Legend of Zelda thread - Lorefags GTFO!

[LightDragonman1]

While I wouldn’t go so far as to call the game a complete immersive sim (as it still contains many elements that are very “gamey”, if that makes sense), it still includes many elements, ranging from the whole chemistry system, to the ways of traversal.

In terms of objectives, I could mention how, in fighting some of the cube bosses, you could simply aim for the glowing weakness with your arrows, or you could faze through it with ascend and start using your sword, with the reward being a very strong item to fuse together with a weapon.

There’s also the liberation of Lurelin Village, which gives you free reign as to how you do it (stealth, vehicles, straight melee combat, use elemental damage), with the end result being that now an entire village is open again.

Heck, sometimes just reaching the next Tower is a challenge in itself, such as one where the bridge to get to it was out. You could repair the bridge, or you could get creative with the ascend and rewind abilities. Different methods to unlock the means for more of the map to be revealed.

Even something as simple as clearing the way forward by getting rid of destructible blocks offers ways. You can either use extremely heavy weapons, or use bomb arrows, depending on which resource you have more of. In the Depths, this led me to finding more important resources.

And that’s not even getting into some of the shrines, which pretty much give you near free rein to do whatever you want to complete the objective (not all of them granted). I was able to bypass one by simply creating a huge tower to ascend through, or shield surfed on rails.

Some do give more effects than others I’ll grant you that. But I found this to be the biggest strength of the game. Especially as a fan of games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Thief, and Prey 2017.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Thank god thats not what they did, then.

Then what, exactly, did they do?

I couldn't finish TotK because of how slowly everything runs and how boring the combat is.

This is honestly the reason why I couldn't get into it either, it's the XCOM 2 problam all over again where they doubled down on all the shit I didn't like in the first game and all the stuff that I did like feels way too samey to carry the experience the second time around. The enemy health bloat alone almost made me drop BoTW and in ToTK it's even more unbearable, and modding out weapon durability helps with making combat not totally pointless but really neuters the game due to it's frankly pathetic loot pool. It doesn't help that the Switch is a lackluster piece of hardware, good thing I run emulator and pirate my ROMs, I couldn't imagine spending hundreds of dollars to play this turd.

That, and whereas in Ubisoft games, towers reveal every collectible and side mission, here, you still have to find them yourself, so I found it to be much more interesting.

That minor tweak doesn't change the way you play the game though. I can promise you the vast majority of players, upon realizing that what they wanted to go to was in an unrevealed part of the map, immediately went for the corresponding tower for that area in order to reveal the map and gain a vantage point. I do like that the game doesn't clutter the shit out of your map with markers but mechanically it has brought precisely zero new ideas or ways to execute old ideas to the table.

I’ve never played those sorts of games on Steam, so I can’t really comment on that

Ever since Minecraft became popular these sorts of open world survival/crafting games have been a dime a dozen. BoTW is definitely one of the better ones, but ToTK does absolutely nothing to expand or improve the first game, ToTK just adds bloat.

In terms of objectives, I could mention how, in fighting some of the cube bosses, you could simply aim for the glowing weakness with your arrows, or you could faze through it with ascend and start using your sword, with the reward being a very strong item to fuse together with a weapon.

There’s also the liberation of Lurelin Village, which gives you free reign as to how you do it (stealth, vehicles, straight melee combat, use elemental damage), with the end result being that now an entire village is open again.

Games have been doing that for decades now, what makes this particular game's execution better? This is nothing more than window dressing, just admit that Nintendo has done nothing new with BoTW or ToTK and that the execution was majorly half-assed.

Some do give more effects than others I’ll grant you that. But I found this to be the biggest strength of the game. Especially as a fan of games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Thief, and Prey 2017.

Because it's way more shallow than any of those games and the "choices" you make have no effect on anything in the world itself?

 

[whatever I feel like]

They made a great fucking game you idiot. I can't be bothered to quote you directly since you did that shit where you go through another guy's post line by line and responded to each sentence.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Personally, I am enjoying TOTK, though I will certainly admit it's got flaws. I do find having an even bigger world after BOTW is fairly fun and interesting, the new powers are cool, and I am glad that we got an expansion/continuation of some of the story and lore from BOTW.

That being said... this game really does feel more like an expansion/spin-off than a full-fledged sequel; kinda like AC: Rouge and Freedom Cry were to Black Flag, or New Dawn was to Far Cry 5, or Super Mario Galaxy 2 to the first one. It feels like the devs just wanted to make "BOTW, but with some different parts" rather than a full, standalone game. Also, the lack of acknowledgement of BOTW's events in general; it's kinda weird that all the Shiekah tech is just gone, and no one bothers to say anything, for instance. Also, the sameness from the fucking Koroks is upsetting.

Also, the combat being less fun. Enemies feel more tanky overall, and coupled with the weapons degrading so much faster, it makes it feel like a slog. I do admit, combining items with weapons is cool, and is encouraged to make combat less of a slog... but when permanently breakable gear is involved, it only feels like you're delaying the inevitable. It's like Biomutant, except the rare weapon that you spent ages finding all of these rare parts for to build is guaranteed to break... and probably very soon.

