Drumstick wrote:Corazon de Leon wrote:I’m about six hours in so far. I’ve found one memory, done the very first couple of main quests, chased cuccos in Kakariko and generally farted about exploring the place. My God this is a beautiful game.
Your first playthrough?
So disgustingly jealous.
Yes. And thanks to the joys of stream schedules, I can only do a few hours a week so this will probably last me the rest of the year. So far it's really challenging ALTTP and the N64-era Zeldas for the title, which I honestly thought was impossible at this point. I've never played anything like this before.
Current more in-depth thoughts are:
- It's
very Ghibli-esque in places. I found a Great Fairy last night and we were talking about just how much she looked like a couple of characters from early Ghibli movies. But then we also kind of came to the conclusion that, whether intentional or not, there's always been a kind of parallel running between Ghibli's aesthetic and some of Zelda's design elements. This isn't a bad thing. If anything it probably explains why I took to Ghibli films so easily.
- This extends to the music, which is fantastically minimalist. I love the references to things like the chest-opening theme within the game, all done on a piano. Really, really impressive stuff.
- There are some genuinely wonderful nods to classic Zelda moments and characters that I've already noticed so far. For example, a Cucco finding mission in Kakariko that was very similar to its N64 counterpart. I also noticed when I unlocked the piece of map with Zora's domain that there are areas named after Princess Ruto and (maybe) Jabu Jabu.
- I legit didn't realise first person aiming was through motion controls, because I stupidly didn't realise the Switch still had motion controls.
- Visually this might be the most stunning game I've ever played. The big project now is to increase stamina to the point where I can climb a mountain and glide off the edge, just to see the world. It's an honest to God joy to run around in. The only other open world game I've been anywhere near as impressed with is Spider-Man's rendition of Manhattan, which is much smaller.
- Overall, it feels like a genuine evolution of the series for possibly the first time in two decades. Ocarina pushed into 3D and set a template for adventuring within the world that was followed by most of the mainline home-console games since - Majora's Mask, WW, TP and SS are all completely indebted to that formula. This still carries the series hallmarks as far as I can see(compass point villains, desert/mountain/forest/river, you know the drill), but it feels like Ocarina did - bringing those hallmarks and that sense of "Zelda" into an entirely new place.
I'm really, really impressed. Maybe I'm a bit easier to impress as I've always loved Zelda and was desperate for this to be as good as I've been told, but it's really blown me away.
The shrines seem like bite-sized mini dungeons to me and I'm totally fine with that at the moment. I'm gonna thrash out a few to get some spirit orbs for stamina and hearts, so we'll see if they hold up to that.