Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

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Green Gibbon!
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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Green Gibbon! »

Finished the sixth dungeon. There's nothing as annoying as Wind Waker (at least not yet), but I still consider this the second weakest Zelda I've ever played (not counting the handhelds, the only one of which I played enough to judge was the Game Boy one... and that was also better than this). It's a shame, because it could be great (and about 10 hours shorter) if they'd chopped off the filler, though even then it wouldn't be as engaging or creative as Twilight Princess.

Twilight's been my favorite in the series so far, but I could understand an argument for any one of them, really, except Wind Waker and I guess Skyward.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by CM August »

Green Gibbon! wrote:There's nothing as annoying as Wind Waker (at least not yet)
Keep some asprin close by. I just got done with a certain trial in Faron Woods involving musical notes. Fuck the Wiimote, and fuck this whole challenge.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Neo »

Popcorn wrote:And I hadn't had the fish guys mark my map as I played through the game, so I had to sail round the fucking world for a hundred hours doing that. (People have told me that was my own stupid fault, but fuck you: if it was something the game demands you do, why make it optional? Why allow me to get so far without doing it?)
It's your own stupid fault. Before you get to leave Dragon Roost Island, Fishman stops you in your tracks and fills in the spot on your map for free and suggests you throw bait to his brethren whenever you come across them in other islands. It's your own stupid fault you didn't follow his advice and it later came back to bite you in the ass.

You have every right to bitch about the rupee requirements and the Triforce Chart quests themselves, though.
Blount wrote:Okay. I'll guess I'll just get back to this epic monster scene uninterrup-

Image
That one was awful, I agree. And there are lots more with about the same annoyance factor. But the point still stands that the "low life", "low battery", "full wallet", etc. ones only show up on demand.

I'll also point out that that one string of messages actually had a purpose -- to explain you can only cut the boss's tentacles with a Skyward Strike. Considering that up to that point, the attack had never been required, it's kind of a big deal. (There's also an 85% chance that the first message was thrown in as a self-aware gag.)
Green Gibbon! wrote:Finished the sixth dungeon. There's nothing as annoying as Wind Waker (at least not yet)
Soon enough, child. SOON ENOUGH.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Crisis »

Neo wrote:It's your own stupid fault. Before you get to leave Dragon Roost Island, Fishman stops you in your tracks and fills in the spot on your map for free and suggests you throw bait to his brethren whenever you come across them in other islands. It's your own stupid fault you didn't follow his advice and it later came back to bite you in the ass.
I think his underlying point is that feeding fish isn't an interesting mechanic to begin with, in addition to being optional. It also means you have to carry around bait (and refill your bags when it runs out). There are a lot of reasons why you wouldn't want to bother.

It's sloppy design that doesn't show a lot of forethought, and adds to the feeling that the triforce quest was tacked-on to extend play time. Which is a bit of a shame, because I think the designers actually intended it to be the highlight of the game. It's the point in the plot where the stakes are highest, and the designers take off the training wheels before pushing you out to go on a treasure hunt of epic proportions. I think the extortionate pricing is supposed to add to this idea that you're on the biggest quest in the game, but it's a lazy and thoughtless way of going about it. Unforgivable, for many players, it would seem.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Popcorn »

Esrever wrote:Maybe it's because I didn't play them in the order they came out (I played TP first), but I felt like most of the tedious elements found in other 3D Zelda's were present in that game as well (although maybe not QUITE as much). When I played Ocarina, I certainly felt like I was experiencing my fair share of tedious re-traversal for the purpose of widget transportation. I think maybe it's less an issue of getting-it-perfect-the-first-time and more an issue of audience-slowly-becoming-less-tolerant-with-each-game.
I've only played OOT through twice and it's been a long time but I don't remember it having any boring bullshit even approaching the scale of my Wind Waker frustrations. (And the second time I played it was after I played WW.) I'm not saying OOT doesn't have flaws, but when I talk about it getting things right first time, I mean it laid down all the patterns that Zelda's followed since in a way I don't think has been significantly improved upon. The Z-targeting, the dungeon structure, the animal transport, the 'two worlds' gimmick - all this stuff was done really well in Ocarina without bullshit. (I understand, of course, that many of these things were just transplanted from 2D Zelda, but I don't really like 2D Zelda so fuck you.) Following games have in many cases sharpened these elements - aiming with a Wiimote rather than an analogue stick - but they fall when they try to come up with a better 'big idea'. Can anyone really tell me that the werewolf shit in TP was as elegant and sophisticated as the time travel in OOT?

