Nintendo finally reveals the Switch console

No worries at all. Gamers can disagree about a game merits. I am glad you like it! Honestly I am at a loss as to why you rate it so highly, but thats cool, sometimes a game just clicks with someone and clearly it has with you and a lot of other folks. I feel the opposite but its all good.

To me it is the complete freedom and lack of direction to explore a world. Your character has amnesia and has to learn about the world at the same time as the player. It is difficult and unforgiving, with world simulation that fundamentally changes the way that you approach obstacles. I loved that I had to discover the world on my own, and that so many (not all) of the objectives had multiple ways to solve them. It is a game that encourages messing around with the mechanics (see the crazy boulder jumping and air ships people make) That, and it is Damn gorgeous.

I know a lot of people that bounced off of it at first, I would suggest to get through the plateau and go do the story quests at Kakariko village, and go to the bird people dungeon, northwest. It is an easier ramp up of combat difficulty, that the Zora village path does not have. That lizalfos section is rough stuff for a newbie. I had trouble doing it as my second dungeon.

This is actually the core problem for me. It’s clearly a game about exploring a world. But it’s also one of the most boring open worlds ever made. There’s a lot of it, but none of it is interesting. And then the game intentionally makes traversal as tedious as possible so that you really get to soak in the blandness for as long as possible while travelling between the actual points of interest.

I’ve heard other people talk about how the world is incredibly dense with wonderful thing. Like there’s some delightful little surprise on the other side of every hill. And no matter how hard I tried, none of that was there for me. Some day I’ll watch a BotW stream, and maybe understand what it’s all about.

(I’m also not trying to claim that people liking BotW are somehow wrong. But there is some kind of reality distortion field around it. It looks as if literally everyone loves the game to bits, while actually the opinions are as polarized as with all other games).

I had no trouble finding all of the surprises that kept me going. I loved that game, and I think that the vast majority of people loved it too. 97% on metacritic (yeah I know) seems pretty reasonable to assume that a very large majority of gamers enjoyed the game.

Then again, one of my favorite games of all time is MInecraft, and a lot of people hate how directionless it seems. I didn’t have a problem there either.

To me the rewards for exploring the world of Breath of the Wild were surviving an epic thunderstorm. Or encountering a new enemy that gives me a more powerful weapon. And finding new shrines, discovering korok seeds in the unlikeliest of places, and stumbling upon stables I’ve never seen.

And then sometimes I find nothing at all, except for an incredible looking vista where a beautiful sunset is underway - and that “nothing” is worth more to me than everything else combined.

Basically this. Botw rewards you in ways that are different from any other game because the rewards are discovery based. Like the first time you equip a fire weapon when you are cold to see if it works and it does. Or seeing if you can grab onto a stasis boulder and then get knocked the fuck out by it. Or the first time I had a metal weapon equipped in a thunderstorm. It’s those discovery moments people who love botw cling to, but if those don’t catch you, or you approach it with a firmly set answer to “what is game” you won’t get much out of it I guess.

I couldn’t disagree more with this. It’s the first open world game in a long time that actually had me feel like I was exploring another world, rather than touring a theme park. There were so many times that I’d open my map, note an interesting terrain feature (or see one while scanning a vista), wonder what I’d find there and how to get to it. Getting to it would often be an adventure in itself, and I would always find something when arriving - even if just a korok. The exploration always felt rewarding.

This Cool Ghosts video does a better job than me of explaining why the exploration works so well for some of us:

(ignore the title, that’s just their shtick)

I want to pile in on the BotW love here. It is most definitely the best open-world game I have ever played. Most open world games feel very artificial and hollow, but BotW feels alive and real. Plus, unlike many open-world games, it gives you a lot of cools powers and toys, but they don’t make you feel overpowered. Instead, it forces you learn how to master its systems, similar to Dark Souls or a survival game. You can’t just attack every enemy you come across – instead you need to carefully consider the odds of you acting coming out alive and judge whether or not its worth the risk.

Whats impressed me the most about the game is that it combines mechanics from all sorts of other modern games in a way that is greater than the sum of its parts. On top of that, despite taking so much inspiration from other games, it still manages to feel unique and new. Its definitely deserving of all the praise its been given.

To piggy back on that, I think they made the beginning of the game hard to force the player to look at combat differently. Weapons break easy early because they don’t want you relying on them.

On the other hand for me, the game had a pretty underwhelming response when I tried to think out of the box. Like on the trial island they had the giant flat rock at the top of the hill with the sleeping giant below, so I used stasis on it, aimed it right and got it to fling itself right on the giant, only to see it do like 1% damage. Or how easy it was to mis-aim cutting down a tree and next thing you know your easy river crossing is gone. Or when you try to roll a builder onto an enemy and it hits a part of the mountain and goes in a completely different direction and misses all enemies. Or when you are trying to stack boxes on the black lake to get to the tower and the camera angles suck so I kept missing out until I figured out the developers just wanted you to knock the giant stones over with a single box.

Every time I tried to do something unique it either didn’t work or was underwhelming.

If someone asked Nintendo owners to imagine an online service that only Nintendo could’ve made (after the Wii/WiiU) they’d probably come up with something that would be still shit, but probably much better than that.

Good job Nintendo :)
“We’re still learning this whole internet thing… can we copyright it?”

On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of kids going on racist tirades on Nintendo’s online services. They’re clearly capable of better design. That they continue to create services that boggle veteran gamers probably speaks to their motivations behind the design.

Unless you care about voice chatting with randoms I don’t see why it matters. I only want to talk to friends and I already have ways to do that.

The Splatnet features are pretty nice, though.

After the Zelda flop I am very pleased to say 1 2 Switch is an excellent palate cleanser. A big hit with the family & me. I really like the art style they went for, very good indeed. The fashion runway one is probably the highlight but they are all great fun.

I liked 12 switch a lot, but it is really sparse content wise, once you get through all the games. Would be a really fun drinking game, and should have been a pack in.

Agreed a pack in would have been nice. It really is well done though. Honestly I am amazed nobody has used FMV like this before. So good.

We had the most fun with the draw a gun and fire games. The dice rolling game was pretty fun too.

Counter argument

Oh. My. God.