#random drops

So you may be wondering what happened to last week's post, and the answer is that I never wrote it because I was too busy trying to finish this side project I have been working on. And I finished it!

I think I might have offered to explain it a while ago, so I will do that now, since I have very little new art to offer at the moment (it is probably not why you are here but please bear with me).

This one is a bit long and is all about code..

Not to say that Breath of the Wild is not a fun game, because it very much is, but just off the top of my head I can name seven Zelda games that take a big smelly shit on BotW in literally every way. Well, not literally since the graphics are obviously better. So then just almost literally every way.

Best Zelda game ever? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

No. Not by a long shot.

Problem number one: bring back random drops. I don’t give a shit if it’s not realistic that a Keese would be holding five arrows when I kill it.

There are two ways to get arrows in this game. 1: Find an enemy with a bow and wait for it to fire at you and dodge the arrow and hope the arrow wasn’t broken wherever it struck. 2: Shell out five gajillion rupees for at most 15 at a time. Thanks but no thanks.

And rupees! There are no more rupee drops except for the odd Yiga clan attack, which I guarantee won’t net you enough money to pay for all the arrows you’ll need. To unlock all the great fairy fountains you need, if my memory serves me correctly, over 16000 rupees!!! The only other way to get money is to occasionally find them in chests or sell monster parts for a dozen or so rupees depending on the particulars.

You can also own a home in this game, but it costs upwards of 4000 rupees to get it all decked out.

Problem number 2: Breakable weapons. Fuck. This. Mechanic. And the Master Sword isn’t even immune to it!!!! It’s reusable, but if you use it too much it will break and you have to wait for it to recharge. Even if the MS alone were unbreakable that would make the mechanic about a gajillion times more tolerable.

Problem number 3: Rain. The rain in the plains. Or more problematically, the rain in the mountains. You see, my children, when it rains in Hyrule, it becomes impossible to scale any sort of scale-able surface. Guess what Hyrule is covered in? Yes, that’s right. Mountains. And hills and oodles of climbable shit.  All of which is 100% off limits in the rain.

There’s a wait feature. You set down a bundle of wood and a piece of flint. Strike the flint with a metal weapon and voila. Instant campfire. Guess what doesn’t work in the rain? Yes, that’s right. Campfires. So you have to wait out rain the old fashioned way.

Again, sacrificing game quality for the sake of realism. IT’S A MAGICAL KINGDOM WHERE YOU HAVE TO FIGHT A PIG GHOST DEMON WITH THE HELP OF ROBOT ANIMALS WE DON’T NEED REALISM.

Problem number 4: The horses. This is more of a nitpick than a problem since there’s only one point in the story where a horse is significant, and even then its use isn’t required. So why bother putting them in?  Just give me one horse. Epona. Give me Epona and make her control perfectly without randomly deciding to turn off the path you were on or pull up short in the middle of a dead sprint because there was a patch of ground that was .001 microns higher than the ground around it.

You can register the horses you catch at any stable, so that you can board them and retrieve them later at a different stable elsewhere in the world, perhaps so that you can fast travel and still be able to ride your cool steed, which is a nice touch.

You know what isn’t a nice touch? You can only register horses you catch. You want to register that Stalhorse you caught and name Bonethony (like Anthony but with Bone in it)? Nope. You want to register that stag you’re forced to catch for that one Shrine Quest and name it Bambi? Take a hike, chump. You want to register that super badass glowing horse thing you caught at the top of Satori Mountain that has infinite sprinting and name it Awesome Glowhorse? Fuck you, you can’t.

Problem number 5: Link’s durability. This rendition of Link has the constitution of a wet paper bag. When there are enemies that can one-shot you in the first goddamn area you’ve got a problem. The ability to dodge is at an all time high, except that oops, enemies with ranged weapons can lead their shots and oops most high end enemies have AOE attacks so unless you want to spend half your time playing this game reloading from the last save because Link just got OTKed by a Guardian with pinpoint accuracy from the other side of fucking Hyrule, you’ll spend most of your time in the menus shoving food down Link’s gullet.

“But Eagal!” I hear you say. “You can fight from afar with your mighty bow!” Good point. Except for A: The previously mentioned arrow scarcity and B: Arrows do jack shit to any enemy worth using them on. They can be used to stun most enemies if you get a headshot, but alas, they’ll typically remain stunned for less time than it takes to actually run up to them and attack with your sword or whatever, especially if you’re using a two-handed weapon.

“But Eagal!” I hear you say. “You can use your mighty shield to block enemy attacks!” Except that again, no you can’t. Because AOE ignores shields and any shield not named the Hylian Shield are trash when it comes to blocking attacks from enemies worth using them on and if you do use the Hylian Shield, which is often erroneously reported as unbreakable, it  will inevitably break and at such time you can either A: go back to relying on inferior shields or B: shell out 3000 more rupees to a guy in Tarrey town.

Problem number 6: Link’s stamina. Ok, so let’s include the ability to run in this game. But let’s make that run feature utterly meaningless by trying it to Link’s incredibly small stamina meter. There’s a sex joke in there somewhere.

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The music. Mainly the remixes, as opposed to the original songs, which I believe I liked all of. Some of it I liked, some of it I wasn’t crazy about. Off the top of my head I don’t think I actually disliked any of it, just didn’t love it.

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So what did I like about the game? One of the game’s primary gimmicks is the clothes. You can equip different sets of armor which may provide different bonus effects and varying levels of protection. You can get a climber’s set that lets you climb faster or the Hylian guard set that gives you really good defense. Or my personal favorite the Barbarian set that boosts your attack power.

Or you can have Link run around in his skivvies. He wears boxer briefs, which is funny because I would have pegged Link as a boxers kind of guy. Not that I often think about the state of Link’s undergarments....

In any event, whatever you’ve got him equipped with, that’s what Link will be wearing during cutscenes. Alas, no cuckoo costume. You can get a Dark Link outfit by doing a sidequest to unlock a certain merchant. Lets you run faster a night, though come to that, so does the upgraded sheikah outfit, which has an added benefit of increasing your stealth. I bought it anyway, because why not.

There’s also a bunch of amiibo costumes but I don’t have any of those.

The other primary gimmick of the game is the Sheikah iphone slate which replaces items in this game. You can create a block of ice in the water to climb upon  or you can freeze time for objects or enemies or you can take a picture with the camera function...which actually does have a use because the map has a search function that will alert you if a certain thing (items, enemies, shrines) is nearby.

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THE MOST TRAITOROUS THING about this game. Link doesn’t get to wear green!!!!! Well, ok, he does. If you get the amiibos which give you access to the signature tunics of his predecessors in Linkage. Or if you complete all 120ish shrines so that Link can get his own set. Still.

These are my only thoughts for now.

In summary, good, not the best. Not by any stretch of the imagination.