The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

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seansthomas
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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by seansthomas »

Given that the release is now 3 weeks away and how many of us are likely to be playing it, I thought we should start a dedicated thread to stop the Zelda thread getting out of control.

Obviously plsase hide any spoilers given the length of time it'll take to beat this.

3 weeks until release and I don't think I've ever been more excited for a game. I've avoided watching any of the lengthy gameplay videos and just stuck to the trailers, but I did listen to the GameInformer podcast this week. They've had more hands on time than anyone else and talk a bit more about the mechanics and systems of the game. Sounds like it'll be very varied. Worth a listen.

Not sure what to expect from BOTW and have slight fears it won't be as tight a quest as some of my favourite Zelda's but I'm just incredibly excited about Nintendo truly reinventing one of their franchises and trying something new...
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Stanshall
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Stanshall »

Good call. For all the excitement around the Switch release, I must be honest, it's taken much of the focus away from the fact that we'll have a new full fat Zelda for the first time since the Gamecube. I've seen bits of early footage and all the trailers but I've also tried to avoid spoilers and much gameplay footage. In the meantime, I'm polishing off Wind Waker, which I've never completed before. I was also playing ALttP at the same time but I don't want to just rush through these classics due to some arbitrary time pressure. I can go back to the SNES game in a year and I think it'll still be gold.
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Craig
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Craig »

Everything I see looks amazing (except degradable weapons) but they've managed to go really long without divulging much about what the structure of the game will be. Sure, there's a huge explorable space, and then what? It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds!
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Suits
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Suits »

I've not looked/watched anything since the last epic trailer on the Switch presentation in early Jan.

I'm excited.

I'm also trying not to think about it too much, in regards to wondering about mechanics, systems, inventory etc.. I literally just want to pick it up and roll with it it.

I've tainted previous big games by learning too much about them before they release and consciously try to avoid doing it nowadays.

I've gone for the Collectors Edition from Nintendo, although from what I've seen, I much prefer the Japanese box art.
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Craig
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Craig »

Okay! I got to play the demo for my 20 minutes today, here are my impressions (spoilered to respect those in this topic who say they want to go in fresh.)
Spoiler: show
Within 20 minutes you can do a lot, or you can fumble about and do not very much at all, but the exploring was great. A little pressured because of the time limit though so priorities a little different.

Combat feels good, though you can die very quickly if you're not well equipped or paying attention.

Throwing your axe at a foe is extremely satisfying, until you realise you have no weapon and no follow up plan.

I knocked down an archer and stole his bow. He then started picking up dirt and throwing it at me. Cheeky sod.

I found a place with lots of dormant guardians. Crapped myself as they woke up one by one. They didn't chase me, but they were following me with a red laser sight. Think they might have shot me, but I legged it.

Some people in the demo managed to find a temple and were playing with a big magnet thing, so there seems to be a fair bit you can do if you know what you're doing.

It's wonderful to just run around and see the mountains in the background. I love that in real life too.

Really want to play more.
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Suits
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Suits »

Awesome, cheers for the spoiler post ;-) .

One question - How did performance seem ?? Some people have expressed some concern about chugging when covering large areas, anything you experienced worth mentioning ??
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by AndrewBrown »

If anybody is still on the fence, I'll be doing marathon streams on https://www.twitch.tv/playcritically starting sometime in the evening on March 3rd. I'll share my ongoing impressions once I actually have the game in my hands.
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Craig
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Craig »

I saw a little bit of slow down sometimes when a few enemies at once were dying. Not a deal breaker, but noticeable. I watched a lot of people play though, and it certainly didn't happen to everyone.
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by AndrewBrown »

What are the odds the demo was played on an unoptimized version of the game and the retail version won't experience that?

I ask, not out of concern for myself, but at how the nitpickers of the videogaming world will hail this one issue as the thing which ruins the whole game.
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Craig
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Craig »

If I recall correctly, this is the same demo as E3 2016. Of course it's now on the switch rather than WiiU, but it's not wildly outlandish thinking that it could have been optimised since.

