There's one thing I'm afraid of, and one thing alone, and it's something Nintendo has consistently dropped the ball on recently.
Difficulty.
Anybody that doesn't think a good degree of difficulty is needed in ANY game basically is just plain fucking wrong. I can't play easy brain dead games anymore, they put me to sleep, they do fuck all for me.
Now Zelda technically has never been hard (inb4 zelda 2) but that doesn't mean they can't inject a good amount of challenging difficulty into the game, especially in a title like BoTW which looks ripe for such a thing.
I should clarify too, when I say I want some difficulty, I'm not deluded enough to expect each encounter with random monsters to be an ordeal to get through. I'm merely asking for shit to not be brain dead, especially as the game progresses.
Now the Bokoblins we've seen so far are fine IMO. It's the start of the game and yes they're easy but they still have their quirks. My fear is that the difficulty won't increase much from that starting point.
I hope we get some completely optional areas & bosses that cater towards people looking for challenge that normies can, if they wanted to, ignore. Saying that though, I still don't want the main game to be too easy either. I'd like a solid progression in difficulty.
the difficulty in zelda comes from puzzles, it legitimately hasn't been difficult since the super nintendo entry, and even that and zelda 1 aren't very hard since their death and combat systems are very forgiving. i wouldn't be worried about that, i would be worried more about this openworld focus
Samuel Cruz
Would have enjoyed participating but you had to be racist. Not black, but I ain't your "nigga."
Charles Barnes
I think it should be fine, since we've seen stuff like the Guardians and the Steppe Talus one-shotting people left and right. That first Guardian has a laser that deals at least 5 hearts of damage, and the ones that move are apparently fast enough to keep up with you on horseback.
It looks promising so far.
Jaxon Evans
It's going to be beatable by 11 years olds like every other zelda game.
Asher Martinez
The way i see this wrking is by enabling Hero mode from the start. This may probably be the longest zelda game so far, so having to finish the game in order to get a chellenging experience seems off.
Maybe at the end of the plateau (the "tutorial" area) you are able to choose a difficulty, hopefully.
I also hope for more types of enemys, I'm not so worrid about this, since zelda has always had varied enemys from area to area.
Also, IIRC Bill stated in one talk with a youtuber that he once head off just walking and walking, and had like 3or 5 hearts still, and when he had gone far enough we tried to get back he had a lot of touble getting back because of the enemies. He literally said "If you go far enough without the proper gear or supplies, you are going to get your butt handed back to you"
So that sound pretty recomforting
David Lewis
There's not really that much of a need for a Hero Mode since you can already self-impose something equivalent in the game by itself by doing something like a no-clothes run
Liam Green
You do realize the aoe from the Guardian's laser did 7 1/2 hearts of damage, right?
And that's just the aoe, not a direct hit.
I think they're being a bit more aware of the difficulty this time around, but they really can't just make it up and SUPER HARD MODE the entire thing because Zelda and all.
Ian Robinson
I hope there is a wide range of enemies in the game. The preview showed that the desert area was still nothing but bokoblins, same as the plateau
Christian Green
>The preview showed that the desert area was still nothing but bokoblins >Lizalfos are now Bokoblins What?
Adam Johnson
There were no lizalfos
John Hughes
What?
Nicholas Lewis
Difficulty and the game being an open world of nothingness like MGSV
Julian Collins
That's a bokoblin
Alexander Barnes
>bokoblins have lizard tails What?
Ian Clark
There is no tail. It's a bokoblin
Carson Torres
user check your eyes
Nolan Martin
>There is no tail What?
Benjamin Walker
You will not get a hard Zelda game with Aonuma in charge. He enjoys making games for kids. He's very open about it.
Jaxon Perez
It certainly looks more difficult than the average Zelda game, but nothing special. I have some hope due to the insane damage the Guardians do.
Luis Hall
Why thank you user, I pretty left the thread for dead since it was on page 10.
I am indeed. As I said, I'm quite happy with the starting difficulty we've seen, it looks very on point. My worry is purely that the games difficulty won't progress much from there. Might seem crazy and unlikely but I never really felt games like windwaker got much more difficult from the beginning either
That sounds promising, I hope it is indeed like that.
Isaac Butler
Is this a troll? Are we being trolled?
Nathan Peterson
It's a bokoblin
Gavin Ortiz
>it was a troll thread after all
Angel Rivera
It's gonna be pissweak easy, like all modern Nintendo games. Accept it now so you don't get too disappointed.
We literally have Aounuma quoted as saying one of the most challenging parts of designing the game was making sure that night time was not too "dark and scary".
