The Video Game Thread

[Momma There Goes That Man]

22 hours ago, PokerPacker said:

If I had to pick one, I'd probably go with Twilight Princess.  Really liked the atmosphere and it felt like they had really refined the gameplay (I played on Gamecube) for that one.  Does have its flaws; Wolf Link wasn't the most fun to play as, and it did skew a little easier, but I enjoyed the combat, especially with the addition of the hidden techniques you learn throughout the game.

 

I think a remake of Ocarina Of Time with some combat tweaks could take the top spot.  Or even Majora's Mask.

To rate the 3D Zeldas, I'd put them like this:

5-Star:

• Twilight Princess
• Ocarina of Time
• Majora's Mask

4-Star:

• Windwaker
• Skyward Sword

3-star:

• Breath of the Wild

Windwaker could probably be upgraded to 5-star with better sailing mechanics and more to do while sailing.  I hadn't played the HD remake, but I understand the fast sail helps in that regard.

 

Skyward Sword did some really good things.  Probably the best story-telling in a Zelda game, and I personally rather enjoyed the motion controls for it.  But it was too linear, and the world was too disconnected.  Seems Nintendo took those critiques to heart with Breath of the Wild and focused on non-linearity and connected world above all else.

 

Man, I'm really getting the itch to play the old Zeldas.  I might have to play through them again after I move.

I’d go: 

 

5 star:

Ocarina of Time 

Wind Waker 

Majoras Mask 

 

4 Star:

Breath of the Wild 

Skyward Sword

 

3 Star 

Twilight Princess 

 

TP simply did not work for me. I did not like Wolf form, Midna, twilight realm, and the general story just felt like it dragged too much. Overall just felt far too OoT derivative as if they just said “here take your Ocarina again and leave us alone.” I also didn’t like that it introduced the child timeline which I’ve just never liked.
 

It had few redeeming qualities which were some new and fun weapons like the spinner, some fun dungeon ideas and I liked the sword fight with Ganondorf. 

[PokerPacker]

2 hours ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

I’d go: 

 

5 star:

Ocarina of Time 

Wind Waker 

Majoras Mask 

 

4 Star:

Breath of the Wild 

Skyward Sword

 

3 Star 

Twilight Princess 

 

TP simply did not work for me. I did not like Wolf form, Midna, twilight realm, and the general story just felt like it dragged too much. Overall just felt far too OoT derivative as if they just said “here take your Ocarina again and leave us alone.” I also didn’t like that it introduced the child timeline which I’ve just never liked.
 

It had few redeeming qualities which were some new and fun weapons like the spinner, some fun dungeon ideas and I liked the sword fight with Ganondorf. 

I can respect that.  I know TP has its problems, and that objectively OoT and MM are probably better games, but I just don't put as much weight on the the specific problems TP has compared to what I felt were its strengths.  Similar to how I have Wind Waker lower on my rankings despite it having a lot of great qualities, the problems I had with it dragged it down a notch for my personal tastes.

[PokerPacker]

5 hours ago, Llevron said:

I can’t even tell you how much this blew my mind. The dark half of me wants Nintendo to jump into the GRAPHICS!!!!1! race with Sony and Microsoft just for this. 
 

I realize that would be a mistake. But man would it be cool for just this lol

My reaction to it was "That's very pretty... but what I really want out of a remake are gameplay refinements".

 

And it seems like we're on the same side here, but I'm much happier with Nintendo chasing down new ways to interact with games than chasing down moar graphics.  Prettier is nice, but anybody can do prettier.  It's nice to still have somebody trying to push games forward in unconventional and unexpected ways.

 

One thing that is nice these days is that Emulators can now render games at a higher than native resolution, so if you have a powerful PC and you go to the efforts of setting up an emulator and ripping your games (or whatever), you can play Zelda in 4k.  And beyond just rendering in higher resolutions, there are artsy folks out there who will create high resolution texture packs for some of the older games that had quite limited texture resolution due to size constraints.

Edited May 13, 2023 by PokerPacker

[Momma There Goes That Man]

12 minutes ago, PokerPacker said:

d it seems like we're on the same side here, but I'm much happier with Nintendo chasing down new ways to interact with games than chasing down moar graphics.  Prettier is nice, but anybody can do prettier.  It's nice to still have somebody trying to push games forward in unconventional and unexpected ways.

Then you might like TotK a lot more than BOtW. 
 

also fun stuff like this you can make. Yea I beat that bokoblin with my flaming dick robot. 

