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Joseph Anderson - Breath of the Wild Analysis

Plum

Member
I find it funny that everyone was railing on Nintendo during the Wii days for trying to appeal to everyone but now that botw completely neuters any sense of challenge or progression with a flat difficulty curve and awful puzzles all of a sudden they're geniuses again.

I find it funny when people use the experience of one, very experienced and incredibly meticulous critique to paint an entire game as having no challenge and then imply that anyone who had a different experience or doesn't agree is a hypocrite.
 

Hakai

Member
I find it funny that everyone was railing on Nintendo during the Wii days for trying to appeal to everyone but now that botw completely neuters any sense of challenge or progression with a flat difficulty curve and awful puzzles all of a sudden they're geniuses again.

That is not even true.
 

TheJoRu

Member
This doesn't reflect my play experience. I never had more than like two dozen of any arrow type beyond basic, and most of the time I had 0-5 of each. Not everyone plays the game the same way.

People praise how the game promotes different play styles by giving you more options, so giving the player the option to make their own arrows can't be a bad thing, no? It's just another option. Seems like you're just defending the arrow system because the game did it this way and there can't possibly be any other alternative.

I don't recall saying or implying it would be a bad thing. I said it would be cool. It's not like I'm actively working against the idea; but there's a difference between suggesting something because it would be fun (it would!) and suggesting something as a solution to some kind of problem. In my experience it was not a problem. That's basically it. It doesn't invalidate your experience.

Also, while I like the idea of crafting arrows and adding another option (though I personally don't think it's needed), I think any more than that would create a problem of adding too many options. The game doesn't need to be your friend all the time, it's fine for it to work against you at times and force you to adapt to certain mentalities. Like: "I have limited arrows and limited ability to get new ones, so I have to balance out my usage of them by considering other options too".

I don't know exactly what you meant by crafting, so disregard this if you already agree, but I wouldn't for example want you to be able to craft at any time in any place. If they made it like cooking, where there's specific places to do it, that'd work. The game wants you to prepare for journeys, so when you go up that mountain or whatever you've prepared properly beforehand and not just improvising as you go. While I think the game is not quite challenging enough to fully succeed with it, there's an idea of planning and then executing, and there being no guarantee that you'll always have the ideal tools available to you, forcing you to experiment with a variety of things.

EDIT:

The point above is also the reason why I dislike Joseph's criticism of it being "impossible" to beat the Lynel he encountered super early on in the game. First of all he's flat-out wrong about it being impossible as there's ways to damage him without using up weapons (riding on his back), but most importantly the "skill" in this game is not just about the combat situation itself. It's about observing the world, find out what's needed to do something, prepare and then execute. You finding a Lynel doesn't entitle you to be able to beat him using merely combat skills, because there are other aspects of this game, and it's neither wrong or unfair to force you to consider those as well.
 

Ansatz

Member
I find it funny that everyone was railing on Nintendo during the Wii days for trying to appeal to everyone but now that botw completely neuters any sense of challenge or progression with a flat difficulty curve and awful puzzles all of a sudden they're geniuses again.

Well just play the most popular and critically acclaimed mainstream games from the past decade to see how little effort is expected on the player's part to succeed and look cool in the process.

To make the action on the screen appear fluid in Bayonetta without taking hits and rack up combos demands mastery whereas anyone can seem like a badass in modern games no matter how much of a newcomer you are. There's no way to make gameplay look lame and unexciting in something like Assassin's Creed since failiure in combat and platforming is almost impossible.

This means that the enjoyment of the game stems from the scene itself, not the underlying actions required to perform it. So cleaning a lady's house in Skyward Sword as a minigame is decidedly lame no matter how mechanically engaging it might be, whereas climbing atop massive titans and ripping their heads off is amazing even thought it's a shallow QTE.

BotW appeals to people who haven't been into Nintendo's output for a long time because it's a world with a sense of place as opposed to a gamey play field.
 

ASIS

Member
I loved the analysis, even though I don't agree with most of what he said.

I'll say this, I really, really like his ideas about shrines though.

