DIGITISER
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ

REVIEW: THE LEGEND OF ZELDA - BREATH OF THE WILD (Switch, Wii U - Switch version tested)

14/3/2017

42 Comments

 
Picture
Let's do this now: I haven't finished the main story in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I'm confident, however, that I've played enough of it, visited all the main environments, and experienced enough of the major gameplay conceits in order to express my feels.

Frankly, the reason I've not finished the main story in Breath of the Wild is because I keep getting side-tracked. Not on missions or side-quests, but just striking out on my own. Exploring. Discovering the world. Traipsing through the dust. 

And that's because this is how I've chosen to play Breath of the Wild. It's that kind of game; so impossibly vast, so full of mystery, that everyone is going to have a slightly different experience. I've seen things that I've not read about elsewhere, and recounted my adventures with friends who've been on their own, entirely distinct, journeys. 

​We're all going to choose to play this game differently, and - given the size and scope - we're all going to play it in the way that suits us. Being able to walk, or run, swim, glide or climb (stamina permitting), to any point on the horizon means that everyone will be drawn to different destinations. 

It's pretty much the game I always wanted to play from the moment I first picked up a joystick. For me, it's the game which finally delivers on their promise.

I might feel ready to express my opinion, but I still feel like I've barely scratched its surface.
TO BOLDLY DROP
Boldly, Nintendo chose to drop players into Breath of the Wild with virtually nothing in the way of instruction.

​As Link, you wake up from some sort of suspended animation, are given a touch-screen tablet that's clearly meant to be the Wii U Gamepad, and sent out into the world.

Initially, your exploration is relatively confined (albeit to a huge area), as you explore Shrines - small, one-puzzle, versions of Zelda's traditional dungeons - to acquire the runes that will allow you to pretty much solve any problem in the game (they include bombs, a big-ass magnet, and the ability to make ice platforms out of water). Sadly, the big ass-magnet was abandoned during development.

A few hours in, a mysterious stranger will give you a glider, which opens up the remainder of the world. Gradually, you'll unlock more abilities - sand surfing on shields, horse riding - find more shrines, and encounter wholly new takes on the concept of dungeons. These are rarely as simple as descending into a hole in the ground... Without wanting to give too much away, you often won't even realise you're in a "dungeon".

This is a brand new Zelda; you can even jump at the press of a button.

UNSPECIFIC
In fact, the less specific I get about Breath of the Wild the better. This is a game about discovery.

Often puzzles or problems will have more than one solution - using the various items and runes. It grants you the freedom to experiment with the physics and rules of the world. In short; if you think you can do it, you can probably do it.

It took me a while to realise just how interactive the world is - how I could combine ingredients to cook a dish, or chop down a tree to make firewood.

And at first I wasn't sold on the way weapons are fragile - you'll rarely hang onto one sword, or spear, or bow for more than a single battle before they break. It can be frustrating - though that moment they finally shatter does give you a big damage boost - but it forces the player to juggle their inventory, and play around with the astonishing array of weapons you'll stumble across.

Stumble across. Your discoveries feel like your own, and Nintendo have kept the story in the background, never holding your hand, never shoving its tale down your throat. The history of the world, and the threads of that story are all around, though. Zelda has always had a strong sense of its history and mythology - but never has it felt so tangible.

​Unlike certain games, when you do unlock a cutscene, or have a conversation with a key character, here it feels like a reward rather than some sixth form movie club project that you have to suffer through.
Picture
NOT PERFECT
For all the fanboying and hyperbole that has been lavished upon Breath of the Wild, it isn't perfect.

Some of that is down to my choice to play it with the Switch's JoyCon controllers - the map and inventory screens are slightly tricky to reach. Switching weapons or ammo mid-battle (which you'll be doing a lot of when your weapons get damaged) isn't as seamless as it is in other games.

Some of it is due to the game design. For instance, Link has an annoying habit of clinging automatically to vertical surfaces - often at the worst possible moment. The camera also tends to go a bit haywire in enclosed spaces. Aiming is fiddly and often imprecise when throwing an object. While such flaws might've killed a lesser game, in Breath of the Wild they're just minor irritations. 

It's worth talking about the graphics for a moment. This is a beautiful game to look at - cel-shaded, but without the extreme stylised look which seemed to put a lot of people off of Wind Waker. The animation is sublime, full of the sort of character that would only be undermined by voice acting. 

Nevertheless, as huge and open as it is, there's no pretending that Breath of the Wild looks like anything other than a last-generation game.

Frankly, next to something like Horizon Zero Dawn it really does seem dated (at least, as far as aesthetics go)... but in saying that, I'm stepping outside myself here, and trying to see Breath of the Wild objectively.