I remember watching behind the scenes of God of War 3, and there was a huge crunch to make the demo work for E3. But if you watch the demo (or play it as it's the one they sent to consoles) you'll find the finished product pretty different in overall lighting and polish.

If it's a fairly simple job to covert from WiiU to Switch, then you could spend some time refining your demo build which already runs mostly fine, or those resources could be spent refining the end product.

I'm no expert, nor am I saying this is what will or has happened, but 8 months is a pretty long time.
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Flabyo
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Flabyo »

Getting a solid and consistent framerate is like at least halfway down the list of things you worry about when building a demo for a trade show.

I mean, you'll fix it if its a total shitshow, but just having the thing not crash is usually the main aim.

And often the branch you take for the demo won't get code updates and fixes from main anyway, because you need to be able to have that demo build handy at the drop of a hat so you tend not to risk taking fixes into it because you don't want to fight the knock-ons of that. (Also, in some companies demo builds are done by a different team. They take the current mainline build and then build the demo form it, often throwing in hacks and hard-coded things to make it work, and merging that against the main code line later is basically a fools errand)
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Stanshall »

That's reassuring and interesting. I'd suspected some of that to be the case so good to have it from the perspective of someone who's been there.

I understand also that the HUD has shown this current demo build to be the same as the E3 one. There have been subsequent demonstrations with a newer HUD but not available to the layman. It's a half memory of something I saw on reddit but I'll stand by it as cold hard fact.
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seansthomas
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

Hmmmm, interesting...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017- ... eason-pass

Given how good the Smash Bros and Mario Kart DLC was, I'm erring on the side of 'this could be ok'. DLC 2 in particular sounds a very good idea.

Was tweeting to Mike Diver from Waypoint the other day about what next for Zelda on Switch. Given the scale of this world and development time, I can see there not being another Zelda for the best part of a decade and rather Nintendo going down a GTAV route where you have a superb world and gameplay mechanic system in place, so you just add DLC, new features, new storylines, etc within it.

The idea of a sunken kingdom to explore in a future update, a Sky Dungeon, a new quest, mini games that rely on you mastering some of the unusual physics systems etc could all add real longevity to Hyrule and new reasons to go back, without the need for a full reworking.

This causes me some issues though. Will I want to play the DLC on Wii U in a years time if I intend to have a Switch by then? Dammit! Hope there is some way to transfer your save if you one day make - ahem - the switch...
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Suits
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Suits »

Not sure how I feel about this but I'm open to the idea.

I usually tire of the gameplay, or mechanics of most games before I tire of the world and crave more story.

I love Destiny but due to my 1000+ hour clock in it doesn't matter what content they add, as it all just feels the same, in a different wrapper.

I expect I'll end up getting it though.
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seansthomas
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

6 days to go! The previews that all came out yesterday all sound great. Very excited...
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Suits
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Suits »

seansthomas wrote:6 days to go! The previews that all came out yesterday all sound great. Very excited...
I'm trying so hard to avoid bumping into anything about it on the internet.

Twitter is like a minedield with .GIF's and screen shots.

Really looking forward to it.
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Stanshall
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Stanshall »

I've pretty much avoided everything until yesterday, only seen scant footage but I've watched several preview vids now, I really couldn't help myself. These vids were all very similar and largely just showed combat, so I don't feel anything particular has been spoiled for me. They were all at the start of the game basically, and even the combat was limited by embargo. What I would say is that I don't know how I will get through this week. Very, very positive response across the board.
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chase210
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by chase210 »

Edge gave it a 10!
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Stanshall
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by Stanshall »

Everyone's saying GOTY and then you remember that Mario Odyssey is also coming out this year!
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seansthomas
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Post by seansthomas »

chase210 wrote:Edge gave it a 10!
Did they now? That accolade still means a lot...

Hopefully it'll keep me busy until E3 when I can finally decide whether to buy a PS4 or Switch.
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