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doubleddenden · 11 months

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I know the comparison is tired, bit after playing ToTK and after experiencing how glitchy and... well let's face it, kinda ugly Scarlet and Violet can be, I really hope I don't hear about the dlc for a while. Like I do want it, but I also don't, you dig?

I have sort of a rant below lol

Totk had six years of development plus 300 something staff members. SV had maybe 2 and a half years and around 180 or so. Game Freak is aiming way too close to the sun on wings made of Elmer's glue and brittle leaves. They need to stop splitting their staff so much between all of these projects (btw reminder that they started working on Project Bloom, another IP due out in 3 years on pokemon's 30th anniversary lol) and up dev time to 5 years minimum for each project.

I'm just saying, the worst glitches in ToTK are usually player triggered and do not end up messing with their game. The worst glitches in SV can corrupt save data with barely a way to fix it. If it only happens to 100 people out of millions world wide, that's still 100 too many.

So what I want is this:

Do not release Teal Mask until a MASSIVE update rolls out to fix things. In theory, November will be a year since release, and maybe then most of the issues will be fixed, but I'm seriously doubting it since we're 6 months out and the slow downs keep happening. Ideally, fix things by November, release Teal Mask- delay Indigo Disk until March or so instead of winter this year, give both plenty of time to bake.

After that?

Just let Pokémon nap for a bit. Seriously. I don't want to hear about a Let's Go Johto at all. I don't want to hear about BW Remakes (least of all from ILCA). I don't wanna hear about gen 10. Not until it's good and God damn ready.

Here's the thing, folks: the gaming industry copies everything from Zelda now. Open world with climbing and gliding ESPECIALLY jumped up since BoTW, and SV is no exception. ToTK added new layers to its world and added physics, engineering- what pokemon really, REALLY needs to take away from Zelda is this: time, focus, and effort to refine a product. ToTK was actually finished a year before release, but Aonuma delayed it and kept playing the game to completion 10 times over so they could polish it to hell and back. That kind of dedication is what I'd kill for in Pokemon game development.

I already hear some of you.

1. They're entirely different games! It's not fair to compare!

It actually is. Here's the thing: both are Nintendo products- yes pokemon isn't quite first party, but you're not seeing it on the ps4, and Nintendo does have partial ownership, so it is a Nintendo product. Both are running on the Switch, so it isn't so much a hardware issue so much that it's Game Freak and the lack of optimization or shooting themselves in the foot with cut corners, less staff, and less dev time. ToTK has WAY MORE going on compared to Pokémon in terms of mechanics, animation, and programming. Pokemon has been recycling and reglossing the same mechanics, models, animations, and gameplay since XY. Yes, there's new textures, there's a few new models, there's some new animations- but the majority is so recycled that you can find items and data in the code that's leftover carry over from bw2 of all things. And yes, ToTK does have an advantage of being built on top of BoTW, but let's be real, there's way more going on by having to program bullet time, fuse an arrow, and then programming the effects of said fused arrow as it attacks a fully autonomous enemy that has its own set of programming to kill you. This, vs updating the same turn based battle Mechanics that is literally pick a move, X Pokémon does animation, damage calculation, enemy randomly selects pre programmed set of moves, animation, damage calculation.

2. But there's 1000 pokemon they have to model now!

Incorrect and you're purposely spouting misinformation by balooning the numbers. They only put in around >500 pokemon at launch, only 400 of which were available until recently when the Home Update finally let us access the others from LA that were in the code. At most there's 230 more coming. While that's still a lot, consider that ToTK has hundreds of models of NPCs, entities, weapons and weapon combos with their own mechanics and interactions, and enemies on the map, each with vastly more complex dynamics, modeling details, animations, etc than your standard pokemon npc that just stands there, or your standard pokemon that just walks around with walking programming from SM's data. I'm not asking for all pokemon back (although I do find it real fucking suspicious that a fucking 3ds can have 800+ pokemon in it, plus megas, plus forms, plus z moves, plus all sorts of other transformations PLUS shinies PLUS more shirts and pants and apparently gf thinks the Switch can't handle it, and said 3ds only really chugged with more than 1 pokemon on the field lol). What I am asking for is that since they themselves have stated that the reason for dex cuts was to improve things, they actually put their multi billionaire money where their mouth is and actually show it.

3. But people freaked out over Home not being available at launch!

As they should be. ILCA develops Home, not GF. They should have had it ready to go day fucking 1, lets be real. Yes its never been day 1 (it was for ORAS but i digress) but there's really no reason for it not to be- and no, they don't care about team metas or whatever because players will get the pokemon they want regardless. If they cared, they'd leave out Landorus and Kyogre.

SV were rushed out the door covered in glue and tape holding it together, but the far simpler side products get to take their sweet time? GF should have waited for ILCA to be done and taken time to polish, or they should have had the home update out the door by February at the latest by working alongside developers to get it working asap.

Even then, that's just Home. Home is not the entire game. Even if fans snarl and foam at the mouth for GF to release an unfinished product, ESPECIALLY if FINANCIAL PARTNERS scream and throw tantrums about wanting their money now; pokemon, Nintendo, and GF need to tell those people to fuck off until it's done and not falling apart.

There's a difference between what's essentially a save editor app and a full functioning game.

4. But the anime! The merch! Everything else! They have to keep schedule! Pokémon isn't just a gaming franchise anymore!

I really, really am tired of this argument and quite frankly I do not give a flying fuck anymore, even if i have made the same argument myself in the past. Pokémon IS a game first and foremost, even if everyone wants you to think otherwise. There is NOTHING without the games, and it's time we give the games the proper respect.

For plushies, merch, trading cards, etc: why don't we try changing how things are marketed?

Game Freak can still develop the games- they take their time doing it this time though. What should change is the order in which the public sees things.

GF basically spear heads the operations of all commercial grade goods because they're the ones that decide regional location basis, and most importantly, design the new Pokémon.

Why do we need the games to come first in that regard?

Here's a consideration: back in the early days of Pokémon, they would tease new Pokémon before the games they originate from ever come out. Ho Oh, Togepi, Donphan, Marill, Snubbull, Elekid, Bellossom, Hoothoot- all teased in the anime and movies before gen 2. Keckleon, Wailmer, Duskull, Wynaut, Blaziken- all before gen 3. Gen 4 was REALLY hype af because we'd get Munchlax super early in the gen 3 anime, Bonsly as playable in XD, Lucario got his own movie- you get the idea.

What if instead of forcing a team that clearly needs more time to not fuck things up to work faster, they just make merch for new Pokémon ahead of time to hype people up?

Imagine if Wooloo was a plushie before gen 8 released. If Corviknight, Centiskorch, Drednaw, Dragapult, and Toxtricity were in the tcg before launch? What if we had Horizons tease Ceruledge, the Paldean starters, and more a whole year before launch? Shit, that's what they're doing for Terapagos right now, and it's working!

Now imagine all of this teasing. You want these guys on a team. You want to see their stats so bad, don't you? Imagine the payoff when you finally get it. That's how it was when I was a kid, believe it or not. Hell, that's how it was when I was 18 and saw Noivern and Mewtwo Y in the BW anime and movie before XY dropped. That's how it was seeing Charizard X in Origins, too.

Instead of relying on the games to lead the way, let the Pokémon designs do it. Let the games be completed and polished in the background while they tease the dex in the gap time. And then they can have more surprises hidden in the game at launch!

Idk, have Liko and Roy catch a gen 10 pokemon and evolve it. Have some movies based off of some gen 10 mythicals or mascot pokemon before gen 10 comes out. Have a couple of new characters drop to Masters with new Pokémon. In a SIDE game like the theoretical Colosseum 3 I keep BEGGING for made by a different company- have a few gen 10 pokemon be teased and have them be able to be rented to battle with, like Bonsly.

All of this edging for a few years- when gen 10 is finally announced, you sit there clutching your ultra cute mon pkushies that you want to befriend. You sit there hyped as fuck clenching your cards and holding your figurine of your cool new bird or dragon mon bro. Fuck it, you got your waifu pillow of your furry bait at the ready. Gen 10 finally is teased, you see your babies and bros in the game for real now- AND NOW THERE'S MORE! And then you finally get the games and you're so fucking hyped to have your new favorite pokemon that you've been teased at for so long. ALL from a game that took its time to release, so you get the added satisfaction of playing a game you can be proud to own.

You get your new Pokémon. TPC gets billions in merch, and then tpc, gf, and Nintendo rake in the billions they're gonna make anyway from the games, and most importantly WE get a game that has had more dev time.

Make sense? There's options that they can and *should* explore rather than whipping the poor hamster to keep running on the broken hamster wheel until one or both break.

"B-but the leaks! But but! I don't want to be spoiled!"

Okay, that's on you. I'm basing this off of how things USED to work and what worked very well in the past. That's on you to avoid all of this.

Besides that, for leaks, I really don't care anymore. SM leaked all the final starter evolutions before Mallow was revealed- its going to happen. We know this. It literally always does via 4chan, Discord, or Twitter. Who even cares anymore? What matters is the finished product! Use it as part of marketing!

Or, all of this to say, there's another way to go about this:

Radio

Silence

TOTK went radio silent for years. Then it just fucking drops trailers months before release. Now look at it! It's selling POKÉMON levels at launch!

Just go silent for a few years on the new gen. Idk, hire other companies to port older games to the Switch. Focus on side games. They would make BILLIONS with a an Explorers remake. With Colosseum and XD remakes. With a Colo 3 that does nothing but make a new game with existing pokemon. A Battle Revolution type game that exclusively uses pokemon in your Home Account. We don't need any of that, but it's perfect keys to dangle in front of your frothing man baby businessmen or poketubers that demand their content to milk.

I just want a game that is COMPLETE AT LAUNCH. I want pokemon to finally make a game every other game in the industry copies. I want Pokémon to finally make a GoTY contender. I'm tired of always playing and saying "oh this is a good start- oh this is kinda bad now BUT THERE'S POTENTIAL-" I want to see them FUCKING NAIL IT for once. I want to see 9 and 10 out of 10s from critics and fans alike.

Pokemon used to be a gaming Titan and now it's a laughing stock. I want to be proud to be a fan again. We all agree there's a TON OF GOOD going on in LA and SV, literally some of the best ideas the entire franchise over- but don't you want a glimpse of the timeline where they took their time? Where they were polished? I know I do. I know we can have it.

