Growing apathetic about once loved series

[darksnowman]

14 hours ago, Sheikah said:

I might be wrong but don't light arrows sort of stun Ganondorf/Ganon in some games, then you slay him with the Master Sword?

Either way we can all agree that the constant "sealing away" of Ganon is total bullshit.

Off the top of my head, you have to at least finish him with the arrows in the first LoZ. So if you get to him without them you're snookered. And I think the arrows are the finisher in LttP too. Though it's a dramatic finish in OoT to deliver the final blow with the sword of evil's bane... once you've softened him up with other weapons and you're done distracting him with the fishing line. 

[bob]

Sealed, revived. Whatever's going on they don't seem to be able to properly kill the bastard.

Yeah but how many times does Link pop back up again after getting killed? From Ganon's point of view, he's this undead, relentless terminator that is hellbent on hunting him down over thousands of years.

[darksnowman]

56 minutes ago, bob said:

11 hours ago, Sheikah said:

Sealed, revived. Whatever's going on they don't seem to be able to properly kill the bastard.

Yeah but how many times does Link pop back up again after getting killed? From Ganon's point of view, he's this undead, relentless terminator that is hellbent on hunting him down over thousands of years.

Maybe never and it's all just various retellings down the years of the events of Skyward Sword.  Not that Ganon was in SS so there goes that. I suppose Twilight Princess had the undead, relentless teacher Link.

But yeah, since you mention it, Paper Mario's another candidate for this thread. After Thousand Year Door they got experimental (great!) while ditching the RPG foundation (poor!). Maybe the series would have gotten stale if they hadn't done this—we'll never know—but I reckon we'd have enjoyed a once-per-generation Paper Mario RPG with some bells and whistles added each time. 

Perhaps they're gearing up to give the Mario & Luigi series the Switch treatment... we'd be lucky to get a standalone Bowser's Minions strategy game. Lol.

Once upon a time, I might've said New Super Mario Bros. too but it feels so good in Mario Maker that my perception of those games has come around big time. So much so that I wouldn't mind picking up NSMBU in the rare event that I spot it on sale. 

[Beast]

Before I start with this, as far as Pokemon is concerned, I've had the exact opposite happen. I think I properly stopped playing when Gold and Silver came out as I didn't actually like the new Pokemon and I lost interest after that entry. I still have the games and I've played the others but nothing grabbed me like the Game Boy games. I bought Pokemon Violet a couple of days ago and I have to say I'm hooked. So much so that I want to go back to the other Switch games and play them as well (I did try Sword and I just didn't like the Pokemon but after giving Violet a chance and thoroughly enjoying it, I decided I'd do the same with that too). Same goes for Let's Go Eevee too. I don't know exactly what it is that's made me fall back in love with it but it's everything I've ever wanted in a Pokemon game. If they remade Red/Blue like this, I'd be so happy.

As for the topic itself, I find it to be a problem when the love for the franchise goes out of the window and turns into a cash-grab. Resident Evil has been a very rocky road but I have to admit that Biohazard and Village raised the bar for mainstream survival horror and is possibly the only exception I can make with this. Same goes for movie franchises too. People right now are excited for Indiana Jones 5 and it's like they've forgot what happened with 4. People were so excited for Texas Chainsaw Massacre that they forgot the majority of those films were pretty trash. Halloween Ends was something I boarded the hype train, admittedly, and it is genuinely the worst finale to such an iconic series. I don't necessarily mind a legacy sequel if it's done right (Scream 5 is a prime example for me) but everything is made for 80s and 90s kids to get nostalgic over regardless of quality. Star Wars is the same thing and even Marvel too. I loved both of them so much but it become so oversaturated with unnecessary sequels and mediocre spin-offs (with an exception to The Mandalorian) without a breather of excitement for another installment that I couldn't be arsed with it. Same goes for Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed and other games like it.

[EEVILMURRAY]

On 01/01/2023 at 4:02 PM, Dcubed said:

Zelda has done this for me.  Literally my favourite gaming series and I can't muster anything other than an indignant shrug when it comes to Tears of the Kingdom.  Everything about BOTW and what it has done to not only the Zelda series, but Nintendo as a whole, makes me very very sad.

