Zelda Breath of the Wild

I have officially now joined the cult of the switch.  For a brief period of time…  probably fifteen minutes if we are going to be honest about it…  Amazon had switch units in stock for prime members only.  Now that sounds like an exclusive club or something… but quite literally everyone I know that shops Amazon regularly….  is a prime member.  I had said for awhile that if I ever stumbled across one I would pick it up immediately, and I guess in my mind limited availability over Amazon was the same thing.  What is even more shocking however is that I ordered it at 2pm on a Thursday and by some quirk or time travel it was waiting for me when I got home Friday afternoon.  As a result I got to spend a good chunk of the weekend playing with it and fiddling with the various console modes.  So far the honestly most comfortable mode for me to play is with the joycons detached and the little bumper things that it comes with attached.  This allows me to just chill with each arm resting on whatever is comfortable be it leg, lap or the arm of a chair.  All in all I am really damned happy with the unit, and it feels extremely good especially in “handheld” mode.  I spent some time Saturday afternoon hanging out in the back yard playing Zelda Breath of the Wild and it was glorious.  The switch is essentially everything that I assumed the Wii U would be for me…  and probably was if not the for the fact that the gamepad has such an insanely short range from the base unit.

The thing I want to talk about this morning however is Zelda itself.  There was a side conversation that happened over the weekend, of all places on facebook about switch ownership and the limited number of games.  One friend mentioned that if there was ever a game worth spending $400 to play that it was Breath of the Wild.  Then another friend chimed in that folks have said this a lot, but that no one has really been able to put into words why this game is special given the extremely stiff competition.

I keep hearing comments like this but still don’t understand what is so special about it. No one seems able to capture that in words. My skeptical self thinks it has a lot to do with Nintendo nostalgia, but that is just based on a lack of understanding of what is so compelling about it.

So as a result I think I am going to attempt this morning to put it into words why I feel this game is so special.  For me at least it is not really a nostalgia thing given that in truth I have never been that big of a fan of the 3D Zelda games.  I’ve beaten Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and Windwaker and while they were okay…  they were not even close to dethroning A Link to the Past as my favorite Zelda series game.  I never really could put my finger on it, but something always felt off about them.  For me a huge factor of what made Zelda fun was that I had this huge world to explore, and barring that I had the right items at the right time…  it felt like I could pretty much go anywhere.  Granted in the 2D era this meant a bunch of tiles stacked side by side… which in truth was pretty limited…  but in my mind it absolutely Felt open.  When it comes to the 3D Zeldas… they have always felt like I was much more limited on my range of motion and where I could actually go based on how far I had progressed in the game.

With Breath of the Wild, the sense of exploration I felt in the original games is there in full.  While I am similarly limited by my stamina meter, or weather effects like cold or rain… the game feels completely open to me to go wherever I think I can survive.  There is a certain thrill of discovery when you find a new shrine and figure out the puzzle that exists within.  That was the part I liked of the 3D Zelda “temples” is the fact that each one of them had some gimmick that had to be learned in order to progress through them… and in Breath of the Wild this same idea is contained with 120 of them.  That is so much more of that element that I really enjoyed in past games, and is only improved by the fact that no one in games is going to explain to you where all of them are.  Sure there are easy ones to find, that are right off the path or that serve as the teleport for a given town.  However most of them involve getting out and roaming around, to try and find where they have been hidden into the landscape.

Similarly there is the Korok Seed mini game, and from what I understand there are 900 of them scattered throughout the world.  Most of them involve noticing something going on in the landscape and then interacting with the elements in a certain way to reveal the Korok that is hiding.  For example one of the very early ones involves diving off of a cliff into a ring of lily pads that are sitting in the water below.  It is the sort of thing that as you walk by you notice…  “that looks odd” and then when you start to investigate you try different things until you ultimately reveal another Korok.  There is a challenge with Open World games to both allow open space to exist… but make that open space be meaningful and that is one of the things that Breath of the Wild really succeeds at.  Not to mention that the Korok mini game is charming as hell as you keep bringing more seeds to Hestu for his Maracas.  There are honestly an awful lot of elements of this game that just come across as charming.  Once you leave the “starter zone” for lack of a better term you find out that the world is not really as “post apoc” as it seems at the start.  Folks have learned how to survive and often times thrive in a world where destruction is looming over it, and each of the people scattered has a story to tell and hints to be given about other things happening in the world.