Personally, I don't need games to look like Horizon Zero Dawn to enjoy them - especially when they offer an experiences like the one you're given here. There's beauty in simplicity.
Picture
BIG ISSUE
Speaking of Horizon Zero Dawn... that game illustrates one of my biggest issues with open world games, which I hadn't realised was an issue until I could compare HZD and BoW side-by-side.

Most open world experiences don't trust the player to simply enjoy the world - they're swollen and overpopulated with wildlife, and enemies, and bases, and towns, and things to do. Basically, they seem to lack confidence in their own world design, always throwing some new action at the player for fear that they might grow bored. That ADHD approach ends up undermining their reality.

My favourite moments in Breath of the Wild are when I'm alone with the environment - when I'm just walking across desert towards some distant point. Yes, I might randomly encounter a monster from time to time, but such encounters are spread thinly, allowing me to just enjoy the peace, the space. To be alone with myself.

I admit that might just be me.

GOING TO AMERICA
When I was 13, I visited America for first time. My sister had married an American who was in the US Air Force. They lived for a few years on Edwards Air Force Base, in the middle of the Californian desert. My parents and I flew out there to stay with them one summer, and the thing which imprinted on me - more than Disneyland, more than vast portions of food dripping in honey BBQ sauce - was the scale of the landscapes.

At the end of their street was a desert; literally. The road and the houses just stopped abruptly, beyond which was sand and rock stretching for miles, and ending in a massive mountain range. 

I've been back twice to that part of the world, and would happily go back again and again. Just driving through Joshua Tree or the Mojave Desert or Death Valley - occasionally stopping to explore something at the side of the road, feeling the sense of isolation, of being among those landscapes, miles upon miles from another living soul, resonates with me like nothing else.

And that's the feeling Breath of the Wild gives me. Of being out there, alone, and never knowing what's behind the next boulder, or what waits for me at the bottom of a canyon. 

Consequently, it has already become a game for me which is very personal, which feels like mine and mine alone. Nintendo's approach to it is incredibly confident and trusting. It's like our parents are finally - after all this time - allowing us to go out on our own without a chaperone.

Pay attention, games industry: your obsession with neo-con recruitment and military-industrial propaganda, with sub-sub-Tolkien fantasy, with forcing your overwrought, overblown, tumescent, adolescent narratives on us has to stop - now.

Breath of the Wild  needs to be what you're aspiring towards. This has to be the point at which gaming grows up.

I think we're ready.

SUMMARY: The most charming, most exciting, most daring, most trusting video game in years. One for the ages.
SCORE: One million out of ten. Give or take.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
10 THIRD-PARTY VIDEO GAME PERIPHERALS THAT YOU PROBABLY NEVER OWNED 
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE MOVIES
​
A TALE OF TWO TALES: HORIZON ZERO DAWN & THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD
42 Comments
wunk
14/3/2017 12:10:00 pm

Spot on.

This game has reminded me that I'm not an old, boring, cynical, jaded gamer. I was right. Game design has been old, borning, cyncial and jaded and has basically regressed over the last 15 years or so. Zelda BOTW demonstrably proves it.

I'm only just off the first plateau, but the thing I'm taking most from it already is the refreshing lack of hand-holding and sign posting. I actually have to think, and remember things. Imagine that, youth! It rewards my little pea brain by making me feel special and clever.

If I may echo/ embelish Mr B's final paragraph - pay attention games industry. You are utter shit. This is how you do it. Go away, have a very long think, and come back when you're ready.

Reply
Voodoo76
14/3/2017 12:27:14 pm

It is fascinating how no 2 people will experience the same game. I'm still early on and I'm also helping my young daughter play her game, and we've both had very different experiences in just the first couple of hours. It's very impressive and yes it really is about time people realised great graphics don't equal a great game, and a truly great game doesn't need great graphics.

Reply
Ste Pickford
14/3/2017 01:04:02 pm

But it has some of the greatest graphics I've ever seen!

Reply
Voodoo76
14/3/2017 01:57:00 pm

I agree, just a little dated.

Spiney O'Sullivan
14/3/2017 02:10:45 pm

I have seriously never been so impressed by in-game grass before. I'm not even joking, it's amazing.

Voodoo76
14/3/2017 03:13:57 pm

Spiney - I haven't seen any grass yet, I'm stuck in that cave where Link wakes up at the beginning.

Spiney O'Sullivan
14/3/2017 12:58:52 pm

Great game, but how is it that in a world of wonder with new things to find everywhere you look, you can't find someone to repair your brittle weapons?

Hyrule has iPads, but somehow lacks anyone who can mend a sword? There needs to be an app for that.