At least the re-releases have been great.  Links Awakening Switch was a delight, and Skyward Sword HD is an excellent remaster (at least when the Joycons are working properly), but as far as new entries in the series go? Couldn't give less of a shit.

Outside of Nintendo? Plenty of other series have done this for me.  God of War, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy? The list goes on and on; but Zelda? That one really hurts.

Thank God for Metroid Samus Returns and (especially!) Metroid Dread though! Dread was so utterly amazing, I couldn't believe that it actually managed to live up to the 15 year-long wait!  So it's not just me getting old and cranky kong, it's series specific; and especially Zelda specific.

Fucks sake... I wrote a reply and because I got another quote from someone else it seemed to just shit all over it. I'll just summarise my amazing arguments.

To summaries - I agree @Dcubed , BOTW killed my enthusiasm for the Zelda series, it was mostly large, mostly boring, mostly empty. Fenyx Rising is a better game.

@Jonnas - Graces was the peak of the Tales series, Arise was just corridors, fuck the Symphonia remaster unless they actually do something

[Sheikah]

Fucks sake... I wrote a reply and because I got another quote from someone else it seemed to just shit all over it. I'll just summarise my amazing arguments.
To summaries - I agree [mention=883]Dcubed[/mention] , BOTW killed my enthusiasm for the Zelda series, it was mostly large, mostly boring, mostly empty. Fenyx Rising is a better game.
[mention=3015]Jonnas[/mention] - Graces was the peak of the Tales series, Arise was just corridors, fuck the Symphonia remaster unless they actually do something

I bounced off Fenyx Rising. While it's interesting for a while it ultimately is too easy and the story isn't compelling enough. It has the old Ubisoft bloat to it too.

[drahkon]

7 hours ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

BOTW killed my enthusiasm for the Zelda series, it was mostly large, mostly boring, mostly empty. Fenyx Rising is a better game

You're a brave man

[MindFreak]

Regarding Pokémon, I think the reason I like the newer games less than the old games is because I feel the developers are not competent enough and ignore what makes a good game nowadays. There is no story, no interesting things to discover, no side-quests, and no interesting NPCs. There is simply no world in the game. In the old games, you could come across a man using a Machoke to help him build a house. The world in Scarlet and Violet is just dead. Newer games need to be able to tell a story in the story - and well, actually have a story that is interesting beyond "I want to be the very best in a world where nobody is any good".This frustrates me as I enjoy the core gameplay loop (or would have enjoyed it more if everything was a bit faster...)

But in general, my enjoyment of games has been going down as I get older and have less time for gaming. Games changing their formula and forgetting what made the older games great is perhaps a reason to this as well but that may just be - as @bob said - old man grumpiness starting early.

[EEVILMURRAY]

6 hours ago, Sheikah said:

I bounced off Fenyx Rising. While it's interesting for a while it ultimately is too easy and the story isn't compelling enough. It has the old Ubisoft bloat to it too.

You amass 4 powerful people to help you battle the giant red thing in the middle of the map, the story doesn't differ much from BOTW. It's just got a better looking and more interesting world, and going brave like @drahkon compliments with, I'm finding the puzzles better as well. I will go back to give it another chance, but it does more things wrong than Fenyx for me.

My original post had something like @MindFreak was saying in Pokémon locales. Even though the places called town/city in previous games consisting of 4-5 houses actually felt like grander than they were because they were isolated/separate from the main map. In Violet you are seeing at a smattering of houses in a massive expanse of green, with the exception of one where you can't even glide into because it needs to load it up for you, yet the people can't walk properly at a distance. They spend more real estate with the Star bases (which seem to use a whole academy's worth of tables for each barricade and not get expelled {fuck them all and boot them out}) which could've gone to making more decent places to go

I don't think it helps that you can't go into any of the buildings to chat with the people, just the many, many, many, many fucking clothes and food shops.

