Be Excellent To Each Other

How did ya'll get to the temple on the snowy peak? The old man's shack said he'd give you a jumper if you made a special recipe but I couldn't be arsed to figure that out with, hnngh, 'crafting' so I just held a torch to keep me warm.

If you hate crafting so much why do you make me play so many games with crafting in?

I don't think I did this mission straight away. When you get into it, you'll be making recipes left, right and centre. Some will lower your body temperature so you can stand the snow.

There's loads of different ways to do the missions etc so keep at it. It's great.

NEVER HIT A CHICKEN.

Jesus, that was funny and bizarre.

If you can be bothered, you can take a chicken with you into an enemy camp and attack it there. The result will help you defeat the enemies.

I'm endlessly surprised that this is the sequel to Skyward Sword. Not because it's open world because SS had those elements anyway, but how hands off the game is.

It can't be said enough that SS is fucking annoying because with every action the game comes to a crashing halt with some flavour text about some irrelevant shit or reams of conversation reminding Link that you press A to jump.

BOTW has some onscreen prompts when you get a new action but I was seriously impressed when I was in a challenge room and I had to use the gyro controls to move a ball around a maze and it didn't even tell me I had to move the pad around. I was even more surprised when, after a couple of failed attempts, I turned the whole pad over to try and break the game and it let me do it! With the maze on its back a new ball just rolled off the back into the end! Just amazing fun to discover that...

Don't get me wrong, there's still some annoyances but the way the game is put together is just super.

Some annoyances!

Every time you cook something you get a short animation. You can skip it but the screen fades in and out which is about as long as the sodding animation.

Every time you get a new heart container or stamina wheel thing there's a lengthy unskippable animation.

Every time you open a shrine there's an animation of the door opening, then an animation as he standing on the plate then an animation as he descends into the shrine. You have to skip all three seperately.

Every time you climb a tower there's a lengthy unskippable animation as your mobile phone gets updated and the same text to manually skip.

Every time you complete a shrine there's an animation and some flavour text about you completing a shrine. You can skip this, after an initial cut scene of a shield breaking, but then there's another cut scene with some more flavour text to skip again.

Essentially there's lots of repeatitive animations and cut scenes that can and can't be skipped and if they can be skipped there's often another animation and cut scene right behind it that also needs to be skipped. This might be a bit of a gripe but, come on, there's, what, like over 100 shrines and 20 odd towers where the same shit happens again and again.

And I reckon the world is too big an' all for what's in it. There's miles and miles of wasteland with no interesting scenery and very few enemies.

In fact, let's have a moan about the enemies because some areas have baddies dotted about where there's vast swathes of land with nothing of interest in it and no one to fight.

And people bemoan the lack of variety in, say, Nioh but here I'm fighting the same 5 enemies over and over and over again: Goblin, big goblin, skeleton, lizard men and bats. There's a couple of others but these are your main foes and it's not like they're that interesting to fight. It ain't exactly Dark Souls where your have loads of different weapons with different abilities that can stagger or have differing ranges etc. You basically just swing swing swing and backflip to dodge. There's no roll move or anything that can get you out of trouble quick apart from the backflip and god forbid you try and back away and accidentally press a diagonal because you'll probably do a pathetic hop to the side rather than a backflip and get smashed.

It's still good though.

I just did a dungeon last night - its probably my 15th or so , and the whole dungeon was 'how to dodge attacks' , that would have been great to get early on but I've already done a lot of other stuff before i got here (and timing the bunny hop gives you bullet time and you can get in and mess them up but that should have been an early lesson)

The way to open Gee Ha'ra Shrine was acebest though. So simply and funky.

I've just found my first divine beast (actually the second, the first was a big dinosaur in the desert but I fucked him right off) - the big bird - and it's got good again. Firstly, I've had my first hint of some kind of nuanced story that I can work towards so I've finally got some motivation. The inside puzzles were reet good an' all: simple but satisfying, and now I've got a boss fight to have a go at. It's been much needed as I'd got a bit tired of just shrine hunting after about 38 of the things.

