Getting back into the groove of 3D modeling and animation. Wanted to try out animating a mech, as well as some 2D/3D combinations once the mech is finished! Ā Look forward to that soon!
Iāve been playing a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild lately, and I wanted to give a sort of scatterbrained rundown on my thoughts on the game so far. This isnāt a review, just a number of thoughts thrown together. Iāll keep spoilers to a minimum, but Iām letting you know now there are going to be a few in this post.Ā
- Overall, I think the game is incredible. Thereās a reason Iāve barely been able to put the game down all week.
- I do wonder how much replayability it has though. Most of the charm of the game comes from exploring the world, but on repeated playthroughs, thatās going to be lost.
- On the flipside, repeated playthroughs are likely going to be drastically different than your first playthroughs. Unlike most Zelda games, this really is an open-world adventure.
- The world has so much to see in it. I canāt begin to tell you how many times I would be trying to go somewhere, and then get sidetracked for literal hours just cause I wanted to see things that were on the way.
- Weapon Durability: I know this is a bit of a controversial system, but I personally really liked it, along with the other survival elements. It made me approach fights differently, consider what weapons I wanted to keep, and because a lot of treasure chests contained weapons, I always looked forward to opening them. Maybe weapons should have been a little more durable, but I donāt know how much they could adjust that without breaking the balance.
- Voice Acting: Iāve seen complaints about this and... itās fine. Most of the voices I either really liked or had no problem with. Zelda and Mipha are the two voices I see complaints about the most, but I thought Mipha was fine. Zelda is... tolerable.Ā I donāt mind her too much in normal cutscenes, but when Link just hears her voice at times, thatās when I donāt like it. It sounds forced.
- On that note, the game shouldāve really included some audio options. Voices in cutscenes can be a little quiet compared to the music, and Zelda especially, half the time I canāt hear her.
- I felt like some scenes that should have had voice acting, didnāt. It was reserved solely for cutscenes and dungeons.
- One last voice acting note, based on some of the voice choices in the game, itās clear they want English accents for the people of Hyrule. If thatās the case... can they just let Nintendo of Europe do the dub, and get people that natively have that accent? This is less a complaint about this game and moreso a hope for future games. Dual Audio would also please some people, but I personally donāt care about that.
- I wish there were more songs while exploring. Thereās a lot of times where thereās no music at all, and the couple of tracks that sometimes kick in are unremarkable. The town themes are wonderful though.
- Eventide Island is super cool, one of the best parts of the game. I kind of want a Zelda game with BoTWās mechanics and Eventide Islandās premise, just on a bigger scale.
- The main bosses in the game all use the same design, which is kind of lazy. Thematically it makes sense, but I wish they looked different. It IS a cool design though.
- I donāt like the music for exploring the desert or snowy areas. It reminds me a bit of the music from Majoraās Mask when youāre exploring an area before you beat the dungeon there, but I just donāt like this track.
- Prince Sidon in the best.
- Daruk is also the best.
- I feel like Hyrule Castle and the surrounding area being so full of Guardians is cool, but it kind of guides you towards staying in the lower parts of the map early on. Youāre certainly free to go north if you want, so itās a non-issue, but I did feel like that was a bit of a wall.
- The cutscene for the Blood Moon is cool, but it shouldnāt play after the first two or three times. Itās really obvious when the blood moon happens, it shouldnāt need a cutscene to explain it every time. It can be skipped, but I still found it obnoxious. Especially since I had a blood moon happen multiple times in the span of 2 minutes
- I love cooking, finding merchants, and overall how rupees and health were handled in this game.
- I wish there was some way to create a cooking pot in the wild. From the trailers, I thought you could do that, so I was bummed to find out you had to rely on pots at stables, enemy camps, or towns.
- I love getting new gear and upgrading it, itās a nice change of pace from the classic look for Link.
