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Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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JaxonH

I have never once gone out of my way to "look" for Korok seeds. And yet I've found 144 seeds to date. Enough to expand my inventory well beyond what I need. I just explore, and seek out shrines/towers, and if something catches my eye along the way I go there.

Now, I've filled out the entire map so no more towers, I've found 98 shrines and defeated all 4 Divine Beasts. And all I did was explore and have fun, following the whims of my desires and parasailing wherever the wind blew.

I have no intention of trying to find all the seeds, or even all the shrines. Maybe I'll find the remaining shrines, Idk. I think a completionist approach is what ruins gaming experiences. At least, when it's such an arduous task like finding 900 Korok seeds.

I don't know. I have no intention of arguing against the criticisms of this game. All I can say is it's one of the funnest and most engaging games I have ever played in my entire life. Definitely the most awesome world I have ever explored (although Xenoblade Chronicles X comes close). People can list faults a mile long, and to that I just say it makes it all the more impressive that even despite all of those "faults" it's still one of the the best games I've ever played, and I've played a lot of games.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Nicolai

I'll vouch for @Haru17 on this one. I've enjoyed this game immensely, but the homogeneity can get tiresome. I can't tell you how many times I've headed toward an interesting landmark, and felt a little exasperated when I found out it was just another one of those Korok Seed puzzles. There's so many things in this world that seem like they should bear some special significance, and I find it either has nothing or a copied puzzle. I understand that this homogeneity has to happen in some degree in the less-interesting parts of the world, but it shocked me to find places like ancient temples, towering landmarks, giant lakes, and painted cliffsides to have little special significance.

I honestly wouldn't mind if the same content was put in a much smaller world. Let the developers spend less time placing Korok seeds and landscaping, and spend more time making outdoor shrines, or maybe theming some of the indoor shrines or dungeons. Perhaps diversify their divine beast quests.

It's far from perfect, but Breath of the Wild will always be a beautiful experiment in my eyes. It worries me what Aonuma means when he says this is a new standard; that aside, I'm glad the game is what it is, and was thrilled to have played it.


@JaxonH, I may have tried to comb the world thoroughly, but I can't say I've been looking for Korok seeds, but rather just looking for anything. But you're totally right. These last 50 or so hours I spent combing don't compare to the hours I spent taking divine beasts, and going off on tangents back when the world was totally fresh and new.

But my criticism above still applies to when I was playing just by whim. I'd want to explore things off in the distance, and I was disappointed in how boring it was when I got there.

Edited on by Nicolai

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Brian-Price

@JaxonH agree with you, people ruin games by farming and getting things to 100%, it sounds boring to me i just do what i do till im bored i dont force nothing on myself for some trophy.

Brian-Price

Brian-Price

@Nicolaison I hope it is the new standard, if you think BOTW has a semi empty world have you played Final Fantasy a Realm Reborn? Oh God no dungeons to find no treasure you cant climb anything or explore that game sucks

Brian-Price

Spoony_Tech

I just found the last Great Skeleton and boy was that an adventure. It took me a good 45 minutes to find the shrine I kept hearing around me and found both! These little surprises are what makes the game so fun for me. These side quests are way more fun then simple fetch quests.

John 8:7 He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.

MERG said:

If I was only ever able to have Monster Hunter and EO games in the future, I would be a happy man.

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Nicolai

@ReeLongbow Regardless of how it compares to other games, the homogeneity is still there, and it would be better without it. I'd hate to play a game with a worse case of it.

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JaxonH

@Spoony_Tech
You talking about the one hidden by the sandstorm? I just found that one myself. And the final fairy fountain. My GOODNESS are those final upgrades amazing! Practically doubled my defense. 10,000 rupees but worth every one of them.

@ReeLongbow
I've fallen into the trap many times before. Some games it's ok. Like, take DKC Tropical Freeze for example. Finding all the puzzle pieces and KONG letters is great fun. But I never attempt that on my first run through the game, otherwise it will turn into a drag. Play through the game and get what I can get and then I go back for a second play through and grab everything.

