Gravy Boat
Member
Not really, and neither deserve the insults and just over all childish responses what we're seeing in this thread.
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Jonathan Blow plays Breath of the Wild
- Thread starter AuthenticM
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Not really, and neither deserve the insults and just over all childish responses what we're seeing in this thread.
SenkiDala
Member
Come on, he can have his opinion, he has the right to talk and debate about BOTW like all of us did. Why because he's a game developper, it makes his opinion irrelevant? To me it's the opposite. So the problem is because he disliked the game?
I play Zelda since the GB, Zelda Link's Awakening (never had a NES, my familly disliked video games), played all the Zelda games since then and absolutly loved all of them, one of my favorite series. I even bought a Switch just to play the "real experience" of BOTW, even though I had a Wii U and I'm not interested into Mario Kart, Arms, Splatoon, etc. So yes, I love Zelda.
But BOTW disappointed me in almost every way, I don't wanna give the many reasons here again, but if I had to score it to summary my opinion, I'd give it a 7-7.5/10. I'd give to all the other Zelda canon games a 10/10 or a 9/10, maybe a 8/10 for the 2 DS games.
The point is, if even I, a Zelda fan didn't 100% liked BOTW, it's possible than other people do... Included mr Blow here.
And come on the personal attacks because someone disliked your game, if anyone who is doing those attacks is more than 16yo, you're morrons, honestly.
I play Zelda since the GB, Zelda Link's Awakening (never had a NES, my familly disliked video games), played all the Zelda games since then and absolutly loved all of them, one of my favorite series. I even bought a Switch just to play the "real experience" of BOTW, even though I had a Wii U and I'm not interested into Mario Kart, Arms, Splatoon, etc. So yes, I love Zelda.
But BOTW disappointed me in almost every way, I don't wanna give the many reasons here again, but if I had to score it to summary my opinion, I'd give it a 7-7.5/10. I'd give to all the other Zelda canon games a 10/10 or a 9/10, maybe a 8/10 for the 2 DS games.
The point is, if even I, a Zelda fan didn't 100% liked BOTW, it's possible than other people do... Included mr Blow here.
And come on the personal attacks because someone disliked your game, if anyone who is doing those attacks is more than 16yo, you're morrons, honestly.
Team Filler
Member
The video doesn't paint his pretentiousness all that much, but quotes of his certainly lean in that direction.
I think it's particularly interesting the mention of Anna Karenina and Walden in that article. Maybe a glimpse of his looking for interesting/insightful quotes to use in his trite audio logs scattered throughout The Witness? Guess a Tolstoy classic was too lowbrow for him.
Devs aren't always experienced gamers.
That article is pretty clear on him being socially awkward and very hard to get along with. That's not pretentious and for me it's close to impossible to buy this critique of his persona because it takes incredible passion and hard work to create finished, let alone good games.
It's because a large portion of the Zelda fanbase on Neogaf are just awful. 8.2-gate. Jimquisition gate and now Blow-gate.
Why can't more game series fans be like Final Fantasy fans, where we all hate every single game in the series and each other and ourselves.
opticalmace
Member
What game got 8.2? Or do you mean 8.8?
Team Filler
Member
True, but it's not very prudent to critique from an assumed position of authority if you show ignorance in the topic. I'm generally a fan of his games (much more so Braid), but the man in this video combined with other interviews and talks of his I've seen show him to be a severely introverted but vacuous designer with an overlarge ego and flashes of genius. Just my opinion mind you, be free to disagree.
I mean, that goes for every fandom. There will be loud ones who can't seem to be or say something reasonable. You can't be holier than thou just as much as I cannot be because there is bound to be some in your FF fandom who are just among the worst and make sections of your fandom look really bad to others.
Yeah so the point of the second bit of my post was to show that actually that's true of a lot if other fanbases too, but maybe in different ways.
The FF fanbase is awful because they're just unpleasible.