And before you say "guh you just outgrew the franchise" kindly stop licking TPC's boots and sweaty ballsacks and listen. Gen 8 sucked until DLC. BDSP sucked, but LA was fun. Even with the flaws SV has, it's still vastly more fun than SwSh and LGPE were. I didn't complete Colosseum or XD until AFTER I beat SwSh. This argument is done- I am a fan and have been for a long time. There's a difference between me wanting a COMPLETE AND POLISHED $60 AAA TITLE AT LAUNCH and some man baby that thinks all of gen 5 sucks because of ice cream pokemon.

This is the last point: pokemon games are going to get more expensive. ToTK gave Nintendo the greenlight to charge $70 for their games now- granted, its one of the few games i have ever played that feels close to that price. They're going to start doing it for everything else soon, and Pokémon is going to be SHOVING for the chance to charge you $70 a game.

Do you want to pay $70 for another Scarlet and Violet? PLUS tax? Plus $35 for dlc? Plus $15 a year for Home? Plus $20 to $30 a year for Nintendo Online?- which will probably become more expensive on the Switch's successor, which IS coming, and Pokémon WILL be on it. Don't forget to add in shipping fees or any other regional expenses- it'll probably be $80 in some countries.

$150 for the full experience. Do you want to drop that on bugs and glitches again? I certainly don't. And Nintendo games do not drop more than a few pennies in price either, especially pokemon games, so that $70 Pokémon game, 10 years from now, will be $68.99. Are you going to drop that hard earned money on another incomplete game?

It is time to start demanding better of the richest franchise in history. No, actually the time was 2018 when LGPE thought they could get away with its awful catching mechanics and its Kanto elitism, and it was definitely 2019 when SwSh dropped its awful story and characters in an awful wild area. Stop ass kissing and defending and DEMAND more.

Start demanding Pokemon: Tears of the Kingdom NOW while things are still in the early stages of development.

#pokemon

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pridepoisoned · 2 years

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[ooc. Long time no blog! I finally got the opportunity to finish Legends Arceus over this past weekend, and here are some of my thoughts (on the game and what it means for my RP.) Spoilers ahoy, obviously!]

The game

This.

Seriously, I can’t put this game down. In my opinion, this is best Pokemon game in a LONG time simply because of how fresh it is and how many things have changed within the formula. It’s Pokemon Breath of the Wild, but BOTW is a fantastic game so I FULLY support this new direction for the series. I honestly can’t see myself going back to the “way things were.” Everything is so streamlined here and it’s something I really appreciate as a massive Pokefan (they started the text speed on “fast,” people! They’re listening!)

Even the plot was surprisingly compelling, with a twist that I (somehow) didn’t see coming. Seriously, I don’t know how I avoided that spoiler with everything that’s been happening here. I could talk more about how I felt about Giratina’s portrayal but eh. This is getting long already.

My few gripes with the game concern how wide open some areas were--some places felt really, really empty and I found the thorough research tasks to be a little repetitive. I don’t care so much about the graphics, and I think it’s pretty commendable that Game Freak was able to do all of this given the now yearly expectation for a mainline title or remake. Seriously well done--in the future, I hope that they can expand and polish the visuals surrounding the innovative core mechanics of this game.

My friends all laughed at me for getting hyped as this game’s release grew closer and closer...but lately they’ve all been playing it nonstop. Who’s laughing now, eh?

RPing

Because of Legends, I haven’t been here or on many of my blogs as much recently. I hate to admit this because I know it sounds kind of petty, but here’s my other gripe: I cannot believe how neither Barry nor Jupiter (the two Sinnohan muses I play) received any attention in the game, not even a cameo!! I mean, Melli could maybe be considered Jupiter’s “ancestral double,” but I dunno. I know it’s not a big deal, but Mars, Saturn and Charon got theirs--where the heck is Jup? And don’t get me started on this game’s inexcusable Barry deficiency. He better be in some DLC. Please.

So, yeah, with those two characters being excluded, I don’t feel especially compelled to give them ancestor verses right now (since their status might change in the future) and I don’t think my future-minded portrayals of Jup or Eris would fit very well in a Hisuian world anyways, but maybe I could change my mind if I think of the right angle.

Understandably, the dash is filled with overwhelming amounts of Hisuian muse/content as of late (which I fully support, we got good food with these games and I love reading everyone’s verses, new canon characters and OCs!!) I also want to try writing some PLA stuff and I want to interact with the Hisuian characters on my dash (now that I can), I’m just having such difficulty imagining Jup fitting into Hisui, which is tragic because her MODERN muse is still fresh on my mind. ><

If anyone is getting an informal PLA verse, it’ll be Barry, no ancestor. Just Barry, falling out of a portal like Ingo, with similar memory loss symptoms. Until he gets the rep he deserves, I want to play Barry just trying his goddamn best to brighten up a brave new world. I will always get behind that idea. He’s coming.

#ooc #pla spoilers #long post #('who asked' inc)#(whew!! good game is good...save for the two major omissions!!)#(also if this ramble sounds bitter in ANY way it is not supposed to be!)#(i just needed to type this out to figure out a future direction for my muses!)#tbd

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worm-man-gaming · 3 years

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My top 10 list for who I WANT as DLC in Smash

We’re reaching the end of an era. Smash Ultimate’s DLC is going to end eventually, with four more characters to be announced. They could release some kind of ‘Echo Pack’ in the future, which I would be hyped about (They didn’t really do much with the echo fighter mechanic), But I have a feeling that after this, there won’t be any more. So I wanted to post my list of who I, specifically, would like to see in the game.

This is not based off of likelihood, as some of these characters probably don’t even have a chance of making it in. I just think they would be neat.

Full list under the cut, counting up from #10

- Papyrus (UNDERTALE)

Okay, so hear me out.

We got the Sans mii skin, and that was by far one of the most popular mii skins since Geno, probably. People were more excited for the Sans mii skin than Terry Bogard and maybe even Banjo. They probably made a lot more money than expected from it. So why not try it again?

And while Sans is the popular character, he definitely is not a fighter. He’s a lazy, laid back character that just wants to have fun, but he’s far too weak to go into an all-out battle without risking his own safety.

HOWEVER!

Sans’s brother, Papyrus, is the polar opposite. He’s dedicated, hardworking, and can take quite a few hits. He’s got plenty of moveset opportunity. And it would be another indie rep, which is really really good for someone like me, who wants to go into game design.

Another thing: When we got the Cuphead mii skin, we also got Cuphead Spirits. They could have easily done that with Undertale, there’s enough characters. So maybe they’re saving it for a DLC Spirit board? I don’t know, just a theory.

He would be primarily a ground-based fighter, with projectiles that could crawl across the stage like that one sparky item. He could also use his blue attack, which could be good for an easy spike on airborne characters. And, who knows, maybe for his final smash we could finally see his special attack.

I really enjoy Undertale, and seeing Sans as a mii skin made me super happy. Getting a whole fighter from the series would be even cooler.

- Paper Mario (Super Paper Mario)

Nintendo, we’ve got three whole Links in this game, but only two Marios? Preposterous!

With that being said, Super Paper Mario was one of my favorite Wii games (Although I didn’t play it until very recently) And it’s a very popular series. He’s essentially his own character separate from Mario at this point. The games have so much lore put into them, and we already have a Paper Mario Stage in the game, so maybe we could get Dimentio’s dimension, or the Origami Palace or something.

He’s been in enough games and done enough crazy things to earn a pretty diverse kit for himself. He could use Pixils, the 1000-Fold arms, or even summon Paper Bowser, Peach and Luigi for some attacks.

I think he would be super fun to play. I’m terrible at vanilla Mario, but I think Paper Mario would be a good fit for the game AND be a super good-feeling character. However, this comes from a G&W main, so take from that what you will.

- King Boo (Luigi’s Mansion)

I 👏 want 👏 more 👏 villains 👏 in 👏 Smash! 👏

King Boo is a staple of the Luigi’s Mansion series as well as being an enemy for Mario in some games like Sunshine. He’s the Big Bad Evil Guy for Luigi.

And I DEFINITELY want him in this game.

It’s not so much the character himself, although King Boo is really good, I want him in for his kit. Think about it. A large character but with floaty jumps like Jigglypuff and an aerial based moveset AND a teleport? He’d be ruthless. And really fun. And that’s what I’m looking for in a character.

- BOTW Zelda (Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity)

Yes, I know. “But Worm, the Zelda we have now is annoying and awful, and you say you want ANOTHER one?!?!?” Well, you’re half right.

Yes, Zelda is known for her darkness-sealing powers in BOTW, BUT, in the recent Age of Calamity game, her moveset for almost have the game revolves around the Sheikah Slate. She uses it creatively, hopping around on ice and whirling metal slabs around with a magnet. And I think that would be a SUPER cool moveset for Smash Bros.

And who knows, maybe they would call back to older games and allow her to switch to using her powers, like Zelda used to change into Sheik.

She would be very technical, with her attacks being powerful but with some startup, almost similar to Snake of all characters. And for her final smash she could use a Weak Point Smash or they could bring back Bow of Light (Which was MUCH more fair than the current one, by the way). She’d be fun, and that’s what I want.

- Maxwell (Scribblenauts)

Maxwell is from Scribblenauts, a game where you have to solve puzzles by writing words in a notebook and those words coming to life. So he’s work in the same way in Smash, although much more randomized.

For his neutral special, maybe he could write a random item and it shows up in his hand. That would be funny AND cool, and it’s possible (because Peach does the same thing with Turnips!). He could use projectiles but also have plenty of close range options, and for a Final Smash he could use the Meteor, which in the game clears the screen of living things. Brutal! He also uses Adjectives on both his creations AND himself, so maybe for some moves he could effect the other opponent with a poison or freeze effect.

Would he be banned in competitive play? Yes. Would he still be fun? Definitely!

- Jibanyan (Yo-Kai Watch)

I may be in the minority here, but I REALLY liked Yo-Kai Watch as a game. It may seem like a cheap Pokemon ripoff, but the gameplay is nothing like it at all. You’re given a map to explore and various objectives within the map, and the battle system is really creative and fun. It’s actually the inspiration for some of my own games. Yo-Kai watch deserved more credit than it got.

Jibanyan is the poster boy for the series (and also has the saddest backstory of any cat-based character ever), and mainly attacks with both his paws and fire attacks. He could have fire-based moves and would almost play similar to Pichu. His final smash could be Paws of Fury, his soultimate move, that would hit like Donkey Kong’s final smash as a flurry of blows.

