Daft

Completed this on Tuesday. I enjoyed the last boss was a lot of fun. The ending was – like the opening – a damp squib. Can't say I agree with the 10s at all. Technically the game has a bad framerate, it has fiddly controls (a game should never require three buttons to hold just to change your arrow type) and a bad UI (the more food recipes I made the longer it takes to switch through tabs, etc). Aesthetically all the shrines are styled the same, all the dungeons are styled the same, and all the great fairy fountains, all the dungeon bosses are samey, all the stables are copy-and-paste jobs. The music was weak, except in Hyrule Castle at the end. The progression...isn't really there. I never had an issue with my Stamina so I only upgraded it once (because I thought I should, instead of out of need). I got to Eventide island using the ice-block power, so it didn't feel like I had to work to get there (again stamina wasn't required). I think stamina might only be essential when taming a horse...but I'm pretty sure an elixir and a stay in a nice inn would get me over that hurdle. Yeah, it's an open world but that shouldn't mean everything is accessible at all points. I feel a lot of people have read this as 'unparalleled exploration', to me it's uncurated and lazy. So no progression in exploration (except when you need to dress as a woman to access Gerudo Town, I enjoyed that). I can make food but it was weird that I couldn't craft items like arrows (I ended up with a lot of moblin teeth and wood, it's not really a stretch to think they could be combined); by the end of the game I had between 20 and 50 odd of all the elemental arrows but running out of the normal ones constantly. There was really basic 'why is the game designed like this' functions like all the Divine Beast powers. I get the ressurection one because its a one-time use thing but for the other three...it didn't make sense they they recharged in batches of three. So I use the wind jump twice...maybe I should use the third one so I can have three at the ready in a bit...at the cost of not having them at hand now? Sure that would make sense in a risk/reward type way except that choice is never forced on you by the game's design. The Master Sword gets weak...'I should smash it so I have it ready to go in 10 minutes'. Why do I even need to do shrines? Stamina isn't an issue. I guess I needed 13 hearts to retrieve the Master Sword but when you're carrying a virtually limitless supply of health items and can get extra hearts just from eating food and you can carry (at least?) four fairies (plus the recharging Divine Beast power that not just revives you but gives you extra hearts as well) what is really the incentive. Really they were most useful as fast travel points. I suppose the extra health was convenient when fighting the final Ganon. Except it isn't a tough fight and like I said, meals, elixirs and fairies make it a breeze. I wasn't bothered by opening chests toward the end because I was carrying enough weapons and I knew there would be nothing that was actually essential. I didn't need the rubber armour set because I just drank an easily made shock-resistant elixir. For all those complaints – and I really need to stress this because it sounds overly negative – it was an enjoyable game. But I just can't believe anyone with any real critical eye thinks that this is even close to a 10 or a perfect game. I can't think of another game that would get away with these issues unscathed. It was heading for a good 8 out of 10 for me and then the ending happened and deflated me and the score to a 7. I kind of thought Jim Sterling was being overly harsh, and I don't agree with everything he says, but there we have it.

The game doesn't do the best of jobs at explaining how damage works. Fire arrows are mainly for causing enemies to overheat/set on fire. You want to switch back to ones with high tear damage after that's done.

How did you get the ball from round his neck without fighting him?

Did that Island...which wasn't particularly hard (especially with the Naboris power for the Hinox). For some reason it reminded me of Pitioss Dungeon in FFXV, except there's nothing really that special about it in the end. I also finished off the last Divine Beasts yesterday. The Master Sword makes the Ganon bosses a joke; drink an Attack-Up elixer and they literally take less than 60 seconds. The Gorons are my favourite race. It was nice to see them and I really liked Daruk (who there is criminally little of) but it all kind of confirmed my feelings that the world is a bit like the It's a Small World ride at Disney. Or the Truman show. Everything and everyone is there to service Link's progression (I'd have used the word 'story' but it just not there) and they aren't compelling in their own right. I'm left with the feeling that the game is well built game but poorly crafted...if that makes sense.

My Hunter is 350, my Warlock and Titan are 305.

I'd need to level up first. And I would be surprised if I have time between Zelda and Persona.

Trailer on Saturday. There's already a teaser floating around for it. Edit: Here.

It's interesting they haven't released the attacker's name (as far as I can see). I'm glad, too.

I get the defence rating but I don't quite understand what that means in real terms. Does a 10 defence rating negate 10% damage for instance? I guess I'm asking because I don't really know what kind of defence I should be aiming for? I like running around topless because literally 60% of the characters in game acknowledge it and freak out. So I saw hime first outside Kakariko village, then once outside a quite central stable...does that mean I should head to the Lost Forrest to find him again? Or might he pop up somewhere else before then? I'm always itching for more inventory space.

I did my first Guardian yesterday. The Rito one. It was short and the boss wasn't too hard. Enjoyable all in all. More like a big set-piece than an actual dungeon. Could someone explain to me what the number on the armour you wear means? I'm running around bare-chested with a combined armour rating of 10. And even though I'm topless I can run around in the frozen areas no problem, which amuses me endlessly. Also, where the flying fuck is Hestu? I have about 25 seeds I need to trade in.

