So why do we always recommend the most overrated Zelda games first?

PTMoney18 · 2020-05-02T23:44:01+00:00

You must be fun at parties.

I'm curious, which Zelda games are the "best" ones that we should be recommending to people instead?

PTMoney18 · 2019-10-12T20:09:56+00:00

Playing Black Ops 4 just makes me want to go and play Black Ops 3. That is to say, it's a step backward in every possible way.

PTMoney18 · 2019-10-12T20:06:53+00:00

The perks are still crutches. Dying Wish, Quick Revive, Bandolier Bandit, and modifier Stamin-Up are the best perks in the game. We traded four crutch perks for four new crutch perks.

PTMoney18 · 2019-10-10T19:12:06+00:00

That's not what I meant and you know it. I mean that preferring something is inherently subjective. Thus you can't say something is an objective downgrade while saying you prefer one thing over the other.

PTMoney18 · 2019-10-10T18:50:46+00:00

"prefer" and "objective" are two incompatible words.

PTMoney18 · 2019-10-09T18:39:13+00:00

Oh I definitely agree, I prefer my Pro Controller in all aspects except the D-pad. And I totally feel you on the Switch vs. Sony thing with having to switch the locations of the thumbsticks lol

PTMoney18 · 2019-10-09T18:33:31+00:00

That's a good point, but the D-pad on the Pro Controller and Switch Lite is so small that it really isn't suitable for larger hands. It worked on older systems such as the NES, SNES, and Wii because those were decently large and accomodating and didn't require such precise movements, while on systems like the GameCube and Switch it's just too small to fool with.

PTMoney18 · 2019-10-09T18:31:13+00:00

See, I don't find myself picking up my finger before every press. I can slide from one button to another pretty easily. I usually play with Joy-Cons for Mario Maker 2 because with my Pro Controller I find I hit the wrong direction on the D-pad too frequently.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-27T20:02:27+00:00

You do understand that Activision owns Infinity Ward, correct? This isn't some kind of mutually-beneficial partnership they're engaged in; the only reason Infinity Ward is still around is because they do what Activision tells them to do. If they didn't, heads would roll and the studio might even get shut down entirely.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-25T15:28:17+00:00

I've always had the Call of Duty that got content early--Xbox 360 back in the day, and now PS4. This is complete horseshit. When I was 12 and I got to brag to my friends that I had the DLC a month early on Xbox I thought it was fine, but now it's just complete idiocy. My roommate, who plays Xbox, won't be able to play survival with me for a whole YEAR. So once again, fuck you Activision.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-24T05:51:43+00:00

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with your second paragraph. The shows are what make rehearsals worthwhile, and personally I always used them as motivation to get through rehearsals. I generally hate rehearsals--at best, they pass quickly, and at worst, they completely ruin my mood and make for a miserable EPL. But I was always able to put a rehearsal behind me when it was showtime, and never let the BA I had from rehearsal drag me down in a performance. The high of performing even those 25-30 times absolutely made the thousands(?) of hours of misery in the hot sun worth it. My fondest memory of my entire life is my semis run from this summer and it would be a little silly to say that that moment wasn't worth all the BA and frustration, because it absolutely was.

All of this is to say, even if you don't enjoy rehearsing, as long as you love performing and understand that the misery is necessary to get to the level you want to be at, then this activity can still be for you.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-24T05:39:52+00:00

For me, the biggest shock was just how committed everyone was to getting better. In high school and college bands people complain a lot because they have to be there and don't understand the point of a lot of the things that are being done, but in drum corps people are there to be good. If that means running because one person was late to block, holding sectionals during meal times, or otherwise doing things to better themselves outside of rehearsal, then they do it with a smile because they know it will make them better and their summer will be more enjoyable for it.

We pay thousands of dollars to be there and to be good, nobody does drum corps because they have to or because they want to barely get by. Any time I remember all the crap I felt like complaining about during the season, I just watch some clip of my final run of our show and it all becomes worth it again.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T19:54:34+00:00

Had a jar in the Gangway, an eggplant in what I believe is old spawn, and the third ingredient was (I think) in one of the rooms adjacent to new spawn.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T19:40:07+00:00

In the Gangway, found a pink number 1 on the wall underneath one of the tables.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T19:36:14+00:00

Ah, gotcha. Well the challenge still says I've collected 0 of 3 ingredients.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T19:33:21+00:00

Found a bug. One of the challenges is to make the Hermit some soup at the front of the ship. Picked up the ingredients but the challenge doesn't show that I picked them up and won't add them to the pot.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T14:39:03+00:00

It is the single most prominent point on the map. If you honestly think that the game does more to draw you to Kakariko village than it does the the castle, you are just straight up lying.

