The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

i admit i don't don't understand why you need some sort of in-game justification for avoiding getting struck by lightning. i understand botw gives one a significant degree of latitude in how to play it, but i mean, "why should i avoid getting hit by lightning?" is perhaps a more philosophical question than the game is able to address, because ludically that question translates to "why should i avoid pain and seek pleasure?"

as the famous zen kōan asks, "why shouldn't you avoid getting hit by lightning?"

omg Josh I'm starting to really wonder if this game is for you :/ The very meat of WHY this game is fun seems baffling to you somehow.

Might I recommend you google "things I wish I'd known before I started playing BOTW" and see what tips you find. Dont be afraid to cheat a little with tips and walkthrus.

Oh, and READ EVERYTHING and TALK TO EVERYONE. It irks me watching people play all kinds of game who go "ugh *skip* when they find a tome or a notice on the wall or a NPC to talk to, and then later whinge "how was I supposed to know the gem of Esterbane was north of the tavern of tarts!?" when a map on the wall in the last village literally leads you there.

just make sure to use the Clear Vision rune while reading the map, or else you end up in the cavern of farts, a high level area

hahahhaa

idk i can see why this game's appeal might be more opaque if you're ignorant to the entire past 2 generations of railroaded adventure games and busywork open worlds that it's rejecting

handholdy maybe the word im looking for not railroaded

like go back and play twilight princess and remember just how long you have to play at the start before the game gives you any real agency

I've totally watched the what to know before breath of the wild video(s). I've used hints when I've gotten stuck. I know what I'm doing, generally speaking. What I didn't really know was how long it would take to do that, or how many lines of goofy dialogue I would have to sit through. there seems to be an inordinate amount of stuff in this game that takes time just for the sake of taking time. if that is indeed a large part of the game, then yeah, maybe it's not for me. there are definitely aspects of it that I love, though, which is one reason why I didn't throw in the towel hours ago.

and yeah, I missed all the bad things that this game apparently corrects, so if there's something about this game I don't enjoy, even if it is much better than the previous twenty years worth of bad things then this game nonetheless still becomes the bad thing.

At least it gives you some training tutorials and things - lately Ive been playing some much older games and the way you're dropped in it with no explanation is doing my head in.

Brought to you by "how the fuck does Sonic the Hedgehog work exactly I feel old"

If all weapons break and all need to be replaced but they're easy to find or replace, then ... what is even the point? It's just extra walking around looking for shit.

i don’t mean to denigrate your point, but this describes games

xp old games came with manuals and expected you to at least read the page that showed the controls

Ha yes thats true. Unfortunately Ive purchase "50 AWESOME RETRO SEGA GENESIS GAMES WOOO" for the Switch and it came with bupkiss.

xpost I mean, and I'm going to once again use Dark Souls as an example, that in that game you can more or less finish the game with the first weapon you pick, which you can upgrade any number of fun ways (and repair as necessary). There are cool rare weapons, easy to find weapons, all sorts of weapons, most you never use and many you end up with piles of. Some have advantages, some don't, but few (iirc) just break and force you to fight with something else. I really enjoyed having two or three favored and upgraded weapons. But here so far I can't get attached to anything, since they break or degrade, even the seemingly cool stuff, and while finding new or replacement weapons isn't impossible or even necessarily difficult, it feels like wheel spinning. Likewise the (so far?) limited arrows, which are in relatively sort supplies at stores. Now, in Dark Souls, iirc, you could buy tons of arrows at various prices, but you could generally stock up for a long stretch. But here no such luck. I run out of arrows all the time, which is, yes, annoying, because there are things you absolutely *need* arrows for, not just to make things easier but literally *need.* Now it's easy enough to teleport back to some place that sells them, but there is no guarantee they'll be in stock, which just adds, yes, time. I liked finding shit in Dark Souls, because it often came as a surprise or a challenge. I find it less fun here because it seems like a chore, especially given the very limited inventory, vs. the unlimited inventory of DS.

Dark Souls is for n00bs

That's me!

