Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Thinking about giving BOTW a go as my first Zelda game. Should I wait until end of November to see how cheap it goes in the Black Friday deals, or will using the NSO vouchers probably be as good a deal as I am going to get regardless?

@Pizzamorg All I can speak for is the American pricing, but I almost never see it go under $39.99.

Have you looked at prices on the second-hand market?

Had a look on eBay, looks about the same price as vouchers divided by 2 minus Gold discount. That works out to just under 40 quid, which I think is just under 55 dollars. I am just not sure if it would go lower than that in the BF sales.

@Pizzamorg
I have sold my BOTW last month LOL.
I thought BOTW was not the suitable game for me as i have neglected completely for more than 4 years.
A GOTY game by most peoples is not always for everyone cup of tea.

@Pizzamorg if you have NSO why not give a link to the Past a try?

Is that a better place to start? Thought BOTW would be the best place, but just wasn’t sure to grab it now or wait to see what BF does.

@Pizzamorg first party don’t really get any good deals. I bought BOTW for 42 pounds in 2017 and it’s still selling for 40 pounds in 2021. I did also buy a Wii u copy argos was selling for 25 pounds. Bargain

@Pizzamorg it depends. Lttp is a classic Zelda style game and BotW is more of an open world and do whatever you want kind of game

@Pizzamorg BotW is an amazing game, but it's also not really representative of the rest of the series to date.

ALttP is pretty much classic Zelda in a nutshell.

Which is to say: I think you could 'start' with either game, as they're wildly different experiences. ALttP is going to more of an intro to the property as a whole.

I'd just play Zelda BotW. But that's me.

Weird? I thought I replied to this thread but my reply isn’t here!

I just said thanks - said I was going to pick it up via NSO Vouchers because it seems like BF won’t be a better deal and even if it is, not by any significant margin - although I am probably jinxing the universe in saying that.

I will try and play both games, but deffo have more interest in BOTW as I have more interest in open world games than I do in the actual Zelda franchise.

Not a criticism, but I don't understand why anyone unsure about a game would buy digital when you could buy used and then re-sell used if you don't want to keep it and lose very little, maybe break even.

But if any game justifies it's asking price, it's BotW.

That's what I used to do before COVID. I had a shop in town called CEX and I'd basically use that like a rental shop. Every weekend trade in a game for another, didn't spend actually any money on games for years.

But with COVID I just don't feel comfortable doing that anymore, especially for those who know about CEXs infamous reputation. Plus, while it's more expensive, buying a game digitally and having it on your device almost instantly is just a convenience that's worth it to me. Never needing to leave the house is the Wall-E end game.

@Pizzamorg Fair play to you. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have 🍻

I just finished my second playthrough of BOTW. It's hands-down my favorite all-time game (I could gush about it like Jax gushes about DKC:TF). Granted, I'd played all of the console Zeldas before that, and there's a few nods to the previous Zeldas to trigger nostalgia for us old folks, but it's a fantastic game on its own. My favorite part of the expansion pass in that game was that it gave me reason to go back into its world and enjoy it a little more.

While for many, this may be a water is wet style declaration, Breath of the Wild might be one of the most polished games I have ever played. I am not a Nintendo guy, I don’t have much interest in their first party lineups - I dislike platforming in general - and so while I am aware of the acclaim of many of their titles, many of them simply existed outside of my world view. I am not really sure what made me suddenly decide I wanted to give BOTW a chance, but if the game can keep up the level of joy it delivered in those opening few hours, then I will be glad I made the choice.

I am not sure how long I played today, the hours just melted away in a way I haven’t really found from a game in a while. It is difficult to know really where to start - especially as I appreciate I will simply be repeating years old opinions held by many. But man - just so impressed by like all of this.

The opening is a little frustrating/slow, my stick broke during my first encounter and I just had nothing to fight with. But when I realised how generous the auto save is and the fact there seems to be no punishment for dying, I realised how much the game just wanted me to experiment and really enjoy being in this world. True, pure, roleplaying in a sense.

While I do enjoy that in an Ubisoft game I can just plonk a dot on the map and the game will just drive me there, I really like how BOTW really leans into the actual mechanics of the world to find points of interest, mark them and then solve how exactly you’ll reach them. This is probably the best balance I’ve found for this sort of game. It isn’t like one of those survival games where it just leaves you in the dark to scramble around and try and figure out wtf you are meant to be doing, but it isn’t so handholdy that it feels like it is on rails either, just a real healthy point in the middle. I hope this remains true for the whole experience.

I also felt a remarkable sense of progression in those opening hours, despite the fact this isn’t one of those looter games where you’re being showered in bits of clothing with ever increasing numbers on them. I am still in the rags you find in the place you wake up in, but I have one hell of an arsenal of weapons now and so many learnt skills/mechanics, I feel like a completely different person from who I was when I started playing. I didn’t realise you could really create such satisfying progression without giving me some kind of bar or something I could physically see filling up.

