I personally wouldn't see BOTW in the same genre as Skyrim, W3, AC and HZD because it does away with an awful lot of the elements of them.
I mean, it's demonstrably not. Unlike those other games, BotW is an adventure game, as opposed to an RPG. Even going beyond that, though, the game emphasizes openness and exploration to such a radical degree and disposes with so many of their common design elements that it barely even feels like other modern open world titles (there are still a few design similarities, such as the Ubisoft towers and fast travel, though). It's a closer relative to survival mode Minecraft than it is to any of those other games you mentioned, IMO.
I think people go into BotW expecting Zelda-flavored Skyrim and walk away disappointed. Miyamoto even referred to it as an "open air" game to distinquish it from more typical "open world" titles.
Trinen expanded on it: Nintendo’s senior product marketing manager Bill Trinen explained the idea behind ‘Open Air,’ a term the company came up with to describe the art, gameplay, music, and feel of the new Zelda game. “From my perspective, I look at a lot of open-world games,” Trinen explained, “and the world is a setting for the story the developers want to tell in that space.”
“I look at this game and I see a world that is fully integrated into the exploration and the adventure,” he continued. “It’s not just a world that you’re passing through. It’s sort of a world that you’re a part of. So much of the adventure and exploration is in this outdoor space, and the theme of wilderness collectively seemed like 'Open Air' was the right fit for it.”
@Ralizah You are right but I often see BOTW lumped into the open world category.
In some respects, my biggest annoyance with BOTW was, what I felt, was a lack of reward for exploration. However, I will admit that the sense of freedom and isolation I felt meant BOTW had a such a different vibe. I actually played HZD and BOTW side by side and I saw a lot of comparisons as they launched close together which I thought was completely unfair as neither was attempting to do what the other did. Though i did keep trying to climb up cliffs as Aloy.
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
@Rudy_Manchego Absolutely do give the DLC a go when you’re ready.
Heart of Stone is a great story with some fantastic characters but Blood and Wine is just superb. It’s a perfect blend of everything great about the game and spoofs the normal fantasy setting wonderfully. They are amazing value for money too.
I agree with the XP scaling issue too. It did feel a little odd having missions from the beginning of the game you can’t do until 30hrs in. I completed the game before they bought in enemy level scaling so it was a shock going back for the DLC.
@Thrillho Don't worry, already got the DLC as part of the full edition on Switch. Torn between wanting to get straight into it and wanting to take a breather. I will go back though which I rarely do for DLC because I know it will be worth it.
I got caught both on my first abandoned run and second run by a contract at the start of velen that started easy then at the end you meet a level 30 spider thing and I clearly hadn't checked the level. I ended up doing that in the last third of the game!
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
@Rudy_Manchego Both were high-profile, exclusive "open world" games released within a week or so of each other and both set in post-apocalyptic settings filled with robots, so comparisons were inevitable, I think.
I'd say HZD is average in terms of world design/characters/plot, but the combat encounters are so much fun that they almost completely redeem what would otherwise be an average (if utterly gorgeous) game. It has the nuts and bolts of open world game design down (although the beautiful settings are almost completely non-interactive, which is a huge bummer, although not uncommon), though, and aside from some of the meaningless trinkets you pick up, most of the content feels rewarding to engage with. The dungeons were interesting, but they needed puzzles or something. Felt very empty. Fantastic game, though.
BotW has an interesting but underdeveloped back story, poor enemy variety, irritating horses (HZD's mounts were far more fun to use), questionable rewards for exploration, and lousy side-quests, but the mechanics of exploration (climbing, parasailing, etc.), radically open game design, unique approach to atmosphere and sound design, complex and fully interactive environments (complete with exploitable physics systems), and general gameplay loop more than redeem it for me. It essentially invented a new type of open world game. I didn't mind the switch away from big dungeons and towards 100 or so little ones, but they needed a bit more aesthetic diversity to them. Also, the combat shrines were lame. The divine beast dungeons were very interesting insofar as they were one giant puzzle with interconnecting elements, but they felt a bit underdeveloped to me.
So far, I like both games more than The Witcher 3.
