The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
Post Reply
User avatar
Suits
Member
Posts: 3174
Joined: October 28th, 2015, 3:25 pm
Location: Chelmsford, UK

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Suits »

This is such a wonderful, wonderful video game.
User avatar
Flabyo
Member
Posts: 3576
Joined: August 8th, 2013, 8:46 am
Location: Guildford

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Flabyo »

Yeah, the essential 'Zelda-ness' of it doesn't start to assert itself until you start making some headway with the story.

Some more random thoughts:

The town music themes are more dynamic than they first appear. I was stood in Kakariko for a time while I did something out of game, and I noticed the pace, key and instrumentation of the towns theme tune change to match the time of day. It picks up pace with the dawn, is most active at noon, and dials it down as the sun sets. It's subtle though.

I've only heard the main 'Legend of Zelda' theme once, and even then it was in a very faint under-melody that I might not have caught if I hadn't had headphones on. They're holding that back for something special, I can tell.

Sonically as a whole it's taking a very different approach to the series norm. Music is held back primarily for places where people live, with only the occasional mournful piano tinkling to accompany you in the wild. It's more Fallout than Skyrim, in that sense. I can see it being nominated for a lot of GDC awards, but I hope they don't overlook the audio achievement.

There's a lot of subtle nods to previous games in the series. Mainly in place names, but in other ways too. My favourite is that the area leading to one of the main towns starts off with an approximation of the same approach to the same town in Ocarina. Feels like it's trying to say 'this is the same place as before, we can just show you more of it'.

Lightning storms can do one though.
User avatar
hazeredmist
Member
Posts: 1709
Joined: June 25th, 2013, 12:45 pm
Location: The DMZ
Contact:

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by hazeredmist »

Worth adding a [SPOILERS] tag in this thread now, I'm saving this game till my birthday and am reading things I don't want to see now!

Glad people are enjoying it. I can't wait.
User avatar
ratsoalbion
Admin
Posts: 7918
Joined: August 28th, 2012, 9:41 am
Location: Brighton, England
Contact:

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by ratsoalbion »

hazeredmist wrote:Worth adding a [SPOILERS] tag in this thread now, I'm saving this game till my birthday and am reading things I don't want to see now!

Glad people are enjoying it. I can't wait.
Noted!
User avatar
Stanshall
Member
Posts: 2370
Joined: January 31st, 2016, 6:45 am

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Stanshall »

Flabyo wrote: The town music themes are more dynamic than they first appear. I was stood in Kakariko for a time while I did something out of game, and I noticed the pace, key and instrumentation of the towns theme tune change to match the time of day. It picks up pace with the dawn, is most active at noon, and dials it down as the sun sets. It's subtle though.
I only realised this late last night, as I stood over Kakariko Village, and the theme seemed to be more moody, sparse and soporific under a full moon. I wondered whether I was just a little sleepy and then paraglided down to get a soft bed for the night, woke up at noon to a much more jaunty arrangement of the same theme! What a beautiful game.

I even love how the game over screen changes depending, etc.
User avatar
seansthomas
Member
Posts: 856
Joined: March 31st, 2015, 8:10 am

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

Breath of the Wild is on track to being one of the best games I've ever played.

The whole experience feels so organic and, well, wild that I genuinely think everyone's experience of it will be personal to them.

Plenty of games claim to be open world but, other than taking a linear story and spreading it out over a large map, few do much outside of that. Most have their one, defining unique feature and Zelda seems to have taken all of those, perfected them and thrown in some of their own quirks to make it truly open world.

You'll see features from Assassins Creed (scaling tall structures), Far Cry 3 (taking on settlements), Xenoblade Chronicles (a beautiful alive world to roam from the off), Dark Souls (weapon and combat variety), Xenoblade X (new ways of transport make getting around fun), Okami (the mythos and charm), ICO (interesting puzzles), Shadow of the colossus (sense of isolation and mystery), Metal Gear Solid V (variety of ways to tackle problems), Fallout (NPC missions force you to roam), GTAV (mission variety and varied weather), Tomb Raider (sense of traversing the landscape and hunting) and Arkham series (hints on loading screens), but they're all interwoven and slick. [Disclaimer: not played Witcher 3]

But throw in the physics engine, weather effects and verticality and this is a true, vibrant sand box. I've tackled enemy encounters in so many ways; pushed boulders onto enemies, thrown bombs into a fire, made a Chinese lantern decoy to distract foes, charged into a camp and made it out limping having used up every weapon I had, started a wild fire to smoke them out, used a metal door as a giant shield, batted foes away and stealthed through unnoticed taking them out one by one and paragliding in wreaking havoc.