Edited January 9, 2023 by EEVILMURRAY

[Ronnie]

It's been a while since I played Fenyx Rising, what's the physics and chemistry engine in that game like compared to BOTW, the aspect of the game that never seems to get any credit on this board? 

I remember they tried to do the BOTW thing of having you discover things, but all that meant was spending five minutes on a high place and tagging a million icons on the map. A lot of those activities were fun but it'll be a sad day if Zelda games are ever full of Ubisoft bloat, checklists and busywork. 

Don't remember the story of Fenyx Rising at all, but the memory cutscenes in Zelda stick out far more, for me anyway. And manipulating the divine beasts entire structure to get around them was incredibly clever, again it doesn't get much credit here coz they're not traditional dungeons.

The map in Zelda is far better, and one of the best designed openworlds around. Nothing stood out in memory in Fenyx, I played that game for 50 hours and couldn't draw you a picture of the landscape, but Zelda was full of memorable locations.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Ronnie

[Glen-i]

14 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

what's the physics and chemistry engine in that game like compared to BOTW, the aspect of the game that never seems to get any credit on this board? 

Hey, I've always maintained the physics are the one good thing about BotW.

[EEVILMURRAY]

1 hour ago, Ronnie said:

I remember they tried to do the BOTW thing of having you discover things, but all that meant was spending five minutes on a high place and tagging a million icons on the map. A lot of those activities were fun but it'll be a sad day if Zelda games are ever full of Ubisoft bloat, checklists and busywork. 

The map in Zelda is far better, and one of the best designed openworlds around. Nothing stood out in memory in Fenyx, I played that game for 50 hours and couldn't draw you a picture of the landscape, but Zelda was full of memorable locations.

You could mark everything out from the high point if you wanted, I only really marked things I could see and stumble across the rest as I travel round.

I don't have anything in my memory about BOTW's Hyrule, apart from the sandy bit is on the left and a few other small things. I have no doubt I'll forget about Greece(?) and once I'm done with Fenyx I know will forget the layout of that too, as I've done with pretty much every open world game I've played. But I will remember that it had more character than BOTW.

Again, as I keep telling myself I will give it another go and see how Hyrule will fare more on ground level, maybe I missed some stuff. 

[EEVILMURRAY]

On 04/01/2023 at 8:24 AM, bob said:

On 03/01/2023 at 9:24 PM, Sheikah said:

Sealed, revived. Whatever's going on they don't seem to be able to properly kill the bastard.

Yeah but how many times does Link pop back up again after getting killed? From Ganon's point of view, he's this undead, relentless terminator that is hellbent on hunting him down over thousands of years.

Was Ocarina's Ganondorf born in that Hyrule? They blew their load mentioning he was the only dude.

[Jonnas]

On 08/01/2023 at 5:39 PM, EEVILMURRAY said:

Graces was the peak of the Tales series, Arise was just corridors

Thank you for mentioning the dungeon design, which is one of the things I hated about Abyss & Symphonia 2. Review outlets never notice that for some reason, despite it being one of Symphonia's strong points (and an important aspect of the genre in general).

[EEVILMURRAY]

11 hours ago, Jonnas said:

Thank you for mentioning the dungeon design, which is one of the things I hated about Abyss & Symphonia 2. Review outlets never notice that for some reason, despite it being one of Symphonia's strong points (and an important aspect of the genre in general).

We don't talk about Symphonia 2. It never happened. It doesn't exist! 

Arise might have had better dungeon action if you weren't always looking for a key/card for a lift 90% of the time, c'maahn, fool me into thinking it has a bit more variety by having me look for other things. Just Keys etc in Zelda feel more organic as locked parts of a dungeon, as opposed to asking "where are the stairs?" 

Not even the dungeon design, the whole world in Arise was just one long path, I think about 2-3 "overworld" sections had an alternative exit. Every region consisted solely of its capital city which had one path in and out. Running around Sylvarant and discovering new shit and church hotel things... Why have RPGs strayed from this

I don't remember Abyss that much to be honest. I need to whip out the 3DS and give it another whirl. 

