Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

Well after over a dozen hours, I've finally become addicted to TotK. This past week has been a constant back and forth between "Meh, it's just more BotW" and "Wow, this game is so creative!". It hasn't stuck for me until now. The opening part made it feel like a brand new game. Then when you get to Hyrule it felt like BotW. Then you start exploring the chasm and sky and it felt like a new game again. So now I feel a balance of both aspects, which is great. There's a reason why BotW was so good and the same can be said for TotK.

My main gripe (and praise) about TotK is the building aspect. While it's rather streamlined to build stuff, it just breaks up the pacing too much. I prefer the simplicity and fluidity of BotW. It's also the reason why my favourite ability is Ascend because it's so simple and useful. Building is a cool ability though and it fits the game's openness and creativity. I'm probably going to get used to it over time in all honesty.

I've also realised that I miss BotW's abilities. The bomb has been retained, although it's now finite, but I miss being able to create platforms on water.

I have been wondering about something. I have completely forgotten about the existence of Age of Calamity. Do you miss out on stuff in TotK if you haven't played that game? I know it's a prequel to BotW, but stuff like Purah's new appearance has made me concerned that I've missed out on something. I really should play that game regardless lol. Can't believe that I forgot about it.

@LtSarge Haven't played it, but my understanding is that AoC takes place in an alternative continuity/timeline, so technically not canon to the stories of BotW and TotK.

@Ralizah If that's the case, then that's good. I don't feel as much of a rush to play it then!

@LtSarge Kinda waiting to see if the successor is backwards-compatible or not, and, if so, if games on the system with unlocked framerates enjoy performance boosts.

I'm not a performance snob by any means, but the demo was really herky-jerky at points.

EXTREMELY fun, though, so I'll still play it even if it means putting up with that aspect of the game. A locked 30, or even, dare I hope, 60 would make it that much more fun.

@Ralizah You never know with some people. I am on somebody's ignore list here and I don't know why, as occasionally I'll see a new post in a thread, but then I click on the thread and there's no post. Being put on ignore wasn't the sole reason I wanted to just put this to bed and move on though. Like I said, I don't really care to argue or whatever you want to call it in the first place. I know not everything can be rosy, but I'd still rather spend my time playing games and discussing them rather then spending time otherwise and then just getting aggravated in the process. All that and I don't really want it to continue to derail the thread.

I had forgotten that NoA was the only branch that dropped the voucher system for a while, so that's my bad there. I still don't think it's enough in the long run as it's still $10 off a game that doesn't need to be full price still, but it's whatever. I think why it's all such a touchy subject is how it kind of ruined the excitement I initially had to dive into the ecosystem after never having a Nintendo system since the NES. There's no way I'm spending $50-$60 for old games when my main console is still going to be the PS5. It'd probably be slightly different if the Switch was my main or only console.

Your judge of character must be spotty then if you think I'm cool.

@kyleforrester87 I took it as him thinking that protecting the value of games was more important than people that don't want to pay full price for an old game being stuck doing so, especially somebody like me who got a Switch 5 years in. Being used to what the other two companies do, like what I said above, it was a buzzkill to know that almost everything that would be discounted on the other systems if the Switch was their platform wasn't.

In the end, it is what it is though. I don't want it to continue to derail the thread.

@KilloWertz to be honest I don’t buy a lot of Switch games mostly because of the price, but every game I do own is at least good if not an absolute banger - worth £50-60 when I bought them, and still now in my view!

But yes, there is far less prospect of an impulse purchase, like I might make on my PS5.

The biggest difference with Nintendo's pricing model nowadays is the absence of Nintendo Selects. But that usually started around 1 - 1.5 years before the system's successor launched, for example:

• Wii U Nintendo Selects started in April 2016, Switch launched in March 2017
• 3DS Nintendo Selects started in October 2015, Switch launched in March 2017
• Wii Nintendo Selects started in May 2011, Wii U launched in November 2012

Of which who knows when the Switch's successor will launch, we know it's not before April 2024 because of Nintendo's comments but it feels unlikely to be later in 2024 because of GTA6. March 2025 perhaps?

@KilloWertz To be clear about something, ignoring is only when you make it where you can't see someone else's posts. Blocking is an additional step, and it's what keeps them from seeing yours in addition. I like the ignore feature as it allows me to filter out fanboy posts in the article comments, but blocking, IMO, should require moderator/admin input, since it impacts the browsing experience of others.

I am also on someone's block list, and probably on more than a few ignore lists, since I'm mouthy and opinionated, but if people don't want to hear from me that badly, then it's their loss.

