The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

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Craig
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Craig »

The composer for this is Manaka Kataoka whose biggest work to date is Animal Crossing New Leaf. Usually you associate Zelda music with all the bombast, but this choice makes perfect sense when there's so much subtle atmospheric music going on.

I've also broke down and decided to buy this when I get my bonus in March. Feels good to give in.
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AndrewBrown
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by AndrewBrown »

I, uh... probably won't be playing along with Cane & Rinse for the foreseeable future. Sorry about that.

*goes back to playing Breath of the Wild*
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by zen_anarchy »

Its not bad is it ?
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seansthomas
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

This is literally a combination of all my favourite bits of games ever.

The beauty and isolation of ICO, the mystery of Shadow of the colossus, the adventure of Wind Waker, the world design of Xenoblade Chronicles, the faster ways of traversing that world after a few hours from Xenoblade Chronicles X and the sense of movement from Tomb Raider.

The only thing I haven't quite grasped yet is the combat. Not sure if I will unlock new moves but currently feels very limited and I can't even seem to jump on someone from high up. Thought there'd be dodges, repelling, etc. Suspect that comes...
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seansthomas
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

I excitedly exclaimed to my wife last night after paragliding into a valley of wild horses and managing to get on one:

'Look, a horse!'

She gave me a withering look of 'Am I supposed to give a shit?' But you guys understand, right?!
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Flabyo
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Flabyo »

The music is so restrained, just the occasional piano melody as you explore, so when a piece does fade in it feels all the more special.

Someone, I think it was Leon? Said on twitter that the open world game this most feels like is Dragons Dogma. The world is big, but feels constructed still rather than procedurally generated. There are things out there that will wipe you out in seconds that you know you'll be coming back for later. And the plot doesn't feel like it's giving you any more than a gentle nudge to point you on your way.

It's not as side quest dense as a Bethesda game, and the writing isn't of the same standard of the Witcher 3, but the freedom to explore and the rewards for doing so top both so far. there's almost always an amazing vista to experience over the next hill.

(Favourite 'gamey' thing so far: the way things you've yet to do tend orange in the world, and ones you've done turn blue, mean you can always tell where you have things to do, from a distance. It's easy at a glance to say 'I've not been over there yet')
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ratsoalbion
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by ratsoalbion »

seansthomas wrote:The only thing I haven't quite grasped yet is the combat. Not sure if I will unlock new moves but currently feels very limited and I can't even seem to jump on someone from high up. Thought there'd be dodges, repelling, etc. Suspect that comes...
Not only is that all in there, but you can do pretty much everything from the off.
If you don't work it out for yourself through experimentation, there are people and places (plus the occasional tooltip) that will fill you in.

By the way, my strongest recommendation to anyone playing this is PRO HUD, PRO HUD, PRO HUD.
Get rid of the intrusive minimap and bathe in the world instead.
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Suits
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Suits »

Pro HUD ?!?!

Didn't think to look out for that.
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ratsoalbion
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by ratsoalbion »

I turned to Pro Hud after about 45 mins and haven't regretted it for a second:
http://kotaku.com/if-you-re-playing-zel ... 1792734400
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Flabyo
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Flabyo »

I'm loving that there's a small a element of simulation going on in here. They've never done this in the series before, and very few open world games bother with anything more than 'fire burns things'.

Here it's more complex. There's shades of Minecraft about it actually, which isn't too surprising given the global dominance of that. Farcry 3 as well, in terms of the interactions between wildlife and foe.

As a game ai coder this is the sort of thing I like to build. Define rules and simple behaviours for the things in your world, then let them run and interact. The results are often surprising, sometimes downright hilarious, and rarely completely predictable. You'll get more player engagement from this than even the most brilliantly told narrative (and I love a good narrative too). Every tweet along the lines of 'I was doing X and then suddenly Y and it was the coolest thing ever!' Makes it worth the effort.
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James
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by James »

Here, here, Glen!

Pro HUD was on from the beginning, as per Leon's recommendation. Needless to say, I...
Spoiler: show
...pushed a boulder or two, climbed a tree and cut another few down, then wandered off to a couple of Bokoblin camps and scaled a few ruins...
...before stumbling (quite unintentionally) on the objective I'd been set at the very beginning. Quite taken with what little I've played so far.
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seansthomas
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

ratsoalbion wrote:
seansthomas wrote:The only thing I haven't quite grasped yet is the combat. Not sure if I will unlock new moves but currently feels very limited and I can't even seem to jump on someone from high up. Thought there'd be dodges, repelling, etc. Suspect that comes...
Not only is that all in there, but you can do pretty much everything from the off.
If you don't work it out for yourself through experimentation, there are people and places (plus the occasional tooltip) that will fill you in.

By the way, my strongest recommendation to anyone playing this is PRO HUD, PRO HUD, PRO HUD.
Get rid of the intrusive minimap and bathe in the world instead.
Thanks Leon. I suspected it may be my shortcomings rather than the games. Need to spend some time working on that then...

Saw that Kotaku article and turned that off. Also deactivated the Shrine locator for the time being. The HUD and that functionality reminded me a bit of Far Cry or ACreed. Far prefer charting the map myself and getting totally lost.