Regarding the combat, Its disappointing to see the flurry rush being so broken despite the fact that I never encountered this problem myself. Also I agree that all weapons needed to be more "throwaway" than what was in the game. Unique weapons will only tempt you to keep it, not use it.

His complaint about the lynels are, and excuse me for the strong language, bullshit. There was a vid of a guy beating that very same Lynel with nothing but tree branches. Preparation is part of the game and it's a good thing that the game doesn't hold your hand.

What's interesting about BoTW is that it is a good game but peaks way in the beginning and goes downhill from there. The more you play, the worse it gets. Obviously it is still fantastic even during the end game. But the beginning leaves a much stronger impression. Though that's to be expected since I finished it in 114 hours.
 

nynt9

Member
How are you supposed to know you can beat the Lynel like that though? The game doesn't indicate it to you in any way and you can only use external knowledge to know that.

He's not saying "you can't beat the Lynel so combat is bad". He's saying "you need tons of gear to beat the Lynel so the combat is gear based and not skill based" (if you ignore the point about the built-in kill method with the mounting, which he clearly doesn't know about (and why should he? It's not telegraphed))
 

Red

Member
How are you supposed to know you can beat the Lynel like that though? The game doesn't indicate it to you in any way and you can only use external knowledge to know that.

He's not saying "you can't beat the Lynel so combat is bad". He's saying "you need tons of gear to beat the Lynel so the combat is gear based and not skill based" (if you ignore the point about the built-in kill method with the mounting, which he clearly doesn't know about (and why should he? It's not telegraphed))
It is to the game's benefit to not explain every option.
 

ASIS

Member
How are you supposed to know you can beat the Lynel like that though? The game doesn't indicate it to you in any way and you can only use external knowledge to know that.

He's not saying "you can't beat the Lynel so combat is bad". He's saying "you need tons of gear to beat the Lynel so the combat is gear based and not skill based" (if you ignore the point about the built-in kill method with the mounting, which he clearly doesn't know about (and why should he? It's not telegraphed))

The entire point of the game, and the entire reason he liked the exploration, is because the game encourages experimentation . Are you really trying to tell me that in his tries he never got a headshot in the lynel fight? Because if that is the case he doesn't deserve to make that assertion, if he did but didn't notice or get the prompt then he shouldn't complain about the skill of the game if he doesn't know all the mechanics. Add to that fact that each and every enemy in the game can be beaten without holding on to your gear. Lynels and boss fights are an exception, and lynels can be , again, beaten with tree branches.

I'm sorry, this is such a petty complaint of an otherwise solid critique.
 

Hakai

Member
How are you supposed to know you can beat the Lynel like that though? The game doesn't indicate it to you in any way and you can only use external knowledge to know that.

He's not saying "you can't beat the Lynel so combat is bad". He's saying "you need tons of gear to beat the Lynel so the combat is gear based and not skill based" (if you ignore the point about the built-in kill method with the mounting, which he clearly doesn't know about (and why should he? It's not telegraphed))

It never was a game about skill only, how is that bad?
 

balohna

Member
How are you supposed to know you can beat the Lynel like that though? The game doesn't indicate it to you in any way and you can only use external knowledge to know that.

He's not saying "you can't beat the Lynel so combat is bad". He's saying "you need tons of gear to beat the Lynel so the combat is gear based and not skill based" (if you ignore the point about the built-in kill method with the mounting, which he clearly doesn't know about (and why should he? It's not telegraphed))

The game is all about preparation all the way through. Literally the only thing stopping you from facing the final boss at the start is whether or not you're prepared. So "gear based"... so what? That's the type of game it is. Skill matters to an extent, but it's not a game that requires total mastery.

Lynel fights, or any fight really, give you lots of possibilities to finish them. I like to wear a
lynel mask
to get in close, then spin a great sword around until my stamina is almost out. Takes away like half their health if the sword is good (and a certain divine beast power kicks in). This is at the end of the game. You can do whatever makes sense for you, and if a fight is taking too long you probably need to adjust your approach. If the game told you the best way to kill each enemy you'd lose the feeling of discovery. The knowledge you gain and strategies you form are the "skill" layer of the game moreso than your motor skills.
 

