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Post by toei on May 11, 2023 14:58:26 GMT -5
Breath of the Wild and this new one are the only Zeldas I'm sort of interested in playing in forever, even if I don't like the visual style for either. The extent to which Western critics have always fellated the series is ridiculous, though. Every entry is the "greatest game of all time", even when it's a lukewarm 7.
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Post by Ex on May 11, 2023 15:20:22 GMT -5
Ground world is same but different, yes. But the air stuff is new, as is the cavernous underground. (In fact, I understand that they are so large they effectively double the size of the world, and it was massive to start with.) If the ground world is built on the same foundation as BotW, then it's not really "doubling the size of the world". It's more remix of half the world and the other half is new. I'm sure there will be plenty of fresh content, don't get me wrong. I just think TotK should have been 100% new. That's why I call this one BotW 1.5 The extent to which Western critics have always fellated the series is ridiculous Yeah that was the point of my original ribbing. All independent objectivity and critical reflection goes out the window when a new Zelda releases. I'm not saying TotK is not a great game, it may be a great game. But 96/100 from 87 critics instantly is a mind meme thing if we're honest. Maybe a little payola on top too. The main reason I haven't played BotW yet, is I still haven't finished Skyward Sword. Feel like I should finish that one first still.
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Post by toei on May 11, 2023 15:33:33 GMT -5
There are almost no original opinions among game critics. They all love and hate the same things. Wasn't there one guy who wrote that Final Fight Streetwise wasn't actually bad back then, and that was the scandal somehow? Cause it actually doesn't seem bad, from what I've played. All critics had decided that all brawlers were always shallow and devoid of depth and were content to make zero effort to learn how to play them so as to discover the depth they offered. I still remember the review that slammed Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance for requiring that you talk to a NPC to save. They had just never bothered to try, and wondered how come their game wasn't saving itself. That's even though the game is really an action-adventure or small-scale open world or whatever you want to call it and you 100% are supposed to talk to NPCs. What a fucking cretin.
If a professional critic played the new Zelda and actually didn't enjoy it, or even just wasn't blown away by it, would he dare say it? Would whoever he works for let him? It's completely unrealistic to think that everyone actually loves any given game. They're all just copying each other's homework. I'm not mad at anyone who truly does love it - maybe I would, too, and hey, good for Xeo that he still has new games he can get really excited about. But the instant declarations of greatness / awfulness and uniformity of opinions is repulsive.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on May 11, 2023 15:36:42 GMT -5
Games journos are almost as cringey and corrupt as "normal" journos, and uniformity across review scores is sus. (Also I hate it when Nintendo Life and other outfits use "we" in their reviews. Am I supposed to believe there was also total consensus within a single company? I want one person's perspective).
That said, Zelda games, even the "modern" ones, are pretty incredible. A quick glance at Metacritic scores and I see that A Link Between Worlds, for instance, is ranked with a 91. That's about where I'd rank it as well.
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Post by Ex on May 11, 2023 15:55:55 GMT -5
Not saying you shouldn't like that game, but it's the least "modern" of all recent Zeldas. What did you think of Skyward Sword or Breath of the Wild, and did you finish them?
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Post by Sarge on May 11, 2023 15:56:20 GMT -5
No, what I'm saying is that, even without counting the overworld, the amount of explorable territory has doubled. (And there are spots of significant change in the overworld as well, although I'll obviously need to play the game to verify any of this for myself how significant it actually is.) I agree with bonesnapdeez, it's rare for the Zelda series to misfire. It certainly happens, but they're almost always a cut above. Nintendo clearly puts a lot of care into them, even if they don't always click into place for everyone.
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Post by Xeogred on May 11, 2023 17:49:42 GMT -5
I actually find the idea of BoTW's world "foundation" being in use here pretty enticing. If I were to ever replay an open world of this style, it'd still be a pretty uniquely different experience the second time around. There's no way I'll remember every single personal path I took here and there, etc. And either way yeah, it sounds highly remixed. Really good spoiler free talk:
This guy (Kyle) beat it around 70 hours too. Which is about what I spent on BoTW as well, so that's cool. I say "cool" because I don't need games to be 100 hours long, lol. Elden Ring and Xenoblade 3 were the anomalies. But hey who knows, if I'm still having fun 70 hours into ToTK I'll keep going.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on May 11, 2023 20:15:51 GMT -5
Not saying you shouldn't like that game, but it's the least "modern" of all recent Zeldas. What did you think of Skyward Sword or Breath of the Wild, and did you finish them? Barely touched Breath of the Wild; like what I played. And Skyward Sword is pretty fun; not interested in buying it again on Switch though. A Link Between Worlds is certainly my favorite Zelda since the N64 era though.
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Post by Moulinoski on May 12, 2023 9:30:07 GMT -5
Tears of the Kingdom is out today!! My copy is still in transit but it should arrive today.
A Link Between Worlds is a great Zelda game. It’s a weird game in that it’s both the past traditional Zelda and the first non-traditional Zelda. It retains many elements that I consider important for a Zelda game to be a Zelda game (besides the setting) but contains many elements that we can see influencing Breath of the Wild (the “open air” design was first experimented with here). It narrowly avoids being first place for me because it lacks the twenty years of nostalgia Link’s Awakening has over it and the fact that it borrows heavily from A Link to the Past, but it’s still one of my favorites to go back to and replay.
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Post by Ex on May 12, 2023 9:43:03 GMT -5
it borrows heavily from A Link to the Past That's a nice way to put it. IIRC ALBW started out as a ALttP remake for 3DS. About midway through development that was changed, and instead ALBW became a sequel, using ALttP's world as its starting template. This is why the games seem so similar. I played ALBW years ago, for about two hours. I was disappointed with how identical it seemed to ALttP. I ended up putting it away out of disinterest, as I'd already beaten ALttP (numerous times as a kid) and didn't want to replay it in 3D. Later on after talking with folks who'd finished ALBW, turns out the game comes into its own in the latter half. Meaning it deviates more from ALttP's template. So in that regard, I do intend to give ALBW another chance someday. That said, I think a lot of players were bowled over by ALttP nostalgia when they played ALBW, and buoyed their opinion of the game based more on ALttP's merits. It's a bit of a sleight of hand trick by Nintendo.
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