This series is really well made and thought out, and it deserves more than it got. So please put my boy in Smash, I’m begging you.

- Specter Knight (Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment)

Okay, yes. I know Shovel Knight is the main character of this series. But again, hear me out.

Specter Knight is either the first or second boss you encounter in the main Shovel Knight game, and he’s already got some moveset potential from that alone. However, he also had his own story mode, Specter of Torment, ad let me say, that is a phenomenal game. I’d go so far as to say it’s better than the main Shovel Knight game itself. His controls are quick and easy to pick up. And he has a whole bunch of special abilities you can get as the game progresses, such as a boomerang or even a shadow clone.

His smash moveset would pull most of the specials from the unlockable items he can get, leaving room for an incredible spacing game as well as a good aerial defense, as Specter Knight can both float and do a Dash Slash through enemies for some extra air time.

Shovel Knight is the main character, but Specter Knight obviously has the most soul put into him (Pun not intended). And, again, he’d be fun to control.

- Master Hand / Fighter Hand (Super Smash Bros. Series)

This is mostly me just being mad at the game for giving us a playable Master Hand, but only once. We couldn’t have even gotten a Master Mode in extras, huh?

Yes, yes, I know Master Hand is the staple boss character for Smash Bros. He’s been in every game, for crying out loud! I’m honestly surprised it took them this long to give us a playable Master Hand. But this leads into my idea:

A new hand, made specifically to fight in Smash Bros, called Fighter Hand.

Yes, it’s cheesy. Yes, it’s stupid. But hey, it would be fun.

He would have scaled-down versions of Master Hand’s moves, with mainly projectile-based specials and tilts. He would be floaty, although introducing a flying character would be interesting to see how they balance it. For a final smash, maybe they could bring back Master Core from Smash 4 for a Giga Bowser-esque punch.

- The Knight (Hollow Knight)

Hollow Knight is an Indie Game that I never finished (I’m working on it, okay?) that’s kind of like Metroid in the way it’s played. It's also a very popular game, and I like bugs, so they get the number two spot because I like him.

And the special Soul moves you unlock translate well into Specials. Platformers always translate well into Smash, so he would work very well in the game. I don’t know what their moveset would be (as I haven’t finished the game yet), but I know they would be a small, fast character that mainly uses their nail to attack like a sword.

And my most wanted character in Super Smash Brothers: Ultimate is...

- Beatrix LeBeau (Slime Rancher)

Okay, look. I’m aware this has zero chance of happening. Slime Rancher was never the most popular game, and Nintendo has never mentioned it ever. But it’s one of my favorite games, and I just think Beatrix would be an incredible character in Smash Bros.

She would use her jetpack to recover, she would shoot plorts as projectiles, use he vacpac to suck up both fighters and projectiles, and maybe shoot a boom slime as an explosive and unpredictable bouncing hazard. Her smash attacks and aerials would use the various slimes you can vacuum up and feed in the game, like the Rad Slime and Rock Slimes. She would be really good offstage and onstage with her weakness being her speed.

She could bring a LOT to this series, and it would be another inspirational indie rep. And, hey, Minecraft Steve got in. Who knows at this point.

Anyway, there’s my list. Feel free to argue with me or explain why Geno should be on my list (I will not care) in the comments or reblogs, this list is not changing unless I play some new game that I feel should be represented.

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kittmoon · 4 years

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Breath of the Wild: A Cannonical Timeline of Events Leading up to the Calamity (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a three-part post laying out the cannon timeline of events in BOTW that led up to the Great Calamity. A while ago, I typed up a timeline to use as a reference for BOTW writing in my Google docs, but I figured it may be useful to other people who struggle with the same slog of remembering what happened when.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Reminder that this is a long post, and that all events that are listed are taken from:

The original 13 memories

The separate diaries of Zelda and her father

Zelda’s research journal

The Champion’s Ballad DLC, which includes additional memories + diary entries from each of the four champion pilots

Masterworks/Creating a Champion, which discusses things like specific routes taken upon Calamity Ganon’s return.

KEY

🔸Rigidly Cannon

🔺Some Interpretation Needed

🔹Mostly Interpretive

🔸Subdued Ceremony

This is a ceremony for Link’s official appointment as Zelda’s knight. This can really be told from anyone’s perspective. Keep in mind that different characters will feel different emotions regarding this ceremony - no champion here feels the same.

🔸Revali’s Flap

I actually love this scene, because it shows just how much “being a Champion” can affect people differently. Revali and Link are polar opposites here.

🔸Resolve and Grief

The purpose of Link and Zelda’s outing is debatable (🔹) - they likely are on their way to Goron City, considering the next event(s) in the timeline, but they may also just be out doing research. It’s up to the writer. Their conversation during this scene is rather isolated from whatever their goal is, so it doesn’t really matter.

🔸Daruk’s Mettle

Before this scene, it’s stated in Daruk’s training journal that Link helped Daruk figure out piloting by simply shoving him into the divine beast and letting him explore it on his own. Although Link doesn’t show much emotion here, it’s important to have the underlying knowledge that he and Daruk are good friends.

🔺More Shrines are Uncovered

It’s around this time that more shrines are being discovered - relics of the battle 10,000 years ago. Purah’s theory is that the Hero of Legend is destined to access the shrines in preparation for the Calamity’s return, possibly with the Sheikah slate. That said, I truly don’t know why Link was never given a shot at opening the shrines himself. This could merely have been because Zelda was too afraid to give him the chance to accomplish yet another thing that she couldn’t. There’s also a possibility that Link did try opening the shrines and it still didn’t work (in which case, why did it work 100 years later? - a possible theory via Zeltik on YT). Edit: I recently put together a theory that explains how Purah and Zelda didn’t understand the full mechanics of the slate/shrines/towers. Check it out to get a better idea.

🔸Zelda’s Resentment

How did she get away from Link long enough to make it to the Anciet Columns? I have no clue. I’ve read that she simply left while he was packing up camp, another story said that she slipped him a sleeping drug. Writers, man.

🔺Link Gets Into Gerudo Town with Urbosa’s Help

Cannon, but not delved into. Urbosa states in her diary that she told Link “a way” to sneak in - it can be assumed that she meant cross dressing, but it can be whatever the writer wants. Maybe she just told Link about a secret passage into town. Regardless, however he gets into town, he doesn’t find Zelda.

🔸Urbosa’s Hand

Urbosa lets Link know that Zelda has come to Vah Naboris, and he makes his way there (not quite sure how he climbed the thing). Urbosa takes the opportunity to tell Link about Zelda’s struggle to conquer her powers, and when finished, she orders Link to guard the Princess with his life. This is Urbosa, mind - while they’re all technically on the same level as “Champions”, Urbosa is definitely Link’s superior, spiritually if not literally. This adds another layer of necessity to Link’s duty - not only to protect Zelda, but to stop the Calamity.

🔸Blades of the Yiga

Again, it’s unknown how Zelda got away from Link. Either way, Zelda regards this event in her diary as a relative turning point in her relationship with him.

🔺Zelda Apologizes to Link

This presumably happed soon after, although what she says and how Link handles it is entirely up to interpretation. Keep in mind that she isn’t just apologizing for constantly abandoning him and making his job harder - she’s apologizing for assuming he was shallow and obnoxious, and has the mindset of trying to get to know him better.

🔸A Premonition

A big battle theoretically took place before this scene, but Link only came away with one major wound - do with that as you may.

🔸Silent Princess

Personally one of my favorites. Zelda is at Peak Dork here. Link’s emotions could honestly range from crushing and bashful to beyond annoyed - up to the writer.

🔺Mipha Completes the Lightscale Armor

A bit tragic, yeah. To her credit, it does fit Link perfectly, even 100 years later. She plans to propose to Link when he next visits Zora’s Domain.

🔸Mipha’s Touch

Even more tragic. Similar to Daruk’s Mettle(🔸), keep in mind that Link and Mipha have a long history of knowing each other, which can be hard to remember since Link is mostly unresponsive in this memory. Mipha’s POV would be interesting here, especially since she intended to propose properly and ultimately didn’t.

🔸Shelter from the Storm

This is an interesting scene to write for a few author’s I’ve met, because in this memory we see Zelda actively ask Link a complex question. Although the memory fades, Link presumably responded - with what? That could range wildly. (🔹)

🔺Link Opens Up to Zelda

Link admits that the burden of the sword requires him to remain impassive on the surface. This conversation may have happened during the previous memory.

🔸Father and Daughter

Zelda’s emotions are pretty straightforward here, but Link’s aren’t nearly as clear. If anything, this scene shows that although he has opened up more to Zelda, he still knows his formal place. This is the last time Zelda ever speaks to her father, as he dies when the Calamity hits.

🔸Slumbering Power

Zelda openly questions her faith here. Angst is high. She honestly just needs a hug. Once again, there’s a cliffhanger - Link turns to look at her, obviously switching from his duty of being turned away. Why is up to the writer. He’s been listening, so what does he think?

🔸To Mount Lanayru

Zelda turns 17 the next day. She and Link return to the castle before journeying to Mt. Lanayru - this is where Zelda inputs her final entry in her diary, and where she has her dream about a woman looking at her through the light. She continues to question her faith.

🔺The Champions See Link and Zelda Off

Urbosa, Daruk, and Mipha all met Link and Zelda at the foot of Mt. Lanayru to see them off on their journey to the Spring of Wisdom. Revali doesn’t join them, saying he’s busy but will likely meet them on their way back down. We see him there with the others before Calamity Ganon returns.

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mooudini · 3 years

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So because I'm a healthcare worker I haven't had much time recently to myself but my boss at the clinic today gave me the day off because of a snow storm in my area and after MONTHS I was finally able to finish Age Of Calamity in full! I wasn't a huge fan of the first Hyrule Warriors so I didn't expect to like this installment as much, but the ending truly made me SOB. It was very good, highly recommend. Can't wait for the DLC and BOTW 2!

#my post #loz #legend of zelda #age of calamity #ps. POOR LITTLE TERRAKO!

