I just bought it for my 7 and 9 yr old daughters. And I’m going to play it tonight.
That is good to hear!
It keeps freezing on me, three times in two hours, but I am thoroughly enjoying the art style and sense of humor (laughed at the fake credits), I hated BotW but am really enjoying this so far.
What’s the challenge level like? Assume that I have all the gaming skills, reflexes, and tactical of a long-deceased cat.
Definitely not going to let myself buy it yet. Just curious. Just checking. Because of curiosity.
I believe the difficulty level is extremely customizable according to a review that I read. If Tom is enjoying it then there must be a baby mode amongst those options.
Unless you get in-game experience or some other incentive for not playing on baby mode!
Yeah the demo showed multiple difficulty settings, so I’d think it should be fine.
That doesn’t sound right, if Tom likes it there shouldn’t be any difficulty options!
So I’m a couple of hours in and this is brilliant. It isn’t your typical Ubistuff game. I was going to say there’s a focus on exploration, but that’s not quite it; the focus is on discovery. It isn’t a game that points you to do things; it’s a game that invites you to discover it, and it does so by showing just enough for you to get curious. There’s a sense of joy, of that childlike sense of wonder, that I haven’t found in a game in a loooong time.
I was exhausted today. I planned on playing a little bit, and hours flew by. This might be a special thing.
Difficulty: it’s a bit more difficult than Odyssey in the default settings, but that might be because the combat flow is a bit different. It’s similar mechanically, but timings are different, especially when using air combos. I’m still getting used to it.
Puzzles are really cool. Many of the “open world puzzles” are focused on exploring the surrounding area, and many of those have cryptical maps pointing other puzzles of the same kind and hinting on a cool reward when you complete them. Again, just the right amount of hints to make you intrigued and willing to find more.
I can’t wait to play more. My first impressions so far are great.
The standard stupid thing where you have to pick easy, normal, or hard. There’s an ultra hard difficulty, but it’s locked (!) until you’ve finished the game once. And, of course, you can change the difficulty level whenever you want, because the developers can’t be arsed to tune their game, so they leave that up to you.
Also, no achievements related to difficulty level, so no incentive to raise the difficulty level. That said, it’s not really a combat game. There’s combat, and lots of unlockable/upgradable moves and weapon perks and so on. But the combat is pretty easy. Forgiving timing windows, and ample healing available. But it’s built to be equal parts combat, exploration, and puzzles.
-Tom
Just remember that some of us suck ass at games but still like to play them, and it makes us happy when the game doesn’t treat us like second-class citizens for asking for the baby gloves ;-)
And also that some of us would be disappointed if a third of the game were to feel “pretty easy”. I want some mechanical reason to be engaged with the game systems, properly time my dodges, pay attention to monster tells and positioning, etc., rather than button-mash my way through on autopilot.
If the game were to shower me with bonus loot for playing on hard, it would defeat the purpose.
And if the game can simultaneously cater for the type of experience I want, the type of experience @ArmandoPenblade wants, and even the experience @tomchick wants (i.e. the developers have made their best effort at tuning the difficulty for those who don’t want to have to think about it, and called it “normal”), then so much the better.
This has made a great first impression. I’m not far in, just got to the island that looked like a turtle. I turned the compass off, peek at the map if I need to get my bearings. So far I prefer this style of game play over AC: Valhalla - it does feel more natural and less reliant on icon following. In AC, I can try to play ignoring the map icons and markers but I feel like I am fighting the game. Here is feels like a viable way to play without quadrupling my navigation and searching time. Playing on hard and it doesn’t feel too hard.
Now so far it seems everything I see that could be something special is, so that takes a little of the excitement out of it. It feels like maybe they could use a little more empty space. I like the different activities and puzzles that I’ve found and while the story telling does feel like it is aimed at a younger audience, I do find it kinda charming and it has some humor.
I prefer the visual style of the AC games. If they could make this type of game while having the visuals more like Valhalla or the other recent AC games that would be greta. Still, this is very nice looking - just not my preference.
I hope it hold up because so far so good.
Possible, but rare. Hades does this beautifully. The gameplay I saw on normal didn’t look especially challenging, but it was in the opening of the game
I went ahead and picked this up for myself on PC just to make sure Santa made a good decision. I love it! I played through the first island on hard and only died once or twice by drowning and picking the wrong fight. I love the way the enemies go flying like popped balloons when you kill them.
The main areas do have some empty space with no “stuff” but that still invite you to check because they look great. Well, at least the Aphrodite area does, I haven’t been to the others yet.
That’s good to know, thanks.
Finally!
Well that sold me, I guess I’m obligated to buy and play this.