Genuinely see myself playing this until October.
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Michiel K
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Michiel K »

Spent Friday night with a friend who has a Switch + Zelda. We played for about 4 hours and spent about an hour in the forest, trying to hunt boars, until we scared them all off, apparently. I don't have any affinity for hunting in real life and was genuinely surprised how much I was getting into it! :lol:

Afterwards I just shot a pheasant and used that for...
Spoiler: show
the old man's 'perfect meal'.
It's going to be hard holding off on this one. I almost bought the Wii U version when I saw it in a store yesterday, but I have games to play for the podcast.
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by JadePhoenix »

ratsoalbion wrote:If there's one thing we've learned over the past 18 months it's that when it comes to Zelda, one player's meat is very much another's poison.

Having played 7 or 8 hours, I think the game is incredible (so far), but it changes so much about Zelda that I think some will be alienated and feel that in attempting to please 'modern gamers' and take influences from other games, Nintendo may have diluted some of its personality.

To this end, while I don't much like, let alone agree with it, this one negative review at least serves to illustrate how some (will) feel about thegame:
http://www.zam.com/article/1365/the-leg ... ild-review
This is kind of where I'm at. It's a great game, and I'm enjoying it, but it's a great Elder Scrolls game, not a Zelda game. If you changed the character models and names, you'd never be able to tell this was supposed to be Zelda.
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ratsoalbion
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by ratsoalbion »

Obviously I don't know how much of the story you've done, but the more time I have spent in and around the other major characters the more 'Zelda' the game has felt for me.

Not that it feels as cosy and comfy as just stepping back into LTTP or OOT, but that there are familiar vibes tying it distinctly to its own ancestry.

I am smitten.
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Stanshall
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Stanshall »

JadePhoenix wrote:It's a great game, and I'm enjoying it, but it's a great Elder Scrolls game, not a Zelda game. If you changed the character models and names, you'd never be able to tell this was supposed to be Zelda.
My impressions ten to twelve hours in: The story, NPCs, script, music, mechanical solidity, artistic direction are all pure Zelda.

The shrines and combat are pure Zelda, evolved.

The less tangible tbings like charm and tone and personality are pure Zelda.

It's Elder Scrolls in that it's got a large open world and has a fantastic sense of freedom.

Stuff that's an evolution of open world games:

Encouraged to use wide variety of items and weapons rather than hoard a load of potions/useless weapons.
Map doesn't get cluttered with objectives and icons, retains the sense of discovery.
Relatively little spoon feeding with quests or progress, need to listen to NPC dialogue.
Integration of mechanics with collection for quality of life. (deliberately vague).
HUD

In my opinion.
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seansthomas
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

Stanshall wrote:
JadePhoenix wrote:It's a great game, and I'm enjoying it, but it's a great Elder Scrolls game, not a Zelda game. If you changed the character models and names, you'd never be able to tell this was supposed to be Zelda.
My impressions ten to twelve hours in: The story, NPCs, script, music, mechanical solidity, artistic direction are all pure Zelda.

The shrines and combat are pure Zelda, evolved.

The less tangible tbings like charm and tone and personality are pure Zelda.

It's Elder Scrolls in that it's got a large open world and has a fantastic sense of freedom.

Stuff that's an evolution of open world games:

Encouraged to use wide variety of items and weapons rather than hoard a load of potions/useless weapons.
Map doesn't get cluttered with objectives and icons, retains the sense of discovery.
Relatively little spoon feeding with quests or progress, need to listen to NPC dialogue.
Integration of mechanics with collection for quality of life. (deliberately vague).
HUD

In my opinion.
I'm with you on all those points. And Leon in his verdict that it gets more Zelda-y once you leave the plateau.

First genuinely open world game I've ever truly adored, in that the world DOES feel open. Take much of what I liked about the best bits of Okami, Far Cry 3, Arkham Asylum, Assassins Creed, Xenoblade, Xenoblade X, Tomb Raider and makes one giant best of out of it, with the variety and warmth I love of Zelda.

Think its rewritten open world games. These physics are now the gold standard and going back to those games I mentioned will make them all feel hollow.

I'm 17 hours in and barely starting the main mission. And I'm excited about that. 17 hours into most games I'm clock watching...
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KSubzero1000
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by KSubzero1000 »

I'm not a huge fan of open world game design and could never connect with the Zelda series the way I wanted to, but I have to admit that all these impressions I'm reading are making me very curious. Then again, I thought the exact same thing back when GTA IV came out!
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by ratsoalbion »

If you don't like open world games or Zelda, I would not recommend this videogame.

However the paradox is that I would probably recommend this videogame to anyone who ever loved a videogame.
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by KSubzero1000 »

I'm perfectly capable of finding enjoyment in great open world games. The Witcher 3, MGSV, even Õkami or Yakuza (if they count) to name a few. But I just consider it to be a fundamentally flawed design choice instead of the "ultimate" world design style it is often being praised as. And I do respect the Zelda games a lot and own the majority of them in one form or another. I just never could find the motivation to play any single one all the way through. I had planned to buy BotW at some point, it's just that these impressions are making me more curious than I would have expected.
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