It is extremely hard to put into words what it is about this game that is so damned appealing.  Even as I sit down with the purpose to do just that, I am finding myself lacking the necessary vocabulary to really make it make sense.  I have plenty of problems with the game, namely the way the weapon durability system worlds.  However that said I like it enough to have just purchased a second copy and completely restarted the game after getting a decent ways into it on the Wii U.  There really are not a lot of games that you could say the same for, with the big two that are standing out in my head that I own multiple copies of being Destiny and Castlevania Symphony of the Night.  There is an awful lot going on in the game… but I have this constant feeling that I have only barely scratched the surface of its complexity.  I think that more than anything is what keeps drawing me to it.  Its like this grand puzzle that, as I solve one little bit of it… keeps exposing new areas for me to explore and then ultimately solve as well.  Its not just that I need to go to a new land and vanquish a new evil… but as I wander across that land I am constantly finding myself needing to learn a brand new mechanical vocabulary to survive its trials.  In some ways the puzzles in this game remind me of the way the ones from Thomas Was Alone felt… where each time it increments on the information you already have but keeps pushing the boundary to incorporate new elements and challenges.

Unfortunately I am not entirely certain I have even begun to scratch the surface of the job I set out to do.  Which of course was the put into words what made this game worth spending so much time and effort on playing.  There are so many great games out there right now like Horizon Zero Dawn and Mass Effect Andromeda…  both of which I am playing quite a bit of.  However I still find myself drawn to keep venturing into Hyrule on a regular basis and keep figuring out how the world ticks.  I can’t really say if this game is better than that game… because so far I have been enjoying all of them.  I also feel like my attention isn’t a zero sum game, and that all of these games are worthy of it.  I will say that Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is doing something different.  It feels different from the previous 3D Zelda offerings, but at the same time very different from the traditional Open World model.  Some of these differences are frustrating, but at the same time the quirks are also what makes the game itself feel extremely fresh.  I will say having played it on both the Switch and Wii U now…  that there is just something about the Switch that makes it all feel better.  Its like playing a game on the platform it was designed for…. and playing it when it got ported to another system.  Some of the things that felt awkward on the Wii U just seem to work beautifully on the Switch.  So if you have not already ventured forth into Hyrule… I would probably suggest just waiting until you ultimately get your hands on a Switch.  Is this game worth buying a console for?  I obviously thought so, but in part I also bought the console knowing that there are always a high number of Nintendo games that I want to play on every platform they create.  I’ve thought my purchase of the Wii U was well worth it, in spite of the fact that it never quite worked the way I wanted it to.  All of that said… I don’t think the Switch is worth the markups or crazy “bundle” deals that places are trying to direct users towards.  Just wait for the base unit to come back in stock, and I am hoping with the release of Mario Kart in a few weeks that there are going to be a whole lot more units available.

Last night I had every intention of playing the Mass Effect Andromeda trial, however that did not actually happen.  It of course needed to install, and one of the things about Final Fantasy XIV is that when something is thrashing the hard drive…  like a game download it becomes nigh unplayable.  I’ve seen many games that are cpu bound, and even more than a graphics card bound…  but FFXIV is the first game I have played ever that was truly hard drive bound.  In theory I am guessing this is a side effect of needing to run on systems like the PS3 where there are simply not that many system resources, so instead of loading a bunch of stuff in memory the game is constantly caching bite sized chunks of the world.  The end result works extremely well, and is probably why the game seems to be able to run on literally anything.  However it also means that last night while Mass Effect was installing I could not partake of my most common PC diversion…  chain running Palace of the Dead.  So instead I decided to filter off to the bedroom to “play a little Zelda while the game installed” and wound up playing until midnight.  I said this over twitter the other day and I will repeat it again…  that I feel like it is a testament to just how damned good this game is that I have very serious issues with certain aspects of it and still find myself constantly playing it.