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Popcorn »

Neo wrote:
Popcorn wrote:And I hadn't had the fish guys mark my map as I played through the game, so I had to sail round the fucking world for a hundred hours doing that. (People have told me that was my own stupid fault, but fuck you: if it was something the game demands you do, why make it optional? Why allow me to get so far without doing it?)
It's your own stupid fault. Before you get to leave Dragon Roost Island, Fishman stops you in your tracks and fills in the spot on your map for free and suggests you throw bait to his brethren whenever you come across them in other islands. It's your own stupid fault you didn't follow his advice and it later came back to bite you in the ass.
No, fuck you, a lot. ONE: I know Fish Jerk tells you to do the fish map bullshit. I forgot. TWO: The game should not allow you to progress in the game without doing this if it becomes vital later. That's really fucking basic design: don't fuck the player. "You're playing it wrong" is more or less the worst argument you can ever make in a game's defence, ever.

I don't remember how it works well enough to suggest a detailed alternative but I can't remember any reason why the map couldn't have just filled out automatically like it does in every other game. Why the fucking fish bullshit in the first place? It's not like finding the goddamn fish is fun.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by gr4yJ4Y »

Popcorn wrote:
Neo wrote:It's your own stupid fault you didn't follow his advice and it later came back to bite you in the ass.
No, fuck you, a lot. "You're playing it wrong" is more or less the worst argument you can ever make in a game's defence, ever.
I don't know, when a game says, "HEY do this specific thing!" and you say, "Nope," it's not the game's fault.

It is frustrating when you forget where you're supposed to go or what to do because you took a break or forgot to do something simple like this. Is it the game's fault? Maybe. A lot of games have quest logs that can help you with stuff like this. And then gamers tend to be divided on how much a game holds your hand in telling you what to do. For me it depends on what mood I'm in. In most Zeldas there's a fortune teller and/or a navi-like figure you can consult to point the way. I take it your boat didn't remind you to feed the fish?

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Popcorn »

gr4yJ4Y wrote:
Popcorn wrote:
Neo wrote:It's your own stupid fault you didn't follow his advice and it later came back to bite you in the ass.
No, fuck you, a lot. "You're playing it wrong" is more or less the worst argument you can ever make in a game's defence, ever.
I don't know, when a game says, "HEY do this specific thing!" and you say, "Nope," it's not the game's fault.
The game suggests or perhaps even recommends you do this specific thing but gives no convincing incentive to do so (for example by making it fun or offering obvious advantages I felt were valuable). I have no idea if the boat reminded me to feed the fish - this was years ago - but if it did I guess I ignored it because it didn't seem fun or necessary. After all, the game allows you to get through 90% of the game without doing it so why the fuck should I start?

Of course, all this is irrelevant, because even if the game flashed up a warning message every ten minutes that read "NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT FEED THE FISH, YOU WILL BE FUCKED LATER; PLEASE FEED THE DAMN FISH" it would still be problematic. Why? Because this is that this is not a problem of information but a problem of design: don't let the player fuck themselves. (And yes, it is possible to prevent the player from "playing it wrong" without resorting to patronising hand-holding.)

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Blount »

Neo wrote:
Green Gibbon! wrote:Finished the sixth dungeon. There's nothing as annoying as Wind Waker (at least not yet)
Soon enough, child. SOON ENOUGH.
Just so we're clear, you're talking about the tadnotes, right? Because I'd hate to think there's something worse around the corner. Not that the idea for the last quest doesn't seem forced and contrived on its own.

Also, fuck the Imprisioned. I'm so sick of fighting that thing.

