I have actually heard a lot of people say that about Fallout 4, so maybe it’s just not a great open world. Breath of the Wild seems pretty tight as an open world so far. I mean, maybe even a bit too much. I mean, maybe it’s because you start on a plateau and you have a broader perspective, but everything feels a bit cramped together so far. Then again, when I played the Witcher, it just looked like places I’d actually visited in my own country so maybe that’s just more of a landscape I’m used to. Or maybe it’s just the trees that make it feel bigger, idk. But while I’ve yet to play an open world game that I don’t like (granted, I havent played many and they’ve all been RPGs... and the Sims), I do feel like BotW would be accessible enough to anyone.
It's Zelda, it's usually good for a nice soundtrack. I'm hoping by the time I get around to Breath of the Wild, I'll be ready for another open world game. I get burnt out by them so quickly. Large part of why Fallout 4 is still unplayed on my backlog.
Zelda is a series I don’t think about for long stretches of time, but then I come back to it and am reminded of how much I love it It’s great so far but also pretty different! Definitely feels more Western in that there’s as much focus on the player constructed narrative as the pre-made narrative. And the soundtrack is just unbelievable
As a big Zelda fan, I'm a little jealous of you right now.
Speaking of needing to level - I’veststted an open world game that doesn’t require leveling. Breath of the Wild, here I come!
I generally prefer those type of scaling leveling systems. It's one of my favorite parts about Suikoden since it made keeping the large cast easily viable. Especially thankful after playing Arc II where the series could have made leveling a bit easier for new recruits.
I think generation 5 did it best. They added this mechanic that made you gain more exp the higher the enemy Pokemon’s level was in proportion to yours, making getting your weaker guys catch up to the rest of your party pretty easy. And then the levels just scale very fluently (except for that twenty-level jump from the end game to the post game). They also added this mon that gives insane exp while also healing you in battle, so in general, they made leveling easier while still requiring a bit of thought and effort oh your part. Which can’t really be said for the later games in the series, where they dropped all of the mechanics I mentioned in favor of making your entire party gain exp from the battle, so you don’t have to worry about how you level anyone at all
The original Blue/Red had the same problem. Leveling in general was always a hurdle in this series for me.
As much as I love Pokémon HeartGold, the game has one big flaw carried over from the original Gold and Silver - the leveling curve. Wild Pokémon have much lower levels than the trainers around, and those have them still quite a bit lower than the gym leaders. This isn’t as bad a thing if you play like a kid, I.e. just let your starter beat everything and get forty levels higher than the rest of the party, but if you’re trying to make them pretty evenly leveled, you’re gonna have a bad time. Exp. yield is very low from random encounters and trainers don’t call you frequently enough for rematches. But still, all things considered, it’s a pretty minor blemish on a great game.
That's groovy.
