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A TAlE OF TWO TALES: HORIZON ZERO DAWN & THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD

8/3/2017

36 Comments

 
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I've not yet finished Horizon Zero Dawn or Breath of the Wild, but I've been sitting on my tongue for the last few days. There's so much I want to say about them - both in their own right, and in comparison to one another. 

And now? And now I can "park" my "waggler" no longer.

You see, I started playing the new Zelda immediately after playing Horizon Zero Dawn. I was startled by the similarities between them - literally startled; I fell off the sofa, and had to hide beneath the dining table for ten minutes, chittering.

Both feature protagonists who wield a bow and melee weapons. Both are set in a vast open world. And both require the player to gather materials and craft things. 

And yet, while the basic ingredients are the same, and they are essentially the same recipe, they present them in vastly different ways. Where Breath of the Wild takes its ingredients and prepares a dish with great care, in which every ingredient has a place - and the space - to contribute, Zero Dawn just chucks them all in a mixer, pours the resultant slop into a bowl, and grates a whoopee cushion over the top.
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IMPORTANT BIT
For the record, before I came to Zelda, I was enjoying Horizon Zero Dawn. It's an unquestionably beautiful game, and though it is fundamentally striving to be photorealistic, there's some really quite lovely art design going on. Also, a lot of dull forests and mountains, which look like all the other forests and mountains in all the other games.

Still, as much as I sort of like it, there was also much about Horizon Zero Dawn which was getting right on my tit-tays. Specifically, it was to do with the way Horizon Zero Dawn tried to tell its story.

At its core, it's actually a decent enough little tale, playing out in a compelling world - set years after an unspecified apocalypse, where robotic wildlife now dominates the landscape. However, in telling this tale, it strives for grandeur, and epicness, and portent, and it merely serves to underline how needlessly bloated video game storytelling has become.


It certainly doesn't help that the voice acting is all over the place. Even within one tribe there's no consistency of performance. You'll get teens who talk like they're hanging around a bus station butting up against wannabe Vikings. The dialogue is tiresome and dull, characters are fundamentally unlikeable and difficult to root for, and the cut-scenes might as well just be a deafening klaxon, and somebody shouting "THIS BIT IS IMPORTANT!" over and over.

And then I played Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and got the answer to a question that I didn't even know I wanted answering.
SURPRISING ADVENTURE
What's surprising about Breath of the Wild is just how much it has been influenced by games of recent years. What is really lovely about that is how Nintendo has cherry-picked the parts of the open world genre that it likes, but ignored most of it. Unlike the spineless approach of most developers, they had the guts to trust that less is almost always more.

It's like they created a game specifically for me. Everything I've raged about in recent years, about tedious cut-scenes, bad acting, awful characterisation... I can't criticise any of that in Breath of the Wild, because it simply isn't there.

Your main character is a blank slate. There's no bad acting, because everything is conveyed through text. The cut-scenes are kept to a minimum, and when they do appear they're utterly charming - because they're not pretending to be movie clips. There's something wonderfully life-affirming and optimistic about everything that Breath of the Wild does.

However, perhaps its greatest accomplishment is in how it has humiliated the entire video games industry. It has shown them exactly where they've been messing up in trying to emulate cinema. It has shown them that their bloated storytelling is thoroughly unnecessary.

​If you follow the story in Breath of the Wild - and you don't even have to do that, if you don't want to - you'll be treated to a tale which is all the more epic and spine-tingling and magical for the economical way in which it's being told.

Indeed, even when the story isn't being told, it still surrounds you. The sense of history in Hyrule is palpable - and despite taking place in a cartoonish, cel-shaded world, is far more evocative and convincing and consistent than Horizon Zero Dawn's misjudged, tonally wonky, hipster-populated, future.
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WOKE
I'd love for Breath of the Wild to be a wake-up call to the games industry, but I'm not optimistic. While, in my opinion, Nintendo has shown how video games should always handle their storytelling - basically, how it used to be done - most developers seem addicted to their bloat. 

Instead of asking themselves how video games can tell a story - through gameplay, through art design - there seems to be an endless quest to top the previous most-epic game. There's something depressing and spineless and unimaginative about it. It's the opposite of true creativity.

