bullshit side quests.
All the shrines are the same. All the korok ‘puzzles’ are the same. The best reward I have received for my curiosity so far is a sword with a bigger number than usual next to it. It feels shallow.
Like so many games, this could have been great if only someone had silenced the ‘see that mountain? you can go there!’ dude in the meeting room.
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I think the biggest victory of BotW is even if you can go to that mountain, the getting there is still very textured and open to a few different modes of expression on the players part than I ever felt in Skyrim and other open world games. There are alot of times I wish there was a little more direction to some things because alot of interesting things a buried a little to deep.
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Olija does this!
I just went through it, it’s fine, I guess. It has some character and it’s very playable but not great. As a sort of cross between a cinematic platformer and a regular action game it’s too shallow and easy to be truly mechanically engaging, and too much of a power fantasy to really succeed at creating a compelling atmosphere. Some kids will find it revelatory but they should play better games
I also went through Cadence of Hyrule. All the game’s modes have big flaws?? Normal mode lacks consequences for failures and becomes a dull lawnmower sim with a combat / movement system too taxing for its level of challenge. Permadeath is more fun but the systems in place are balanced towards normal so you end up with 10 times more money than you’d ever need and item durability is a huge needless nuisance. Dungeon mode seems similar to, but way worse than Necrodancer’s
I’m trying to win with permadeath which shouldn’t take too long. I have never seen a game with a more extremely inverse difficulty curve, it’s like Final Fantasy Tactics if you got a new Orlandu at the beginning of every new chapter. This does make it a good fit for permadeath; you get the thrill of a roguelike at first, then can easily finish the game before it gets aggravating, presumably. I came close once but my hubris got the best of me
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i never beat BotW and tried to get back into it this year and was immediately put off by it. it feels like a game that works on momentum, in that sense. it doesn’t help that i left off at a stealth mission dungeon, i guess, but i just kind of couldn’t be bothered with its systems anymore; they feel arduous and like constant busy work; even the puzzles with the gravity-controlling stuff. also doesn’t help that the game looks like crap on my TV.
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whereas I made sure to finish it in the first 30 hours I spent with it and now I really enjoy playing a few hours a week once a year and going and prodding at something at the edges of the map
a lot of the scripted content that is designed to make you feel like you’re following the arc of a zelda game is pretty bad. the rest is great!
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yeah, i played it for like 20 hours when i got it, and then just this new year, i put in like another 80 hours of just doing stuff in it. felt good. still terrible at finding korok seeds. like i think i had 11 of them when i beat ganon the first time (before i went back to do more stuff).
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The point of interest design guiding you east to the split mountain and up the river to the Zora domain is some of the best in the same mode as New Vegas’s less gentle direction up 95 and away from I-15 where there be Cazadors.
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my initial take was “smug sotc knock off” but revisiting it a year later it was Just The Thing i needed at a particularly grim time
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I felt like the game forced your hand here.
The other areas are much more hostile early on due to the guardians and whilst you can get by, the game so clearly wants you to go east.
I also encountered about 10 npcs all of whom interrupted me and told me to go and find the prince. This just felt like standard zelda hand holding to me.
Edit: i think part of my problen is how joyless climbing feels. The stamina bar is just another thing to look at whilst Link slowly shuffles upwards. Knowing that you can cash in those orbs for a bigger meter makes this less exciting.
Maybe I would enjoy this more if you only had base stats to work with.
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BoTW to me is just a game that shows the inherent limitations of Nintendo. people praised it for being a hybrid of traditional Nintendo games and other tropes of games like Skyrim or Dark Souls and that does make it stand out in some ways. but it’s Nintendo so you have to save the princess from The Bad Guy and the lore seems like it was for kids. it’s typical Hero’s Journey stuff. i have a feeling that a lot of people want more than that, but they don’t know how to express it. but i think expecting anything other than cool kinda toy box of ideas wrapped in “”“wholesome”“” slightly empty Hero’s Journey framing from Nintendo is probably not worth it. people want that Majora’s Mask type game again but i doubt they’re going to get it. i still think it’s a good game on its own terms though - just overhyped.
sorry to quote myself but it’s easier to just quote than half-assedly rehash what i said there. this summarizes my feelings on the 2017 rebirth of Mario and Zelda:
2017 in the videogame sphere was met with major critically-lauded reinventions and reimaginings of games past. But viewing most sequels and franchise expansions as truly reinventions can feel more than a bit disingenuous too. The fun of a Mario or Zelda game, even at their absolute peak, masks how deeply regressive they often are at their heart. Most of mass-marketed commercial games all tell essentially the same variant of the well-worn Hero’s Journey tale: a tale that forms the backbone of so much of video game culture yet seems to have less and less of value to say about our current reality than ever.
Our hot-selling franchises of today can never be so forward-thinking or challenging in their content as to seriously challenge and potentially alienate their consumer base either. Why would they? Their goal is to sell copies and make money. The problem is the absolute ubiquity of these same stories being told, over and over, in different variations all across the worlds of video games has helped build a culture that worships a superficial comfort above all: one that has carte blanche to rewrite history towards these narratives and erase anything that ever tries to seriously challenge them. There are serious transgressions that the culture space created by these games never allows us to make.
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I ignored all the nudging to head to Kakariko and spent the first 10-20 hours messing around with the rest of the world before heading there. I even tried my hand at the final boss before doing that. Had a lot more fun poking around the periphery of the world than engaging with it as a traditional Zelda.
After finishing it I spent a few more hours messing around with things before deciding that I was done with it. It left me feeling very, very full, and with almost no desire to play it or another game in its mold ever again (great game, four stars).
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i played some of this game for judging and it really put me off. it felt weirdly orientalist in a non-specific but kinda gross way. it’s like half action platformer and half Prince of Persia and it can’t decide which it really wants to be so just feels like an awkward half-mix. the graphics are a combo of quite nice stylistically and super rough in a way that’s not really nice or appealing. also whatever story that exists is faux-deep and the game seems like it wants you to take it seriously but it comes off as a complete joke. overall the game really put me off in a nonspecific but strong way. it feels like a bombastic confused mess that’s just kinda taking up space but not really doing anything with it.
too many people are playing Hyper Light Drifter and think they can do something like that. that game’s legacy seems so strong to particular types of young men who want to make action games with faux-deep personal aesthetics but they don’t really have anything to say with it beyond that.
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the best part of BotW is ignoring the story content, only putting points into stamina, and seeing which paths in the game you can “break” solely by climbing, seeing where you can go by brute forcing your exploration
the temples are rote, the mechs are bad and the bosses are completely uninspired
the world map is massive, though, and it’s fun to just walk and climb around in. just completely packed with unique structures and artistic flourishes and you’re always rewarded for finding them with items on top of usually a gorgeous view to congratulate you for your tenacity and curiosity
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i wonder if someone has uploaded a clean save file with you at the start of the game but with like all the dungeons and shrines completed
Challenging the arctic Lynels to get enough loot for top level armor is an activity I’d recommend too. The battle mechanics in BotW only come to life while fighting Lynels. (Certainly not while fighting the bosses…). You get to do a lot of badass slowmo dodges and counterhits
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It would be nice to have mario’s triple jump, backflip, side jump, and wall jump in botw
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the breath of the wild musou game has a wall jump and it’s dope as fuck
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