Nintendo Switch

[Keyblade]

It's probably my second favourite Zelda, despite its flaws. I personally had no issues with the controls so it kind of surprises me that it's a pretty popular point of contention. The lack of overworld I agree with for sure. Those little sky islands doesn't really scratch that Hyrule Field itch. Ultimately I think it has the best dungeons in the series, which is the meat and potatoes of any Zelda game and why it's easier for me to overlook the other little issues (also slightly related, it's why I've never 100% warmed to Breath of the Wild. I'll try approaching it as a non-Zelda game in my next playthrough).

[Stevo985]

The controls on skyward sword are fine (at least the non motion controls that I used are) but they’re just very very different to other Zelda games. 
 

I absolutely despised them at first but once you’re used to them I thought they were fine

[Demitri_C]

I got torchlight 3 for like £3 on offer what a bargain! Looks brilliant in my switch oled.

If you like diablo kind of games this is up there

[Risso]

Ugh, on the bit where you have to find the tears in the Silent Realm. Highly irritating shit like this makes me very much not want to carry on playing.

[Dante_Lockhart]

Lads switch is playing up now. Can't get into it at all. It's like all of the buttons are being constantly pressed so as soon as you power up it unlocks, parental control, sleep mode, off again.

I had the screen repaired recently and he thinks the digitizer has come loose so the screen is faulty. Gonna have to get it back to him for a warranty repair.

[Stevo985]

On 06/12/2022 at 09:54, Risso said:

Ugh, on the bit where you have to find the tears in the Silent Realm. Highly irritating shit like this makes me very much not want to carry on playing.

I loved those bits  

[Risso]

Got past that eventually, to then have to go back and do the same temple again. This game is starting to feel a bit lazy.

[Demitri_C]

On 06/12/2022 at 12:50, Dante_Lockhart said:

Lads switch is playing up now. Can't get into it at all. It's like all of the buttons are being constantly pressed so as soon as you power up it unlocks, parental control, sleep mode, off again.

I had the screen repaired recently and he thinks the digitizer has come loose so the screen is faulty. Gonna have to get it back to him for a warranty repair.

I had to get a new one recently. These switches are not built great

If you can afford it get a oled its brilliant

[Dante_Lockhart]

11 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I had to get a new one recently. These switches are not built great

If you can afford it get a oled its brilliant

I cannot lol.

He's repairing it again. Looks like a faulty digitiser. Probably be 5-7 days as he's waiting for new stock to come in and with the strikes they're a bit delayed. As long as it's back for Xmas I ain't too fussed, the lad is getting Pokemon Scarlet so he'll want to play it.

[AXD]

For christmas, I am doubting between Metroid Dread and Hollow Knight. Any recommendations?

I got into metroid since the prime series, but recently played Super Metroid and liked it as well. Hollow Knight get's raving reviews, so one to consider. I like a game that is more than just 'making that one jump', so the added action of metroid is always a plus.

[Risso]

On 17/04/2022 at 22:04, Chindie said:

Finished Skyward Sword.

I'm glad to have played it finally. It's quite good. It could have been one of the best in the series, but it's hampered in fundamental ways. 

On the plus side, it has fantastic dungeons and brilliant puzzles, led by some really good unique items. Genuinely best in series contenders. Truly great. And it looks really good. It has some good unique bosses for the series (and a **** appalling one). And it has some nice touches at depth with very minor upgrade mechanics and hints at the BotW gameplay mechanics.

On the negative side though... It's defined by the controls. Everything is a motion control puzzle and while the controller based scheme works, it's still a never ending run of dexterity and reverse Simon says puzzles, which you never feel completely at one with, always held at arms length from it. And it only has 3 dungeons, really. They evolve and grow over the game, but fundamentally it's 3 dungeons that you revisit over and over. Which is then made worse by the fact the flying back and forth is completely pointless, and with no true hub/overworld makes the thing feel incohesive. And that boss, THAT boss. Whoever came up with that needs prison time.

But I really enjoyed it. I wanted to play it, because it's a mainline Zelda game, but when it came out, when I was working in Gamestation, I had moved on from the Wii and the bad word of mouth meant I never went back to it. The remaster though, reveals it's a pretty good game, that could have been brilliant.

Nearly at the end now, and I agree with your post. The dungeons are really well put together. Just the right blend of playability and complexity, and most of the weapons are really fun to use, eg the flying beetle. The world around the dungeons though is basically non-existent though, which is a shame. The flying is just a chore, and not fun at all. The bosses are mostly OK, although having to do The Imprisoned several times really wasn't great. And neither were the Silent Realms, which sucked ass in a major way. I've got the last one to do and it's probably going to mean I don't end up finishing the game as I really loathe them and can't be arsed. Which boss were you talking about by the way? I think my least favourite was the early one where you had to roll bombs at him. The mechanics of using a bomb on the run just made it really frustrating.