There are some games I would buy if they were cheaper, but they're not, so I won't. Like, those Famicom Detective Club remakes look pretty cool, but if I wasn't keen on paying full price for them at launch, I'm CERTAINLY not going to at this point. Ditto with a few other games.

Whereas even though I'm less interested in Sony's games by a considerable margin, I'm still more willing to take a punt when they're cheaper. If GoW 2018's price had never fallen as low as it did, I wouldn't have played it. And I probably won't grab the sequel until it's $10, either, since I know how low they go.

So I do know where you're coming from.

Hey, humility is a virtue.

I'm like one of six Switch owners who isn't playing Tears of the Kingdom right now. XD I don't think I have any Switch games coming for the next few months after Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, which I'm also getting for PS5. Why, you may ask? Because sometimes I like to play on the go. Mainly have my Switch for Nintendo exclusives, though.

I'd like to hear you guys' thoughts about this, but isn't a major flaw of TotK that you leave the tutorial area without having the paraglider? The game sets you loose to explore Hyrule but there are so many things you cannot do without the paraglider, such as completing certain shrines. I also haven't confirmed this for myself, but are there any Skyview towers that don't have water around them for you to land in if you don't have the paraglider?

In BotW, you leave the tutorial area with everything you need in order to explore the world. In fact, if I recall correctly, you need the paraglider in order to get off the starting area. So I find it a bit odd that the developers didn't think that a player could potentially play through a huge chunk of the game and not realise that they need the paraglider in a lot of situations.

Or maybe the idea is that the paraglider isn't necessary since you have Zonai devices in capsules?

Played a few more hours of TOTK today. Decided trying to play an hour or two during the week around my work is probably not the best way to enjoy this, so figured I'd wait for the weekend to do some meatier sessions.

Banged out the fire temple, for those who are looking for a more traditional Zelda experience, this will certainly scratch an itch I think, even if it won't fully satisfy it. I'd personally say much like with the sky one the journey to the temple was more interesting than the temple itself. Although I will say I thought this one had a better boss fight, I dunno I just found it all quite rudimentary mechanically really in the context of all this sandbox could offer to encounter design.

The rest of my time I spent in the open world, which is really where TOTK shines brightest for me, which is ironic as I thought it was BOTW's weakest aspect. It is so full of things to see, and do, and dynamic world events, people to help, stories or landmarks to discover or side quest chains that have to be first stumbled upon to be experienced. I play for hours and feel like I don't get a single thing done, and I mean this in the best possible way.

Just a shame these moments can and often will be spoiled by the bad controls, weak combat mechanics, occasional but sometimes severe frame drops/performance issues and poorly tuned enemies.

Ah, a nice day at home.

The plan: Play a bit of Zelda, take the dog on a long walk, clean the house, continue independently studying a foreign language, maybe start a new book, etc.

The reality: Literally just play Zelda from the time I wake up until around 9 PM like a Korean NEET. Hurriedly take the dog out and rush back to my stupid game.

Literally 10+ hours of TotK. My eyes are burning omg. I have no idea how this even happened.

I will say, though, while it was wonderful seeing my husband again, the entire water temple/zora quest line was sort of weak. Doing the stuff to even find the temple was primarily obnoxious busywork, and then the temple itself has this annoying low-gravity gimmick and just plays like a divine beast dungeon, but without the fascinating theming that made those dungeons so cool. Heck, even the build-up to it was weak compared to the Zora divine beast in BotW.

We'll see how it goes, but contrary to what I heard, I actually like the story elements and setpieces in BotW more overall. Although the open world-ing is definitely hugely improved here.

Your name is @Ralizah and you have a problem...

People were predicting the bara Ganondorf design years ago lmao

@KilloWertz I may actually have to set play limitations on myself like I'm a little kid or something.

@RogerRoger At least your streamer is probably making some level of money off of it.

But yeah, the open world-y elements have been refined to the point where the game has collapsed in on itself and become a sort of gaming black hole that your free time is unable to escape from. BotW was also addicting, but sort of gave you space to work toward a few objectives at a time. You weren't bumping into new side-quests or discovering entire hidden layers of the map constantly. You didn't just, like, randomly stumble on cave systems that became hour-long timesinks.

I'm still trying to figure out how I actually feel about the density of the content here.

Another weekend with Tears, this is becoming kind of an inversion of BOTW for me in a lot of ways. Reading back, I was probably less negative than I really wanted to be about the two Temples I had beaten in TOTK so far for fear of coming across as more negative about this game than I actually feel. If I am being really honest, I didn't really enjoy the Sky or the Fire Temples. When they were over, it was a relief, and I've been in absolutely no rush to start work on the other main questlines because I realise I just want to be in this world instead.