Apart from certain independent titles, and the games of Naughty Dog and - perhaps - Rockstar, I've not played a game in years which has been able to tell a story that could compete with the best cinema has to offer. Clumsy, leaden writing, and an utter inability to make the player feel for the characters, has now become the norm. Do we enjoy it, or have we merely learned to tolerate it?

The problem seems to stem from an obsession with trying to prove that games can stand shoulder to shoulder with cinema. Except... they hardly ever do. And the infuriating thing is that hardly anybody stops to ask whether trying is even the right thing to do.

By stripping away the sort of graphical clout of something like Horizon Zero Dawn, by reducing the narrative to its bare bones, Breath of the Wild is more emotional, more effective, more engaging, more epic than The Witcher III, Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim, and pretty much any other RPG you can think of. Not to mention the Call of Duty series, or... well, basically any game which forces us to suffer through a cut-scene. 

Too often, video games are trying to be something else. Or - at the very least - feeding off one another, and not stopping to ask whether the games they're plagiarising from are getting it right. 

Unfortunately for them, Breath of the Wild has just proved that they're all doing it completely wrong. It revels in being a video game, and the potential that offers. It makes abundantly clear that video games were getting storytelling right decades ago, before you all ruined it.

​Thank Mumm-raa that Nintendo still realises it, and Gawd bless their integrity and stubbornness.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
REVIEW: RESIDENT EVIL VII 4D CANDLE
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REVIEW: NINTENDO SWITCH
​
THE GREATEST CONSOLE LAUNCH TITLES OF ALL TIME

36 Comments
DD
8/3/2017 12:10:02 pm

Great read. Will you be doing a review of Breath of the Wild?
I know it's unanimously been given positive reviews, but it would be great to read your perspective.

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Jareth Smith
8/3/2017 12:11:30 pm

Horizon: Zero Dawn is endemic of many PS4 and Xbox One mainstream games - all about the graphics, but there's no real substance underneath. Nintendo has exposed this fully in Breath of the Wild - hopefully, other developers will now up their games.

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scabby french daniel
8/3/2017 12:48:50 pm

Reviews of Zelda are great, the Switch not so much (though it's early days). Is anyone playing the WiiU version, and know how it compares?

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MrPSB
8/3/2017 01:00:21 pm

I am playing the Wii U version but I don't know how it compares because I don't have the Switch or that version. Apparently the differences are:

- It locks at 20fps a bit more which looks a bit crap but I've not had it happen anywhere I need to react quickly - it's in villages usually.

- It has slightly worse texture filtering than the Switch version, apparently.

- The sound quality of some environmental sounds is lower.

None of these things have in any way affected my enjoyment of it, unlike when Amazon failed to ship me a copy of it FOR LAUNCH DAY AND I WENT AND SPENT AN EXTRA TWENTY QUID FOR IT ON THE ESHOP BECAUSE I WANTED TO PLAY IT IMMEDIATELY but boy howdy it was even worth that ridiculously inflated asking price.

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MrPSB
8/3/2017 01:04:18 pm

If you have a Wii U the sensible move is definitely to get it on that, unless you desperately need to play it on the move. £60 was silly, £330 (or whatever it would work out at) would be VERY silly. I'm hoping Nintendo will do their usual thing of tweaking it a bit to iron out the initial grumbles in time for Christmas, when I'm likely to nab one.

scabby franny danny
8/3/2017 01:15:15 pm

OK thanks, I'll probably pick up a WiiU at some point soon then, I can't resist these amazing reviews. The only thing stopping me was the availability of the game, but I hadn't even considered e-shop. Or being a smelly pirate.

The final bit of Dark Souls ever is out at the end of the month so I'll wait until mid-April. With it's exploration and appreciation of nature themes BotW seems like a good 'Spring' game anyway, y'know? Do you know?

Itsallrelative
8/3/2017 02:25:14 pm

It isn't VERY silly if you have the money and get over 100 hours of pure enjoyment from one game. Admittedly if you don't have the spare cash then yes it would be VERY silly, but then so is spending £100 a week on fags and booze but that doesn't stop people does it.