 

 

28 minutes ago, PokerPacker said:

I can respect that.  I know TP has its problems, and that objectively OoT and MM are probably better games, but I just don't put as much weight on the the specific problems TP has compared to what I felt were its strengths.  Similar to how I have Wind Waker lower on my rankings despite it having a lot of great qualities, the problems I had with it dragged it down a notch for my personal tastes.

Yeah I can see that. TP had some really high highs but the imo lows just bothered me too much. 
 

Wind Waker felt a lot more consistent and fresh while still building on the OoT story in a more successful way to me. 
 

SS has a terrific story about a time I was always curious about which to me more than makes up for its linearity 

[PokerPacker]

9 minutes ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

Then you might like TotK a lot more than BOtW. 
 

also fun stuff like this you can make. Yea I beat that bokoblin with my flaming dick robot. 

I can see the appeal of that, but at least in terms of Zelda games, I'm not looking for a sandbox for my creativity.  For changing the way we interact with games, I was referring more to them introducing 2nd/touch screens, then motion controls, stereoscopic 3D, using a handheld screen on to go along with the main TV screen on a console (they were experimenting with this way before the Wii U with the GBA connectivity to the Gamecube and it was used in some pretty great ways even by 3rd party developers)

 

9 minutes ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

Yeah I can see that. TP had some really high highs but the imo lows just bothered me too much. 
 

Wind Waker felt a lot more consistent and fresh while still building on the OoT story in a more successful way to me. 
 

SS has a terrific story about a time I was always curious about which to me more than makes up for its linearity 

Yeah, that sounds about right.  Wolf Link was definitely a weak point in TP, and you kept getting forced back into that form--especially early in the game.  Though I can appreciate it from a ludonarrative harmony stand-point.  You feel trepidation as a player going into the twilit realm, and the pressure to quickly solve things so you can return to your Hylian form.  Now imagine how Midna feels throughout the game, being stuck in her little impish form; no wonder she's so grumpy and sassy.

 

Wind Waker, man the sailing really hurt the game for me.  I would actually set the controller down, go to the bathroom, and return, all while Link is still sailing to the destination island.  And if you're trying to circle around a specific island and see what is at it's base all around, you have to change the direction of the wind several times, and you have to sit through the wind change animation every friggin time.  I understand WW HD did solve that issue as the fast sail could actually still move the boat without friendly winds.  Even something as simple as allowing you to actually look around with your telescope while sailing would be a huge improvement, but as it is, once you pull out your telescope, you put away your sail, so they really take away all interactivity and make you sit there and watch the endless ocean.

 

And I'm with you on SS.  Best story-telling of the series, and as someone who loved the motion controls, it had fantastic gameplay.  The linearity and disconnectedness of the world were disappointing, and what brought it down to 4 stars. Then Breath Of The Wild came along and it was almost like a negative of Skyward Sword.  SS had the best story, BotW almost completely removed the story.  SS was super linear, BotW went completely non-linear.  SS had disconnected lands, BotW had one giant continuous world.  SS turned the overworld itself into a form dungeon with puzzles to solve in order to push forward, BotW had an open go-anywhere overworld and got rid of dungeons.

[purbeast]

Yeah TotK is really good.

 

I have played like 4-5 hours and just got off the first "island".

 

I'm liking the way you build/craft stuff, I just hope there is a bit more variety than what you get in the beginning areas.

 

I'm getting a bit confused with the controls because there is just so much stuff you have to control.

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/15/microsoft-activision-blizzard-eu-approves-deal/
 

Quote

The European Union on Monday cleared Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of the gaming company Activision Blizzard, in a rare victory for the companies after blows from regulators in the United States and United Kingdom.

 

[NickyJ]

On 5/12/2023 at 9:52 AM, The 12th Commandment said:

Outside of needing to rebuild the shaders, which is an hour-long process, every time the game updates or you install new graphic drivers, The Last of Us PC port is a great game. I see why you guys were gushing about it.  Sony is knocking it out of the park with their ports lately.

When you got it, did it originally have lagging and they fixed it, or has it been fine the entire time? I want to get it, but I'm not sure whether to get it during the Steam summer sales, or put it off to after my Skyrim run finishes (maybe 3 months from now lol) or Mass Effect after that (about a year).

[The 12th Commandment]

1 hour ago, NickyJ said:

When you got it, did it originally have lagging and they fixed it, or has it been fine the entire time? I want to get it, but I'm not sure whether to get it during the Steam summer sales, or put it off to after my Skyrim run finishes (maybe 3 months from now lol) or Mass Effect after that (about a year).