[Dcubed]

1 hour ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

We don't talk about Symphonia 2. It never happened. It doesn't exist! 

Arise might have had better dungeon action if you weren't always looking for a key/card for a lift 90% of the time, c'maahn, fool me into thinking it has a bit more variety by having me look for other things. Just Keys etc in Zelda feel more organic as locked parts of a dungeon, as opposed to asking "where are the stairs?" 

Not even the dungeon design, the whole world in Arise was just one long path, I think about 2-3 "overworld" sections had an alternative exit. Every region consisted solely of its capital city which had one path in and out. Running around Sylvarant and discovering new shit and church hotel things... Why have RPGs strayed from this

I don't remember Abyss that much to be honest. I need to whip out the 3DS and give it another whirl. 

Good level design is something that modern non-Nintendo AAA games have basically all but forgotten.

Nowerdays? You either have a massive open expansive field of nothing, or you have an oppressive corridor with no meaningful exploration given to you.  There is nothing inbetween.

Tales of Symphonia is the best Tales of game because it actually had good dungeon level design and meaningful things to do in the overworld outside of battling, something that the series has progressively taken away with every subsequent sequel.  Namco have no clue about what people actually enjoyed with TOS, and appear to attribute it entierly to the battle system and character dialogue.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Dcubed

[darksnowman]

On 09/01/2023 at 9:45 AM, Ronnie said:

It's been a while since I played Fenyx Rising, what's the physics and chemistry engine in that game like compared to BOTW, the aspect of the game that never seems to get any credit on this board? 

Personally, that stuff doesn't get my juices going when I'm playing it, but that they put the work in and created all those interactions is a great achievement. People pull off some impressive stuff with it as we've seen.

Still, when I've the controller in hand and I'm standing in the middle of nowhere in BotW, wondering what I can mess around with is the last thing on my mind. Half the time, I don't know what direction I'm supposed to be going in, what button does what and I prefer not to experiment as it'll likely cost me items due to breakage. Or I'll throw a boomerang and never see it again.  

Last time I played, I cut loose and smashed my inventory to smithereens chopping down trees for the town-building quest.

On 09/01/2023 at 9:45 AM, Ronnie said:

it'll be a sad day if Zelda games are ever full of Ubisoft bloat, checklists and busywork. 

Granted, BotW isn't bloated (it's empty ), it does have a quest list to toil away at and busywork in the form of extra steps added to what were once easy-to-get items in the form of all that item collection and cooking... and no recipe tracking app on the Shiekah Slate to boot. Also see aforementioned tree-chopping busywork. 

On 09/01/2023 at 9:45 AM, Ronnie said:

Don't remember the story of Fenyx Rising at all, but the memory cutscenes in Zelda stick out far more, for me anyway.

Haven't seen all those. Needle in haystack stuff they are.

Yup, +1 me for Fenyx Rising as I thought the demo was all right! It was open yet still steered you and felt... fun...?

On 09/01/2023 at 9:45 AM, Ronnie said:

Zelda was full of memorable locations.

Oh yeah, totally. I remember all those enemy encampments that're copied and pasted all over the place!

...And cost you more items to clear out than you get in return, so I learned to give them a wide berth and traipse on.  

Can't believe I talk about a Zelda game like this.
 

6 hours ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

We don't talk about Symphonia 2. It never happened. It doesn't exist! 

Oh, it exists; it happened and has motion capture!

It's Bruno we don't talk about.

Think I only have Phantasia, Symphonia 1+2 and Vesperia so I'm far from deep enough into the Tales series for it to be a candidate for this thread for me. The Symphonia remaster looks like a dud though I'd jump at the chance to play any of the others... and be quickly deflated by all the missables. 

[Ronnie]

Such a strange online dichotomy between this message board where you'd think BOTW was the worst game ever created... and the entire rest of the internet where it's getting overwhelming critical acclaim, praise and awards. To each their own.

[Ashley]

Different people have different opinions, it shouldn't be surprising. Also nobody, by any stretch of the imagination, is suggesting it's "the worst game ever created". They just didn't like it.

