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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#481
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IGN: 10/10 which is pretty rare. "It somehow makes the original feel like a rough draft." "It makes the original feel like a tiny world." That's kinda crazy. https://www.ign.com/articles/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-th...

That's a weird comment because botw seemed huge to me, and this uses the same map. Either way, picking it up today!

Breath of the Wild impressed with how vast everything was, but there was lots of empty space. It worked for that game don't get me wrong, it's one of my favorite games of all time. TotK is so dense with content and creativity that it does make the original feel empty and small in comparison. It's a lot like Elden Ring in the sense that you can just pick a direction you've never been in and you'll just stumble across interesting things within 30 seconds.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#482
post #52

Apparently the game is just 16GB and runs seamlessly on a decade old hardware with no loading screens between game areas. How does Nintendo pull it off?

The better question you should be asking is why does everyone else need 300GB of disk space that transfers at over 7GB/s, 32 CPU cores at 6GHz, a video card worth $3000 dollars, and RAM sizes measured in gigabytes with 3 digits just for a fucking game? At some point I have to wonder if the reason we have so much computing power is so we can use that computing power.

I doubt anyone is asking that question since none of what you said is true. This just seems like rant of someone wanting to play recent games and not wanting to upgrade their computer. If that's the case, just say that instead of whining about a trend that's been going on for 40 years.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#483
post #77

Has Nintendo ever talked about how they do software development? Can we all drop the thousands of books that have been written about software engineering in general and just figure out what they do? Game aside, the reviews have been pointing out how the game performs well (after day 1 patch) and is not pestered with bugs, which is an impressive feat for such an open world game where most things are able to interact w…

It 100% has to do with retention of key talent and knowledge transfer. It seems the model for most western studios is to make one or two big successful games, then layoff all the staff and/or be acquired by EA/Activision/Microsoft. Then their next games flounder as they're milked dry. Western companies are only worried about the next quarter and treat talent as a bottom line expense.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#484
post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was listening to a gaming podcast last week and they were talking about how this release was pirated and available for the last week or so on torrents. https colon slashslash thepiratebay DOT org slash description.php?id=68303898 (slightly broken for inadvertent link click) And https://github.com/Abd-007/Switch-Emulators-Guide/blob/main/... for a howto install Ryujinx/Yuzu Switch emulators. But yeah, games arent…

> The biggest pirate downside is that it nearly necessitates a desktop with significantly better equipment For me personally, the biggest downside is that I don’t feel good about myself when I take things I know I don’t have the right to take. YMMV.

>For me personally, the biggest downside is that I don’t feel good about myself when I take things I know I don’t have the right to take. YMMV.

Once I put in enough work to both have some spare money in the bank and to empathize with the people who made the software and music I could so easily "just download", I had this transitionary period where, if I possessed a copy of something available commercially without having paid for it, and found that I enjoyed it enough to keep using it, I would buy a legitimate copy. For music, if I really liked it, I'd buy, for example, the deluxe vinyl edition - hopefully kicking some extra money over.

With software (including games, though it's rare that I play games) I'm now at the point where I won't give it a second thought, and will just pay for it. I bought an iPad app on sale, years before I had an iPad, knowing that one of these days I'd pick one up - it worked out.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#485
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would instantly buy this Why? Will it make the games more fun to play? Does it enable more fun games? I don't see it. Nintendo has always thrived on underpowered hardware.

Always is a bit strong isn't it? Prior to the Wii their consoles tended to be similar to their contemporaries in processing power. I certainly experienced areas in BOTW which took a heavy FPS hit and it sounds like TOTK is similar. Such an FPS drop does take me out of the game so if the console was powerful enough to avoid that then you could argue it would allow more fun games

> Always is a bit strong isn't it? Prior to the Wii their consoles tended to be similar to their contemporaries in processing power.

Yup, you could say Nintendo always thrived on underpowered (compared to competition) hardware.

  NES was twice less powerful than SMS;
  GameBoy didn't even have a color display;
  SNES vs SMD similarity as NES vs SMS;
  GBC was weaker than Neo Geo Pocket or WonderSwan;
  GBA didn't have competition (although, if we count N-Gage...);
  Wii had hardware from previous generation;
  NDS was way worse in raw numbers that PSP;
  3DS analogically with PS Vita;
  Switch isn't even comparable to PS4/X1, let alone PS5/XSX;
What all of those Nintendo consoles have in common? Being their the most successful.

Whereas when Nintendo focused more on being on par in hardware power during 5th gen. (N64) and 6th gen. (GameCube), they didn't sold nearly as much as other generations.

The exception to the pattern are Virtual Boy and Wii U. The former was poorly designed then sacrificed as "filler"; the later flopped due to bad marketing (and naming) + poor decision on betting on "casuals".