Aldric

Member
How are you supposed to know you can beat the Lynel like that though? The game doesn't indicate it to you in any way and you can only use external knowledge to know that.

He's not saying "you can't beat the Lynel so combat is bad". He's saying "you need tons of gear to beat the Lynel so the combat is gear based and not skill based" (if you ignore the point about the built-in kill method with the mounting, which he clearly doesn't know about (and why should he? It's not telegraphed))

Where do you think that "external knowledge" comes from? Do you think Aonuma personally emailed Jimmyqballs to tell him that hitting Lynels while you're mounting them preserved your weapons? Or maybe he found out by himself that you could beat them with half a dozen tree branches through experimentation.
 
How are you supposed to know you can beat the Lynel like that though? The game doesn't indicate it to you in any way and you can only use external knowledge to know that.

He's not saying "you can't beat the Lynel so combat is bad". He's saying "you need tons of gear to beat the Lynel so the combat is gear based and not skill based" (if you ignore the point about the built-in kill method with the mounting, which he clearly doesn't know about (and why should he? It's not telegraphed))
Combat is mostly gear-based, that isn't wrong. Doesn't mean there isn't skill involved in the combat though. Parrying effectively, getting dodge timings down, learning enemy moveset and behaviors, figuring out environmental advantages, these are all skills you learn and eventually master while playing the game. He's right that the gear progression eventually removed most of the challenge of the game, but in order to get gear upgraded that much and have that many powerful weapons, you have to play the game for a very long time.

What he did isn't very different from grinding to max level in FF, then complaining all the challenge is gone. The game doesn't have stat or level progression, so instead it is built around gear progression and to a lesser extent skill progression. Just because the game allows you to upgrade your armor so much that hits barely effect you, doesn't mean the intention is for you to do that before facing all the major challenges of the game. However, the unrestricted nature of the game allows for you to do that because the game is more concerned with giving the player freedom than creating a satisfying difficulty curve for every player at all stages of the experience.
 

ReBirFh

Member
What he did isn't very different from grinding to max level in FF, then complaining all the challenge is gone. The game doesn't have stat or level progression, so instead it is built around gear progression and to a lesser extent skill progression. Just because the game allows you to upgrade your armor so much that hits barely effect you, doesn't mean the intention is for you to do that before facing all the major challenges of the game. However, the unrestricted nature of the game allows for you to do that because the game is more concerned with giving the player freedom than creating a satisfying difficulty curve for every player at all stages of the experience.

Completely agree with this point. You start the game knowing exactly what your objective is - Destroy Calamity Ganon. How long you're going or want to prepare is up to you.

The game even let's you enjoy almost everything without "leveling up" as you can do 120 shrines without increasing stamina/health, disabling the champion powers and not upgrading your armor or even inventory slots. But then you see people playing for 50+ hours, grinding resources and upgrading everything to the max just to complain that the game supposedly isn't challenging.

If you don't want to kill like a "god", don't become one .
 

TheJoRu

Member
How are you supposed to know you can beat the Lynel like that though? The game doesn't indicate it to you in any way and you can only use external knowledge to know that.

He's not saying "you can't beat the Lynel so combat is bad". He's saying "you need tons of gear to beat the Lynel so the combat is gear based and not skill based" (if you ignore the point about the built-in kill method with the mounting, which he clearly doesn't know about (and why should he? It's not telegraphed))

It's not like Nintendo told people about this in interviews, people have figured this out on their own by experimenting and by thinking "I wonder if...". Isn't that a skillful thing; to observe, to analyze, learn and then execute a strategy based on that?

And again, why should he be entitled to be able to beat that Lynel just after going off the Great Plateau? Preparation is part of the game. If you go into a battle unprepared, knowing how powerful an enemy is and what it can do, you're a bad player. Then you don't understand the value of exploration in this game. Before that it's not the same; the game encourages you to fight stuff to figure out what they do, even if you die, because you'll learn from it. And then you go prepare, by exploring. Because that's what smart BotW-players do.
 
Maybe Nintendo really should have made Skyward Sword 2.
Nope, Skyward Sword makes it obvious that they'd gotten all the mileage they could out of that style of Zelda. BoTW provides a great foundation to build upon for the next installment. They definitely made the right choice.
 

