Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@OorWullie That's one of the fun parts of this game, I confronted the Lynel and defeated it. Which has cost me a lot btw. It was only afterwards I realized I might have been able to sneak past him and grab the arrows like that. 2 very different experiences lol.

@Operative2-0 Sounds more like you can't adapt well to new ideas. This game doesn't want you to only rely on weapons when defeating enemies, and even if you do, you have to approach it differently. It's more tactical than just barging in and slash away. I for one really like this approach. It makes every encounter unique.

I think the art style has masterfully filled the space between WW and TP that SS tried to occupy but, in my opinion, didn't quite manage.

That's not to say it couldn't be improved; less pop-in, fewer 2D leaves on trees, better texturing of vast landscapes etc. would help to make the world feel more cohesive (even if they're be difficult on current hardware), but I think the art direction for this game pretty much represents the perfect marriage of the series' cartoonish and realistic styles.

Also, just to quote @erv, because it's true.

I think the game is phenomenal. It's the most wonderful playground, and most perfect serendipity-engine I've ever encountered on a screen. Now that I've learnt to actually take breaks from it (the first week was just stupid), I'm able to come back to it with wide and eager eyes again, which is exactly the sort of playstyle that the game rewards and feeds off. It's not really a tick-box game. There are too many boxes, and most of the adventure happens on the route between them. The beauty of the game is as much in how you do things as what things you do, and it's at its finest when you're screaming at the screen, "I AM AWESOME!", because your solution to a shrine or a monster base or anything else truly feels like yours.

That said, I hope the next game goes in a completely different direction, simply because I can't imagine any other Zelda outdoing BotW at being BotW. And I don't want to wait another 7 years. I think something like MM - in which they create a completely different structure out of the same engine - wouldn't be a bad idea. That was relatively compact in geographical size, but grew an extra dimension through its use of time (though this wasn't entirely absent in OoT).

It'd rather have something that partnered well with BotW than tried to one-up it. Something vaguely Majorish could the be the compactness Breath's expanse, and the communal buzz to Breath's apocalyptic wildernesses. Zelda has a rich enough history that there are always elements waiting to be brought back into the limelight, and the scale of reinvention in BotW seems to indicate there could be just as many new elements waiting to be brought into it too.

So yeah, I think BotW is a majestic feat, but it's precisely because of this that I don't simply want a BotW 2 (and really, there's DLC to scratch that itch anyway). I don't want Aonuma and chums to be tied down to creating nothing but the impossibly epic. I don't want to wait that long, and I imagine the team would actually be quite glad to work on something with a different structure after all this time. I want to play that game. I want it to be as fresh and exciting as Breath of the Wild is, but for entirely different reasons. And it can't be that as a Breath of the Wild 2.

Right now though, I mainly just want to play Breath of the Wild 1. The future can wait.

@Spanjard don't do that. I can adapt if need be. In fact I have considering the game forces it. Just cuz I don't like it doesn't mean it's because I'm bad at liking new ideas. That's a dismissive argument.

There really isn't much adaption in this game when it comes to the combat, tbh. From what I can tell, it's just hack and slash with whatever weapon is your most powerful. The weapons are different when it comes to the elemental types, but besides that, you usually just spend the game stun locking the opponent with whatever weapon you have on hand that deals the greatest damage. It never really mattered if it was a heavy weapon, sword, spear etc.

Sometimes in actually hoping a weapon will break.

All my weapons are great, and I can't just drop them to pick up new ones.

I loved the shield durability in skyward sword and was glad they expanded that here. What I don't like is they barely last a fight and a half, there's no way to repair or preserve the weapons you do like, and the four that do have that option require ridiculous materials for what amounts to an average weapon at best.

And I was okay with all of that because I thought, like in skyward sword, the payoff would be a weapon that didn't break and become unavailable to you. Well, that's not the case.

Games with a good durability system, like dark souls or final fantasy 14, allow you to fix them and they actually last an amount of time that isn't laughably short. I especially would like if they lasted longer, but lost damage power as they reached the end of their life.

I think the durability system in Dark Souls is good because, in later games such as 3, it's almost nonexistent. Your weapons are repaired the moment you heal at a bonfire and you upgrade throughout the game constantly. You can play the whole game without so much as breaking a single weapon. I've never been a fan of durability systems, where the weapons break. Although, at least this game makes it bearable.

