Be Excellent To Each Other

It took so long to update (probably about 20 minutes, all while displaying "4 seconds remaining" that I'd moved away from the TV by the time it started.

I've been reading some comments about this elsewhere in that the game is designed to push you to use different tactics away from a typical 1 on 1 sword fight approach so the rapidly degrading weapons are part of the encouragement to make you think about fighting in other ways/using the environment blah blah blah. I don't know cause it's still in the wrapper. 3/10

Been playing this on Wii U. Only a little over 10 hours in, barely scratched the main plot line, but pretty certain already it is the best Zelda game ever made. It is basically the elegance and humour of classic Zelda, with combat inspired by Dark Souls and exploration that's more tense and exciting than Minecraft. And unlike Minecraft, where the world is procedurally generated, here it has been carefully designed and is packed full of the kind of magic that you only find in Nintendo games. It is mind-boggling when you think about how big the world is.

Aside from the massive map, probably the biggest​ difference between this and other Zelda games (at least since LTTP) is that in previous games the only real difficulty came from getting stuck on a puzzle. Here you are very unlikely to get stuck puzzling (at least in what I've seen), but you will die through getting into fights you're​ not ready for or failing to pay careful enough attention to the environment. I've died at least 20 times already, but thankfully death is much less punitive here than in Dark Souls.

So yeah, it is pretty damn good. Indeed, it's the first videogame in a very long time that's​ made me care enough to ask, "I wonder what the excellent folk at BETEO make of this?"

And I'll admit I'm slightly sad to log on here for the first time in several years and not find a greater plurality of answers to that question. But hey, I'm also pleased that the gentle moderation that lets these threads meander around is still in force. While there are certainly more exciting things to talk about on this subject​ than the battery life of controllers, the fact this is the only game on the Wii U that's made me notice how short the battery life is on the gamepad certainly tells its own story.

Anyway, can more of you go play this and report back please? It's worth taking out the wrapper at least.

No. I don't like Nintendo. So there.

Yes, send money plz and I will go buy

They're thieves.

A.K.A. They had a crap loyalty scheme.

The game, however, is much fun.

It's still in the wrapper.

There's something um... Nintendo-ey about all their games that annoys me. I can't put my finger on it... it's something about the feel of the games.

The hardware is fine, I suppose, except that all the games are Nintendo games.

Been playing it more, is a quite absorbing game. Still don't feel like I've got at all far in it, just plenty of exploring.

Some annoyances , controls aren't the most intuitive, rains to often and no option to turn off the voice acting.

Rain?

In game rain , when it happens you'll have problems navigating or climbing stuff - its one of the common complaints (especially when your trying to get to the top of something :-(

http://kotaku.com/i-swear-if-it-rains-i ... 1793220766

Controls are fiddly, I think that's fair. Largely a reflection that the underlying systems are much more sophisticated than previous Zelda games. It's a shame they don't give you the option to fully remap the controls, but after an admittedly long period of adjustment I've reached the point now I'm comfortable with them.

But the rain? It is a fundamental part of the simulation that is key to making this an effective and enjoyable survival game. Personally, I'm thrilled to play something that doesn't just use it to make it harder to change direction when running. Here it puts out fire, makes surfaces slippery, interacts with electricity, and likely does all manner of other things I've yet to discover.

It's one of the many elements that makes this - quite unlike any other Nintendo title - a game which will give you 100 unique stories to tell.

For example, last night I climbed to a high point to attempt to glide across a canyon. I knew it was 50-50 whether I'd have the uplift to fully breach the gap, but with my recently improved stamina I knew that if I fell short I ought to still be able to climb the rest of the way up. So heroically I launch myself from the highest tree on my side of the canyon. Unfortunately, I am in the air less than 10 seconds when it starts raining.

I think the rain must add weight to my glider, because my angle seems to detoriate a little and I crash against the cliff edge on the other side. Link helpfully grabs on automatically, but the cliff is a sheer 90 degree angle. If it were dry I'd have no problem, I could climb up the last 5 meters and be exploring a brand new continent in a matter of seconds. But no, it is raining.

I try to climb anyway. We get about a metre further up, but then the rock gives way and Link starts to slide back to where we started, except now with a little less precious stamina. I check my inventory in case I find an item I'd forgotten I picked up that improves my grip, but no such luck. I try to push up again taking a slightly different route, but the result is the same. The only way is down.

What is at the bottom of this canyon anyway? It was too deep to easily see from the top. I slide slowly, carefully down. Soon it becomes clear it's a river, but with no banks to rest on either side. And of course at this point, Link is exhausted. He has no stamina for swimming. He drowns.

Annoying? To some maybe. But this game autosaves pretty frequently, so I've not lost much progress. And this game generally gives you at least half a dozen ways of achieving your ends, so when I reload I climb down the tree I'd tried to glide from and look into other ways to cross the canyon. I spot smoke in the distance and follow it to find another traveller who tells me a few legends about what's on the other side, says that there's a bridge out to the east, but it's a long old road. He also says it would surely be folly to try to cross any other way...

I could go on, but safe to say as I headed out east there more exciting, tense, funny moments of emergent gameplay, that makes me think this really is the first game to live up to the term "sandbox".

If ever you were inclined to give Nintendo a second chance, I assure you this is the game to try.

See smarter people than me talking along similar lines here.