Plum

Member
And again, why should he be entitled to be able to beat that Lynel just after going off the Great Plateau? Preparation is part of the game. If you go into a battle unprepared, knowing how powerful an enemy is and what it can do, you're a bad player. Then you don't understand the value of exploration in this game. Before that it's not the same; the game encourages you to fight stuff to figure out what they do, even if you die, because you'll learn from it. And then you go prepare, by exploring. Because that's what smart BotW-players do.

Exactly. Dark Souls has two areas with enemies that are literally unbeatable with the weapons you have at the start. You can become the very best (like no one ever was) and you still, if you haven't prepared, you won't be able to kill the skeletons in the Graveyard or the ghosts in New Londo because they're not meant to be early-game fights. In hindsight it's probably the weakest part of his critique, he wants the game to reward his own stubbornness when it's been made clear that it won't do such a thing.
 

Caelus

Member
Maybe Nintendo really should have made Skyward Sword 2.

No. BotW is a step in the right direction, a continuation of the Link Between Worlds design which was their first response to the Skyward Sword criticism.

I can understand the affection, nostalgia or sense of pageantry people feel towards the previous 3D Zeldas... but after being accustomed to Breath of the Wild's fluidity, I can't see myself replaying any of them, except possibly Majora's Mask.

Breath of the Wild feels so different it's hard to believe it's the same dev team and director. I'm mesmerized just watching videos of people fucking around with the physics and abusing Lynels and Guardians with rocks.
 

Lizardus

Member
Nope, Skyward Sword makes it obvious that they'd gotten all the mileage they could out of that style of Zelda. BoTW provides a great foundation to build upon for the next installment. They definitely made the right choice.

No. BotW is a step in the right direction, a continuation of the Link Between Worlds design which was their first response to the Skyward Sword criticism.

I can understand the affection, nostalgia or sense of pageantry people feel towards the previous 3D Zeldas... but after being accustomed to Breath of the Wild's fluidity, I can't see myself replaying any of them, except possibly Majora's Mask.

Breath of the Wild feels so different it's hard to believe it's the same dev team and director. I'm mesmerized just watching videos of people fucking around with the physics and abusing Lynels and Guardians with rocks.

I was being sarcastic, based on some of the posters here and some of the points presented in the video. I already argued in favour of BotW design numerous times in this thread and others.
 

guyssorry

Member
I don't understand playing games and actively looking for negatives. BOTW is a big departure from other games in the series, but, imo, it works really well. Weapon durability is manageable, combat is improved and more diverse, there is a much higher risk of death, the overworld is fun and easy to traverse, interactions (environment, npc, enemies) are sublime, it's aesthetically pleasant, etc.

Yes, the game is different; yes, dungeons and layout are different; BUT, in terms of BOTW, it works. Why does every game need to be the same? And this is coming from a huge Zelda fan who has thoroughly enjoyed all mainline games in the series and considers ALTTP to be the pinnacle of the series/video games in general. BOTW is great, and I look forward to seeing how Nintendo expands on its formula in the next Zelda game, because they've clearly learned that freedom/less hand-holding and fewer tutorials = good.
 
So I watched most of the combat portion (tried to skip the boss fights that I haven't seen yet) and wow... the dodge mechanic seems really sloppy. I actually thought there was a tight timing window and that I was just missing it when I got hit. Turns out I shouldn't be trying to do it properly at all.

I don't understand playing games and actively looking for negatives.

Who is doing this?

Nobody goes into Zelda looking for negatives. We all want it to be a perfect game and can't help but notice some shortcomings while playing it. Doesn't make it any less amazing. Doesn't make the inevitable 100+ hours any less worthwhile.
 
Yeah. When you headshot a Lynel or use Urbosa's fury, it stuns them. Go upto them and you will see a prompt to mount them. Now switch to your strongest weapon and you will hit him 5 times. This will not consume durability. When he bucks you off, go into bullet time when you are in air for another few headshots.

When they are stunned, either from Urbosa's Fury or from a headshot, you can run up to them and mount them. This allows you to mash the attack button (with ANY weapon equipped, so you can swap to your highest damage weapon) for true damage with no degradation to your weapon.

