I started playing it tonight and beat the first dungeon. I like that it changes up the traditional 2D Zelda structure by making you use objects and enemies as your attacks and puzzle solving mechanics plus the addition of BOTW physics stuff. Though it did feel like a cop out that they give you a Link Form not even an hour into the game, like really guys you couldn’t do a sword and shield Zelda game for even a single dungeon???
The one big change I hate is how the modern Zelda music is all lame sleepytime music. It’s the one change BOTW started and it sucks, give me some exciting instruments instead of a soft gentle oboe, they should just call this series Legend of Bedtime instead
@Grandpa and I talked about it this a bit in the Games You Played Today thread. I think I’ve done three or four dungeons. I’m liking it well enough. I don’t think you can make one of these games appeal perfectly to every demo they’re trying to hit so I’m OK with what I’m getting out of it.
There have been a couple of things – a specific boss attack and a puzzle involving water, barriers, and boxes – that I thought would take either really good reflexes or a big brain to deal with correctly, but there was a dumb way around both with Zelda’s toolset. I appreciate that.
The dungeons are pretty linear while having the camera move with you “smoothly” throughout the overworld makes it a little harder to figure out what each section is for. It’s also interesting to see some BotW/TotK stuff brought in, like the little hog bandit camps where you gotta kill all the monsters to unlock their treasure chest.
The music is a bit sleepy, but some of it is vaguely John Williams-esque. It’s not memorable like classic Zelda music, but it sticks in my head after I turn the game off.
I’m finding it’s got solid hooks but is actually sort of nice and boring to play. I got to Hebra Mountain and am enjoying the return of the yetis. Otherwise I’ve just been exploring the entire map until I have to progress. I’m just accumulating an arsenal of things until I have to do all the dungeons. In the vein of BotW/TotK it is one of the most podcast Zeldas.
I think it’s nuts they didn’t implement some sorta “favorite items” tab. Like I guess they’ll make their way to the top of “Most Used” eventually, but having to scroll through every single echo sucks.
i’ve been having a good time with this thing purposefully ignoring the quests, but i’ve run up on the limit of what they let me do there (clear spaces where npcs havent spawned / rifts havent appeared) which does frustrate me somewhat, in a game where the main mechanic is trying to break the game. that said it was really fun to explore the entire map before completing dungeon 2. crawltula is absolutely bonkers for movement and buzz bub or whatever the lil green mans are called trivializes all combat in a satisfyingly stupid way. i also appreciate that while clearly you get bombs and arrows later in link form (though i still haven’t muahaha), explosive and fire enemies can solve literally all of the obstacles intended for those if you get stupid instead of playing the game the way they want you to
the main dungeons are depressingly boring and the writing is way too baby-talky though, it’s definitely shackled by trying to hit the average nintendo demographic of “people of any age who have never played a video game before” while simultaneously being a game about lateral thinking with a weird puzzle toolkit and simple physics interactions. mostly it just reminds me that i still haven’t done a post rounding up the cool other devs i ran into at magwest because one of them has a game that scratches the gamebreaksmanship itch real good
all that said i am getting too into it and it was fun spidermanning up the entire snowy mountain and chugging fire potions / holding onto ignizols just because i could. shame that none of the stuff that clearly happens there later has triggered yet.
honestly the worst thing about this game is its making me sound like some kinda freak who wants player freedom when i frankly want a game to only concern me with what matters! but this game is in a dark realm of mechanics and open world design which beg an idiot such as myself to do anything, but only so long as it is not asked of me, yet which gates an ever-palpable portion of that behind watching blue’s triangular clues, thus allowing me neither to enjoy ~immersive player freedoms with consequences~ nor a godly and just linear experience
I guess to be more specific, Eow feels like it doesn’t really grab my attention in the manner of an adventure and often feels like a pure puzzle game where a lot of the solutions can be solved by the same ‘piece’.
In BotW and TotK you can kinda tune out during lengthy exploration and shrine clearing but even then I’d say the atmosphere of the game can work under its own steam. This is true also of a lot of the 3d Zeldas which is what I’ve mostly played however they are also generally more tightly scripted and have more going on musically, scenario-wise, and in terms of dungeon and world. EoW has these things but to a much lesser extent.
