I don’t prefer them. I just like both of them equally for different reasons.
But there's no reason shrines have to replace dungeons, they can and probably should co-exist.
For you, it was the dungeons. For me, it was the exploration and sense of adventure.
Again, it doesn't need to be either/or. Wind Waker, the best game in the series, did both well.
Seems like you really aren’t a fan of emergent gameplay then, at least when it comes to this stuff.
Hate to say it, but that’s kind of a boring mindset to have.
And yet again, you can have
both. Structure can co-exist with emergent gameplay. A balance should be struck to where design feels
intentionally designed but there's still player freedom. Maybe 3rd time's the charm...
Okay, maybe that was the wrong descriptor to use. I was just judging it based on how the enemies reacted depending on where they are and the type of environment you found them in meant you couldn’t just rely on one tactic.
Which is a cool thing, but the game is sorely lacking in variety. There's no reason old PS3 Bethesda games should feel more alive and varies than modern Zelda games.
I explore for them because it allows me to find more tools that work for better or worse in certain situations.
Sometimes, it’s better to use different elemental-type weapons depending on the climate, and other times, you’ll want to use the more hard hitting weapons. Other times, you’ll want to create a potion necessary to extend the stamina bar, or give you extra attack power.
I never found a situation where I couldn't just use random weapons and bombs with little thought involved. Sure, I could 4D Chess the game and minmax things, but there's not much incentive to do so, the effort isn't worth it and therefore the rewards which enable that play style are unimpressive. Giving myself extra attack power or stamina isn't exciting and doesn't really make much difference.
I noticed that you and others say the only difference is in what clothing you need to equip and/or potion to use, but while that is part of it, it also extends to how you fight enemies and such. Like, you can’t use explosives in the lava area, but conversely, fire arrows don’t do squat when it’s raining, for example. So it’s much more than you are giving it credit for.
Again, trivial differences. It's nice attention to detail but it's not by any means game changing and doesn't have anything to do with why exploration is somehow good. It's not like you can't add rain to a regular Zelda game, you don't need an empty, pointless open world for that.
Not easy per se, but less to the point that they rely on moon logic or having to follow the exact path or else you’re screwed.
I've never once felt like Zelda incorporated moon logic, at worst just trial and error, and then it clicks when you figure it out. I never get the "how the fuck was I supposed to figure that out?" feeling (except in Link's Awakening in one temple, forgot which).
I get that the shrines have the same looking aesthetics, but while not all of them are winners (the combat ones are very repetitive), the make up for it, for me at least, with puzzles that allow for flexibility, which you claim to be bad design, but I see as the devs stepping back and letting you come up with the solution.
It's bad design if that's all you have. I wouldn't mind shrines staying as flexible mini challenges and then having more traditional dungeons with interconnecting, complicated, intentionally designed puzzles (and of course a good reward and unique aesthetic in there).
I love WW too, but I seriously have to question why you think it does exploration better.
That one I actually did feel to get tedious with the constant sailing over nothing but endless ocean with the occasional island, and the need to switch the wind direction, even with all the improvements the HD release gave.
I mean,
it's the ocean. Of course it's pretty samey, so either that clicks with you or it doesn't, but it's still adventurous (and actually having
adventurous music sure goes a long way in making an
adventure feel
adventurous; surprise! Take notes BotW). Switching wind directions never bothered me, helped me feel involved actually.
Plus, you actually FOUND stuff. Cities, dungeons, random events, NPCs, etc. Nothing ever happened in all my time with BotW, not once. What makes you want to explore? You see nothing of interest. Wind Waker has mysteries like the Ghost Ship that intrigue you, there's nothing of the sort in BotW that I ever came across, not even cities or NPCs (maybe that stuff exists but I put a good amount of hours into it and found nothing of note).
You are just so in love with dungeons it seems that they are able to overpower everything else
Not at all, exploration is important too, but you need set pieces to make it matter. BotW is too damn big for what little they fill it with. OoT is a fraction of the size of BotW and yet holds just as much to find, more densely packed. They literally just stretched out a similar amount of content and it doesn't justify exploring the world they built.