In BOTW the open world so often felt like this chore that just blocked my way to the thing that would progress the game forwards. And in a lot of ways, that is because it did, with it being a large map of key landmarks and then a lot of empty space between them. In retrospect and in the name of fairness, I guess there is at least narrative reasoning for why so much of BOTW is so barren, and why so much of the world felt like something to battle and overcome, rather than just experience. However, to me, it just never felt very fun. At least after those opening few honeymoon hours where the physics and other such things blow your mind.

TOTK considerably dials back on the survival elements and the surprise one shot enemies out of nowhere, giving you more opportunities to just pick out paths, go down them and see what you find there. It also fills every barren space with stuff to see or do in every direction as far as the eye can see. You can play this game for hours and basically achieve nothing, but still have an incredible time, because there is always that next 'wait, what is that over there?' thing to catch your eye as you are half way around to the last thing that did that to you.

And now each new 'what is that over there' is no long about loading 50 tonics in your bag for whatever weather will kill you in a few ticks and your walking boots, and instead becomes a fun puzzle of what combination of your abilities, the world and whatever crap you find around on the ground you can get you to that thing that caught your eye in the most fun way.

The problem is little in TOTK has meaningfully progressed outside of its world design. This inverts the BOTW experience somewhat, in BOTW I just wanted to get to where I was going, in TOTK the journey now sorta is the game. I know the journey is more than likely going to be far more interesting to me than wherever I end up by the end.

This guy's videos are awesome. Some great suggestions for simple vehicle builds and traps for those of us quite not as creatively inclined as the people making laser satellites and gundams and whatever else people are building in this game.

@RogerRoger Despite the numerous similarities between the two games, I feel like BotW and TotK are fundamentally different to me as overall experiences. Even with how gigantic that iteration of Hyrule was, BotW was a fundamentally tight game where everything was subordinate and fed into the larger goal of gaining enough strength to defeat Calamity Ganon. As such, while I didn't rush to the end and experienced the majority of the game's meaningful content (i.e. not hunting down 900 Koroks), it also wasn't one I spent hundreds of hours playing like some people did. My playthrough was fundamentally geared around completing the main story content, but the game's sometimes brutal survivalist gameplay and slow creep of power accumulation as you complete shrines and find increasingly powerful weapons meant a lot of time 'inhabiting' the world as well. But the telos was always becoming powerful enough to defeat the final boss, so there was a remarkable harmony to the game's components. It's a game I admire immensely precisely for its purity of design.

That balance is lost in TotK for me. I'm not entirely sure what it is Link is even out to do, considering the first major story arc I completed didn't seem all that connected to the larger issue of Zelda's disappearance.

TotK has transitioned from an open world survival action-adventure to... well, a toybox, really. There's a main plot, and it may or may not become more interesting as it goes on (I'm currently totally unengaged with it; note how it took nearly a week of persistent play before I grudgingly decided to tackle some of the main story content), but there's so much stuff in this game, and very little of it subservient to a larger singular narrative goal. If anything, I'm strengthening Link and adventuring in order to increase my ability to explore more as the game goes on, largely for its own sake. I just spent about three hours today in the Depths mining Zoanite so that I can increase my energy wells and be able to play around more with the game's incredible Lego-like free crafting system.

I think I'll spend far more time with TotK, because, as I said, being uninvested in the larger narrative, I don't care about the pacing. I think it's also probably the funnest video game I've ever played. Insofar as Shigeru Miyamoto views video games as toys, I think TotK represents the pinnacle of their achievement as a company to date. But it won't be as memorable or admirably designed an experience. At least for me. I hope that makes sense.

It is funny @Ralizah as I think we have landed in mostly the same place, but for me it is almost a completely resounding positive, whereas to you it maybe has more caveats with it.

@Pizzamorg Direct sequels often go this route, where they lose the more cohesive design of the original game in pursuit of expanded gameplay opportunities, and I'm always iffy on them. Sometimes, like with Super Mario Galaxy 2, they go so far in this direction that they end up losing a lot of what I loved about the original. I think this will be more of a Rayman Legends situation, though, where what it gains over the original is significant enough to justify what it lost in the process.

I'll be curious where the Zelda team goes next, because it's hard to imagine expanding world design and gameplay possibilities beyond what they achieved in this game.

@Ralizah I did have to laugh when I saw an American streamer create essentially a predator drone to clear camps from a distance while Link chills. The comments were about what you’d expect from that scenario 😂