Topic: What (Non-Xbox) Game Are You Currently Playing?

Obviously I have been playing tears of the Kingdom .. but I am getting a bit of fatigue after 65h in 10 days and yesterday I got a notification Horizon zero dawn was going by 15€ at Steam so I guess I will be playing two Open world games now...

I am done with TotK. The last 10/15h was just running to the story as I was really bored with it. The story is actually quite good (with a fantastic plot twist) which I was not expecting after the first cutscenes but on the end it felt more of the same (and I was already not a fan of the first entry). I guess I will have to choose a new favourite series as it does not look it is going back.

Still playing HZD in small bursts and enjoying well enough altough nothing groundbreaking (surprisingly enough for a big budget title, probably the worst parts of it are facial animations and voice acting)

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor (PS5) - Think I'm getting close to the end now. I'm on the moon getting ready to confront Rayvis, and just obtained the upgrade that lets you grapple between balloons.

I have every world's completion rate somewhere in the 80-90% range (it's so good to have Koboh at almost 90% since it's sooo huge), though I know there'll probably be at least one more world to go to. I currently have a maximum of 10 health stims, and all those Force crystal upgrade things are only giving me EXP anymore, so I'm pretty positive I've maxed out my total health & Force meter.

Blue Reflection (Steam) - Just recently beat the second boss. Not quite sure what to think of it yet. It reminds me a lot of the recent Sakura Wars reboot in that most of your time is spent running around hanging out with the cast in order to boost affinity, before getting to the brief "gamey" section of the chapter (in this case, light turn based RPG segments with a "magical girl" motif).

Started playing TOTK and enjoyed the start but not sure I'll have the patience to do all the crafting and fusing. Unsure how much I like it and trying to avoid all the noise around the whole Zelda thing.

Just bought a PS5 with a years Plus extra. Started Ratchet and Clank and Demon Souls remaster, both really good. Then spent a few hours on Resogun. Have to say having not owned a PS in some time was really impressed with their own version of Gamepass.

As I have said before, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are massively overrated. They are a decent attempt at doing the open-world genre and that's exactly what they are but they lack many of the elements that make some (not all) open-world games great. However, the real reason why I bash them is that they have destroyed what I love about The Legend of Zelda games. Looking at sales and media reaction, six years of articles about TotK await and we'll never get another awesome The Legend of Zelda game like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess.

@Banjo- I think there's still a place for traditional zelda experiences. I wouldn't be surprised if the next entry is a top down 2d.

@Banjo- unfortunately I have to agree. The fact that BotW alone sold more than the rest of the series before it and TotK looks like is going to sell the same, I don't see nintendo going back to what I love about it for mainline games.
I even changed my profile picture as I am in a kind of mourning.

@NintendoByNature I hope so. The Legend of Zelda was my favourite franchise as a kid.

@Banjo- I think they know not everybody likes the open world style. There's too much lineage to strictly stay open world moving forward. It's not like nintendo abandoned 2d mario after 3d came out ya know.

@NintendoByNature In a sense, even Ocarina of Time was an open-world game that loaded new areas just like Monster Hunter Tri but way faster. Breath of the Wild basically rebooted the series, creating some kind of... basic survival sandbox game, now adding Nuts & Bolts/Minecraft elements.

I don't know if you mean that we'll get another 2D/isometric game but what I really want is another 3D game. Twilight Princess is the most perfect game that Nintendo has ever developed in my opinion (the HD version is even better) but Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are two incredible masterpieces.

@Banjo- I can understand what Nintendo did/is doing with Zelda with the last two entries in the series. If you look back at the original Legend of Zelda, it was a sandbox type game. All you were told was there are 8 dungeons that need to be conquered to be able to enter the last Dungeon. In theory you can take them on in any order, granted you may have to have a certain item from Dungeon 3 to finish Dungeon 4 but there wasn't a story so to speak. In fact when I play the game I usually gather all the heart pieces I got first, then get the white sword and best shield in the game and then take on the dungeons first.

It wasn't till A Link to the Past that Zelda become very linear and made you follow a detailed story. Removing the sense of exploration and replaced it with handholding. For example I have to do the first 3 dungeons in the game in order to get the Master Sword, I can't just get the sword like in LoZ. And the games continued down that pathway till BotW.

Do I enjoy the gameplay of BotW, not really, do I want a more traditional Zelda game heck yes but will we get one, probably not unless Nintendo does something like they did with the NSMB series and make a New Legend of Zelda series either that or Remaster the old Zeldas, but I think this style of Zelda will be here to stay.

@Banjo- can't say I remember that conversation but being frank you are not the most polite person in your way of speaking to others

@Balta666 I don't know if you realised that you were and still aren't the best example of fairness 😉. Most of the time and most of my interactions are positive and friendly. All comments are written for people to see. Whether you see it or not, I'm utterly respectful towards other people's opinions and just answer frankly when someone is unpleasant and insult me, something they do just because of my opinions about games and companies. That's exactly what happened on that thread where you decided to chime in, and we haven't had any interaction since then because my moral code tells me that it's impossible until you admit it and apologise.

EDIT: I say it now because you quoted me saying that you agree with me now about Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom.

@Tasuki That's what NEStalgia said to me, that Breath of the Wild is similar to The Legend of Zelda 1 and that they are both survival games. Does A Link to the Past hold your hand, though?

The fact that Breath of the Wild and its sequel were sold so well to the media and gamers make me think that this blueprint will be used again. But how can they go on like that? In Tears of the Kingdom, they added vertical teleporting and irrelevant underground and celestial planes plus the glue mechanics in a now saturated Breath of the Wild world, resulting in a mishmash. Are they adding more stuff to this world? Is that what the third Breath of the Wild will be? When I play Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess, I see unparalleled narrative, gameplay and progression. I see the best games that Nintendo has made. When I play BotW and TotK, I see a lost Link, a posh princess that don't belong to a "medieval" era and a hodgepodge of sandbox elements.

So, you mean there will be two kinds of games, the BotW template and the "classic" template but would both be 3D?

@Banjo- In a way Link to the Past and Zeldas after that do. As I said before if I want the Master Sword in Link to the Past, I have to complete the first three dungeons, how I do those Dungeons don't matter but the fact that I have to is more hand holding then say LoZ. Even OoT of time I can't just go get the Master Sword.

BotW tends to try to copy the Skyrim or Fallout formula where there is story and narrative but it's told in the world and it's surroundings.

I don't know if there will be two game types I am just saying that this Zelda style is here to stay and if they were to being back Zelda games like LttP, OoT or even Twilight Princess they would have to make a new series.

@Banjo- fair enough. I don't believe I have anything to apologize so I won't.

@Tasuki I forgot to mention that I haven't played the NES titles so I'll take his word and yours for them. The handholding that annoyed me was Skyward Sword's Fi. Each comment of yours makes me sadder about what once was my favourite franchise's future 😅. Let's see what happens.

@Banjo- Yeah The Legend of Zelda on NES was very much what people call sandbox today. There really wasn't any story in the game at all. All we got was a short explanation at the beginning of the game, Zelda broke the Triforce in 8 pieces to keep it from Gannon, Link has to get it. We didn't know who Gannon was, why he was evil or even who the King/ Queen of Hyrule was. Heck back then it didn't even cross our minds that Gannon was once human, which why OoT was so huge at that time.

For expanded story content we sometimes had the instruction booklet but most often then not we had tv shows which is why they Legend of Zelda cartoon every Friday on the Super Mario Bros Super Show were so awesome to me and my friends.