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PlayStation State of Play (Thursday 2nd June @ 23:00 BST)

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12 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

People say the same thing every time a series is shaken up. I wonder if you were there saying this when OoT came out.

I mean, it's basically Link to the Past, but in 3D, so no?

Zelda 2 would be a better example. But I never played that when it was released. Mainly because I wasn't born.

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Zelda is like Assassins Creed? Now I’ve heard everything. From a game design pov it’s as far from AC as possible.

Edited by Ronnie

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I mean, it's basically Link to the Past, but in 3D, so no?

Zelda 2 would be a better example. But I never played that when it was released. Mainly because I wasn't born.

So did you say the same when LTTP came out?

 

If you look at say Zelda Skyward Sword it looks and plays very differently to Zelda I, so the argument "it's not Zelda" as soon as BoTW comes along makes no sense.

 

If we consider Zelda I to be "Zelda", then Zelda hasn't been "Zelda" for ages now.

 

Zelda.

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55 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

So did you say the same when LTTP came out?

Doubt it, I was two years old. And for the record, Zelda 1 is one of my least favourite Zeldas, so a theoretical 80's kid Glen would've said pretty much the opposite.

Shaking things up is all well and good, my issue is that shaking things up these days normally means "make it open-world", and I haven't played a single game where the open-world has more benefits then cons.

Mario Odyssey, BotW, Pokémon Legends, Xenoblade X, not a single one has succeeded in not devolving to me thinking anything other then "Geez, I just want this to be over!" And I like all 4 of those series! And don't even get me started on how awful Sonic Frontiers is looking.

The open-world trend is starting to blur everything together into one big empty field. Sure, BotW is arguably the best open-world game of all time (I actually think Xenoblade X is, but that's not the point), but if even that can't convince me it's a good foundation for a game, well, what hope does anything else has?

Silver lining, we've seen a real upsurge of smaller developers doing their own classic Zelda style games. With the biggest competition off competing with the likes of Assassin's Creed, it's not surprising. I just finished Death's Door, I enjoyed my time with it, but it did leave a bitter aftertaste that it could be quite a while since we see Nintendo make a new Zelda in that style.

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2 hours ago, Sheikah said:

If we consider Zelda I to be "Zelda"

I think they don't. I believe that's the crux of it.

-------------------------------

Anyway, Street Fighter VI looks freakin' fantastic, which is hella surprising, considering the Luke-warm teaser from last time. I can't believe they finally gave Chun-Li a new canon outfit!

More importantly, there's this whole stylish Hip-Hop vibe to it, and it seems fully committed to it. It's funny, listening to the Triple K.O. podcast, it feels like all of those guys' wishlists came true (including the desire for more Hip-Hop aesthetic, which was the most specific thing). Looking forward to seeing more of the game.

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3 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

I think they don't. I believe that's the crux of it.

-------------------------------

Anyway, Street Fighter VI looks freakin' fantastic, which is hella surprising, considering the Luke-warm teaser from last time. I can't believe they finally gave Chun-Li a new canon outfit!

More importantly, there's this whole stylish Hip-Hop vibe to it, and it seems fully committed to it. It's funny, listening to the Triple K.O. podcast, it feels like all of those guys' wishlists came true (including the desire for more Hip-Hop aesthetic, which was the most specific thing). Looking forward to seeing more of the game.

Yup. It was one of the best announcements from the show. The visual style Capcom decided to go with really appeals to me and the inclusion of what seems to be a very robust single player mode is a very welcome addition. Far too few fighters include modes for single players and I'm happy to see Capcom are trying to appeal to such players.

I was looking at the character designs/leaked roster today and they all look amazing. I love Cammy's new look.

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Doubt it, I was two years old. And for the record, Zelda 1 is one of my least favourite Zeldas, so a theoretical 80's kid Glen would've said pretty much the opposite.

That's the point I was hoping you'd make - it's not a case that Zelda is "no longer Zelda", it's that it isn't what you personally wanted it to be.
Zelda prior to BoTW wasn't like Zelda I either.

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I think they don't. I believe that's the crux of it.

Yeah, it was clear they didn't. It just didn't make sense to call out BoTW for not being "authentic" Zelda when the series had already changed from what it originally was.

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8 hours ago, Sheikah said:

Yeah, it was clear they didn't. It just didn't make sense to call out BoTW for not being "authentic" Zelda when the series had already changed from what it originally was.

I wonder about that.

Zelda 1 has some fundamental differences from BotW that makes it more bearable for me. The first of which would be that it doesn't ever take me hours to get to where I want to go. Now, obviously the lack of the NES limitations are why BotW's Hyrule is so ridiculous in it's massiveness, but I much prefer to reach my desired destination without having to traverse big fields. It's even more annoying in BotW, because half of the time when I reached my destination, there was nothing interesting to see. Zelda 1's Hyrule is more interesting to explore because it's smaller size meant it was much more likely that you'd find something worth finding.