Reply
Chris
14/3/2017 02:30:43 pm

Why mend your broken sword when you can buy a new one from amazon.hyrule at a fraction of the cost, and free delivery by drone within one hour?

(NB: I haven't played Zelda BotW, so this might not be how it works)

Reply
DeadPonyta
14/3/2017 01:37:24 pm

Trying to climb to the pinnacle of Rito Village I realised I wasn't going to make it on my remaining stamina.
I decided to paraglide off and see where I landed.
I landed next to a Goron golf course where I spent the next 45 minutes trying to improve my par by hitting a giant time-frozen golf ball with iron sledgehammers.
Lunch over and I went back to work.

This is why I love BotW.

Reply
Raybies
14/3/2017 07:00:51 pm

I keep going in circles, and then I found a giant pig monster. Stabbed that fucker in the eye, I did.

Reply
Alastair
14/3/2017 02:15:30 pm

Sounds a bit like why I preferred Just Cause 2 (small tangent) over it's sequel. The island felt bigger, with more proper wilderness, than the copy and paste emptiness of the follow-up.

Reminds me too (another tangent) of the 80s when Ireland North and South was a poorer place and a long drive or a holiday even there felt like you were getting away into the wilderness.

Reply
Meh
14/3/2017 05:28:02 pm

Technically great game; although no one plays games for their technical merit. Found this too boring, repetitive, and plodding for the most part. The main story is more like a traditional Zelda, but it’s buried with unnecessary exploration of an empty world that has little atmosphere. No sensational musical score to speak of which destroyed any emotional attachment. Very grindy, unforgiving instant deaths and frustrations, irritating weapon breaking. No sense of adventure or powering up. No sense of direction and the open world idea meant it had no sense of adventure or narrative. No temples and few poignant moments for a Zelda game. Some nice things in the game, like weather and nice graphics here and there. But overall, a “meh” experience for a Zelda game. The worst in the main series. 6 or 7/10 I’d say. I hope they don’t do anything like this again. They should have just released a game called “Breath of the Wild” and de-Zelda’d it. But then I suppose it would have got 10/10 across the board thanks to the success of the historical experiences. I’m sure it showed how open world games of this nature should be done, but it was a below average Zelda game. Many of the reviews available on Metacritic suggest the same thing beyong the 10/10 and 0/10 polarised fringers.

Reply
Meh
14/3/2017 05:30:09 pm

I tend to find what people think of a game reflect themselves as much as the game. I conclude by analogy that people who like this game (to the extent that they consider it a timeless classic) are likely to be the gaming equivalent of the kind of people who prefer mediocre, second-rate all you can eat buffets (because you can just eat and eat and eat without any conscious appreciation until you get full) rather than fine dining experiences where a special unique experience is carefully composed for you on many complex levels through incredible effort and skill of those composing it.

Reply
Meh
14/3/2017 05:34:57 pm

One thing Biffo might be interested in doing on of his articles about is the crazy, and I mean crazy zealotry associated with this game. The threats against those who didn't give it at least 100% (including DDOS attacks), and the truly bizarre attachment people have, not to the game, but to the idea the game must be seen by everyone else as perfect. It's scary identifying as the same species on some comments sections...

Reply
Darcy
14/3/2017 05:57:07 pm

Go into a pub during a big football game and start loudly proclaiming how much you hate the sport/think the home team is shite and see how people take it.

Man, the "gaming community" is so out of touch with the outside world it's legitimately hilarious.

Panda
14/3/2017 06:02:36 pm

Not sure you've genuinely experienced this zealotry you speak of or you're just referring to Jim Sterling pretending to be surprised at how fanboys of any game or platform behave but, if you have, it might be more to do with the way you talk about the taste of those who like it.

There isn't an open world game I've played this generation that I don't feel this game absolutely schools and, for me, there hasn't been a 3D Zelda that can compete with it in at least fifteen years, and possibly even since A Link to the Past.

If they didn't seriously shake up the Zelda formula, this game would be received as a stale disappointment and a terrible blow for the series, following Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess. Both good games but not the standard required for Zelda and certainly not fresh enough to be worthwhile.

Meh
14/3/2017 06:26:27 pm

All true. Find an official review on Metacritic which gives it 7/10 or whatever and read their comments section. Scary.

I'm not a fan of open world, so it was all the more tragic for me that this Zelda was polluted by it. You can have your desert, then your starter, then your mains last, sure, but then you lose any potential experience in say ramping up a sweetness curve or mixing flavours in an order which works best had it been delivered in a more structured way. Structureless games just don't provide me with a sense that my experience was specifically designed. It's similar to the reason I don't like games with procedurally generated levels; you've taken out the design and composing; you've just created a box based on some rules and that's it. If people like that, that's fine; I just like artistic composition in my personal experiences. I wouldn't like to listen to an open world orchestra or watch a film which told stories and presented sub plots in an arbitrary order. While not quite the same thing, the analogy is there. Structure has existed in the past for a reason. Open world is one idea, but I see it as second rate.