Also also, I wasn't expecting the revelation about Zelda. I thought they were being ballsy with this character before, but this part just takes the cake. Link's expression during this segment is hilarious enough to break the moment, though.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Green Gibbon! »

I actually stopped playing after the sixth dungeon. I got my fill. If I could go fight the final boss straight away and be done with it, I'd go ahead and finish it up properly, but the game's already expended all my patience for piddling around.

So yeah, this is the first main Zelda game since the original 8-bit (which I was too young to get into at the time) that I haven't even bothered to finish. On the bright side, I've started Donkey Kong Country Returns, which is actually the first DK Country game I've sat down to play in earnest (DK64 notwithstanding, as it is better left forgotten). I'm only up to world 3, but it's pretty sweet so far. Are the old ones this tough? Apparently Mario 3D Land gave me false ideas about my own platforming prowess, because I am piddling through lives by the dozen.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Esrever »

I'd say most of the "regular" levels in DKCR are of similar difficulty to the originals. However, the unlockable temple levels, which open up when you get all the KONG letters in a particular area, are way harder. (They're mostly fun, though... but ROUGH!) I loved DKCR. It was interesting to see a game that could take so many of the base elements of the old series while still feeling and playing very differently. I guess some people were probably annoyed it didn't feel more like the old series... but even though I enjoyed those games I thought this one was a big improvement.

GG, in case you're curious what you missed in Skyward Sword, this is what is still ahead of you:
First you gotta collect three parts of a song: One by collecting musical note fish in a flooded version of the forest area, one by doing the traditional "they stole my gear, gotta stealth around and get it back" segment in a monster/barricade-filled version of the volcano area, and one by doing a short new segment in the Desert revolving around more timestone stuff.

The song opens the last dungeon, which is in Skyloft. It's a series of nine rooms, with each room visually modelled itself off one of the dungeons or overworld areas you've previously visited. There's a twist to how it works that I won't spoil because it's kind of cool.

Somewhere in all that, you'll fight Despair one or two more times. (You'll fight him three in total.) And after you finish the last dungeon, you go fight Girahim and the final boss, which... if you like the more sword-fighting oriented boss fights, are pretty awesome.


All tolled, you're probably looking at four or five hours there. A good chunk of it is, if not excruciating, just kind of familiar and not super interesting. I liked the last dungeon and bosses a lot, though. But even they are kind of building off existing themes established earlier in the game! It's strange how a game this long ultimately has so few ideas to spread around.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Neo »

Blount wrote:
Neo wrote:
Green Gibbon! wrote:Finished the sixth dungeon. There's nothing as annoying as Wind Waker (at least not yet)
Soon enough, child. SOON ENOUGH.
Just so we're clear, you're talking about the tadnotes, right? Because I'd hate to think there's something worse around the corner. Not that the idea for the last quest doesn't seem forced and contrived on its own.
Well, that's one. Probably the most stupid and annoying thing in the entire game. The volcano tries something which is cool on paper, all your stuff is stolen and you have to get it all back. It's definitely a throwback to a part in Wind Waker a lot of people didn't appreciate, and I felt they could've come up with more interesting challenges as more alternatives are given to you. Sadly they just kind of get bored halfway through and after getting the first three or so, they concede defeat and give you back everything else at once. Oh well. At least you get to use the Mogma Mitts a few more times.

The desert doesn't disappoint, opening up yet another area you hadn't explored yet to play around in. It's short, but definitely sweet. It's too bad the forest segment was so overwhelmingly shitty that the shit overflows and spills all over the desert because the game forces you to get a seed in the desert, plant it in the forest, then return with the fruit to the desert for no reason other than to make the total play time counter reach the widely touted 50 hours of "gameplay". You may be tempted to just leave it somewhere up in the sky, and the fact that you actually CAN do that and make the game unbeatable until you undo your action is hilarious in of itself.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Locit »

Guys my Zelda game-interruption bullshit-o-meter is off the charts for this game. Fi can die in a goddamn fire. I'm nearing the entrance of the second temple and if something doesn't click for me soon this may be my shortest Zelda experience ever.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Esrever »

There's a 45% chance things will start to click for you during the second dungeon. There's a 75% chance for the third dungeon! But there's a 90% chance you won't make it to the third dungeon because of the annoying overworld segment before it.