Interestingly I headed the other way and went for the Zora first (Hefalump divine beast)

Is that the one in the bottom right of the map? Once I'd got the four beasts main missions open rather than go straight to the nearest beast I went right back to the start to see if I could climb a big wall. It was a ball ache but then I couldn't stop going from tower to tower!

Top right - I started out - was heading in the rough direction of the first point on the map and got a little diverted (because of a one hit killer guardian and a big rock monster that came out of the ground) and then all the Zora kept telling me I had to go see the prince.

So I did , got more of the story background and did the beast - this was before I sorted my slate or spoke to Impa (which i think is supposed to be your first step once you leave the plane)

I've just done the elephant. I'm really enjoying the Devine Beasts challenges an' all. They have the usual Zelda dungeon trope of having one trick but using it especially well. Seems a shame that there's apparently only 4 of the big buggers.

I liked that the elephant quests leads you down a linear path too, because I thought I was just going to show up and do the boss but the route to get there was an interesting change.

Good this Zelda, init; it's a world of surprises.

Well that sodding camel almost gave me a nervous breakdown. Thank god I left that till last or it might have coloured my whole opinion of the game.

I've done over 50 shrines and I reckon I'm done with searching them out even if they pop up on the radar. They've become a bit of a nuisance now I've got the whole map unlocked and enough hearts, stamina and a full contingent of food to get me through any fight I come across.

I'd found two of the princess memories which were interesting but I've absolutely no desire to search them out myself across the game continent so I'm going to use a map to see all the hidden cut scenes. I'm surprised they've unlocked the backstory to the princess behind an impossible treasure hunt since without that story I'd have little motivation to even bother to rescue her. And one of the photographs is just of some random wooded wood!? Not a distinguishable landmark on sight. It's nonsense.

Anyhoo, onto the final fight but I was thinking of picking up the master sword which was mentioned about once and no main mission had popped up to direct me where to go. Of all the interesting places I've got a couple of mazes marked on the map and some foggy forest that kicked me out when I tried to float into it so it's probably about but a clue would be nice.

Still good, but after tens of hours (I don't know how long I've been playing it because there's no stats or nowt. Tch) I want to see some resolution.

Sword is in the foresty kicking out Ness. If you'd followed the storage upgradey tree mission, it'd easily lead you to this.

As for the photos, they were typically helped by the painter dude at the ranches. If he didn't help, the landmark was fairly easily recognisable.

I quite enjoyed searching them out.

There is a timer somewhere in one of the menus

And after you've finished it

This is from the Summer Games Done Quick a few weeks ago - whole game completed without glitches (sorta) in 45 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7ccTpwEcp8

I think you'll struggle to defeat Ganon without the master sword and enough hearts/stamina to see you through.

Also, you won't get the 'proper' ending without all the memories. I too enjoyed searching them out.

What korok seeds guy? He's fucked off to his home world somewhere after he'd upgraded me so much he got bored. I imagine he's in the foggy forest then. I'll have a gander.



1) He does. I think he's at each stable but you'd have to find all the stables. I've no idea if there's only 12 stables or if there's more.
2) Only if you've been there. The world is absolutely massive and I can't be expected to have been absolutely eveywhere. The spot on the volcano is fucking ridiculous and there's no way that was "easily recognisable." Of course the volcano in the background is, it's a fucking volcano, but the volcano area is the size of most game worlds and the only helpful hint in the photo is "on a bit of rock."

Ahem



They beat him mainly with the woodcutters axe that you get at the start of the game

Gannon fight starts around the 49 minute mark on the video

And another thing, it's a good job I turned the HUD to pro because the HUD is ugly. I turned it on to hunt stuff and I don't ever want to see it again. Don't get me wrong, it's got all the information you need in there but it hurts a beautiful game. So turn off the HUD, K?

