If TotK is mid then what's a great game in the same genre?
If you say BG3 it will be obvious you didn't read the italicised part.
TotK and BotW both share the same problem IMO, though TotK fares far far better. Theyre not Zelda games, they're open world Ubisoft games with the Zelda name and way less bugs.
Both are locked to a console that can't even properly run them. Playing on PC with better framerates and weapon durability disabled definitely help them feel more fun, but ultimately they give about as much fun as a game like Far Cry 5 or 6.
Once I completed the main quest I just haven't ever gone back to them, and I probably never will. But I have replayed through Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess at least 5 times each.
Being in the same genre, how specific do you want? Open world fantasy? Elden Ring IMO. Zelda games? Pick any of the ones made after Zelda II and before BotW, CDi games not included, and you're probably going to have a more "Zelda" experience. RPGs just in general? Probably Chrono Trigger or Divinity Original Sin 2.
Huh, lots of opinions on BOTW and "if I disable a mechanic on PC, the game is not fun".
I've enjoyed both botw and totk, but not to completion.
I do feel like they are both tech demo iterations.
Botw introducing actual physics and creativity as puzzle solving possibilities. Totk introducing "everything is physics" and relying on creativity for puzzle solving.
Botw story was mid. Totk story was better.
Botw dungeons were terrible. Totk dungeons were better, and some had a bit more girth/depth to them.
I feel like now that they've cracked the "everything is physics", and iterated dungeon designs... The next one will hopefully feel a lot more Zelda.
At least, I hope so.
But, same genre...
What do you class totks genre as?
“if I disable a mechanic on PC, the game is not fun”
To be clear, disabling weapon durability made the game more fun.
The mechanic itself was ass. I wouldn't have played further without disabling it.
Right, disabled weapon durability. At which point there is no point to explore the map. That was the gist, right? So, I skipped a stage by describing the start and the end of the chain of events.
Weapon durability itself isn't fun, but forces you to explore.
If you can't be bothered reading dialog, so you skip it all, then say a game has no story, doesn't make sense and never explains anything.
You are no longer having to read all the dialog, but you miss all the detail.
Short term gains long term pains.
Hello. I played the games on PC too, and turned off the stupid weapon degradation and had a BLAST playing through and exploring the game after the fact. So, no. Some of us just thought the durability thing was a waste of resources, and could've made the game much more digestible to those who think it is absolutely dog shit to even be included in a ZELDA title.
The game literally hands weapons out like candy, and the master sword regens in like 5 mins… sounds like you just wanted to use the “best” weapon you found and never downgrade again instead of getting creative with all the monster parts, which is boring as fuck.
I don't hate either side of this and beat BotW on switch with no mods. As a compulsive looter from Borderlands, juggling what to drop or not drop became annoying when I knew how much more game there was to play. I wanted to keep exploring everything and not worry about being equipped correctly when I was focused on exploring the world. I understand the drive to build and prep for the next big battle. I also just want to play through the world and not add hours of item management when there's already many more hours of playing. To each their own I guess.
That’s a fair point! The game definitely does drag in the exploration part towards the end if you’re trying to do all the shrines and light up the things in the underground. I used a simple hover bike made of two fans and a seat to get around, and it still took forever. I can’t imagine just running around everywhere on foot, and a lot of the topography (especially underground) didn’t seem too friendly to using a ground vehicle…
It's a "cheat code" kind of thing. Are games more fun when you're invincible? When you have the best weapon?
I used to play games with cheat codes. They don't make the game "more fun" outright. They allow you to condense some fun into a shorter chunk of time, then the game subsequently has less replayability.
Deactivating weapon durability might make the game "more fun" in the short term, at the cost of reduced long-term playability. So it's no surprise that people who activated this particular cheat code had an experience like that of most cheat codes, reduced long-term enjoyment.
Lol sorry I insulted your personality... I mean this video game made by a corporation. Sorry, easy to mix up.