Infinite_Daremo
Member
Who hates FF9 GOAT?
Please continue treating us like childish Zelda fans who don't want their sacred games to be criticized. I'm sure we all love to be labelled that way.
I'm sure we all hold criticism towards this game. But the way Blow presents his coupled with his awful play style and lack of understanding of basic gameplay mechanics doesn't really paint him as a good judge of this particular game.
That is what this video tells me.
I'm sure we all hold criticism towards this game. But the way Blow presents his coupled with his awful play style and lack of understanding of basic gameplay mechanics doesn't really paint him as a good judge of this particular game.
That is what this video tells me.
That is the way I see it too. Pretentious would imply that he says these things to come off as an intellectual or hipster or anything while the article and the video give me the impression that this is just the way that he actually and sincerely thinks. That may seem harsh and nitpicky (actually it is) but it is also by all means honest.
He gives me the impression that he is actually incapable of adjusting to some concepts that do not align wit his beliefs or way of thinking like some form of autism. Which actually is totally ok. It is in that way a very personal critique of the game which I just happen to not share at all and nobody has to share them. It seems the fact that he is a game developer makes people expect that he should be able to separate his personal convictions and deliver some sort of objective review which it is not and I do not think he would be able to do that.
BOTW tells you very little directly about its game mechanics, so it should be expected to explain it subtly using visual cues and game design. If he's not understanding basic gameplay mechanics that's not his fault. And you can't expect someone to have a strong knowledge of how 'games just work'. Imagine you don't play a lot of action adventure games, what would you do then? That would be a fault with the game.
I actually think that given it takes the mantra of show don't tell, it does a really good job of explaining game mechanics. However there were also a lot of occasions where I was wasting time, scratching my head wondering how to do basic things like cooking.
TheRedSnifit
Member
Cooking definitely needs to be explained better.
That said, I don't think there needs to be a pop-up that explains things like that magnesis can't pick up rocks.
I believe when a developer is critiquing something (a game in this case), it helps that if that developer appears legit when critiquing, this is important to the audience (does not matter what hobby in this case). IMO, the backlash comes from that fact that he is a respected developer (how respected is another debate) who is streaming another developers game, but failed to appeal to the audience (wonder what that audience was to begin with for this stream), and instead comes off as complaining, not critiquing. Hell, Ken Levine gave his opinion on the game, which came with a plethora of pros and cons, and the criticism were not met with pitchforks.
How you appeal to your audience, and presentation, is everything. Especially with how big the internet is. If this presentation was his intent, then he nailed it.
How you appeal to your audience, and presentation, is everything. Especially with how big the internet is. If this presentation was his intent, then he nailed it.
Sir Ilpalazzo
Member
Does it? Just from reading the descriptions of food items you find, it's fairly clear how cooking works, and just a little trial and error makes it clear how food items with special properties interact with each other. I think it's pretty simple.
SenkiDala
Member
I agree a bit with that, but I think we don't enough look at ourselves when we play games. It's like when I see a streamer playing a game and the solution to his "problem" in the game is SO simple that I'm yelling (well not really) at the screen because I feel so frustrated by his unability to clear that "problem". Often they say "well when you talk/chat at the same time it's harder" and I thought it was an excuse but I figured out that when I play when I'm chatting with a friend, I can't really focus on games so I play brainless games. And even without chatting, you'd be surprised how often you get stuck on dumb things, I consider myself as an "ok" gamer, but how many time did I get stuck because I just missed a door, or just didn't think about a "so simple thing", I think it happens to all of us but we just don't focus on it.
You shouldn't assume people defending Blow here has actually watched the vid, they are just defending his right to an opinion. Which he has, and we all know he has, so why keep bringing it up? Why even post vids like this if we can't comment on the content?
TheRedSnifit
Member
As in, it took me a while to actually figure out how to cook in the first place.