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rainbowdonkee · 4 years

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With 2019 coming to an end, I wanted to make a list of my personal top 10 video games that came out this decade. I was 12 in 2010, and now being 21 video games have always been important to me! Many of the games that are the most dearest to me sadly came out before 2010 (HG/SS barely made the cut with the NA release). I tried to not make recent releases be part of my bias (FE3H lol), plus there were many games such as Bioshock 2, Fallout New Vegas, DA2, ACNL, and many more that I love but this list would have been too long!

1. Dark Souls (2011)

2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

3. Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (NA 2010)

4. NieR Automata (2017)

5. Final Fantasy XV (2016)

6. Bloodborne (2015)

7. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (2017)

8. Astral Chain (2019)

9. Granblue Fantasy (2014)

10. Deemo (2013)

Dark Souls: Although I haven’t really completed the game personally, I’ve seen many playthroughs and videos about the story and characters. Hidetaka Miyazaki is absolutely awesome in creating those fantasy worlds and characters, everything that Dark Souls ended up influencing was pretty groundbreaking. And the OST is always enjoyable to hear again.

Breath of the Wild: This game took quite a long time for Nintendo to release, and when it finally came out on the final year of the WiiU and the birth of the Switch... it was pretty emotional. Also to realize that Iwata-san never made it to see the rise of Nintendo’s success after the failure of the WiiU gets me everytime, but I hope he sees all the smiles and joy BOTW has brought since its release. The game changed not only what is a LOTZ game but what is an open world, I’ve played it twice and each time I picked it up was a new experience.

Pokemon HG/SS: This game was released around Fall 2009 in Japan, but for NA it was out in March 2010. I still remember the anticipation for Spring Break to arrive in order to spend all my week playing it! I never had the chance to play the original Gold/Silver, so everything was new to me. My 12 year old mind almost exploded when I ended up finishing the Johto League only to find out we were ALSO traveling to Kanto!!! I was shook! This game is amazing, and I’ll forever wait for them to somehow add our Pokemons following us around, that mechanic was so cute! And of course the OST is golden, and I can always listen to it and be brought back to those days.

NieR Automata: I never played any of the past NieR games (although I was aware of their existence). The first trailer I ever watched had the “Become as Gods” song so I was hooked from the start! And learning that PlatinumGames and Square Enix both developed the game made me hyped for its release. I love everything about it, the characters, story, music, themes. By the time I finished the game, it had brought me into a journey of questioning so many heavy topics about life...I really wasn’t expecting that about a game. Not going to lie it may or may not have brought me a mini existential crisis but with a game made my Yoko Taro can’t be too surprised.

Final Fantasy XV: The game I so often heard fabled tales since as back as 2009 and the hype was just building up for this game! I remember going to the movie theater when they were having special screenings for the Kingsglaive movie (I dragged my friend, little brother, and mom lol). The game went through so much, many cuts and changes were made but I personally ended up liking what we got. Still super sad that many unreleased DLC’s were cut off, but the love I have for the characters and music will always stay.

Bloodborne: Hey another Miyazaki game, what can you say...the man just makes brilliant games. He took everything I love about gothic, victorian era, and Lovecraftian esque and made this extraordinary game. I’m here hoping that maybe this 2020 we can hear a slither of news of Bloodborne 2, the theme for this game is too good for them to leave it as only one game.

Fire Emblem Echoes SoV: After the train wreck that was Fates, I literally was not expecting for us to get another FE title so soon! Japan waited 2 years for Echoes but thanks to localization giving us Fates in 2016, we got SoV a year later. I never heard of Fire Emblem Gaiden, before this game I never played any of the Japan only FE games, so when news was coming out about this title I tried 100% to AVOID it. Why? Because this was the first time I could start a FE game without personally knowing anything about it, and when I first played it, right from the start it felt so different, it didn’t felt like a Fire Emblem game (which isn’t bad at all). With the new art direction it also felt like a whole new world, I love Hidari and I hope we get to see them more in future FE games. The game had a simple plot which I didn’t held it against them, I knew this was a remake, and personally I’m glad they didn’t added things like an Avatar or S-Supports. They stayed true to its original source, and SoV will stay as my personal favorite FE game. Also Heritors of Arcadia will be the best vocal theme we got in FE series.

Astral Chain: Oh snap another PlatinumGames IP? This developers are just too good! Astral Chain came out of nowhere although I’ve heard it was worked on for a long time, supposedly even before NieR Automata was developed. I really enjoyed the game very much, from all the 2019 games that came out it caught my eye and I went in with not too many expectations but I had a good time. The story took a crazy turn and I could see some similar themes as NieR Automata but it held its own ground to become unique. The fighting mechanics were so much fun to play and the music was also awesome! I wish more people talked about this game since it is Nintendo’s new IP. I hope we can get the twins for Smash Ultimate!

Granblue Fantasy: I first new anything about Cygames back in 2016 when I saw the OP for Rage of Bahamut. After Seeing the OP for season 2, seeing Azazel in all his glory I knew I had to watch the anime! Luckilly Rage of Bahamut season 2 was continuing in 2017 so I was able to catch up just in time for its final 10 episodes. I LOVE Azazel and Kaisar and of course ROB Lucifer! Then to my surprise I found out about GBF, and I was dumb and thought the app was unavailable in the west which is technically true since you need a Japanese account to download the app which has an ENG text option. So it wasn’t until 2018 that I downloaded the game and started my journey through the sky. This gacha game literally changed what is a gacha game to me, the developers listen to fans, the community is fun, and just everything about this franchise is so great. I’m not a hardcore player so I’m not too worry about grids, I’m here for the cute husbands. (Lancelot, Sandalphon, Albert, Grimnir I lov u).

Deemo: I love this game, one of the best app games I’ve ever had. Back in the day I used to play TapTap Revenge and that was my first taste of rhythm games, Deemo brought me back to those types of apps. Whenever I was anxious I could always play this game and pass the time while keeping my mind busy. Plus without Deemo I would have never known artist’s such as Mili. The game is on the Switch which I’m so happy because I was able to just get all the songs without flooding my tablets storage space.

#i won't explain why these are my favs since it will literally turn into an essay #fire emblem echoes shadows of valentia #fire emblem echoes #dark souls #darksouls #botw #loz #the legend of zelda #pokemon heartgold #pokemon soulsilver #ffxv #nier automata #top 10 #bloodborne #astral chain #gbf #deemo #video games #list

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watermelinoe · 4 years

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S/S was so lacking. I thought the big empty field you kept retuning to was incredibly boring tbh. It just made the world so very small. I also wasn't that fond of the new gym styles and with dragon being my fav type and s/s having no cool new ones and the actual nice ones once again put at the very end of the game it was just disappointing. I still haven’t actually finished it nor do I want to and with the basegame being what it was I don’t feel like spending money on dlc. 1/4

same! it seemed cool at first but there just wasn’t much of anything to do and honestly not that many pokemon to catch :/ and yeah i’m not exactly a big sports fan, it seems like... kind of weird, is there a big overlap b/w football/soccer fans and pokemon fans? just a strange choice. i think i got towards the end of the game and kind of stopped. i really can’t see myself spending money on the dlc

Links lack of expression during cutscenes I just put down to actual brain damage/amnesia, it made sense to me at the time. He does show emotion at other points in time and to step into a world after a 100 year nap must be hard. But LoZ can get away with a lot in my eyes. I don’t think we ever looked at the trailer for WW or anything. It was more like, oh new official LoZ game, of course we’re gonna buy it. Which is admittedly still do with all things LoZ. 2/4

that makes sense, i just loved how expressive he was in past games and i feel like he should’ve at least reacted to the champions, esp mipha, and zelda at the end of the game... felt like he was more excited abt his own cooking than reuniting with her lmao. but yeah i’m inherently biased in favor of loz games. i think people were upset bc they had this tech demo with a more realistic link, and then the actual game ended up being this cartoon-like style. i’m glad people warmed up to it.

There’s a lot of fun switch games, hopefully she’ll find something that suits her. I admire your restraint tbh. Even with LoZ I’ve spent plenty of time swearing at the tv, most recently involving all things lynel and/or guardian and pls link would you runnn. Or basically any 'high stakes' moment in game. All Nintendos games are aimed at new players I feel, which makes sense in a money way but it's downright rude to loyal fans and rather disappointing 3/4

yeah i think she’ll branch out! :) i know i get too worked up abt stuff sometimes so i try to... avoid doing that. i definitely swore during those stealth missions in botw, especially that stupid little korok.... i was like ok buddy you’re lucky you’re cute or i would make you into a salad >:( and yeah i don’t mind that they switch up the formula in their games, but at some point it’s like you’re not even making a paper mario game at this point. and the whole arts and crafts gimmick has already been a thing since kirby’s epic yarn... i see the new paper mario and i’m like hmm. i could be playing yoshi’s crafted world lmao

I really hope that the article I messaged you about earlier is a leak and that we’ll get SS around the next big holiday. Or better yet, next week or so. Glad to hear (read?) you’re doing okay! I’ll keep my fingers crossed that everythings good at your check-up. The heatwave is finally dissipating here so I'm starting to return back to my functional human self. - pokenon 4/4

i hope so, too!! and thank you :) my checkup went really well *and* i got dairy queen after. but now that i’ve got the all clear i should... actually start exercising. it’d be nice to go to yoga again but. well. anyway that’s great to hear! hope things stay good over there!

