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A Chat with the Directors of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

58 points by duck 10y ago

tarr11 10y ago
My favorite part of BOTW is the villages. I recognize this isn't really something new to the franchise, but with the recipe system, it adds a new dimension. I play with my kids, and my daughter loves to wander around and talk to villagers, discover side quests, look at items in the shops and cook new items. My son mostly skips past them and roams around solving big quests and fighting enemies. I think the weakest part of the game is the Hyrule Compendium, which doesn't really feel very well integrated into the game, and feels like it was added at a late stage, based on the success of Pokemon Go.
- EtienneK 10y ago
  The compendium is very helpful when grinding for certain ingredients. Without it, I would have never been able to upgrade some of my armour sets.
danielbln 10y ago
I hope this marks a turn in the trend of ridiculous handholding, drawn out tutorial sections and checklists upon checklists that have become so prevalent in open world games. BotW is doing an amazing job of just letting me explore and figure out stuff out on my own, without spoon feeding me content like I'm a 6 year old who's using a controller for the first time, or shoving a billion achievements/map markers in my face. I look forward seeing to what other devs learn from BotW and incorporate in their own games.
- RubenSandwich 10y ago
  Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit explains this super well in his episode on BoTW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmIgjAM0uh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmIgjAM0uh0. Specifically that this Zelda has a linear start and end of the story but the middle is up to you. It is refreshing and makes you feel much more a part of the story.
- xeonoex 10y ago
  Agreed. For a period of time I had found that single player games were becoming very easy, repetitive, and became stale after a few hours. They were also getting shorter and started charging for DLC, even when the game could be completed in less than 10 hours when released. I think appealing to casual gamers was a factor, along with profit. I started mostly just playing more competitive multiplayer games. Now, it seems that games are trending back to being more challenging and rewarding. Dark Souls restored my hope for single player games. It was challenging, deep, and the combat system was very fun and flexible. I rarely replay single player games. Before Dark Souls, the last single player game I played through multiple times was Resident Evil 4. I probably spent 100 hours playing Dark Souls. BOTW isn't Dark Souls, but there are a lot of similarities. I now have a backlog of newer single player games I need to beat, but unfortunately it's a lot harder to find the time now. I really hope the trend continues. I wonder if casual gamers moving migrating to mobile platforms had something to do with the trend change.

58 points by duck 10y ago

My favorite part of BOTW is the villages. I recognize this isn't really something new to the franchise, but with the recipe system, it adds a new dimension. I play with my kids, and my daughter loves to wander around and talk to villagers, discover side quests, look at items in the shops and cook new items. My son mostly skips past them and roams around solving big quests and fighting enemies. I think the weakest part of the game is the Hyrule Compendium, which doesn't really feel very well integrated into the game, and feels like it was added at a late stage, based on the success of Pokemon Go.

EtienneK 10y ago
The compendium is very helpful when grinding for certain ingredients. Without it, I would have never been able to upgrade some of my armour sets.

danielbln 10y ago

I hope this marks a turn in the trend of ridiculous handholding, drawn out tutorial sections and checklists upon checklists that have become so prevalent in open world games. BotW is doing an amazing job of just letting me explore and figure out stuff out on my own, without spoon feeding me content like I'm a 6 year old who's using a controller for the first time, or shoving a billion achievements/map markers in my face. I look forward seeing to what other devs learn from BotW and incorporate in their own games.

RubenSandwich 10y ago
Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit explains this super well in his episode on BoTW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmIgjAM0uh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmIgjAM0uh0. Specifically that this Zelda has a linear start and end of the story but the middle is up to you. It is refreshing and makes you feel much more a part of the story.
xeonoex 10y ago
Agreed. For a period of time I had found that single player games were becoming very easy, repetitive, and became stale after a few hours. They were also getting shorter and started charging for DLC, even when the game could be completed in less than 10 hours when released. I think appealing to casual gamers was a factor, along with profit. I started mostly just playing more competitive multiplayer games. Now, it seems that games are trending back to being more challenging and rewarding. Dark Souls restored my hope for single player games. It was challenging, deep, and the combat system was very fun and flexible. I rarely replay single player games. Before Dark Souls, the last single player game I played through multiple times was Resident Evil 4. I probably spent 100 hours playing Dark Souls. BOTW isn't Dark Souls, but there are a lot of similarities. I now have a backlog of newer single player games I need to beat, but unfortunately it's a lot harder to find the time now. I really hope the trend continues. I wonder if casual gamers moving migrating to mobile platforms had something to do with the trend change.