A game like Zelda... I just don't see the fun in forcing yourself to go find and collect everything. I'm pretty OCD when it comes to finishing everything and collecting everything but even I draw the line at some point. The fun in this game comes from exploration and discovery and puzzle solving along the way. When you're forcing yourself to go find korok seeds, you lose most of that. Idk, games should be fun, and once I've done enough in a game and explored enough that that fun starts to fade and all that remains is completing 100% it's definitely time to move on

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Octane

@JaxonH I think that going for all the Korok seeds is a bit mental. I did all the shrines (well, I looked up the last four or five), but I found most of them on my own. Doing all the shrines in quite reasonable. I don't think even Nintendo intended for you to get all the Korok seeds, because you only need 450 or so to max out everything.

Octane

KirbyTheVampire

@Nicolaison I agree. I think shrines and Korok seeds were pretty overused. Some of the shrines were extremely cool, others less so, most notably the combat ones, and the Korok seeds were extremely forgettable, but okay little distractions nonetheless. (Understandably, of course, considering there's 900 of them) I just assumed going into it that the game would be more like Skyrim were you could find extremely varied things such as (I recommend not clicking the spoiler if you haven't played Skyrim) huge labyrinths built by a long forgotten people, or wandering into a cave and find out it's housing a nest of vampires, but instead it was largely just shrines and Korok seeds. My sense of wonder at the world diminished a lot after the first 20 or so hours when I came to realize that. There are exceptions to this, of course, but it felt to me like more of a giant scavenger hunt for stuff like shrines and Korok seeds than exploring a huge world filled with unique secrets to uncover. And, as I've said before, the side quests were hugely disappointing to me, and the story was good, but not great IMO. I did like exploring the towns a lot though.

I can see that the draw here was more the gameplay and the shrines and general freedom of choice than anything though, and I see why people like it so much. I also liked it a lot, but it never quite resonated with me like games such as Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption did. BotW is a great open world game, but it's not my favorite, and I doubt I'll be coming back to it anytime soon. It's still a great foundation for future games in the Zelda series though, and I hope they can find a balance between this game and past Zelda games, with locations that have unique things to find and don't end up just housing something like a shrine or a Korok seed.

Edited on by KirbyTheVampire

KirbyTheVampire

JaxonH

@Octane
Ya, doing all the shrines isn't unreasonable at all. Especially since they're fast travel points, have a decent puzzle to solve, help get you heart and stamina pieces and there aren't nearly as many of them.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Spoony_Tech

@JaxonH Nope, the one in the hebra mountains. It was tricky to find and then the puzzle to gain access was fun but not really hard.

John 8:7 He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.

MERG said:

If I was only ever able to have Monster Hunter and EO games in the future, I would be a happy man.

I'm memory of @Mr_Trill_281 (rip) 3-25-18

Switch Friend Code: SW-7353-2587-4117 | 3DS Friend Code: 3050-7580-4390 | Nintendo Network ID: SpoonyTech | Twitter:

meleebrawler

Well, it IS called Breath of the WILD. And boy do you ever find wildlife whenever you stray from the paths marked by civilization. In real life, exploring places like deserts and snowy mountains nets you... more desert and snowy mountain. Kind of surreal, the way Nintendo seems to blend realism with fantasy at times, such as Color Splash's meat "boss" teaches you how real-life cooking is easy to screw up and costly to retry, yet also making the process, well... you know. And in this game, you have things like sand-swimming seals (yes, the whole "swimming in sand" bit is hardly new in games anymore but the point still stands), volcanic ostriches and tundra rhinos, all behaving more or less like their real counterparts, despite being in completely different habitats.

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Maxz

@Nicolaison The thing is, I agree with him on at least as many things as I disagree with him - or at least get where he's coming from. And even if I disagreed with him on everything, I'm in no position to tell him what he can or can't like about the game. My problem isn't what he feels about the game, but in the delivery. If you turn up to a forum with nothing but a bunch of edgy one-liners that leave no room for debate, a debate is not what you're going to get; you're going to get an argument. If he doesn't leave any slack in his statements to account for the fact that other people might have different opinions, he's unlikely to get a whole lot of slack (or sympathy) in the responses. If he comes out with some completely inflexible declaration, he shouldn't then play the victim when challenged equally brashly on it.