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/1522 ... ing-ethics

Interesting article

You have to buy toys and scan them to unlock ingame items? Seriously, fuck Nintendo.

Article says "mostly cosmetic items"

Doesn't seem like that big a deal if the items aren't stopping you from progressing in game?

I've got a couple of those gathering dust.

I imagine someone's come up with a similar game for smartphones where you can just use the camera instead. If not, someone should do.

I have one of these and I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate it into a game of Heroquest.

Welcome to 2013(? I think)

One of the Viva Piñata games did this back in... whenever Viva Pinata was.

Well I've checked every menu and it's completely absent. A google search reveals others complaining on Reddit that there isn't any way to check your total playtime.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/189707- ... d/75229650

Typical nintendo it gives it a very rough time - I'm sure I've also seen it come up when someone else on my friends list starts a game to say they have spent '96 hours' on it (think that was TheVision)

I thought there might be a checkpoint at the top of the castle and accidentally walked into the boss fight. Whoops. Will it let me walk around after I spank him or shall I revert to an earlier save?

Deadid him anyway.

WTF, that second stage was GARBAGE!?

He never once turned to fire at me once! I never got hit and the fight was just target practice. Shoot these 3 massive targets. Now shoot these 2 massive targets.

Just...laughable. I reckon I could take the first form of Ganon with 4 hearts, no divine beasts and just the badass weapons from the armoury in the castle. Tch. But I can't be bothered.

It's quite frustrating of you don't switch to the shiny shiny arrows.

You're a knob.

The whole final phase was quite daft any way.

I've never played Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

I reckon if I had, and assuming I'd have been bumming it like so many people do, my mind would probably be blown by this.

So when I come across Ranch Ruins it's just an otherwise empty place. I really feel like I've missed something not playing the OG years ago.

I never played Super Metroid or Super Castlevania. Jesus, I'm shit at Nintendoing.

I might have to keep the WiiU out to download them for a premium price.

Ocarina of Time was great at the time but I'm not sure how well it'll have aged. Just the inability to directly control the camera might make playing it a pain in the ass when you're used to modern games.

That's why I think it's a shame that I didn't play it years ago. I doubt I'll think it's The Best Game of All Time by today's standards.

If you're the type of person who has fond memories of OoT and remember locations and guff though, you'll surely get loads out of BOTW and more than me. It's a super game for those who haven't played though but I wish I could have been riding around and stumbling into the ruins of some place I'd visited in the early games and experienced the melancholy.

There are updates for OOT and MM for the 3ds which do update some of the camera issues but while they were mind blowing at the time a lot of what they did really well has been copied over and over

If you played them before you'll probably still like them , for a newbie I think you'd get bored with them (whereas I think the overhead ones like ALTTP and MC hold up a lot more now)

Have you played *any* Metroid or Castlevania ?

Metroid in particular I think would be something you'd really enjoy

Weird for a gamer not to have played these games, init.

I've never played a 2D Metroid!

I've played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (awesome sauce), OG Castlevania (Yawn) and Castlevania: Lords of whatever it was (Really good actually).

What's on your list of things "games people always talk about but you've never played"?

Sounds like a good idea for a thread!

I've played Ocarina of Time a few times recently and apart from the fact that the graphics are shit stretched out on a massive screen it's still an awesome game.

Final Fantasy

Yeah but which :-)

I really liked II on the SNES (american so was actually FFIV)

And yeah i think a separate thread would make more sense than cluttering up the Zelda one

All of them

Pre-ordered a switch yesterday with my overdraft like a responsible adult yay.

Switch arrived yesterday. Played 10 hours of Zelda in one sitting.

I REALLY suck at it. I don't know whether it's because I've not really been into many games lately or whether it's just harder but I have died about 10 times, despite the fact that I can get through Ocarina of Time etc without dying more than once or twice. Most of the deaths have been me falling off really high things (sometimes forgetting to take out the glidey thingy). Still enjoying it so far though. Thankful for the autosave.