[Stevo985]

22 minutes ago, Risso said:

Nearly at the end now, and I agree with your post. The dungeons are really well put together. Just the right blend of playability and complexity, and most of the weapons are really fun to use, eg the flying beetle. The world around the dungeons though is basically non-existent though, which is a shame. The flying is just a chore, and not fun at all. The bosses are mostly OK, although having to do The Imprisoned several times really wasn't great. And neither were the Silent Realms, which sucked ass in a major way. I've got the last one to do and it's probably going to mean I don't end up finishing the game as I really loathe them and can't be arsed. Which boss were you talking about by the way? I think my least favourite was the early one where you had to roll bombs at him. The mechanics of using a bomb on the run just made it really frustrating.

Agree with the stuff about the world around the dungeons. Flying is really pointless. At least in other Zelda games you can encounter things on the way or fast travel.

[Rolta]

On 02/12/2022 at 21:04, Stevo985 said:

The controls on skyward sword are fine (at least the non motion controls that I used are) but they’re just very very different to other Zelda games. 
 

I absolutely despised them at first but once you’re used to them I thought they were fine

I really enjoyed the button controls. Weilding the sword with the second joystick was satisfying in a way I didn't expect it to be. I tried the motion controls but they just reminded me why I stopped playing the game back on the Wii U—the motion controls are zero fun, a massive chore.

The game itself is a massive chore too imo. It has no real pacing to it—gameplay-wise it's pretty much one constant mega dungeon punctuated with very minor exploration/character moments and abysmal flying sequences. Returning to the same areas over and over again was also pretty damn unsatisfying. I enjoyed it for the first 10-15 hours, but it was a tedious game to finish. It's definitely one of the worst Zelda games I've ever played. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's a 5 out of 10.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Rolta

[Rolta]

On 16/12/2022 at 13:43, AXD said:

For christmas, I am doubting between Metroid Dread and Hollow Knight. Any recommendations?

I got into metroid since the prime series, but recently played Super Metroid and liked it as well. Hollow Knight get's raving reviews, so one to consider. I like a game that is more than just 'making that one jump', so the added action of metroid is always a plus.

I was a little cold on Metroid Dread—Hollow Knight on the other hand is one of the top two games on the Switch for me (with BOTW). I'm a massive metroidvania fan and have been since the Metroids on the GBA, and while Dread was slick and well made, it just kind of felt perfunctory. Hollow Knight on the other hand is huge and a joy to explore and to experience its world. It feels as if it was made with love and passion. Dread is about 15 hours as I remember and feels like a (well made) 'product'. Hollow Knight is 50 hours, and is beautiful, and I loved every minute. They're both full of action. My memory of both is that HK was more fun though as I say Dread has its moments and is still good.

The only thing that irks me is that my friend borrowed my Switch a few years ago and lost it on a train—so I lost my HK game file when I was on the 'final' final boss. For this reason alone I never finished it. I was on 99%. He replaced the Switch at least.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Rolta

[Rolta]

On 08/12/2022 at 11:21, Risso said:

Got past that eventually, to then have to go back and do the same temple again. This game is starting to feel a bit lazy.

This is the ultimate impression I had. A 15 hour game stretched to 40.

[Rolta]

On 07/12/2022 at 14:14, Stevo985 said:

I loved those bits  

Me too! They were pretty much the only enjoyable part in the second half of the game. At least they felt a bit original.

[Chindie]

1 hour ago, Risso said:

Nearly at the end now, and I agree with your post. The dungeons are really well put together. Just the right blend of playability and complexity, and most of the weapons are really fun to use, eg the flying beetle. The world around the dungeons though is basically non-existent though, which is a shame. The flying is just a chore, and not fun at all. The bosses are mostly OK, although having to do The Imprisoned several times really wasn't great. And neither were the Silent Realms, which sucked ass in a major way. I've got the last one to do and it's probably going to mean I don't end up finishing the game as I really loathe them and can't be arsed. Which boss were you talking about by the way? I think my least favourite was the early one where you had to roll bombs at him. The mechanics of using a bomb on the run just made it really frustrating.

The bomb boss is annoying, but the one that's terrible is the Imprisoned. Its a bad boss but then they keep adding gameplay elements to it that make it infinitely worse. They make hitting it's toes harder and harder in a deeply irritating way with the damaging shockwave thing etc, and then make getting to it's head when you do bring it down increasingly annoying by preventing you running around it's body, meaning you can fail to hit the head in time because you brought it down in a place where the run to get down around and back up to it is too much to get to it. Its dreadful.

