And that's pretty good for saying it's apparently just as long as the first game.
They obviously set the price back when they thought it was just a bit of an expansion and then probably thought they'd stick with it because with new characters it's maybe less likely to sell at regular price.
@Haru17 I don't find that slow movement and lengthy attack animations work well with fast-paced combat unless the game is trying to disempower me. And, while FO4 is better in this regard, I hate how the melee combat in their games have no physicality to them.
The shooting is... basic. There's limb damage, which is nice, and the customary slow-motion thing (at least BotW requires you to dodge perfectly to activate this). There's no cover system, though. I can't quickly mow down enemies like I could in a modern shooter. It's just slow and unsatisfying to me.
And, as I said, I don't care about the customization. It does nothing for me.
I don't prefer cutscenes, I just don't think littering bits of narration here and there is particularly good storytelling, and certainly not an example of masterful "environmental storytelling." I'd argue that something like Dark Souls is masterful at environmental storytelling. The narrative is so deeply embedded into the fabric of the game world itself that you have to actually look for it. The embedded narrative also informs and explains many aspects of the aesthetic design of these games. It's not really something I get into, but I can appreciate the genius of it. Bethesda games are filled with journal entries (which is silly, because journals aren't common enough that people just lay them around everywhere to explain what happened in a certain environments) and long-winded bits of dialogue with NPCs.
You mention that you were bored climbing a mountain in Zelda because it didn't give you a context for it, and this is what I fundamentally don't understand. I don't care if the mountain has a narrative tied to it. It's a mountain. It's just there. What's important to me is how fun it is to navigate the mountain. The aesthetics. If you can find any interesting shrines, or new weapons, some korok seeds, maybe one of those awesome dragon things you see flying around... or just to get to the top to appreciate the view. I don't need to read a book about the lore behind the mountain, because I'll either want to climb the mountain or not, regardless of what kind of motivation the game tries to give me. In fact, I often avoid going to certain locations in Bethesda games because I know, once I'm there, I'll be thrust into another side-quest, full of NPC expectations, wooden dialogue, etc.
What I like about BotW is the design and feel of the landscape, and the ways in which I can interact with it. When I'm traveling through a field, I feel like I'm surrounded by nature. I can set fire to the grass, collect bugs, chop down a tree, hunt wildlife, fish, listen to the living soundscape of a world filled with natural creatures that I'm only a part of, etc. The game is full of little details that add up very quickly. Almost anywhere I look in the game, I can appreciate how deliberately designed the view is: the game looks stunning, everywhere. It's full of color, life, and beauty. Bethesda games feel empty and video-gamey in comparison. Part of this is artstyle, but part of this is also a lack of little details, because, in Bethesda games, the point is the sub-quests, hording loot, etc. The point isn't the open world itself. And that's a legitimate game design choice, but I find that it makes their landscapes boring to travel through. You said it yourself: you value certain spots in these games because they have resources to collect. They're valuable only on a purely utilitarian level. I'd never climb to the top of a mountain in Skyrim and want to admire the scenery, or even really enjoying getting there in the first place, because scaling mountains in Skyrim is a bit of a pain.
There is a cover system, actually, it just doesn't lock you in place so you have to seek out your own cover if you aren't playing aggressively. Press in aim when you're near a corner of a wall and your character will peek out in first-person mode.
Climbing in Bethesda games is great. It works, and it's more engaging than Breath of the Wild's system because it requires the player to think and actively work at ascending as opposed to just pressing up on featureless slopes. There aren't quests to climb mountains except the one, you just go up there to see what you'll find.
Beth games certainly don't have as bright colors as modern Zelda, but it's nonsense you're talking about Breath of the Wild's detail. I don't know how many games you've actually played, but Breath isn't anywhere near the top in terms of detail. In Bethesda games you walk into a store and you see bottles lining the shelves, candles over people's beds, wine bottles in their cellars, all of which are fully physically and 3D-rendered. And on the world aspect that you keep coming back to, they blow all other open worlds out of the water because of the points of interest created around the map that took work, not some fun little system that you can apply universally to your empty game world. Pick any mountaintop in Skyrim and I'll detail to you how it easily has more interest than all of the empty mountains from Breath of the Wild combined. God, Hebra and the Gerudo Highlands were so insultingly boring!
@Haru17 I mean, you can crouch behind cover in almost any game. That's not a real cover system. That's just in-game objects working like they're supposed to. Which I suppose is an accomplishment in itself in a Bethesda game.
