You’re making “sudoku puzzle” do an awful lot of work there.
This is how I felt about the Zelda on the Wii, and it was the first time I had ever felt that way about a Zelda game.
I’m hiding this text not because it’s actually a spoiler, but because I want to minimize how much space I’m taking in this thread for discussions not about Horizon Zero Dawn. But feel free to reply to me / continue the conversation in the actual Zelda thread!
[details=Off-topic discussion for Zelda]What I’ve found about Zelda is that - more than The Witcher 3, HZD, Bethesda’s RPGs, and pretty much every game except for maybe the STALKER series - it is truly the most “open world” open world game I’ve ever played. Once you get past the first hour or two intro segment where you gain your abilities, you can truly and literally go anywhere, do anything however you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want to, with whatever equipment you want to do it with.
But unlike so many other open-world games that try to claim this kind of thing, in Breath of the Wild it’s fully brimming with tons of fun stuff to actually do wherever you go. Whether you want to find and solve shrines, or solve the little Korok mini-puzzles, or do the side-quests, or jump straight into any of the four main dungeons, it’s up to you.
Furthermore, while there’s so much in the game to do, it never feels overwhelming to me. Unlike Ubisoft’s games and most other games which learned from them, the map is not littered with endless icons like a check list I’m just completing for someone else. Instead, everything that I do is something that I personally discovered entirely on my own, without anyone telling me what to do, where to go, or how to do it (except for very rare cases). It’s a true sense of discovery that few other games have ever explored.
Even the side-quests work like this. When someone in a town gives you a side quest objective, that objective never shows you on the map where you’re supposed to go. Instead, it gives you hints of where on the map the thing might be, and you actually need to use the map to figure out where something might be. For example, one side-quest early on was basically just a vague poem telling me where a trove of treasure chests was. It said something about one river meeting another river, and then a waterfall, and that’s it. No objective marker or anything. But I analyzed the map for a few minutes, guessed at where it might be referring to, and it turns out I got it right! So I was rewarded both with cool treasure, and also the satisfaction of figuring it out on my own. So much better than if there was an objective planted on my map that I just blindly followed.
I’ve sunk 55+ hours into the game now and still have only completed 3 of the 4 main dungeons - not because I had to,
but because I wanted to. I love going into random directions and seeing what there is to see so much that I end up getting distracted in the best way every single time. Without fail, I’ll always have some ultimate destination in mind,
and get distracted along the way over and over again by more and more cool things I didn’t expect, finding newer and better equipment, taking on crazy mini-bosses, and more.
If I had to summarize: Horizon Zero Dawn does the best job exemplifying the traditional open world game from the last decade. Zelda: Breath of the Wild ushers in a completely new kind of open-world game that will define the next decade.[/details]
If you mean Skyward Sword with the dumb bolted on arm flapping, I heartily agree.
I have yet to be able to play the new one, but my impression was that it seemed really neat that it’s like a giant toolbox rather than forced puzzles. I might change my mind once I play it, but I thought it looked intriguing.
Ya, that was the one… Only zelda game I ever played and never bothered to finish. It just wasn’t fun.
This almost makes me want to buy a switch to play this game now.
I’ve avoided most of the posts in this thread to avoid spoilers.
I picked up Horizon on Friday and played 12-ish hours over the weekend. It felt more like 2 hours. The game grabbed me right away and sucked the hours away without me even noticing. We had people over on Saturday until ~6:00 p.m. After they left, I fired the game up and my wife went upstairs to do whatever it is she was doing up there. About an hour later she came downstairs and said “you ready to call it a night?” Uh, wait, why? Oh crap, it’s after midnight…
I’m still pretty early in to the game. It tells me I’m sitting at ~25% completed. I’ve been pushing the main quest along, but I can’t help but complete ever side-quest that I stumble on to. Witcher 3 was similar in the way that is sucked my time away and pulled me in to the side-questing. However, I’m enjoying the Horizon combat much more than I do the Witcher system. For some reason the scanning of opponents, selecting the right tools to take advantage of weak-points, laying traps, stealth kills, sniping… it’s all speaking to me in a way that no other platform game has before.
I’m not sure what you mean. I guess I was trying to distill this feeling that I don’t feel like I’m “playing” Zelda, but rather “solving” it one micro puzzle at a time. This is true whether it is a shrine in which I need to use my ice blocks to move a ball to holes or a monster camp that I need to use my 5 swings of X damage sword, a torch, a bomb barrel, and a magnetic rock clear. Now, I appreciate that there are multiple solutions to each puzzle…but they are all still puzzles. Endless puzzles.
And maybe that is me. Maybe I am starring at Myst and complaining that it is point and click puzzles. Maybe Zelda is just a collection of puzzles as a genre. It is not an elf dude fighting his way through forests and monsters while navigating the environment with cool toys on an epic adventure. At least not to me at this point. Which is a wholly different feel than I had playing (not solving) H:ZD.
I guess…Zelda feels like all Hunter lodge all the time. Every single thing you do has a sort of contained yet free form puzzle element. And the lodges were probably my least favorite thing in H:ZD.
Except that thread is full of spoilers. I’m afraid to go in there anymore.
I mean, sure, the shrines (and divine beasts) are all puzzles. Apart from the combat shrines. But they’re entirely optional, and only a small proportion of the whole game. In previous Zeldas, the almost entirely puzzle based dungeons were mandatory, gated and longer, while the open worlds were small and mostly empty. Breath of the Wild is far less puzzly than any previous Zelda, except in so far as the addition of physics and robustly interacting gameplay systems allows you to be much more creative (or, if you prefer, “puzzly”) in combat. That seems like a strange thing to criticise it for, and it certainly does not seem like a “sudoku” puzzle given that there is only one solution to any given sudoku.