MrPSB
8/3/2017 03:06:42 pm

HNGNNGNGNGN I KNOW BUT I ALREADY HAVE IT NOW BEGONE SATAN WITH YOUR EARHOLE WHISPERS

Voodoo76
8/3/2017 12:54:06 pm

Spot on Biffo. I think BOTW could be the game I've been waiting for all these years. Nothing I've played on PS4 over the last 3 yrs comes close. I got goosebumps when Link first woke up and ran to the cliff top and the camera panned around to show your playground, and unbelievably it's all yours to do with as you wish. Respect to Nintendo for doing what they feel is right and not following the crowd with 4k photo realistic shite. Even if I only play this game on Switch its been worth the price.

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Paul
8/3/2017 12:59:14 pm

I guess the Big Question is: is it worth getting a Switch for BOTW, or is it worth plonking down the cash for Horizon Zero Dawn on an already owned system?

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Geebs
8/3/2017 03:56:07 pm

Horizon is very good indeed. It's like the Witcher 3 with a bit of Bloodborne, a smidgen of the new Tomb Raider and a dash of Shadow of the Colossus.

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Nocturne
8/3/2017 04:00:29 pm

I cancelled my Switch + Breath of the Wild order (twice) and got it on Wii U plus a bit of a catch up getting Horizon, Nioh, Nier, For Honor and Gravity Rush 2.
I did feel a little bit left out when people were all excited about their Switch but beyond Zelda there's nothing else I want for about 6 months. Seeing side by side comparisons of both versions I can honestly say I've no regrets.

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Beefkr10z
8/3/2017 01:33:17 pm

Every new "epic" game that gets released seems to me like jingling keys in front of a baby. Everyone loses their sh*t, and proclaims it the greatest game ever, then two weeks later the next greatest game ever comes along. Horizon is already being forgotten about in place of Nier, which will then be replaced by Mass Effect, and so on.
BOTW has given me something that I haven't had for ages- the chance to share tips with other players, and find out new tactics to try in-game. The environment tells more story in a single setting than most other story-led games in years. The ruined Temple of Time in the starter area, with all the wrecked Guardians was a joy to wander around, and gave a huge Laputa vibe.
I'd like to believe that the developers of any open world survival games that are currently in production all went back to the drawing board last Friday.

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Sordid Whelk
8/3/2017 04:45:42 pm

>Every new "epic" game that gets released seems to me like jingling keys in front of a baby. Everyone loses their sh*t, and proclaims it the greatest game ever, then two weeks later the next greatest game ever comes along. Horizon is already being forgotten about in place of Nier, which will then be replaced by Mass Effect, and so on.

Why do you see BotW as destined for a different fate? I can't help but think of when everyone was going bananas for Skyward Sword (also hugely adored critically, 10/10 in Edge, also extremely well-received by fans...initially)

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Darcy
8/3/2017 02:18:00 pm

Yes!

What always strikes me about modern video game stories is just how awful and uninspired they are when looked at in a wider context. They're always trying to be Big and Deep and Epic, but they're really not doing anything that hasn't been done before - and better - in other mediums.

And the "lore". Dear God, the "lore". Everything I've seen and read in BotW contributes to the game. Books that seem innocuous drop hints for finding shrines or items. Everything is interconnected. In any other game of this type, we'd be getting a thousand page history of Hyrule and assorted novellas about shit that has no relevance and reads like self-published fan-fiction.

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Picston Shottle
8/3/2017 02:45:51 pm

Exactly! What's the point in all these books and letters you can pick up and find in the likes of Witcher III, Elder Scrolls etc? Does anybody even read them? I mean, yes, I read them insofar as I open them in the vain hope they reveal aside quest or a new area or something, but don't actually "read" them. And what's with all the option dialogue? At least in Witcher III you have the bits you need to read (I always have subtitles on so as I can skip all the shitty voice acting) highlighted in yellow. Then, the stories? Yeah, totally memeorable. Skyrim was about some bloke shouting at dragons or something. Witcher III is women like looking for a girl, I think. And I haven't a clue what Dragon Age: Origins was about; totally forgottten, the story was so strong. I have Dragon Age: Inquisition to start and I can't be arsed cos I'm gonna have to twat about reading books and talking to uninteresting characters all in the hope of getting a wank off a sexy witch or a troll or something.