You can't respond with "well excuuuse me for having a different opinion" when you phrased your opinion as infallible fact in the first place. No one minds that he "enjoyed game less" than they did and "dared talk about it". My complaint was that when he talked about it, it came out as a monotonously stroppy bunch of inflexible, snarky remarks, which could only be accepted wholesale or challenged from the root. Not ideas to be floated, or thoughts to be discussed, but unequivocal statements of fact. There might be some sensible points in there, but when they're stated in such an imperious manner, it's hard to then discuss them civilly. How you interact with other humans on a forum is fundamentally a hominem issue.


But anyway, getting away from the awkwardly hominem stuff, I definitely came across a few stone circles (and other Korok puzzles) later in the game that really didn't set my heart alight. I mean, if you were to line up every different Korok puzzle type in a row, your average person would likely say "that's a lot of variety", but across the huge world and 900 seeds, you do certainly notice some repetition, and that can undermine the small sense of joy and discovery the seed puzzles are meant to instil. Some types are immune from this. Despite being the most basic, I never got annoyed at the 'lift a pebble' ones because they were more often just a reward for reaching somewhere you would have been anyway. The tree stump races often felt quite unique too, because they'd employ the landscape in interesting ways.

I think the worst offenders in terms of repetitiveness were the stone circle and and metal cube ones. Sometimes they'd be more interesting shapes than circles, and sometimes actually getting the pebbles to the circle was an interesting environmental challenge, but more often than not they were just circles with a spare rock lying about nearby. Similarly, the metal cubes didn't really expand upon their core concept very much, and occasionally felt like a bit of a chore. I felt they could have used the environment around them more (like the tree stump dashes) rather than being so self contained. Rather than simply being basic geometrical shapes, maybe a plateau overlooking a lake could have all the stones but one placed corresponding to the locations of miniature islands on the lake below, or referenced some other aspect of the surrounding environment.

Maybe there could be more sophisticated puzzles that yielded two or more seeds - for example, a sliding tile puzzle game controlled via magnesis. Or a plumbing one where you had to redirect a stream to water a plant by using a metal door to alter the flow (though that might be better saved for a shrine). Or a Lego type thing where you need to add a few missing blocks to complete a miniature scale model of Talley town (or somewhere with similarly blocky structures). That last one might be a bit farfetched, but I feel the Korok puzzles are best when they're satisfyingly switched into the environment, and the stone circle and metal cube puzzles often aren't - hence the Copy and Paste complaints. Anyway, it's certainly an area where more variation would be an unequivocal improvement. I imagine it'd be quite fun to work on, although a huge time suck.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text.

Edited on by Maxz

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KirbyTheVampire

@Pigeon Some people hated the weapon degradation system, but I personally enjoyed it. Not only does it give you an incentive to experiment with different methods of killing enemies, but it makes you always be trying out different types of weapons, which helps keep the combat fresh. I always found only using a one handed sword kind of boring in previous Zelda games. Besides, using only the most powerful weapons would make the game too easy.

KirbyTheVampire

Maxz

@Pigeon Haha, sorry for the tearful tirade. I can assure you you weren't a factor in it. It'll be interesting to hear how you get on. I can empathise about the dungeons. On the whole, I've quite liked the past Zelda's versions, but they've occasionally been a bit overbearing, gloomy, and close to outstaying their welcome. The dungeons equivalents are a lot more streamlined in this game (arguably often too streamlined for my tastes - I'd often like to see an extra room or something to develop an idea further), and are obviously an awful lot more optional.

Hopefully you'll be able to find a balance between puzzling and adventuring that strikes a happy medium. In fact, the whole game is potentially a lot more streamlined if you want it to be, which might suit your tastes. Or it could be the most rambley, constantly side-tracked, indirect game ever, if you want that. But it really is your choice - the game rewards you in small ways for exploring, but doesn't feel like it penalises you for not doing so - and if you ever fancy a bit more direction, the four 'main' objectives can be clearly marked on your map. And even they're not strictly necessary.

I wouldn't say it's taken one step back for every step forward, but it's definitely gone in a very different direction from any previous titles. It's had a pretty positive reception on the whole, although everyone has their personal sticking points, some of which are surface level and some of which are more fundamental. I'd recommend it to almost anyone though.

Anyway, let us know how you find it! When do you expect the game to arrive?