The thing that I find absolutely amazing about it is how well it supports my “oooh a piece of candy” approach to most games.  I am not following any semblance of a pattern in exploring this world and the game seems completely fine with that.  I feel like I have barely scratched the first three areas… and then found myself wandering into Zora’s Domain last night and following that chain of events.  A good chunk of the night was spent trying to unlock towers….  only to find out that several of them are at least theoretically blocked by Guardians.  As of yet I really do not have a good answer for them…  and they are sort of a dalek-esc death force as they try and EXTERMINATE!  There is nothing quite like the change in music when a Guardian has locked onto you, because you know that any minute you are going to see the target on your back and you are frantically looking for anything that could serve as cover.  The other thing I really don’t have an answer to is spike traps, because I found a shrine in my extremely sporadic travels that was completely blocked by spikes… and the earlier answer was to get up high enough and glide down.  The problem this time is there really was nothing to actually glide down from…  so I am guessing that is simply not a puzzle I can solve at the moment.  The core of my gaming focus seems to be on finding shrines, beating shrines… and then going to find more shrines.  I literally was caught in this loop until midnight when I realized I probably should get some sleep considering I am driving to Dallas today.

Based on the results of last weekends podcast…  there really is no way I can put into words why this game works for me.  Any time I attempt to explain it I get bogged down in the grindy aspects of it, and the constant hunt for new weapons.  However there is a core game here that is really damned amazing.  Once you remove the durability problems and the wonky gyro puzzles…  you are left with the core Zelda game I always wanted.  I feel about this world the same way as I felt about the original Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo.  It was this big open space with all sorts of mysteries to unlock.  Its the little things… like when you lift up a boulder and see an insect or frog scurry out from under it… that you can then catch and use to make potions.  The world feels vast and empty at times… but it really isn’t.  Every copse of trees is placed there with purpose and reason… and many hold puzzles that unlock one of the around 900 korok seeds that are available.  This is if nothing else a game about exploration and trying things until you can figure out how to make something work.  The shrines are essentially the ultimate form of this expression, and as I have gotten deeper into the game… they are no longer the “use this one effect” style and more “chain everything you know how to do in different ways” effect.  There was a puzzle last night where I had to use ice blocks to get objects out of the water… and throw them into a metal basket that I could then lift in the air with my magnetic ability and use the wall to tip the basket over and dump them onto a target.  It took me quite a bit to realize that was my end goal and how to maneuver all of the elements into place to get it to work…  and I found it an overall awesome experience.  The part that I find interesting is how much I don’t mind the constant “Game Over” screen, because there is almost always a save just around the corner from wherever you happened to die… and you can get right back into the action almost immediately.

Functionally this month has not gone at all like planned… I expected to be spending all of my time in Horizon Zero Dawn… and instead I seem to be logging way more hours in Zelda at the moment.  I also did not expect to be feverishly searching for a switch… with the realization that if I find one I will ultimately start over from scratch again.  In any case I need to wrap this up and get on the road.  Just a heads up to my loyal readers, I will not be doing a morning post tomorrow and instead be doing some sort of an evening post when I finally get home.  Until then I would love to hear your thoughts on Zelda and if it is nearly as sticky for you as it seems to be for me.

Apparently according to Storm I am still logged into Final Fantasy XIV downstairs on the laptop…  so that is something that I am going to have to take care of before I head to work.  I ended up in that state because I had probably the worst Palace of the Dead run I have ever experienced.  Before leaving floor 51 we had to use the rez shrine three times…  because for whatever reason people kept running in to aggro entire rooms worth of mobs at the same time.  Had I been the last one standing I would have just wiped and ended the run.  However I kept trying to pull things out, but since I shifted to being a monk to level that job…  it just wasn’t happening.  So instead I wound up leaving the party and eating the 30 minute debuff that keeps me from queuing for anything else.  At which point I THOUGHT I logged out… and wandered off into the bedroom to play some Zelda, never to actually return.  I am not entirely certain why I find this game so damned compelling.  It is like an unsolved puzzle that I keep going back and fiddling with…  and while I don’t make a lot of progress in any attempt…  I keep plugging along.