Hand-holdy and generally slow tutorial; can agree that it's annoying. BOTW got praise for not holding your hand, so I have no idea why they had to change that.

I admit, I do find the Zonai race and lore to be rather interesting; granted, them both being obvious furry bait and the fact that their tech just feels like a copy-paste of the Sheikah tech makes them lose some points; I do like Rauru, admittedly. Of course, this being Zelda, they're probably just going to be ditched next game, just like just about every other new thing in Zelda games - seriously, what the hell happened to the trains from Spirit Tracks, for instance? Or Termina from Majora's Mask? Hell, it feels weird how the champions were just dropped completely; I get it, several years have passed since BOTW, but you figure there would be something to really commemorate them besides a small stone marker that doesn't even mention their names.

The story itself is pretty weak, too; it feels like a re-tread of BOTW, really. Not a deal-breaker, exactly, but I would have enjoyed a stronger story focus; I mean, since the kingdom is recovering - or at least it was, until Ganon showed up - just dumping someone into a sandbox doesn't quite fit the same way as it did in the more post-apocalyptic BOTW. Having a dedicated companion could have worked.

Overall, I actually really do like the game, I just can't help but point out the flaws. I did hear that a pretty good chunk of the team that was working on TOTK was different than BOTW; apparently, they got a lot of new blood in, which probably explains some of the design choices.

 

[LightDragonman1]

Given just how in depth the mechanics in the newer Zelda games are in terms of interaction and the like, and how the game encourages you to find these unorthodox solutions, I would argue against them being mere window-dressing.

And in terms of gameplay at least, I do think it is of the same quality as those classic games, even if in terms of the story and world, it isn’t quite on that same level.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Personally, I am enjoying TOTK, though I will certainly admit it's got flaws...

I agree with most of what you have to say. Will probably post a review of it in the main Switch thread later.

 

[NPZCC]

My favorite part of ToTK is how you can load your save game from BoTW and if you didn't complete some of the objectives like building Tarrey Town or building your house in Hateno Village, then those things just don't exist in ToTK. Very Cool.

The Liberation of Lurelin Village was a really good quest line. I liked that all of the pirates were dressed like pirates and all had unique pirate weapons. Also, that you could sneak on board the ship and blow it up. If you were really clever, you could even find one of the pirates in the sewer and use him to parley with the captain. Genius.

I loved those cube bosses you mentioned, pretty interesting lore behind them, and because of their motivations and character, when you fight them naked, it actually changes the way they fight because they're so embarrassed, lmao.

Shrines and puzzles are excellent, being able to brute force your way through them and not having to actually solve anything is dope.

If you didn't enjoy this game, Zelda would be so upset with you.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

They made a great fucking game you idiot. I can't be bothered to quote you directly since you did that shit where you go through another guy's post line by line and responded to each sentence.

Your post was one sentence and my response was one sentence, it isn't my fault you can't respond to a single sentence you little cretin.

 

[Spitz]

it's the XCOM 2 problam all over again

For me, it's one of those, "how did you fuck this up?" moments. TotK and XCOM 2 made me think about all the things they could've been and how much better their predecessors were, rather than enjoying the games. I wouldn't mind the Minecraft shit if the vehicles I built weren't so fucking slow. It was faster to craft a bunch of 30-minute, triple-speed meals and just run and glide everywhere using Tulin's ability. The fact that a lot of things are copy-pasted from BotW, especially the janky, boring combat, was the final straw. When it's faster and funner to run around with buffs than it is to build a Green Goblin hovercraft that barely breaks 10m/s using the shiny new gameplay mechanic, I gotta tap out.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Your post was one sentence and my response was one sentence, it isn't my fault you can't respond to a single sentence you little cretin.

No, its Null's fault. I wasn't going to go through and highlight shit over just pressing a quote button.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

I wouldn't mind the Minecraft shit if the vehicles I built weren't so fucking slow.

Honestly the more limited tool kit of BoTW is a big point in it's favor, a player is naturally going to look for the most convenient solution and giving them fewer tools really pushes them to be creative with what they can do. In ToTK you can build basically whatever you want but that inherently limits you since you're going to find the most elegant and simple solution and then everything left over is just bloat. The five runes you get in BoTW will give you leagues more milage than any of the abilities in ToTK, and that's on top of the fact that like three of those abilities should all just be one ability and two upgrades instead of three separate abilities.

Plus the sages suck shit compared to the champion powers in BoTW due to their poor implementation in the actual gameplay. They should have done something like tap down on the D-Pad in order to whistle and hold down on the D-Pad to select sage powers. I also don't like the ghost thing, I wish my friends would follow me around and help me throw my enemies boot parties in person, but I can kinda understand where the technical limitations in that one are, I just wish it were feasible.

 

[Spitz]

The five runes you get in BoTW will give you leagues more milage

The bomb alone allowed me to bomb-jump and do that goofy jiggle glitch which solved a lot of traveling issues and were fun to pull off

Plus the sages suck shit compared to the champion powers in BoTW

The only one I ever used was Revali's Gale for traveling because the others made the baby combat even easier.