Strangely difficult controls for a game based on Easy Trophies. Rewarding and fun. You have L1 and L2 for forward and backward movement, The left stick for rotating your tank, the right stick for aiming your turret and R2 shoots. It's very immediate with no lag! Shoot those bad tanks.
Graphics 3/10
Not much going on here, colourful but limited. Arena bitmaps and character pixels are recycled and the battles only take place sequentially on single screens.
Sound 2/10
The same kazoo track plays every single time. You have to beat 30 levels for the plat.
Replayability 1/10
Get that plat, delete and smile like a Cheshire cat.
Price it should be - £3
Time it took to beat - 90 minutes
Advice - Some levels are annoying, sometimes standing still is a better option than rolling in to attack.
PS3 Megathread 2019: The Last of Us
Multiplat 2018: Horizon Zero Dawn
Nintendo 2017: Super Mario Bros 3
Playstation 2016: Uncharted 2
Multiplat 2015: Final Fantasy 7
@Ralizah Hmmm it is a tough one on what I liked most. To me, The Witcher 3 is what I would call the best of the traditional 'open world' genre - those like Skyrim, all Ubisoft games etc. It is large, well written, interesting and engaging. Plus I like that the story is a grown up story as opposed to watered down.
BOTW is, as you say, a new genre. I consider it one of the greatest games this generation because I hadn't played something like it. HZD was a traditional open world game except for the combat. It felt like combat was designed first adn the world built around it. I would probably place HZD first then Witcher second.
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
@Th3solution It's a decent game actually for a couple of hours. Get on it!
Forum Best Game of All Time Awards
PS3 Megathread 2019: The Last of Us
Multiplat 2018: Horizon Zero Dawn
Nintendo 2017: Super Mario Bros 3
Playstation 2016: Uncharted 2
Multiplat 2015: Final Fantasy 7
@themcnoisy I might just have to do that — I love a quick and easy platinum (if the game is decent) 😛. And there is fewer and fewer Vita games to play and thus looks right at home on the handheld.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Ralizah gee whizz that's one hell of a fire emblem review. Bravo.
I missed it somehow, thankfully @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy replied to me and let me know it was there.
It sounds like a prior version of me from 2013 would have loved this game (loved tactical RPGs and strategy att) but after ditching Disgaea 5 years ago and my playthrough of into the Breach has been lost to time there's something about the genre these days which refuses to hold my attention. Maybe it's the pedestrian speed, or watching a plan come crashing down after building it up for 15 minutes. The other side is my family play boardgames regularly if we have visitors which possibly scratches the same itch?
Either way thanks for the review and good luck on your second playthrough.
Forum Best Game of All Time Awards
PS3 Megathread 2019: The Last of Us
Multiplat 2018: Horizon Zero Dawn
Nintendo 2017: Super Mario Bros 3
Playstation 2016: Uncharted 2
Multiplat 2015: Final Fantasy 7
Having pumped 80+ hours into an Advance Wars game this year as well, I probably wouldn't have been as gung-ho on the game as I was if it didn't lean so heavily on the RPG side of things this go around.
With that said, I've also been playing so many RPGs recently that I'm afraid I'm on the edge of burning out soon. Not yet: I'm still playing the delightful Dragon Quest XI S for hours at a go right now, but I do wonder if I should call it a day after FF7R and leave the Cyberpunks and Xenoblades and Manas for another year.
Probably not.
RE: Disgaea, it's weird, because, while I've mostly enjoyed my time with the series, I'm not really feeling the urge to return to the series after the first two games. I tried playing the third game, but the writing is so bad that I just had to stop.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
Batman: Return to Arkham City, including the Harley Quinn's Revenge story expansion (PS4) - Remaster of the PS360 era game. My first time playing it in any form.
Pros:
The core beat 'em up gameplay is solid, and while at times you can still feel Batman's gameplay wasn't made with them in mind, the bosses are all definitely a few notches higher in quality than they were in Asylum.
I loved the expanded gadget inventory, especially the new options available to deal with armed thugs.
While it does lose some of the tense atmosphere from Asylum, I do think I prefer the more open world approach (not that open worlds are inherently better, it's just that I think they're a particularly good fit for superhero gameplay). Plus it helps that the world itself is a manageable size that's pretty easy to memorize compared to others in the genre.