Nick
14/3/2017 06:29:39 pm

See you at the buffet Panda.

Meh
14/3/2017 06:39:14 pm

"Shaking up the formula" is also a concept I've never been a big fan of. If you get something right, stick with it, more or less. Look what happened when they changed to “new coke”. If you want to make the equivalent radical changes, create a new IP and do those ideas in a new game line. 3 Metroid primes; all generally the same, as essentially by definition, a sequel should be, and none since because it's done. If Nintendo wanted to try something new, I think a new game IP would have been better than to radically change what is expected of another. The problem is, as usual, all down to money; IPs sell because people know them and the advertising is already done. One way around is again, like with Metroid, to create a parallel sub class of games. 2D ones, the prime ones, (and the one we don't speak of).

PeskyFletch
15/3/2017 02:03:26 pm

In fairness if you're expressing yourself in this manner on those forums i'm not surprised you've upset people, your metaphor about the all you can eat buffet comes across as both snobby and condescending. Maybe if you weren't judging people based on their taste in games you might not make so many enemies? And i really don't have a horse in this race, bar handhelds i've not owned a nintendo machine since the gamecube.

Meh
15/3/2017 02:56:26 pm

OK I accept the main point of your critique; I could have phrased that better and will in future. Being 'offended' should never stop rational discourse though.

Spiney O'Sullivan
15/3/2017 03:34:59 pm

Surely as a very rational person you must recognise that you can't go reasonably throwing about ad hominems and then complain that other people aren't treating what you say as if it's reasonable debate.

Spiney O'Sullivan
15/3/2017 03:36:04 pm

That should say "can't reasonably go"...

T-Wigs
15/3/2017 12:59:24 pm

Didn't you just write pretty much the same comments under the name "Flopper" in another article? Bordering on zealotry yourself with all the effort you are going to in trying to get your point across...

Reply
Panda
14/3/2017 07:20:44 pm

I think there's a place for both an open design and a tight, guided one. Gaming is inherently interactive, so it has more right than arguably any other medium to explore the benefits of giving the player autonomy to discover or determine things for themselves.

I agree that the designers are the experts and they shouldn't rely on the player to apply the enjoyment to the world they've been given carte blanche in but that's by no means what this game has done. There are tons of tightly designed ideas with unique consideration given to all of them, possibly more so than any other game I've played. The developer gets to maintain control while the player still has the reigns to discover those ideas however they see fit.

Gaming has explored player agency in many different ways, most prominently in terms of story in the last generation or two, but taking that approach exposes the limitations and shortcomings relatively quickly. In Breath of the Wild, there's a story - not an overly complex one at all - but one which can be discovered at an order and pace that's up to the player. This allows for a balance that allows an element of control to be maintained while also making possible the autonomy that interactive entertainment should be allowed to aspire to.

Reply
Starbuck
14/3/2017 08:32:04 pm

Damn right, Pandy. The world of BotW certainly isn't thrown together - its a tightly knitted but massive quilt of a game. Designed as a genuine toybox.

Reply
RUMAN BEHLIM
14/3/2017 08:51:38 pm

Have to say playing with a Pro Controller feels much better if you are playing on the TV. Sooo comfortable.

10/10 for people who are jaded and older than 30 haha

Reply
Starbuck
14/3/2017 09:10:47 pm

And don't forget those going through stress/trauma. It's INCREDIBLY soothing with headphones on. 10 immersive carrots out of 10.

It's been infecting my dreams. Always a good sign.

Reply
dab88
15/3/2017 12:05:40 am

I've got to have played over 30hrs on my Wii U this week and I've been enjoying every minute of it. It's bloody fantastic. No other game has quite caught my attention the way BOTW has enthralled me. I've barley made it through the early stage of the game and I can't wait for more. The best open world games are like a really good book when you just don't to put it down.... I'll just do this one last task....

Reply
Nick Carver link
15/3/2017 08:58:46 am

I wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts, particularly how most open-world games fill the world (and your HUD) with way too much content, a lot of which often feels like filler. I really do think you are right that a lot of designers are scared of the player getting bored so they feel the need to constantly bombard the player with side missions, recipes, plants to pick etc. etc. none of which feels particularly fun, but more like an obligation.

I've seen job postings for 'Retention Designer' positions beginning to infiltrate AAA development (previously it was a term that got used in mobile gaming) and I think that's the aim of a lot of this content: To keep the player engaged in the game in a forced (cynical?) way. Breath of the Wild, as you say, is confident enough in its own merits - and is also respectful enough of the intelligence and curiosity of its players - that it lets everything in the world just wait patiently to be discovered. And it's a much better game for that.