I can kinda understand where the technical limitations in that one are

Yeah it was in the six-year-long circle-jerk they were doing.

 

[Mega Black]

So I've read like twenty pages of this thread and have come to the conclusion from your ToTK bitching that you Nintendo retards are literally too stupid to realize that Nintendo is just making "The Ubisoft Game" ten years after people got sick of Ubisoft doing it.

Yes, but to give the tendies a little credit it is the Ubisoft formula executed with slightly more artistic and mechanical merit.

Yeah I don't see the immersive sim arguments. The only immersive sim part is the elemental physics

You can't even kill NPCs which makes it, in my books, a really shitty immersive sim.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Yes, but to give the tendies a little credit it is the Ubisoft formula executed with slightly more artistic and mechanical merit.

Yeah it's definitely one of the better examples of it's genre/formula (at least BoTW is, I don't like ToTK much at all) but it's almost precious how the tendies praise decade old game design as refreshing. Nintendo I think has really shown both their greatest strengths and their greatest weaknesses as game designers with these two games simultaneously; their ability to polish the execution of a tried and tested formula to a mirror shine and their complete inability to innovate or take risks.

 

[LightDragonman1]

Hey, the game managed to be a massive improvement over the typical Ubisoft checklist open-world formula, at least in my eyes, which is why I found it to be refreshing. Especially since I had become extremely jaded after seeing that formula in countless open-world games.

 

[Polarity]

I have the exact same complaints as everyone else. The puzzles pad out the incredibly thin base Zelda game and if you aren't a fan of the puzzles, there really isn't much left. Throw in a bunch of bland quests with meaningless rewards (gems and 10x arrows), endless combat encounters comprised of the same 10 monsters where you get punished by weapon durability for engaging, having to break ten million fucking rocks, Nintendo's typical lack of story and you get a solidly bland game.

I wish they'd just split the games out into two franchises: Zelda and Zelda: Extreme Puzzle Adventure - 100 Shrine Puzzles to Unlock the Key to Zelda's Chastity Belt.

Unfortunately with the number of views the building/torture videos got on youtube, Nintendo is going to quadruple down on this recipe hard.

 

[LightDragonman1]

The combat encounters I never found to be punishing, as I was experimenting with different tactics besides just using the weapons all the time. And I did find several of the quests to give much better rewards than just gems and arrows, whether it was a new armor piece or material to fuse with.

I know a lot of people here really hate the direction these games are taking, but for me at least, I really enjoy the freedom and exploration they offer, along with the sheer amount of ways I can experiment with both combat and traversal. And this is coming from someone who also likes the old Zelda formula as well.

I’m really starting to feel like the odd one out here.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Nintendo I think has really shown both their greatest strengths and their greatest weaknesses as game designers with these two games simultaneously; their ability to polish the execution of a tried and tested formula to a mirror shine and their complete inability to innovate or take risks.

Nintendo has certainly been playing it safe ever since Switch launched, arguably it started earlier.

The combat encounters I never found to be punishing, as I was experimenting with different tactics besides just using the weapons all the time. And I did find several of the quests to give much better rewards than just gems and arrows, whether it was a new armor piece or material to fuse with.

I know a lot of people here really hate the direction these games are taking, but for me at least, I really enjoy the freedom and exploration they offer, along with the sheer amount of ways I can experiment with both combat and traversal. And this is coming from someone who also likes the old Zelda formula as well.

I’m really starting to feel like the odd one out here.

All that stuff is fine but they really made a mistake doubling down on everything critics didn't like. Well I mean, it performed well, so it wasn't a mistake in their eyes, but you know what I mean.

All they had to do was build traditional dungeons and it'd be universally praised. I could even overlook them keeping the same retarded shit like breakable weapons and exploration being worthless.

 

[Mega Black]

but it's almost precious how the tendies praise decade old game design as refreshing.

I was laughing at this back when Breath came out and Tendies were hailing it as the best game of all time. I guess when you're stuck playing last gen ports and indie games exclusively an open world pseudo RPG with physics is groundbreaking.

And honestly all the new formula has done is basically kill Zelda as a franchise of its own. These new games are really held back by the IP.

The combat encounters I never found to be punishing, as I was experimenting with different tactics besides just using the weapons all the time.

I found Tears to be better about this since monster parts are how you turn shit weapons into decent or good ones, and even if you break three weapons you are likely to walk away with ten or so new parts to use for fusion, but the fact remains that there just isn't much incentive to engage in combat, especially since the game uses retarded level scaling.

All they had to do was build traditional dungeons and it'd be universally praised

This floors me, especially since Elden Ring came out before the giant delay and had legacy dungeons that were praised by pretty much everyone. I was so disappointed to find that the major dungeons were so half baked.

 

[Never Scored]

I think what Nintendo did really well with BOTW was streamlining the type of experience you'd get with an open world WRPG like Elder Scrolls, and making it accessible and kind of making the gameplay a bit punchier and more movement orientated as opposed to being heavily based on stats and gear. Kind of what the original Mario RPG was to JRPGs. That's what I find so baffling about the cumbersome ultrahand mechanic. It feels very unpolished.