I enjoyed the expanded roster of villains involved in the goings on (many of whom were only foreshadowed in Asylum).
Mixed:
While most of the sidequests are both manageable and decently interesting, there are WAY too many Riddler challenges. I loved that they unlocked tons of lore, concept art, and character trophies, but at the same time they definitely feel like bloat for the sake of bloat.
After getting a small taste during the Harley Quinn's Revenge expansion, I really wish we got to play as Robin more.
Negative:
There was occasional slowdown while grappling through the open world in certain spots (not often enough to be a real detriment), and it crashed on me once.
Overall a pretty good time.
Star Wars Battlefront II, including the Resurrection story expansion (PS4) - Current gen shooter based on the irreverent sci-fantasy series. I've stuck mostly to single player, and as such is what I'll be focusing on.
Pros:
The on foot gameplay is no Titanfall 2, but it's still pretty solid.
Ship missions/segments are genuinely great. Nothing to complain about here.
As expected of a big AAA production, it looks great and it nails the Star Wars vibe down great.
While I mentioned that I'll be focusing on single player mostly, I do want to mention the few Hero VS Villain multiplayer matches I engaged in were actually good fun (it's the only multiplayer mode I've dabbled in as of yet).
Mixed:
Story won't win any awards, but it gets the job done and the cutscenes look great.
The gameplay is obviously suited best to gunplay, so the token Luke Skywalker & Kylo Ren missions feel a bit off, though not bad.
The on foot missions had way too many instances of "leaving the mission area, please turn back". I'm not sure if this is a result of them reusing multiplayer maps for singleplayer (yet want to funnel you down a relatively linear path), but it's a bit counter intuitive since many missions have collectables for you to find, so you think a bit more exploration would be encouraged.
Negative:
Long loading times. Nothing too terrible as far as I'm concerned, but it was just enough that I was getting impatient at times.
It can get pretty glitchy. Nothing game breaking, and more humorous mostly (enemies glitching through walls or floating in mid air after being killed). The worst one being Luke falling through his level upon loadup, but that was fixed by simply reloading the checkpoint.
It won't go on a list of my favorite games, but all in all I had a good time with it.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
I love that combination which got me thinking - the wips360 gen / box2cube / saps164cast / snenisis etc.
Forum Best Game of All Time Awards
PS3 Megathread 2019: The Last of Us
Multiplat 2018: Horizon Zero Dawn
Nintendo 2017: Super Mario Bros 3
Playstation 2016: Uncharted 2
Multiplat 2015: Final Fantasy 7
@RogerRoger, thanks. Tried out some more of Battlefront's multiplayer, particularly Starfighter Assault, and while I'm moving on to KHIII, I think I'll try to make time for the occasional round.
@Ralizah, yeah, it didn't happen that often, and only when I was grappling in the open world (the crash happened when I was trying to go from one end of the map to the other quickly during one of the Zsasz timed phone hunts), but I noticed it once or twice.
As far as Arkham Knight, it was a Plus game a couple months ago, so I'll definitely be giving it a go eventually.
Anyhow...
Luigi's Mansion 3 (Switch)
Pros:
Luigi has a nice set of abilities that enables some creative puzzles & boss encounters. Some of the gems in particular are devilishly hidden, and I'm yet to find them all.
Though the first couple aren't anything to write home about, it mostly has a real solid lineup of bosses, outside of a couple annoying ones.
Attention to detail is immaculate. There's a wide variety of environments on offer, with your surroundings being full of things to interact with & destroy, whether they be common things like vases, sinks, & trash cans, or unique elements such as a punching bag, billiard table, or a telescope (even the least interactive elements of an area will oftentimes still creak & moan at the sucking/blowing effect of the Poltergust), with the lighting system in particular offering some stunning moments.
Negative:
The polterkitty segments were clear padding, though never too intrusive or long.
While the quality of the game's environment is evident (as I've mentioned), I'm not a big fan of the art direction. While the core Mario series characters have that clean cut, round "Disney" look about them (that has been very influential and popular in Japan, where the series originated), the ghosts and environment have sort of an uneven, angular look more reminiscent of some random cartoon you'd see on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon, and it's a dead giveaway that this wasn't developed by a Japanese team (heck, one boss is even a redneck stereotype). Now, feeling western isn't necessarily bad, but it just feels like there's a bit of a disconnect between the core Mario characters and everything else IMO, and I don't think I care for it in this instance. Clearly a personal preference though, and not really a knock on the game's quality.