In conclusion: as we can see, there is a clear trend, not a rule, but a trend nevertheless.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#486
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IGN: 10/10 which is pretty rare. "It somehow makes the original feel like a rough draft." "It makes the original feel like a tiny world." That's kinda crazy. https://www.ign.com/articles/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-th...

That's a weird comment because botw seemed huge to me, and this uses the same map. Either way, picking it up today!

It's not exactly the same map. They did a lot of improvements to it and added a lot of depth, even ignoring chasms and sky islands.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#487
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would instantly buy this Why? Will it make the games more fun to play? Does it enable more fun games? I don't see it. Nintendo has always thrived on underpowered hardware.

Always is a bit strong isn't it? Prior to the Wii their consoles tended to be similar to their contemporaries in processing power. I certainly experienced areas in BOTW which took a heavy FPS hit and it sounds like TOTK is similar. Such an FPS drop does take me out of the game so if the console was powerful enough to avoid that then you could argue it would allow more fun games

While their older consoles weren't as far away from modern stuff as the Switch, Nintendo wasn't often the more powerful console. Well-designed with good developer buy-in and incredibly strong first party titles, but not really pushing the envelope in terms of raw performance.

The GameCube was the weakest hardware-wise between the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and ~~Dreamcast~~ edit: guess not the Dreamcast, but definitely behind Xbox and PS2. ~~The Nintendo 64 was weaker than the PlayStation or Sega Saturn~~ edit: was wrong here, N64 was definitely the stronger console of this generation.The Super Nintendo had less computing capacity than the Mega Drive/Genesis.

Even when it came to handhelds, the GameBoy was often much weaker hardware. Compare the GameBoy to the Lynx on a spec sheet and it's clear which is better. Actually hold and play both of them and you can see why Atari doesn't exist anymore. The Game Gear was practically the current gen home console in a handheld form and could even get a TV tuner attachment before the GameBoy Color was even announced. Later, the Genesis Nomad was a full blown Genesis console in handheld form. Good games, cheaper hardware, better pocketability led to Nintendo dominating that market despite usually having the weakest hardware around.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#488
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not apparently Switch piracy is a thing so this doesn't really change much for their current situation. But it does give people who want to do things the right way an avenue to do so. I kind of think of it like high end CAD software and such that ships a physical dongle in order to use the software--Nintendo can sell hardware to help ensure it's legitimate use of their emulation software.

You can never stop motivated people from dumping the memory of hardware they own and making it easier for everyone else. Piracy can never be stopped and they waste a lot of effort trying. They should optimize for being lower friction than privacy, like Steam.

They are successfully competing with piracy, but not by being lower friction but by being more reliable and trustworthy.

Nintendo are highly focussed on a market where the person making the buying decision isn't the person playing the game.

Buy your 11-year-old son a Switch for Xmas and you know that a) it will work out of the box b) there will be a several family-friendly games with name recognition for any child that age (Mario, Pokemon, Zelda) and c) no one in his class will have a more expensive version or one that works better.

Contrast this with trying to get something to work on a PC with a 'switch emulator dongle'. You have to plug it in yourself, you will end up spending more than you planned in the computer store because each component comes with sucker upgrades, and game choices will be much wider and trickier. Then the game which looks great on your son's friend's machine will play like sh*t and you'll feel guilty for having cheaped out, without necessarily knowing what the operative constraint is.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#489
post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an idiosyncratic use of the trope “Mary Sue”, which isn’t really gendered, or wasn’t originally. Unless the usage has drifted a lot more that I’m aware of?

I think there may be some linguistic drift here, because I've always heard of a male "Mary Sue" referred to as "Gary Stu".

Huh, interesting. I think I recall running into that one also, but not consistently. The mis-match with GP usage are deeper than re-gendering the name though. Seems to me Mary Sue/Gary Stu is fundamentally about projection/wish fulfillment on the part of author (or in this case, player?), and has no real opinion on gender roles/relations/etc. GP seems to be adding a bunch of that; I’ve no opinion on whether or not the text (game) supports that take, but seems a bit orthogonal to the Mary Sue concept.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no big secret to this. They just don't go all out. They don't take big risks. They just see what works elsewhere and polish it until it shines brighter than everything else. And they only add (or take away?) until they have the necessary minimum of gameplay. For example, Zelda BotW is by far not the best survival or crafting-game which was around at release, but it was the most pleasant experience for casual…

Personally I think BOTW wasn’t “seeing what works everywhere else and polishing it” it really felt like a new game nobody had ever done before.

I don't think it had any new mechanics or concepts, but it def felt new. Do you feel like there were new mechanics or concepts?
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