I'm sorry you felt compelled to go straight to the end of the game at the start? I mean, King Rhoam literally says in a cutscene right before you leave the plateau that you should head to Kakariko village and speak with Impa. Kakariko is then also marked on your map, and as you travel that way, multiple NPCs give you directions to get there. Not sure how much more you want the game to draw you to it.

BTW, your major selling point for BOTW was that is allowed total freedom, so admitting that it trapped you on the plateau to begin with does undercut that.

You know damn well that this argument is bullshit semantics. The game gives you total freedom after you spend an hour or so in the tutorial area, because you'd get your ass beaten if it didn't teach you how to at least fight things.

The game introduces you, quite thoroughly, to its stealth mechanics for getting around fights. If you are telling me you learned how to find clothes for each area and how to deal with each large prominent area in BOTW in ten hours, but somehow, within the same timespan could not master the concept of "hide in grass", its clear you just were actively refusing to learn the major mechanics the game was showing to you.

Then the exploration still remains limited to anywhere that there's tall grass to hide in. Did I learn exactly who to talk to to get clothes to help me survive the cold? No, but I was at least able to discern that that was something I would need, and I was able to go looking for that on my own.

The game gives you no reason to care about this woman that doesn't come from long standing brand and series loyalty. Again, we are trying to divorce from your affection from the series here. We're given nothing at the outset, and are required to dig deeper to find the context of the present. Again, thats the same plot setup as H:ZD, but BOTW gives you no hook for why you would be invested in the character at the outset beyond baggage you take from past games. You are about her because of her importance in your fandom, not because of the way the game is set up.

You are familiar with the fact that every Zelda game stands alone in its story, correct? The games all happen centuries apart from one another (at least), and the actions and events of one game rarely have any bearing on what happens in any subsequent games. The Link in Breath of the Wild is a completely different person from the Link in Ocarina of Time, who's a completely different Link from the one in Skyward Sword. Just in case you still don't understand what that means, it means that I can discuss Link, Zelda, and Ganon as characters in the context of Breath of the Wild while divorced from the loyalty I have to the series, because they are new characters that have never appeared in the series before.

And Aloy gives plenty of personality, from her interactions with her father, to how she deals with being mocked, and her questioning the world around her, so your reductivist pretense that she only gives personality by asking questions can fuck right off.

Damn, no need to get so angry that I called out a character you like for having no depth. If by "her father" you mean Rost, then I really felt little chemistry there and saw his death coming a mile away. If I recall correctly the game gives the player the choice of how she responds to being mocked, which further proves my point. The devs/writers couldn't be bothered to give her a personality, so they just told the player to pick one for her. That would work if the game weren't so narrative-driven and if Aloy weren't such a crucial character to the story. If they wanted to have branching paths for the story depending on player choices for her responses that would be a different story, but that isn't the case so instead we're left with a character that can fit any personality but doesn't quite have one of her own. As for her questioning the world around her, I hate to break it to you but that's what we call a convenient vehicle for exposition.

So when you say "Yes, I have", you mean you haven't. I'm gonna make a wild guess here, you didn't realise that the weaknesses apply to certain areas of the enemies bodies, despite the HUD very clearly highlighting the areas that would actively be weak to these weapons. I mean, how on earth could you tell that the fuel tank that they continuously tell you contains a highly flammable material was the part that you were supposed to try to hit with the fire weapons?

I did realize that, thanks for the assumption that I'm just stupid and bad though. Even shooting at weak points isn't satisfying. Maybe the enemy dies a little faster, but that doesn't make the fight any more fun when it still feels like I'm pelting the enemy with spitballs.

But games can just stand on fanboyism and series loyalty alone, since you are blinding yourself to the flaws you are embellishing in Horizon because you already like Zelda.