Lupin the Third
Member
Having not watched the video and purely from reading feedback in this thread, autism sounds very plausible. Social cues are frequently tough for them to read, and sometimes they get obsessed enough to see a project to thorough completion on their own. He's probably not trying to be a jerk, he's just telling it like he sees it without showing mercy, which would also be common for people on the spectrum.
But different people have different levels of functionality in both social and labor environments so it's not easy for me to make a blanket judgment, much less a diagnosis. It's all just a hypothesis.
Edit: I'm not saying he's autistic or isn't autistic, I'm certainly in no position to claim either, much less having not seen the footage myself. He's just a different person and his behavior and challenges are probably just different from your own for whatever reason. Speculate away.
lvl99 Pixel
Member
Did you just generalize all of autism, and attribute it to a person you haven't watched playing the game?
TheRedSnifit
Member
Except he directly states that the only reason the game is so highly regarded is because of the Zelda name. As in, he's literally saying that anybody who likes it is blinded by console loyalty / nostalgia / whatever and it's objectively not a very good game.
People have been banned here for saying as much. Yet anybody who criticizes him is an elitist, I guess.
Lupin the Third
Member
I noted a few common autistic attributes and said it's possible that may be why he may or may not have them. It's not an insult, I hope neither you nor anyone else are taking it that way.
Yeah! Which is crazy. It would have been fine if it was difficult to master, but difficult to work out what to do in the first place? I don't want to trial and error learning basic gameplay mechanics.
I think what ended up putting me off BotW was the first few hours. Going up that first mountain, dieing a few times. Looking for another way up the mountain. Dieing of cold. Going up with a torch. Getting pretty far up, then an enemy attacked. Flame gone, dead. Giving up and looking up what to do. Eating a pepper dish but even then the cold resistance didn't last long because I didn't know what I was doing with cooking. So having to munch down apples so I didn't have to start again.
I know you're supposed to die in this game but I don't want to die lots learning the basics. Just to get to a tutorial shrine.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Is there a YouTube link for this? Not a big fan of Blow but would have expected BotW would have been the kind of game he'd enjoy.
Earthpainting
Member
Since people seemed divided on the video, I wasn't sure what to expect. Some folks made it seem like bumbling DarksydePhil Let's Play, while others made it seem like there was going to be an insightful critique of a golden calf. What I got was just a long confirmation bias session. He seemed to be trying to justifying why he knew he wouldn't have liked it right off the bat. Of the three hours I listened to, his most substantiated comments were about not liking weapon durability, and not being impressed by the early-game puzzles. Both of them are subjective, but common enough sentiments. The rest of his critique was a bunch of nitpicks about minor UI elements, struggling to remember button layouts, attempts to make basic features look unintuitive, and for some reason recurring mentions about how Link is an oversexualised child (along with iffy NAMBLA references).
He's entitled to his own opinions, but the entire thing came off as the 'bitch eating crackers' thing about a video game. He should have saved himself the time and effort if he wasn't going to be open to it.
He's entitled to his own opinions, but the entire thing came off as the 'bitch eating crackers' thing about a video game. He should have saved himself the time and effort if he wasn't going to be open to it.
You're suggesting someone you've never met is autistic based purely on comments you've read on here. Get a fucking grip.
GwyndolinCinder
Member
Do people not know this video?
https://youtu.be/yKUGwlFJAHw
I don't really get the people calling Zelda fans childish here, if they have this context. You can't complain about handholding then act like a moron when you aren't being handheld.
https://youtu.be/yKUGwlFJAHw
I don't really get the people calling Zelda fans childish here, if they have this context. You can't complain about handholding then act like a moron when you aren't being handheld.
NintendoGaf is generally insane and hyper aggressive though.....
this isn't someone fearing you will take away his Zeldo. This is people irked at someone venting at a game being considered as game critique. Some people can be both a game developer and game critics, Jonathan Blow evidently can't: he allows his biases to block his vision, he has an agenda (silly as it might be) and he's looking to confirm the opinions he's formed before actually seeing the game. This is not a crime per se, but we should be allowed to recategorize this video: it's just a guy opinion, and even if he's a good game developer the fact that he hates this Zelda doesn't mean anything. This has exactly zero importance on BOTW actual quality, it has more to do with Blow personality.