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Flopper
8/3/2017 02:34:30 pm

Biffo is right about storytelling. Link to the Past and Super Metroid for example, as pinnacle gaming achievements in history, perfectly succeeded in storytelling almost entirely through the gameplay rather than game-stopping text/cut scenes. Games aren't books or films; doesn't take a genius. While BOTW might lean towards that more relative to other similar games, there are still tedious cut scenes which disrupt flow. Worse, the voice acting is just awful and really takes away from your own interpretation of the local atmosphere. Once again, pandering to the morons that have been asking for this shit for years, just because. I think these negatives are worth pointing out.

And this is to say nothing about how the open world game concept plays. From a Zelda game perspective it a massive retrograde in gaming experience; BOTW is a crappy Zelda game. From a general game concept, it’s fairly weak once the sugary grinding loses its appeal and you realise how empty and boring the gameplay actually is. While there's an appeal to exploring in BOTW, there also a simultaneous sense of dissatisfaction once you've explored it. Essentially, you just explored a region and that was that. BOTW badly lacks a sense of adventure, powering up, development, and any deep sense of satisfaction that you've achieved anything meaningful. Hate to say, but it's the least enjoyable and least well-crafted Zelda experience in the series. The overworld might be designed well, but the gameplay experience—which is a factor of many aspects of craftsmanship—is poorly composed. I’ve no emotional attachment to this game (not least due to the relative lack of music at all, let alone the stunningly lyrical compositions we’re used to) and its appeal is only skin deep. And of course, that perfectly explains the rave reviews and popularity; most people just aren't perceptive to all the parts which make the whole greater than their sum. Sugar coat some dog shit sweetly enough and they'll chug away, gurgling for more as the residue drips down their chins.

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T-Wigs
8/3/2017 04:35:37 pm

How far are you into the game or how long enough did it take you to come to that conclusion?

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Simian Gerry the foul orangutan
8/3/2017 04:53:08 pm

I'm wary of the praise being heaped on this title but redundant sentences like 'While there's an appeal to exploring in BOTW, there also a simultaneous sense of dissatisfaction once you've explored it' are not bringing me over to your view...doesn't that sense of 'dissatisfaction' apply to achieving anything, in a game or not?


I might also suggest that others gain meaning simply from the act of exploring, as opposed to 'powering up' etc...in fact, many people, this site's 'author' included, praised the game for getting rid of the surplus faux-levelling and world markers that tend to plague the genre.

Goodness, ending on this note:' And of course, that perfectly explains the rave reviews and popularity; most people just aren't perceptive to all the parts which make the whole greater than their sum.' tells me you think a lot of yourself indeed, and the final faux-creative writing of ' Sugar coat some dog shit sweetly enough and they'll chug away, gurgling for more as the residue drips down their chins.' makes me think you are probably just the generic 'angry' gamer archetype that continues to hurt the medium. I started wanting to correct you and ended up disliking you! Not bad for one comment.

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PeskyFletch
8/3/2017 05:11:41 pm

Can't we just agree you're both dicks?


and i'm a twat, obviously.

Pemperbdrok
9/3/2017 12:44:14 am

Exactly who are you trying to convince? Why does BOTW being universally praised as one of the best videogames ever made cause you actual physical pain?

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Flopper
9/3/2017 09:22:22 am

Tens of hours in. BOTW is an adequate open-worldly type game. Perhaps it says something about my gaming tastes; I find some open world games generally unsatisfying beyond some cosmetic grinding. Blood dragon was enjoyable though; BOTW is also enjoyable for different reasons. But it's a poor Zelda. In fact, it's not really a Zelda game at all; it just feels like an open world game arbitrarily skinned with Zelda for sales. Time will tell what the user opinion is, but the criticisms are similar. It's slow, boring, plodding, the world is empty and baron and the fun-density is low, there's no sense of adventure, I don't feel as though I'm having any meaningful impact in my exploration, I don't feel like I've achieved anything or on an epic quest; I'm just wandering around, cliff climbing is slow and boring, I'm just grinding all the time, what little music there is in the game is weak and shows no signs of being a deeply masterful score that will transcend into popular culture, it’s absurdly unforgiving (instant deaths from one hit), combat is tedious, breaking weapons are annoying, scattered arbitrary weapons everywhere doesn’t feel satisfying, load times are a pain and make fast-travelling slow, there is no sense of being in different distinct worlds, there are no memorable dungeons, the voice acting is horrible and distracting. It’s just a giant samey mini-game that doesn’t feel very epic or rich (beyond something cosmetic like size alone). One positive thing though is it makes Skyward Sword feel like a better game; that was formerly the weakest of the 3D Zelda’s to me for a few of the reasons just mentioned. I hope they never do anything like this again (in a Zelda game at least).

