The Zelda Thread

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[ian]

Well I had time today to hit the shops between various housework duties so picked up TOTK from JB. It came out 2 days ago and I was given the gold coin that was meant to be for pre-orders, so they must have been expecting just a shitload of preorders that simply didn't happen.

I won't have time to play it in the next week, but I'll be sure to let you know if its fun.

If I'd preordered and found out that just anyone was given preorder bonuses 2 days after release I'd be pissed though.

But it was a nice surprise to just walk in a few days late, pay a reasonable price and get a bonus trinket that fits in the box and will inevitably get me more money whenever I'm finished with it.

JB had it for $74 which is the same as Amazon but with instant gratification and EB and Nintendo estore was fucken $89.95. I paid $74 for BOTW and for how much I played it it works out at fractions of a cent per hour enjoyed, so was willing to roll the dice again.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[ian]

Spoiler free initial thoughts of TOTK.

So I got a bit of time today. I know this will shock the entire world, but it's not the best single thing ever made like everyone calls every Zelda.
Now don't be too quick to grab your pitchforks and torches... It IS a good game, but it has some really annoying traits in amongst the brilliance.

The world is phenomenal! Breathtaking, and a triumph of programming on an old platform, it's so much more than BOTW, I am excited to explore in all the new parts and seeing how all the places I loved so much have changed.

but it falters in. Well fighting has been made tedious, there's more slowdown than BOTW, the new abilities are stupid and and the crafting has the most annoying thing in the world.

In the old game, I could get myself 2000 rupees of bomb arrows, and go mental with fun... exploding shit to my hearts content.
Now I have to forage for 5 hours to find flowers to be able to make the arrows. Which it appears I have to make one at a time... While in battle!
Huge marks off for this. (If it turns out I can get 50 bomb arrows at a time and only equip them I'll be much happier) so fighting is essentially pointless, I've just been running past basically everything.
In Breath of the wild, I had a lot of fun having my ass handed to me and learning better ways to fight. In tears of the kingdom I am overwhelmed at all the stuff to explore, I really can't be fucked putting a boulder on a tree branch just to be able to take out a single basic bitch bokoblin in less than 20 seconds...

The new abilities aren't as useful to explore the phenomenal world as the old ones were. If I could get this game with Botw abilities, it could have been the greatest role playing game ever made. Sadly, in trying to do too many things, I feel as though it's actually limited the game.

And crafting is almost pointless. So in any other game ever made, your wacky constructions last forever. I do love a wacky construction game... But in this if you make a rocket boosted, flame throwing, cannon shooting, fan powered, flying machine death fortress... You'll get to enjoy it for all of 40 seconds before it falls apart.
I don't care that I can fit rockets to a cart and launch myself and my horses across the land if I spent half a day making the perfect flying machine for 1 minute of fun.
I say it's almost pointless building, but the building mechanics have been propped up by rockets.
Putting rockets on anything and everything is FUN! If I can't fit a rocket to something, well fuck you game, I'm not fucking building it...
In the early game I was supposed to be making something to get across a rail... Turns out it was faster just to fucking run across it. Rockets single handedly save the entire building system of this game.

Other things. The story seems better this time, hopefully the final boss is better too.

At this point, I'm happy to call Tears of the Kingdom a good game, unlike Every game outside Links Awakening and Breath of the Wild which are all still tears of boredom. But I don't think I'll be sinking quite as many hours into this one. We'll see, it's fun but so far not BOTW or links awakening fun.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[pixel]

At this point, I'm happy to call Tears of the Kingdom a good game [...]

This contest is over. Give that game the GOTY!

How many sequels got 6 years of dev time on an already built engine. It has to be unprecedented, right?

[melancholy]

I played about 2 hours on launch day and haven’t bothered playing more yet. I unlocked the ‘glue stuff together’ ability and the ‘make dumb weapons’ abilities, but I haven’t reached the third shrine yet and I frankly don’t want to. I got irritated trying to figure out what the hell the second shrine wanted from me, and just gave up shortly after that.

So far it just feels like more Breath of the Wild, and that’s honestly the worst thing this game could feel like. I really don’t want to explore the same empty landscape all over again. I feel like I’m going through a tutorial area just so I can reach the worst part of the game, only this time with ‘wacky abilities’ that is supposed to make it better.

For now, I’m shelving it. I’m sure at some point in my life I will try again, but I’m just not far enough out from my playthrough of BotW to really get any enjoyment out of this.

[ian]

Light spoilers in my reply, but nothing that will ruin the game for anyone.

I played about 2 hours on launch day and haven’t bothered playing more yet. I unlocked the ‘glue stuff together’ ability and the ‘make dumb weapons’ abilities, but I haven’t reached the third shrine yet and I frankly don’t want to. I got irritated trying to figure out what the hell the second shrine wanted from me, and just gave up shortly after that.

