#been playing a lot of totk lately but i felt like taking something of an off day because i wanted to render this

[lvndri]

MEIKAS!!! ☆

[gwynndolin]

What do you mean "tricks you into thinking it's a good game"? I'm curious because I'm a totk hater (felt more like a fanmade dlc scale mod) but I thought botw was pretty good.

botw obviously has its moments. The Great Plateau was a great introduction to the game, for instance.

But. You do everything that you can do for the rest of the game on that plateau. (Nearly) all of the what the game is going to do is shown to you in the first 5ish hours of gameplay, and those 5 hours are then stretched into a 70ish hour game. Every moment between leaving the Great Plateau and the final fight with Calamity Ganon is riding that high of that first initial experience with the game’s concepts. There is a reason why a lot of people’s most favorite trial in the whole game is when the game throws you onto a deserted island with none of your gear and asks you to rough it again like you were doing 50 hours ago. It’s because the best part of the game was when you were fresh to the experience, often forced to solve the games combat encounters with unique methods; engage with its unique emergent gameplay.

Why even start to bother with that stuff later on though? You actually literally can’t usually. Late game mobs become such sponges to damage that I actively avoided fights because each non trash mob (even the trash mobs would take longer too) would take like 45 seconds to fight. Why try to do a silly funny bomb explosion when the setup takes just as long as the fight only to result in doing a quarter of their health or something. Just press B a bunch of times.

Totk actually did this to me too! Enough time had passed where I was willing to be open to that experience again. And it worked on me! For the first few hours, exploring the Great Sky Island felt like I was playing botw for the first time again. I actually started to think my harsher feelings for botw had all been exacerbated by time or that i had misremembered how it felt to play the game. I was pretty locked in to the whole experience. Then I got on the ground. The false visage of a fresh experience melted away. I was in the same hyrule field as before. I think someone messed with the terrain tool over there. 👉🏻

its like chewing gum. The flavor starts out real strong, and its a fun chew, maybe you haven't had gum in a minute, so this is like, a pretty stimulating experience. But after a while you realize you've had this piece of gum in your mouth for like, the whole day now. And theres no flavor left in it anymore. And you've worked this piece of gum so much now that its like, kinda hard now? But like, looking for a trash can is kind of out of your way so its like, whatever. I'll keep chewing this gum for now. And then like, hours later you're like, wow. I've been chewing this gum for so long now that my jaw kind of hurts. So now you're looking for a trash can. You finally spit the gum out and theres still a lingering flavor of spearmint in your mouth. Not enough to like, re experience that first chew again, but you know. You had a stick of gum. It was alright. My jaw hurts though. I’ll probably have another piece in a few weeks.

[kiefbowl]

Omg tell me about your totk grievances. I like playing the game a lot but it just doesn’t feel as good as botw and I can’t articulate why (other than botw being the first Zelda game Like That)

Yeah, I don't know how articulate this will be from me either but I'll try:

Tedium - I'm not going to kid myself that tedium wasn't also part of BOTW, but it felt different I think because it was in service of exploring a world you didn't know, and there were times where the game was quiet and you were just in the space appreciating that you could go where ever you wanted. In TOTK it feels like there are so many tasks constantly and so much happening every moment of the game. Which, I get because they're using the same map. still, it can feel like I'm doing an endless list of chores and some of the chores are, well...dumb.

Exploring - I love the depths, but once you get about ~50% of the lightroots, the allure lessens steeply imo. It's less "scary", and the more powerful you are, it's way easier to traverse - meaning the light and your power makes it basically a walking stimulator with some battle elements. granted, I haven't actually done the labyrinths yet in the depths, and I don't think it's full of nothing, I like fighting the Yiga, it's just really repetitive and the thing that makes it novel diminishes quickly as you fill it with light.

