It's not even a bad game as such, but fuck Nintendo and fuck whoever produced and directed it. It's not just lazy, it literally pushes back games as an art form.
Yeah, some parts of it are cool and/or innovative (the dungeons are great), but the main questline overall and especially at the end is pathetic in the way that it leans on set pieces and cinematography as a crutch in a game that is supposedly centered on freedom.
Remember like a decade ago when every single fucking game that was "good" was one that just pretended to be a movie that you push buttons to advance, and that produced a swamp of QTE bullshit and games that only exist for the cutscenes? That trend had clearly been receding in recent years even though Last of Us (the main example of that trend) is still quite popular.
But Nintendo found just the way to revive it! "Hmm, games that pretend to be kino are old-hat, so what do we do to market to masses that we treat like slack-jawed yokels to impress as many of them as possible? I know! Instead of pretending to be kino, let's pretend to be Infinity War!"
It's the same shit! It's just a fucking Marvel formula transplanted to Breath of the Wild's setting, with vapid not-even-scavenger-hunts to watch cutscene after cutscene where cool things happen that are completely disconnected from player input.
Everyone knows that the beast ganon fight in BotW was dogshit. You know the dragon fight at the end of TotK? Literally the same thing! You get on a fucking mount and zoom around the big scary monster that doesn't actually do anything, strike the big glowing weak points along its body, and then stab it in the fucking forehead and it's done. But now, because it has some Avengers-ass "Oh, I recognize the thing!" direction with Dragon Zelda suddenly becoming [almost] an actual participant in the plot and Dragon Ganon shooting a billion fireballs that aren't even fucking aimed at you while you fly circles around him, now it's cool? Or because the fucking Force Ghosts pop in and contradict the rules about the dragon transformation being permanent so that Link can get his waifu as a prize for fighting the monster, but she has some voice lines so it's egalitarian!
And don't get me started on having the bosses come back along with the Sages ("It's just like Infinity War!") to just fucking negate each other offscreen. Absolute horseshit that makes the Divine Beast business at the end of BotW look elegant by comparison.
Fuck these fucking hack writers and their pandering bullshit that we will now get a thousand other games imitating. We're just going to get compounding dark ages of writing as paradigm after paradigm is added to make it worse and worse as these shitheads optimize the formula for selling both to credulous 13-year-olds and otaku 35-year-olds. I hate it.
7/10
TotK is Skyward Sword's antithesis: it has solid mechanics that are a ton of fun to play around with but an absolute dogshit story and world building that makes you wonder if anyone in-house ever bothered to ask what they were doing in between play testing building mechas.
Everything in the tear cutscenes was some extremely fanfic-ass writing. I started laughing so hard at all the hamfisted foreshadowing, generic plots, and original character donutsteal.
I still enjoyed it though; the gameplay is fun and unintentionally funny is still funny.
I didn't even hate the cutscenes, there were some cool elements, but it was a fucking anime and not a game
7/10
:soypoint-1: :so-true: :wojak-nooo: The council has found you... guilty of the crime of treason against objective goodness. :soypoint-2: :heated-gamer-moment: :very-intelligent:
I have one fond memory of QTEs and it was in Resident Evil 4. I was at a friend's dorm watching him play as we sat on his bunk bed; he was on the top level while I was on the bottom. He had gotten to the cutscene where Leon first talks to Salazar while he's on his balcony with the hooded bugmen. He had set his controller down and was taking a drink from a can of coke until suddenly a flashing "B" prompt appeared on screen. In the scramble to hit the button in time, he knocked the can across the room and fell out of the bunk bed, face first.
But by god, he made it in time, and Leon survived.
Back on topic, it's not surprising that the final boss sucks given BotW, as you say, but that's too bad.
That is funny and I'm not saying QTEs are absolutely always bad, but at the time they were so grossly overused that it was just insufferable.
You're absolutely correct, it just reminded me of this. Also reminded me to maybe try playing through Ninja Blade which is supposed to be nothing but QTEs.
Asura's Wrath is mostly QTEs, and like 80% of the gameplay that isn't QTE is straight filler. Also a very pretty game with amusing fights.
Oh, hell yeah, I remember that! Watched it all on youtube a couple years back because, y'know, it really is just a movie lol. I recall having no idea what the story was about. Something to do with aliens eating the planet but Asura was so mad that he pulled a God of War and punched everything to death.
Basically Asura is a god-like creature on a council of gods, and for some reason the other gods conspire against him and his family, killing his wife, capturing his daughter and sealing him away. Thousands of years later the seal breaks and he goes on a quest to Kill God to save his daughter and avenge his wife, all of which is accomplished with extensive punching and a small amount of kicking, headbutts, etc.