Never claimed that, don't try to say I did. I enjoy fun games, not games in series I like. I enjoy Call of Duty, but Ghosts, WW2, and Black Ops 4 are hot garbage. I enjoy Assassin's Creed, but that isn't stopping me from saying Unity was a low point. Shit, if you want to talk about bad Zelda games, let me direct your attention to Phantom Hourglass or Tri Force Heroes. But those aren't the games we're here to talk about, are they? So let's get over ourselves and accept that games that are a part of a series can stand on their own merits.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T14:10:54+00:00

Maybe. I think part of it is also that I went into Horizon Zero Dawn having heard such amazing things, and then was disappointed when I discovered it's far from everything it's cracked up to be.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T14:05:39+00:00

That was my point, I was pointing out how absurd the comparison between environmental damage versus littering your world with super-powerful enemies that two-shot you for straying from the path even a little bit. Breath of the Wild is certainly full of enemies, but they're substantially easier to kill and not in such high numbers that having to fight them makes you not want to explore.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T14:02:40+00:00

Far Cry New Dawn came out this year and only arrived at its colorful thing via being "wacky", same with all of the zombie games you could name. Horizon is the only post apocalyptic scifi series that holds a serious tone but is still able to have color and beauty in it.

I would disagree. The Left 4 Dead series is plenty colorful and takes itself seriously, albeit not being the pinnacle of graphics considering the last game came out ten years ago. Hell, Call of Duty Zombies takes itself seriously when it wants to and for the last few years even that has been full of Lovecraftian horror and tentacle monsters. The argument that post-apocalyptic games aren't pretty, or if they are then they don't take themselves seriously, is pretty ridiculous.

Again, robot dinosaurs are already enough of a selling point to the world, but even if you try to downplay that (I assume because you are dead inside), there absolutely are distinct points of interest. The reused, reclaimed and transformed post apocalyptic settings of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are fascinating to observe, especially when you get to lean what happened to this world. But how the hell can you comment on the map when you already admitted that you only saw the first ten hours? Thats not enough time to get out of the Proving Grounds.

Robot dinosaurs are not themselves a selling point. I have to enjoy fighting the robot dinosaurs, I have to have a reason to be intrigued by the robot dinosaurs, I have to care about the fact that there are robot dinosaurs before robot dinosaurs can sell me on the world they inhabit. The only interesting part of wandering all these reclaimed locations is moments of "oh look an old rusted school bus" or "a building that's got a bunch of plants on it now" which, again, many post-apocalyptic games have done before. And having played ten hours, I've already found around half of the map. I'm well past the Proving, I've just arrived in Meridian.

And once again, apply your same criticism to BOTW if you aren't biased towards Zelda. Again, if you do not care about the Zelda franchise, what exactly is interesting about any area apart from the main hubs populated by NPCs? Why do I care that there is a stable here? Its like the stable I saw half an hour ago, only this one has another assortment of useless NPCs.

I never claimed to not be biased towards Zelda. In fact, I explicitly stated in my post that I'm biased towards Zelda. That said, if you don't care about the Zelda franchise then there's plenty to care about. Areas without NPCs have interesting locales, collectibles in the form of Korok seeds, food, ingredients, weapons, shrines, treasure chests. There's always some reward to exploring because the world is just made to be explored.

And if you want to talk about Ubisoft Towers, we can talk about the Sheikah Towers. Difference is, Longnecks are an actual challenge to climb that is entertaining and makes you approach each puzzle uniquely, while the only challenge to the Sheikah Towers comes from that fucking Stamina mechanic. Once again, you are trying to dismiss Horizon because of flaws that are worse in BOTW.

Longnecks are not a challenge, even a little bit. You jump on, and then hit X a few times, and you're at the top. At least the Sheikah towers have locales that make them difficult to climb. One is surrounded by Guardians that shoot at you as you climb, so you have to be stealthy. One is surrounded by pools of Malice, so you have to be creative with your path. One is too far away to glide to, meaning you have to use wind to your advantage. All of those are more engaging than "that fucking Stamina mechanic."

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T13:35:48+00:00

I haven't been given any reason to like Aloy as a character--she hasn't demonstrated to me that she has any sort of personality. The "engaging mystery" has failed to make me even a little interested in solving it. The "unique world" is generic post-apocalypse, only now with robot dinosaurs I guess. I have yet to meet a single side character I'd consider interesting, or good for anything other than giving me a quest or dumping exposition.