Sounds pretty shit, to be honest.

Nah, I can see what Tsu Much is saying and it's spot on.

This is a wonderful game.

I have Horizon: Zero Dawn and Nier: Automata. Why do I need a game that needlessly fucks you over randomly, on the console that is the whitest of all Nintendo's elephants?

Far as I understand it, Horizon: Zero Dawn is to BOTW what Saints Row is to GTA: pretty good but one is on another level.

EDIT: not from my experience though as I've no interest in bland Horizon and BOTW is still in the wrapper.

It doesn't fuck you over, it just rains so you have to change your plans slightly. Instead of climbing a mountain, you try to walk around it and see what you can find that way.

Err, because you aren't​ ever "fucked over"? The penalty for dying is minimal. It's often as funny as when you die in something like Trials HD. For the first time, we have an open game world that is in a genuine state of flux, exciting and unpredictable. There's more than one way to do things. Moreover there's a gazillion things to do. The game rewards​you for being adaptable instead of persisting with plan A when the circumstances change.

Surely only miserable dullards and shareholders in the next Brown Corridor Collect-em-up would believe that these are bad things​?

The Angry Joe review is worth a watch, he gives it a rock solid 9/10 with a few niggles dropping it down from a 10/10, but he can get on board with those who peg it at 10/10.

I know Angry Joe's style might not be to everyone's taste, but me and Mrs Hearthly just watched the whole thing and thought it was pretty funny, whilst making all the right points.

The game itself is an absolute masterpiece IMO.

Well, I'm getting broadly toward the end (In that people are telling me to go do the final main quest thing)

I'd rather not. I don't really want this to end.

We'll always have Paris

I'm never going to Paris with you.

Have you done all the divine beats then? I've only fine one so far and that was the big elephant.

Paris is rubbish. It is one of the reasons I never became a bike racer. I'm not sweating my balls off for over three thousand clicks to end up in Paris.

Yup. All beasts, a master sword, all memories. A fair few side quests to go, but the reason I haven't done them so far is that for many of them I haven't a clue how. (
"Find all the parts of this thing and take photos" "Where" "Dunno, Could be anywhere"
"Find my four friends", ""Any clues" "No" "Well at least it's a small world..."
"Find My Wife" "I'm not even going to ask")

or they require killing a big thing that scares me.

That says a lot. I really want to play this game

My sister brought her Wii U round yesterday and I saw about 20 mins of Zelda and fuck I want this game.

You do! My wife has started asking me if we can play it instead of watching tv - it's usually the other way around.

Edit: just realised that might appear horribly sexist - not intended. What I meant was this game takes over your life, and much like life, every time you go to do something, you get distracted by five or six other things to be done. It's immense.

I am still pottering around. I've had a couple of trips into the end game area, which now appears to be manageable.

Probably another week to go, though.

I took down my second Divine Beast last night. It was the camel in the desert and wasn’t that tough compared to the Elephant in the water.

It was still brilliant thought and a fantastic piece of game design.

I’ve now stumbled across my 3rd (the bird) but before I go headlong into that, I’m doing some cooking to make sure I’ve got enough health.

This is a fantastic game.

Wrapper.

Imagine keeping games in their seal... Disgraceful I say!

Is that a pube on the eject button

You see, I would've said it was the hardest of the four (Camel > Elephant > (Rito) > (Goron) )

But they're all not that hard, really.

Has anyone got this on WiiU? Would you recommend it for a Russell and Mimi?

I haven't, but it doesn't sound like there's enough of a difference between it and the Switch version to affect gameplay so yes, I'd recommend it.

Thanks for the link. It was this comment of yours that got me thinking about it:

Yes I've got the Wii-U version, it's a very close match for the Switch version overall so don't worry that you'd be getting an inferior game experience.

The biggest problem I've found is the battery on my gamepad dying before I want to stop playing the game on any given session

I've got it for the WiiU but it's still in the wrapper so I can't recommend it.

Sometimes it can properly break down to a crawl on the WiiU (When you smack a moblin so hard it ragdolls sometimes causes the game to drop to sub 5fps when it doesn't on switch from what I hear)

It does that kind of thing on my Switch, occasionally.

IIRC the conclusion Eurogamer came to was that both versions drop frames (sometimes very badly), but not in the same situations.

In essence you're getting the same game on either system, it's not like the difference between getting an 8-bit or 16-bit arcade conversion back in the day.

Does either version suffer less waggly bullshit motion controls? Because obviously that would be the definitive version.

There's motion control aiming (bow and arrow etc.) but I'm pretty sure you can turn it off (on the Switch at least), but nothing like the sword waggling in Skyward Sword.

The Switch version allows you to turn it off when you're aiming with your bow and arrow so that's fine. Some of the shrines make you twist and turn the Joy-Con to move around mazes and such like but they're really easy. Once you detach the Joy-Con, it's really accurate and simple to work with... It's almost fun!

There's something quite limited you can control with motion on the Wii-U but I turned it off almost immediately and can't remember what it was.

I think it's the bow and arrow aiming. You're far more accurate with the analogue stick anyway in my opinion so yeah, keep it off.

N the contrary, I've found the system works well both here and elsewhere, it allows for fine aiming much better than the stick does, and you have the stick for getting near your target) (Uncharted on vita was the first time I came across the system, and was pretty much responsible for that being the only one I haven't tired of before the end)