3 Video Game Wishes

i will have to ask him for details.
but i must say that i totally loathe the basic design decision.

in all former Zeldas it generated such a great feeling of steady progression to wander from temple to temple and having to solve all the puzzles to qualify to enter the final stages.

To me Iā€™d rather have the option, especially with how easy it is to sequence break older Zelda games. I also enjoyed the lesser amount of linearity.

I dislike open world games in the whole, especially the latest crop of WRPGā€™s with all the handholding, 50000000 markers on a map for garbage side crap and yet, despite my skepticism, BotW really won me over.

Is it a good game? Yeah, I donā€™t think thatā€™s really a question to a lot of people considering how loved it is.

Is it a Zelda game? I think thatā€™s heavily debatable (and debated all the time). If it wasnā€™t branded as a Zelda game, do you think you would have liked it more @JammaTal?

ok, i had not listened closely enough.
Arne says he had to visit about 40 mini-temples to get at least 13 heart containers to be able to survive extracting the master sword, but did not visit one of the main shrines (fire, earth, wind and air). he had to play about 4-5 hours for that, not 2.
the speedrun freak record on the web is about 30 minutes (without the master sword). not recommended for ā€œnormalā€ players :roll_eyes:

i have not played BotW yet. so i canā€™t tell if i will like it or not.
but the basic design decisions of ā€œjust do what you likeā€ and ā€œfight the boss when you wantā€ definitely bewilder me.

One of the 4 Divine Beasts, which means Ganon had more health in the first part of the final fight and he missed a chunk of story.

Speed runs are speed runs - it sounds like you donā€™t enjoy them at all. Iā€™d suggest avoiding the glitched runs for past Zeldaā€™s, especially OOT.

People would do it anyway, whether the game wanted them to or not - why put an artificial barrier in the way? If you donā€™t want to, donā€™t - I certainly didnā€™t. I put in 120ish hours into the game, didnā€™t beat it until I had the best ending, did 80% of the shrines and at least tried the add on content. Contrast that with a friend of mine who hit Ganon repeatedly throughout his play through to see how strong things were. Heā€™s one of those speed runners, though he can only manage roughly 40 minutes.

i just liked the way in which all former 3-D Zeldas unfolded slowly and steadily.

The discussion reminds me about the rumors you could beat Diablo 1 in less than 30 min because you can access the endgame-dungeon right of the bat?

I always think thats a bad design choice. I know total freedom to explore your way and whatnot butā€¦why craft a huge world with lots of stuff to do if you can bypass EVERYTHING?

Isnā€™t then a better idea to program a Hello world sequence with a ā€œPress Enter to win the gameā€ prompt a better design choice?

These kinds of statements always boggle my mind. Why is this such a problem to you? You are not forced to end the game as soon as possible. In fact, if you have no idea whatā€™s waiting for you, itā€™s very unlikely youā€™ll even make it to the castle, let alone through the castle, with weapons to even fight Ganon with. Just because itā€™s an option that the game designers put into the game, you feel that it detracts from the game in some way?

To me, the older Zeldas are great for a single play through, and are not fun in subsequent plays. There is no real way to change the outcome of the game - you have to do the dungeons in order to get the correct items in or to get to the next temple. You can chose to grind out rupees, bombs or other things - even take a side trip to get some heart containers, but overall the structure of the game is the exact same and dull.

No. This statement detracts from the conversation and is useless in context. If you think that Diablo 1 or BotW are reduced to something like this because you have an option to skip things, then Iā€™d say try it and see how easy it is. The games named arenā€™t Myst, where once you know the end puzzle you can skip the whole game with no consequences.

I donā€™t mind the BotW design decision for a couple reasons. First, I am not good at action games so it took all the hearts and stamina I could muster for me to beat the game. Second, just because someone can rush the boss does not mean there is progression if you choose. Each divine beast has its own region and own story arc. Third, if someone chooses to rush the boss, they are missing 99% of the game and that is their loss.

I do miss the dungeon progression in older Zelda games but that certainly didnā€™t ruin the game for me in any way.

As I seem to have increasingly less and less time for gaming other than on my commute / while wife is watching a show on TV my wishes end up being.

  1. The Space Hulk: Death Angel card game playable on my phone (would never happen so Iā€™ll say Imperial Settlers instead)

  2. Metal Gear Ac!d playable on my phone (not emulated)

  3. That aforementioned MicroProse MTG game (which I absolutely loved) playable on my phone.

3 Likes

Oh belive me - to each its own way of enjoyment. So no problem if others want to do this, more power to them. I for MYSELF cannot wrap my head around the concept that skipping everything = fun.

I am maybe too deeply entrenched in ā€œthe more to do - the betterā€ and most of the times enjoy long games. I may have a above average tolerance level for BS busywork in games AND dislike specifically designed (too) challenging content. If skipping provides a really hard challenge in said games or others - well then I am even less inclined to try them.

For myself: busywork is tolerable - frustration because of repeated failures or being below needed skillcap however is not.

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I enjoyed watching the recent Games Done Quick (GDQ) charity stream, mainly to enjoy someone speeding through a game that is too hard for me, such as Cuphead. I absolutely love the classic cartoon art style of Cuphead, but I know that hard platformers and ā€œbullet hellā€ games are outside my ability, Iā€™m not their target audience that they designed the game for, for enjoyment and to entertain.

What I donā€™t understand is all the ā€œglitchā€ speed runs. Especially when they run older versions of a game because it has the glitch before it was patched in a subsequent version. If I was on the panel to approve which games make the cut for the GDQ marathon stream, Iā€™d grudgingly allow in Japanese versions where they allow skipping dialogue and cut scenes for improved time runs, but Iā€™d not approve older versions just because they have an unpatched glitch.

As far as skipping / busywork, I appreciate the option to gain more power before confronting the boss, if my personal skill is not up to defeating the bossā€™ mechanics. This, however, only applies to premium games, where I give the benefit of the doubt that the developer has tried to make the best game they could, but that sometimes Iā€™m not the target audience they are aiming to maximize enjoyment for. Iā€™ve become increasingly skeptical of games with IAP that makes me question if Iā€™m being trolled to spend money.

As Iā€™ve grown older, Iā€™ve grown to appreciate more the inclusion of difficulty settings, I now look for them when making decisions on which titles to invest time and money on. I absolutely love that the Switch games seem to be targeting me, older games updated for the Switch seem to now include difficulty options that were not in the originals ā€¦ I bought Wonder Boy: The Dragonā€™s Trap, which now not only has a great art style but also added difficulty settings that were not in the original Sega Master System version. Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze adds a Funky Mode that ā€œmakes the game more accessibleā€, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe adds not only an ā€œEasyā€ character choice, but also a ā€œVery Easyā€ character option to the Switch version. :slight_smile:

At this point, Iā€™ve probably posted ay more than 3 wishes, but older games keep coming to mind. Iā€™d love Zoo Tycoon and Sid Meierā€™s Sim Golf on my phone.

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A Sim Golf port to iOS would be amazing!

Honestly, I would even be happy if it got updated and put on GOG. I have a bad feeling its hard to port or is burdened with rights issues since it was a joint Maxis/Firaxis game.

ā€œSlitherine didnā€™t reveal specific plans in the announcement, but McNeil tells me that we can expect something new in the near future, ā€œlike we did for Fantasy Generalā€. A sequel seems very likely, then.ā€
Master of Magic acquired by strategy publisher Slitherine, ā€œRescued from Atariā€™s IP dungeon.ā€

3 Likes

Yeah, I forgot to add on that wish that it needs to be on Mac. Slitherine is hit or miss on Mac release.