It's not even a climbing system, it's climbing by jumping. You're jumping up against in-game environments until your character happens to land on a surface, which involves detecting vulnerabilities in the in-game geometry. Even games like Uncharted and Horizon, with their very limited system of finding footholds, have something akin to a climbing system. It's pretty bad. This is just another way in which Bethesda games are dated.
So, in your mind, random objects lining a shelf is impressive? It's certainly environmental detail, but that's not what I mean. All of the gameplay systems in BotW work together to create a cohesive, organic world. The physics system works with the climbing which works with the weather, and all of these can be incorporated into the combat. It's unprecedented. I don't know how many games you've actually played, but a room filled with high-poly knick-knacks is nothing new in a Western video game: it's indicative of a large budget and little else.
EDIT:
These videos do a good job of showing off what I mean about the abundance of small details. Bethesda games have nothing like this.
Jumping up a mountain. Good times. Wouldn't call it climbing though.
@Ralizah Yeah, about those ''comparison'' videos. The user is clearly biased and has some vendetta against Horizon or something. I don't know. Anyway, that's just cherry picking examples to fit the narrative. Take the first example, tall vegetation does move with Aloy (more realistically than in Zelda actually), the small plants don't move, but the video doesn't show you Aloy walking through tall grass. Footprints in the snow are also present in Horizon, I don't know how he made that happen, but I even uploaded a screenshot a few months ago to show that was clearly a glitch or something(?). Here it is: https://image.ibb.co/eRUupk/Horizon_Zero_Dawn_20170309195911.jpg
I'm certain you could also make a comparison video with all the things Horizon has and Zelda hasn't, but you're clearly missing the point then.
Blegh, I don't like those videos, they're different games. And I'm fine with people comparing the two, but leave the cherry picking BS out of the discussion.
@Octane I wasn't really using it to comment on Horizon at all. I haven't played the game, so I have nothing to say about it. I was more using it because it showcases a lot of the wonderful attention to detail in the new Zelda.
These videos do a good job of showing off what I mean about the abundance of small details. Bethesda games have nothing like this.
That's good stuff but not really fair to expect all games to be doing the same thing. They focus on different things.
Nintendo always put a lot of focus on their worlds being physically consistent so you can always do some trivial thing that will get the hoped-for response. (like you just know that in any Nintendo game where you can jump, you're going to be able to jump on people's head to get a funny reaction)
But how many Nintendo games have the level of detail in the lore that Skyrim has? And how many have as many NPCs you can talk to?
Breath of the Wild has 7 or 8 small villages with a dozen people in each of them. It just doesn't compare to the towns and cities in Skyrim or the Witcher 3.
I think it depends on what people want from a game. If you want fun gameplay and some fun puzzles and an enormous world to run around in, and are okay with fairly poor worldbuilding (IMO), a fairly empty landscape with not much variety in what you can find, and very few interesting characters or sidequests or story in general, you should play Zelda. If you want an immersive, lore-filled world filled with actually interesting side quests and unique stuff to find and (mostly) interesting people to talk to, with a great magic system and a decent, albeit pretty basic stealth system, and are okay with a pretty bare-bones combat system (with the exception of stealth and magic-based combat, which can be pretty interesting, magic especially), and generally clunkier gameplay than Zelda, a pretty forgettable main storyline (which is more than made up for in the sidequests/questlines), and puzzles that are nowhere near as good as Zelda's, you should play Skyrim. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.
In my opinion, Zelda wins from a gameplay perspective (except in the magic side of things, if you can consider the Zelda runes "magic"), but Skyrim wins in basically every other aspect. I can forgive Skyrim for having clunkier gameplay, because to me, it's about as close to actually living in a fantasy world as I'll ever get, at least until the next ES game, or something like it, comes out. I know the games were going in different directions, so they can't really be compared that easily, but I value games like Skyrim more than games like Breath of the Wild.
@Dezzy
I was pointing out the things I don't like in Bethesda games, and used BotW as an example. Obviously, I'm not saying the game is objectively better, I just find that the focus on creating a supremely interconnected and cohesive open world is more appealing TO ME than the focus on deep lore and storytelling you get in Bethesda games. It all depends on what you want out of a game: BotW appeals to the adventurer in me, but it mostly fails at crafting a compelling narrative (I actually like the backstory that's told through memories, but that's an incredibly minor part of the game). In a way, it reminds me of classic Etrian Odyssey: you're not real told much about the place you're exploring... it's more about just giving you the tools to go create your own adventure. When I play an EO game, I'm not thinking about how much better this would be if the game gave me a reason to care about this location. Instead, I'm totally engaged in the task of mapping an unknown dungeon, for the pure joy of discovery.