The Sages - they are fucking in the way. They aren't completely useless, but I need them so infrequently and sometimes they fuck up what I wanted to do because (A) is used for everything. I know I could toggle them off, but that's going in and out of the menu which is annoying in a game I already have to do that a ton for. It's such a breath of fresh air to be on your glider and just have your bird buddy. 3.(A) Battle - The Sages fuck up battle. Yeah it's cool and funny sometimes to let them take care of some beasties when I don't really want to do it, but they don't do that much damage, and when I'm trying to fight beasties, they fuck up the timing. I feel like I can't land any of my side jumps and flurry rushes etc. because they will hit the monster. Then I don't have practice and so when I do have the opportunity, I fuck it up. I felt like in BOTW I was hitting flurry rushes and parries and back flips all the time, now I can't get it down and I think it's bc of the sages. 3.(B) Mineru - I don't fucking get this. Once you're on her, the controls change. And then she doesn't really do a whole lot of extra damage. Also you seem to take a lot more damage when you're riding her? It's nice to be able to give her frost emitters etc. but I don't want to ride her except to go over lava/gloom (which just makes exploring easier...which is boring...). And she's in the way more, because unlike the other sages, if I accidentally press (A) around her I'm suddenly in a different location with different controls and it takes two different buttons to get off her. It's annoyyyying. 3.(B)(ii) The quest to get her sucked it was not fun.

Koroks - the backpacks koroks were fun for the meme, but it just seems bc they give you two, there are far less hidden koroks, which means I'm finding less if I don't want to stop what I'm doing to do a tedious un-puzzle. They need far less backpack koroks, they needed the backpack koroks to be more puzzle like, and/or they needed the korok seeds to do something else in this game than inventory expansion. The beauty of BOTW exploration was that no matter what, you were going to be rewarded with exploring no matter how inane or bonkers it was, because more often than not there would be a fun little puzzle for you to get a little seed. Now you can't find them bc they've been exported to backpack koroks. I do appreciate that in early game they were a good way to practice your building ability, but now that I'm entering late game I'm frustrated.

I think that's all I have atm, there are probably other issues I have but again overall they're minor quibbles I like the game a lot (plus I like tedium in games lol)

[veebs-hates-video-games]

And now the Switch counterpart for the previous post, this time with all the Switch games I've started playing in the past five years but haven't finished but also am at least pretending I'll get back to eventually.

Hades is one I did technically finish, but only the main story the one time. I do want to play more and get some more of more people's stories and unlock some more stuff, but I just keep having other stuff to do. Great game though, and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Final Fantasy 12 is one I keep going back to every once in a while. I do genuinely like a lot of stuff about it, but I inevitably run into something really annoying about it too every several hours and then take a break for a few months or a year. I do plan to finish it eventually though, and I'm slowly getting closer.

Bayonetta 2 is a lot better than the first game, which had some great ideas but just felt to me like it wasn't quite done figuring out what to do with them. I stopped like halfway through because reasons and haven't picked it up again yet at least partly because I feel like it would benefit from being on the TV instead of handheld, but I can't see the TV well enough.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is another one with the TV problem. I could play it just fine handheld, but the music in it deserves better than the built-in speakers, and the headphone jack is just awful quality. Unfortunately I can't see the TV and don't have my little audio box I run the Switch through so I can use my headphones with it while it's docked.

Tears of the Kingdom is also another TV victim. It's pretty low priority for me to get back to because I really don't love the direction they've gone with BotW and TotK, but it at least partially solves a lot of the problems I had with BotW so I've enjoyed it more. It's completely unplayable handheld for me though because the control setup is bad with a pro controller and literally unusable on the joycons, so it's on hold indefinitely until I can do something about that.

Dragon Quest 11 is so painfully slow replaying the first dozen hours that I already did in the demo on my computer a few years ago, and it makes it hard to work up the motivation to push through it. A lot of stuff about it is great though, and I really enjoyed this stuff the first time through, so I'll deal with it eventually. Probably.

GrimGrimoire OnceMore (or GRiMgRiMoiRe OnCeMoRe if the logo is anything to go by) is something I wanted to finish before Unicorn Overlord comes out, but that's almost definitely not happening. I got sidetracked and stopped playing it for a few months and totally forgot how everything works, and it's really not very forgiving of that. We'll see if I can remember how to video games one of these days.