Luke Moore
>like all modern games
Fixed
Eli Russell
Hey Maelstrom. How's it going?
Liam Lopez
>We literally have Aounuma quoted as saying source or GTFO
Sebastian Brown
You're taking that quote out of context. What they meant is that they wanted to keep the night from being so dark players feel discouraged from exploring during that time and just skip to day
Lincoln Rogers
If you watch some of the videos the game is very challenging in a few areas. You must be aware of the environment and where Link is fighting.
Example, if you go crazy with the fire rod in a grassy area you might burn your self to death. Trying to swim in freezing water you kill you in seconds. Link can get knocked out and roll off a cliff and plummet to his doom.
This Hyrule actually feeling like danger could be around any corner
Liam Myers
whats with the manbun
Aiden Nelson
considering there are enemies that can one hit kill you from the demo and that you can actually die from fall damage, I think it's safe to say there will at-least be SOME challenge.
“We didn’t want to create something that was dark and scary. I’ve been up a tall mountain at night and seen the stars; it was completely dark, but the starlight made it brighter. I wanted our nighttime environment to be something like that. And when it’s dark, there are elements in the environment that glow, so the player can use those to find their way.”
Thomas Williams
Therr might be different selectable modes of difficulty from the start considering Nintendo's obsession with trying to market to 2 different groups of people
James Lee
yeah i hope they step it up in difficulty or at least have a harder mode recently played through twilight princess and it was a complete joke
Charles Myers
Hero Mode for TPHD was nice, upped the challenge a little bit.
Camden Long
I could've sworn this game came out already.
Cooper Wood
Hello, I work at Nintendo and I can clear up some things. It will be punishingly difficult, we have implemented level scaling so you will never not have challenge even lategame with all the cool unique loot you have collected. There is also always a worry of resources, we wanted survival and you can't survive without a full stomach!
Joshua Barnes
I doubt the main game will be much challenging, but maybe Hero Mode will help. I think it was in ALBW that they decided to multiply damage by 4, making some attacks OHKO early on.
All they need is to allow it to be selected from the beginning, like they did in WWHD and TPHD.
Michael Phillips
Hero Mode is kind of a weak way of adding difficulty. Taking more damage doesn't do a lot if the enemies are still braindead morons that never attack and leave themselves open all the time.
Logan Richardson
Sounds like he just wants the player to be able to find their way at night. Still I would have loved if they used the lantern to let the player explore the really dark areas. Dragons Dogma did this really good
Adrian King
I think a lantern for darker dungeons and as a general puzzle-solving device seems very plausible.
Joshua Ortiz
If it launches with Hero Mode then it'll be fine. Hero Mode could even make WW and TP seem like a little bit of a challenge on occasion, and the default difficulty on those games was beyond piss easy. It also helps that the health/rupees seem to be considerably revamped in BotW to be significantly less cheesable so there's that. Now that the idea's being explored, the old implementation of those mechanics outstayed their welcome by a good 15 years now that I think about it. Oracles were the last Zelda games to not feel like its difficulty was completely wrecked by them.
Cameron Cook
>Dragons Dogma did this really well
Did we play the same game? You couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of you.
Gavin Lewis
I'm more worried about the framerate
If you want difficulty in a Zelda game you're looking at the wrong franchise
Aiden Mitchell
>he didn't get the lantern radius skill perk
Oliver Lewis
I can be your nigga if you know what I mean cotton biting time
Elijah Morris
Who here is going to put restrictions on themselves in terms of food?
I think walking into a dungeon with a stockpile of the best food would kill difficulty, but at the same time, I'm glad they did shit this way. Much better than finding random hearts etc.
Adrian Reyes
>You couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of you. that was the point
main point almost every Zelda game has taken after the mid romantic era music of the ate 18th to early 19th century right down to the instruments used. this one is impressionistic music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Justin Lee
>a good degree of difficulty is important I agree with this. however, your idea of a "good degree of difficulty", I'm going to guess without wasting my life on reading more of your post, is more along the lines of "excessively punishing for no reason", and thus, your opinion is without merit.
remember, children. "obnoxious" and "tedious" to not mean "challenging". they mean "this game is bad, but the devs have tried to stretch your play time so you won't realize it unless you're really paying attention".
Dominic Taylor
speaking of which:
only fucking rip of the music I can find that's decent even if it just is a rip of the youtube trailer.
I mean, fuck, we had a rip of Sins of the Father a couple hours after it premiered, yet a few months after the BotW trailer and we still don't have anyone trying to make a clean version of the song.