Edited on by Maxz

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Nicolai

@Maxz I hate accusing people of stating things as fact. I've never understood the difference between when someone states something as a fact vs. an opinion. If someone says something, and that thing happens to be unprovable and based on personal feelings, then it is an opinion, and no method of saying so changes that, outside of coming out and saying "and that's a fact!" Sure, you may use phrases such as "I feel" or "imo" before saying things, but honestly, that shows lack of confidence in what you're saying. Saying things outright only makes them more resolute; it doesn't deny anyone opportunity for rebuttal. Doesn't it seem silly to expect people to constantly "leave any slack in [one's] statements to account for the fact that other people might have different opinions" rather than just assume that everyone knows what opinions are?

However, this also means it wasn't fair for @Haru17 to "play the victim," as you say. No one was really speaking ad hominem to him. They were attacking his opinions, but not himself. At least from what I could tell, anyway; not sure I read all of the comments about him.

Pardon the paradox, but perfect example above: everything I just stated is my opinion, even though I used strong language to convey it.

In any case, there's no sense in taking offense by what anyone says here. It's the internet! And I happen to find @Haru17's snarkiness endearing. Okay, Judge Nicolai out!

Edited on by Nicolai

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Maxz

@Nicolaison I was accused of "stooping to ad hominem", because he "enjoyed a game less than me and dared talk about it". I mean, to quote in full "Stop stooping to ad hominem because I enjoyed a game less than you and dared talk about it".

Which makes it sound he's been victimised, and denied an opinion. Which is not true. He's just been countered.

My point was that if he's going to make such bold and inflexible remarks (especially with such frequency), he should expect a firm rebuttal. I said he was being "eye-rollingly melodramatic and obtusely reductionistic", which is a strong statement (and vaguely ad hominem), but given some of his comments I thought it was accurate (and certainly not equivalent to denying someone a voice).

It just reminds me of someone referencing "freedom of speech" when justifying their comments, but upon getting countered they change tact to "stop criticising me, I have freedom to say what I want!" - and in doing so completely overlook the fact that the criticisms themselves are just other people exercising their freedom of speech. Not that we've had anyone yelling "freedom of speech" though, and of course, the community rules obviously mean it's not absolute anyway.

It's more like:
A: "This is the way things are"
B: "I don't think that's the way things are, and I think it's hyperbolic and over-simplistic to say so"
A: "Oh, so I'm not allowed an opinion am I?"
B: "No, that's wrong. You are allowed to have an opinion. And people are allowed to disagree with it, and will do so. The stronger and more inflexibly you phrase your opinion, the stronger people will likely disagree with it".

Anyway, yeah, it was mainly the use of the phrase "I enjoyed a game less than you and dared talk about it". Like, the dude's free to feel and talk about the game as he wishes (within those lovely community rules). But certain styles of comment are going to lead to certain styles of response, and the more snarky and one-sided your comment, the more likely you are to be hit with and equally potent rebuttal.

Edited on by Maxz

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Nicolai

@Maxz I don't disagree with anything you just said. All I'll say is that @Haru17 can be pretty dramatic, and you're not wrong in expressing that, but I just don't care for arguments that stem from when someone feels like their right to free speech is compromised. It's just silly to say such a thing in an open forum.

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JaxonH

@Pigeon
It's weird. Looking at things like the soundtrack, on its own it seems lacking, and several other aspects of the game like the openness, or the weapon degradation. But tossed all together it just kinda works. The music naturally picks up during combat, for example. But free roaming it just subtly enhances. And it works beautifully in my opinion.

Looking back I don't feel like this game had the amazing soundtrack previous entries head and yet I feel like using the previous soundtracks just wouldn't have worked as well. Idk, you'll just have to try it. It all fits together rather nicely.

That's not to say I'd be against having a full symphony orchestra for the next open world game but I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it I just think there's different approaches and all can work to a certain extent if done well

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Spoony_Tech

The soundtrack is my biggest complaint. Nothing really does stand out and is not really rememberable. I miss that more then the traditional dungeons.

John 8:7 He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.

MERG said:

If I was only ever able to have Monster Hunter and EO games in the future, I would be a happy man.

I'm memory of @Mr_Trill_281 (rip) 3-25-18

Switch Friend Code: SW-7353-2587-4117 | 3DS Friend Code: 3050-7580-4390 | Nintendo Network ID: SpoonyTech | Twitter:

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