Reply
Rachel
15/3/2017 11:48:57 am

I really want this game but it's fan base is becoming unbearable, and I don't want to be mistaken for a part of it. Tweets like 'This review captures why the man-babies that automatically steer away from Nintendo are missing out on the soul of videogames.' are having a hugely repellent effect

Reply
Paddlefish
15/3/2017 12:07:47 pm

Nintendo die-hards are understandably on the defensive after WiiU being universally declared a complete mistake/write-off, with not one worthwhile game to its name. I would think that extolling the virtues of the game as opposed to saying 'haha you can't have it' would be advantageous, were promoting the title an actual concern. But maybe they just want a turn at being envied again. And why not!

The game does, however, look fantastic (if somewhat derivative), and I'm delighted Nintendo are showing others how it's done again. But there still isn't a lineup for the Switch past 'a few old games again' and 'Mario for xmas', which is 3/4 of a year away. A Wii U is available for £120 second hand and is apparently laughably easy to hack, so that's the path I'll probably end up taking.

Reply
T-Wigs
15/3/2017 01:09:12 pm

Based on random people's tweets you could find a reason to dislike anything. Using tweets to represent a whole fan base is also a bit harsh. If you really want the game then get it, ignore the sad ramblings of a few idiots.

Reply
Josh
15/3/2017 03:57:59 pm

Biffo’s quote here sums it up for me: ‘It's pretty much the game I always wanted to play from the moment I first picked up a joystick. For me, it's the game which finally delivers on their promise.’

It’s the game I’ve always dreamed of and imagined but never thought would be possible. It’s the sense of possibility and wonder created by the landscape and its many surprises that makes it so special.
BotW is just so much fun, I can’t put it down. And I’ve been playing for hours and still feel like I’ve barely seen any of it.

I wish it had a stronger soundtrack but other than that, for me, it’s perfect.

Reply
Lord Arse!
16/3/2017 11:49:24 pm

Most importantly, was it a big ass-magnet or a big-ass magnet they left out of the game?

Reply
Euphemia
18/3/2017 09:27:50 pm

It's very nice. Controls are a bit of a dog on the Wii-U, but that's likely just the Gamepad. It wasn't designed for humans with normal finger placement. I imagine if my parents were cousins I'd have an easier time switching weapons, healing and throwing bombs.

Reply
ehsan link
30/10/2017 02:49:29 pm

best game

Reply
Lindsay
6/1/2018 04:46:26 am

Calling this Daggerfall mod a Legend Of Zelda game is like if the Rabbid incursion into the Mushroom Kingdom were sold as Super Mario Bros 5. I’ve spent a week in Hyrule and, whilst my expectations were pretty low after hearing friends talk about the game, they have been let down in absolutely every way.

First of all, we have the controls. I can’t seem to change the sticks to the Turok controls that were indelibly carved into my muscle memory by Nintendo themselves. I miss the days when my left thumb could look around for me and my right thumb could move me around. My mum and I are left-handlers, see, and she was made to “adapt” in school by beatings. It’s a story that left its mark on me, and when I’m told to “just adapt” to a developer’s professional failure to adopt best practice in input assignment, be it for leisure or work, it raises the hackles; back when it was a buyer’s market, I’d just take inaccessible games back to the shop and say sod it.

Now, Link had always been left-handed, but he’s been right-handed ever since they went to the length of mirroring the entirety of Twilight Princess so they could force right-handed motion controls down our throats (on the most ambidextrous controller there’s ever been since single button joysticks fell out of vogue), and ever since then, southpaw players have just had to shut up and “adapt”. Still, Metacritic is quite adamant that it is my body that is wrong, so I suppose I’ll put up with it.

So, here we go. I’m “adapting”. Run and jump are on opposite buttons. Aside from muscle memory, I’ve got a bad right thumb joint, and all this crab-claw controller holding is not only unintuitive, it fails at basic ergonomics. And it doesn’t seem to be changeable, beyond inverting the problem to no benefit. Sixth form design students learn not to make interfaces like this in their first year. If I’d got any of a number of common manual dexterity disabilities, this game would be be utterly unplayable. If this thumb joint problem turns out to be chronic and degenerative, it eventually will be. This is the company that spent buckets of money to get Julie Walters and Patrick Stewart to attract the business of elderly customers. Things like this are why they didn’t stick around.