The criticism seems to be "it's not for me" rather than 'it's objectively terrible'. That's kind of the whole point of this thread; it's not "when did this series become terrible" but rather "when did you lose interest". You can absolutely be disinterested in something that is objectively well made and something other people like. 

Along the same lines; I got very bored of the New Super Mario Bros series. The games were well made and enjoyable, but they came so thick and fast at one point I just got bored of them and had no interest in any more. 

[Sheikah]

Such a strange online dichotomy between this message board where you'd think BOTW was the worst game ever created... and the entire rest of the internet where it's getting overwhelming critical acclaim, praise and awards. To each their own.

One thing I've noticed is that many people who had become bored by the same old Zelda formula (like me) loved BOTW. Although obviously not everyone. But this board in particular has a number of people who absolutely love game after game that Nintendo produce, regardless of how conserved the games were before. It doesn't matter if there have been several generations of games that play out very similar, some people don't like change, or rather become attached to what the series comprised.

 

Each to their own though, I'm just glad the overwhelming majority thought BOTW was the second coming as it'll no doubt mean this is what main Zelda games will be like now, at least for the foreseeable future.

[EEVILMURRAY]

16 hours ago, Ronnie said:

Such a strange online dichotomy between this message board where you'd think BOTW was the worst game ever created... and the entire rest of the internet where it's getting overwhelming critical acclaim, praise and awards. To each their own.

It baffles me. For the scope of the world and amount of places you *go*, there didn't seem to be much you could *do*. I certainly wouldn't consider it worthy of any awards, I don't think it did anything truly groundbreaking (?) (Was the stamina system for climbing a new thing?) 

I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it isn't a great game either.

Like @darksnowman I cannae believe I feel this way about a Zelda title. I'm all for evolution and stuff, but after the initial Plateau and the first Divine Beast, everything just seemed the same.

 

One side note, how the fuck did a hood not protect me from the cold, but some earrings did?! That shit be whack homie.

[bob]

It baffles me. For the scope of the world and amount of places you *go*, there didn't seem to be much you could *do*. I certainly wouldn't consider it worthy of any awards, I don't think it did anything truly groundbreaking (?) (Was the stamina system for climbing a new thing?) 
I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it isn't a great game either.
Like [mention=384]darksnowman[/mention] I cannae believe I feel this way about a Zelda title. I'm all for evolution and stuff, but after the initial Plateau and the first Divine Beast, everything just seemed the same.
 
One side note, how the fuck did a hood not protect me from the cold, but some earrings did?! That shit be whack homie.

They were hot earrings.

[Ronnie]

1 hour ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

I don't think it did anything truly groundbreaking (?)

It re-invented how openworlds worked, from what was a Ubisoft formula of checkmarks and tasks to complete. Elden Ring is another game that did something similar. The sense of exploration and discovery meant you were stumbling on things whichever direction you turned. It didn't lead players by a dotted line telling them where to go, you created your own adventure. The physics and chemistry engine as they called it added an additional layer to how you interacted with the world, and the fact that all your abilities were unlocked from the start meant you really could 'go anywhere'. It was a sandbox to get lost in, and at the very start of the game, had the added layer of having to simply survive.

As for stuff you could do, 120 shrines, 5 dungeons, lots of unique towns, lots of stables, lots of sidequests, enemy encampments, korok puzzles, overworld bosses, finding all the memories, and filling your compendium and other stuff like Eventide Island, the Lost Woods etc. What baffles me is people thinking the world is empty. It's not as artificially stuffed full of busiwork like a Ubisoft game, sure, but it was never trying to be that. It was trying to harken back to the original Legend of Zelda, placing you in a world and telling you to go have an adventure. 

For me it's more than worth all the overwhelming praise it's getting, and then some. I feel like I play the same openworld game year after year be it an Assassin's Creed or one of the Sony Studios usual narrative stuff, but BOTW made me feel like a kid again, a hugely memorable experience for me.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Ronnie

[Dcubed]

BOTW is structurally very similar to your typical Ubisoft open world game, going so far as to steal the Towers mechanic wholesale.  The "checkmarks" are all hidden, but it's really not all that different.  It's still copy/paste busywork.  Every encampment is the same randomly generated guff, it just isn't specifically pointed out to you on the map as a checkmark waiting to be ticked off.