The physics too are immense. Cooking the apples you find makes them give out more health, so the game even takes into account the proximity they have to things like lightning bolts, lava, bomb blasts and campfires. There have been times where I've been able to teleport to a village and stock up bit I've thought, nah, I'm going to find shelter, a boar and a campsite and see what happens in this woods. And usually, something does.

I've disabled all the on screen HUD and the sensors which tell you where shrines are. Its also down to you to chart and plot your map outside of major settlements, which is the games real moment of genius. This doesn't feel like a checklist, but a genuine adventure.

The first few hours feel very un-Zelda but, hit a village, and the charm and warmth is still there. Most excitingly, their work with the indies, this game and Splatoon prove to me that Nintendo are listening, empowering their younger developers to take on board their experiences from other formats and modernise their classic series. And outside of Mario Galaxy, Nintendo haven't done that properly since Metroid Prime.

I've no idea how they top this, but this has given every other developer a new high water mark for open world quests. Even Rockstar. I really hope that this is the beginning of a second golden era for Nintendo.
User avatar
Stanshall
Member
Posts: 2370
Joined: January 31st, 2016, 6:45 am

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Stanshall »

I couldn't agree more with you. There are still a number of elements I know will be game changing, such as starting a fire by myself, but I just haven't got round to it yet. I assume it can be done, anyway, and it'll be a live physics type of thing, rather than the locked in start a fire fixed animation cut scene you'd get elsewhere. I won't forget the first time I shot a fox with a fire arrow. I actually felt really bad, like I'd extinguished something beautiful and full of life. Then I realised in amazement that I'd seared the meat with my flaming arrow and vowed to make the entire species extinct, in the same way. Glorious.
User avatar
AndrewBrown
Member
Posts: 357
Joined: November 21st, 2015, 8:37 am
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by AndrewBrown »

I just beat it and I remain convinced that this is among the finest videogames I've had the pleasure of playing. Not bad; usually by the end of a sandbox game I'm resenting its very existence.
User avatar
Craig
Member
Posts: 576
Joined: October 25th, 2015, 1:04 pm

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Craig »

For those who are enjoying it, can you picture how the DLC is going to fit in? As in, can you see it sitting well as an addition to the game?
User avatar
seansthomas
Member
Posts: 856
Joined: March 31st, 2015, 8:10 am

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

AndrewBrown wrote:I just beat it and I remain convinced that this is among the finest videogames I've had the pleasure of playing. Not bad; usually by the end of a sandbox game I'm resenting its very existence.
Are you winding us up?! Or did you get a review copy a fortnight ago?!

I've put about 20 hours in and still haven't scratched the surface...
User avatar
seansthomas
Member
Posts: 856
Joined: March 31st, 2015, 8:10 am

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

Craig wrote:For those who are enjoying it, can you picture how the DLC is going to fit in? As in, can you see it sitting well as an addition to the game?
Hard to tell given how early on I am in respect to the story, but I've never seen an issue with the idea.

In fact, in a rare moment of actually getting something right about Nintendo, I predicted they may do this a few months back a la GTAV. The world is so big and the physics so good that another quest hidden away in the game seems not just appropriate, but expected in my eyes. Could be a great way to force people to go to the places they might not otherwise have or else it could involve an entire, new dungeon.