#answered #pokenon tag #loz

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pigletsbigmovie · 6 years

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my brother got a switch recently as a graduation gift so ive finally gotten to play botw and im not finished w/ the game but THOUGHTS!! also spoilers obviously

ive heard ppl say that the champions are rly underutilized and that the plot of botw overall is rly.. Eeeeehhh............ and having gotten pretty far in the game i kind of agree which is so disappointing bc there is so much potential there for a rly good and heartwrenching story!!

like link and the champions failing to save hyrule?? link having been asleep for a 100 years while zelda was left to stave off ganon all on her own? zelda growing up knowing she’s destined to save hyrule only to be unable to access the powers she’s supposed to have and feeling like a failure bc of it???? SADSTUCK

the part when you find out that the champions were trapped in their divine beasts, powerless to do anything but fight off the blight ganons until they died and even in death they were still trapped in spirit form in the divine beasts waiting for a 100 years to be freed so they could finally fulfill their duty.....

when i got to that i remember getting this awful sinking feeling... i was so disturbed bc yknow!! that’s Fucked UP!!!! IT’S SAD!!! and to know that all those elements didnt come together to make a rly satisfying story suuucks.... and i rly dislike it when stories waste rly interesting characters.... like ive freed 3 out of the 4 divine beasts (mipha, daruk, and revali’s) and of those 3 only mipha’s story was the only one that felt developed and it was the only one that made me rly feel anything and even then i think they couldve done more

especially with making connections to the new allies/”champions”?? like sidon was alright bc he’s mipha’s brother. there’s already an established connection and since the zora have rly long lives, a lot of the zora from a 100 years ago who knew mipha are still alive and that makes her death feel very real and tragic but then you’ve got daruk and yunobo and?? ok so yunobo and daruk are also related but yunobo didnt know daruk personally so there needs to be a better motivation for yunobo...... but yunobo’s motivation is... Not There?? you just tell him you’re gonna free the divine beast and he’s like “Oh no im Scared!! oh well i’ll go help you now!!!”???? he takes no convincing at all?? like i see theres kind of a desire to prove himself and to live up to his ancestors?? but that is baaarely there touched on the only reason daruk’s cutscene where he waves at yunobo made me sad was because i was remembering how mipha wanted to see her dad again and she doesnt even get to have that and she deserves better

then revali and teba are worse!! like teba wants to deal with the divine beast bc it’s terrorizing the village but?? it doesnt feel personal at all like you could replace teba with literally any other rito with wildly different personality traits and the story wouldnt be heavily affected bc what normal average decent person would want a giant ancient robot attacking their home? so my reaction to teba was rly just ok you’re cool but also Who the Fuck ARe You?????

there’s this whole theme of the new allies paralleling the champions... but they dont make the most of it!! i think it wouldve been interesting for us to learn more about the champions by drawing more parallels between the champions and the new allies... like maybe while link is interacting with them he gets flashbacks to his time with each champion i dont have All the memories but from what i have im assuming that each champion gets One memory each... which is sooo........ nooo. i want to know more about the champions and their motivations and their relationship to link and zelda!!!

and maybe even having the champions interact with the new allies, calling out to them for help.... asking them to help link free them... asking them to finish what they died trying to...... in a passing of the torch kind of way that wouldve felt more emotional and personal.... and maybe “reviving” the memory of the champions in the races who grew to forget them like the goron and rito... it would establish a connection bc as it is they dont have any? the goron and rito’s relationship with their respective champions is basically just “Yeah i heard of them”.... so their deaths dont feel as Real as mipha’s death is to the zora i know there’s still the champion’s ballad dlc but... we shouldve gotten some of this in the Main Game....we shouldnt have to learn more about Important Characters in extra and completely optional content

anyway this is a lot and i heard urbosa’s story is pretty good so im excited to get to that. and also despite this Long Rant i still am really enjoying the game!!!! i thought i would be completely overwhelmed by an open world game but it’s actually really fun! it just saddens me knowing it could be so much better... oh well i guess thats what fanfic is for lol

#this is so long hrlkajjlasf i just get sad when a story has a cool ensemble cast of characters and then they dont do anything w/ them #ten2 talks #botw spoilers --

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lotuslia · 3 years

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I finished BotW last night 🌻✨🌻 it was so good. I've still got a lot of sidequests and shrines left but it felt bad to make Zelda wait for so long shdkgk lmao

I'll probably get the dlc once I pay all my bills for this month, it seems really fun! I really want Link's awakening too but it's so expensive... I'm ridiculously excited for botw2 whenever it comes out

I'll maybe get HWAoC for christmas since I showed it to mom when she asked and I know for a fact she's buying a game for my brother 👀👀 very excited for that.

I've been watching playthroughs of loz games recently since i've only ever played Twilight princess, OoT (unfinished), Spirit Tracks, Link between worlds and now botw.

#sheep rambles

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sage-nebula · 6 years

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do you have any thoughts or headcanon on BOTW Link's past? I know his father is a night but I wish the game would tell us about his life growing up and how they knew he was the chosen hero. ( This is my first zelda game so I don't know how they generaly explain things like this)

Hey! So, apologies for the fact that I’ve been sitting on this for a couple days, but I wanted to wait until I finished the Champions’ Ballad DLC just in case there was new information about Link in it.

In regards to your parenthetical: They don’t generally tell you very much about Link’s history in the games, no. The Legend of Zelda series is an action/adventure series, meaning that although most of the games have a story, the emphasis isn’t actually put on the story (and thus isn’t on the characters). Rather, the focus is always on the gameplay, to the point where the developers actually come up with the core concepts they want to explore via gameplay first, and then write a story to incorporate those concepts (rather than crafting gameplay mechanics to suit the story). We can see this in Breath of the Wild, actually; they wanted to recreate the feel of the very first Legend of Zelda game, particularly with regards to exploration, and they wanted to create a game where the player could do just about anything they wanted, whenever they wanted. This was the very first concept which inspired them to make Breath of the Wild, and so they crafted a narrative which would suit that concept. Thus, the post-apocalyptic Hyrule that we know and now love was born.

So to that end, we have that as our first reason for why Link’s backstory was never focused on very much in previous games. The second reason is that Link is supposed to be a self-insert for the player. When Miyamoto Shigeru first created the character we know as Link, he named him Link because Link was supposed to be “a link between the player and the game”. The reason why Link is a silent protagonist is because the player is supposed to imprint their personality onto him. The reason why he is right-handed in recent games that don’t feature the (supposedly) 1:1 motion controls is because the majority of the world is right-handed. Although Link is always male, his appearance has become increasingly androgynous as time has gone on to make it easier for players to believe they are him. And though his default name is Link, in previous games you were always given the option to name him, with the idea being that you would input your own name into the name entry field. (The only reason why you aren’t given that option in Breath of the Wild is because of the voice acted lines.) The Legend of Zelda is a game series where you’re supposed to imagine yourself as the Hero, so just like we don’t learn anything about MC’s backstory or history in Mystic Messenger, much of what we learn about the various Heroes in The Legend of Zelda games is left open to the imagination, even when it comes to his personality. (This is really shown in Skyward Sword, where you do get dialogue choices, but those choices let you decide what his personality is like.)

So with all of that being said, the information we got was always limited. In A Link to the Past, for example, we learn that Link was descended from a line of knights (again), and that he lives with his uncle, who is a knight. In Ocarina of Time, we learn that Link’s mother was a Hylian woman who, dying from injuries due to the war, fled into the Kokiri Forest with him and entrusted him to the Great Deku Tree when he was an infant. In Wind Waker, we know that Link lives with his grandmother and his little sister, Aryll, on Outset Island, and that he loves them very much. We also learn that he is not descended from the Hero of Time. And once again, that’s all we learn. In Skyward Sword, we learn that he is childhood best friends with Zelda and that Groose is jealous of him, and also that he’s an orphan. And again … that’s it.

With the information being as sparse as it is, the fact that we know so little about Link in Breath of the Wild is unsurprising. All the same, thanks to the dairies especially, I feel that we actually know a bit more about him than we do about previous Heroes.

Canonical information for the Hero of the Wild:

His name is definitively Link, with no room to call him anything different.

He comes from a family of knights.

He is omnivorous, with a huge appetite (and yes, the omnivore bit is hard canon as of Daruk’s training journal, not just implied by what you can eat in game should you so choose it).

He met Mipha when he was four years old, and she was an adolescent; she saw him as an adorable child at the time as a result.

He … bested adult knights in swordplay when he was a four-year-old toddler … I guess.

When he was a toddler, he was energetic, bright, and rambunctious, resulting in him acquiring quite a few bruises but not losing his cheer.

He enjoyed swordplay even as a toddler and was always eager to challenge older knights to duels.

Sometime shortly after they met, Link left Zora’s Domain (since he was only there for a visit with other, adult knights), and didn’t return until over ten years later, when he was ~17. (Note: We know this because Mipha met him when he was four, yet then didn’t see him again until it was time for the Champions to be sought out. Thus, despite the main story making it seem as if they spent their entire childhoods together, Mipha’s diary makes it pretty clear they didn’t.)

When Link returned to Zora’s Domain when he was seventeen (and especially when he saved her from a Lynel), Mipha developed a crush on him.

Link’s friends (Zelda and Daruk) tried to get him to eat strange things (frogs and rocks) with varying levels of success.

Link was assigned to be Zelda’s appointed knight as a result of both being the Hero and the most skilled knight out of the entire force.

Link and Zelda did not get along at first because Zelda thought he was silently judging her for not being able to awaken their power, and was also salty at the idea of having an appointed knight in the first place.

Link started concealing his feelings and keeping his thoughts to himself once he pulled the Master Sword from its pedestal, because he felt the pressure of his role as the Hero and was afraid that revealing his feelings would let others down / disappoint / upset them. Thus, he thought it best to stay quiet.

Mipha asked Link why he was so quiet when he returned to Zora’s Domain as a young adult; he did not confide in her.

Zelda asked Link why he was so quiet when they were eating together one day; he did confide in her.

Revali resented Link for being the one chosen to fight Calamity Ganon, and for being so quiet all the time.

Daruk thought Link was super cool because Link wiped out a bunch of monsters by himself when they first met, and liked to eat a lot.

Link was very good with animals, and in particular he had a gift with horses.

Link sought out Urbosa when Zelda kept ditching him, and Urbosa gave him a tip on how to get into Gerudo Town (i.e. crossdressing). She also told him when Zelda was with her so that he could come seek them out.

The decorations Link can install in his house are places to hang weapons, and the picture of him and the other Champions + Zelda.

Honestly, this is a lot of information—far more than we have had about previous Heroes, even though there’s still so much left to the imagination. So with that said, I do have some headcanons, yeah:

I don’t buy, as you know, that Link, as a toddler, could defeat adult knights in swordplay. Rather, I prefer the explanation you provided that they let him think that he won, to boost his confidence, and bby!Link, not knowing any better, just told everyone that he beat them. However, by the time he got to be around ten or so, he was able to beat them, in part because he never stopped practicing due to the confidence boosts they gave him.

He really likes dogs, in addition to horses.

Both of his parents were knights, not just his father.

Both of them were very accomplished, and people often compared Link to his father. However, his mother was actually the one who took her duty more seriously, in the sense that she was always impressing on Link what an honor it was to be a knight, and what a burden such a duty was to carry, and how important it was to be worhty of the title, and so on and so forth. His father, while skilled, had more chill about it.

On top of impressing on him the weight of the duty of being a knight, his mother is the one who taught him survival skills, such as hunting and foraging for food in the wild, and how to throw something together in a pinch if you were out in the wilderness with no rations.

