22nd June 2016, 10:43 PM
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1233823 - This is one of the best summaries of the E3 info that I've seen.
I did read it before posting that, but didn't edit in anything to it. I'll do that now though, sure. You make two points there I do want to respond to, on crafting and on stat numbers and the like. And yes, I don't mention it in that post though I probably should, but I did notice that BotW has numbers on the items, armors, and the like. Zelda hasn't had anything like that outside of The Adventure of Link, so I don't know if it's a good idea... AoL aside the series has always been an action-adventure series that isn't quite an RPG, and maybe it will stay that way, but would making it a full-on RPG, with stats that upgrade and the like, be a good idea? But even if it doesn't have that, still, armor and weapons have hard numbers attached to them now, and enemies have numerical health indicators above their heads, RPG-style. From a Zelda standpoint, that's weird, and I am far from convinced it's a good idea. After AoL they abandoned the idea of full RPG elements in Zelda, and it was probably a good move. Should they really change that now? I mean, I like RPGs, but Zelda's style is so incredible as it is! But at leas there this is a mechanic I like in other games. Not so for crafting.
As for crafting, I'd forgotten about the crafting in SS... but yeah, now that you mention it, it does have that simple style of crafting I mention as being in Guild Wars, where you bring items to a person and they make the item for you. That works, but I'm sure this game will have an annoyingly more complex crafting system in it that I'll probably dislike. Stupid crafting... it's not fun!
On another note though, one thing I haven't mentioned is the physics system underneath this game. The game runs on a physics engine now, so when you fall off a cliff Link can ragdoll, you can cut down trees and watch them fall over, etc. And you can start fires, light campfires (and apparently cook food for increasing its healing value?), and such as well. That cooking system is the one crafting element Nintendo has revealed so far, I believe, unless showing that items can interact (drop wood and flint and hit it with sword = fire, so there will be a player-action component to it as you want) also counts. That's kind of neat in concept I guess, but again, I don't like these item-combining systems much when they get complex at all. It's fine in Link's Awakening where you can use bomb-arrows, but complex crafting systems? Forget that, I can't stand those! When I see a crafting system like that in a game I think a bit less of the game because of it.
I'm sure there are also some pretty cool things you can do with the physics system, though. This game does sound like it'll have a lot to do, but will it be fun? Like, the fishing in all 3d Zelda games is absolutely TERRIBLE, and easily the very worst thing about every single 3d Zelda game you can fish in. (That you have to fish right at the beginning of TP is one of the worst things about that game!) The crafting, for food or whatever else, in this game will more likely than not end up somewhere on that level of bad on my list... but maybe they'll manage to make it inoffensive somehow, we'll see.
And finally, the game does look really beautiful and fun to explore for a while, but what systems will they have in place to help you keep focused? How could it avoid the usual "I wander around for a while then get bored" problem of this genre? Or maybe it just won't, and despite all the stuff in this game, it will indeed end up being my least favorite 3d Zelda. I'll need to play it to know, I suspect...
I did read it before posting that, but didn't edit in anything to it. I'll do that now though, sure. You make two points there I do want to respond to, on crafting and on stat numbers and the like. And yes, I don't mention it in that post though I probably should, but I did notice that BotW has numbers on the items, armors, and the like. Zelda hasn't had anything like that outside of The Adventure of Link, so I don't know if it's a good idea... AoL aside the series has always been an action-adventure series that isn't quite an RPG, and maybe it will stay that way, but would making it a full-on RPG, with stats that upgrade and the like, be a good idea? But even if it doesn't have that, still, armor and weapons have hard numbers attached to them now, and enemies have numerical health indicators above their heads, RPG-style. From a Zelda standpoint, that's weird, and I am far from convinced it's a good idea. After AoL they abandoned the idea of full RPG elements in Zelda, and it was probably a good move. Should they really change that now? I mean, I like RPGs, but Zelda's style is so incredible as it is! But at leas there this is a mechanic I like in other games. Not so for crafting.
As for crafting, I'd forgotten about the crafting in SS... but yeah, now that you mention it, it does have that simple style of crafting I mention as being in Guild Wars, where you bring items to a person and they make the item for you. That works, but I'm sure this game will have an annoyingly more complex crafting system in it that I'll probably dislike. Stupid crafting... it's not fun!
On another note though, one thing I haven't mentioned is the physics system underneath this game. The game runs on a physics engine now, so when you fall off a cliff Link can ragdoll, you can cut down trees and watch them fall over, etc. And you can start fires, light campfires (and apparently cook food for increasing its healing value?), and such as well. That cooking system is the one crafting element Nintendo has revealed so far, I believe, unless showing that items can interact (drop wood and flint and hit it with sword = fire, so there will be a player-action component to it as you want) also counts. That's kind of neat in concept I guess, but again, I don't like these item-combining systems much when they get complex at all. It's fine in Link's Awakening where you can use bomb-arrows, but complex crafting systems? Forget that, I can't stand those! When I see a crafting system like that in a game I think a bit less of the game because of it.
I'm sure there are also some pretty cool things you can do with the physics system, though. This game does sound like it'll have a lot to do, but will it be fun? Like, the fishing in all 3d Zelda games is absolutely TERRIBLE, and easily the very worst thing about every single 3d Zelda game you can fish in. (That you have to fish right at the beginning of TP is one of the worst things about that game!) The crafting, for food or whatever else, in this game will more likely than not end up somewhere on that level of bad on my list... but maybe they'll manage to make it inoffensive somehow, we'll see.
And finally, the game does look really beautiful and fun to explore for a while, but what systems will they have in place to help you keep focused? How could it avoid the usual "I wander around for a while then get bored" problem of this genre? Or maybe it just won't, and despite all the stuff in this game, it will indeed end up being my least favorite 3d Zelda. I'll need to play it to know, I suspect...