Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@YummyHappyPills What was my view on Zelda before? You'd need to remind me if I said something negative about it, generally my view going in was one of apprehension given I am not the biggest fan of openworld games.

@kyleforrester87 It was just general apprehension about it.

To be fair I went in with the same view given my experience with open worlds at the time was Far Cry 4, Just Cause 3 and Xenoblade X, and my experience of 3D Zelda was beating Wind Waker and an hour or two of Ocarina, Majora and Twilight.

But it was about 15 hours in I was hooked just in the exploration aspect. I love exploring.

And one 100% file later I'm doing it all again in Master Mode.

I think the one thing about Zelda that got me was how much of an open world it truly is. It's not some fake linearity, save for a handful of things like the Hideout, and side quests obviously needing to be linear.

You can do a good 98% of the game whenever it suits you.

I think thats why they chose the term "open air", because thats what a lot of open world games are. Open spaces but the world itself ISNT open.

BOTW is a rare game where I think saying "open world" is accurate, because rather than just being a big playground with linearity, an open air space, its a world that truly is open.

How does Xenoblade 2 compare to the first one? I didn't play X because I was done with my Wii U and it looked rubbish, but I loved the first Xenoblade a lot. It was one of my favourite games on Wii.

I'm sure I'll probably end up picking it up at some point.

@kyleforrester87 Yeah, I agree. The actual open world, mechanics, physics, etc. In BotW are pretty unrivaled. So glad to hear you're enjoying it! I'm typically not a huge fan of open world games, but I really enjoyed this one.

@johncalmc Xenoblade 2 is very story heavy.

However....gameplay wise....meh.

So my personal take from it is that Arts and such still do the whole "Bonus if behind or to the side of an enemy" schtick.

Problem is...movement is incredibly slow, you can no longer attack or auto attack without standing still (So a lot of early battles become a game of stand still and trade blows in a war of attrition) so getting the best out of your Arts is a rough experience.

Further the combo system, when it eventually shows up, isn't explained very well...heck nothing is. Field Skills return only now as glorified HMs from Pokemon based on your party, some of which are mandatory.

Voice acting is....shall we say hit and miss.

Pacing also feels a bit off. Some instances of 20 minutes worth of cutscenes with a little gameplay inbetween.

Personally, I prefer X for its gameplay focus and more freedom in what you do, and actually for its more movement based, in depth, appendage attacking gameplay that's far, far faster and more fulfilling and frantic.

XC2....feels slow? Is that the right way to word it? It's a far slower game than I'd like. A lot less open, certainly battles are less engaging. That's just me though.

@johncalmc Story-focused like the original. The combat system is somewhat different, focusing more on timing activation of arts and strategically combo-ing status effects and elemental attacks from your blades, which can allow you pull off super attacks. Positioning is still a factor, but less crucial overall. Oh, and you can't autoattack while moving around an enemy any more. You have to be standing still. It's a deeper and more engaging system than in the original.

The plot is very well-paced, unlike the original Xenoblade, where it felt like not much was happening for long stretches of time.

Environmental design has taken a significant step up from the original. You won't find trash like Satorl Marsh in this game.

Sub-quests are significantly longer and more involved now. They're still fetch-questy, but with more pronounced narrative elements.

The in-game compass pointing you to objectives is terrible, though.

I vastly prefer the characters and music in this one, but some people aren't going to feel that way.

The biggest changes are the new anime aesthetic and the RNG-driven core activation system, which allows you to find new blades.

It's also worth noting that the story in this one ties back to the original near the end.

So far, it's easily my favorite of the Xenoblade games.

@themcnoisy wait till you get to New Donk city, loved it!

@YummyHappyPills @Ralizah pretty much exactly how I feel about BOTW. I don't dislike open world games, it's just that so many of them do it wrong, in my mind. The Witcher 3, for example - all the "secret" treasures are marked with ? marks on the world map. So what's the point in exploring? Why not let us find these points naturally so we feel like we've stumbled across something perhaps nobody else did? After many hours it just grinds you down as you realise you're ticking boxes. Then you resent all the boring traveling just to get to the next cutscene. It feels lazy.

@johncalmc I haven't played the first XBC or XBX but as for XBC2 it's awesome. The locations, characters, music, voice actors and battle system are all brilliant. Not enjoyed a JRPG as much since FF9 - really looking forward to the DLC on this one. Oh, and god bless those load times.

@kyleforrester87 If it helps, most open world games have the option to turn off the markers.

