Be Excellent To Each Other

Effectively the same on Switch and Wii-U, beyond the 720p/900p rendering difference.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... u-face-off

Certainly no need to worry that the Wii-U gets an inferior version, unless you're fundamentally opposed to playing a game at 720p or it's against your religious beliefs or something.

Is the game better or worse than talking about batteries and resolutions?

Exactly 82.7% better.

I've started this tonight and it looks pretty damn special so far!

*spits tea over screen*

I'm speechless.

I like this Hearty.

It's like the good old days at WoS have returned. (I like the filenames you chose for the pictures, btw)

Some of the vista and locations in this game are incredible. My jaw was on the ground the entire time I was making my way up the Gerudo tower.

Does it still have the recognisable music themes? I really liked the Gerudo music from Ocarina...

I don't remember the Gerudo theme.

There's not a huge amount of music, it's a lot of ambient stuff.

I really, really did enjoy the music from the Zelda games. There's an orchestral album, 'Hyrule Symphony', that I used to listen to quite a bit, it really was excellent.

I've not heard that yet, but I've not explored the entire area. I think there might be little nods to it in the ambient stuff though.

According to the soundtrack that came with the collectors edition, It's on there.

I'm trying to keep derailing to a minimum so I will just say it was always framerate that I went on about, not resolution.

(So for example on my PC I'll drop down to 1080p to maintain 60FPS, rather than hobble my framerate at 1440p.)

I'll back H up on that, he's only ever been a frame rate spod rather than a resolution spod.

Well, and a film certification spod

Fair enough - it was a long time ago and he's packed that shit in now tbh.

And a wireless charging spod.

Basically a massive spod

Isn't that a tick box before you can sign up here?

I didn't spend 4 years in spod-college for nothing, dammit!

*whispers* I don't even know what a spod is

A fan of Julia Bradbury

Seems legit.

I'm stopping playing this tonight simply because my gamepad battery is dying again. (It's still doing about five hours so not too bad really.)

This is such a lovely game, it's gentle and relaxing to play in the main, even though it'll kill you in an instant if you fuck something up, and the fights are very exciting. (In death terms so far it's been big falls, trying to fight something I'm really not equipped for, serious fail in one of the shrines etc, I've died loads of times already and I'm still in the starting zone, but I can't remember the last time I was so not in a hurry to progress, in fact it's the complete opposite, it's like, 'What else can I possibly do here before I venture into the next zone?')

It's not perfect, the controls are pretty clunky IMO, although that could just be my ineptitude with gamepads when it comes to third-person (and also first-person) games, both sticks, D-Pad, and all the buttons are used and often contextually as well, and the Wii-U gamepad has a lot of buttons.

Graphically it's pretty ropey, Nintendo have done a stunning job with the Wii-U hardware but there's no getting away from the fact it's a fairly unrefined 720p image at 30FPS, that drops down to 20FPS more often than you'd like, but hey, it's a an open-world Zelda game, so I forgive it completely. (The texture filtering is awful, it drops environment detail off a cliff face at any sort of distance, it's jaggy as fuck, the lighting and shadow models are flickery and crude etc, and yet you're still able to look around a massive open world environment Zelda game and it's immersive and believable, and that's all that matters.)

It's like, I think back to Zelda Link To The Past on the SNES back in the day, which I played to destruction, and wonder how I'd dare to even imagine that there could be a Zelda game like Breath Of The Wild one day, that the creativity and inspiration on show in Link To The Past, could be realised in something as gorgeous as this game at some point in the future.

What a remarkable last outing for the Wii-U, wonderful stuff.

Still, you could play fast racing neo in the meantime

I should probably play a Zelda game at some point

Nah, they're vastly overrated.

I've tried a few but never got anywhere near finishing one.

They're really really good, mostly, but I do think there is a touch of nostalgia there too. I loved Ocarina of Time, it really is one of my favourite ever games. At the time it felt so epic and exciting, new and great, so I have a lot of strong emotional connections to that game (and the series).

However, without those previous positive connections and feelings, I'm not sure how well it'd stand up as there have been plenty of other epic, exciting games since I jumped on board the Zelda-train. Ocarina was great, for it's day, and introduced me to a lot, but also things have moved on a lot since then. I think that for a newcomer some of the mechanics in the older games might be a bit annoying and harder to overlook.

Where would you start though? I haven't played Breath of the Wild, but it seems like they've ditched a fair bit of the old habits (linear progression, locked off areas, overly hand-holding tutorials).

I've tried several, but never really got into any of them.

I got furthest on the Wii one, but only three hours or so.

Which one, Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword?

Despite being a big Zelda fan I never got particularly far in the latter.

The one I've put most effort into is A Link Between Worlds and while I enjoyed aspects of it, not enough to finish it. I think I got about halfway.

I gave up on Skyward Sword because fuck the Wii and it's stupid bullshit controllers; which was gutting as I generally love Zelda games.

I've only properly played Link to the Past and Windwaker, the latter I enjoyed the most. Looked lovely and was nice bezzing about on the waves.

Others I've started and given up on - the first hour or three do tend to be fairly unexciting and clingy.

I have a theory that you're either Zelda or Final Fantasy, never both.

You're my final fantasy.

Had a cursory look at FFVII on the Vita a while back. Might wait for the remake.

Never played either. Watched a friend play through Ocarina, but never been tempted to have a go myself. Never been a big fan of nintendo in general.

I like both

This is a poor theory so far

You're a poor theory

Even worse in practice.

Practice makes perfect!

Snuff of that