And they'll probably show of Destiny 2 in a week.

I hope so. I started Zelda on Ashley's Switch. And...I might have actually picked my own up if I knew I could move my save onto it. It'd be very tempting. Too hard to resist, me thinks.

That's great to hear. As much as I'm enjoying Zelda, I'm glad I held off a bit.

Any idea when we might be able to transfer saves from console to console? Is it on the cards at all?

They're both superb games. We should be so lucky to have both of them in the first place.

Well, I'd say that the finality of Final Fantasy games are fairly well justified; they're high-fantasy games with limited runs. Every 'run' has wholly unique characters and worlds (as far as I'm aware – I've only played FFXV).

It's only really ever in the back of my mind. It's a genuinely remarkable game but I think it's a fault worth bringing up. I was trying to steer the discussion back on topic. You can have a LOL if you really need it. LOL

Sure, whatever. That's a real strawman. It doesn't at all change my criticism that there is a lack of narrative around too many places and activities.

At least a fantasy (of sorts) is presented. Slavishly realised, usually. So your point doesn't really make much sense. Not to mention that all FF games are limited series. They may be a series of three games but they aren't designed to continue indefinitely. Except for FF Online. I have no idea what's going on there. But that FF11 and FF14 are different also speaks to the finality of each title.

You're different. Edit: Seriously though, for a game series titled The Legend of Zelda, it's severely lacking in legend.

I've not found any of the memories yet. Maybe they'll help change my mind. I'm not sure you can accuse audio-logs of being money saving when talking about a game that has incredibly limited voice-acting as it is. And it's not like any of those games with audio-logs eschew full voice acting and cutscenes. I don't think any of them do. It's not necessarily that BotW is empty, it's partly that there is – for me – a discord between certain activities or setting and narrative.

Part of building a compelling open world is realising its history. It absolutely elevates games and personally I find it increasingly key to the experience (maybe because it's become more prevalent in games). Mad Max had these wonderful little staged artefacts that you could find. And the area you'd find it would be dressed in a certain way. There would be a photo – maybe with a bit of writing on the back – a letter or a postcard. And once you read it Max would make remark on it. I found them personable and especially important because it contrasted the harshness of the world I was presented. Far Cry 4 does something similar. The Witcher 3 is steeped in lore an history, both general and personal. And it's often key to finding locations or secrets or an effective way to fight a certain beast. The towns (Oxenfurt, Velen, Novigrad) are all worth reading about and help realise the world. You can get swept up in a love story that turns into a ghost story, and when you go to exorcise the ghost the place is rich with detail; both visual story and written. And Horizon (which it's no secret I've been blown out of the water by) creates an utterly compelling world that feels like it's not just existing at a point frozen in time, but is instead a place that has gone through much and will go through even more once you've 100%-ed it and uninstalled the game from the HDD. Even Destiny, which has nothing going on in explicit story has absolutely wonderful (and stupidly inaccessible) lore about everything from people, to equipment, to world/levels/raids. The Vault of Glass raid isn't brilliant simply because of the mechanics, it's brilliant because the mechanics and the lore are one and the same. I actually think it's a massive cock-tease to create what appears to be a deep, rich world and then have no info about it. Like a supermodel who's got nothing going on between their ears; fun to play with but don't expect any profound conversations. And it might not have an impact on you but it most certainly made that epic bit I talked about in spoilers feel pretty empty. I don't really understand the 'survival' aspect. I don't remember a Zelda game where you could carry an unlimited number of health items...so there's no tension there. You never come close to using up all your weapons, there's always something lying around (does this change later on?)...so again, surviving isn't really an issue. You also have unlimited bombs that – if you switch between the round and the cubed one – you can use two at a time (and by the time you get the Bomb+ they recharge super quick, too). The fights aren't hard unless I'm getting one-shot by random enemies that I need to get one-shot by to realise that they can one-shot me...Which is incredibly stupid, if you ask me. I feel like I missed a tutorial about how certain enemies are stronger and that I should observe the weapon they're holding before engaging (except the draw distance is so poor that scouting the landscape isn't really possible...especially when the enemy is one of those centaur mother-fuckers who can see you a mile off). I guess the hot and cold environments add a certain level of survival to the game but like health items I can just stock up on lots of heat/cold resistant meals to get me through. So... Also, the lack of a proper dodge/roll button is really lamentable; that adds a certain level of fighting for survival because inevitably anything that limits movement does. Every fight basically turns into a fencing match. Reading this and my last post back, it sounds like I'm really beating down on Zelda but I am really enjoying it. It just feels like Nintendo threw everything that prototyped quite well into a box and made sure nothing was especially broken. It's unfocused. But it's more a shame that they could and should have done so much more with the narrative. Majora's Mask narrative run circles around this game. It's been 17 years since Majora's Mask. Why haven't Nintendo made progress?

Technically that would solve the problem.

I had the controller lose responsiveness while sitting back with my legs up on the table. It happened a few times before I realise that my knees being in the way was the thing causing the problem. I moved the switch from behind the TV, no change. I think I'm (at a max) 9-feet away from the Switch. Which is an absolute joke. I hope they sort it out by the time I get one for myself.