8th March 2017, 3:41 PM
This game does a great job of giving you pretty clear hints on what to do next. The "sight lines" in any one location are tailor-made so that you see points of interest the developer wanted you to see. The distractions are just that, and you can either book it to the general location you're heading to or take a break and climb an entire mountain because it's there. You never lose sight of your goal (literally) and the layout of the world is such that you never feel truly lost. This game TRUSTS you. It doesn't burden you with a talking sword or hat or shadow reminding you every 5 seconds of your mission. It doesn't dump a bunch of icons all over the map and say "get all this stuff". It doesn't really even tell you where a place is with a marker most of the time. Most of the time, you get general instructions like "follow the road north past the great rock that looks like a long-neck and past the mountains that burn and you'll find the Great Valley". It's enough, it really is, and the game makes a quick note of that hint before leaving the rest to you. The hints are, at long last, cryptic again as they were in days of yore. I can't tell you what a relief it is for a Zelda game to finally once again trust me, the player, to figure things out without spelling it out 2 or 3 times in a row.
It is in this spirit that the game's cooking system turns out to be very intuitive without spelling out "okay, this is how you make a steak". The game gives you two general rules: normal cooking ingredients make normal food, and gross stuff makes potions. Generally, you can intuit exactly how to make what you want to make. The game's items all have very clear descriptions, so if it boosts your defense, it'll tell you "this armorshroom boosts defense in a meal". So, as a general rule, just toss three ingredients in a pot and you'll get something edible. The rest is just experimentation. Ever try to develop a new recipe in real life? It's like that, and it's fun. Sure, you'll get the occasional nightmare item that's so disgusting it's blurred out, but that's part of the fun. Heck, you even have the occasional NPC tell you outright how they made their personal specialty. Yes, I would love it if there was some form of recipe book that stored everything you learned, but I would never exchange trial and error this fun for something boring like just picking a recipe off the ground and following the directions every time.
Really though, I agree with you. A lot of the "open world" games out there are nothing but endlessly boring. There's a bunch of checklist collectibles with no real point to them beyond being on a checklist and generally nothing really tying all the myriad side-quests together. Breath of the Wild is NOT like those games. This is an expertly crafted open world experience where everything has a purpose, even the vast empty spaces! This video I think does a good job explaining it:
Come ABF, you need to Experience the Challenge of Endless Adventure!
It is in this spirit that the game's cooking system turns out to be very intuitive without spelling out "okay, this is how you make a steak". The game gives you two general rules: normal cooking ingredients make normal food, and gross stuff makes potions. Generally, you can intuit exactly how to make what you want to make. The game's items all have very clear descriptions, so if it boosts your defense, it'll tell you "this armorshroom boosts defense in a meal". So, as a general rule, just toss three ingredients in a pot and you'll get something edible. The rest is just experimentation. Ever try to develop a new recipe in real life? It's like that, and it's fun. Sure, you'll get the occasional nightmare item that's so disgusting it's blurred out, but that's part of the fun. Heck, you even have the occasional NPC tell you outright how they made their personal specialty. Yes, I would love it if there was some form of recipe book that stored everything you learned, but I would never exchange trial and error this fun for something boring like just picking a recipe off the ground and following the directions every time.
Really though, I agree with you. A lot of the "open world" games out there are nothing but endlessly boring. There's a bunch of checklist collectibles with no real point to them beyond being on a checklist and generally nothing really tying all the myriad side-quests together. Breath of the Wild is NOT like those games. This is an expertly crafted open world experience where everything has a purpose, even the vast empty spaces! This video I think does a good job explaining it:
Come ABF, you need to Experience the Challenge of Endless Adventure!
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)