I do wish there was a way to fix the weapons.

Though with how easy it is to replace them...

Still, I do find myself not using my best weapons at all just because I don't want to deteriorate them.

+1 for weapon durability being A Good Thing. In fact, I'd argue it's pretty central to what makes the game tick and allows it to keep reinventing itself and keep encounters relevant. Everything has a price (except maybe remote bombs), and the process working your way up through the various weapons - with as many losses as gains along the way - has been hugely satisfying.

Today I magnesised a Royal Claymour from a bunch of sleeping Moblins then proceeded to take them out with my Knight's equivalent. The Knight's Claymour then broke, but I was one up on a weapon class, and plenty up in terms of Moblin parts (and satisfaction). If I'd already had an indestructible 'best weapon' I probably not have even bothered approaching the group at all.

So yeah, I think weapons durability is a masterstroke (though one prone to shattering). It adds an almost financial element of give and take/risk and reward to the battles and keeps the core survival theme ticking throughout the entire game. I'm not saying it's a good thing in all games, but it fits the game like a glove.

You get different encounters depending on your weapon choice especially when you are starting out. A very powerful enemy might more likely be stunned from quick repeated attacks from a spear whereas a huge cumbersome Claymore would result in you needing to dodge more enemy attacks in between your strikes.

Items durability is a pretty new thing in Zelda (as it is in BOTW), and in BOTW i love it, especially considering the survival aspect. You should always be in search of new weapons because difficulty is set pretty high on this. It's an incentive for exploration for example, and to search for enemies too, to get some new weapons (thought about sneaking to grab them for example, or disarm them to steal it and kill them). It's all so much well connected that i don't feel annoyed or anything. It's a system that i'm liking really in this game.

About approaching. It's incredible that you can do so much things in a so great number of ways. You guys brought the Lynel example. I have to say that i was able to reach the 20 electric arrows before even reaching him (had 17 before starting already!) but i managed to fight him and beat him on another moment (when i had to make him a photo for another quest). It's pretty satisfying.

@-Green- Someone made a good observation about the weapon triangle a few pages back. Claymores (etc) knock shields out of enemy hands (which is really freaking useful - enemy shields were the bane of my life before learning this), spears and lances are long and fast enough to outreach and outspeed heavy hitters like claymours, and the sword shield combo can geberally out-manoeuvre spears - which only jab in one direction - and get in close enough to counter with a wide swipe.

So it's completely wrong to say it doesn't matter what weapon type you're using, just as it's completely wrong when people say the overworld has nothing to do. The game doesn't spell these things out, but that doesn't mean they're not there. Since getting a grip on the weapon triangle, I've been switching types repeatedly, rather than sticking to whatever half decent sword and shield I had knocking around. And it's made quite a big difference. Once the silver enemies come along, you don't have the luxury of just stunning everything into oblivion anymore.

@JohnBlackstar I know, but all the weapons stun the enemies. From my experience, I've had no issue basically stunning an enemy with a weapon and then smacking them after they ragdoll. Except, Lynel, but they're overboard.

@Maxz I've had no issue walloping on the silver variants, with whatever I have. Sure they have more health and deal extra damage, but they behave relatively the same as all their other variants. The weapon types matter to an extent, but they're not important once you become good enough at the game. If you are a capable dodger, you can honestly handle anything. Which was likely intentionally done in the game.

Edit: As for the mechanic's existence, I never doubted their existence and what not. I just don't see them as being very important, seeing as you can everything in the game just fine with whatever weapon type is available to you.

Welp I think I might actually be a lil burnt from the game now, might play it later but haven't had the urge to play it for the past couple days, although if I played it I might play for a while, but when I do play the next time, do I explore and enjoy the adventure, or be cheap and find locations of shrines and such....oh the choices.

You can also instantly KO fire enemies with ice weapons and vice versa.

You know what's annoying?

@Tsurii It works. Killed so many ice lizalfos with fire arrows (on Lanaryu Mountain especially) and vice versa

Yup, I've done it with arrows and elemental weapons.

They just poof away in one hit.

And the game says it too in the loading tips, i discovered it there