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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

#701

Post by d23 »

filleduchaos wrote: post #625
d23 wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would invert that question and ask what, to you, would qualify as being sufficiently new that it doesn’t have? To me, there are tons of things. The death / checkpoint system, weapon durability, the massive non-linear open world, the recipe system, the puzzle dungeons, the fact that, if you want to, you can essentially go challenge the final boss immediately. If these things aren’t new enough, I have to wonder what…

Most of those things have been fairly common elements of games for decades? For example "puzzle dungeons" is just a staple of Zelda as a franchise, there's a whole genre of games designed around being able to rush the final boss as quickly as possible even though there's plenty of other content to explore (Metroidvanias), and I can't even think of anything particularly remarkable about BotW's death/checkpoint system…

My point is these are new for a Zelda game, and they've put them together in a complete package in a way that's not been done before. If the bar is "something no game has ever done before," it's rare that anything in life is ever going to reach that bar.

Even if you take a completely different profession, like music, revolutionary artists still have their influences and build on instruments and techniques that are 99.9% the same. It's not like they are suddenly playing flutes made out of loaves of bread. And even if they were, most of the time those sorts of things just come across as gimmicks to me.

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

#702

Post by gowld »

felipc wrote: 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…

Zelda is great because it doesn't rely "software development". It uses game design and art.

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

#703

Post by matiasfernandez »

9dev wrote: post #685
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. I'm roughly your age, and having played both the Witcher 3 and BotW, I vastly prefer the latter. Part of it is just controls. BotW is nice and responsive, and Geralt feels incredibly sluggish in comparison because of all the presumably mocapped animations that have to play for every single little thing you do. Try running forward and turning around to run backwards in both games. Gerald has a hell…

I actually liked that sluggishness about the Witcher; it made Geralt feel like a person, in a way. Having read the books, he isn’t the youngest anymore - even for a Witcher - so it feels right that he isn’t as quick to turn on his heels as a teenager Link :) However, I’m with you on the claustrophobia regarding the map. I guess that’s due to resource constraints of the previous console generations, and I have high ho…

I don't mind the sluggishness as much as the dialog in Witcher games. I tend to prefer games with little-to-no required dialog and Zelda's interactions tend to be more mechanical than conversational.

I'm fine with lore, but as soon as I have to sit down and listen to video game writing while losing control of my character, I'm instantly bored.

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

#704

Post by j5155 »

kenhwang wrote: post #259
philsnow wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or cook 100 hearty durians I also really don't like the BotW cooking mechanic, but mostly because it's so tedious to sit through the mini cooking cut-scene. Cooking and crafting in Stardew Valley have zero ceremony, you just click on the recipe and boom you're done, it's exactly as fast as any other inventory operation. I don't know why certain cooked foods in BotW stack and some don't. Searing meat is a good way o…

I kinda like the charm of the cooking animation. I feel like it's more fun than other games that turns crafting into "just press the button in the menu". Especially with the environmental cooking methods, why shouldn't I be able to cook my meat on the ground with a flaming sword? If I was designing the Zelda cooking system: - definitely some sort of bookmarkable known recipes book that gets brought up from the cookin…

TOTK added a recipe system where once you cook a meal, you can select an ingredient to view all meals containing it and automatically select all the ingredients for a specific meal. Which is at least part of what you want. I would definitely agree that things like cooking 100 hearty durians gets really painful after a while though.

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

#705

Post by pierat »

paulcole wrote: post #644
throwwwaway69 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws don’t determine rights. You’re infringing on copyright, not stealing something. And we all know IP laws are horrendously broken. And I’d argue that your rights from an ethical perspective are extremely broad and you can basically do whatever you want with intellectual property as long as you’re not harming the actual creators (not owners).

I would argue that taking something I’m supposed to pay for makes me feel bad about myself.

First, I'm not "taking". I'm copying. And the person providing a copy is 'giving'. And nowhere is anyone deprived of any physical thing, save an ethereal possibility of buying this game. Then again, I have no switch and no intent to buy one. In this case, it was curiosity.