I entirely understand liking HZD’s narrative and combat more than Zelda’s. If you’re into 3rd person adventure games for mastering combat mechanics, HZD has a lot more to offer.
But to pick this particular Zelda game to criticise for them seems bizarre. I mean, even your “localisation dodging grunts” comment is undermined by it being the first Zelda game with actual voiced dialogue.
At the end of the day, though, it may just be a taste thing. To me, this [quote=“Chaplin, post:388, topic:77010”]
Every single thing you do has a sort of contained yet free form puzzle element.
[/quote]
sounds like the best thing ever.
FWIW, the STALKER games had some fairly heavy progress gating.
I have another question for people who have played HZD: how does this compare with how you felt about the Tomb Raider reboot? I remember being unable to resist the forum hype on that one, but it turned out to just be a decent action game for me.
Are you talking first reboot or sequel?
Tomb Raider (2013). I never played the reboot sequel.
Yeah. It’s probably a taste thing. I’m also probably doing a bad job of articulating solve versus play. Zelda and H:ZD are very similar at a glance, and yet so different. I sort of feel that HZD is the same but with more map icons and Zelda just lets you wander. However, when I bumble into a set piece in HZD, it is a situation I encounter and play through whereas in Zelda I need to figure out one of the 1 or 3 ways that the designers wanted their lock undone.
Yes earlier Zeldas are crazy linear puzzles. I don’t like them and that was why I was not interested in this one. Until all the hype about how it was different. And it is. But only so far. Now the puzzles are compressed micro puzzles (much to the aid of tools that expire now replacing linear gating) and sprinkled everywhere. Want to climb that mountain, solve it. Want to open that chest on the tower, solve it. Want to figure out why this tree looks odd, solve it. In HZD I felt like I was roaming and discovering a world. There were a jumping puzzles or lodges now and then as a break, but there is no break in Zelda. It’s just solving…everything.
But I also ran into side quests last night that were of the caliber of carrying 10 chickens hidden throughout town back to their coup and playing hide and seek with a little girl. So that and deciphering conspicuous stamina recharge spots on a mountain left me cold when contrasted to HZD stuff. But I’m early on, so maybe it will change.
The human encounters are not entirely dissimilar, as both games include stealth, bow combat, and climbing. HZD is a large open world as opposed to TRs more hub system, and the bulk of combat in HZD is against the machines and not people and there’s no direct analogue to TR there. HZD is much better written as well IMO with a far better story if that matters to you at all.
While I never played the Tomb Raider reboot, I found H:ZD to be a great experience in both gameplay mechanics and narrative. It would have been a very enjoyable action game or book/movie. I sort of got both. But I also went into it with zero hype, foreknowledge, or expectation.
Yes, other games will grab me throughout the year, but I am pretty sure that H:ZD will stand tall in my memory for a rather long time to come. But even me saying that might in itself rob you of the same impact.
It has similar (perhaps better) controls and the crafting and gathering elements are also similar, but it’s a huge world with a much more compelling story and backstory imo. Also gorgeous and I’m even more impressed with the visuals considering that they aren’t just levels loaded in, but have incredibly detailed environments.
There are a few minor annoyances, but it’s very impressive that they’ve come to this from making just fps games. It’s all so seamless and smooth it never really feels like you are fighting against the game and it just has an amazing flow from one thing to the next.
Well that’s one way to deal with Rockbreakers
This guy over at GAF has been making a lot of crazy GIFs.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=231897292#post231897292
Yeah I was going to make some distinction between the two…but Horizon is better than them both. It’s great in every way. Actually the only nit I have to pick is that you can’t save anywhere you want, only at campfires. So sometimes I die and lose a little bit of progress if I’m just roaming around. There’s campfires everywhere though so even that is a pretty small complaint.
Horizon is a much, much better game. I only ever felt the Tomb Raider reboot was just like you described. The story was pretty bad and the combat was only okay. The writing in Horizon is far better, and the combat sandbox offers so many more options. And Horizon feels like you’re in a real place. and not a series of shanty towns that only exist for you to have a firefight in.
40 hrs in, about level 40
- 6 main missions left.
- Need 1 more power cell.
- I’ve done every side quest I’ve seen up to including all the hunter’s lodge stuff
- I’ve completed all the hunter’s lodge challenges just haven’t gotten all blazing yet.
- Completed all Cauldrons.
- Completed all Longnecks.
- Completed all bandit camps.
- I just LOVE the combat in this game. It’s just so well done.
- While heading to the next main missions I came across a town and 3 new side quests popped up. I think I’ll do a sweep through all the towns and try to hit any side quests I’m missing.
- Weapon tutorials are getting a bit tedious and the xp reward is pretty small now for my level.
- So so pretty on my ps4 pro.
- Fish by shooting them instead of using a pole. Yes, this is the only way to fish!
Annoying things:
- Only 4 weapon slots on the dial. It’s so tedious to have to swap weapons mid battle that I tend to use only the 4 I have currently equipped. Either make the icons smaller or move the ammo types to a sub menu off the circle or something.
- Inventory management. Even with resources inventory upgraded to max I have to constantly sell crap to make room or just chunk it on the floor. I’m trying to pick up less plants and animal parts unless they are something other than white. I still need another fox skin but the damn things have dropped like 10 bones so far and no skins! It needs a sell junk button. It needs a stash in towns or at camp fires to dump crap in.
I’m about 6 hrs into Zelda on the switch but since getting Horizon It’s all I want to play. The main missions are so beefy and well done. I’m loving the story so far.
Does anybody else think Aloy looks more like a young Minnie Driver with red hair than Hannah Hoekstra?