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Nocturne
8/3/2017 02:41:48 pm

Breath of the Wild is stunning but they can shove the shrines with gyroscopic puzzles right up their bumholes. Rolling a a ball that operates on it's own floaty physics through a maze isn't my idea of fun, even if you can use the physicas against it by flipping the board over and back so the ball goes over the walls to the endpoint you're still left having to do an awkward flip across a gap which usully results in starting the whole thing again.
Watching Link slip off a rock and drown in knee high water never starts being entertaining either. Sure i could pause time and stuff his face with an entire Mongolian BBQ to replenish his stamina and defy every rule I was taught about eating and swimming as a kid, but on the other hand they could not make the swimming a load of bollocks in the first place.
Boomerangs were the fun the first time until it came back and only then in the split second it was next to me was I told you have to manually catch it only to watch my hard earned weapon sail off the edge of a mountain.

I absolutely love the game but there's a lot of "videogames" stuff in there that could still have been done away with for the better.

Also Zeldas voice is awful. Ganon can keep her.

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T-Wigs
8/3/2017 04:25:06 pm

As much as I am absolutely loving the game at the moment, I have to agree with you on Zelda's voice and I've only unlocked 1 memory cutscene so far!

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AcidBeard
9/3/2017 05:47:47 pm

You don't know awful. Only when you get close to the first dungeon will you truly comprehend awful.

I think it may be the same woman but Zelda is Oscar worthy compared to how impossibly bad this other character is.

Nocturne
13/3/2017 01:13:28 pm

I was ost of the way through that dungeon before realising it wasn't Zelda speaking. I'd be surprised if it's not the same VA as Mipha does sound like Zelda at a slightly higher pitch.

King of Duckhenrys
8/3/2017 04:09:26 pm

Just look at Horizon, it's clearly a real next-gen mature triple-A game. Zelda is clearly a kiddie game like everything Nintendo does. Nintendo don't care about important things like visuals and swearing which is why the Gamecube had Megadrive graphics.

Nintendo just makes underpowered kiddie consoles for kiddie games that are played by babies. I want games that look good on my 4K TV because I have a 4k TV don't you know. I want games that have movie stories, naughty words and boobies because I'm mature and not at all insecure about my choice of pastime or the size of my penis.

I have a 60" 4K TV don't you know, and the latest phone, and my willy is HUGE. By the way I have a 4k TV.

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Voodoo76
8/3/2017 04:51:50 pm

Just ordered Horizon based on that review, thanks.

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Posh friend
8/3/2017 04:56:31 pm

Switch is very much the rah-rah bauble of choice right now, Horizon has barely cracked the 'normallow' scene at all, from my estimations

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PeskyFletch
8/3/2017 05:13:21 pm

4 grand for a tv? They saw you coming, mine was a coupla hundred

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Hughes.
8/3/2017 05:46:49 pm

I picked my favourite words from this review to find the hidden meaning:

Tongue them both. Now my waggler longer! Chittering protagonists wield massive ingredients. Dawn chucks slop into a bowl. Whoopee! I came, enjoying photorealistic tit-tays. Unfortunately, wild games thank Mumm-raa. Gawd!

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Bananasthemonkey
8/3/2017 06:32:53 pm

Hughes you tool! You've just made me blow beer out of my nose.

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Scott C
8/3/2017 09:55:19 pm

Same for me, but it was red wine. I'm ded posh.

Toily Toilet
8/3/2017 08:26:26 pm

How does the story telling compare with Dark Souls/Bloodborne?

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Scott C
8/3/2017 09:56:08 pm

YOU DIED

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Jackson Pillock
9/3/2017 08:05:45 am

I would also like to know this

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