Kamina
Golden Boy
I dont think you are "supposed to die" in this game, and you probably wouldn't have if you had talked to the Stange Old Guy enough (what did you think his purpse was?), or made enough pepper dishes.
Zelda BotW is a good example of a game that encourages thinking yourself rather than many games these days shoving extensive crafting and cooking tutorials up your ass 2 minutes after starting to play.
I spoke to the strange old guy. When does he talk about cooking?
The thing is its not one or the other. It's not "lengthy ass tutorials" or "explain nothing". Also "explain nothing" is not equivalent to "git gud noob" as you seem to think. The whole point of removing the tutorials in this game is because theyre unnecessary. Unfortunately sometimes things do need explaining.
Kamina
Golden Boy
I didn't mean it as "git gud noob", sorry if it came over as that way. All I'm saying is that, especially for cooking, all the information is right there.
Ingredients describing their attributes, the cooked dish stating that it will last a certain ammount of minutes,...
As for the old guy:
He shows up in several areas, one being the Forest of Spirits in the center of the plateau. At nights he will sit at a tree, near a cmapfire and a pot, asking you to cook a certain dish. This further teaches you. And if you give him the right dish he rewards you with something that more "permanently" resist cold
I guess I just missed him at night. Which kind of sucks that that isn't as clearly signposted. That should almost have been a compulsory quest. That would have saved me a couple of hours XD
Why not? Experimentation is a crucial component of any player's play experience and it annoys me that many games feel the need to rob the player of this step in the process. Zelda itself had this problem as more of the 3D games came along.
I find it unfortunate that you were put off by learning the game's various components via trial and error in the Plateau. To me that was some of the best stuff, just figuring what I could and could not do and discovering the extent of my navigation and survival abilities. It's great stuff.
When you're playing a game and you have no idea what you're doing, I don't think it's the right approach to get mad at the game for no explicitly laying out all your options from the getgo. Rather, you should simply ask yourself what you're missing and figure it out. It's only when the internal logic of the mechanics of the game you're playing breaks down can you then "blame the game."
on the way to the mountain there is one building, in it there is a recipe book and hot pepper (needed for the recipe), outside, the old guy tells you about how he won't need his warm clothing if someone serves him the right dish...
I found it to be a breath of fresh air, considering every game has standard tutorials ranging in length. I liked messing around and figuring things out on my own: I believe that has been an element missing in video games for a while.
Not every game needs it, but hell, I'm glad BoTW attempted it. /shrug
Kamina
Golden Boy
See, when I first encountered that there is an area which is too cold to venture without loosing hearts, i immediately concluded that there must be a solution to that, so i explored the normal temperature areas further and found several solutions.
And i think this is what BotW is all about.
I had a similar experience as you when i wanted to explore
death mountain.
burning
Goron City
fire resistant potions
I'll throw in my own 2 cents even if it's probably been said by someone already.
I respect J Blow for his game output and some of his design philosophy, but when it comes to his perspective on the current industry or games themselves it feels out of touch. I imagine it's partially due to the time consuming job of being a video game developer. Especially one that toils away on games for 5+ years since they aren't in any particular hurry.
When he speaks out about how Japanese games have lost their way or how modern game design is bad it comes off as very surface. It feels like his lack of time or effort to dig through to find the gold leads to these views.
Also as people have said, a lot of this video is very DSPy. It's just kind of strange. He's a lost child where he gets to some roadblocks without thinking it through much. You want to light the wood under this pot, but you're holding a torch above the pot and not hitting any buttons. What is the expectation here? Parts of the design of Breath of the Wild is actually more in line with how you'd tackle situations when you were a child even which is actually a good merit. You want to light the box on fire, so just hold a torch next to it because the torch is physically touching the box. It's not a specific prompt like a lot of games might do. It's just approach the situation with an open mindset and not specifically a video game trained one.
