Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

I think you are thinking of the one with Spock

(😂)

I've also just completed the tutorial island, and it's great so far. Already exploring the island felt a lot more like a puzzle than in BotW, and I hope that keeps up, because it was a ton of fun, and one of the shrines was surprisingly tricky to reach. Link's abilities are also brimming with possibilities - they were all incredibly situational in BotW, but these just seem perfectly designed to let your brain run wild. Can't wait to play more of this when I get the chance!

@Pizzamorg Unfortunately can't get the spoilers to work, but this is just the beginning hour or so of the game, I'll figure it out soon!

Yeah I struggled for a surprisingly long time getting to the top. I didn't have any chillies, so I fused a ruby to a stick, which made it always on fire, keeping me warm. Then I got stuck for a while surrounded by walls of ice, eventually found a fast river, and only managed to cross it by glueing multiple fans to one raft to push against the current. I then found a wall behind a waterfall that wasn't covered in ice, and climbed up that. So very different from yours, but once again didn't feel like the intended path at all! I'm very curious as to what the "right" way to solve it is, but I guess the appeal of these open word zeldas is that there isn't a singular right way of solving these puzzles, it's about using all of your tools to overcome the obstacles they give you.

Mine didn't get delivered unfortunately, boo. Maybe it'll show up tomorrow, otherwise Monday I guess.

Screw it I went digital. Going to smear Vaseline over my TV screen and play some PS5 while it downloads to let my eyes adjust until it’s go time.

@kyleforrester87 same, couldn’t wait, sadly it’ll get delivered until Tuesday, oh well.

@edwinjoe450 I prefer digital really anyway, especially for Switch. The physical version was a birthday gift but.. I waited long enough, was my birthday months ago. Got a couple of really intense weeks coming up so want to enjoy some gaming and cycling this weekend.

Got off the tutorial island and made it to Hyrule before quitting. Game looks way better now that there's not an omnipresent bloom lighting everywhere.

I completed one shrine in Hyrule as well. Probably not the way they wanted me to. The solution was supposed to involve making some sort of water vehicle to get a ball from one end of a water way to the other, but I got tired of trying to build it right and ended up ultrahanding some ridiculous tower made up of boards and tires that allowed me to skirt the entire process, lmao.

Where the hell is my glider, though? I feel naked without it.

@kyleforrester87 I dunno, I thought it looked beautiful on our 4K OLED. Mostly the art direction, of course. The draw distance is really nice for a Switch game, though.

@Ralizah yeah it’s a good looking game. I am enjoying it, got ultra hand and fuse, but to be honest I am a bit overwhelmed with the control system. I’m pretty worn out mentally, I’m sure it’ll click very soon (BOTW was no problem). Just getting a bit frustrated with it at the mo, need some sleep and let that muscle memory do it’s thing!

@kyleforrester87 I haven't really had issues other than with doing ultrahand stuff, which is sort of clunky. I've heard at least a few people say the controls were a bit much for them as well, though, so it's not just a you thing.

I was kinda surprised that switching to Docked wasn't a massive downgrade for TOTK. I'm not going to pretend like it is a nice looking game by conventional metrics, and it isn't the smoothest 30 fps I have experienced - Ultrahand for example seems to tank the frame rate when first used for some reason - but I've found some Switch games unplayable docked, and this isn't one of those. Impressive given it is a big open world.

I will also agree controls feel kinda awkward at times, which is a shame as the powers are fun otherwise. The most annoying thing for me so far is the way you rotate stuff via Ultrahand, just feels like it has a mind of its own and I tend to just have to spin things mindlessly until it falls into the place you need, as just trying to move it that way with intent causes the object to flail randomly anyway.

It also always feels like there are maybe too many inputs for actions, with my brain frazzling as I try and remember when to press, or when to hold, to pop an ability off in a split second.

But then this seems to be a hold over from BOTW, as inventory management was horrible in that game and they've seemingly done nothing to improve it here. In fact, in ways, it is kinda worse now with you needing to constantly pull up menus to glue stuff.

