wild wild rice
Member
Overall it's a dull, forgettable game, but I think Infamous Second Son has my favorite traversal this gen just in terms of pure mechanics.
Were you around during the launch weeks? Because that game was basically the first and best open world game ever created and was absolutely nothing like any other open world game before. Nothing you hear me??
There was a thread where a person was asking for linear, focused games because they were burned out of open world, and most of the replies were "but have you tried Zelda??" "play Zelda!!!", to which they answered many times that they didn't want open world of any kind no matter its quality, and the Zelda evangelists kept saying that it didn't matter, that Zelda was unlike any other open world and that they must play it anyways.
It was downright embarrassing.
Oh ok nevermind.
Gravity Rush 2 easily, how can you beat flying? And a super gorgeous world to boot.
Infamous Second Son. While combat is inferior to infamous 2, I think the traversal is vastly superior. (Although I do miss Ice launches) It has 4 separate traversal options that all feel good. Smoke is the most limited in horizontal travel but with vents you can be at the top of a building in an instant. Video is great for flying and saying in the air. Neon is great for ground travel, and concrete is a good mix of air and ground travel. Possibly the best traversal I have used in a super hero game.
Batman Arkham Knight. You can really feel like Batman in more ways than on in this game. Batman can use the grappling hook to get anywhere. Glide boosters make traveling as Batman more efficient than the Batmobile. Divebombs are very exciting, and it all flows very well with combat. While the Batmobile has trash missions, its actually fun to traverse around the city. The Batmobile is fast, and very powerful. You feel so bad ass in the car, while everything around it crumbles with immense detail.
Any others from this gen?
Witcher 3 or BotW.
I love how BOTW is meant to set some kind of standard open worlds have never done before ie vertical climbing, gliding.
Batman, Assassins Creed, Just Cause 3 all done it way before BOTW came out. BOTW seems to have been put onto this unreachable pedestal, when it's clearly not.
Good game yes, but let's not go overboard in it's praise.
I'll agree there's a difference between traversal and exploration, I don't agree you can reliably (or meaningfully) separate the two. What makes something feel good is generally an interplay between affective/visceral feedback and cognitively interesting rewards. I love all the visual chutzpah of the neon powers in Infamous, or the tactility of a sudden lurch as your roped batarang connects to a ledge, but if the reward of scaling a building is that's nothing there, if you're just moving from point A to point B on the map, then all the buildings in between are just stalling tactics. Traversal is well programmed but feels like a nuisance. Conversely while the vertigo and snap of the parachute in Breath of the Wild feels great, the ensuing glide is viscerally boring, however then the cognitive interest picks up as you go ooh need to go that way, ah what's that, well damn I go and want to scale that mountain to go and look from the other side. Traversal becomes meaningful and therefore more fun than the more visceral but also hollow glitz of other games.There's a difference between exploration and traversal...
You mean this thread, right?Were you around during the launch weeks? Because that game was basically the first and best open world game ever created and was absolutely nothing like any other open world game before. Nothing you hear me??
There was a thread where a person was asking for linear, focused games because they were burned out of open world, and most of the replies were "but have you tried Zelda??" "play Zelda!!!", to which they answered many times that they didn't want open world of any kind no matter its quality, and the Zelda evangelists kept saying that it didn't matter, that Zelda was unlike any other open world and that they must play it anyways.
It was downright embarrassing.
Oh ok nevermind.
Probably MGS V.
Here's to hoping Spider-Man PS4 can take the cake.
BoTW
Everything is climbable and you can glide anywhere
Not very popular here, but I really enjoyed flying around in Just Cause 3
Absolutely not. Can't even summon my horse. I'm on a road and I'd like to summon my horse and proceed with the increased speed from my mount, nope. I need to fast travel to a stable. Get the horse and travel BACK to where I was originally then continue. Such a waste of time when I should have been able to summon my horse right there and not waste time.
I really dislike BotW as an open world game due to this design decision.