More Breath of the Wild, warts and all.
The skinner box grind is still entertaining enough and I ended up completing more of the game (90% of shrines) than I expected given how little they did to address issues I had with BotW - lackluster dungeons, storytelling, and progression systems all remain. But it's impossible to deny the charm of even a phoned-in Zelda title.
I think my bitterness is more a reflection of Aonuma's claim that this is what the future of Zelda games looks like. It's neat enough and it has mass appeal, but the "every solution is valid!" nature of open-ended puzzle design in these BotW-era Zelda games means there's fewer "a-ha!" moments in finding intended puzzle solutions (not that any of the puzzles are remotely challenging anyway). So much of the game is (still) defined by the dominant strategy of climbing and gliding everywhere - and for being such a long game it's pretty sad that there's less modulation in your traversal and puzzle solving abilities than earlier Zelda titles. I just need to accept that Nintendo will never make a dungeon with the complexity of Stone Tower Temple again - especially not now that Zelda sells more copies than Mario. This is not a franchise to do weird experiments with, anymore.
The skinner box grind is still entertaining enough and I ended up completing more of the game (90% of shrines) than I expected given how little they did to address issues I had with BotW - lackluster dungeons, storytelling, and progression systems all remain. But it's impossible to deny the charm of even a phoned-in Zelda title.
I think my bitterness is more a reflection of Aonuma's claim that this is what the future of Zelda games looks like. It's neat enough and it has mass appeal, but the "every solution is valid!" nature of open-ended puzzle design in these BotW-era Zelda games means there's fewer "a-ha!" moments in finding intended puzzle solutions (not that any of the puzzles are remotely challenging anyway). So much of the game is (still) defined by the dominant strategy of climbing and gliding everywhere - and for being such a long game it's pretty sad that there's less modulation in your traversal and puzzle solving abilities than earlier Zelda titles. I just need to accept that Nintendo will never make a dungeon with the complexity of Stone Tower Temple again - especially not now that Zelda sells more copies than Mario. This is not a franchise to do weird experiments with, anymore.