In conclusion, there is a 100% chance of percentages.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by CM August »

I got around to finishing it near-100% the other day, so may as well give a final verdict. Most of the bases have been covered, so to sum up quickly: the dungeon design, equipment and swordplay are where it truly shines, with everything else being decidedly underwhelming. The art direction and character design is mediocre, the music is forgettable (only Fi's theme is really good), the story doesn't want to do anything interesting until near the end, and the game repeats itself way too often.

The overall 'feel' of the game is a bit all over the place. Like for a story that's meant to be all portentous about saving the world from the ultimate evil, the rest of the game doesn't want to cooperate. The forces of darkness don't look the least bit intimidating, a few in particular looking like rejects from Monsters Inc. The soundtrack has next to no sinister music, not even in most boss tracks, to say nothing of the safari shit used for regular battles. Then there's the aforementioned pacing problems in the story itself, which waits until virtually after the fact to play its hand.

It's also the first Zelda game, maybe even the first Nintendo game, where I've had to fight the controls. The penultimate battle was nearly unbearable - the controller just did not want to register a stab. And over nearly 50 hours of playing, my arms were fed up with all the flicks and jerks and swishes every few seconds, or the wrists bending at uncomfortable angles for flying, swimming and what have you. I'm not going to miss the Wiimote at all.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Green Gibbon! »

I'm not going to miss the Wiimote at all.
Is it going anywhere? To my understanding, the Wii U is meant to use the same controller for motion control, which is extremely disappointing after Sony and Microsoft have both - well, made it work, basically. Wii Motion Plus is a mess.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by CM August »

Don't say that. :(

It seems inconceivable that any Wii U games worth playing wouldn't use its new controller, which is clearly not designed for heavy waggle action. Ergo, any big Wii U game will not be built around the Wiimote, only compatible with it at best. Or is that being optimistic?

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Crisis »

I think there's a fairly strong argument that it would be in Nintendo's best interests to quit the hardware market altogether. (Not that I think they will, given their history.)

The Wii was a great success and the DS redesigns were a good move as well. But Wii MotionPlus is a joke (hideous, expensive, not as good as alternatives on other consoles), and I honestly don't understand why anyone would want to buy a 3DS, which Nintendo has had to sell at a loss. Plus it's becoming increasingly obvious that the console space is slowly being consumed by the ever-growing mobile computing industry, to say nothing of traditional computers.

So basically, Nintendo's software is more well-received, more profitable, and more sustainable than their hardware. John Siracusa has a different take on this and thinks that they should stick in hardware, because software and hardware are interrelated, and he thinks that Nintendo's success in software is partially the result of having control over the hardware. That's an interesting perspective, but hardware competition is only going to get more fierce, so if Nintendo is out of good ideas now then perhaps they should think of quitting while they're ahead.

Personally, if Satoru Iwata was to ask me for my advice, I think they should take the tablet concept from the WiiU and run with it. Create a great gaming tablet that can run android apps in addition to exclusive licensed software. That's a huge, untapped market and it's not beyond their abilities.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Cuckooguy »

I just finished the game and I can kind of see where they're going with this title.

Someone may have mentioned these before in their own opinions, so if I'm echoing someone's statement then well whatever. The game seems to try to improve at what Twilight Princess was weak at, that is the overworld design, its sidequests, and general improvements to aspects of NPC characteristics. And these are all great in Skyward Sword! The overworld is dense, and as someone already said they're like dungeons in themselves. It's just that some of the mandatory stuff which would've been better off as sidequests are in the main quest now, which I guess is the main flaw: a bit too much mandatory main quest padding.