Again, I’ll have to disagree, because ai found the progression to be very well implemented, as by the end, encounters that gave me trouble were no problem, and with the Champion abilities, even some of the more tedious early aspects fell to the wayside.
Sure, by the end you'd obviously tell a difference, but the pacing is much worse. That's just the nature of an open world. Doing one (1) Temple in OoT for an hour yielded more sense of progression than I felt in many times that playing BotW. In OoT you get a sword, deku nuts, a slingshot, and a full heart container (maybe more stuff?) by the time you're done with just the first area. And by then you've talked to many NPCs and got a good dose of story.
And it doesn’t take all that long for the Master Sword to recharge. Not to mention that one of the things they added in DLC (take it or leave it) was a series of challenge rooms that, should you complete them all, strengthened it.
It's just really dumb from a lore and gameplay perspective. It really seems like it makes the sword underwhelming. Are the challenge rooms just more identical rooms...?
Heck, for me at least, the sense of progression in the older games came more from the story progressing after you cleared the dungeon, as most of the items and weapons you found in them, with a few exceptions, didn’t really mean much afterwards (aside from things like the claw shots). Here, the progression was more tied to how much better I could survive and thrive in the world itself.
No? Look at this
item list for LttP for example, most of these are useful.
I played OOT, but the world wasn’t nearly as ruined as it was in BOTW. And I still found enough memorable tracks in it (though again, it may be because I actually played to the point where you meet the champions and such).
The scale of the devastation was different, but that's no excuse to have a shit audial experience.
Yep, and now I’m convinced you didn’t get to the other villages and such, as they had many memorable NPCs, and that’s not even getting into when you finally start on the main quests that dive deeper into the history of the Champions.
They sure did a good job hiding that shit then. Sounds like a design flaw. Doesn't take long at all in Fallout 3 or Skyrim to find a city full of more stuff to do in an hour than nearly 10 of BotW. It fails as an open world game.
No I don’t think it is the best story in the series (that goes to MM, WW, or TP), but there are indeed things like NPCs, random events, and story breadcrumbs. Whether you like it or not is subjective.
If you finish the game, maybe. I had no idea about the story beyond the mindless shitty Ganon destroyed everything. Wow, impressive. In WW you get more story in the damn opening cut scene than I got in my two sessions of play in BotW. Story pacing is ass.
Well that sure is a smug and elitist thing to claim that you are objectively right. I beginning to wonder what’s the point of even having a debate with you now, as even I’m willing to concede on a few things, but you aren’t unless I give you what you consider to be an objectively correct response yo what you think is 100% correct, and that anything that you don’t like is objectively bad, and I and others are dumb babies for not agreeing.
Then tell me why I'm wrong. What's stopping dungeons from returning? Even if someone hated dungeons with a passion (not saying you do) they'd still have to admit their absence is fucking baffling.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t look at the shrines as being a replacement for the dungeons per se, just as more mini challenges alongside the main quests, which contains more meaningful levels and environments that, while also not strictly dungeons, actually contain the worldbuilding and story bits.
And that's totally fine, and only furthers my point. We could have those not-replacements and dungeons, right? I mean, I don't see how I'm wrong.
Thanks for calling the fans who like the shrines as well “babies”. Really showing an open-mind there.
I should say, that's Nintendo's perspective more than anything. The intention is absolutely to dumb the game down. You kinda can't fail, you don't need to think, just dick around until something works. That's fun, I get it, but it's fun in a different way. That's why dungeons and shrines can co-exist, in theory, but Nintendo said no.
The dungeons that you are absolutely in love with to the point that they are the defining element of a Zelda title to you, while fun, do not really allow for much in the way of creative solutions beyond what the designers strictly demand you follow. Sure a few allow for a bit of flexibility, but for the most part, it’s almost always you having to go about them precisely the way it was set up, to the point that the only real thing that, for me at least distinguished them, was what new item or weapon had to be found and used.
They literally did define Zelda from LttP through Skyward Sword, it's not that they defined the series to me, that's just the formula they went with. BotW regresses to pointless exploration like LoZ, which has its fans. They like bombing random spots to progress, that's fine, good for them. It's a very popular game and a favorite to this day, considered a classic, but I don't have to pretend it's not simplistic and archaic.