Like I've said before: I like Skyrim, and I don't think Bethesda games are bad. I just think, mechanically, they're extremely disappointing in certain ways. I actually think certain franchises, like Fallout, are evolving in the wrong way: FO4 downplaying its RPG aspects and becoming more of an open-world shooter with a focus on base-building and weapon customization rubbed me the wrong way, for sure, and it makes me worry about the future of the Elder Scrolls franchise. It reminds me of what happened with Mass Effect, actually, wherein the game went from a fun, if somewhat clunky, WRPG in the original to a dialogue-heavy third person shooter with RPG aspects in the sequel.
@KirbyTheVampire I never cared for the use of magic in ES games, at least on a conceptual level, because the games do nothing interesting with it. I doubled as a mage/archer in Skyrim because I prefer my attacks having some range, and magic doubles as a good close range and mid range attack choice when I have to jump into the fray. With that said, once you level up your stealth skills enough, you can kill most enemies before you even enter a room (this doesn't work on larger enemies and bosses, obviously).
Once I encountered enemies, battles usually went like this.
1) Stealth kill the weak ones with arrows while hiding
2) Stealth attack the bigger enemies for decent damage once
3) Once I'm noticed, I weave around them, constantly pelting them with a stream of electricity or fire until they're dead.
I tried using swords at first, but the melee combat in Skyrim sucks, so I just went with the superior combat options.
BotW doesn't really have magic. The runes are this game's replacement for the series' traditional tools. Although you can certainly find creative ways to integrate their use into combat.
I don't have much to contribute due to lack of experience.
I tried Fallout 3 once but found the opening bunker tutorial section so tedious that I ditched the game and have never gone back.
I've held off trying Skyrim, partly due to time constraints and partly in case I get the Switch release. I tried Oblivion once but didn't really feel like I had a sense of what I was there for.
This is why I love Breath of the Wild. I've not got so much Zelda experience that I'm a die-hard who's pissed at the lack of dungeons and grappling hook etc., but I've got enough familiarity to understand the premise before I even start the game, so exploring Hyrule is enriched with this sense of nostalgic familiarity blending with genuine excitement at how well they've expanded it into an open world full of a sense of discovery. Breath of the Wild isn't a very 'deep' game, but personally I don't want masses of detailed lore and NPC interaction - I want a game, not an interactive novel, and BotW's gameplay is splendid. Some people criticise the world for its emptiness, but I love it for exactly that reason - a beautiful natural landscape that doesn't bog me down with too much fighting or reading - just a boy/young man, his paraglider, and his horse. It's exactly the kind of freedom I relish in real life. I don't want to talk; I don't want to fight; I just want to run and jump and climb and glide and ride and shield slide and be free...
Anyway, on topic (sort of?). I'm somewhere in between. Gameplay needs to be fun, but I also love lore and stories. I personally didn't find Zelda an endearing experience, too sandbox-y for me. It felt like they spend 90% of the resources on 10% of the world. Highly detailed towns full of lives were a stark contrast with the rather empty overworld with its copy-paste enemies. If this is what an open world Zelda game is, then I prefer something smaller (and more focused) like OOT, WW or TP. Good game, just not what I expect from a Zelda game. And maybe I'm a little disappointed because I do see potential in the formula. Maybe the project was too big? Maybe it needed another year of development.
Horizon is a mix of both. The story isn't too strong, it's good, but not amazing. The side quests are decent at best, but the gameplay, and especially the combat, is one of the best things I've experienced this year. It does some clever stuff.
The Witcher 3 is on the other end of the spectrum. Combat is serviceable, but by far the worst part of the game. The lore and story are absolutely top notch. The choices you make, and seeing how they affect the game 50 hours later is pretty remarkable. From what I've played of Skyrim, I feel it's in the same boat, but with a little more RP elements. The only difference is that the world of Skyrim didn't really appeal to me. Maybe part of the reason was because I played it when it was a few years old, and it wasn't as mind blowing as it was in 2011.
@KirbyTheVampire The Witcher 3 or Horizon? I assume you're talking about TW3. They released a GOTY edition that comes with all the DLC last year. I think it was €40 or something. You should be able to find a copy for around €20 or €30 I think. Well worth the price IMO. 200+ hours of content.
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