You can link these back-to-back with good headshots and use of Stasis+ or Urbosa's Fury (which also damages them heavily). Tack on Flurry Rush on everything but the Club Lynel, and they melt.

Silver Lynels can be demolished very quickly, so the notion that they are bullet sponges is only true if you do not utilize the mechanics of their encounter.

Urbosa's Fury, in general, turns most units in the game into pincushions on top of dealing a very large chunk of damage to them, it will wipe out entire camps of everything short of Black/Silver. Non-Lynel/Boss enemies are stunned for a long-ass time as well. The only enemy in the game that isn't actually completely trivialized by her attack is Ganon as he has windows of resistance to her attack after being hit by it.

Once you also learn of the secret OPness of the 5x Savage Lynel bow with Bomb Arrows, there is really no enemy in the game that you cannot kill in a few seconds that isn't, again, a Lynel or Ganon (it trivializes his first phase, he's effectively immune to it in his second). Hinox get nigh-insta-gibbed by that bow/arrow combination to the eye. Molduga's will get killed in a few shots.
I had no idea you could even do this...
 

-MB-

Member
It is generous with its timing.

And for good reason, so that less skilled players can master it as well. So to callit broken is just dumb imho.
Of course I cannot take the opnion of someone serious, that basically calls Nintendo devs amateurs.
 
And for good reason, so that less skilled players can master it as well. So to callit broken is just dumb imho.
Of course I cannot take the opnion of someone serious, that basically calls Nintendo devs amateurs.

I mean... it is clearly broken if you watched the video. The only reason it seems generous is because sometimes it flat-out doesn't work as expected and gives you a dodge when you don't deserve it.
 

Okamid3n

Member
About one of the shrines he criticizes for having 2 solutions.

I did it another way.

the one where there is a ball at 41:44. yeah it never occurred to me to do the box solution. But it didn't even occur to me to stasis the ball. In the end I magnetized a box to prevent the ball from falling in. Then when I was on the platform I removed the box and let the ball fall in.
So it's super cool how that puzzle had various solutions for people whose brains have different problem solving methods.

And I stood on the pillars with the ball, used stasis on the ball and smacked it 6 times with a spear weapon. It went straight into the hole.

I can't believe his complaint there, it's ridiculous. Having so many ways to solve the shrines is awesome, and it doesn't feel like cheating at all to use stasis in creative ways.
 

nynt9

Member
And I stood on the pillars with the ball, used stasis on the ball and smacked it 6 times with a spear weapon. It went straight into the hole.

I can't believe his complaint there, it's ridiculous. Having so many ways to solve the shrines is awesome, and it doesn't feel like cheating at all to use stasis in creative ways.

He doesn't criticize shrines for having too many solutions. That's a misinterpretation by the comment you quoted. He says that shrines are too simple, and having multiple solutions seems an artifact of that simplicity, and he would rather have interesting shrines that have a single solution than uninteresting, basic shrines with multiple solutions.

Even I'm not doing his point justice so you're better off watching it with his examples.
 

Okamid3n

Member
I did watch that, that part of the video said this was "such a lack of thought on the part of nintendo" to not have prevented easy solutions like that.

I agree the shrines were too short and easy for the most part, but his example was specifically of a shrine with a solution that he deemed too cheap.

I don't agree that using stasis on the ball and running to make it to the pillar just in time is easier or more broken than the actual solution of that shrine.
 

UCBooties

Member
I don't understand how he can talk about needing to impose limits on himself to make the combat fun (and never actually specifying what those limits are) but also point out all the ways in which the combat is flawed and can result in cheap hits or what unbelievable tanks end game mobs can be. He's making an argument for the game being too easy while also complaining about all the ways in which the combat is cheap and doesn't reward skilled play.

I do agree that the dodge mechanic is too inconsistent. I also pretty much hate Zebra stripe Lynels at this point, they take so little damage even with a three sword strength buff that fighting them just feels like a waste of time.
 

Formless

Member
I mainly disagree that the shrines were often bad. I found them mostly entertaining. Frankly if he didn't like these he must've been scoffing at almost every puzzle element in previous Zeldas. His points about improvements are well found though.