BOTW's biggest innovation is the Chemistry System... which is legitimately groundbreaking, as are its climbing mechanics.  That and the way in which the game is completable right at the very beginning, with Ganon being available to fight immediately at your leisure.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Dcubed

[Julius]

2 hours ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

It baffles me. For the scope of the world and amount of places you *go*, there didn't seem to be much you could *do*. I certainly wouldn't consider it worthy of any awards, I don't think it did anything truly groundbreaking (?)

Just to add to what @Ronnie detailed in his post - honestly, all of which I find myself agreeing with - the fact that there are empty spaces in this game, I feel, is kind of the point? Shadow of the Colossus learned from Ocarina of Time what Breath of the Wild then learned from Shadow of the Colossus: the importance of quiet in the spaces between gameplay. 

You can tackle it however you want - jumping from shrine to shrine, beelining towards Divine Beasts, chasing quests from one end of the map to the other - but I feel like if you want to get the most out of Breath of the Wild, you really just need to let go and go with the flow of the game. There's so much intricate nuance to the open world's physical design of its terrain (no doubt thanks to MonolithSoft's work) which can lead you from one end of a region to the other just by following the most subtle of design hints - be it a set of trees, a different coloured set of flowers, the way a hill or cliffside strikes you visually, the curvature of a path - that I think is incredibly underrated. For me, there are only two other games that achieve something similar with their open worlds, and those are Red Dead Redemption II (which is much more narrative driven and perhaps what people wanted this game to be more like in that sense?) and Elden Ring (the only other game to lean into the same sense of freedom as Breath of the Wild). 

I genuinely think back to Persona 5's 'Take Your Time' which showed in the corner every loading screen...

...and think Breath of the Wild should've had 'Go With The Flow' in its loading screens. 

Now, this approach to gaming isn't going to be for everyone, which is honestly perfectly fine – it's when people try to demerit or criticise the game based on their own final perspective of the game as a which kind of rubs me the wrong way sometimes. You can say and acknowledge good things about a game (or anything, really) without having to love it! This isn't me calling anyone out in this thread, but it's a sentiment I find a lot with BOTW (and well, anything which is considered a masterpiece to be honest): if someone doesn't enjoy it, they almost overcompensate by failing to acknowledge any strengths it may have. I feel like this also harkens back to something mentioned earlier in the thread about people growing up with and expecting certain things out of certain titles. 

Breath of the Wild was the first Zelda game that I completed, but I'd dabbled with the original Zelda, A Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time before. I knew of the franchise's prestige and some of its history, but in terms of expectations, I didn't really have any. At least on here it seems like the others who enjoyed the game as much as I did (or maybe even more so) went in open to or wanting change, or just didn't have as much intimate familiarity with the series in a similar way to me. 

Also, I'm sure I'll think of more, but @Dcubed if we're going to talk about groundbreaking systems in BOTW, alongside the chemistry and physics systems, I feel the amount of freedom you have to climb *almost* anything with the right amount of stamina is crazy. I can't wait to see how they build on that in Tears of the Kingdom, especially if we see some items which add a new flavour to climbing or traversal. 

Oh, and for the record, I have issues with BOTW. Plenty of them; I've listed them a few times on here over the years. It's one of those few games where I don't envy game reviewers - if I had to critique it as a game and as a product, against what it was aiming to achieve (which really is what I think a review should be doing), I think it's an 8/10, there's just so much room for improvement for me in its myriad of systems and plenty of room to experiment further, but it was an amazingly strong first step for what it was trying to achieve. But as an experience? 10/10. Nothing came remotely close until Elden Ring last year, and in turn I feel like there are some things TOTK could learn from Elden Ring in the same way that Elden Ring clearly learned from BOTW. 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Julius