It's funny you mention getting irritated early on, I also got irritated on the starting platform when I went to the wrong shrine. Turns out you're supposed to do the one down the rail first and not the snow one... So after I got stuck in the snow with no way out I had to load up a save before I crossed the river. I couldn't find a way back across the river since the boat I crossed with was no longer available... So it's open worldness was a step back as well. Botw never had this problem so that was a waste of 40 minutes trying to get out of a dead end when I could have been exploring. As soon as you get the glider which you could do any way you wanted in BOTW you could head straight for Ganon with tree branches if you saw fit, I never felt the old game got me stuck, I feel this game is trying to make me stuck every time I try to fight anything or explore. which for an open world game is not a brilliant idea.

I Will admit that I've been going to the shrines, and Only did a handful for a bit more stamina, they're more useful to me as travel points (because getting around with the new worse abilities is annoying so I find I'm unlocking them for future fast travel and just moving right along) I've DONE 8 shrines... I've found and unlocked more than 40.

At least you didn't make it off the platform to have to fight anything, which is also irritating. There's so many points that I WOULD charge in to fight in BOTW and do stuff that now I'm just running past.

the more I play this, the more I think I'll be done in 6 months... Whereas Botw Over a few years I have thousands, and thousands, and thousands of hours playtime. So this is not bad, it's just worse in the core mechanics. I am loving chasms, caves, wells etc and have spent hardly any time in the sky. The sky stuff is limited to when I want to try more shit with rockets. Game. PLEASE let me screw around more... (I'm having a break because I have exhausted all my rockets, and can't be fucked fighting shit to get resources to make more)
The game needs a place where I can just buy 100 rockets at a time and not all the bullshit parts I don't want, I hate that it gives me 2 rockets and 8 bullshit fucking cooking pots or hot air balloons... NO GAME! ROCKETS! FUN!

[melancholy]

I played about 2 hours on launch day and haven’t bothered playing more yet. I unlocked the ‘glue stuff together’ ability and the ‘make dumb weapons’ abilities, but I haven’t reached the third shrine yet and I frankly don’t want to. I got irritated trying to figure out what the hell the second shrine wanted from me, and just gave up shortly after that.

It's funny you mention getting irritated early on, I also got irritated on the starting platform when I went to the wrong shrine. Turns out you're supposed to do the one down the rail first and not the snow one... So after I got stuck in the snow with no way out I had to load up a save before I crossed the river. I couldn't find a way back across the river since the boat I crossed with was no longer available...

OMG, I did the same damn thing! I took a boat across a snowy area and got stuck for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get back. I did find the only way back, which was to climb halfway up the path behind a waterfall and jump off at the bend, but it wasn’t obvious at all.

[ian]

Jump off at a bend you say? I'm not falling for that! I didn't do much jumping because I was so used to my paraglider I kept falling to my death without it.

It was a natural reflex that got beat out of me within the first few hours of dicking around. Oh no, I'm falling, better start to glide. Oh that's right no glideDEAD!

So many falling deaths, and that was before I tried really exploring.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

In a collaboration video featuring MVG, John Linneman returns to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to concentrate on a range of performance tests. How well does the game run in portable mode and what's happening with dynamic resolution scaling there? Is there any difference in performance terms between the OG 2017 Switch and the later revisions based on the Mariko processor revision? And to what extend can exploited Switches improve performance via overclocking?

[ian]

I've got to play a little more, and yes, I'm firm in my belief that the game isn't as good as BOTW.
In this I have found myself constantly on the ass end of ass kickings out of nowhere... What's that? You have the best armour you can find early game, and have +10 hearts on your 5 and have 3 fairies in your pouch and defence up food and have fused the 2 best weapons you've found into one and you still get one shot by fucking everything? Well get good, son! Serves you right for not being perfect. I seriously don't think defence points in this game are connected to anything... I feel like I was getting one shot with no armour and 3 hearts just as much as I am against the same things with full armour and a stack of hearts. Thank fuck for Fairies.

Just as the moments of irritation and clunkyness of the new tacky abilities fade, they come back as infuriation so often that I've just stopped trying to work shit out 4 times now and just looked up what to do.
It gets more annoying that on 2 of those 4 occasions I was doing the right thing it just wasn't working for some fucking reason.
(Trying to teleport up from a cave and trying to sneak up on a patrol) After half an hour each I thought I was a moron and gave up and just googled what to do... Not a moron, just didn't get the spot exactly right so after 10 further minutes knowing that's what I'm meant to do I got it.

Game trapped me again. Half way through one of the few shrines I do I got stuck.. first part was piss easy but couldn't get back, second part was simply impossible. Had to load before I started it.

This world is amazing, and getting better and I want to see where the story goes, it's just such a shame they've made getting around the world worse, and doing things clunky. I hardly ever fast travelled in BOTW, in this I've used a horse 3 times and that was only because I wanted to try rocket propelled and airlifted horses.