But even from the video game trained mindset you'd think he would understand some things as a designer. He's in the cryostasis trial and he reaches the gate which you're expected to put a pillar under to lift the gate up. He struggles a bit and assumes he needs to use the magnesis power. That's fine and dandy, but also if you're thinking about this logically from a video game developer mindset, why would you require the player to get the magnesis before getting cryostasis? It's giving you a locked down shrine with the cryostasis power as the main idea of the shrine. Wouldn't it make sense that you're going to use the cryostasis power throughout this shrine because it's probably a teaching area for it? This feels like a common design choice that should make sense to a game developer of all people. You're giving the player a tool and you want to try to teach them how the tool works for sending them off into the world.
I didn't watch the entire video, but also he neglects to hit lock on a lot. It's really strange.
Edit- I respect J Blow like I respect a Phil Fish or a Peter Molyneux if that makes it more clear.
I respect J Blow for his game output and some of his design philosophy, but when it comes to his perspective on the current industry or games themselves it feels out of touch. I imagine it's partially due to the time consuming job of being a video game developer. Especially one that toils away on games for 5+ years since they aren't in any particular hurry.
When he speaks out about how Japanese games have lost their way or how modern game design is bad it comes off as very surface. It feels like his lack of time or effort to dig through to find the gold leads to these views.
Also as people have said, a lot of this video is very DSPy. It's just kind of strange. He's a lost child where he gets to some roadblocks without thinking it through much. You want to light the wood under this pot, but you're holding a torch above the pot and not hitting any buttons. What is the expectation here? Parts of the design of Breath of the Wild is actually more in line with how you'd tackle situations when you were a child even which is actually a good merit. You want to light the box on fire, so just hold a torch next to it because the torch is physically touching the box. It's not a specific prompt like a lot of games might do. It's just approach the situation with an open mindset and not specifically a video game trained one.
But even from the video game trained mindset you'd think he would understand some things as a designer. He's in the cryostasis trial and he reaches the gate which you're expected to put a pillar under to lift the gate up. He struggles a bit and assumes he needs to use the magnesis power. That's fine and dandy, but also if you're thinking about this logically from a video game developer mindset, why would you require the player to get the magnesis before getting cryostasis? It's giving you a locked down shrine with the cryostasis power as the main idea of the shrine. Wouldn't it make sense that you're going to use the cryostasis power throughout this shrine because it's probably a teaching area for it? This feels like a common design choice that should make sense to a game developer of all people. You're giving the player a tool and you want to try to teach them how the tool works for sending them off into the world.
I didn't watch the entire video, but also he neglects to hit lock on a lot. It's really strange.
Edit- I respect J Blow like I respect a Phil Fish or a Peter Molyneux if that makes it more clear.
Which I assume would be fine if you went that way up the mountain, but I spent a long time on the plateau hunting for koroks and have never seen this.
I do get this, but u like my exploration to be about options. Not barriers. Maybe that's just my taste though.
Lupin the Third
Member
I'm saying it wouldn't hurt to consider that he shouldn't be judged harshly as a person or even as a critic based on his personal, genuine reactions to playing a video game. He's just a person who is not you and there may be explanations for why he is responding the way he is (as if he has to answer for them). I gave all those qualifiers because obviously I am not in a position to give a diagnosis or anything of the sort. It's only an idea, presuming that people's comments on the video's contents have been truthful and representative, and that his own quotes people have cited are accurate. I recognize there is plenty of room for hyperbole on this forum and I'm certainly not saying he is or is not autistic (which I felt was clarified enough in my original post), or that he even has those attributes.
That said, if anyone thinks calling someone maybe, possibly, even as a passing thought, autistic to even a small degree, is some kind of insult or an affront, then you probably need to stop and consider why you feel that way.