Then again, I guess a certain degree of fiddliness is a necessary evil for the level of freedom they want the player to have, but it doesn't stop me wondering if there could have been a better way.

So cool we both had such unique resolutions to this issue! Yours sounds a lot cleverer than mine was 😂 You used your brains and ingenuity, I just sorta brute forced it 😂

@Ralizah I keep pressing R1 for my ultra hand and I’m getting my food/weapon buttons mixed up. I had no issues with the BOTW controls after a while, but found them a bit cumbersome at first too, so I am sure it’ll click soon.

I don't want to bring much negativity into what seems to be a pretty positive Tear of the Kingdom discussion so far, but I am glad in a way to see the part about the controls. I found the controls to be somewhat convoluted in Breath of the Wild after several hours, so knowing they would be just as bad or worse for me in Tears of the Kingdom eliminates even a slight urge to try the new big game knowing that I would get frustrated with the controls all over again even though it seems to have helped my other major problems with BotW (entirely empty world and paper thin story).

Does Playstation usually do this? I know Xbox does all the time, but I don't recall the last time they praised a competitor's product/acknowledged it in a non-competitive context.

@KilloWertz few more hours today and I am a lot more comfortable with it to be fair

In fairness, I'd never point to these games as examples of amazing control schemes. Especially not TotK, which layers on even more systems!

I'll also never entirely understand why I can't run by pushing in the left stick. Who wants to hold down a face button to run in 2023?

But they're not bad/awkward enough to take me out of the game. shrug

I was enjoying this already, but getting the glider again increased my enjoyment by like a thousand percent. While I won't argue with anyone who complains that much of the map is reused (well at least one of the maps ) I sorta think it weirdly works in TOTK's favour, as the abilities in old haunts really makes you realise how good you have it now. Those pesky dudes who jump out of the ground and spit at you? Just rewind their projectiles. Getting fed up of being sniped by pesky enemies? Eyeball on the arrow, my dude. Link never got enough stamina to get up to that thing you want to get to? Or maybe it is raining? If you can't just ascend up the thing by finding cheesy ledges, there are probably a convenient bunch of materials for a hot air balloon or something nearby to help you out with Ultrahand.

I guess I am saying that I dunno if we could appreciate how much better it feels to move through Hyrule if it was an entirely new set of maps, purpose built with these powers in mind.

Hey everybody, I figured I'd maybe drop by here and the nl forum and ask for help every now and then. I just barely made it to the 3rd shrine. Really hoping the game starts to open up soon cause it's a pain getting around this huge chunk with no stamina and glider

@Ralizah lol me, so don't give them any ideas please. With how fragile controllers are in this age, I feel like pushing in the stick just helps wear it down faster and then drift. Maybe it's superstition or I'm just too rough but it's why I'm glad most japanese games seem to either let you run with one of the buttons or just has auto run

@Kidfried I dunno, man, what's it going to hurt calling out Animal Crossing when you're not selling a comparable product? Literally nobody is going to pick one over the other, you know? They're too different.

On the BotW/HZD comparison, didn't a pretty beefy expansion for Forbidden West drop last month? It might not have the clout of a full release, but you could argue that it's competing with Zelda for gamers' time and attention.

It's just nice to see a less hyper-competitive move from Sony, even if it's something small like this.

Masahiro Sakurai is probably the dude associated with Nintendo who seems most console agnostic. Pretty sure after Banjo-Kazooie were announced for Smash, he told people to consider going out and playing the games on an Xbox console lol. He also openly talks about playing games on other platforms. It's nice to see.

I would actually admire Phil Spencer's willingness to talk up and praise the competition if he was doing better work for his own brand.

@Judal27 TotK is like BotW in the sense that the starting area is designed to test your ability to manipulate your powers and understand the mechanics of the game before dumping you in a vastly wider world and giving you a paraglider. Although, in this case, you'll have to progress slightly further in the main story to get a paraglider.

How are you getting on with ultrahand? It's a cool mechanic, although it can become a little excessively fiddly for my liking.