Points about combat and side quests are definitely felt by me. The game overstays its welcome and shows its limitations in these especially.

I thought the last boss was disappointing but not to the point where I was repulsed.
 

YAWN

Ask me which Shakespeare novel is best
I understand his complaint about the Lynel encounter, as I stumbled across something similar. It was pretty early in game, just got the camera function from Kakariko village, and paraglided toward the sea. There's a shrine before Eventide Island that houses a combat challenge, it's a pretty rigorous one though.
It took me about 5 tries to beat it, as my equipement and hearts were both naff, but in the end I managed it. All my equipment did break, but, I'm not sure if Joseph just forgot or not, I could just rely on my bombs to finish the rest. They're unlimited after all, and even though it took a good 10 mins of lobbing them at the guardian, I still took it out.

I guess what Im saying is that it does suck some of the fun away having all your equipment break despite your skill, but there is always bombs to rely on in the tough times.
 
The game isn't perfect but I don't agree with most of his complaints at all. I hope Nintendo improves on the direction BOTW is headed in, maybe designs longer/harder/more dungeons in the next game, and I'll be thrilled. I thought the shrines were great overall, only thing I missed was the longer dungeons that were a larger collection of puzzles vs the more bite-size shrines. Double the length of the divine beasts and my only real "complaint" goes away.

Also I don't understand people who complain about being OP 50 hours into the game... Isn't that progression? If Link was as weak at the end as he was at the beginning, why explore? Also, I'd be willing to bet that in a large number of open world games the final boss is not the hardest/most damaging enemy. In the games I can think of, it's almost always some optional enemy/boss that is.
 

ghibli99

Member
Paraphrased from what I posted on the YT page (I hope he responds to some points, but there are a lot of comments there):

The combat section was the most revelatory part for me, but that's because I didn't take that much time to analyze the system in my 120 hours with the game. I just accepted that some enemies hit really hard. I went through most of the game with a cumulative gear DEF of 9 to maybe a max of 36, probably less because I don't think I maxed out any set (like Super Bunnyhop, he loathed the grinding it took to get there). I just didn't care that much about buffing my DEF, and chose to just get better at flurry rush... but never noticed how exploitable it was as the video showed. Again, probably because I didn't spend a ton of time analyzing and experimenting in the same way.

Also, not sure if I missed it, but he didn't really talk about weapon modifiers, like how fire weapons are good against ice enemies, ancient weapons vs. guardians, etc. The weapon/durability system is something I really enjoyed, as soon as I stopped getting attached to gear. It's a tough habit to break based on how we've been trained to cherish/treasure cool gear, but you get good stuff so often the deeper in you get that trying to conserve ends up being an exercise in futility. Plus, I really enjoyed using crappy weapons against strong enemies to do some chip damage. Fighting a Lynel for a while with a weak-ass bone arm creates a pretty funny visual, if anything. :)

Breaking combat with DEF takes a lot of time though. He didn't talk about how long it actually takes someone to get DEF into the 60-80+ range, or how long it takes to collect all the Korok seeds to expand inventory as much as he did. By then, I'd almost see that as a reward for time invested as opposed to breaking the damage/DEF balance or cluttering inventory.

It was actually quite sad hearing his story about the Lynel! My first encounter with one was during the Zora quest. It took me a couple hours to finally figure out the attack patterns, and by the end, I was down to 0 melee weapons, 0 shields, 0 food, and just some standard arrows. My last few arrows flew true and I took it out. It was one of the greatest feelings, up there with the elation I felt playing the Souls games and Bloodborne. I avoided a lot of the Lynels going forward until much later in the game, but that moment is cemented in my brain as one of the best of this generation. It sucks that it was one of his worst! :(

I liked the shrines, even the easy ones. Again, had I taken the massive amount of time to record and analyze every one afterwards, I'm sure I would have seen individual faults, but in the aggregate, they were more a positive memory than a negative one. The shrine he singled out as broken is one that is often cited for having the most varied solutions, which I see as a positive, even if he saw it as unfathomably bad design (sorry if I'm misquoting, but that's the impression I got from that section).

