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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#161

Post by nihonde »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #29
_ph_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I have grown up with all kinds of animated cartoons on the TV, I always wanted a computer game which sported that level of graphics. It turns out, that from the raw hardware capability, computers long ago exceeded this ability, yet there is a big scarcity of real animated games. Windwaker (HD) is a really nice exception from that. It looks like an animate comic movie. From this point of view, I am actually happy t…

I think all kids growing up in this period had fantasies about games matching up with their imaginations of them through some technical revolution. What modern game dev misses is that it's the space to imagine things within a more abstract visual framework that creates that sense of wonder and possibility. Game aesthetics have to have "space" for their players' imaginations to fill in order to have the same impact as…

I still have fond memories of Jet Set Radio on Dreamcast because it captured that cell rendered feel so beautifully.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#162

Post by wccrawford »

tdb7893 wrote: post #47
croon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if those reviews are more Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess. In fear of upsetting die-hard Nintendo fans I won't specify what I mean by that :) But time will tell. Either way, I look forward to it, will give me an excuse to dust off my old WiiU.

Do people not like Twilight Princess? I really enjoyed the feel of the game, my only complaint was that the pacing felt a tad slow and the combat was spammy

Once I got past the slow start, I quite liked it. But the first time I played it (rental, IIRC) I didn't care enough to get past that part.

The second time I played it (bought, for Wii U) I didn't get any further.

But the third time I finally decided it was time to get somewhere in that game, and I ended up playing it until I beat it, over a couple weeks.

I'm still debating whether I care enough about Skyward Sword to deal with the idiotic controls.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#163

Post by Maultasche »

euyyn wrote: post #84
alphonsegaston wrote: post #6

I'm really hoping that Zelda/Switch are successful enough to push game aesthetics in a better direction. This headlong plunge into the uncanny valley is just gonna lead us to the same dead end that art found itself at the end of the 19th century. No one cares about the bad aesthetics of Orientalist painting any more, and this era of hyperreal titilation is gonna meet the same fate in retrospect.

If Orientalist painting is what Google images shows when you query that, those are some damn beautiful paintings.

They are, but they are idealistic depictions of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia as viewed by Europeans in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They depict some sort of European oriental fantasy world that doesn't look much like what these areas were really like at the time.

I think that's why those type of paintings are considered old-fashioned and silly when we have plenty of photographs, movies, and books that tell us what these regions are actually like. Not to mention that travel is now far more accessible to non-wealthy people.

I think that it's a fascinating insight into Europe at the time and how they viewed the world. It was also a lot more romantic period than now. Nationalistic paintings showing a nation's ancestors (like the Germanic tribes of the Roman era) were popular and tended to look the same way: a fantasy land ideal of what they wanted it to look like rather than what it really looked like.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#164

Post by alikoneko »

tiglionabbit wrote: post #124
simonh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Switch they've not only avoided enslaving themselves to the biggest/best bandwagon, but actually used the fact that their hardware is relatively modest to enable them to do things XBox and PS4 can't. Their ARM silicon is more heavily optimized for games than most tablet CPUs, but still enables them to offer an easily portable package. My iPad is an awesome games platform but we're not going to see a game like Lo…

There are quite a few good games on iOS these days. The main problem with iOS for gaming is the lack of physical buttons, but some games make up for that with good touch controls. Here are a few multi-platform games I've been playing on iOS lately that have worked very well: * Severed * The World Ends With You: Solo Remix * Final Fantasy 9 * Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

How does TWEWY: Solo Remix work? I have the DS game and it seemed pretty heavy on your partner also doing the thing. That being said, TWEWY:SR is one of the reasons I wish I had an iPhone or iPad. I loved the game, and wish so hard for a sequel. It was one of Squeenix's best games in aesthetic, sound, and story.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#165

Post by mercer »

RubenSandwich wrote: post #8

One thing that is really interesting to me is that they are going back to the roots of the original Zelda: with exploration and discovery being a key part of the game. So much so that they made prototypes in the original Zelda style: http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/1/14780954/the-legend-of-zelda... . This to me seems like a great strategy of helping communicate the 'soul' of something to team members by imitating the o…

It's interesting how both Zelda and Mario (and perhaps their other franchises) seem to have gone through some similar evolution.