Who's insulted? You admitted that an element of difficulty made the game too hard. I don't think people will be lining up to insult me about that... except perhaps people in denial about finding a Zelda game too hard. But why would I care what they think?
What, the open world genre? Maybe Elden Ring, but tbh it would have been better had it not been open world.
I just don't really get BotW and TotK, and fwiw, I am that, 'played emulated with settings pumped for free' person. They both just seem so repetitive, worth like, 5 hours of fun.
Edit: to be clear, I did not turn off item durability or change any game mechanics, just resolution and fps. Item durability is a crutch the game relies of for balance, andnits annoying, but isn't related to the central complaint I have: game is repetative. So much is just, same kind of luzzle again, same kind of fight again, and no cool rewards that don't break. I don't get what the appeal is.
Pretty much any open world game, including Ubisoft ones.
In botw I realized once I disabled weapon durability that there is very little reason to explore the world once I got a decent weapon; that part of the game is contrived exclusively to justify weapon durability. So the open world sucks.
Then the "dungeons", the core and lifeblood of a Zelda game, are just one puzzle room that that takes 10 minutes. So it's a bad Zelda game.
And I know it's subjective but I just found the game boring. Like the game was made for young children so they couldn't make it too interesting to play. There was nothing interesting, or novel about it other than the glider, which other games have copies since then, so it's no longer unique. Compared to other open world games it was extremely bare bones. Even open world games before it had more stuff to do, and certainly more engaging combat.
It felt like a tech demo more than a game, and it's only impressive in the condescending way a console game can be called impressive. "Oh you made this game to work on a potato battery? Wow! Good for you!"
On top of that, I never appreciated Nintendo's business model of forcing me to buy a $300 console on top of $60 just to play the Mario, or the Zelda.
Pretty much any open world game, including Ubisoft ones.
Sorry, you can't really compare a game like Zelda to spreadsheets with todo-items.
The exploration mechanics alone were masterfully done in a way that only Nintendo had both the budget and the courage to experiment with.
Most other open worlds just shit all these icons with busywork on your map, while Botw actually fostered exploration and curiosity.
The exploration in BoTW/ToTK was just exploration with shipping lists.
“I need new weapons, food, and some Korok seeds. Where’s my spreadsheet of Fibonacci numbers so I can remember how many seeds I need”
No, it was like"ohh, what's over there? That there looks interesting! Look, a shrine! Let's get to that tower to find more interesting places!"
I never tried to stats out my BotW run.
Just because you like the setting doesn't make it intrinsically more interesting.
Plenty of people feel that way about far cry and assassin's creed, it's exciting for them to climb the next tower and see what is in new areas.
I was talking about the mechanics, not the setting. AC and Far Cry jizz icons all over the map with a cinematic once you climb a tower, while Botw's exploration is more organic and free-form.
The mechanics are the same, that's my point. 800 korok seeds littered across the map, 150 copy paste shrines, towers to reveal new map areas. Just because they aren't shown on a map doesn't mean it's not there or the primary game loop.
Also, the towers in botw play a cinematic when you get to the top.
What was even original about the glider? Gliding / parachuting mechanics have been around forever. Just Cause had them ages ago. Even Spyro games in the 90's had them.
I’m so glad to have read your criticism as it summed up how I felt about BotW. For context I am NOT a huge Zelda nerd but I played Twilight Princess back in the day and loved it. BotW got such press and rave reviews everywhere I turned that I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Switch just to play it. I played a few hours and was like… I can’t do this it is so boring.
People really hate weapon durability, huh? I thought it was kind of genius, and that TotK introducing a way to repair weapons was really bad for the gameplay loop.
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TotK didn't introduce a way to repair weapons, it reduced their durability to near nothing then gave you a way to buff them.
It did. In TotK only, put (almost) any weapon or shield on the ground in front of a Rock Octorok and let it inhale it and spit it out. You'll get back the same base weapon, with the same fused item, at full durability, but with a rerolled modifier. Each Rock Octorok can only do this once, so kill it afterwards so that you remember which ones you've used. They'll respawn at each Blood Moon so that you can repair again.