I have however found the absolute bane of my existence.  Firstly the game has a ton of shrines like the one pictured above scattered throughout the country side.  Inside of each is a puzzle that requires you to do something to utilize the various skills and abilities that you have collected to that point.  However there is one shrine type that I am absolutely certain was not designed for Wii U players.  Every so often you encounter these gyroscope gadgets that force you to stop using the Pro Controller and pick up the Wii U Fisher Price Little Tykes Gamepad.  I may be bitter about the Gamepad and its over sold promise of being able to play the console remotely from within your house…  so long as that somewhere is within 5 feet of the base unit.  Anyways the puzzle requires you to rotate the gamepad to solve it…  but it also requires you to do some super contorted angles that make you feel like you are steering a garbage barge down an interstate.  The primary problem however is the fact that when you are playing with the GamePad…  the video feed is ALSO on the game pad.  If I could figure out how to get this to work while holding the tablet but staring at the television I would probably be okayish with this process.  However during these puzzles it seems to always want to put the video feed on the tablet, which means that when I have to flip the tablet upside down or something stupid like that… it also means I have to contort myself in all sorts of bizarre positions so that I can still see the tablet screen.  I’ve completed two of these at this point and hated every minute of it, but I am just assuming these were designed for the much higher fidelity rotational sensors of the switch joycons… and that the Wii U players simply get fucked by an outdated experience.

The only other real problem that I still have with this game is the durability bullshit.  You have to understand… that I am one of those players that finishes a Final Fantasy game with 500 potions of various kinds because I feel like I need to hold onto them for a moment when I “really need them”.  So when that moment never comes and the final credits roll…  I think why the hell did I hold onto those potions.  That said it is an instinct that I just cannot root out of me, and it is severely effecting my enjoyment of Zelda because I feel like I cannot risk using any weapon that is not complete and total crap…  because I might need it at a later date.  So instead I am using various sticks and clubs while I have a Guardian Sword sitting in my bag just waiting there, begging me to use its awesomeness.  Instead I have that and another awesome looking sword flagged as “for a boss fight” but you can damned well be certain that when said boss fight comes along… I am going to try and defeat them with a bunch of expendable garbage first.  I think part of it is the simple fact that I never quite know exactly when I am going to get my next reasonable weapon.  If there were a swordsmith in one of the towns… then I could at least know that I could keep returning to them and stocking up on good weapons and shift my mindset to farming rupies to pay that upkeep.  So instead I am just stuck in this indecision hell of not knowing when I can and cannot use reasonable weapons for fear that I might be stuck in a bad situation with a bad chock full of worthless crap.

For a game that causes me so much internal strife… I am constantly amazed that I keep returning to it.  Every time I see the game over screen…  I keep hitting the button and starting again trying to sort out what went wrong during the fight.  This is not a souls game, but I am sort of playing it as though it were.  I still think however this would be a much better experience on the Switch and I am constantly annoyed with myself for not pre-ordering.  I knew this would happen.  I knew that a combination of demand and Nintendo’s piss poor supply chain management would end up with no units available for purchase.  I’ve checked every place I can think to check and now am simply resigned to hope for one of a handful of places to restock, which is supposedly coming mid April.  The other level of hell that I have wandered into… is that I am now trying to collect the Zelda related Amiibos because you can get nifty shit in game for using them once a day.  Those also seem to be completely sold out, and each day at lunch I have been venturing to new places to see if they happen to have any left.  For a game that obviously frustrates me… I cannot put my finger on why I am finding it so damned sticky.  It reminds me of the feeling you have when you are watching a horror film and screaming at the person not to go into the closet…  but also at the same time wanting them to go in…  so you know what is inside the closet.  Zelda Breath of the Wild is a deeply conflicted experience…  but man do I at least on some level deeply love it.