George has the weirdest hang ups and expectations in media. Loading screens feel more of a User Experience issue instead of a Design issue in most cases so I found the length he spent on them a bit grating.
this video is extraordinarily hard to watch.
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Why did he make it rhyme?
Why is he ascribing his personal compulsive behavior to the game design when the game scarcely tells you what to do at all?
the last 30 seconds are particularly barf
Because it was World Poetry Day. He said that at the beginning.
You answered your question in the second part there. The game âscarcely tells you what to doâ or how to play it so you canât really accuse someone of âplaying it wrongâ. This has been a âproblemâ of open world game design for a while.
Mark Brown talks about the music this time.
I think, like Super Mario 3D Land, BotWâs small goals (shrines, Koroks, side quests) are meant to be played in short bursts, while the beasts and bosses are better suited to longer stretches of time. Binging on 3D Land is also fatiguing because itâs repetitive.
I think seeking what George calls âlong lasting permanent rewardsâ misses that the extrinsic rewards arenât the only reason to explore.
I get that Iâm essentially saying heâs playing the game wrong but playing 100+ hours of anything in a week is going to have stretches of boredom.
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also, like, there are long-lasting permanent rewards. I mean, most obviously, getting a few more heart containers is like leveling up, and getting a new set of gear adds permanent abilities to your arsenal, and was still finding new gear until very late in the game. and thereâs some other stuff, too.
so are the actual criticisms just:
- the equipment menu seems like it should be better
- the mid-game feels somewhat underdesigned
- thereâs nothing better than the usual zelda fare going on narratively
Some people really, really hate the weapon degradation rate and short stamina meter, but both of those are balanced out as you play.
The narrative is actually gesturing at better things but itâs told through flashbacks and the VO is anime dub quality. They could take the Zelda from this game and make a sequel about her.
i think complaining about the weapon degradation is hideously dumb
yeah the voice acting is totally intolerable, i donât really understand how it happened. the moment-to-moment writing is also weird - it is often surprising and excellent when youâre walking around a town or encountering a weird npc, but as soon as you start pursuing one of the main quest lines it just fucking tanks hard. i actually think those parts of the game are generally much weaker than the rest of the game in other ways, too, though it kind of feels spoilery to go into much detail, idk
also there are a few significant political blemishes that seem weirdly overlooked by the whole internet (and some that donât, obviously)
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Would this necessitate too much spoiling to elaborate on? Apart from the Gerudo transphobia, nothing springs to mind.
for example: the corners of hyrule contain villages of four fantastic, mythical races - rock people, fish people, bird people, and women with brown skin
itâs just too fucking stupid, man
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Oh, duh. Thatâs a thing where twenty years of âcanonâ just makes people forget how weird it is.
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When I first played it I was wondering if my screen was busted because everything looked so washed out. Then I watched a couple minutes of a letâs play to confirm that it does indeed look kinda washed out. I wouldnât describe it as gritty, but Iâd describe it as drab.
Question to anyone who might know: does the excruciatingly terribly designed main quest get better after the first boss? With which I mean, is the rest less full of annoying fetch quests, forced nonsensical progression sequences and patronizing tutorials? I still canât quite wrap my head around how fucking bad it is, compared to the beginning of the game. It almost feels like these parts have been designed by a different team or maybe even before they decided to go openworld.
My favorite temple so far has been the Speed of Light puzzle.
The puzzle itself is dead simple - trigger a rotating beam of light, then get across a body of water before the light rotates all the way and triggers a switch. However! There is a treasure chest at the end that requires you to trigger the switch twice more after getting across the water. This required me to reconsider the whole puzzle. Turns out that itâs solvable without the beam of light - you can use an arrow to shoot the switch from atop a pillar of ice. But to trigger it that second time, you have to leave a bomb next to the switch before you even cross. Itâs very, very clever.
Anyway, still loving this game. Finally found the zora so I guess Iâm doing my first dungeon now?
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Do you consider escort missions more or less annoying than fetch quests
Seems likely to be the case, at least to the extent that they had their own little design group not closely coordinating with the wider team. Reminds me of the legendarily crap boss fights in Deus Ex: HR which had been literally contracted out to an external studio.
Hyrule Castle is the only excellent, no-bullshit part of the main quest, which is especially fortunate because itâs also the only mandatory part of the main quest. Itâs funny to wonder if the gameâs refreshing main-quest-optional structure came out of corporate politics â the core design team wasnât able to make the main-quest team stop sucking, so they bypassed them instead.
I only did the top-left and top-right divine beasts before beating the game and Iâm pretty OK with that. Not sure Iâll ever bother to do the other two considering it was the only part of the game that reminded me why I hated 3d Zeldas.
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If the premise was that Link had been resurrected for the sole purpose of carrying the master sword and his cursed hands rotted everything else, thatâd be a neat twist.
As it stands, itâs weird that hard things shatter so easily, and only when he uses them. Itâs a useful soft gate in the early game, when it also encourages dynamic combat, but later on itâs just an inconvenience. Especially if you prefer a certain style of weapon by then or if youâre mostly going after enemies that have health for days.
A resin I could apply to keep a sword alive for five minutes would be preferable to burning through five instances of the same weapon class in a similar time span, and probably an OK compromise given what theyâre going for.
I feel the same way about most of the systems here. Iâd rather have to mix and drink one very effective haste potion before climbing a tower than be allowed to eat as many stamina restoratives on the way up as I want. Thatâd minimize pausing and inventory time, allow the possibility of failure, and it would make more sense (I donât know how Link eats while gliding, for instance).
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oh whoa
that was my favorite temple too
but! i didnât realize you could shoot the switch from the top of an ice pillar. so i set the bomb next to the switch and put the block on the second switch, and then i time stopped the switch under the box, and then set off my bomb, and then picked up the box and took it with me into the final room before the time stop wore off, which locked me in there. from there i magnet-beamed the box up over the wall and held it as high as i could directly over the first switch and then dropped it, and it activated the switch on impact, letting me get the chest.
cool
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The cooking system would be vastly improved by tracking recipes for you.
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