I did get my oh shit, what the fuck do I do here moment with an enemy I have no fucking idea how to beat but unlike in BOTW, because the combat is so shit I'm not looking forward to working it out, if I see one again I'll either look up how to best fight it or just run away.

That's the best way I can justify TOTK not being as good as BOTW. I didn't look a single thing up playing BOTW, I'm not even 50 hours into this and I'm looking stuff up to get past the annoyances to resume the fun. it's shitting me off that the core mechanics of the game are worse because everything else has been so much fun.

[pixel]

Big anniversary today!

[ian]

Big anniversary today!

Still a great fucking game... Well the Original Gameboy version, the Gameboy Color DX version and the Game and Watch versions are great. Any version not mentioned above is a pile of fucking dogshit not worth 5 minutes, but all those versions are timeless masterpieces.

In other news, today I have finished Tears of the Kingdom. I ended up doing 56 shrines (found 105 odd), getting 117 Korok seeds (god knows how many I found and ignored), 55 wells, 122 caves and all the chasms and Lightroots.
I only upgraded 1 set of armour to full and flat out ignored just a shitload of side quests and shrine quests. I did end up spending more time in the sky than I thought I would, but compared with the amount of time I spent on ground and under it, the sky elements really weren't that much of the game.

I went through the whole game without fighting a single Lynel and just simply skipped so much stuff that annoyed me... I don't typically play games so half assedly. I'll spend hundreds of hours grinding every single thing endlessly if a game is GREAT, I didn't find this game great at the end of some 150 hours in 1 month... It has mind blowing elements that kept me playing but the good stuff gets dragged down far too often for me to keep playing, which is such a shame.

Despite this games worse combat than Breath of the wild, the final fight was much more satisfying, and the story ended up heaps better.

I've deleted my save game, and am giving my friend back their switch and lending this to another friend who wants to try it but didn't want to pay full price to try it, I won't ever play it again.
At least when my friend is done with it I'll be able to sell it and buy Breath of the Wild again with the funds because I would have more fun playing Breath of the wild for a 5th time than I would playing one single more hour of Tears of the Kingdom.

The game isn't even the best RPG on Switch, let alone of all time like everyone calls every single Zelda game.

But It may still end up game of the year. I suppose I'll give Diablo 4 a shot now and see if that will be the game of the year, but I have a weird relationship with Blizzard. I typically want to cuddle each and every one at the company sometimes... And other times spit on them all and wish they could just die so I could piss on their graves.
Blizzard entertainment more than any other entertainment company make me bi-polar, so that relationship might end up working in Nintendo's favour to get a game of the year award from me.

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[Dr. Zoidberg]

[ian]

Can't wait to see how the Super Nintendo Sony CD drive goes!

[Skynet]

After all the years he's been involved in the Spiderman franchise, fuck you Avi Arad!

[Dr. Zoidberg]

New Zelda: Ocarina of Time Demo in Unreal Engine 5 released, featuring DLSS 3 Frame Generation

CryZENx just dropped a new demo for his The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake in Unreal Engine 5. In this fresh demo, the Lost Woods gets a cool makeover with some extra gameplay stuff. The artist also spruced up a bunch of things, adding new elements to different parts of the game.

Now what's cool here is that CryZENx has also added support for DLSS 3 Super Resolution and DLSS 3 Frame Generation. As such, owners of all NVIDIA RTX GPUs can use DLSS 3 SR to improve overall performance. On the other hand, owners of an RTX 40 series GPU can use Frame Generation to hit higher framerates. This is a cool addition. Thanks to DLSS 3, you can now enjoy this fan remake at high framerates.

In this Zelda fan game, you can explore the environments and fight several enemies. You can also use your ocarina, break objects, collect items, and speak to NPCs. Not only that but this fan remake of this classic N64 Zelda game in Unreal Engine 5 also has some cut-scenes and an inventory system. In short, it's more than your typical "remake a map from a popular game in UE5" projects.

You can go ahead and download this new version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake in Unreal Engine 5 from CryZENx's Discord server. You can also find below a video that shows off 25 minutes of gameplay from it.

Speaking of Unreal Engine 5, we recommend trying out these other free fan-made demos. You can grab a Superman UE5 Demo, a Halo 3: ODST Remake, and a Spider-Man UE5 Demo. There's also a fan-made version of STALKER in Unreal Engine 5. If you love old-school FPS games, you should check out this remake of the classic FPS Blood in Epic's engine. Don't also forget the remake of Halo: Combat Evolved's Halo level in UE5 or this free Attack on Titan game. Lastly, we have The Lord of the Rings: Conquest Reimagined in Unreal Engine 5 and a Diablo 2 Remake Demo. They all look awesome, so be sure to give them a try.



Source: DSOG

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