The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

yeah you really dont have to do any of it, people who arent experts will have to do some of it to get armor hearts and endurance but theres no order or requirements for which ones you get, you dont have to do any of the divine beasts if you dont want, theres all sorts of options like for instance on my second play through i just did enough shrines to max out endurance because i like to be able to glide climb and run for a long time, but instead of getting hearts i just farmed durians

the one exception would be at the beginning on the plateau you do have to do all the shrines to get the slate powers and to get the glider but thats sort of a tutorial

the fact that the game is truly open world not just in scope but in action is a really cool thing about it, they just left out the constant leveling up mechanics that most games take for granted as necessary and just made a cool game you want to play instead

leveling up mechanics are still there, but if you don't want to go around and collect items to upgrade your armor you don't have to.

they just left out the constant leveling up mechanics that most games take for granted as necessary and just made a cool game you want to play instead

otm. so many games these days, across many genres, are basically Level Upgrade Tree Decision Time: the Game

yeah its such an accepted approach people dont even think about it, nor imo doesnt botw get enough credit for breaking from it

like you cant even get more powerful weapons really because they break

and when you finally get the unbreakable superweapon its not even close to being the best weapon. it's just reliable.

and it still kinda breaks and recharges

I'm playing it again now and enjoying the fuck out of it. it's great to unwind with especially now that I'm more comfortable with the mechanics.

are you restarting or cleaning up leftover shrines?

i definitely need to get back in and finish up a ton of things

I do not have time for this but I do want to restart on master mode, spend ten minutes plotting how to massacre some bokoblins.

Agree about the levelling. Zelda was really the first game I played when I got back into gaming, and whenever I try new games with ritualised levelling up, I find it instantly really tiresome!

KM: Restarting. I fizzled out somewhere along the way on my first playthrough but it's a real joy to explore.

German nerds mod the game at 8K with ray tracing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siyKPvq-10Y

ah, Raymond Tracing -- my favorite zelda character

so they’ve basically made Zelda look less idiosyncratic and more like a bad ps4 game

yeah that's what these demos are always like

if the graphics are complicated, they can charge more.

I haven't looked into it, but is Switch emulation already that good?

As I understand it The Switch is basically just off-the-shelf mobile parts from several years ago so emulation would be a very simple task.

that video is wii u emulation, but switch emulation is already fairly good too

I played this so much. I stopped when I got all the Korok seeds on master mode. That golden turd was a sign I was finished.

omg Jeff

almost four years late to the best video game ever, huh? better late than never

it was v interesting to read josh's impressions of it as it was josh's first open world game? while i can see they got to appreciate it eventually, i was instantly enraptured and impressed because i'd so long liked open worlds but been frustrated by how much better they could be. well, this is the one i was waiting for. they smoothed over everything that was annoying/frustrating/bad/not-up-to-potential of basically every other open world game

I love it. Playing this game was one of the best cultural experiences of my life (including books, games, visiting real places, etc).

(Oops - I meant movies not games.)

The only thing I was disappointed in is the relatively small number of monsters. At a certain point you know that you've seen all of them and they'll just keep changing colors to become more challenging. I'm sure it has something to do with how much they can cram in the game, but it would be nice if there were new critters throughout the length of the experience.

I'm not a video game person at all and I totally lost myself in this. Haven't found anything else that has touched that sweet spot, but maybe that's okay. Unless there's another months long shutdown I don't have the time for getting lost in games!

I want GTA V because I want to explore the world. I have zero interest in the campaign. Love immersive open world environments.

BOTW is so fun to explore but agreed it would be nice if there was a little more diversity in enemies, which could have been established more strongly based on the biome you were in. That sort of thing helps make the world feel even bigger as well. Would have been win/win.

Yeah, it was my first open world. I've since played a few others, more or less, and it's striking the difference between sorta open worlds (like Dark Souls I guess, or God of War) and the real deal (like this or RDR2). The biggest is that at their best I want the open world games to go on forever, they're so rich, but the more constrained ones make me appreciate the way they're designed to direct you and your gameplay. Like, I can totally imagine playing Breath again and enjoying it as much, and doing even more, if only for the interactions and personality.

RDR2 might be better for just exploration than GTA V, and there are hundreds of different animals, more variety than BOTW for sure

Yeah but I want to joyride around on the roads while obeying traffic laws. But yes I would totally dig RDR2.

Like I want a simulator game like "Retired Rich Loner With No Responsibilities Or Restrictions Simulator"

yeah, fuck putting keanu in a game. make keanu THE game.

lol

A Keanu open world game, where you play as Keanu and just go around interacting with people as Keanu - and, hell, film a movie, go on vacation, go out to dinner, whatever - would be awesome. Keanu should throw some of his Matrix/John Wick movie toward a Keanu Simulator game. (And then cast someone else as himself, like Skeet Ulrich or something.)

i don't know, doesn't that sound kind of...lonely?

https://i.imgur.com/rekNb1j.jpg

#onethread

Maybe you're playing as the bird and you just found a friend.

all the enemies in the game are variations on keanu reeves in different color suits

does the shrine music ever change up? not sure i can handle this 45 second loop for 100 more of these

you can and you will

You’re not listening to podcasts or watching a movie while playing this game? What is wrong with you???

i occasionally put podcasts on, yeah. i'm not generally used to listening to podcasts often though as i have no commute and my work is highly verbal- they distract me too much, so i'm slightly thankful for this game as it lets me listen for once. can't imagine watching a movie tho

still need to get back to this one

i still haven't really made stasis a staple of my approach because aiming objects is so wonky and inconsistent. i can't make rhyme or reason of it, and while holding Y to do a spin makes it a little easier, that also lessens your ability to set the power of the eventual launch. i've also hesitated to upgrade stasis because i feel it will make combat too easy? i am trying to get the rhythm down for dodges and parries and whatnot. freezing enemies seems like i'd potentially miss all that, although now that the yiga clan's boss is down they are being way more aggressive and showing up to monster fights. might be nice to stop those assholes now and then

OK this is kind of mindblowing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/sju0zs/botw_new_musical_connection_found/

Cute!!

I was thinking you'd like that!

It took 5 years and many aborted attempts but I just beat Ganon.

congrats, I still haven't done it

The mi-fa / ti-do thing isn't a new discovery FWIW:
https://nintendoeverything.com/breath-of-the-wild-composers-on-changing-up-zeldas-music-formula-and-more/2/

Wakai: I just had a sudden idea. Originally Sidon’s theme was made of a combination of scale Ti and Do (Sidon’s original Japanese name is Shido) and Mipha’s was a combination of Mi and Fa (original Japanese name: Mifa), but then for the song ‘Mipha and Sidon’ I created Sidon’s theme using the Mi and Fa scale, because I thought when you look through Sidon’s eyes, Mipha is the real hero.