Framerate isn't consistent, can't argue with that. Sidequests are pretty basic outside of several shrine, Kass, and the Tarrey Town ones. On a related note, I wish he would have spent some quality time with the game's sound design. It would have been really cool to hear his analysis of that part of the game in greater detail, since I think it's pretty brilliant for the most part and really bridges the gap between player and what they're experiencing on-screen.

In the end, I appreciate deep analysis videos like this. I still think this is one of the best games I've ever played, but that doesn't mean there still isn't lots of room for improvement. If I could have a game with BOTW's exploration/artstyle, TW3's quest quality, HZD tech/combat, and as he said, "more Zelda" (proper dungeons with some tool/item gating, better storytelling, Link actually talking, etc.), that might be just about the most perfect game ever.

Hopefully we'll see something like that in our lifetime. :)
 

UCBooties

Member
Breaking combat with DEF takes a lot of time though. He didn't talk about how long it actually takes someone to get DEF into the 60-80+ range, or how long it takes to collect all the Korok seeds to expand inventory as much as he did. By then, I'd almost see that as a reward for time invested as opposed to breaking the damage/DEF balance or cluttering inventory.

Yeah, I think he really missed in his analysis of the armor buffing system. He seemed to think that it had no scaling because he only discovered it at the end of the game. But it absolutely does scale, first because you can only raise a piece of armor's level if you've found the corresponding number of Great Fairy shrines, and second because the final upgrades require a lot of material grinding, often of materials that can only be gotten from end game enemies. So he complains that it trivializes the game but doesn't seem to realize that you can only get those upgrades if you've already explored most of the map and are able to grind the most difficult enemies.

I also really like the shrines. Sure there are some lame ones, but overall I like them as incentive to explore and bite-size puzzle or combat encounters. The caveat here is that I hate most dungeons in the 3D Legend of Zelda games because I find them generally to be tedious and overly reliant on gimmicks. I wouldn't mind a bit more variety with the shrines, but overall I think they're a great way to encourage players to scour the map and give interesting little challenges. I do agree that there could have been a few more of the more complex, multi-stage shrines, and I actually do like his idea of having a sort of "shrine play list" which smoothly ramps up the challenge regardless of where you are. Of course that wouldn't work for the shrines that are tied to locations or that are rewards for solving puzzles in the over world.
 

Link_enfant

Member
I don't recall Urbosa's Fury being mentioned in the whole video, but I've always felt like it was a bit too powerful.
Of course, this impression may be due to my own playthrough where I unintentionally got this power first.
Though even after more than 130 hours put into the game, it still makes some battles way easier, to the point that I shouldn't really bother using my weapons before unleashing my three Urbosa furies.
Silver Lynels are about the most dangerous ennemies in the game, and of course they give me trouble but the last few times I attempted to fight them, I tried not to use this power because I was afraid it might make the battle too easy.
I'd say having three available and being able to use them in a row is the most problematic thing.

Another thing, although I agree it can be seen as I'm a bit too picky, is that I wish we could charge weapon attacks without automatically charge the Urbosa's power.
I know we can deactivate it in the menus, but it would be more convenient to charge it with another button imo.
You would be able to actually charge it whenever you want and charge your attacks independently.

Has anyone else felt the same way about it?
 

nynt9

Member
I don't recall Urbosa's Fury being mentioned in the whole video, but I've always felt like it was a bit too powerful.
Of course, this impression may be due to my own playthrough where I unintentionally got this power first.
Though even after more than 130 hours put into the game, it still makes some battles way easier, to the point that I shouldn't really bother using my weapons before unleashing my three Urbosa furies.
Silver Lynels are about the most dangerous ennemies in the game, and of course they give me trouble but the last few times I attempted to fight them, I tried not to use this power because I was afraid it might make the battle too easy.
I'd say having three available and being able to use them in a row is the most problematic thing.

Another thing, although I agree it can be seen as I'm a bit too picky, is that I wish we could charge weapon attacks without automatically charge the Urbosa's power.
I know we can deactivate it in the menus, but it would be more convenient to charge it with another button imo.
You would be able to actually charge it whenever you want and charge your attacks independently.

