LoZ - Breath of the Wild

CarcharOdin said:

Not only that, that weapon durability system REALLY needs to be changed (ffs, just doubling weapon durability would render this a non-issue, patch dis Nintendo).

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I actually played the game recently and this jumped out at me before anything else in the game.

The weapon durability isn't balanced worth shit. :/ Other than that the game is really great.

Bought the Switch version, and once I realized they weren't gonna bring in any more Switches for a while, I swapped it out for the Wii U version despite not really wanting to sacrifice the pros that come with the Switch version. Because I could wait but then I realized fuck it.

Holy Hell did I make the right choice.

It's incredibly rare that an open world game is able to make me feel any sense of whimsy or awe these days. The last one that was really able to do this was Oblivion, which was basically the beginning of this whole boon even if it wasn't as big as its younger and older brothers in terms of popularity. Since then I've played a bunch of them- too many, I'd say. And over all this time I can say one thing has bothered me almost every one of these titles, which is that they never make exploring their world interesting. This isn't to say there aren't interesting things in their worlds, but the actual exploration of these worlds usually isn't all that interesting in itself.

Breath of the Wild is probably my favorite Open-World game since Shadow of the Colossus (which did this the best yet, ironically, was intentionally empty) in that it knows how to make you want to explore the world. This is the first time in over a decade that I've actually been mystified, shocked, and/or overwhelmingly curious about something so many things in a worldspace. Aaaand I sound like I'm reviewing this so I'm gonna cut this short before it turns into a massive gush post.

All my point here is is that BotW managed exceed literally every expectation I've had for the game and is most definitely the bench mark that future OW games should look at as a shining example of what they should do to make a game that's fun because it's a time sink and not a time sink for the sake of being one.

CarcharOdin said:

It is, but it has both infinite and finite durability.

Mainly once it runs out of power, it becomes unusable for about 5 minutes, then you can use it again. Basically it's a rechargable weapon.

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Interesting. How do you feel about that?

If you're not wasting your weapons, then weapon durability is a non-issue as you should be replacing weapons as you use them. MY rule is that if an enemy doesn't drop a weapon, then I shouldn't be using one to kill it. Bombs are infinite. I'll try to use the environment, bombs, or arrows, to kill things first and only use melee weapons as a last resort.

Anyways, I just came across a white Lynel on top of a mountain in northern Gerudo. Took me about 20 minutes to kill it with multiple deaths. However! It was very much worth it because it dropped a bow with 32 power that shoots FIVE times at once for a total of 160 power. O_O

I like how not only are Lynel differentiated by color (brown/red < then red < blue < white < and silver being the strongest I believe), but the type of weapon they're holding also changes how they fight. The white one I just killed had a polearm which was pretty difficult to counter, however a blue Lynel that I fought earlier today had a GIANT mace which was so powerful that it interrupted my Flurry attacks sometimes from the sheer weight of the weapon causing a shockwave when it hit the ground.

Keiran said:

If you're not wasting your weapons, then weapon durability is a non-issue as you should be replacing weapons as you use them. MY rule is that if an enemy doesn't drop a weapon, then I shouldn't be using one to kill it. Bombs are infinite. I'll try to use the environment, bombs, or arrows, to kill things first and only use melee weapons as a last resort.

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That sounds like a pretty fun rule, actually. Probably what I should've done because, well, I basically went to a harsher biome first. Not just because of the temperature but also because the enemies were basically liable to kill me wherever I went and save for what was at the time a cloak and is now a top-knot, I'm basically always naked save for special conditions.

I ended up getting powerful weapons over there but I also ended up using a lot of weapons out there. And a lot of shields. A loooot of shields. Which may or may not have been the result of me shield surfing (because I mean fuck when you see sand you've gotta surf, you've just gotta). I ended up coming out with some pretty hard to get weapons but...they go quick, I tell ya. Not that I mind, I actually do like that sort of flow of power. I prefer that you can't just overpower areas with weaker enemies because you have better gear. You can wear better armor but you're probably going to use lower level weaponry for lower level enemies for the sake of preservation. Well, I do, at least. And I like that idea, it makes the world at large always feel relevant.

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Oh, and I just realized this last night, and it was a fucking scary- albeit amazing- thought, but this is probably my favorite game. It's been years since a game's made me feel the way this one has. This sense of grandeur, curiosty, and pure, unbridled fun. And unlike other Open World games (and, actually, most games in general), not once over the course of the game's run have I wished that it was better in any way. There's a pretty small number of games I have zero problems with, and I think that's normal, I'd say (and hope) that goes for most people. TWEWY's one for the most part, Virtue's Last Reward (my favorite game prior to this) was another, and this'd probably be the third, assuming there aren't others.

But it's a bit more than just not having problems with it. I've mentioned that Shadow of the Colossus has an atmosphere like no other, one that's uniquely its own and will probably never be created by any other game in existence. And yet, despite not having the beautiful orchestral score that SotC did, BotW makes me feel the same feelings as it did. And it's...really weird. Because there's no reason that a Zelda game should have been the title to do this. And yet, climbing aside, BotW manages to capture so much of what made the melancholic world of SotC so mystifying and beautiful and translates that into this living, breathing world of colorful personality, curious danger, and so on.

