Legend of Zelda thread - Lorefags GTFO!

BOTW is one of those things that looks appealing until you've stared at it after an hour or so. The various biomes and terrain are kind of interesting; but it's impossible to ignore the fact that there's hardly any exciting landmarks or relics throughout the land. The only ones that actually stood out was Eventide Island and that challenge where you have to kill those three giants. Otherwise, it's just some random chest that I spent 15 minutes traversing an mountain.

Cooking was an nice feature, but it's really something that I never really gotten into because it was an lot faster to just hunt an rhino or an bear than it was to clean out an monster camp and hope that they had an stove.

I still think that it's an tech demo for not only the upcoming sequel, but for the franchise, itself.
 
What stuff to do? Movement is miles better in BotW, but nowhere to move to but another empty cliff with an enemy and maybe a seed.

Better sense of scale, I suppose so? The land in Skyrim has more subtle shifts despite some gargantuan mountains. It looks more organic in Sjyrim though, more realistic.

Bugs and crashes and poor performance, personally, mean nothing to me. I had more fun playing Skyrim at 1fps with 1m+ loading screens constantly on PS3 than I did playing BotW despite it being silly smooth. Lots of random events and organizations and fun missions.

Skyrim has a better story (low bar there, but still) and much better presentation. The opening is iconic and more fun than anything in my few hours of boredom in BotW.
Fucking explore, see the desert, the volcano, the tundra, the jungle, the ruined city, the vast field, the lost woods, the still-inhabited area, the old wall, the castle, none of which is tiny- all are huge. Oh, and Skyrim's mountains aren't shit compared to BotW's.

As a TES lore purist I hated Skyrim's "lore", though not as much as Oblivion's or especially ESO's (and don't consider any of them cannon- fuck all that shit) but saying that Skyrim's opening is more iconic is ridiculous. BotW's even has a term named after it, the "BotW moment". To think that simply walking outside of the starting cave and seeing a world laid out before you is more than other games' give you is funny but there you go, BotW just did it so much better than them with the staging.
 
Fucking explore, see the desert, the volcano, the tundra, the jungle, the ruined city, the vast field, the lost woods, the still-inhabited area, the old wall, the castle, none of which is tiny- all are huge. Oh, and Skyrim's mountains aren't shit compared to BotW's.

As a TES lore purist I hated Skyrim's "lore", though not as much as Oblivion's or especially ESO's (and don't consider any of them cannon- fuck all that shit) but saying that Skyrim's opening is more iconic is ridiculous. BotW's even has a term named after it, the "BotW moment". To think that simply walking outside of the starting cave and seeing a world laid out before you is more than other games' give you is funny but there you go, BotW just did it so much better than them with the staging.
Sounds like a walking simulator. Seeing things isn't content. Seeing the barren world laid out before you is definitely a BotW moment, but that term should be used negatively.

Skyrim's deeper lore, I don't know, I didn't really read every book scattered around or complete every mission, but the main story is basic yet adequate. BotW is just "mindless enemy bad, go get 'em". I don't expect political intrigue from Zelda, but regressing Ganon to a mindless blob flying around is really disappointing and a step in the wrong direction.
 
Sounds like a walking simulator. Seeing things isn't content.
Yeah, the difference is, in all of those places you actually get to do stuff. Most of them have villages in them, all of them have shrines (even the castle, somehow), they have enemies to fight, ingredients to gather, quests to complete, unique stuff to find, everything that Skyrim has, with the advantage of also having great movement options, a real sense of scale, very limited enemy leveling, etc.
 
Yeah, the difference is, in all of those places you actually get to do stuff. Most of them have villages in them, all of them have shrines (even the castle, somehow), they have enemies to fight, ingredients to gather, quests to complete, unique stuff to find, everything that Skyrim has, with the advantage of also having great movement options, a real sense of scale, very limited enemy leveling, etc.
But the main problem is that this shit gets boring after an few hours. Once you've moved onto killing the giant monsters and Lynels, you've basically seen everything that the game had to offer.
 
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Yeah, the difference is, in all of those places you actually get to do stuff. Most of them have villages in them, all of them have shrines (even the castle, somehow), they have enemies to fight, ingredients to gather, quests to complete, unique stuff to find, everything that Skyrim has, with the advantage of also having great movement options, a real sense of scale, very limited enemy leveling, etc.
I guess. After one night I didn't feel compelled to play again. It was kinda fun but there wasn't really a story and shrines sucked cock after the first one. I am glad people enjoyed it but the sooner we move back to traditional 3D Zelda design, the better imo. Blending BotW with that can definitely work too.
 
BotW's even has a term named after it, the "BotW moment". To think that simply walking outside of the starting cave and seeing a world laid out before you is more than other games' give you is funny but there you go, BotW just did it so much better than them with the staging.
I dislike Fallout 3 but it honestly did this same idea better almost a decade before BotW, while actually giving the moment proper buildup and payoff
 
I’m still gonna have to disagree on the notion that the world of BOTW is barren and the like, given how packed with detail it is.