Starting with the 3D Zelda, Ocarina of Time, the franchise changed and became less open and, in my opinion, lost some of it's simplicity and brilliance. It was good in other ways, but I felt it lost something, even if just the more complicated controls, fixed camera, and decrease in art direction/quality. I can understand that considering the switch to 3D it was the best they could do, but still. I missed LTTP. Wind Waker brought some of that old charm/freedom/simplicity back, and Breath of the Wild seems to have gone all in on these things.

Similarly, I loved the 2D Mario games, and even though I also loved the switch to 3D, I had the same issues I had with Ocarina. For the most part these issues became bigger with Super Mario Sunshine (more complexity, less simple beauty in art and gameplay), except for one thing: the (very difficult) abstract acapella levels. Those gave me the same kind of enjoyment that I'd felt with the SNES mario games. I get the impression that this was a very common sentiment and that as a result, Mario Galaxy felt much more like these acapella levels and the old Mario games.

Unfortunately my favorite franchise, Metroid, managed fine even in the (spectacular) transition to 3D, and went downhill from there. I'm hoping that on the Switch they will do something similar to that franchise and somehow get the magic back of Super Metroid (and the first Metroid Prime).

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#166

Post by mercer »

justifier wrote: post #150

> This lack of direction can be disorienting at first... But it very quickly turned into a liberating sensation. Tevis Thompson needs more credit for identifying with astute precision the ills inherent in the direction Zeldas were going would we have breath of the wild without this essay: http://tevisthompson.com/saving-zelda/ ; I honestly wonder

It's amazing how his suggestions are pretty much exactly what they changed with Breath of the Wild!

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#168

Post by tiglionabbit »

alikoneko wrote: post #164
tiglionabbit wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a few good games on iOS these days. The main problem with iOS for gaming is the lack of physical buttons, but some games make up for that with good touch controls. Here are a few multi-platform games I've been playing on iOS lately that have worked very well: * Severed * The World Ends With You: Solo Remix * Final Fantasy 9 * Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

How does TWEWY: Solo Remix work? I have the DS game and it seemed pretty heavy on your partner also doing the thing. That being said, TWEWY:SR is one of the reasons I wish I had an iPhone or iPad. I loved the game, and wish so hard for a sequel. It was one of Squeenix's best games in aesthetic, sound, and story.

I never played the original, but I can describe how this one plays. You touch to move Neku around during exploration and your partner usually follows unless they're running off for plot reasons. During combat you can tap enemies to make Shiki attack them, or swipe downward to make Joshua attack them, etc -- each partner seems to have a different gesture, and if that gesture matches one of your pin's gestures you'll end up doing both attacks at once, which helps build sync. During the golden bat boss battle the screen would scroll upward to Shiki when you had to uncover the lights.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#169

Post by michaelbuddy »

nihonde wrote: post #161
alphonsegaston wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think all kids growing up in this period had fantasies about games matching up with their imaginations of them through some technical revolution. What modern game dev misses is that it's the space to imagine things within a more abstract visual framework that creates that sense of wonder and possibility. Game aesthetics have to have "space" for their players' imaginations to fill in order to have the same impact as…

I still have fond memories of Jet Set Radio on Dreamcast because it captured that cell rendered feel so beautifully.

Lots of cell shaded games. Attack on Titan is pretty awesome for looking like the actual show while playing. Japanese games are huge with this. There's a big push for non photo realistic rendering 3D now in Blender, we're going to see more of this direction in big budget and indie games. The world is still waiting on the release of cuphead, although a little different than NPR 3D.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

#170

Post by derstander »

classybull wrote: post #159

Why are we constantly pushing for larger and larger open worlds? When I was a kid, the idea of such a gigantic open world where I could spend endless hours exploring would have been amazing. However, now, as an adult with responsibilities, when I usually play video games its for 30 or 45 minutes once or twice a week when I have just a bit of down time. Gigantic open worlds have become a hinderance to me rather than a…

Honestly, I feel like you do a lot of the time about a lot of things: not just games. But I'm trying more to enjoy the act/process of doing something rather than the end goal that I may or may not ever achieve. This is taking that philosophy to the extreme, but when I reach old age I want to be able to say something like "I really saw a lot of the world (real or digital) -- not just superficially -- and I learned and experienced a lot so my time was well-spent", rather than "I didn't see everything so I spent all of that time in vain exploring something I never completed".

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think it's healthier to just enjoy as you go, rather than having to reach some state of completeness before you allow yourself joy. I don't inherently think like that and I think my mood has suffered a lot for it over the years. But I'm definitely trying to move in that direction.

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