Some special weapons can't be repaired this way, so you have to use a workaround. If you want to keep whatever you have fused to them, go to Tarry Town and have the goron separate it. Then fuse the unrepairable weapon to anything that can be repaired. Feed that to a Rock Octorok, then take it back to Tarry Town and have it separated. The "unrepairable" weapon will good as new.
My Eldin map is covered in stamps showing where Rock Octoroks are, and I have a full inventory of strong weapons because I switch when their durability is low and then go on a somewhat tedious repairing spree when most of my weapons are flashing red.
And so much of this is just grind:
- grinding to find oktoroks
- grinding to exponentially find more of the little seed shits, so you can increase your inventory
- grinding to repair your weapons.
BoTW was a grindfest, and ToTK chucked more grind on top
Yeah. Weapon degradation in a video game that isn't trying to go for a realism vibe is absolutely fucking garbage. You've got arrows that light on fire, turn to ice, or have lighting as soon as you pull them out of the quiver, but yeah. Totally makes sense that my Master Sword needs a lil sleepy time to become usable again. Just fucking garbage.
You know I absolutely hated it at first until I realized, they just did it so that we would get to experience the full range of weapon options in the game. Otherwise you just stick to the one you find early on that works the best and completely ignore everything else they give you.
I don't experience the full range, though. I experience the Master Sword until it needs a nap, and then whatever crap I just picked up in my last slot because I don't want my fancy swords to break.
In prior Zelda games, the game designers would actually think about making monsters where certain types of attack are more effective than others. I would prefer experiencing a variety of weapons that way.
And that's your choice. If you don't choose specific weapons like Spears to deal with lizalfos for example, then you're just making the game harder for yourself. As I said earlier, I hated the durability mechanic at first too. To each their own.
It's not harder in any meaningful way. That's part of what I mean. If they designed enemies better I would be actually motivated to find and use a spear or other tool. That would be more fun.
It's fine that you like the durability but the experience as a whole is nothing like a Zelda game. I had a good time but if I had played it expecting a Zelda game I would have been profoundly disappointed.
The lizalfos are trivial to just avoid until they swing at you, and then just spam the sword attack until they get staggered. All of the enemies in the game are trivial once you get used to their attacks. Literally just avoid, attack, repeat. I hated botw until I set durability to 10x in cemu. Also set revalis gale to infinite uses, because a player shouldn't be punished for wanting to explore and you shouldn't have to spend 20 minutes climbing to reach some relatively pointless summit with yet another cokerock hiding at the top.
Well, I’ll tell you that I tried all the weapons in the game even with the stupid durability mechanic turned off. Each weapon has its own advantages. So, with durability turned off, I had the master sword for all the mobs I didn’t feel like dealing with as I was exploring. I had a fire sword to use for tactics or to light stuff on fire/cook. A ice wand because I liked the tactical advantage, and the same can be said for the thunder wand.
After that, every other weapon in the game was a reskin of other weapons. There was no point to them other than to have them there because of the stupid mechanic. Your rusted sword swings the exact same way as the master sword. It’s just a pin in the ass to use. Wow. That is just so fun.
But in all seriousness, it’s just not a good mechanic to have in a video game that is not trying to be a realistic video game.
It forces resource management, decision making, and engaging with the full array of tools you have at your disposal. It also means you never run out of the need for more good weapons.
I agree. This mechanic was super annoying at first, but I learned to appreciate it after putting more hours into the game. Now I fully understand why the developers made it this way.
It's mostly just that it doesn't make any fucking sense, most especially after the beginning of the game. None of the weapons are mostly diverse enough that the frequent changing created by durability encourages you to really play the game any differently, usually you have a stockpile of extra weapons anyways so you don't really even need to pick up new stuff, and most of the hard enemies drop the weapons that deal higher damage, meaning you'll want to use the high damage weapons on those enemies, so there's not much decision-making going on there. After fighting enough hard enemies later in the game, you get enough high damage weapons that it's not even really worth it to interact with most of the random bokoblin camps. Not that doing so was super interesting to begin with, outside of like the first couple hours of gameplay.