Reckon it'll be great.
User avatar
Flabyo
Member
Posts: 3576
Joined: August 8th, 2013, 8:46 am
Location: Guildford

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Flabyo »

DLC fits into open world games just fine. Three possible approaches:

1) you add new content to an existing populated area, this tends to be minor stuff like the player owned houses in Oblivion.
2) you take an area that was empty, or mostly empty, and add something there. Plenty of space in Zelda for that.
3) you add a completely new area that exists outside of the main game. This is the approach Bethesda often takes, and that The Witcher 3 takes too.
User avatar
Flabyo
Member
Posts: 3576
Joined: August 8th, 2013, 8:46 am
Location: Guildford

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Flabyo »

There's a lot of really fantastic game design to be pulled out of this one, to the point where I could write a whole piece just about the clever design hints in one of the quests. And that sounds utterly generic but I'm trying not to spoil anything at all.
User avatar
AndrewBrown
Member
Posts: 357
Joined: November 21st, 2015, 8:37 am
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by AndrewBrown »

seansthomas wrote:Are you winding us up?! Or did you get a review copy a fortnight ago?!
Nope. I didn't even get to start until Saturday because Amazon fouled my order up. Beat it just shy of the 40 hour mark. The core quest itself really isn't that long if you focus solely on it, so Breath of the Wild really isn't that different from other open-world games in that regard.

Here's the livestream where I beat it.



EDIT: Updated with higher-quality video.
Craig wrote:For those who are enjoying it, can you picture how the DLC is going to fit in? As in, can you see it sitting well as an addition to the game?
My guess is the forthcoming story-based DLC will focus on the Yiga Tribe, as they're... not terribly well-developed right now. They're just kinda there.
User avatar
Flabyo
Member
Posts: 3576
Joined: August 8th, 2013, 8:46 am
Location: Guildford

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Flabyo »

Whereas I'm just shy of the 40 hour mark, have as many hearts as Andrew does there, and I've... erm... beat only one dungeon.

I may have a shrine quest problem.

If you're a player that looks at the map and thinks 'everything that looks like it might be a building, I'm going to go and look at' then you'll probably have similar hours to me. There's a lot of places on the map with things to do that the main quest doesn't really send you anywhere near. Quite a bit of environmental storytelling too.

At some point I'll probably go back to the main quest. Maybe.
User avatar
chase210
Member
Posts: 1075
Joined: June 3rd, 2013, 11:22 am

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by chase210 »

So, I've played a fair bit of BOTW now, and while I like it a lot, I don't love it. Here's my thoughts on why I don't like it as much.


- Weapon degradation is terrible.
- Don't like the lack of structure and vague directions.
- Shrines are not a replacement for several good dungeons
- I'm sick to death of boring open world's which this game includes.
- Framerate drops, boo.
- Voice acting also isn't great.
User avatar
Flabyo
Member
Posts: 3576
Joined: August 8th, 2013, 8:46 am
Location: Guildford

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Flabyo »

I'll give you the voice acting. They may as well have not bothered, it's pretty awful.
User avatar
seansthomas
Member
Posts: 856
Joined: March 31st, 2015, 8:10 am

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

I've put about 25 hours in and only have 6 hearts. Only visited one village and haven't seen a dungeon or memory.

Spent 2 hours last night beachcombing and scaling mountains without seeing a soul, bar a huge boss.

I'm adoring this.
User avatar
Stanshall
Member
Posts: 2370
Joined: January 31st, 2016, 6:45 am

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Stanshall »

I jumped off somewhere tall in thick fog yesterday and landed on a thing I could barely see which triggered a completely unexpected challenge which was just really really cool. I thought I'd broken it by doing something you can't normally do in these games and then I realised that not, they've thought of that and presented me with a different problem to overcome. I've also put in forty hours and just begun my first proper dungeon. I've still only got three hearts but two full stamina wheels. I'm playing it like I play Souls, just run past everything until I want to fight.

What a game!
User avatar
Suits
Member
Posts: 3174
Joined: October 28th, 2015, 3:25 pm
Location: Chelmsford, UK

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Suits »

I've been using the amiibo functionality in this quite a lot.

Mostly it's just some additional resources but some of the Zelda amiibo's are pretty handy.

You can only use an amiibo once in a real life (24 hours) which stops spamming but none of the items are game changing really.

Probably the most useful application of amiibo's I've seen in a game so far.
Post Reply