I waited till after they had a big update, supposedly fixing the worst of the issues, to get it.  About a month ago.  I've never noticed any appreciable lag or any other deal breaking issues.  Has crashed a couple times but I never lost too much.  Playing with very average gear these days.  It might be a nice interlude between those. Story is central to it.  

[Mr. Sinister]

Currently experiencing Lost Judgment (from the devs of the Yakuza games), and maaaaaan is it an experience

[Warhead36]

D4 server slam(basically a bonus beta weekend) was quite good. Can't decide which character I want to play between Sorcerer and Barbarian.

[Fan since a Fetus]

8 hours ago, Mr. Sinister said:

Currently experiencing Lost Judgment (from the devs of the Yakuza games), and maaaaaan is it an experience

Just finished Judgment yesterday. The story was really good. So much fun. I have lost judgement, but it will be a few months before I get to it. 

[COWBOY-KILLA-]

Nobody in here playing Jedi Survivor?

[PokerPacker]

I'm pondering playing through the old Zelda games (at least the 3D games to start), and when looking into high res texture packs for OoT, I discovered someone actually made a native PC port of the game.  It's called Ship of Harkinian.  With that done, it will be interesting to see how much this accelerates efforts to improve the visual quality of the game.  Beyond high res texture packs, it looks like the latest release (code name Spock) supports importing custom models, so it's probably just a matter of time before the community starts creating high polygon models for the game; might even start with dumping the models from the 3DS remaster.

 

[purbeast]

I put in a solid 4.5 hours into TotK last night.  

 

And I still barely feel like I made any progress.

 

The game is great don't get me wrong, but it also is kinda boring at points where I just feel like I am roaming around with nothing around, very similar to BotW.  But, I mean I put in almost 5 hours so it can't be that boring lol.

 

I am a bit disappointed that the game is basically the same map as BotW though, I realized that last night when I saw a few areas I thought were familiar to me, and I hadn't played BotW since it launched in 2017, but I still remembered them.

 

The game also has noticeably performance issues at parts, but I guess to be expected considering how old the Switch is now.

[mhd24]

If anyone has a 3ds, than the definitive version of Ocarina is the Ocarina 3ds version.  Major quality of life improvements over the original (like the Iron Boots are now a selectable item instead of having to go through the menu to change them).

 

The Wind Waker HD is the definitive version too on Wii U.  Swift Sail alone makes it so.  The map being on the game pad constantly and on-the-fly weapon/item changing are all major plusses.   

 

I loved Twilight Princess.  That game really gets going after the admitted slow slog of the first two hours.  The HD remake on Wii U also removes some unneeded early game material.  TP has the best dungeons in the series.

 

SS HD is also really good.  Excellent dungeons and the best story of any Zelda game.  

[Mr. Sinister]

10 hours ago, COWBOY-KILLA- said:

Nobody in here playing Jedi Survivor?

 

It's en my Library but so is the first one. I haven't played either of them. Gonna be awhile, too.

[purbeast]

I'm not a Star Wars fan and kind of dislike the whole SW world, but I thought the first Jedi game was cool.  I didn't finish it though and got kinda bored, but I really enjoyed it initially.  I just kind of lost interest and never got back to it.

[COWBOY-KILLA-]

1 hour ago, Mr. Sinister said:

 

It's en my Library but so is the first one. I haven't played either of them. Gonna be awhile, too.

 

54 minutes ago, purbeast said:

I'm not a Star Wars fan and kind of dislike the whole SW world, but I thought the first Jedi game was cool.  I didn't finish it though and got kinda bored, but I really enjoyed it initially.  I just kind of lost interest and never got back to it.

Ah I see, all good! I’ll say it’s a pretty fun game, nothing crazy, but definitely a good time. 

[Llevron]

15 hours ago, Warhead36 said:

D4 server slam(basically a bonus beta weekend) was quite good. Can't decide which character I want to play between Sorcerer and Barbarian.

 

Def going Barb 

[Llevron]

Playing this game with my wife is really holding me back from true greatness im not gonna lie 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Llevron

[The Evil Genius]

Death Stranding PC version is free right now via Epic Games.

 

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/death-stranding

[The Evil Genius]

Not for the squeamish.  😆

 

 

[Warhead36]

On 5/16/2023 at 1:02 PM, Llevron said:

 

Def going Barb 

I enjoyed Barb a lot more than I thought I would this past weekend, but still leaning towards Sorc because ranged tends to be easier/better than melee, at least early on.

[The Evil Genius]

Weird that this is a sequel but has the exact same name as the original.