Now, it’s been a week, and in every single fight my Arkham City muscle memory still takes over. All of the action and execution elements of this game feel like a battle with the hardware and interface and the developers who got to me first. It’s like those NES games, where ‘B’ is ‘jump’. You know the ones. The ones you download after a screenshot excites your curiosity, load them up, start level one, move around on the first screen, swear, close the emulator, and delete the ROM. That, extrapolated to a dozen buttons.

The inventory is like something Capcom dumped from an early Resident Evil game for being too clunky and intrusive. Flicking past page after page after page of bugs and seeds. Sitting down for a half hour of Food Factory Production Line Simulator after days of Neolithic Hunter-Gatherer Simulator, only to find that my lorry-like capacity for raw materials is accompanied by a carrier bag’s capacity for potions and lunchboxes.

The camera is obtrusive. I’ve got it set to the highest sensitivity, and I’m still not able to pan fast enough in battle with fast enemies. It’s default distance is too close, making it impossible to keep an eye on both the enemy I’m impotently dancing with and the edge of our clifftop area. Shuffling against large objects sees me staring at my toes. The loading times are obnoxious - and, since the door was opened to spamming quicksaves by the act of challenging a capable (or overarmed) enemy (or the multiple times I’ve had enemies pop out and reappear in their start points when I straddle an arbitrary invisible border - I can’t stress enough how terrible an oversight this is in a game with common stealth and mounted combat scenes), I’m seeing the loading screen often.

Every weapon is made of glass. Literally. Every. One. My experience of combat has been utterly, irredeemably ruined by the universal rollout of the item gimmick everyone hated in Ocarina. When I got my Biggoron’s Sword, I jumped off Death Mountain for a cackling overhead dive, and snapped it. I then never bothered with it ever again until it could be made unbreakable. Now, everything I pick up shatters after a few fights. This gimmick is terrible.

And not only that, it intersects with the inventory system to be worse than the sum of their parts. Early on, I found an incredible sword in a Shrine. Like, ten times the power of the stuff I was carrying. I’ve not used it. Why the hell would I waste something like this on Bokoblins or whatever? Why would I use it agai

Reply
Lindsay
7/1/2018 12:55:46 am

Why would I use it against something that seems powerful now, without any frame of reference as to how much I might regret that in the later game?

Instead, it sits in my inventory, taking up space. Alongside the Fire and Thunder Rods that I daren’t use (because their magic consumption has been replaced by limited, unreplenishable ammunition), but might find really useful. I don’t know what they’d be good against, because my options are to ‘learn by doing’ (quicksave, shoot something, reload), or else google it and wade knee-deep in spoilers. And all this stuff is clogging up inventory space that I need for a couple of viable weapons that won’t catch fire or get me nuked in a thunderstorm.

On the bright side, I hardly ever actually use and degrade my handful of useful weapons; since I got my magic bag of infinite hand grenades, I’ve only drawn a weapon against the really dangerous stuff. Dangerousness being ascertained by getting decapitated in a single hit - I’ve been playing for a week and have four hearts - then reloading, and either detouring altogether or exploiting the sub-Goldeneye AI for cheap kills. And it really does feel cheap - there’s so many glaring shortfallings to exploit (once you get over the veneer applied by the - excellent - preset idle animation routines; on that note, most of the scant enjoyment I’ve had has been from stalking encampments and watching the theatre).

I don’t get any satisfaction from the safe kills the game encourages. Why get into a fight with the lock-on (which feels way less refined than in Ocarina), when you can just keep running around dropping remote mines and ragdolling everything? Why deplete an elixir I might need, when I can just sandpaper from a safe distance? As long as you keep the herd off their feet, it’s just a question of time. If they can’t see you, they’ll obediently play football with every obvious bomb you offer them. When I use a sword against something smaller than a house, it feels like I’ve messed up, and I know I’m going to regret putting this dent in my weapon when it snaps in a later duel.

The physics. Ugh. I’ve seen the wind pin apples to a vertical cliff face. I’ve tried to cook on non-approved heat sources. Don’t try it, bonfire apples are not a thing. See, the fire generates thermals, that cause objects that don’t sink in water to fly into the sky like rockets. Do we ever get a means to utilise this phenomenon by dropping incendiaries whilst paragliding (it’s not a proper glider, of course - that would take away the FUN of MOAR WALKING, MOAR CLIMBING), or is this an awkwardly situational gimmick that only causes problems? (Weird midair bullet-time archery, that trades stamina for time control, and which you’re only likely to find out about through being told, doesn’t count. Apart from the stamina consumption, the thermal isn’t tall enough to be worth it - and if the grass isn’t dry, you need two shots to ignite enough to get a lift. Putting an apple in a single burning bit of grass to try to cook it seems to spread enough fire to do the trick, though. Oh, yeah, firelighters grow on trees in Hyrule.)

