I wouldn’t call it a tutorial. There are trees and an axe nearby and you have to cross a gap with a log.
The systems are almost wholesale Monster Hunter. I’m guessing a lot of staff were influenced by it.
“Open world” evokes a nightmare of laundry lists that this game is not, but your definition may vary.
Yeah this is very refreshing. It’s an “open world game” in the sense of, hey, here’s a world that you have very little information about, go do what you feel.
On the other hand, I was disappointed that I could not set a goblin tower on fire! Realistically though, you’re gonna need much more than a single flaming club to burn a tree to the ground.
My hot take: It’s pretty good so far! I dropped a rock on an explosive barrel and died, oops! I have a feeling people will look back at this with the same misguided reverence as they looked at Ocarina of Time for 10 years, though, and that’s a bummer.
The old man asked me to chop the tree, and told me how I could make it fall correctly. Did you not get that? I did wonder if there were some optional tutorials because I got to the cold area’s shrine without learning how to cook and, in retrospect, I would have expected to get something similar for that.
That’s great - I barely talked to him because he always seemed grumpy at my imposition. I just found (stole) his axe near the cliff.
I also did not get this tutorial, actually. I figured it out on my own. Same with cooking. What a weird game!!
You gotta be an extrovert if you want to learn the ropes.
I love finding other NPCs. They all have the cute Wind Waker weirdness about them. Just outside the plateau there’s a woman who planted flowers all around a shrine. I kept messing up and stepping on them and she eventually beat me up!
i’ve only played a few hours, but i don’t think there’s very much monster hunter here, at least in terms of items or systems or whatever. unless you’re just thinking about gathering resrouces, which, obviously, is in a whole lot of games, and it doesn’t work the same way in botw and monster hunter.
i find the menus fairly elegant and i find inventory fiddling minimal!
Cooking with different recipes for bonuses in preparation for going to a specific area or task?
I was a pretty casual monster hunter, but that seems very similar.
Are there snack graphics in this game? If so, how do they compare to current reigning champs FFXV and Dragon’s Crown?
cooking in monster hunter is really picking from a list of available buffs before you start a hunt, it doesn’t actually involve collecting any ingredients. drinks that keep you warm/cool in cold/hot places is a thing that slipped my mind, though, and there’s definitely some of that here
Hog confirmed.
Not Ganon. Like, a regular hog.
The ability to see discernible landmarks from any vantage point makes the world really nice to explore. This is the most fleshed out Hyrule.
I’m also impressed with how few restrictions there are on navigation. So far I’ve only encountered one thing I couldn’t climb due to low stamina, but I was able to climb something else and glide to it.
What’s funny here is witnessing a cycle of attention paid to a game that feels similar to when a new Elder Scrolls or Fallout is released, except it’s a Zelda. Everyone is sharing stories built on the game’s kinetic interactions and AI quirks. I’ll be interested to see appraisals of the game a year from now. I guess I’m being skeptical because I really don’t care for most Open-World videogames past an hour or two, and “emergent chaotic stuff” has never been primary to my enjoyment of any games (see: everyone talking about throwing your companions in Dragon’s Dogma, which only ever felt mildly amusing for about five seconds to me). On the other hand, it does sound like the emergent chaotic stuff this time around might have unusual substance, depending on how frequent and consequential it is.
So no one in this house feels like going out of their way for a Switch. Maybe grabbing the Wii U version this week, I see the difference in comparison videos but it doesn’t seem “interruptive” or a hit to playability and general visuals.
So I was flying down from a newly climbed tower…
And I got struck by lighting. FML.
There’s some really cool shit at the edges of the map.
In the northwest there’s a giant labyrinth with a shrine in the middle. I got there just exploring with only four heart containers but it was very serious! I also found a roaming Minotaur near the labyrinth that fucked my shit up.
yeah, we ended up out to the east past heteno beach and on a boat to an island that is apparently a shrine type trial except the whole island. anyway you lose all your equipment and have to scavange materials - it’s really cool but also maybe too hard for use w just the 4 hearts.
Yea so this game fulfills the promise of Metal Gear V and then a whole lot more. I remember the first time I played Mario 64 and asking myself whether or not I could get to the top of the mountain on stage 1-1 and then freaking out that I could actually get there and see the entire stage from that vantage point.
BOTW is the hypothetical extreme of that moment multiplied by 10x. I do think its the real deal, and I do think the critical hype is justified given the staggering amount of work that went into the game and how easily it could’ve all been screwed up.
IMO the Wii U version seems fine so far. Have yet to get to Kakariko village yet where I hear the game shits itself the most.
My top PROTIPs so far:
Your time stopping rune definitely seems like the most weirdly situational power at first but for whatever reason it has the excellent secondary feature of highlighting almost everything interactable in the environment including lootable objects (not dropped weapons and such though). Great for when those Moblin Horns or thingdunks get lost in tall grass.
Snowboarding on your shield requires a real weird button combination that I have yet to find specifically explained in game yet. After button mashing a bit I discovered that you have to jump while your shield is raised and then press A while in the air. Not really too efficient when you can paraglide but still fun.
There are special recipes that you find as just blurry textures of a wall poster and I’m thinking I should just start having a notebook next to me as I play this game.
I think there may be a Dark Souls-esque shield parry thing but I have yet to get it to work? Perfect dodging into Witch Time seems way more reliable.
THERE ARE 900 OF THOSE SEED PEOPLE THINGS
How are there such good dogs in this game that even get on their backs for you but no way to pet them???
And spoilers for if you haven’t taken a max affection horse to the stable girl yet: How many of you gave your horsies anime mane?