Most crafting mechanics suck and feel grafted on. This is especially true if crafting isn’t the main point of the game.
Breath of the Wild was a much needed change in a series that had started to go stale. While I like Zelda games, the formula of go to the dungeon, get item, defeat boss, go to next dungeon and repeat was getting worn out, with exploration taking a backseat.
There are too many Pokemon. I don’t know if that’s a hot take, but I’m including it anyway.
Having parts of the map blocked off at the beginning of GTA games is garbage and the in game explainations even moreso. Part of the fun is walking around doing random stuff, I want to be able to do that from the get go. Thankfully GTA V got it right.
The GameCube controller is overrated. While I like the giant A button and the shoulder triggers, the D-pad is too small, the X and Y buttons are oddly shaped and easy to mix up, and there should’ve been a shoulder on the left side too.
My hot take on games like BOTW and TOTK: when the game is so open ended you can invent your own answer, the answer to every puzzle ends up being the same.
In BOTW the answer to every puzzle is “balloon”. In TOTK it’s “big stick”. In Scribblenauts it’s “invincible deadly flying rideable friendly <insert your favorite noun here>”. No, I don’t mean literally every puzzle, but it works often enough that I feel like I’m just wasting time if I try doing things any other way.
The handful of times I’ve actually felt creative in TOTK were when I was just messing around. Creativity is rarely useful in meaningful progression.
More traditional metroidvanias (including traditional Zelda’s) give you bits of “huh I don’t think I can get there now but clearly I’ll have some way to get there later” and “I just got this thing I wonder what I can do with it”. That kind of puzzle solving is completely absent from many newer Zeldas (BOTW, TOTK, ALBW).
Most crafting mechanics suck and feel grafted on. This is especially true if crafting isn’t the main point of the game.
Breath of the Wild was a much needed change in a series that had started to go stale. While I like Zelda games, the formula of go to the dungeon, get item, defeat boss, go to next dungeon and repeat was getting worn out, with exploration taking a backseat.
There are too many Pokemon. I don’t know if that’s a hot take, but I’m including it anyway.
Having parts of the map blocked off at the beginning of GTA games is garbage and the in game explainations even moreso. Part of the fun is walking around doing random stuff, I want to be able to do that from the get go. Thankfully GTA V got it right.
The GameCube controller is overrated. While I like the giant A button and the shoulder triggers, the D-pad is too small, the X and Y buttons are oddly shaped and easy to mix up, and there should’ve been a shoulder on the left side too.
My hot take on games like BOTW and TOTK: when the game is so open ended you can invent your own answer, the answer to every puzzle ends up being the same.
In BOTW the answer to every puzzle is “balloon”. In TOTK it’s “big stick”. In Scribblenauts it’s “invincible deadly flying rideable friendly <insert your favorite noun here>”. No, I don’t mean literally every puzzle, but it works often enough that I feel like I’m just wasting time if I try doing things any other way.
The handful of times I’ve actually felt creative in TOTK were when I was just messing around. Creativity is rarely useful in meaningful progression.
More traditional metroidvanias (including traditional Zelda’s) give you bits of “huh I don’t think I can get there now but clearly I’ll have some way to get there later” and “I just got this thing I wonder what I can do with it”. That kind of puzzle solving is completely absent from many newer Zeldas (BOTW, TOTK, ALBW).
Any puzzle that requires exceptional levels of creativity to solve is going to leave some players stranded
Which is not only fine, it’s what a game should strive for
Sure in a specialized puzzle game maybe.