The aesthetics are... an example of crowd hysteria affecting individual perception, as far as I can make out. When I first emerged into the overworld, the ivy dangling over the doorway was glowing white. Like, *glowing*. But, it lay between myself and the sun, and should have been in silhouette? Basic, immersion-breaking optics fail at the grand entrance for this revolutionary overworld. It wasn’t a good start for what I’ve read to be an attempt at a gouache and plein air look. Well, they’ve managed to get warm and cool lighting, but I see hardly any of the interplay of both that defines a good Monet. The snowy peak I spent a day exploring just seemed... grey. Have I got false memories about Snowhead’s creative use of colour? *checks YouTube* nope, it’s lovely. Meanwhile, half the coloured light in this is in the form of orange or cyan neon, either stabbing into the landscape like so,some dropped an Akihabara skyscraper in a forest, or turning an interior into Metroid Prime. Instead of contrasts in tone and saturation helping to define negative space, half the time there’s a sheet of tracing paper obscuring everything beyond arm’s reach; add eye strain to the list of ways this game inflicts physical pain upon me.

The overall effect of all this is less like a painting capturing sunrise, and more like a GameCube that’s attempting the bloom effect everyone agreed was terrible, and freeing up the necessary horsepower by not playing any music. Yeah, no music. I stood there for ten seconds, looking at the fluorescent ivy, before I realised that the opening flourish of Hyrule Field BGM wasn’t coming. Just periodic howling wind and pouring ra

Reply
Lindsay
7/1/2018 12:57:24 am

Just periodic howling wind and pouring rain, accentuating the solitude of an HD remake of the island from Doshin the Giant. (Also, the first few notes of the Nokia ringtone occasionally play, for some reason I’ve not I’ve not been able to ascertain.) played through Zelda games in the living room, everyone jumping with ideas on what to do in the compact world where there’s always something to do. I’m glad this one can privately play on a tablet, because this post-apocalyptic wilderness has proven to be a dismal, tiresome thing to spectate on.

This brings me onto the game world scale and architecture. All of the key items seem to have been frontloaded into the opening section. I had a rapid burst of ability expansion, that didn’t really give me time and opportunity to master one ability before the next one was stuffed into my mouth, in a sequence constrained only by being told where to go. Hell, when I got the time stopping rune, the hammer I got with it fell apart whilst playing with the boulders placed outside for the clear purpose of this ‘learning-through-doing’ business. The game world does not feel built with objective-based explorative gameplay in mind, the gameplay element feels like they happen on top of a lovingly-drawn sheet that overreaches the engine’s ability to render it.

What the key items don’t include, of course, are the Hookshot. The Boomerang‘s deinvention as a returning javelin strikes it off the list of series stalwarts - throwing it at fruit in a tree saw them get knocked off and roll away down the hill. The scrapping of Metroidvania item progression has actually robbed exploration of its wonder; there’s no sense that I’m pushing against the boundaries of my current capabilities - I seem to be able to bypass any obstacle by chugging stamina potions on the way up or over.

Apparently, they did put in a clawshot, and took it out because the high speed obstacle navigation felt like Spider-Man. ...why draw the line there, after making Hyrule feel like Minecraft with one diggable block per hectare? Who did they talk to who said that Arkham City’s busy, compact world and Grapnel boosting were things to avoid? Why would you dump those, but base the central growth mechanic on solving countless Riddler Rooms? The mind boggles.

I’ve made creative use of my abilities to reach and do things, yes, but at no point has anything given the satisfaction of a sequence-break. Breaking my current boundaries just feels like something determined by how many stamina potions I can be bothered to make. (And, by extension, how much junk I can be bothered to clear out of my Tesco bag of learn-by-doing culinary failures.) The game bends over backwards to avoid directing your journey beyond really light-touch objectives and lets you tell your own story by finding side quests (one of my current ones being to find adverts for Xenoblade Chronicles - SERIOUSLY?). And yet, I found myself receiving lectures from NPCs about how I should really avoid the Laputa robots, they’re *burp* really powerful Link, AFTER I had had their death rays and adamantium armour rubbed in my face for an hour.

See, as I was doing the early shrines, one of them was guarded by these things. Subsequent lectures on their lethality seem superfluous when you’ve already been led by the nose to pit your rusty sword against these battle tanks. And, no, I didn’t try to avoid them - I’ve been told over and over that “if you think you can do it, you probably can”, and I thought there’d be a tasty reward for players who take out one of these things with the correct strategy and execution, and so spent an hour of quicksaves (again, dangled in front of you after the first laser nukes you), attributing my inability to do damage beyond shaving the initial (beguilingly chunky) visible piece off their health bars to execution errors on my part. No, you can’t take them out with an explosive arrow to the eye, or a grenade under their chassis. Go back in time, run away from the invincible slayers, and *then* get told they’re invincible slayers.