@Octane Yeah I think we spoke about this before, and I concede I've never actually tried to play them like that, but then to me it feels like the game has been designed to be played with these features enabled and i could be making it frustratingly difficult for myself by disabling them. Where as with Zelda I know that it's a fundamental design choice and the game is completely built around it.

Having said that I've disabled the shrine detector thing in BOTW. I'd like to find as many as I can under my own steam before I turn that on lol.

@KratosMD I don't tend to approach open world games with the mindset that I want to collect everything, or that I'll even see the ending. If I'm enjoying being lost in the world and discovering things I'll keep playing until the wonder wears off. Unfortunately nothing makes the wonder wear off quicker than floating way points guiding me to the collectibles!

@kyleforrester87 You're not going to find all the Korok seeds without a guide either. So I see it more as a built-in guide.

Of course, you're right. In Zelda it's easy for an NPC to point north and say 'go towards the tree, and you'll find treasure', and there's only one obvious tree on the horizon. something like that wouldn't work in The Witcher. I do wonder if a more realistic map with names of towns, cities, rivers, etc. would work in combination with the NPCs using said names in their hints. But that also means you're going to spend a fair bit of time looking at a map. Not the most enticing gameplay I'd imagine.

Guy I know this is so OffTopic in here but can't find the correct thread. @Tazuki delete or move pls if required chum just trying to be the bearer of good news.

FYI: SNES classic is back in stock on the Nintendo.co.uk website. I know it prob old news now but its at the RRP of £69.99 instead of the inflated prices that is permanently on sale elsewhere on the web. I finally picked one up tonight.

@Octane Zelda isn't perfect to be honest, I do think they have taken a good look at the genre and moved it in a better direction though. At least better in terms of what I want from an open world game.

@TomKongPhooey I got mine for Christmas. It's pretty great. Need to sit down and get properly into it at some point, though.

@kyleforrester87 Happy days chum. I loved the Nes classic when I got it and have had the 'out of stock' nintendo page set as my homepage since november so that I would see immediately when back in stock and to my surprise tonight I hit the jackpot. Dreams do come true lol. Roll on a few days time and I'll be bathed in old skool goodness again.

Anyhow, sorry for derailment guys, back to the switch. Play ball....

@Kidfried That's true! I forgot about those.

Breath of the Wild was my second favourite game of 2017, but I think a lot of people evangelise it a little too much. The same with Odyssey. If it was called Gary's Adventure Saving The Princess and it was on Xbox I think we'd have paid a little more attention to the flaws it's got. I loved it, and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, but even while I was playing it I kept thinking how weird it was that it's got objectively bad design choices that were barely mentioned in a lot of reviews aside from the Jim Sterling one that got his site attacked by angry Nintendo fans.

@Ralizah That description would probably turn a bunch of people off, but for me it works since I was never that fussed on the combat in Xenoblade, and it was more the story, the lore, and whatnot that I liked best. And I know people moaned about the voice acting but I thought all of the ridiculous cockney baddies were entertaining. As long as the fighting isn't too dull I'm sure I'll be fine with it. I care more about the story and all that anyway.

@johncalmc Thing is I did not consider myself a Mario fan (in fact I found him downright offputting) until I played Oddysey - my first 3D Mario game - and I have always been able to pretty much take or leave Zelda. I'm glad he isn't running around in a green tunic and I'm not keen on some of the Zelda staples in BOTW (I.e the Gorons and Zora, not the biggest fan!) so i don't think it's just the fact it's a Zelda game or a Mario game thats made them very enjoyable for me - they are just great games. Of course that's just me and no doubt super fans of these franchises would likely get even more out of them than I do.

@kyleforrester87 Oh no, it's not the fact that it's a Zelda or Mario game that makes them enjoyable. They're both great games. What I'm saying is that the level to which how good they are is celebrated is perhaps boosted somewhat because of the nostalgia that many reviewers have for the series'. Like, ask yourself; if Super Mario Odyssey was exactly the same game on Xbox One, called Mike The Plumbers Magical Hat Adventure, would it be a 97 on Metacritic?

Similarly, I think Breath of the Wild was given the rub of the green by a lot of critics, and some of the flaws were glossed over or outright overlooked, whereas in another game they might not have been. I'm an old school Nintendo fan so I get the joy of picking up a new Zelda (or in my case, more-so Mario) and each one you play does carry with it the heritage of great games that have changed the medium forever, but at the same time I can recognise that there are issues with both the latest Mario and Zelda that were glossed over or outright ignored in a lot of reviews. And as someone who writes reviews, I was sat playing them both, thinking, "Hang on, why did nobody talk about this?"