His father taught him actual recipes one would make in a home.

He forgot both of these things after waking up in the Shrine of Resurrection and had to learn all over again once awaking, RIP.

He always loved music and really wanted to learn how to play an instrument, but swordplay and knight training left him no time to learn. He grew a bit envious of the bard who would later become Kass’ teacher (who in turn was envious of him for being so close to Zelda).

When the Master Sword was discovered, all of the knights were given the task of trying to pull it free from the pedestal to see if they were worthy. Link was among the last (if not the very last) to try due to his young age. When he gripped the hilt, the blade gleamed with a faint blue glow; and when he gave it a tug, it slid free from the pedestal as if it had merely been cased in a sheath instead. The drawing of the Master Sword from the pedestal made it clear beyond doubt that he was the chosen Hero, and Link knew then that the burden he carried was far more than mere knighthood could grant him.

He always felt frustrated with Revali for being such a jerk to him all the time, not because Revali was a jerk, but because he couldn’t figure out why Revali was being a jerk.

He didn’t actually enjoy eating that rock that Daruk fed him. He just pretended he did so as not to hurt Daruk’s feelings. Think like how Hiccup forced himself to swallow that bit of raw fish in the first How to Train Your Dragon movie to make Toothless happy.

He put in work during his spare time to learn how to braid hair so that he could braid Zelda’s hair as a thank you for the times when she patched up his injuries, or else they just had downtime together.

He did develop feelings for her one hundred years in the past, but felt it wouldn’t be right for him to act on them since he was her appointed knight, and as such he never let them show.

One hundred years ago, he communicated often with the spirit of the Master Sword (Fi); she mostly spoke to him in dreams, but she would “speak” to him in waking times as well, in the form of a little ideas or words popping into his head that he knew, instinctively, were coming from his sword. One hundred years later this never happens, and though he can’t remember that it used to at first, he still feels a strong sense of loneliness that he can’t quite place all the same. (And when he gets the Master Sword back, he does remember, and wonders why she won’t speak to him, and wonders if it’s because he failed her one hundred years ago.)

He didn’t return Mipha’s feelings, but instead saw her as a childhood friend / sisterly figure (albeit it was a bit confusing to him whether he should think of her as an older sister, a sister around the same age as him, or a younger sister; his decision changed all over the place depending on the moment). He didn’t realize that she had feelings for him one hundred years in the past, and when he learns about this one hundred years later, he feels confused and awkward whenever it’s brought up. He really wishes Sidon and King Doraphan would stop bringing it up.

He can be quite snarky, particularly one hundred years later when he no longer has the memory to remember why he repressed himself so much one hundred years ago, and curses the goddesses (Din, Nayru, and Farore) a lot, in varying creative ways.

He hates snow, sand, and he especially hates the rain.

He’s not a fan of lava, either.

I could probably think of more if I had time, but yeah! That’s what I’ve got for now.

#pirates-and-princes17 #/#//#///#////#/////#botw spoilers #breath of the wild spoilers #link #hero of the wild

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st33d · 6 years

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Sandman

I’ve tried a lot of sandbox games over the past year. Mostly driven by acquiring a PC and leaving my Mac to its scheduled obsolescence. Playing games on a Mac is like playing Doom on a calculator. You celebrate that it works, it actually works, but it usually fails to be more than a proof of concept. When I switched back to a PC I discovered an entirely new realm of stubborn design. At least it wasn’t getting slower with each update and it deigned to play all manner of toys. Being quite turgid for roleplaying games I set about catching up with every RPG the Mac had denied me and checked out some more for good measure.

A common feature I discovered in many of these games is what I call the Back Breaker. You lift the game up high, then crash it down over your knee, broken. You are now free to explore the game how you choose - all of its secrets are laid bare. A lot of people get very upset at the inclusion of Back Breakers in what they hope will be a game with an ever ascending skill requirement. The notion that the audience is primarily there to explore is an insult - where, they ask, is the game? Personally I like this feature, I like that the end game is to become a god. This is why a lot of you will disagree with my assessments.

Skyrim

The sticking point for many people with this one is the combat. It’s dour grey-brown landscape invites a comparison to Dark Souls (I’ll get to that one in a bit) so people like Matt Lees will remark that Skyrim is an inferior counterpart. If you’re looking for tight combat in Skyrim, then like a 1st edition iPhone 5, you’re holding it wrong.

It insists you take it seriously over an unskippable introduction to the most tired hook that any roleplaying game can throw - the prison break. After shaking your screen as hard as it can with an assault by a dragon you are thrown into a scant and confusing interface in a land of ugly robotic people who are super fussy about what time they’re willing to sell things. On my 1st playthrough it got dark, so dark I couldn’t loot the mages I was killing for their expensive robes. I quit and rerolled a khajiit, purely because the wiki told me they had nightvision. It wasn’t until much later I discovered that there were many means of creating light, some of them causing fantastic AI behaviour (I nicknamed the spell Magelight; aggro-ball). Some short way into the terrible main quest line I thought, “sod this”, and went in search of the mage college to learn how to blow things up like some of the monsters were doing. This haphazard adventure was some of the best gameplay I’d ever encountered. A scared lowly girl-cat, picking her way through a hostile landscape in hope of learning real magic. Typical that when I finally arrived at the college I encountered the first blatant design wall in the shape of an unclimbable pillar that the college sat on. I barely had the mana to cast the spell that would prove me worthy to train there. A few hours later I was the archmage of the college. It would take many more hours before I mastered glitch-riding: taking the cereal box collision space of my horse and rubbing it against the prettiest parts of the scenery until it yielded to let me ride vertical. Out of the many hours of play the only real low point was getting turned into a vampire, I had to look up a wiki on how to cure it and reload many times because the quest to stop vampirism is broken.

There are many Back Breakers in Skyrim - I chose twin dremora lords that I chain-summoned to lock up the AI. But truly it is Skyrim’s pretty mountains and their unresolvable collision meshes that are the best. Only after hours of play does one develop an art for sniffing out details that defy edge-case-programming. Skyrim is a perfect mess. I know why they keep re-releasing it, they got lucky. One need only play the Dragonborn DLC to see Skyrim at its worst. It is a hard game to recommend, for it is not really a game, it is a thing both ugly and beautiful.

% out of 10

The Witcher 3

“Stick with it”, they say. Few games deserve such an epithet as this one. The controls are fiddly. One’s inventory is so dense with options that I didn’t realise that my potions refilled themselves until I’d nearly finished the game. After which my character sported full-body-priapism as I quaffed every decoction available. The turning point from hating this game to loving it was a side quest where a character caught Geralt off guard when being subject to the witcher’s advice - the townsfolk declared him a freak not because he was like Geralt, but because they were intolerant of homosexuals. I then got drawn further into the man’s drama. Every single story this game presents is trying to be Not So Simple. It’s a manifesto that leaks into the game’s bestiary that tells you not only what a monster likes for dinner, but your best tactics for killing it. But then, it’s Not So Simple as killing a monster, there is always another layer to each story.

It took at least three score hours of gameplay before I started skipping some of the many cutscenes. One of them was the infamous sex-on-a-stuffed-unicorn. It was a fault of the main storyline being so lackluster. I never really cared for Ciri, I found her even more fiddly to control than her tutor. But the extra layers that surround it: the Bloody Baron, stupidly shagging Keira Metz, the numerous detective scenes - they all carry this game. It is a shame it takes a few hours for it to reveal itself.

I must commend the map design for being sensible enough to be broken into several parts. You first explore a tutorial village before moving into war torn Velen and its haunting soundtrack. Here you work until you can gain passage to the north, the islands, and your home. Many sandboxes simply give you one map to conquer and contort it to stop you wandering into the final challenge. It’s refreshing to move on to a clean map, full of new challenges and surprises.

I couldn’t be arsed to play Gwent.

Trophy out of Archgriffin

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This game has three stages: Delight, Depression, and Exploration.

Delight

Oh wow, there’s so many things to do. And so many things interact with one another. The sense of discovery comes not only from reaching new locations, but also finding new ways for elements to interact. Of course wood burns. Of course burning creates an updraft. Of course metal conducts electricity. Even after many hours of play there are still new things to find. So strange that the game is as dense as it is... empty.

Depression

Ugh, I don’t have a horse and I’m in yet another blank area. Ugh, I lack just enough stamina to climb this mountain, I’ll have to start all over again. Ugh, I can’t stay in this area because I take damage and the food I eat to stop it only lasts ten minutes. Ugh, I complained about all of this online and everyone keeps saying, “I don’t have a problem, the game works fine for me, Git Gud.” As often as I meet people who have played this game in excess of 100 hours, I also meet people who have played it for less than 10. If you are unlucky, if you don’t make the right connections, if you don’t stumble upon the right thing, this game is truly depressing. Made more so by the amount of people who cannot fathom why anyone would have trouble with the game. And yet there are many that do. It is not really that they need to be better at games, it is merely because they have not found the Back Breakers. Or worse, they do not appreciate them.

Exploration

After needless hours of collecting (grinding) you find yourself in possession of armour. You upgrade the armour again and again and suddenly the cloud of depression is lifted (if it was ever there). You are free to explore any edge of the island, you simply need to wear the right threads. At this stage of the game you have found many secrets but still keep finding more. Korok seeds, the OCD baiting puzzles, become a delight to find. It’s hard to remember the game ever being frustrating, but it remains in the back of my mind. Zelda BotW has a hump, a hump that some people will feel very aggrieved to surmount. Do not be surprised when you hear of someone bouncing off this game - it really is torture for people with precious little play time or patience.

Perhaps I should say something about the shrine dungeons or the 4 beast dungeons. They exist. There, I said it.

96 out of 120

Path of Exile

I tried this many years ago on my Mac using some sort of Windows executable wrapper. It did not work. I tried again when I got my new PC, I was underwhelmed. I tried yet again two weeks ago - holy shit this is the best action RPG I’ve ever played. The fact that it’s also free is sort of a weird blessing. You can only buy cosmetics and extra slots, so it even has a total lack of pay-to-win going for it. At least they get to keep expanding and updating it, which is probably why my recent play through was so smooth.

Diablo 2 is one of my all time favourites. It’s a concise loop of murder, loot, sell. But not without flaws. It has cruft, tedium, and imbalance in spades.