Overall it was a really good time. I don't put it quite up there with the system's best exclusives, but it's second tier for sure.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Pokemon Shield for Nintendo Switch. They've already tested the waters for the Switch console with Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, which were remakes of Red and Blue using Pokemon Go style game mechanics. However Pokemon Sword and Shield represent the first pokemon games containing a brand new region and the traditional mechanics to appear on TV.
Pros:
The basic gameplay. The general loop of catching different monsters in the wild, raising them and battling against other trainers is as fun as always.
Great variety of Pokemon in the wild. There's a nice mix of both new and old pokemon to catch, including creatures from all of the past regions.
Pokemon appearing in the overworld. Random encounters have mostly been replaced with being able to see pokemon roaming the wild, giving the player more choice in whether to battle or avoid wild pokemon. This also adds depth to the world, making the region feel more alive.
The wild area. This is a big open area containing lots of wild pokemon that the player will have to go through for parts of the game. There's a lot of freedom here in where to go, as the player is welcome to head as far as they want into it, potentially encountering some high level pokemon that they'll be wise to flee from early on.
There's actually a dark type gym leader and a poison type legendary for once.
Mixed:
The new pokemon. There's a nice number of new creatures. Some are really well designed, others aren't so good. This point is fairly subjective though, as everyone has different preferences on what pokemon they do and don't like, but everyone will likely find some new monsters that they really like.
Cons:
Too easy. All throughout the game, my pokemon seemed to be overlevelled, so opponents rarely ever provided any challenge. This is partly due to the developer's decision to make the Exp Share on at all times, which causes all pokemon in your team to gain experience in battle. In past games, the player could turn this feature off, so that only the pokemon active in battle will gain experience. A simple difficulty option would have gone a long way to helping this, but the game doesn't give you any choice with difficulty.
Hop. He's the main rival in this game, and is arguably the most annoying rival of any pokemon game. He has an unbearable over the top level of excitement. There's better written characters in the game who the player can slowly get to know and can gradually grow a bond with, but Hop is different. From the start, you're thrust into being best friends with him. This creates a kind of disconnect as you're being told how to feel about someone instead of the game leaving you to form your own opinions. He'll get in the way far too often and generally not have anything interesting to say, and will spend a while chatting and battling when there could be better things the player could be doing in the game.
Lack of exploration. The wild area is a nice large open area, but it's fairly easy to navigate with not much to do there other than capturing and battling wild pokemon. Elsewhere, exploration is very lacking. Most of the routes are fairly simple to explore, and there very few dungeons to explore. The few dungeons in the game are mostly just a single floor, and are much shorter than past games.
Unable to transfer all your past pokemon into these games. All previous generations would allow you to transfer your past pokemon in to the new games, with the exception of the Gameboy Color games due to hardware incompatibilities. Pokemon Shield does away with all this, and will only allow you to transfer those pokemon that already feature in Pokemon Shield. This requires the Pokemon Home app though, which hasn't yet been released, and few details have been revealed about it.
Lack of choice. All throughout the game, there'll usually be various roadblocks that'll prevent the player from advancing down the path until they've done something specific. Gyms have to be done in a specific order, there's no choice in the matter. And any dialogue options are mostly pointless, as both choices generally result in the same outcome.
Slowness of battles. The new dynamaxing and gigantamaxing mechanics can really slow down battles. The animation takes a while and can't be skipped, and if both the player and the opponent are using it on the same turn then the player could be waiting around for the best part of a minute for both pokemon to grow to their large size. There's also some abilities that slow things down. For instance every time a pokemon with the intimidate or unnerve abilities enters the battle, a message pops up for a few seconds detailing its effects. This quickly adds up if a pokemon on the player's main team is doing this. Weather has a similar issue. If it's hailing or there's a sandstorm, then at the end of every turn each pokemon out in battle could lose a bit of health from it. They lose health one by one instead of simultaneously, so it can take a while if there's several pokemon in the battle. Some characters such as Hop will also contribute to this, by adding in some inane chit-chat in the middle of battle, such as commenting on whether they or the player has scored a super effective hit.