Anyway, you're completely right about dungeons, as they've been designed thus far. I'm not saying older Zelda were perfect, just better. There's room for improvement. Just balance OoT & BotW for the perfect game. I've always said BotW formula has potential. Wind Waker was a proto-open world game as it was, it just has rushed development and so didn't have as much content as was intended. WW2 would be the best way to use the BotW engine.
Especially since, in a game where you are allowed to explore anywhere from almost the word go, it would be very easy for you to stumble into a dungeon that you can’t complete because an item in another dungeon is required to solve it, as is the case for the exceptions in other games when a dungeon item is needed for more than one.
Then you can't have any depth or sense of progression if you're not willing to place certain limits. Best way to handle dungeons would be to not need one specific item but of several sufficing. Yeah you still wouldn't be able to do anything you want, in any order you want, but you'd still have a lot of freedom and would exchange maximum freedom for a depth of design you can only get with intentional design.
That said, if they can marry the freedom and emergent mechanics into a larger dungeon-esque level in future titles, that would be very awesome. But I get the sense that you’d still not like it because it’s not the same “designed with intent” key hunting dungeon that you adore so much.
If you can just cheese it like in the video I linked earlier, yeah, I wouldn't like it. It won't kill you to have a dungeon DESIGNED with PURPOSE instead of a sandbox to fuck around with.
Is this REALLY fun, doing this EVERY time? Just bending the game over and having your way with it? Here and there, sure, but everyone who jacks these games off only likes them because "WOW I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THIS!"
Again, I get it. You prefer the older style with all the dungeon spelunking and such. There’s nothing wrong with that. But to say that that it the only things that makes a Zelda game a “true” one, and that you’re wrong if you think otherwise, just screams elitist.
If we didn't get 2 identical games in a row I wouldn't be as bitter about it. It's not asking for much to get rid of breakable weapons and add dungeons, man.
That's what always felt artificial about Pokemon to me. It feels convenient and "gamey" rather than like a real world I could see existing.
I feel like that only became true in later games. In gen 1 people still did things independent of Pokemon. On S.S Anne you see people just taking normal vacations living their lives, and Lt. Surge mentions a war he fought in, and people have other interests outside Pokemon like how the museum has a space travel exhibit. Even when Pokemon are involved it's not always with them being the goal of focus, but merely used as tools, like Team Rocket wanting money and stuff. On TV there's movies playing that have nothing to do with Pokemon, video games that don't mention Pokemon.
Gen 3 onwards is where that problem is really exacerbated. Every faucet of people's lives involves Pokemon to an artificial degree. They're important in gen 1 too, but they're not omnipresent.
I also personally was never able to get over the primary conceit of the series that you're literally kidnapping animals and making them fight for you.
This one's just preference. I like the cockfighting aspect, it feels more gritty. Later games really hammered home how much the Pokemon are
totally down with being caught and made to fight, but gen 1 was pretty unabashedly just "it sure is cool to make these monsters fight!" I dig it.
Agree, and someone in this thread (can't recall who) mentioned that part of the problem is the puzzles aren't even all that interesting.
A big part of that is because they're so short, and devoid of context or purpose, and aesthetically bland. Shrines are very unappealing and feel like chores. I dreaded finding them.
I actually find Myst a bit easy....
I had no idea where to go or what to do, but maybe I just suck.
I like that they're naturally incorporated into the environment rather than being blatantly "video game puzzles" like Zelda's are.
Exactly. Older Zelda kind of were "video game puzzles" too, but at least they tried to make them feel organic. BotW strips that out entirely.
the Megaman Legends games easily body Ocarina of Time.
While I don't agree, I do think they're very close in quality (MM is much more action oriented than puzzle, so I lean towards Zelda). The only Zelda-like that's better than Zelda is Star Fox Adventures, it's better than any of them, minus Wind Waker.
Also regarding the other discussion, Nintendo games having political shit in it is several times worse than political shit in games made for adults.
That's absolutely true, and it's very unfortunate to see Nintendo caving into this shit...
