Zelda: Cries of the Commonwealth

My short-term goal has been ascending all the SkyView towers or whatever they’re called, and I’ve settled into a nice rhythm of

  • Traverse the land toward a tower, occasionally checking out points of interest along the way
  • Activate the tower/map
  • Explore some sky islands on the way back down, probably doing some shrines along the way
  • Repeat

Got some pretty badass weapons, I can take out a lot of mooks with a quick combo, which is nice. Also I have a sidekick (the bird kid) and he headshots mfs like it’s his job which feels a little OP sometimes

5 Likes

it’s honestly kind of hard to imagine the vehicular movement stuff working as well in a totally brand-new world. at least for me, because I usually don’t want to move around a world too quickly if I’m getting to know it for the first time. breath of the wild was at its most sublime just riding your horse around and learning the lay of the land, and eventually getting strong enough to explore the more dangerous regions.

with all of that under my belt from the first go-round, nothing really held me back from slapping together ludicrous flying machines and seeing familiar areas in an entirely new light. I really wonder what the experience would be like for someone who never played breath of the wild.

4 Likes

That makes a lot of sense and sounds like a lot of fun.

I’m kind of doing it for the first time because I cant remember most the in-between places in BOTW. Occasionally I’ll run into some geometry I recall but its pretty rare.

1 Like

I never played botw, so I basically just ignored the vehicle building options until I was almost done with the main quest. Tbh it felt like it was kind of a lot of work to build a vehicle that went that much faster than just using a horse anyway

2 Likes

I mostly don’t fuck with vehicles unless a situation (usually surrounding reuniting the little korok dudes or transporting a shrine crystal) forces me to. I barely even ride horses I’m just out here hoofin’ it and gliding to and fro

2 Likes

I have a formula for a 4 to 5 part vehicle that out-runs a horse.

I really wish the horse had a smidge more brains and would adjust course to avoid terrain it doesn’t like.
There is something to be said for walking, especially in the early game. Your just gonna casually get a lot more stuff you’ll find useful later.

3 Likes

Speaking of, I was trying to build a 4x4 to get a korok to his friend up a steep slope I couldn’t climb on foot while power-handing him. It wasn’t going well so I stuck him to a boulder and slowly moved him up the mountain ledge-by-ledge. Until I miscalculated, put him in the wrong spot, and watched him tumble down the mountain and into a yawning chasm, down into the Depths.

Infuriating but highly comical

I chased after him but couldn’t relocate him. Maybe he’s gone forever? That would kind of rule.

I spent the next hour finding light roots down there

6 Likes

Haha Nice. I love the game’s inherent physical comedy.
Yeah objects poof out of existence at the barrier some times.
RIP Korok.

1 Like

If you’d been faster on the draw, you could have used rewind to bring him back long enough to switch back to the hand and put him in the right place.

1 Like

Are the vehicles good or is it just Nintendo practicing sandbox physics and selling it

the vehicles are only as good as the vehicle builder

(thus when i am the vehicle builder, the vehicles are indeed bad)

1 Like

They’re kinda ass IMHO but maybe I’m just not good at building them

The vehicle wheels have some weird relationships between speed, weight and traction. I think the traction is low and the weight is high to reduce tipping. Wagon wheels specifically are very heavy and slippy. If you put powered wheels on the front and wagons on the back, the vehicle will swing like a pendulum in corners.

It think building good vehicles for like long distance ground transportation is not about having a good inherent understanding of physics, its about figuring out what TOTK wants and how much you wanna invest in trial and error.

2 Likes

Damn I feel some straight up childlike wonder when I play this game. Just magical shit everywhere

4 Likes

Frequently I forget about the ascend ability and this leads to me doing things The Hard Way or walking away stymied.

Then I slap my forehead and do the thing

4 Likes

The more I play this, the more I discover how many “hard ways” that I can totally sidestep.

4 Likes

I can’t tell you how many arduous mountain climbs I could have skipped if I’d looked at the conspicuous chunks of ruins on their sides and gone “ah there’s the elevator”

4 Likes

I sure did ride a lightning dragon down a chasm into the depths.

4 Likes

That being said it’s very funny that when I’m not bombarded with wonderment I am like, shopping and doing meal prep.

5 Likes

Only two things a video game needs imo

2 Likes