It's worth watching again if you're looking to kill time later. You can see the age in the graphics but the animation is excellent and so is the direction (and the graphics are nice, you can just see the seams is all)
Remember like a decade ago when every single fucking game that was “good” was one that just pretended to be a movie that you push buttons to advance, and that produced a swamp of QTE bullshit and games that only exist for the cutscenes?
I can't even bring myself to start Death Stranding because the first hour and a half or so is all cutscenes, and I'm a goddamned adult with obligations and usually can't block out that much time in one sitting. Plus, you know, if I do set aside that time, I'd like to actually play the fucking game, not sit and watch endless cutscenes. Maybe the next time that my spouse and kid go to visit the in-laws, I can scarf some edibles and power through it.
I remember being pissed off at how little you got to interact with the game during the opening of Final Fantasy X. Oh, how the turntables.
Everyone knows that the beast ganon fight in BotW was dogshit. You know the dragon fight at the end of TotK? Literally the same thing! You get on a fucking mount and zoom around the big scary monster that doesn’t actually do anything, strike the big glowing weak points along its body, and then stab it in the fucking forehead and it’s done. But now, because it has some Avengers-ass “Oh, I recognize the thing!” direction with Dragon Zelda suddenly becoming [almost] an actual participant in the plot and Dragon Ganon shooting a billion fireballs that aren’t even fucking aimed at you while you fly circles around him, now it’s cool?
butterfly tears intensify
Or because the fucking Force Ghosts pop in and contradict the rules about the dragon transformation being permanent so that Link can get his waifu as a prize for fighting the monster, but she has some voice lines so it’s egalitarian!
But The Prophecy(tm)(r) says only three people matter in all Zelda timelines and Zelda herself must always be imperiled and rescued in some way by Link because something Ganon(dorf) did. :morshupls:
I know the CDi games get dunked on a lot, but at least they tried to mix it up, give Zelda some adventuring chops two times, and successfully didn't blow up or reboot Hyrule for 2(3?) whole games too.
Actually the prophecy says that only nine-ish people matter because there are the six sages (which may not include Zelda). I still think you're harping too hard on what is basically just a serialization of Arthurian lore, but whatever.
didn’t blow up or reboot Hyrule for 2(3?) whole games too.
I think this is a bad attitude. It was good how past Zelda games didn't really give a shit about "cohesive lore" among all Zelda games and were mostly written either just for themselves or for the series of 2-3 games they were part of. This is literally the sort of creative liberty you are complaining about them not taking elsewhere. They should just tell the story they want and say "fuck the Deep Lore".
basically just a serialization of Arthurian lore,
Arthur was a symbol of unification, an embodiment of a divided island coming together to repel threats to its unity until a tragic fall. His Knights of the Round Table were more essential to his mission in life than some magic sword or his own specific personal actions except at the very beginning and very end of his reign. Link doesn't exactly have a consistent recurring group of peers that carry out quests on his behalf, and for that matter, very few of the story beats but "foretold hero" and "magic sword" are held in common between them.
You've dunked me before for bad analysis so I think you're fair game this time.
Also, Arthurian lore didn't blow up and reboot Camelot/England in multiple timelines for multiple sequels. Sure, there were multiple versions, but they tended to gravitate around one of two stories in their retellings: the Sword in the Stone, or Excalibur. They weren't about "oh yeah Arthur's back again and so is Guenevere and Morgana le Fay/Mordred except this time England is flooded" or whatever.
It was good how past Zelda games didn’t really give a shit about “cohesive lore”
Too much of almost anything is probably not going to be so good. I'm going to stand by this being a tiresome gimmick for the franchise.
Metroid managed to mostly stick to one timeline that mostly acknowledges what happens before any given game and builds on those events instead of resetting things (except for plot contrivances for why Samus typically loses her weapons and has to find them again), and even with some stinkers in the franchise, I prefer that for sure.
They should just tell the story they want and say “fuck the Deep Lore”.
Sure sure, but "the story they want" is dull and repetitive to me at this point.
The Simpsons has been going on for almost as long as I've been alive, and it's "the story they want" too, but it is also stuck in a tiresome time loop where things never change in a lasting way, resetting to an expected default state, occasionally wandering off a little, but usually returning to a near-complete reset of the baseline plot default by the next episode, not unlike the Zelda franchise at this point. If it goes on long enough, the Flanderization of Zelda is likely to only increase in a similar way.