Path of Exile shuffles the formula and bets the whole thing on loot. Skills are loot. Money is loot (you pay with scrolls and item modifying tools, no gold). Equipment is loot. Yet playing it like Diablo is quite a silly thing to do - you get almost nothing from items you try to sell to vendors, so you no longer make trips back and forth with junk items. Leveling up is spent on a massive passive skill tree shared by all the classes, so the game sees no need to forestall leveling because it’s not the gatekeeper of mechanics. The items are. This occurs by way of gems that you socket into items, a bit like Diablo 2 and 3, but instead of boring damage bonuses you get entirely new mechanics. If you play with several characters in the same league they can share these items as well (providing they are strong enough to wield them). A mere ten levels into the game I had a full on rave of undead surrounding my witch character like she was the hottest new DJ at a halloween party.

I refrained from playing on hardcore because the game is online only and my internet sucks, but the game does boast a challenge that is mandatory hardcore. A multi-part dungeon that rewards you with a new section for your skill tree. Complete it without dying and you get to specialise. This is further complicated by deadly treasure rooms you must salvage keys from in order to unlock the many chests at the end. This was quite an exciting challenge with real stakes and real swearing when I let my greed get the better of me.

So what of its flaws? It takes a few goes to shake off the Diablo conditioning, so it’s not until you hit act 2 and try again from scratch that you figure out a strategy for building a character. The passive skill tree has a handy search feature and after I typed “minion” into it I was determined to carve a path through the best parts. If you don’t plan your route, you miss out on your mana rocketing back to full, your health restoring, or in my case: zombie disco. It’s online only and if you insist on playing over the weekend it can be a very choppy experience. The chat is a sewage pipe, a stream of edgelord douchebaggery. Go into the options and turn it off. I’ve yet to meet anyone that wants to form a party and every time I look at it I’m certain I don’t want to. There’s little to say of the story, it’s not bad though. I appreciate that it doesn’t try to get in the way like Diablo 3′s did. Perhaps if they had taken their loot thesis a step further they could have buried it in the game’s items. Then all this hoarding would have expanded into something like an archaeology dig. A missed opportunity.

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O out of Shiny Armour

Shadow of Mordor

It’s quite cool and exciting to begin with. We’re in Mordor with lots of grim orcs and cool cutscenes, and... is that a bush? Oh okay, it just popped into existence. Nevermind. Well at least sneaking around is fun... my finger hurts a lot though because they want me to hold down the trigger button for ages. Yeah, ganking orcs is cool, it’s real fun shooting them in the head... oh, I have to do these crappy sword fights where I only press two buttons throughout the whole thing.

This game is like someone who seems fascinating and pretty from afar, but soon as you talk to them at length you begin to realise that they’re quite boring. They just say the same thing over and over. It’s a sausage party that gets slowly more off putting as I play. The developers don’t even seem to know that women exist outside of being trophies or reasons to be angry about stuff. The main draw in this game is apparently the battles with the orc leaders, which I found to be the most boring part of the game. I hated the sword combat and it kept dragging me back to it. After doing every arrow and dagger challenge I could find on the map I left the game and never played it again.

Gollum out of Mordor

Dark Souls

in my game Ending I structured the second level so that the player would step forward and get a slap to the face in the shape of an unfair death. This was my opening salvo, death is your education. So after persisting with Dark Souls I’m somewhat nonplussed. I get it. By repeatedly killing the player they form a mental map of the area. By repeatedly killing the player they encourage experimentation.

Except that this doesn’t always work. There has to be some investment on the behalf of the player or this magic completely fails. If the player feels like they can walk away, they will. And they do. It’s why I believe Dark Souls is such a hit with game reviewers, they are beholden to persist, and in doing so the game makes a believer of them.

I on the other hand couldn’t care less. A tedious march through the same janky fights to get to the same boss I still don’t understand is nothing more than that. I tried a variety of combat techniques, from trying to interrupt attacks, to blocking, to evading, all of it very unsatisfying. What little progress I made illuminated the premise, to internalise the map and hone my skills, but I was not impressed. I enjoyed not one second of it, I only endured. I experimented and I explored, but never was I delighted.

The very worst thing that Dark Souls has given us is complacency towards killing the player. I have heard designers remark that it didn’t matter that the player died in that spot in their game because Dark Souls kills the player all the time. It makes me want to shake them. Dark Souls does not kill you all the time, it kills you for a specific reason. See, I get it, I get Dark Souls, I just don’t enjoy the combat.

Soul out of Estus

Divinity Original Sin 2

I had the worst time with Divinity Original Sin. My two characters insisted on bickering and ruining every conversation - no matter how many times I reloaded a scene they would find a way to trash it. I eventually found myself locked out of every quest in the game and unable to fight my way past monsters higher than my level. I was playing the game to forget about a failed relationship where my ex would find excuses to start arguments. It was about as bad an experience playing a game I could ever hope for.

To say the sequel is an improvement is true. To a point. Somehow I’ve done it again and gotten trapped in an area with no quests to advance and monsters too powerful to fight past. I’ve muddled my way past some really irritating quests with obtuse requirements that I’m told can be solved in many ways. Except that when you fail to chase a particular lead it’s really frustrating to have to try a dozen different tactics to shake out a solution. It feels like I’ve picked up my PC and I’m rattling it over my head until the game agrees to let me move on. People keep telling me I can solve situations in dozens of ways, but all of them seem very specific and very intent on being a dick about it.

The combat is as amazing as it is chaotic. Environmental effects are at the fore, making it feel very D&D-like as you slow people down with oil and then ignite the oil and so on. The story I felt was okay, but the tone is all over the place, making it impossible to give a shit. Some nice touches with elves gaining visions from eating flesh and anyone can choose perks for talking to animals - but I found it more infuriating than cute after searching an entire island to solve a riddle, only to have a rat explain to me that I had to talk to some NPC again in order to shake, shake, shake out the solution. For every ounce of fun I got two ounces of frustration and misery.

1 out of 2

Dungeon World

Out of all the table top roleplaying games I’ve tried, this one was the most robust for casual play. Especially seeing as roleplayers are the most unreliable people on the planet. The resolution system it employs forces a plot twist every time you use it, so it’s impossible to plan anything. It’s not for everyone, you end up with a very gonzo story without the fiddly depth that other roleplaying games manage. On the other hand it’s a dream to be the Games Master and watch a story unfold instead of meticulously planning it and seeing a conclusion land that tears apart your ideas instead of adding to them. I wrote a full guide of how I run this game over here. The campaign is effectively a sandbox, I let people explore and fill in the map as we go - which is why I mention it. I’d like a computer game that approached it this way, not like Dwarf Fortress where a randomly generated overworld is dumped on you. Instead I’d like a piecemeal discovery of the world, one that reacts to the tensions you’ve created. Perhaps I’ll have to do it myself.

Story out of Players

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hyah-through-hyrule · 7 years

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Spoiler free review of BOTW

I recently finished BotW and I’m excited to share my thoughts in a non-spoiler and honest fashion. (Switch version)

Technical aspects- I’ll admit I’m not well versed with technological terms when it comes to gaming, so if something I write doesn’t make sense it’s because I’m stupid. The fps are much better in undocked mode than in docked mode, which is how i personally like to play it because i love the portability. Feel like playing on the couch laying down? No problem. Playing while in bed under several blankets? Cool! Long boring bus ride? Not anymore! The being said, the fps seems to dip slightly when in towns or in heavily forested areas with a lot of foliage. It dips for a couple seconds, but they’re infrequent enough that it really doesn’t hinder gameplay.

Now onto graphics. I must admit that I’m a bit biased here because I will always prefer stylized graphics over realism in any game. To me, the style reminds me of a mixture between Wind Waker and Skyward Sword, and I really love it. I’d be extremely pleased if they kept this type of cel shading in future Zelda installments. I often found myself taking a break to admire the scenery, weather it be a sunset, lightning storm, or some body of water. This version of Hyrule truly is a beautiful world.

Hyrule- The love that the developers put in this world is astounding and apparent. No two places in this world are the same. Typically with large open world games such as this, you’ll find places that are carbon copies. For example, cave complexes or ways that trees are organized will be identical in many other games. Not this one, every inch of this world is unique. Even what you get from cutting grass can give you different ingredient drops depending on where you are in the world.

Animals- Mad respect to the people who were in charge of designing and programming the wildlife. Sometimes I’ll watch animals from afar to see what they do. Birds will bathe themselves in dust, other herbivores can be seen grazing. Some animals can harm you while others choose to flee if you get too close. Little details like that really make the world seem more alive and dynamic.

Enemies and difficulty- If you’re the kind of gamer who plays games like Dark Souls for breakfast, then botw likely wasn’t too difficult. Most gamers (me) don’t play hard games like that for breakfast, so keep in mind the difficulty is being reviewed by a noob who needs to git gud. Botw is challenging at first, especially for those of us who are getting used to playing on a new console. Even the lowliest of the enemies can instantly kill you if you aren’t paying attention. A detail that I personally like is that the enemies will become tougher the more you progress, just to keep you on your toes. Once you learn how to deal with enemies depending on what weapons they’re using, you’ll have no problem fighting them more efficiently, dying less, and in general feeling rather cool. Now here’s a bit of a personal gripe; enemy diversity. There are lots of different enemies (some animals included too as they’ll actively hunt you), and they can wield a variety of weapons. Despite that, I wish there were more enemy types instead of having base enemies recolored. The variety felt a tad bit lacking in that regard, but it was neat that they could fight with different weapons. (There’s still a certain type of enemy that I still wont mess with even 150+ hours later.)

Npcs- Wow, I think this game really outdid itself with the npcs. In most open world games, the models and/or dialogue for npcs will be repeated. Not here. Some base models were reused occasionally, but they were tweaked so no one looked exactly the same. However, every single npc in this world has unique dialogue. I highly recommend you talk to everyone, as it can often lead to a sidequest, worldbuilding trivia, or sometimes it’s just funny dialogue. (My personal favorite is the ‘master torch’ wielder). I also greatly appreciated the fact that every npc Hylian wasn’t simply a white skinny guy. No, there’s npcs of all sizes, lots of women, and lots of different shades of brown. The Zora and Rito were different colors and heights. The Gerudo did have a few npcs who I could tell were reused assets, which the developers cleverly hid by making their skin tone lighter and their hair shorter/colored differently. The Gorons were the least diverse race in my opinion, but they were changed enough that it wasn’t glaringly obvious. The dedication to make everyone an individual is outstanding and it helps make the world all the more alive. Seriously though, I’m super impressed that not any of dialogue was reused anywhere.