Yeah I admit that the shrines do have a same aesthetic, but they make up for that in the freedom you are given in terms of how to solve almost of them.

Heck, sometimes the shrines themselves are the rewards for completing an extremely tough puzzle or finding an out of the way secret. I admit that not all of them are winners, but for me, I was still eager to find them.

A more in depth story would’ve been nice, I’ll agree. But what was there was, at the very least for me, done well, what with all the environmental hints towards what once was, and the memories that shed more light on the characters. Heck, it may even have my favorite incarnation of Princess Zelda in the whole series.

But again, this is all just me.
 
What stuff to do? Movement is miles better in BotW, but nowhere to move to but another empty cliff with an enemy and maybe a seed.
Nintendo fans never go outside so to them an empty hillside is a real fantastical anomaly.

But yeah there's the simple fact that Breath, despite clearly being inspired by Skyrim, still missed most of that game's core appeal.
everything that Skyrim
Except worse.
I dislike Fallout 3 but it honestly did this same idea better almost a decade before BotW, while actually giving the moment proper buildup and payoff
Impression I get is that Nintendo fans never played any of the games Breath ripped off so it's all new to them.
 
Remember the year before BOTW came out? How everyone thought that Zelda was going to be an active participant throughout the whole game and would get a bigger role than being the same damsel in distress or a tutorial speaker? Have you guys seen the same speculations from years ago but this time it will definitely happen guyz?

Sure. The same company that actively avoids giving its mascot a personality will definitely create compelling characters.
 
Impression I get is that Nintendo fans never played any of the games Breath ripped off so it's all new to them.
Can only speak for myself, but I’ve played Skyrim, alongside other games BOTW takes influence from such as Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V.

I still think BOTW is still better, even with games such as RDR2 and Elden Ring coming out after.
 
Dude, they've literally reused an few dozen pieces of scenery and arranged them into an small grove of trees, an mountain with nothing unique on it, or an abandoned village.
might be another identical shrine or seed tucked in that small grove of trees tho
 
6 years and it still reuses the BOTW map? SS was 2011, BOTW was 2017, that's 6 years, they really couldn't have created an all new game in that same span of time?

And why not a WW style ocean instead of a SS style sky world?

I'm a bit worried, it does feel like they didn't have a clear direction on whether to reuse the map or start from scratch and a lot of time was wasted, but I'll forgive it if 1. it has some really good dungeons and 2. they tell a really good story this time, as that was my main gripe with BOTW is how shallow the story was.

It isn't the worst idea to reuse the Hyrule map, but it's taken them too long to get it out, I just hope it doesn't take like a solid decade until we get an all new Zelda.

An open world Termina seemed like the most obvious idea for a follow up to BOTW and it's still an idea they could go with next time.
Personally I don't want to replay an open world if the map is going to be the exact same. The main draw of BOTW is playing it without guides and seeing everything firsthand. Once you do that, you can't just repeat it with the same map even if the shrines don't exist. This is a big mistake in 2's design and if it is as egregious as it sounds I probably won't play. But it'll still sell gangbusters.
 
I'm going to go ahead and say that free climbing wasn't a good thing in BOTW. A big part of why I don't enjoy the game is that once you get an extra bar of stamina it becomes piss easy to just climb over everything. Most cliffs have spots where you can take breaks and refill the meter. You also kill practically all of your level design. You can basically skip the introductory trek up to the Zora's Domain.

And yes, the trials were my favorite part of the game.
 
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The various biomes and terrain are kind of interesting; but it's impossible to ignore the fact that there's hardly any exciting landmarks or relics throughout the land. The only ones that actually stood out was Eventide Island and that challenge where you have to kill those three giants. Otherwise, it's just some random chest that I spent 15 minutes traversing an mountain.
Yea lets just forget about all the shrines, hidden shrines, korok seeds, horse stables, roaming enemies, Kass missions, fairy shrines, open world bosses and NPC missions for a second.
Notable locations:
Giant golf course in the canyon
Satori Mountain
Skull lake
The Forgotten Temple
Ankala Ruins
The giant spiral of Rist Peninsula
Tingle Island
Lost woods


All with unique encounters and gimicks.

But uh, have fun with your random chests I guess.
 
Yea lets just forget about all the shrines, hidden shrines, korok seeds, horse stables, roaming enemies, Kass missions, fairy shrines, open world bosses and NPC missions for a second.
Notable locations:
Giant golf course in the canyon
Satori Mountain
Skull lake
The Forgotten Temple
Ankala Ruins
The giant spiral of Rist Peninsula
Tingle Island
Lost woods


All with unique encounters and gimicks.

But uh, have fun with your random chests I guess.
Plus the fairy shrines, hot springs, desert ruins, "battle of Hateno" remains, the stuff around Robbie's house, the giant cubes, the ice caves, the...
 
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