And frankly, I don't feel one bit bad, copying AND providing copies free of charge. I've paid enough to content, media, and game companies, and screwed over on rentals that were sold as sales.

But you do you.

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

#706

Post by iamwil »

felipc wrote: 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…

Yes, it's rare, but they have.

Game maker's toolkit has one on how they solved their open world problem for BotW:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZzcVs8tNfE

And at GDC, they talked about their Chemistry engine for BotW:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyMsF31NdNc&t=2354s

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk5swSyJ5zQ

Game historian has some tidbits of how they made certain design decisions for their successful games

Mario Kart:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHZKYETDyU

Super Mario World:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2bTQK6vbKI

Super Mario Bro 3:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxT6IwUtLSU

GMT, Snowman, and Extra credit does analysis of how Nintendo designs their Mario levels.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBmIkEvEBtA

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_KVEjhT4wQ

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwj3On5o58U

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fI9pfDf60g

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE

Generally, it follows the ramp up and down of the Hero's journey in storytelling.

1. Introduce a new mechanic in a safe area where it's impossible to die.

2. Increase the challenge with the mechanic by adding variations

3. Ramp up challenge even more by combining with previously learned mechanic

4. Have periods of rest inbetween the challenges.

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

#707

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

dm319 wrote: post #353
christophilus wrote: post #292

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 uses the same map, but with more depth — there are at least two layers I've discovered so far — original Hyrule and Sky Islands — and I suspect at least one more :)

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

#708

Post by ipaddr »

jclardy wrote: post #637
Quindecillion wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I played Breath of the Wild, I felt ... nothing. Interesting. Opposite for me. Playing BotW reignited the feeling of playing OOT and MM for me.

Same here. And so far with TotK I've got the same feeling. My original zelda experience was a link to the past on the SNES though, so maybe I enjoy the "openness" aspect more? LttP lets you go around pretty much wherever from the beginning, while OoT is pretty linear, especially at the start. For me Zelda was always more of a puzzle game than an adventure game, and I feel like those puzzle aspects are much more ampli…

Glad someone mentioned link. It was open ended but the world was limited, thankfully. I spent a year stuck checking each square until I met someone who told me to walk through the forest a certain way to obtain the letter/scrolls I needed.

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

#709

Post by djur »

filleduchaos wrote: post #676
djur wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised to see "Metroidvania" described as a genre where you can rush the boss quickly. Neither of the two defining games that name the genre, (Super) Metroid or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, allow you to reach the final boss without having explored a substantial amount of the world map and collected the majority of available upgrades. Both games do have low% and any% speedruns that skip a lot of stuff, b…

Neither low% nor any% speedruns of Super Metroid or Castlevania: SotN require the use of glitches. From personal experience, Super Metroid is beatable with less than 20% completion without using any glitches at all. Sequence breaking is not a glitch (which is an actual bug). But also Hollow Knight, Salt and Sanctuary and Axiom Verge are some pre-BotW games that I've personally played where you can rush the credits wi…

I see what you mean, but in order to win Super Metroid you still have to beat all the bosses to open Tourian, and the same with the five bosses you need to beat to get to Dracula in SOTN. In BOTW, once you're off the Plateau, you can literally walk directly to Ganon. And, like you mention, being able to skip a substantial chunk of the game to get to the final boss is as present (if not more so) in other genres; it's been in Mario since the NES!

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

#710

Post by djur »

afterburner wrote: post #678
djur wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have played plenty of PC open world games and I think BOTW is better than any of them.

I think it's done fairly well, but the novelty isn't there for an older PC gamer. I have heard plenty of people talk about how new the open world is to them in BotW (in a way that clearly suggests they've never tried it before). The novelty factor of any (to the user) new game genre amplifies the positive reaction.

I don't know any prior open-world game that makes the physical exploration of the landscape feel as natural and enjoyable as BOTW. That felt like a new experience to me. The closest I could identify would be Just Cause 2, but movement on the ground in that game feels much more clunky. There's certainly an aesthetic aspect to it as well.
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