Kamina
Golden Boy
I see this with a lot of people on youtube. Even "veterans" like ENB playing Bloodborne, Dark Souls and lately Nioh, because they think that they get more control over the hit direction.
It gets so frustrating watching them miss hits over and over again.
The hut is actually not up a mountian pah but amidst a plain area with a thin forest, standing out. I'm surprised you didnt see this during your exploration, as several Koroks and a shrine are close too.
Edit: I guess this is where the Heroes Path fuction will come in handy with the future DLC.
Just started watching, i'll see how it goes... but while at it i found this short interview, and i have to say that he's spot on!
Very interesting if you ask me, here it is
https://youtu.be/I1Fg76c4Zfg
Very interesting if you ask me, here it is
https://youtu.be/I1Fg76c4Zfg
ReyVGM
Member
Reminds me of this friend of mine that came to play BotW for a bit. He's the kind of person that criticizes everything that's popular.
He started the game, went straight to the Plateau tower. Once the tower rose, he didn't even attempt to climb down properly so he fell, game loaded up and he just walked off the tower again and died. I swear to god he was doing it on purpose because he's not that stupid.
Anyway, once he got down, he started to jump and attack so the weapons would hit the floor, testing to see how many hits it took to break. I told him that not all weapons break with the same number of hits, but he still spent 10 minutes doing this with the 4 weapons he found.
He didn't even attempt a shrine, was complaining that Link couldn't dive underwater, didn't even climb anything. He then stopped playing and I told him to leave.
He started the game, went straight to the Plateau tower. Once the tower rose, he didn't even attempt to climb down properly so he fell, game loaded up and he just walked off the tower again and died. I swear to god he was doing it on purpose because he's not that stupid.
Anyway, once he got down, he started to jump and attack so the weapons would hit the floor, testing to see how many hits it took to break. I told him that not all weapons break with the same number of hits, but he still spent 10 minutes doing this with the 4 weapons he found.
He didn't even attempt a shrine, was complaining that Link couldn't dive underwater, didn't even climb anything. He then stopped playing and I told him to leave.
But that's the good part about it. It's not a fully locked out barrier. It's a barrier that you can overcome in multiple ways and isn't a hard lock out. It's not saying nonono, don't go here. You can still go there and get by with your own decisions and being crafty. You can carry a torch, you can make food, you can explore to get the warm doublet, or just fucking eat a ton of apples. There's a lot of design pointing to the directions I listed even. If you enter through the main entrance to the snow which draws you by it's large nature and change of scenery, you can find some chilis by the entrance. If you haven't encountered chilis before, you might end up reading the description to find out they help combat cold. If you're resourceful you might bring in a torch and notice it keeps you warm. There's also a huge amount of firewood piles which should theoretically encourage you to light them to stay warm as you trek through. If you decide to just explore instead you can talk to the Old Man and learn about the doublet or cooking or anything else to help you stay warm. You can also just say fuck it and eat apples. It gives a lot of options to the player and is a really great "barrier," as far as game design goes.
I don't find it that far off from putting hard monsters in an area as to try to tell the player, "maybe tackle this later." The player can end up coming back later or they can press on to conquer that hard section despite it being advised not to. It's giving you options and not telling you that you need to be level 25 to enter.
Well, I can see the benefit of not hitting lock on in Souls games or Nioh. Even Zelda as well. It's just that you have to be good at the game and understand how your moveset works before you can usually fully utilize that. It can help you feel more in control of your hit direction and your hurtbox of your weapon when you swing. You just need to be actually knowledgeable of that stuff beforehand if you want to not use lock on.
I mean you could just run up the mountain without any cold resistance while chucking apples the whole time and not worry about it. That's a valid option too.
SenkiDala
Member
So, because your friend didn't enjoy your game as much as you do, you asked him to leave? You're an awesome friend...
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