So often in Nocturne I was so frustrated because each step was an obtuse vaguery, I’d bumble around and make no progress, get frustrated and go to a guide. But here, each time I bumble around, it seems to result in a eureka moment. And just the details of the animations, the physics and all the other bits of programming that just make everything so dynamic and fascinating.

Like Nocturne, this is how you do puzzle dungeons. They aren’t hours long, teleporting gimmicky, endurance slogs. Each one is just right the length, gives you just enough guidance through learned mechanics of the flow of the game to figure out what you need to do but with just enough experimentation that it feels earned and rewarding before it becomes frustrating. I dunno, maybe the later dungeons will become more like Nocturnes gauntlets of frustration, but so far I have been going off the beaten path to find more of these dungeons in BOTW as so far they have just been fun.

I am currently away, so I am playing in handheld, I dunno what the game looks/runs like when blown up on a TV, but at least docked, it is beautiful and feels buttery smooth. Combat is simple, but fun with just enough variety in the weapons. The little touches like the gyro aiming for the bow/abilities are appreciated.

It just shows a game can be stimulating and engaging, without needing to be brutal and gruelling. I hope I will still say that come the end.

I am also sure there are so many more things I wish I had said, but I have only played the opening few hours. As I am currently away I am not sure when I will get to sit down with it again, but after I’ve spent more hours with it I’ll probably log more feelings.

@Pizzamorg
I still remember the feeling I had when I played BotW, and ya, I was gushing about it too. We all were (well, almost all, anyways).

The thing is, many Nintendo games are really good at making ppl enjoy them even when they’re not previously fans of the genre. Arlo does a review on DKC Tropical Freeze, for example, where he claims he just doesn’t like 2D platformers. They’re not intellectually stimulating enough, they just don’t hold his attention… until DKC TF. It’s a 2D platformer for ppl who say they don’t like 2D platformers.

Same is true for Fire Emblem. I hated all turn based games until I played Fire Emblem. Not only did that game change my mind about the grid based strategy genre, it single-handedly made me reconsider my stance on turn based games.

Same is true for Splatoon 2. I usually don’t like competitive shooters. They’re just not my thing. And yet… Splatoon 2 is one of the most fun games I’ve ever played. I sunk hundreds of hours into it.

Same thing is true for Pikmin 3. Normally I would never play a game like that. But Pikmin 3 is just so incredible, I can’t help but love it.

I think if you broaden your taste a little bit and dip your toe in the water here in there with a few highly acclaimed Nintendo games that maybe aren’t normally your style, you may find a good many of them changing your mind. This is why I like Nintendo games so much, because they can make me love games in genres that I absolutely hate. Not always- there’s a few here and there that just don’t do it for me. But if you stick to the cult classics and the universally praised titles, I think you’ll find there’s a whole new world out there yet to be explored.

@mjharper
At the time I played Zelda BotW, I felt the same way. Over the years your memories of how much you enjoy a game start to fade. But I do remember back in 2017 I was saying it was one of the best I had ever played. There’s a lot of Nintendo games on Switch I could gush about:

Zelda Breath of the Wild
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
Metroid Dread
Splatoon 2
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Xenoblade Chronicles DE
Pikmin 3
Super Mario Odyssey

Some more than others, but all these games were so good I remember being in awe of how much I was in love with them.

BotW is unquestionably enchanting in that first playthrough. Nintendo absolutely nailed their unique approach to open world design and game progression.

@Pizzamorg lol one of the big complaints from people who don't like BotW is that it doesn't have the lengthy, high-concept puzzle dungeons of previous games. Some of them were infamous slogs, though.

Also, in most previous 3D Zelda games, the overworld itself wasn't freely explorable, and you often had to go to specific locations to trigger dialogue or accomplish tasks that the games were often coy about hinting at before you could make any progress in the story.

Some people really, really like the sort of late-90s/early-00s game design exemplified by titles like SMT Nocturne and Ocarina of Time.

I like em both. I’m definitely not a “mutually exclusive” kinda guy when it comes to modern vs vintage design. BotW is amazing, but honestly, Skyward Sword is amazing too. I don’t think it’s nearly as good as BotW, but I do think there’s a place for the older approach. And they give us both with remakes and remasters (Skyward Sword HD, Link’s Awakening) and new, open world entries (BotW, BotW 2). So you really can have your cake and eat it too.

@Pizzamorg
I was PlayStation gamer too during year 2000's. I played Nintendo games as well but not every 1st party games from Nintendo are interesting for me.
I have expanded my gaming experiences from playing never before played games, never before have interest with the games, i dared myself to get into never played before games in different genre but still suitable with my gaming rules.