this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
66 points (100.0% liked)
Gaming
30562 readers
20 users here now
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Give me OOT with the systems created with BotW /TotK. There is so much potential here for freedom here the way you could complete dungeons in different orders, while still adhering to a classic dungeon-with-items Zelda formula. Lighting fires with bombs vs arrows vs thrown torches. Reflecting light with mirrors or a mirror shield. Even using enemies’ attacks or weapons to do so. If this was part of the core design of the game, it could be treated like how sequence breaking is now sanctioned in Metroid games and part of its design.
I think a 3rd party might be able to do this while Nintendo charges forth with their new vision, and this would probably be my favorite style of Zelda game.
What exactly from OoT are you missing in those two games, though? I'm honestly curious, because there's very little that is objectively 'missing' compared to OoT
Not OP but personally I'd love to see OoT done in the style of BotW/TotK on Switch.
Proper dungeons, and more generally, an overworld that feels like it isn't just a vehicle for Korok seeds.
I actually kinda dislike the "do anything in any order" approach of the recent games. I get the desire for freedom, but on the flip side it means that the majority of the content has to be designed to not be too overwhelming for a beginning player as a player could potentially do it first. IMO the puzzle design suffers a lot from this as there are rarely opportunities for puzzles to iterate and expand upon mechanics introduced by prior puzzles. The shrines are especially guilty of this, and even though they all have different puzzles, the loop of introducing the puzzle element and then one or two tests on it still ends up feeling repetitive.
The story also has to make sense regardless of in which order some of the main quests are played and IMO the storytelling really suffers from this. It feels like you're just uncovering someone else's story and doesn't feel like you actually play an important part in it.
I'd love a return to the classic style because I like it when the puzzles get more complex and more elaborate over time. I'd love a game that makes me feel like I'm a part of the story rather than letting me unlock movie fragments of someone else's story. I loved regularly unlocking new tools that suddenly open up new paths or make you able to unlock new secrets in the overworld. It's that sense of character growth and progression that I feel like I'm missing in the newer games.
I still enjoyed the recent games though, and they certainly do also introduce a lot of good things.
The physics interaction, or the "chemistry engine" as they call it, is just awesome and the freedom it allows in puzzle solving is amazing. It turns puzzle solving from having to find the solution to having to find a solution. It removes a lot of common frustrations with puzzles because now when something looks like it should work, it almost always does. It also allows you to think outside the box and let's you come up with ways to skip some puzzles if you understand the mechanics well enough, or to come up with intentionally wacky or overly elaborate solutions that somehow still work. I do hope that if they ever make a new Zelda game in the "old style", they do incorporate at least some of this freedom in puzzle solving in it.
I also love how much more there is to be found in BOTW and TOTK and there is so much more background information given about important side characters and about the various areas of the world, if you're willing to look for it. Side quests and content are also much more plentiful and more elaborate than in the previous games.
So I don't think this new direction is bad, but it has both advantages and disadvantages and there are parts from the "old" style I really miss. Ideally I'd like to see both types of games coexist in the future, similar to how the 3D style of Zelda has coexisted with the 2D style (which too are quite different from eachother gameplay-wise, both also with their own advantages and disadvantages).
This is actually a solved problem and it's kind of a bummer neither open world Zelda went for it.
In the 2008 Prince of Persia game, there were four major zones themed around the four secondary antagonists that you were allowed to complete in any order. Each one had a special kind of hazard in their zone that would make platforming harder, such as the Alchemist who created poison clouds you had to rush quickly through before suffocating. Once you defeat the Alchemist and purify his region of the world, every region that's still corrupted now adds his poison clouds to its list of hazards. So as you progress through the game, the remaining portions of it steadily intensify how hostile they are to navigate. You have a steady platforming difficulty curve no matter which order you progress in.
So let's imagine Breath of the Wild with a similar system. Drive the Windblight out from Medoh and now the rest of the world integrates cannons and drones, drive the Fireblight out of Rudania and now the rest of the world integrates flaming weapons magical barriers, drive the Waterblight out of Ruta and the rest of the world integrates ice hazards and throwing spears, drive the Thunderblight out of Naboris and now the rest of the world integrates teleportation and lightning rods. With each defeated Blight Ganon, their essence is reabsorbed into Calamity Ganon who distributes their knowledge and skills throughout his robot and monster armies and, most importantly, the remaining Divine Beasts and Hyrule Castle.
On the creative end, it means design every level with the assumption of being the full complexity version and then remove puzzles and challenges that don't apply. It's a bigger challenge than designing each as the minimum complexity version as they did but I believe they're up for it and it's not like there are many levels to begin with.