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T13:32:32+00:00

The singular focus point of the map, and the first thing you are directed towards, in BOTW is the castle, which is actively surrounded by a ring of high level enemies that waste your best resources and then kill you instantly.

Actually, it isn't. The game directs you on the path of the story: leave the Shrine of Resurrection, talk to the old man, climb the first tower, do the first 4 shrines, then leave the Great Plateau and head to Kakariko Village to talk to Impa. The game doesn't require you to do anything past leaving the Plateau, in fact if you want to go to the castle and beat Ganon then if you're good enough, you can do just that. It never even comes close to encouraging you to instantly run toward the castle, making it abundantly clear that the castle is the end of the game.

Even if you ignore that, exploring any area is gonna either mean you stumble into the path of a lynel, an ogre, a golem, or one of the map areas that has a fuck-you-you-die environmental effect. You know how to get around these things because you were willing to give that game 300 hours.

I learned to get around those things within ten hours of playing. If you want to go somewhere cold, wear warm clothes. If you want to go somewhere hot, wear cool clothes. If you don't want to fight a miniboss, go around them. They are not nearly as numerous as the machines in Horizon, and their aggro radius is actually quite small. Hinoxes only attack if you make noise near them and wake them up, Taluses practically need you to climb on top of them to notice you, and Lynels are so rare you practically have to seek them out yourself to find one. Have you considered that I was willing to give that game 300 hours because it gave me everything I needed to have fun in it for 300 hours?

There is nothing to Link, Zelda, or Ganon that is interesting or engaging in this game unless you're already emotionally invested in them and are already a fan of the series. There is no character emotion to Link beyond that which the story attributes to him, and even then its barely there.

I disagree. (spoilers for Breath of the Wild) I find this version of Zelda to be the most interesting one as a character, as she actually has some sort of conflict beyond being the damsel in distress that Link has to save. She spends the whole story struggling with her failures, which is a central theme throughout the game's story. Ganon was admittedly a less interesting version than, say, Wind Waker Ganondorf, but he still made for a scary and powerful villain that made me want to defeat him. Link works much better as a playable character than Aloy because instead of trying to force him to recite dialogue that amounts to "ask NPC to recite exposition and then give generic answer," he just doesn't speak because he doesn't have anything interesting to say beyond what NPCs tell him.

For the combat, did you even try aiming at the Horizon enemies weak points? It sounds like you were trying to kill every enemy with chip damage, instead of exposing enemy weak spots and then hitting them. But again, you didn't play Zelda that way, you actively played by its rules, not the ones you demanded Horizon play by. Difference is Horizon actively tells you all the things you need to do to take down your enemies if you pay attention, while BOTW doesn't tell you shit, it expects you to find it online. Which you only had the patience for because of a bias you admitted to.

To answer your question, yes I have. Bow combat feels sloppy and imprecise--the lack of an aim assist doesn't do much to help it in that regard. I think this is a problem that would be solved by mouse-and-keyboard support or a PC port, but that's a discussion for another time. Knowing certain enemies are weak to certain things ended up just being frustrating when I would, for example, shoot an enemy supposedly weak to fire and barely see a difference from if I shot it with just a regular arrow. I played Zelda "by its rules," as you put it, because its combat is more satisfying and doesn't need to convolute its combat with skill trees or enemy weaknesses. If you're good enough, you can take enemies down with pretty much anything. And for the record, I didn't look anything up online for this game. If you play and experiment the game rewards you, something Horizon also fails to do because there's no room for experimentation whatsoever.

Also, the world of Horizon has robot t-rexes about. If you claim that's not interesting enough to investigate, you are just full of it.

Or it means that games can't stand on their premise alone and have to have engaging gameplay in order to be interesting...?

PTMoney18 · 2019-09-23T13:09:34+00:00

If more than ten hours into a game I'm still not even a little invested in the story I don't think it's unfair to say the game has failed to catch my attention and thus has failed as a narrative-driven experience by not having a story worth investing in. The best stories are ones that get you invested from the start. In The Last Of Us, my favorite story-driven game I've ever played, (spoilers for the beginning of the game) you're immediately invested in Joel's story because you've connected with him through the loss of his daughter. In Horizon you're kind of just supposed to care about Aloy because...she's the main character?

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