What I've been up to (Patreon)

Hi everyone. Just wanted to check in, as it feels like forever since we last talked. 

As you can imagine, I have been absolutely wrapped up in Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This is a huge, addictive, absorbing game, and it's been great to sink my teeth into it. 

What do you think of the game? I have some reservations - stamina meter and weapon degradation are both pretty stingy, fast travel points are too generous, and the game world is possibly a tiny bit too big - but I'm really loving it. 

I love the amount of freedom you're given: both in where you go, and how you play (see Dunkey's brilliant video  for a showcase of how the systemic nature of the game allows for loads of inventive moves). 

I, of course, adore the fact that the game does not use the "little dotted line" system. Objective markers for the main quests (if you don't turn them off) just give you a general direction for you to follow. Otherwise, you'll need to follow someone's directions, or a riddle, or a painting / photograph, or simply your curiosity to get somewhere new.

Zelda has always been about growth. In Ocarina, we see the story of how Link grows from a child to a world-saving badass. But I think BOTW sells it better: at the start of the game you can walk right up to a Guardian or another powerful enemy and just immediately die. It's hilarious. Then, 10 hours later - now with more stuff, and more confidence, you can come back and wreck that foe. Your sense of progression is very obvious. 

I'm also impressed by how much the game continues to surprise me. 

When you start a game, you are completely overwhelmed. You don't know what you can do, how far you can go, the limits of the simulation, and what's lying in wait for you out there. Overtime, you become familiar and the game and while it's nice to feel that sense of mastery, it also means the game stops surprising you, and starts to feel more like an artificial game world. Open world games suffer from this the most, as all their content is on show at once.

But with Zelda, 20-odd hours in, I'm still discovering entirely new places, new items and enemies, and there are things on the map I'm still too scared to approach. 

Anyway, I'll stop now. The point is, I'm gonna do a video on BOTW. I was working on a video about Psychonauts but it felt weird to drop a video on a 12 year old game in the middle of Zelda fever, and I've had lots of people asking me for my opinion on Zelda, so I'll do that next. You'll have to give me a minute, as I still need to see much more of this game! And I want to check out Horizon: Zero Dawn for sake of comparison.

I'm also working on the next boss keys - Phantom Hourglass is done, and Spirit Tracks is underway. And then Psychonauts, and then who knows what. 

Okay, cheerio!