The game overall is decent but it's a weak Zelda entry. As I said, fantastic dungeons, fun weapons, looks nice and has hints at making a more deep game, but misses the true Zelda experience without the open hub world, it's controls define the whole thing in a really hamfisted way, and it's not got enough dungeons irrespective of how good the ones we get are.

Reflecting on it I reckon the game we got is maybe half what they wanted to make, and bits of it are a fudge - I reckon the flying was meant to have more to it, be more like a 3 dimensional take on the Wind Waker ocean world, for instance; the Imprisoned sections are padding, and they did the evolving dungeons thing to save on time producing more, smaller dungeons.

[Chindie]

On 16/12/2022 at 12:43, AXD said:

For christmas, I am doubting between Metroid Dread and Hollow Knight. Any recommendations?

I got into metroid since the prime series, but recently played Super Metroid and liked it as well. Hollow Knight get's raving reviews, so one to consider. I like a game that is more than just 'making that one jump', so the added action of metroid is always a plus.

I would argue Hollow Knight is the better game, and it's action is decent - it has elements of the Souls games in its mechanics which give it a bit of depth, but also makes it a more difficult game. Its also huge, you can feasibly be playing that game for months. Genuinely though one of my favourite games if the last few years.

Metroid Dread is very good, but it has some divisive elements. It has sections where you're basically being chased by an enemy that will 9/10 times will 1 shot you if caught, and you can only defeat these if you find a particular thing in that section. It has some very nice and tricky platforming puzzles, and some difficult bosses.

I think you'll enjoy either, but also I think you should try both.

[Risso]

9 minutes ago, Chindie said:

The bomb boss is annoying, but the one that's terrible is the Imprisoned. Its a bad boss but then they keep adding gameplay elements to it that make it infinitely worse. They make hitting it's toes harder and harder in a deeply irritating way with the damaging shockwave thing etc, and then make getting to it's head when you do bring it down increasingly annoying by preventing you running around it's body, meaning you can fail to hit the head in time because you brought it down in a place where the run to get down around and back up to it is too much to get to it. Its dreadful.

The game overall is decent but it's a weak Zelda entry. As I said, fantastic dungeons, fun weapons, looks nice and has hints at making a more deep game, but misses the true Zelda experience without the open hub world, it's controls define the whole thing in a really hamfisted way, and it's not got enough dungeons irrespective of how good the ones we get are.

Reflecting on it I reckon the game we got is maybe half what they wanted to make, and bits of it are a fudge - I reckon the flying was meant to have more to it, be more like a 3 dimensional take on the Wind Waker ocean world, for instance; the Imprisoned sections are padding, and they did the evolving dungeons thing to save on time producing more, smaller dungeons.

Yes The Imprisoned was terrible, and having to do it three time was just really terrible padding. I did work out after the first one that you could just not bother with the toes though. Just use the air gusts to get above it, then jump down and smash the spike on its head. That made a deeply irritating boss much easier. I think the most fun boss was the multi-armed mechanical one, where you to take the arms off with the whip, I liked that. The desert dragon has just asked me if I want to do the Silent Realms again! I'd rather have a kick in the bollocks, thanks. Think I'd give it 6 out of 10, as the dungeons are very good.

[AXD]

56 minutes ago, Rolta said:

I was a little cold on Metroid Dread—Hollow Knight on the other hand is one of the top two games on the Switch for me (with BOTW). I'm a massive metroidvania fan and have been since the Metroids on the GBA, and while Dread was slick and well made, it just kind of felt perfunctory. Hollow Knight on the other hand is huge and a joy to explore and to experience its world. It feels as if it was made with love and passion. Dread is about 15 hours as I remember and feels like a (well made) 'product'. Hollow Knight is 50 hours, and is beautiful, and I loved every minute. They're both full of action. My memory of both is that HK was more fun though as I say Dread has its moments and is still good.

The only thing that irks me is that my friend borrowed my Switch a few years ago and lost it on a train—so I lost my HK game file when I was on the 'final' final boss. For this reason alone I never finished it. I was on 99%. He replaced the Switch at least.

 

7 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I would argue Hollow Knight is the better game, and it's action is decent - it has elements of the Souls games in its mechanics which give it a bit of depth, but also makes it a more difficult game. Its also huge, you can feasibly be playing that game for months. Genuinely though one of my favourite games if the last few years.

Metroid Dread is very good, but it has some divisive elements. It has sections where you're basically being chased by an enemy that will 9/10 times will 1 shot you if caught, and you can only defeat these if you find a particular thing in that section. It has some very nice and tricky platforming puzzles, and some difficult bosses.

I think you'll enjoy either, but also I think you should try both.

Thanks!

I ordered Metroid Dread last weekend because I know the franchise and, except for Other M on hard mode, enjoyed playing them. Hollow Knight will be next up then.