- Upgrading stamina or creating Stamina-boosting food makes exploration in this game fantastic. Thereās something really refreshing about seeing something and knowing you CAN climb it. When they sayĀ āif you can see it, you can go to itā theyāre really not kidding. Climbing something and gliding from it to reach new areas is an amazing feeling.
- I love the difficulty of this game. Zelda games have been a cakewalk for a while now, and this game will kick your ass without being TOO difficult. Despite the challenge, itās still very manageable.
- I found myself sort of missing the Great Plateau the more I played. Itās such a dense area that I liked being in.
- Shrines are more enjoyable than the standard dungeon from the series. Theyāre smaller puzzles that often have a number of solutions rather than just having one obvious solution. This means that when you solve one, you feel like you actually accomplished something rather than followed instructions.
- That being said, I wish there was a bit more theming going on. Shrines all look similar, and the main dungeons all look similar as well. The dungeons all have unique mechanics, but the visuals are lacking.
- Based on the complaints I saw about the framerate pre-release, I expected it to be really bad, but itās not. The Great Plateau and forests have frame drops, but never anything I found to be too bad. I noticed it, but it was made out to be worse than it actually is IMO.
- Gorons with giant anime eyes look really creepy. Thankfully not ALL of them have that.
- As someone that really enjoyed Skyward Sword for itās additions to the Zelda lore, Iām glad to see those additions are front and center in this game.
- Optional bosses are fantastic. They let you challenge yourself and see your own improvement without the game just telling youĀ āHey youāre stronger now, cool.ā
- I find everything involving Calamity Ganon to be really unsettling. I havenāt found Ganon interesting in a long time, but this game changed that.
- Taking down a Guardian for the first time is incredibly satisfying.
- You canāt pet dogs. Thatās dumb.
- Closing thoughts: I donāt know how well this game and itās mechanics will hold up over time, and I donāt know how much replayability it has. That being said, Iād absolutely rank this as one of my favorite Zelda games of all time, if not my absolute favorite, and hereās why: I donāt know how future playthroughs will go, but the time Iāve spent with my first playthrough has been one of the most gripping experiences Iāve ever had with a game. No other game has ever drawn me in like this, not even other open world games. Maybe the game wonāt hold up, maybe it will, but that first experience being so incredible has to mean something.Ā
Not to mention, this is the Zelda game that has finally moved the series past the mechanics of Ocarina of Time, and I donāt think thereās any going back. The future of the series beyond this game is more exciting than itās been in a long time.
Fun fact, this was originally just supposed to be a 3-frame shot, showing her slightly lift the drink, but I got a little carried away and added a little twirl.
So, I may focus on animation and comics most of the time, but one of my favorite things to make is posters like these. These ones aren't colored, but here's the lineart for 4 posters, 3 of which I hadn't shared before this post.
Lemme give you the tale of how I started playing Chibi-Robo. Back when the first game came out, one day I was sitting on the couch playing Mario Kart DS, when my dad came home from the video store he owned, with a new Gamecube game to try called Chibi-Robo! Plug Into Adventure!. Iād never heard of it and thought it looked stupid. And then it became my favorite Gamecube game.Ā
It was so strange and bizarre, with an adorable robot to play as and go on strange little adventures. I love that game so much, but that was the last of the series I played until 2014, when Chibi-Robo! Photo Finder! came out.
Ā I had read about Chibi-Robo! Park Patrol for the DS in Nintendo Power, but never played it. It was... Wal-Mart exclusive, for some reason. I ordered it off of Amazon for $10 the same day Photo Finder came out, and Iāve been playing through it recently, in what little free time I still have.
And in a few days Iāll have an amazing Chibi-Robo amiibo.
(Now if only theyād translate the 2nd DS game that was apparently much more of a true sequel to the original...)
The first Development Diary entry for my upcoming Christmas Cartoon is out now, available to backers pledging at least $1 on Patreon. This entry includes screenshots of the cartoon, character design information, color reference sheets, storyboards for 2 cartoons, and more.
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