Gaming Zelda Fans Come Hither...

Sony will have the occasional "State of Play" videos. They had a huge "Showcase" two weeks ago that featured a lot of PS5 and VR2 games that are in development.

Code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4EKydVVvHk

Nintendo does "Direct" videos where their last one was on 2/8/2023. In between then and now have been other smaller videos like trailers, Indie World Showcases, and Treehouse Lives.

Code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMdUSVSEp7U

I don't know what Microsoft does, but I'm guessing probably something similar. I would recommend following these channels on Youtube for the latest announcements.

 

End of an era.. I miss subscribing to Nintendo Power magazine, watching E3, and etc to learn about the latest in gaming.

 

End of an era for quite some time. Nintendo Power ended in 2010 so 13 years ago.
If you're not getting your information from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Tiktok then you're living under a rock.

 

I use IGN and YouTube channels.

 

Also E3 was basically on life support for years before 2020 killed it off for good.

 

Covid probably was the nail in coffin.. sigh.. so much it claimed.

 

There’s no “probably” about it, they were trying to pivot to something with public attendance because so many companies were pulling out and then there was a pandemic, making that model unviable. So an end that should’ve happened in about 2025 happened in 2020. You’re nostalgic for a version of that conference that was already dead, if it’s any consolation.

 

Well its just Star Wars Celebration, Comicons, and etc survived, so I assumed E3 would. I was no informed it ended for good, I read one was planned for this year and cancelled.

 

I just can’t click with this game. Almost every session leaves me feeling frustrated. I want to love it. Breath of the Wild is one of my favorite games of all time. But there’s just something missing. I’m bouncing off.

I can either spend another hundred hours trying to enjoy this game and failing, as I have been for 25-30 hours thus far. Or I can spend that time playing other things that are actually fun for me. Think I’m gonna go with the latter option.

 

@Reynar_Tedros I understand your frustration and I'm not here to convince you otherwise. I will say that there have been some moments where there is a specific task I set out to accomplish, I start the game and after an hour or so I realize that I haven't accomplished that task and I get mad at myself. The game can be very frustrating, especially when you're expecting help from your allies and you get an arrow in the back or you get with a rock when you have half a heart. I totally get it.

With such a large world on three levels, I would recommend setting small goals/tasks and see if that helps your enjoyment. If not, that's okay. Sometimes talking with an NPC will also help providing some direction.

I'm still having fun with this game, but I can commiserate that sometimes all I want to do is X and I set out to do X and I can't seem to accomplish it. I just save, shut off the game, and revisit another time with solutions in mind.

 

I love this game but I can relate with the complaint that sometimes you walk and walk and walk and it feels like nothing special is found for a while, which is something I did not feel in BotW.
The Depths in particular, IMO they could have done a better job to justify their existence. There are no side quests and there are no shrines, so it gets a bit repetitive to just go around and alternate between zonaite mines and Yiga hideouts.

 

There's a side quest about a guy who lost his goats and his goat feed recipe. Earlier, I spent 30 - 45 minutes looking and could not find either.

Something VERY helpful I learned about The Depths in a review I watched...

Spoiler

...is the location of the roots correspond to a shrine on the main surface map so one helps inform the other.

 

Yeah, that’s what I wound up doing. Got frustrated with it trying to do something, so I shut it off for the night thinking I was done. Next day, just didn’t feel like I was done with it, so I hopped back on and just decided to go find all the stables and do Penn’s missions, because those are fun and I love that guy. And that did a good job of rekindling my enjoyment of the game. There’s so much to do, if one thing’s going wrong, you can just go off and do something else.

I got the full set of Miner’s Armor and have upgraded my defense to a total of 40, so combat is much less daunting now. Things have opened up a bit on that front. Still scared of lynels though.

 

I saw one Lynel in The Depths that I avoided like the plague. I have yet to kill a Gleeok.

The feeling of killing my first Guardian in BOTW was fantastic. I hope to get that feeling in TOTK soon but everything still feels like it hits like truck.

 

If you're not scared of Lynels in these games.... you're an idiot.

 

How to fight virtually anything in the game:

0- get a decent bow
1- attach rockets to all shields
2- fly up
3- shoot while flying as many powered arrows as you can
4- repeat

The only thing that can stop you is to decide that -while super-effective- it's too boring to fight like that, which would be a fair point.

 

Speaking of Lynels, last night I came across the floating colosseum in the Depths and beat a Lynel with 2 hearts left while the rest were gloomed. Then another Lynel appeared so I had to peace out lol. I was not prepared for a gauntlet.

 

Finally finished all four of the temples, and I think they got progressively better in the order I tackled them.

Lightning > Water > Fire > Wind

Although, funnily enough, my favorite boss battles at the end of the temples are in the opposite order.

 

After 165 hours or more of TOTK, I've completed all shrines and lightroots.

Spoiler

152 and 120 respectively.

Adventure Log

• 21/23 main quests
  Spoiler

  (*)Destroy Ganondorf, and (*)Find princess Zelda resolve when you beat the game which I've done once.
• 42/60 side adventures - I'm currently focusing on the Penn side adventures at all the stables. I think I've done 10 or 11 of them. One of these is complete the compendium. I doubt I'm going to take a picture of everything in the game. Just like I'm not going to get every Korok seed.
• 30/31 shrine quests - the same thing happened to my brother too so not sure what I missed to have that last one checked off. I'm guessing I missed talking to an NPC.
• 37/139 side quests
• 18/18 memories

 

The reward for doing all of Penn’s missions is great. I would’ve had a terrible time with a certain sky island without it.

 

There was a slippery wet cave that was a pain that I recall so not sure which sky island you're referring to.

Side note: I found the NPC I didn't talk so now I have 31/31 shrine quests. It was the random dude by the Spring of Wisdom.
Tonight I was messing around and doing random side quests and adventures for kicks. Still having fun, but might be getting close to being done.

 

Spoiler

Thunderhead Isles, the one you find after doing that ritual with the electric gear/zonai charge when searching for the fifth sage. It’s constantly raining and there were so many spots where I had to climb to get to another area, I was very thankful to have that slip-proof gear.

 

Adventure Log update
As of last night,
57/60 side adventures where 1 of them is still the compendium so no clue what the other 2 are. Maybe I'll look up the names and compare to my completed list.
69/139 side quests. 70 more things to do? Crazy. I'm thinking I need to talk to more NPCs at the stables and see if they ask for anything.

I spent a good chunk of time in Hateno Village which uped my totals as there was a whole little story going on there #politics.

What's everyone else up to? Still playing? Taking a break. I can't believe 2 months later and I'm still playing an hour or two each night and still having fun.

 

I'm on holiday and I've forgotten to bring TotK. I've decided to reload and revisit BotW.

It's still not amazing BUT, my time with TotK has made me appreciate it a little more and I find I'm actually enjoying it more this time than I did a few years back.

OOT is still the best of them but I may be able to power on a bit more this time. A lot will depend on how irritating I find the divine beasts as they drove me up the wall last time

Gone Mobile

 

I definitely have heard the desire for another "traditional" Zelda game: i.e. get the item that gets you into the dungeon, collect item that helps you progress farther in the dungeon and also in the over world, use dungeon item to defeat boss, rinse and repeat 7 more times. The games that did this were a lot of fun. I will always love ALTTP and OOT for sure.

It seems the focus for the developers is the open world approach as they find it more freeing and less constrictive. I don't know what's stopping them from remaking Z1 in the style of BOTW/TOTK, I think that would be cool.

It sounds like whatever does come next will continue to be more like BOTW/TOTK and less and less like the games of the past.