Your previous claim that you don't care about the Zelda franchise that much is getting less and less convincing each time a thread like this has you in it. :fry:
Arthurian lore didn’t blow up and reboot Camelot/England
:sicko-wistful:
:british-maw: :xi-gun:
I mean, you have a point. A reboot of :ukkk: sounds great right about now. :edgeworth-shrug:
I feel obligated to point out that both BotW and even more so TotK have the main plot center around assembling a Knights of the Round, though it gets played too much like the Avengers, as I already whinged about.
Incidentally, I regret to inform you that Zelda is likely not going to further flanderize but instead become a self-sucking abomination of Deep Lore and cinematography now. It was totally doing a flanderization before, but those established elements have found a new way to turn a high profit rather than maintain a steady income through their perfunctory continuation like the Simpsons. That's kind of what the whole post is about, that Zelda and especially games in general are probably going to get much worse because of the success of the "movie game but the movie is Infinity War" formula of TotK.
I feel obligated to point out that both BotW and even more so TotK have the main plot center around assembling a Knights of the Round, though it gets played too much like the Avengers, as I already whinged about.
That isn't bad on its own, but it is definitely not a recurring thing in the series besides that two-off doing it, and the sages really don't have the same kind of persistence in the franchise the way the redundantly recurring trio of Link, Zelda, and Ganon(dorf) do. Thus, you comparing Zelda as a franchise directly to Arthurian legend just doesn't hold up.
Incidentally, I regret to inform you
I was tempted to stop reading right there because I really, really don't like :reddit-logo: tier smarmy sorry-not-sorry delivery systems. :blob-stop:
a self-sucking abomination of Deep Lore and cinematography now
I'm not so sure, outside of a possible long in the tooth preoccupation with "the player isn't cool enough to participate in this E P I C moment outside of a QTE" moments. That shit was getting old since WoW's Wrath of the Lich King decided that the raid simply wasn't E P I C enough to defeat Arthas on its own and needed some plot armored douchebag to actually defeat Arthas instead.
Zelda and especially games in general are probably going to get much worse because of the success of the “movie game but the movie is Infinity War” formula of TotK. I think this is a false dilemma, not unlike the "your choices are unscratched liberalism and scratched fascism" false dilemma that media typically pushes on its consumers, the kind that says "things are bad, sure, but the guy trying to improve society somewhat :improve-society: just kicked a puppy therefore he went too far and everything he said and tried to do is now invalid :very-intelligent:
A non-shitty Faces of Evil/Wand of Gamelon approach to the Zelda franchise could conceivably be quite refreshing, allowing Hyrule to exist without being blown up/flooded/reset/whatever for a while, building it up without tearing it down, and maybe even having other lands for Link (or goddesses forbid, some other protagonist) to explore and adventure in. I know it probably won't happen, but it'd beat the tiresome dichotomy of "reset everything in the plot back to T H E P R O P H E C Y from the 90s at least once every 2 games" or "present the franchise as a pretentious MCU style escalating stakes momentum machine until it derails."
That isn’t bad on its own, but it is definitely not a recurring thing in the series besides that two-off doing it, and the sages really don’t have the same kind of persistence in the franchise the way the redundantly recurring trio of Link, Zelda, and Ganon(dorf) do. Thus, you comparing Zelda as a franchise directly to Arthurian legend just doesn’t hold up.
This is limited by my lack of familiarity with the franchise but, while TotK is absolutely the clearest expression of it, followed by BotW, there are definitely analogues elsewhere. Particularly, it's a theme in Zelda to get assistance from a collection of great beings (yes, I think it was the Triforce goddesses in, uh, Skyward Sword?) but in Majora's Mask with the Giants and Twilight Princess with the glowing orb animals, the bulk of the actual playtime is centered on getting your gods/Great Men on the same page so that they can somehow make the malice vulnerable to your attack. There's a direct connection between this and the circle of almost-peers in TotK, and you can see that in the very direct bridge that the Divine Beast bullshit in BotW creates between these two characterizations. It's just that one is more difficult than the other, but it's now worth it due to the Avengers formula.
Speaking of, I have no idea how the last thing you are saying is a response to me. I'm talking about market forces, not fan fiction.
I’m talking about market forces
"It sells, therefore it is justified" style "market forces" rhetoric could be said about gacha/lootbox/battlepass monetization schemes in contemporary video games, and can also apply to other things from cryptogrifts to MLMs to DuPont microplastics and Monsanto poisons. :debord-tired:
My point is literally that it sucks that the market is going to emulate it. Also you're on a fucking communist board, anyone who puts forward the argument you imagined I made would be liable to be banned.
Your argument about what you meant by "market forces" and what the implications of those was unclear, so of course I'm going to "imagine" it.