BotW is touted as Zelda going back to it's roots, and while I certainly agree there's some merit to that with how open it is, Zelda 1 never went as far as BotW.

Sure, you can visit most of Zelda 1's dungeons in any order, but do that and you'll likely find that you won't get very far because you'll be lacking an item from a previous dungeon. And you can forget about just running straight to Ganon, because you won't even make it past the second room there!

Zelda 1 still has some kind of structure to it. BotW, meanwhile, feels to me, somewhat like this after the Great Plateau.

Game: Good work! You're off the Plateau!

Me: You know what? That wasn't completely awful, I'm looking forward to seeing how these neat rune mechanics develop over time.

Game: Oh no. That's it! Four runes is all you're getting.

Me: Oh... Well, what's next on the to do list, then?

Game: Go beat up Ganon.

Me: Well, duh! But what's the first step I need to do?

Game: Go to Hyrule Castle, find Ganon, beat him up.

I quickly realised that the best bit of BotW was behind me. The dungeons sucked, shrines were the only thing worth looking for, and those weren't very fun either. And there was an underlying feeling of "You know, you can just end this game now. Everything you're doing is not entirely necessary."

"Linearity" has become such a dirty word in gaming. Nothing really accentuates that more then the PR for Pokémon Scarlet/Violet.

Quote

a world that you’re free to explore at your leisure and not in an order dictated by the story.

Why is being told where the next step towards your main goal is such a heinous thing that a game not featuring that is a selling point? It gives the impression that Pokémon games have never had the option to "explore at your leisure". But that's been a thing since the Game Boy games! If you never explored, you certainly would never have found the Power Plant, for example.

Now, BotW's massive success means that this narrative of Linearity < Open-world has really rocketed in recent times. But hey, at least it was just Zelda. Plenty of other franchises I enjoy that still, oh what's that? Mario Odyssey is about big open areas rather then tight linear levels? Well, that blows. Still, Pokémon Sword/Shield sees the benefits of, oh wait, that series is ditching that too.

It's starting to bleed into everything and it's really boring.

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Zelda 1 was never an open world game, that is revisionist bollocks.

That game was designed with a specific difficulty curve in place; with increasing complexity as you progressed through the game.  It had a very traditional, almost Mario-like structure.

Sure, you could explore a large section of the map at your leisure (not the whole thing, importantly, large segments of the map were cordoned off by required items); and you could do some of the dungeons out of order if you wanted to (not all.  Some dungeons required specific items to progress).  But the game was designed with linear progression in mind from the beginning.

Guess what.  ALTTP also let’s you do most dungeons in any order you want to as well! Even OoT allows you to complete dungeons out of sequence if you want to. That doesn’t make them open world games.

For all the rhetoric made about BOTW going “back to the series roots”; that’s a load of horseshit.  BOTW’s biggest inspiration wasn’t Zelda 1, it was Minecraft, Ubisoft’s open worlds (especially the towers), and Skyrim.

Anyway, that’s enough about BOTW.  This isn’t the topic for it anyway (though it’s influence on games like Sonic Frontiers should be blindingly obvious).

Edited by Dcubed

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5 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

For all the rhetoric made about BOTW going “back to the series roots”; that’s a load of horseshit.

After Skyward Sword's overworld, where you literally picked areas to go from a menu screen (:indeed:) BOTW absolutely went back to the series roots, a big inter-connected land to explore at your leisure, with secrets everywhere.

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22 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

(though it’s influence on games like Sonic Frontiers should be blindingly obvious).

And that's what happens when a game is as critically acclaimed and overwhelmingly adored as BOTW, it influences others, like Nintendo games always have.

And for the record, people can of course dislike BOTW, that's fine, as is saying so on here, over and over and over and over and over again, but I think what's being argued is that "Zelda isn't Zelda anymore" or that it's "basically AC", both statements actually are horseshit. imo.

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Zelda 1 was never an open world game, that is revisionist bollocks.

Well I didn't say that. I said that Zelda prior to BoTW had already changed dramatically from Zelda I. So to state that BoTW was no longer "Zelda" doesn't make sense.

I get that some people didn't like BoTW but you can hardly state it's not a true Zelda game.

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After Skyward Sword's overworld, where you literally picked areas to go from a menu screen (:indeed:) BOTW absolutely went back to the series roots, a big inter-connected land to explore at your leisure, with secrets everywhere.

Exactly. I mean, you couldn't be more correct about the overworld in BoTW being more like Zelda I than Skyward Sword's was.

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On 03/06/2022 at 2:03 PM, Sheikah said:

I mean, aside from BoTW feeling and playing almost nothing like Assassin's Creed, sure, it's like Assassin's Creed.

Assassin's Creed also feels a bit like Mario now that I think about it, on account of the third person camera perspective. emoji14.png

I think my joke may have gone over your head a little bit, but that's ok. 

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I think my joke may have gone over your head a little bit, but that's ok.

I know you were joking but the others weren't. It's a comparison that has been made a few times before, and not jokingly!

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