The only reason I make a big deal out of this is because it's not often that I get a new favorite. I'm used to seeing critics throw 10s at Zelda titles when I know they're throwing the score at the brand and not the game itself, but honestly, this game deserves it. A game with this much attention to detail and a game so unnecessarily large and filled with content. Each hour I spend in the game and each new thing I find just floors me because it gets me wondering exactly why they would put in this much time and effort when other AAA developers who are veterans in the field of Open World games can't make worlds nearly as interesting or fun to explore. Because that's the reason this game is the king of Open World titles (or Queen, either's good). There isn't a single OW game out there that's grasped the concept of making a world that's fun to explore. Fuck its size, the size doesn't matter if it doesn't feel fun. I daresay the looks don't matter too much if it doesn't feel fun, but when it does feel fun and you make a world that looks like something you want to explore, that is when you've made an Open World game worth selling.

And to think the company that did it.

Of all people.

...

Was Nint- I mean c'mon guys you can see how silly this sounds. When Nintendo's the one that's making your genre retroactively look bad, you're really doing something wrong. I mean look at that aliasing. And yet the world still looks better then most.

C'mon guys.

They've teased some more details about the first DLC pack and what you can expect. 45-room monster dungeon (no equipment or weapons allowed when starting!), hard mode info, ability to make a new warp point, and new armour/equipment...



Game's still great fun btw. I beat Ganon early (after two Divine Beasts). Got a lot more exploring left to do. :B

Originally I couldn't get into this game because it leaves you with pretty much nothing and I can remember dying to a stiff breeze at the very start.

Now I've got the hang of controls...I can't put it down. Game is phenomenal. I've defeated the four Divine Beasts and I think I want to get more hearts before tackling Gamon. I pretty much invested all my current shrines into stamina so I could explore vertically.

Have Master Sword too...that was a pain to get until i saw the torch. The Champion weapons are nicely hung up in my house so they don't get damaged. Currently trying to get that last Fairy Fountain unlocked so I can upgrade my armour to the max.

I actually have yet to put any serious time into this one yet. Once I get some free time, I'll start it up again. Only managed to wander around for a few hours until I finally came upon another person, lol. It's pretty neat.

I've been playing this game over the past two months, not religiously just whenever I get the urge. I'm currently at 145 Hours, I've explored 14 of the 15 regions with the remaining one being the very middle, which I left until last since it holds the end of the game. I did do some exploring of Hyrule Castle though, I was getting bored of looking at soulless fields with nothing in them so I got curious.

I have all 120 Shrines completed and I have all the armour fully upgraded. Currently sitting at 530 Korok Seeds though I don't intend on looking for them all anyway, I just happen across them when I'm exploring the map. I completed what I assume is most of the sidequests, besides one or two I may have missed. After I beat the final boss I'll go back and purchase the 25~ images I'm missing in the compendium.

I did some cooking as well so now my food inventory is looking like; x15 Full Recovery +3, x10 Full Stamina, x10 Tier 3 Speed Boost (30m), x5 Tier 3 Attack Boost (30m), x14 Tier 3 Attack Boost (4m), 5 assorted max elemental resistance elixirs (13m), x100 Seared Prime Steaks.

As for weapons, half of it is 51-63 power Royal Broadswords and the other half is various Lynel Weaponry and some elemental/guardian weapons. I found a 103 power Lynel Club today which was nice, it might shave 20-30 seconds off a lynel fight since it's nearly a whole 30 points stronger than what I used for mounted strikes previously. Shields break once every 10 hours so they're irrelevant and bows, they break so infrequently that you'll always have a decent Lynel Bow at your disposal. The x5 and Attack Boosted ones are the best though.

I really enjoy this game but I do think it could use with better difficulty scaling. After the first dozen or so hours, when you get a handle on the game mechanics and how insanely good having cooked food is then it just becomes significantly easier. Giving enemies more health doesn't make them more difficult than their weakest variant (looking at you silver lynel, or any silver enemy in the game), they just take longer/require more powerful weapons. Lynels get talked up a lot but I had no issues with the first one I fought since I had two fairies and it had a sword (the easiest of the three) I was very disappointed to find out the 'stronger' versions are just recolours with an extra attack that's incredibly telegraphed and a teleport that does nothing significant.

Still a very solid game though, I complain because I cared enough to pump so many hours into the game that I had the opportunity to notice some of its flaws (non-existent difficulty, low enemy variety, fairly empty map, repeated grassy field scenery, and so on), but it makes up for it by being really enjoyable and allowing so much variety in how you tackle the situations you're thrown into.

However I'm gonna leave the last 10-20 hours for another time since I'm pretty burnt out on exploring only to find bad weapons, korok seeds I don't even need anymore and 50 rupees to add to my 20k+ rupee collection.

Looking forward to that 45 Room Gauntlet DLC and the Hero's Path thing assuming it has been keeping track since when I first began the game.

Hello, thanks for sharing this amazing game.