Disco Elysium does so many things so well even though it's really not my usual kind of thing. I just haven't felt like my brain is in the right place for it lately.

Baten Kaitos is still fun 20 years later. I've been taking a break though because my ADHD brain decided it was time to do something else after like the first dozen hours or so. I'm in no rush with it because I've already played it before forever ago, so it'll get there when it gets there.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land has kind of made me like it less as it goes on. Like it's still plenty of fun, I just kept finding more little annoyances toward the end and lost my momentum. I've finished the main story and rolled the credits and everything, but I only made it partway through the postgame stuff before needing a break.

Jack Jeanne I'm actually actively working on, or was as of a day or two ago. I may or may not need a break because it takes forever to go through all the different routes, and after doing the neutral route first I don't like the individual character ones quite as much. That first time through that first route was my favorite thing so far this year though.

Egglia Rebirth is one of those things I go back to for a few hours a couple times a year. I still really like a lot of things about it, but it gets a little grindy and repetitive trying to do too much at once, and my brain is not suited to coming back to games for like half an hour or an hour once a day for days or weeks in a row. I need to do like 12 hours straight in a single sitting and then not touch it again for six months, which is really not the ideal way to play this.

Fire Emblem Warriors is also another few hours every few months game. I have an overly complex spreadsheet that I built off one of the existing ones online but added a bunch of stuff to it and enhanced it, and slowly checking stuff off is satisfying. I'm a good chunk of the way through history mode, but it'll take approximately forever to finish everything if I ever do.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is also a few hours every few months between other games. I already finished it a while ago and am just going through the story again on NG+. I still really like the characters and story, but this experience is quickly making the combat system become possibly my least favorite in the entire series, when before I felt like every game got better than the previous one.

The House in Fata Morgana I guess can be included too. I finished the actual main story last year and it was great, but I'm still pretending I'll try to get through the extra side stories and stuff one of these days. We'll see, I guess.

Between these lists in these two posts I'm at least theoretically in the middle of playing like 30 games. Why yes, I do have ADHD and a variety of other weird things going on in my brain. How did you guess?

[arkon-z]

Yes, I'm back on my bullshit about this, though it's not related to my complaints about Ganondorf being lame. TOTK spoilers abound below:

My numerous complaints about TOTK aside, I really feel like it was an insult for people to mistake Puppet!Zelda for the actual Zelda. She had been working hard for years at that point trying to rebuild the kingdom. People knew who she was and what she was like. Which means they should have clocked right away that there was something off about this Zelda that suddenly reappeared. Most of the Sages did, but poor Yunobo got done dirty by having to be the 'dumb one' and fell for the gimmick. Thanks a lot, writers.

Anyway, all that to say - they should have made actual Zelda the puppet. Brainwash her! Threaten her! Put her in genuine danger! If she's Link's motivation, then at least give him a reason to care!

Yeah, it would have removed the whole Light Dragon plot, but so what? What did it add to the game? A bunch of cutscenes full of background plot where Zelda loses her agency yet again. Nothing but shipping fodder and death flags.

Uh-oh, i'm on a roll now.

So yeah, let's say instead of being yeeted into the past, Zelda is captured by Ganondorf, Link's arm and sword get fucked up and it's the familiar start of the game. Rauru is there and gives Link his ghost arm, then explains that "Yeah, Ganondorf took Zelda prisoner. He's almost certainly chained her up in his evil palace and you're not getting in there with half a sword. Lucky for you, all these relics of the Zonai that suddenly appeared have what you need to repair the sword."

Link demands to go at once, but Rauru holds him back, like, "Don't be stupid. You can't just rush in there - you need backup. You'll need the same help I had when I put him away. But you'll have the Master Sword to stop him for good. Do this the right way and you'll save everyone."

So it turns out that to repair the Master Sword, Link has to get something from each of the four temples. And in turn, each of the Descendents realize that 'oh, hey, Ganondorf is back, huh? Here, have my ancestral power and help Link. Hyrule is your home, too." So the Sages still get their powers.