TotK solves some of these problems with the fusion mechanic and having increased enemy variety, but it's still not great, and most of what it does serves to assuage the shittiness of the system rather than provide a reason for it to exist in the first place.
The entire system was trash from the get go. I don’t care that weapons break IRL; I’m playing a fucking video game, get that shit out of there.
It isn't about realism, but creating a resource-management gameplay loop. Need better gear? You have to regularly work for it. It also encourages using weaker weapons in weaker areas, which makes the difficulty more consistent and fresh.
Yeah that’s all trash. I’m playing an action adventure game, not a logistics game. Get that crap out of there.
It's not that deep, lol. Again, it drives creative problem solving by adding a price to each action. Using your tools like the slate or other mechanics is free, and results in a more engaging gameplay experience than just "swing my strongest weapon forever."
You believe mechanics that support interesting problems and encourage creative solutions are "unnecessary?" What would you replace it with, to get the same results?
I played the game as a rom with weapon durability turned off. It was a great game after that, previously it had been tedious, which is the exact opposite of what a game should be. I get enough tedium IRL & through talking to people like you.
I would replace it with nothing since the system did not support interesting problem nor encourage creative solutions, it just made me button mash more to get more weapons to replace my broken ones. Once I turned it off I felt free to experiment with interesting ways to kill enemies since I wasn’t worried about my weapons anymore.
Combat was not an essential part of this game anyway, the puzzle solving and world were the best part. They could have just given me a set weapons that never changed and it would be essentially the same game. At least for me. The environmental interactions are just icing on the cake.
The main problem is weapon durability is in direct contention with how the dungeons are designed. The shrine puzzles try to encourage experimentation in finding solutions, but when using the time lock tool hitting objects depletes your durability, then once you run out of weapons, you need to leave the shrine to find new weapons\materials which ends up being a big interruption in the main gameplay loop. It's made even worse by the fact every weapon applies a different amount of force to a locked object per hit. I'm not sure what interesting and creative problem solving weapon durability adds. It really just encourages you to avoid combat and use easy to come by weapons wherever you can.
I think I'd be fine with it if they buffed it with everything and had a system that told you how much durability is left that isnt just the weapons' last few hits. It feels way too low for me and is somewhat unpredictable imo.
People hate that they removed everything about the Zelda games that made them fun and charming, and left a mid grinding experience. The weapons breaking don't really bother me much.
Old Zelda: find a temple, new set of enemies, solve puzzles until you get to the new tool, solve puzzles with the tool, fight a large boss that the tool conveniently works really well on.
New Zelda: find a shrine, fight yet another of these little guys. Find a shrine, solve two or three of the same puzzles with the tools you got in the first hour of gameplay. Spend large amounts of time just walking through areas of the map fighting the same campsites and outposts, hoping for a radar beep so you can find a shrine.
Yup, I finished BotW, and only because my kids wanted me to. I would frequently hand them the controller to make me some food or whatever, and I ended up looking up a guide to find the shrines for some special equipment because finding them wasn't fun. The boss fights were okay, but they got pretty same-y (basically, find the one secret, then smack it a bunch).
It has little to nothing to do with the Zelda games I love, so I didn't bother getting TotK since I've heard it's largely more of the same. Instead, I bought Link's Awakening and Skyward Sword and had a really good time. Those are great Zelda games, BotW was kinda meh.
The boss fights were okay, I guess. Once you have enough armor or hearts to survive a hit, you can just wander in with an entire restaurant of food and knock it around for a while. In the classic Zeldas you have your hearts and maybe four jars for healing, and you try to make it all the way through on that.