Has anyone else felt the same way about it?

In general I think the controls and UI of the game could use a little bit of streamlining, so yes.
 
It's pronounced "plah-tow."

Wew. I'll be upfront and say I've never played BotW and probably never will, but I think it might be just a little hyperbolic to say that the combat was made by amateurs, and that reviewers "ignored" huge, critical flaws. Maybe other reviews simply didn't view them as flaws, or didn't find them important enough to bring down the whole experience. But no, they ignored them.

Then again this vid comes from the same guy who asserted that the ship door puzzle in The Witness was a joke without a logical solution (despite the many who solved it using the the rules the game taught the player), and that Jonathan Blow made the game deliberately annoying & time-wasting (somehow) because he was convinced he could get away with anything, or something.
 
The biggest problem with the game is that it uses some well-established gaming systems: buffs, re-speccing, armor upgrades, voice acting, weapon choice, etc., in really basic and simplistic ways, as if its the developer's first attempt at it.

Bingo.

But that's partly why it's so great. The game is just raw. It's this weird synergy of something born out of classic Nintendo gameplay R&D and an attempt to modernize itself.

As much as I love this game and (and as much as it deserves shit), I don't think I'm going to like any attempt at a follow up on this as much. It will likely lose a lot of that rawness - but then again, Nintendo is stingy, budgetwise, so we'll see.
 

nynt9

Member
Bingo.

But that's partly why it's so great. The game is just raw. It's this weird synergy of something born out of classic Nintendo gameplay R&D and an attempt to modernize itself.

As much as I love this game and (as much as it deserves shit), I don't think I'm going to like any attempt at a follow up on this. It will likely lose a lot of that rawness - but then again, Nintendo is stingy, budgetwise, so we'll see.

To the contrary, I'd prefer a second attempt at it. Some aspects of it just seem like they were stuck too deep in their own heads and didn't really think things through. A more refined iteration with more variety could be GOAT. Now that they have the engine and formula down, they can work on creating more content that is weirder. Like Majora's Mask, which is my favorite Zelda game.
 
I'm fully conscious of being in the potential minority in that kind of opinion. I love seeing games play with raw, interacting gameplay concepts that keeps things dynamic and simple. Fighting games are my genre of choice, for reference. Completely mechanics driven. Do that and you'll have my attention. Add a robust physics engine and you'll have my heart.

BotW reminds of Halo: CE, which is still the only Halo game worth playing for me until this day, and that's largely due to its raw simplicity. and its hyperbolic but insanely satisfying physics engine.
 

Jumeira

Banned
Game is great but i do not like the melee combat, it has no place in modern gaming. It's a shame because they upgraded and redone almost everything, wouldve been nice to see the combat get the same treatment.

I prefer wicher 3 combat tbh, i wince in pain with i tear up humans and monsters due to the brutality of it, BoTW swordplay is no fun. They nailed the bow and arrow mechanics, i do love that.
 

Lilo_D

Member
Game is great but i do not like the melee combat, it has no place in modern gaming. It's a shame because they upgraded and redone almost everything, wouldve been nice to see the combat get the same treatment.

I prefer wicher 3 combat tbh, i wince in pain with i tear up humans and monsters due to the brutality of it.

I'm so glad Botw don't have witcher 3 combat
So so glad tbh
 

nynt9

Member
Update: Nintendo issued a copyright claim on this video and it was demonetized. Joseph is saying on twitter that he likely won't be able to cover Nintendo content in the future, including the game's DLC which he was intending to cover.

This is really a shame. His video was very insightful, and agree with it or not but it was a result of a lot of work and analysis. He deserves better than this.
 

TheMoon

Member
Update: Nintendo issued a copyright claim on this video and it was demonetized. Joseph is saying on twitter that he likely won't be able to cover Nintendo content in the future, including the game's DLC which he was intending to cover.

This is really a shame. His video was very insightful, and agree with it or not but it was a result of a lot of work and analysis. He deserves better than this.

That's nice and all but, at this point, who does YT videos and still doesn't know this is how it works? Nintendo-related videos get content ID'd. Should surprise nobody. Neither him nor us.
 
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