Variety of Galarian forms and Gigantamax forms. Though there's a good variety of different pokemon in the game, this unfortunately doesn't extend to having a diverse range of older pokemon getting new forms. The generation 1 Kanto pokemon gets a lot of the new forms, and other past generations get little to none of them.
Team Yell. They're the main baddies that are encountered throughout the game, but they're fairly forgettable. Compared to all the past enemy teams, Team Yell has the least story and are the least interesting.
Towards the end of the main story. There is no Victory Road or the Elite Four, which were staples of all the past games. There's no final dungeon leading up to the Pokemon League, so no final test of strength for the player before the League. Instead of battling an Elite Four comprising of four powerful unique trainers, the League comprises of rematches against a few trainers that the player has already beaten, before battling the champion. The story towards the end of the game is fairly rushed, with no time to flesh out the villain's intentions.
Not being able to get all the creatures on a single game without trading. Yes it's a staple of the pokemon series, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. There's only one of either Zacian or Zamazenta in the game, the box cover legendaries, so it could be tricky to find someone willing to part with the other legendary. Gigantamax forms can't be bred, making it more awkward to obtain the exclusive forms by trading. There's also gigantamax Pikachu and Eevee forms, which are only available to those with save data for the Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee games. Only one of each are available per game, and gigantamax forms can't be bred, so it'll be tricky to obtain them without owning the Let's Go games. For the other exclusive pokemon, trading has been made more difficult in this game due to the next point. Despite all this, the game encourages you to catch them all by offering a Shiny Charm for those that complete the regional pokedex, which makes the super rare alternate coloured pokemon easier to find.
No GTS. Ever since the pokemon games connected to the internet in Diamond and Pearl, there's been a GTS in them. This feature made trading with others much easier, as it allowed players to search through other players' trading requests, as well as make their own trading requests. This is completely gone in Pokemon Shield, making it much harder to trade with random players.
Sports themes. This is a subjective one, but I'm not keen on sports in general, especially not football/soccer, so I don't really like all the gyms resembling football stadiums.
So overall, Pokemon Shield keeps the essence of the pokemon formula that has made the series so popular, but various underwhelming aspects of the game along with missing features from past games makes it much harder to recommend. The games makes some attempts to modernise the series by adding in an open Wild Area to part of the game along with pokemon appearing in the overworld, but is overshadowed by it lacking elsewhere.
My score: 7/10. I'm going this high despite the many faults mainly because the core pokemon formula is so good. However, it's a lower score than what I'd give for most of the past pokemon games. Even before this game was announced, I'd been becoming less enthusiastic about the pokemon series, and Pokemon Shield merely reinforces those feelings for me.
@crimsontadpoles Honestly, the lack of GTS is, far and away, the worst aspect of the game for me. I can put up with the usual design flaws in Pokemon games, but gimping the multiplayer features to the point where they're sub-DS era in quality? Horrible.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy To be quite honest, I can't remember the last time a Pokemon game had decent dungeons or exploration. Granted, they've been getting more and more excessively linear over time.
X/Y actually weren't too bad on that front. And they had that (at the time) really amazing 3D city to explore, too.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy My young nephew has been playing Pokemon Shield (via the Switch's digital game sharing feature), and he was actually really proud to have beaten the game 100% on his own (we've beaten games before, but usually with me stepping in and helping during boss fights and whatnot). I know that older fans want the games designed around their adult capabilities, but seeing his reaction to the game, and messing around with some older games in the series, makes me think (GTS aside grumble grumble), it's less that the games are getting worse and more that the original crop of fans are outgrowing them.
Kids today will likely remembers games like Sw/Sh the same way I remember R/B/Y or G/S, and I think that's fantastic. And, insofar as the series was a major part of my childhood, I'll probably keep getting at least the new generations of Pokemon games because it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of new regions/starters/etc., even if I usually end up somewhat underwhelmed by them.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
@Ralizah@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Pokemon has changed over the years, and my tastes have also changed a bit, but in a different direction to pokemon. I just got to accept that the series isn't going to appeal to me as much as back when I was most excited for the series, and adjust my expectations accordingly.
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