Meanwhile, the Regional Phenomena thing is also popping off, because Zelda is going around and wreaking havoc, because Ganondorf has brainwashed her to keep them all busy while he sets up his lair in the Depths or whatever.

Link gets all the bits he needs to repair the Sword, then he takes it to the Deku Tree to, I dunno, jumpstart its divine power. Because you gotta have the Great Deku Tree in there somehow. Side note: no Mineru. Yeah, riding a mech was cool, but if this fight is for Hyrule, then it should be focused on the current races, not the long extinct ones. So instead of a Zonai Sage, there's a Sheikah one. Hell, make it Purah! That would be fun. If you want to play nice, the Zonai Sage could pass the role on to the Sheikah Sage, or contrive another reason for them to swap places in the moment (something something Sheikah tech is based on Zonai tech).

So Link eventually gets summoned to Hyrule Castle by Puppet Zelda and he and the four Sages duke it out with her and obviously they're confused and afraid, because why is Zelda fighting them? What's wrong with her? They beat the Phantom Ganon out of her and win the fight, but just as they go to check on her, Ganondorf gives them that vision of his rule in the past, freaking them out. He kidnaps her while they're distracted and dares them to rescue her.

Okay, it's getting late and I'm tired. But look at that! Isn't that more interesting? Or at least, less contrived? TOTK felt like an anime suffering from power creep and they didn't know how to fix it, so they had to go over the top to try and bring it back in. There's a lot (and I mean A LOT) more that I could rant on, but this came to me in a flash and I just wanted to toss it out there.

Also, I would give NAMES to the ancient sages. Don't they at least deserve that much? They could've come up with a bunch of new names that would be added to the Zelda lexicon, or they could have done what they did for the rest of the game and just recycled names. No one would have bat an eye and nerds like me would have sat up and pointed in recognition like the DiCaprio meme. Here, it's easy!

Ancient Zora Sage - Rutella

Ancient Rito Sage - Komali

Ancient Gerudo Sage - Aviel

Ancient Goron Sage - Darmani

Those guys deserved better than "I am your ancestor..."

I'm gonna say it:

Astor (AOC) was a bigger threat than Ganondorf (TOTK) was, in regards to the gameplay. Yes, I know The Calamity was the ultimate threat and not Astor, but that's just lore. What matters is that when the AOC plot said, "It's time to get serious about this story now," it actually got serious. Rather than TOTK's idea of "boy, it's sure going to get serious once you hit this area and trip an event flag!"

Like, TOTK Ganondorf's idea of being 'evil' was to make a puppet Zelda and go around and mess with Hyrule, doing everything from pranking some of the stables to summoning monsters to invade the temples. And because the game is open world, it makes for some really weird tone shifts. Things ranging from "our city is being overrun by unkillable monsters" to "there's a talking chicken spreading rumors." And where was Ganondorf? Down in the core of the earth, being evil. The biggest AND ONLY threat he ever directly posed to Link was in their final fight. There was nothing in the story itself to suggest that he posed any kind of threat. Especially because he made it look like Zelda was the one behind it all.

But Astor! We saw him working with/manipulating the Yiga in his plans. He lured the gang into the Lost Woods as a trap and sent the Hollows after them, coming within inches of killing Zelda. He managed to release the Calamity early. He tore the souls out of the Yiga to re-summon the Blights! He went after Zelda himself! And when it happens, it feels impactful, because of how the story unfolds in the game play. The tone shifts; you lose access to the Champs from every game menu once they're trapped in the Divine Beasts. When the Calamity hits, the tone of the entire game shifts. You're not on some action-packed adventure fighting off the Yiga clan anymore; now the apocalypse has happened and you're still alive, trying to find a way to reverse it. And throughout everything, you know that Astor is the one behind it and he's the one you have to stop. Even with the Calamity as the greater scope villain in the background, Astor is still the focal point.

So yeah, from a gameplay and story perspective, even if Astor was a flat character, he at least acted like he was trying to destroy Hyrule. Ganondorf did fuck all in TOTK. All his action scenes were flashbacks. Lazy ass man couldn't even be bothered to trek up to the surface and destroy a village or two to show he meant business.