The beasts were neat little puzzles but the enemies inside are like 99% purple gunk shooting floating skulls. It's such a dull challenge. The only thing I like really enjoyed were the minigames getting inside the beasts (except the lizard), although those were all the same also.
Maybe I'll pick up Skyward Sword, I haven't done that one yet. I might still get TotK, like used or something. It was still chill to wander around aimlessly looking for stuff.
Skyward Sword reminded me of Ocarina of Time, but with a bit less interesting story (imo). But it has a really unique combat system designed for the Wiimote, which is still fun with the analogue sticks (or joycon probably).
It felt like a real Zelda game and I enjoyed it much more than BotW.
It's completely true. I like to call this the Halo effect. It's a pretty mid game that's entirely alone on it's platform, and therefore is massively popular and stands out.
That doesn't mean there aren't some fun features, like great physics, but that doesn't mean it's a truly great game.
I have played halo 1, 2, 3, and 4 front to back on legendary. It is one of my only accomplishments as a gamer, I have completed almost no other games. No ODST or Reach for me though, because I am unlucky.
Halo is a shooter from a pre-call of duty, pre-titanfall, pre-brink, pre-mirror's edge era. It doesn't have really any interesting movement mechanics, and the . The grappling hook in infinite is maybe a response to this other, better variety of FPS, but I still think it kinda comes up flat. It has basically no interesting cover mechanics. Post-doom, quake, unreal tournament, and boomer shooter, though, and those had good movement, so who fuckin knows what their deal is.
No, halo's much slower. Halo, you have a slower walk speed, your enemy projectiles are supposed to move much slower since they're all plasma based and you're usually offered the opportunity to have hitscan weapons. So your movement still matters, it's just less interesting. Most of the appeal of halo comes about as a result of this slower movement speed affording more easily made levels, with more interesting level design, and more easily made enemy AI with more interesting behaviors. Basically, where other shooters make the core gameplay as fun as possible, on the player's side, making the player a more interesting character to control and use, Halo would rather make everything else as fun as possible, everything around that core.
Most FPS's just have like, open spaces, and then corridors, and then big rooms, and that's basically it, because they can't make the level geometry super complicated without screwing up the player's movement options, or over-complicating everything since the player can either look at enemies or look at the level design and usually not at both at the same time, which is also why they mostly always try to keep you moving towards the enemies, or why unreal tournament relies so much on you memorizing the arenas.
I think this means that when most people evaluate Halo, they're doing so by measuring it against other shooters, and against this other philosophy, and Halo obviously ends up as pretty mid when measured against that. It also doesn't help that Halo can be pretty hit and miss with this philosophy, since this relies more on very consistently interesting changes in level design and enemy variety to keep things spicy, and this novelty tends to wear off as the series inevitably chugs along. It also doesn't help, the number of mid shooters which followed in Halo's wake, or are reminiscent of halo specifically because of this lack of mechanical complexity, this minimalism, but without understanding what made Halo good, was that they made up for it with a lot more hard work poured into the rest of the game.
I don't think it would be a major mistake to call halo mid, especially on the average, and especially as the series chugs along, and there's really just less and less to do in order to make it interesting, both in the story and in the basic design. At the same time, the series does have some pretty high highs, and probably Halo is one of the most interestingly designed first person shooters I've seen, because it's so hard to see the depth at first glance.
You should only compare halo with its generation of shooters. Unfortunately for Halo, it came out in the same year as Max Payne, return to castle Wolfenstein, Red Faction and Ghost Recon. All much better games that had some really innovative mechanics and gameplay. Halo meanwhile had... Well the Xbox, so unlike the previous games, it didn't split the audience.
As someone that has no nostalgia for the series, I have to agree with them. Halo was mid
I've been playing through the Halo series recently as I missed the craze growing up because I had a PlayStation and I'm not really getting it. I'm guessing it's just something you had to be there for? My first game was Super Mario World on the SNES and I loved COD4 when it dropped but trying to play Halo now is just not doing it for me I guess.