After the third or so dungeon, you start having to retrace some of your steps, which don't bother me very much (I had very little issues with the Silent Realm because they were all easy anyway, only failed a total of 2 times of the game's 4 Silent Realms) and didn't take too much of my time and to me I didn't feel like it was a copout way to grant me another power up in order to explore a previously unexplored area of the region. Going all the way back to this area to get an item from an NPC to open a path to continue the main quest didn't bother me much either, but the boring stuff I remember offending me was the go back to the end of this one dungeon you already beat, throwing in a boss I beat already at me again (if you're gonna throw a boss at me again at least make it different somehow like make me go hey-i-know-this-boss-i'll-just-oh-shit-i-didn't-see-it-do-that-before-what-do-i-do-what-do-i-do), the escort quest and the fucking tadnotes. Making me have to fight the Imprisoned a third time was also grating on my nerves because it wasn't that fun the first two times. I swear if the game made me have to fight it a fourth time...

On your second visit to all these regions, it gives you new territory to explore anyway after the pretty short Silent Realms which kept things from becoming stagnant, usually with different gimmicks in how to go about the new territory (such as a lot of water in 2 region's cases and delivering water in 1 region's case). On the third visit to these areas, the Tadnotes in the woods were excruciating, the volcano area was kinda cool because a gimmick like that where you lose your weapons and have to reobtain them is better off being lost in familiar territory, the game making you use your memory of the area and slowly giving back your non lethal weapons to overcome the territory, and the desert area gives you new area to tread except this time it's a longass Timeshift Stone Cart which was cool since it's forcing you to adapt to the changing territory as it goes.

I do not like the Sky Overworld, the speed where Link passes through those vortexes should really be the default speed, or at least give me a way to teleport to areas I've been to already to on the Sky Overworld map because it's not particularly interesting to explore. Having to go back and forth to and from the Isle of Songs multiple times is not fun.

I didn't really find any of them interesting, but all the NPCs are memorable and distinctive, and I love how there's a lot of body language in the characters. It's probably like this owing to the fact that there's only one town, but I really like how no 2 NPCs look alike (but there are a handful of characters on the surface who are different looking from each other due to their different, uh, hairstyles I guess). Their sidequests weren't very fun, but at least they were sidequests and not mainquests!

The dungeons are great, but I don't think in the same league as Twilight Princess' dungeons. This could be because they spent a lot of effort in designing the surface overworld, but there's just too much padding preventing this game from being great. I kinda like the idea of reusing old territory and make it new somehow, it's just that some stuff needs to be rethought and left in the cutting room floor. It's still a good game I enjoyed about 75~85% of the time.

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Post by Isuka »

gr4yJ4Y wrote:It is frustrating when you forget where you're supposed to go or what to do because you took a break or forgot to do something simple like this. Is it the game's fault? Maybe. A lot of games have quest logs that can help you with stuff like this. And then gamers tend to be divided on how much a game holds your hand in telling you what to do. For me it depends on what mood I'm in.
This has happened to me with Radiata Stories near the end, no matter where I go I can't find out what the hell I was supposed to do. Since the game is somewhat open, walkthroughs don't help much.

@Crisis: It'd be cool to see Mario and Zelda games on many platforms, I think. Maybe they could bundle them with special controllers in case they want to use a different type of input, like in old times? It's not so different from the Wii's frickin' barrage of controllers, really.

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Re: Slash, wheeze, slash, wheeze

Post by Radrappy »

Isuka wrote:This has happened to me with Radiata Stories near the end, no matter where I go I can't find out what the hell I was supposed to do. Since the game is somewhat open, walkthroughs don't help much
not to derail the topic but what did you think of Radiata? I got about 3/4s through it I believe. The characters and visuals were both extremely charming, but I found the battle system to be a snooze (it does get better but the first 5 hours are a serious struggle) and the story to be spotty. It could be due to the game being more open than a traditional Jrpg, but by the third act of the game's story I was feeling like I had missed some very crucial story moments and plot points. I never even finished the game because I was so turned off by the story. I may pick it up again in the future though and replay it because the characters were SO CHARMING. Plus the living, breathing world was nice.

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Post by Isuka »

Yeah, pretty much the same: charming characters with some legitimately funny dialog, mind-numbingly and stale battle system. Even the Star Ocean games' system is more fun.

As far as I can remember the story is... well, kinda just there. Par for the course, average.

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