Horses- I was going to post this with animals but decided to have it as a separate topic. I’m in love with the horse mechanic. You can go catch any horse you like, whether you want it for aesthetics or stats. You don’t need to steer your horse at all as it will follow the path all on its own and it won’t run into trees if you’re not controlling it. (Just make sure your bond is all the way up, which is easy to do via petting and feeding apples. Even though mine are maxed bonded, I still pet them and feed them because they’re all good boys and the prompt to do it is there, so why not?). The horse riding in this game is one of the smoothest ones I’ve experienced in any game (including games that feature non horse mounts too).

Dungeons and shrines- Botw broke a lot of Zelda conventions, and the dungeons are no exception. They were fun to explore and discover, though I do wish some of them were longer. I do hope they keep this non-linear system of finding shrines/dungeons out in the wild, but it would be nice if they could incorporate some longer and organic dungeons alongside the shrines. A mixture of the two would create a phenomenal experience.

Story- It’s no secret that in order to create a massive and dynamic world, the story had to take a few hits. I loved the memory system, it was clever and unique. Like with most Zelda games, you have to find the lore yourself by talking to npcs or finding writings via journals and monuments. Still, there’s a lot of stuff that makes me wonder ‘wow this is cool but what’s the story behind it?’ I do like having to find story things on my own rather than it being spelled out to me. There’s a lot of unanswered questions and loose ends. Perhaps the DLC will expand more on this. Despite the story being a bit lacking this time around, it didn’t make the game less enjoyable. There were still plenty of emotional moments, and I’ll admit I teared up in some spots. (Not including when I cried when first coming out of the shrine of restoration, that didn’t have to do with story, only with the fact i was so excited to play after five long years of waiting).

Towns- There’s not much for me to say about the towns (other than the fps thing mentioned earlier). The music that plays in them is wonderful and there’s lots of interesting npcs and sidequests to follow. One weird thing is there is one town you could theoretically never find as it’s not part of the main quest. I think more was intended for it, but there wasn’t enough time to finish it/ something changed when creating the story. Perhaps something will be added to it with dlc, or it’s simply a small village to find at you’re own leisure.

Music- Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge sucker when it comes to soundtracks, which is why I’ve saved the best for last. You’ll hear a lot of mixed reviews from people about the music. I personally am in love with it, I’m even listening to the soundtrack now as I’m writing this review. The ambiance of the music sets the pace when you’re out exploring. The shrines have different music depending on what type of shrine it is. Battle shrines are the easiest to distinguish. A shrine with a puzzle involved will be in major key, while a shrine with no puzzle is in minor. It’s a subtle difference that most people won’t catch, but it’s there. The music outside of shrines also varies, though I haven’t quite figured it out yet. I believe that it depends on if the shrine was hidden or not, but I don’t have solid proof for that. The guardian theme always startles me, even when I’m actively seeking them out for loot. It’s one of my favorite songs, but it’s a shame it doesn’t last long because you’re either fleeing or trying to kill it fast before it kills you. I could go on forever about the music, but I should wrap this up soon. The final dungeon and battle is in my opinion a bunch of masterpieces, but you’ll have you’ll have to discover that on your own. Botw outdid itself with it’s music, and I do hope it is appreciated more once people get used not having music that plays constantly while playing.

Overall, this is the most fun I’ve ever had playing a game. It’s not without it’s flaws of course, but it was an enjoyable experience and I look forward to the dlc and future installments in the series.

#botw #loz #zelda #please this took me two hours to write

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takunomistudio-blog · 7 years

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Takunomi Coffee Reveries, Vol. I

Contents

1 - Introduction

2 - Revitalizing the Ancients {Breath of the Wild, Final Fantasy XV}

3 - Coding for Your Own Sake {Coding, Python}

4 - LoFi Hip Hop Radio {Musical Interlude}

5 - Enticing for Computer Science {YouTube, Shōgi}

1 - Introduction

So a break for the better part of March apparently extends to most of April. That's fine. It gives time to reflect, struggle with exams, play some video games, all that good Jazz. In regards to reflection, it became apparent that daily updates was a noble goal, but a bit demanding, and my favorite posts were the Saturday recap posts, so why not try to make irregular but meatier Saturday posts only? As the content above shows, I thought it better if a bunch of good content was gathered for some relaxing perusal, coffee in hand.

Return to contents?

2 - Revitalizing the Ancients

I would be remise not to talk Breath of the Wild. The only problem is, the game pretty much speaks for itself, quality and qualities wise, doesn't it? Yet, since last I posted, I completed Final Fantasy XV, so it's not a bad idea to talk abot how these two ancient giants deal with awakening in today's gaming world.

I wasn't immediately floored by FFXV, but the sort of chill, super-realistic setting of magical pretty-boys and roadtripping in hostile territory quickly won me over. Talking abot it's story is both a laughably sort excercise and a maddingly long one, so I'm going to simply say: It's quite good, and quite incomplete. If you haven't played FFXV, just wait till all the updates and DLC are out, you'll get the full experience.

What FFXV truly was to me, was a fantasy of travelling around a lush green environment and mowing down wildlife and roaming weaponized armor troupes. The open world element, I realized, was simply a part of the mood. I could hardly go wherever I liked, and trying to explore, rarely revealed anything surprising. FFXV was, like so many earlier entried in the series, about it's combat. I'll get to why that's more than ok.

I haven't finished Breath of the Wild yet, but it's not trying to hide where it'll end up, so it doesn't require a lot of confidence to say that I see the bigger picture by now. BotW gets open world design. It gets it like no game before it. Everything is traversable and though there isn't a purpose to going all places, neither does it ever feel like a time waste. The level of detail in both the big picture and the smallest iota, is astounding. To be fair, BotW doesn't play much different from so many other games. Instead, it seems to say "This is how you should do open world", drops a mic and let's you play.

Both FFXV and BotW initially appear to be entering the modern world by seemingly accepting how Western developers design games: Real-time combat, ultra realistic graphics (FFXV) and go-where-ever-you-like, play-how-you-feel-like (BotW). Instead they both end up adhering to their roots in decidedly new ways. The Zelda puzzles, space-comprehension-requiring dungeons, grunting NPCs, tangible environments. It's all there, but in a far greater and smoother scale.

In many ways, it would be easy to call BotW the greater success, but I don't want to seem like I don't appreciate the technology behind FFXV. Consider the first time I entered the wood and monster infested Duscae area. I saw a creature I had a mark for. Me and my bodyguards flung into the fray and started hacking away. As the melee rolled around, we entered the vicinity of nearby monsters who happily obliged and suddenly the brawl was blooming into a war-like scenario. At that moment, a flying tank filled with soldiers came by to have a chat. I realize now, that this is crazy. The number of characters that FFXV supports at one point is mind blowing. No slow-downs, just more and more beasts. BotW on the other hand, nearly cracky my Wii U when I engaged five hulking moblins and a small batch of ice-bats in freezing tree-house. Perhaps BotW could achieve something like FFXV, but it's not the point. To these games, open world means different things. To BotW it's external: Go everywhere, always, whenever. To FFXV it's local: The immediate space is open to the battle system, now, to everyone.

Return to contents?

3 - Coding for Your Own Sake

Why would you want to learn programming? Maybe the idea just appeals to you, or you have some greater goal in mind for the future. Right now, you just don't have a clue what to code.

Here's a way to find a small project: Just recreate another program, in the simplest way possible, and maybe add a tiny spin on it to give yourself a challenge. Cut out visuals, complicated functionality or even user friendliness. Just make it run.

So recently I thought, how about a music player? I'd like to try my hand at Python, that seemed like a pleasant langauge to code in.

Reading around a bit, I discovered that Python is all about importing so-called modules that do a lot of the complicated stuff for you. I simply googled various key words and started copy-pasting something together. I learned stuff about how mp3 files being a bit more complicated than I expected, and so I scaled the project back to simply playing .wav files. Currently doing a course about distributed systems, I thought, maybe I should make it a small radio program? This was bit more complicated, but no more than it all resulted in the following tiny program. Simply start the program with

python3 server.py [name of song].wav

in one terminal window, and start a client in another terminal window with

python3 client.py

and hear the music play. It even works across computers on the same network.

server.py

client.py

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4 - LoFi Hip Hop Radio

Hiphop-like music coupled with looping images from amazingly relaxing anime is apparently a thing, and I see no reason not to endorse it one hundred percent. Below you see Shizuku Tsukishima from Whisper of the Heart feeling as relaxed as I hope you do. The image links to one of those previously mentioned hiphop radios.

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5 - Enticing for Computer Science

The video above is one of toco toco tv's fantastic interviews with interesting and creative Japanese people. Manao Kagawa is a professional Shogi player, and, as far as I can understand, apparently somewhat uncommon, being female.

Besides being a wonderfully relaxing interview, it features a great part in the beginning where Kagawa-san goes to browse the Shirataki Gofukuten kimono shop. It seems that being a Shogi player requires you to wear somewhat formal wear, and the result is that the players looks insanely dashing.

What's even better though, is the mentioning of the Shirataku Ayumi Hai, a yearly Shogi tournament for female players to win beautiful and (I assume) quite expensive kimono.

A quite well-discussed subject, is how the rate of women joining Computer Science and the IT work force in general, is too low. I won't get into politics here, but what is a fact, is that Computer Scientists are in short supply everywhere in the world. At the same time, it seems the education world is mainly drawing from one of two pools of potential students (men). In other words, there is a whole other, quite untapped, pool of with potential students to draw from.

I've seen some really good initiatives to reverse the current trend, but I think the one seen in the video is a wonderfully aesthetic idea. I don't know if it manages to draw in new Shogi players Japan, but having some sort of algorithm competition aimed at high school age (or younger) girl, with very sought-after, classically feminine prizes1, seems like it could draw in a segment that normally has no interest in this branch of science, despite engaging in similar ones (mathematics, medicine, biology).

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Big IT companies sponsor lots of things with huge amounts of money. Winning a Chanel handbag for solving algorithmic problems in high school, seems like quite a carrot. ↩︎

#Breath of the Wild #Final Fantasy XV #Whisper of the Heart #toco toco tv #shogi #python

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