More than a few times, on this site, I've been told (shitty propaganda thing) is actually harmless or even leftist because it entertains the person defending it and I'm glad you weren't going there, even if it was vague and this comment thread has probably reached the end of its usefulness.
The bigger point of the OP, which I state multiple times therein, is that people are going to imitate TotK's hack games-as-marvel-movies directing.
I was going to play it on Yuzu but even after downloading and stuff I played Tunic instead. Much tighter game and truer to the Zelda formula than any Zelda game since, I dunno, a link between worlds I think?
Years of :freeze-gamer: precedent suggest a 7/10 score is an existential threat to Nintendo and all future wholesome Zeldarinos. :galaxy-brain:
I was mostly making a joke about the JSS reviews, and also the game has a lot of good things, a minority of which weren't already in BotW.
But also fuck this game.
I didn't even like BotW. There, I said it. This one just looks like BotW with Besiege tacked on, which... Nintendo is never getting another red cent from me, and I'm too lazy to pirate it and figure out a Switch emulator, so :shrug-outta-hecks:
Shameless plug for Link to the Past randomizer:
https://alttpr.com/en
Very sad that Nintendo were too great cowards to let the dragon thing stick
It would have been genuinely cool to have Zelda not just be relegated to being Link's prize
Link interacting more with dragon Zelda would've also been cool since they couldn't ruin it with dialogue
True, true, but he only interacts with her in an extremely domineering way, first forcibly pulling the sword from her as she struggles, then with her consent part way through (how's that for subtext?) and then treating her as a horse with wings to facilitate his fight with the dragon.
Very sad that Nintendo were too great cowards to let the dragon thing stick
That would be like a Simpsons episode that actually let Bart and Lisa get older and move on to higher grades. Can't have that! :stonks-down:
I have a lot of issues with the game design for BotW & TotK.
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Effort vs. Reward: This is way off. Repeatedly, I spend time figuring out a hard shrine puzzle or discovering a chest in a hidden away location to be rewarded with Arrows x5 or an Opal. Useless.
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Character Growth: Just like BotW, TotK gives you all the tools in the first two hours and then little after except for a wind gust in a different direction than the last game. I miss unlocking meaningful upgrades from dungeons that opened up new abilities or ways to move. Instead, the game relies entirely on gear like every other open world game, but this time, it requires me to constantly juggle sets or hunt ingredients to mitigate environmental effects.
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Shit Density: Fucking shrines, korok seeds, light roots, sky shrines, bubblfrogs, geoglyphs, skyview towers, stables, caves, wells, chasms, old maps, materials, Hyrule Compendium, Hudson signs, etc, etc, etc. There's way too much shit in the game. It just becomes inconsequential noise.
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Recycled location: Of course, I didn't expect a completely new Hyrule map, though I was hoping for something different like Ocarina -> Majora's. I wasn't expecting the sky area to be so minimal or the depths to me just a mirror of the surface. Having to collect shrines again is annoying.
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A sequel without explanation: This game is a direct sequel to BotW, but there's zero explanation that I've seen on things like where the fuck did the other towers or shrines go. Some aspects are addressed while others are ignored out of convenience.
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Plot Delivery: A main offender for me. Zelda doesn't have huge cinematic cutscenes, so I'm okay with a more minimalist approach, but stuff the end of the shrines when you meet the sages is so mind numbing. Since they can be tackled in any order, the sages repeat the exact same lines with a little flavor to them. I skipped some of them because they say the same thing. Same thing with the geoglyphs. It worked for BotW because Link had amnesia, but getting the story out of order didn't work for me.
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Quality of Life: I don't hate weapon degradation per se, but like BotW, I'll never use the cool unique race weapons because I can't afford to remake them. I also hate fusing. I'd rather have the same system as BotW. Also, the animations for getting shit, holy hell. If you're going to make me hunt 150+ fucking shrines, don't make me skip the first cutscene, watch the Light Blessing "get" animation, and then skip another cutscene. Just give me the shit. Same thing with getting hearts or stamina. Show me once then just give it to me.
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In general, the build powers just make the game too goofy for my taste.
Zelda doesn’t have huge cinematic cutscenes, so I’m okay with a more minimalist approach
Jokes on you, because now it does and the player is a spectator to the plot outside of narrowly-circumscribed interactions at the very end. The story might as well be delivered in a walking simulator.
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You're missing that my complaint is precisely that the game legitimizes itself (or perhaps hypes itself) using the crutch of being an anime and subjecting you to extensive cutscenes that are disconnected from the game, along with vapid setpieces.
I haven't actually played it. I've just seen videos of wooden penis men and goblin catapults and been like "yeah, that's what games should be"