And the weather! The number of times I’ve been sat on a ledge, waiting for the rain to end. I can’t leave it running and pass the time, I’ll come back and find I’ve been kicked off the ledge by skeletons and died. I’m not teleporting to a Shrine and finding something to do, I’m half way to my intended destination. And because they went with ‘drop items in proximity and then hit them and hope they align right’ model of making a campfire instead of putting that inventory screen to use, I find myself having to build a heap of wood and flints to make a campfire. Why deplete items you might need (like that bleeding dragonfly I made into an elixir I don’t need and now need to find a replacement for a fetch quest) when you can just wai

Reply
Lindsay
7/1/2018 12:59:00 am

Why deplete items you might need (like that bleeding dragonfly I made into an elixir I don’t need and now need to find a replacement for a fetch quest) when you can just wait, wait, wait?

My first week of this has been an overwhelmingly negative one. The impression it has created is that I’m in for a sprawling, isolated ramble, like Lord of the Rings with a Fellowship of one, in which I will gather incremental increases in health, exploit basic AI to accumulate cardboard weapons I daren’t use, and will have set pieces ruined by failing to approach them in the direction the stage manager wanted me to. On one occasion where the ‘doing’ in ‘learning by doing’ was ‘google it’, I happened on a spoiler that really puts me off sinking more time into this:

All of that beautiful underwater terrain around the tower I took by quicksaving the lightning critters surrounding it to death? Yeah, I’m not going to get to swim around it in Zora Mode.

If the steering of the horses is anything to judge by, that’s probably a mercy.

Reply
Panda
7/1/2018 02:29:32 pm

Wow, you really don't get this game. Which of course is a very reductive, patronising and dismissive way of engaging with your endless list of issues (many of which are perfectly reasonable, though clearly not ruinous for most). Then again, "I can only assume the masses have gotten it very wrong indeed and I'm one of the small minority who can see the truth" isn't much more helpful. There comes a point in terms of consensus that you might just have to entertain the possibility that there really is just something you're missing.

If you're trying things in the game that don't seem to work for you, that doesn't automatically mean it only wants you to do things a specific and singular way. It might mean you're free to try playing the game in a way that suits you more. My tip is to ignore most of enemy camps and do some shrines to increase your health. If you're absolutely insistent on doing things exactly the way you want to when - regardless of how possible that is - it's clearly hampering your enjoyment substantially, I'm not sure how much you can blame the game for that when there are usually plenty of other options. Freedom in a game like BotW is little to do with the expectation that you should be able to do whatever you want unconditionally at all times and derive the same enjoyment irrespective of your own choices. There's no game in existence that will every offer such a thing, least of all one with a "loop" as restricted as the Arkham games. There's no single right way to play BotW but the autonomy is still yours to change your approach if you don't happen to like your current one. The option is there to go almost straight to the final boss but you don't see people damning the game because doing so is too hard and frustrating.

If you're too frightened to use powerful weapons because you don't want to lose them, you're definitely playing the game differently from someone like me who had to constantly throw decent weapons away because he had too many to fit in his regularly expanded inventory. And for a game where it's apparently trivial and easy to deal with the enemies until it's conveniently not trivial and easy at all, I got rid of the disabled guardian at the early shrine with very little hassle. There are plenty of walls and barriers in the area that function as cover and the machine is completely crippled, making it actually quite a suitable means of introducing the enemy and leaving you free to just bypass it and go into the shrine or to fight it in a way that satisfies you. Or to spend ages trying the same thing over and over even though it's obviously not required of you.

Then again, you're allowed to play and dislike a game on your own terms and there's certainly no guarantee that you won't hate every one of the many ways of approaching all the different aspects of the game. Given there's no accounting for individual tastes, I didn't think Arkham City was as good as Asylum and it certainly wasn't a proper open world - more like just a very large room - so any comparisons with BotW make very little sense to me. Especially since dismissing many of the shrines as Riddler rooms is to at once exaggerate the ingenuity of Rocksteady's padding tactics and to diminish a lot of BotW's more novel and fundamental design ideas.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    This section will not be visible in live published website. Below are your current settings:


    Current Number Of Columns are = 2

    Expand Posts Area =

    Gap/Space Between Posts = 12px

    Blog Post Style = card

    Use of custom card colors instead of default colors = 1

    Blog Post Card Background Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Shadow Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Border Color = current color

    Publish the website and visit your blog page to see the results

    Picture
    Support Me on Ko-fi
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    RSS Feed Widget
    Picture

    Picture
    Tweets by @mrbiffo
    Picture
    Follow us on The Facebook

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2022
    May 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014


    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