I think EoW is good but there’s a lot in it that makes it hard for me to maintain active attention on because most of it is so slight. I’d say this isn’t so true of the early game when every echo is novel but EoW has so much dead air and it often plays out in the same way. Scrolling through the list of echoes is not engaging. Dungeons rarely require navigational skills to the point I don’t see why you’re given a map at all. Rifts are extremely similar visually and structurally (as are their bookending cutscenes). Rewards for sidequests and chests are almost never interesting. As others have noted, the audiovisual side of it is not interesting by itself either (I think adding whites to the eyes of more characters and mixing up musical genre would go a long way to making it ‘pop’). Hence, I find myself needing some sort of background noise to carry me through it.
I’ve heard the game was originally a prototype for Zelda Maker which I think contributes to its ‘worldness’ feeling lacklustre. You can feel the Maker structure everywhere but it is lessened in the overworld which is why I think a lot of people prefer exploring than doing dungeons.
Ye it’s not really complimentary or derogatory, just more my attention wanders and I feel like I should be doing the wandering in the video game Zelda.
i am kind of surprised to learn how many features from botw/totk are replicated here, carrying on the fine zelda tradition of turning innovative features from the last entry into the series into mechanics that need to be replicated in every entry from then on, without much thought given to how well they support whatever the central fixture of the new game is
im a big dumb zeld lad at heart so i’ll probably play this at some point, but i do still feel like the more sprawling ‘open world’-like dynamics of botw/totk really only work in a game that is as atmospheric and immersive as those… the idea of just plodding through miles of generic landscape dealing with repopulating enemy camps is kind of unappealing in a world that isnt as pretty and with movement mechanics that aren’t as fun
The map’s not that big and there’s a lot of fast travel points. It doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be an open world game to me. I think I’ve read that it’s maybe a couple times bigger than A Link to the Past. No Pegasus Boots though.
Finished it. The scale of the game is actually a lot smaller than I thought. I think Link’s Awakening might have more dungeons proper. Spoilery thoughts.
Not every dungeon setup needs to be a town/race in danger. Heck, it’d be cool to see the threat being primarily ecological. I like Hebra mountain and the return of the yetis. I think they get it right with the Dekus as well. Almost every other village is just us building up the confidence of the local mayor. I like that the Dekus don’t want you to fix their problem and actually put you in prison for trying to help. They’re greedy, impulsive and kinda dumb, Nintendo unintentionally writing characters with more depth by taking a more ‘immoral’ route (see also Wario).
Null might be one of the more effective villains in achieving their aims. It fools the Deku tree and accesses the triforce directly with minimal resistance. If it weren’t for the goddess’ bullshit it would’ve had its wish granted. It isn’t much of a character but creepy clone Zelda was neat for a while. It almost gets exciting when you jump through the broken triforce portal to chase them and… it’s just another rift void… Also why even have the Deku tree so late? He shows up for like a minute at the end and gets his own photo in the credits. Why? Fuck the Deku tree.
Kinda a nice choice to just do away with Ganon altogether, relegate him to nothing. EoW is kinda all about trying things that are actually kinda new or subvert series tropes but end up not feeling that remarkable in retrospect when taken as a game aside from that series.
I think I’ve got Zelda fatigue and I nearly didn’t make it through this one but, overall, I think it is ok.
This game is disappointing in the wake of the last few Zeldas, especially since it’s consciously trying to ape them in some visible (but ultimately superficial and not especially good) ways instead of being like the Link’s Awakening Remake it takes its aesthetics from. I want the echoes to be building blocks that can be combined in interesting and synergistic ways, but most of them just feel like keys, both in terms of utility and reward. There’s no real pleasure to using the echoes to get to places, since there’s so little interest to this version of Hyrule–the one fun climbing trick is too easy to use, only really fun once, and nowhere near as fulfilling as creating devices to make up for the lack of paraglider.
Still, even if Hyrule is boring to traverse, the echoes could still work in an Aria of Sorrow sort of way, at least, if only the monsters were more interesting or had more varied reactions to stuff. Instead, the game just trains you to keep on using the same broadly effective echoes.