Tips for arrows:
- there are stores at every town (Gerudo, hateno, kakariko, goron, rito, and the shop inside forbidden woods) as well as at tarrey town**.
- At every stable, accost Beedle, cos he always has at least 15arrows on him.
- let moblins attack you, while defending with a wood shield or pot lid. The arrows will hit and stick and when you put the shield away you get a free arrow
- blow up metal crates, boxes and barrels, sometimes they have arrows.

** once you build it anyway)

josh i don't get you man

Brought to you by "how the fuck does Sonic the Hedgehog work exactly I feel old"

― Stoop Crone (Trayce)

the first sonic the hedgehog game has one button, you use it to jump

there's a stupid and counterintuitive part in sonic 3 casino night zone that i never did figure out how to get past but aside from that it's pretty straightforward?

lol

i don't either tbh, with games at least, but i do take a strange fascination in watching you grow to understand the medium. i kinda regret pushing you so hard to try BotW (i swear i only did it because i was certain it would be a net benefit in your life!), but now i think maybe it would be useful for you to play 5 or 6 short games (10 hours or so) rather than 1 long one. you use dark souls and celeste a lot as your reference points, which i understand, but most games are very different from those two. it would be like if your only reference points for movies were Platoon and When Harry Met Sally. it'd probably be good to just hop into a series of shorter games? i dunno

xp

josh I feel like we're growing apart

a few xps

in that game you can more or less finish the game with the first weapon you pick, which you can upgrade any number of fun ways (and repair as necessary). There are cool rare weapons, easy to find weapons, all sorts of weapons, most you never use

I think this is precisely why the devs made the BOTW weapons break. They wanted you to try everything.

But yeah, that doesn't necessarily make the game more fun for you.

what game should we bully josh into playing next

I vote QWOP

I'm a fan of any game where you can retrieve your arrows from the body of your victim (or over by a bush because I completely missed my target) and reuse them. That's value!

i vote civilization

marvel puzzle quest

just so we can get him addicted and then he can complain about how botw doesn't have a tech tree and he wanted to research the trebuchet

maybe we are the game that josh is playing

because i feel like a goddamned fool right now

woah

some people were open to this idea but the majority didn't want to hear it

Are we living in a simulation?

morpheus in chicago

I'll take the korok pill pls

Josh, play Xenoblade Chronicles 2

xenoblade chronicles 2 looks decent but i wish the characters would repeatedly yell out whatever they're doing more frequently in battle

someone start a caucus josh thread so can put our arguments to the country chicago

we*

Josh should play the Sims and see if he gets fed up with having to go to the toilet/eat/sleep over and over, sinking into a morass of existential crises.

...maybe thats just how I play it.

I fucking hate The Sims. My kids both play that, it's like a stupid doll house.

And I know how to get arrows in Breath of the Wild, that's not the point. The point is that I have to get them! They might as well have made it a requirement in this game, like Sims, to make Link have to go to the bathroom every couple of hours.

Josh ffs you can take game actions or you can decline to take game actions just do it or don’t

really? you mean this game is optional?

I don’t even understand anymore. Why do you have to make lines in Tetris? Why do you have to shoot the enemy in goldeneye? Why do you have to hand over the ball when you go out of bounds in basketball? Why is bunting allowed? Why does white move first? Theres reasons for all these things but if you’re playing the game in the first place the reasons do not fucking matter!

Like my dude there’s no fucking logic to it you can click or you can cease clicking, all games are just about making small numbers get bigger until the credits roll, if you don’t want to do it you can stop and it doesn’t MEAN anything

some click to remember. some click to forget.

And I know how to get arrows in Breath of the Wild, that's not the point. The point is that I have to get them!

The inverse of this if I understand you is basically an unlimited supply/weapon stash. Now to me, thats kinda unchallenging, but again it depends on the game. This game is all about the go-and-get/explore/work out/find.

I don’t know anything about Dark Souls because I’m not a n00b but one thing about a lot of Japanese rpg-types is a simulacrum of “real life” and the social interactions that compose it and arrows in botw are part of that.