Yes, I am still playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and although I am not at the 220-hour mark that one of my friends is currently at, I did just clear the 150 hours. What is surprising to me about this, is that I spent about 120 hours in Breath of the Wild, and by that point, I was ready to be done with the game and wanted to move on. Here, I just finished the second temple out of, I think, four. I know part of this is that I find the shrines in TotK a lot more satisfying to play through than the shrines in BotW and, it has been a while since I played BotW, but it definitely feels like there is a lot more to do in terms of side quests. I also like the mechanics and functionality of the Ultrahand more than the Sheika Slate. I also enjoy that there is less sense of urgency in "finding/rescuing Zelda." I recall being a little worried about Tears of the Kingdom having too much emphasis on building and essentially being Minecraft in the Zelda Universe, that you would need to build all kinds of crazy shit to succeed, but that has not been the case at all for reasons that I will get to when I eventually get to writing my Game EXP article; look for it this Holiday season.
I also want to throw out there that this is probably my favorite Legend of Zelda trilogy. Of all time. And yes, I count Age of Calamity as canon with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
In other games, I finished the main story in Celeste and will likely write an article about that, although I am still trying to decide if I want/need/have to play through "The Core" level before writing because I am 100% certain that there will be people who tell me that I have not actually beaten the game unless I finish ALL THE LEVELS. Except that I have had nothing but positive interactions with the Celeste community. It would be as if the entire Soulsborne community was made of Solaires and Siegmeyers.
I am also plodding along in Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition, although I hit a bit of a progression wall in the form of three trolls and four wraith spiders. I have tried eeking them out one at a time, but when one triggers, it seems like they all trigger and come a-charging. They get a whiff of blood and then I die shortly after. At the moment, my one mage (an Invoker) does know two third-level spells, Dispel Magic and Haste, but does not know any offensive spells, which is not great in a game that is very combat-heavy. Maybe I just need to make the 80-hour trek back to Kuldahar and see if I can buy a Fireball or Lightning spell from Orrick the Gray and then hope for the best? (I of course wrote that before the section where I had to go up against four spellcasters and six bloody trolls).
Earlier in the month, I saw a trailer for Part 2 of The Witcher Season 3 and thought, "I'm sorry what?" I was not aware that the third season had released, which either means that I am not tapped into Netflix's marketing demographic, or that advertising for the release of Season 3 was almost two months into the WGA Strike and with the SAG-AFTRA strike two weeks later, it might have gotten lost in all of the entertainment news hubbubs. And speaking of strikes and diminishing residuals for writers, WGA/SAG-AFTRA members, maybe this will be the kick in the taint that streaming services (looking at you Disney+ and to some extent Netflix) need to start releasing more of their shows on physical media (thankfully the Castlevania series received a physical release of all four seasons, and I have reason to hope that this will continue with the new Castlevania: Nocturne series), especially the Star Wars series. I want to say that I have read somewhere that one of the reasons Disney has not released their Disney+ shows on physical media is to keep subscription rates up, but I know at least for myself, that I would be more likely to rewatch season 7 of The Clone Wars or rewatch season 1 of The Bad Batch if I could just pop on down to our basement to put on an episode to watch with The Squire. But right now, I would have to either plunk him down in from of a laptop and I am trying to limit the amount of small-screen time (laptops, phones) he experiences during the day, or buy a Blu-ray player capable of logging onto Disney+. Plus, The Squire likes to play with Legos and Amiibos while we watch episodes of Star Wars Rebels, and I try to keep things consolidated there in the basement. This could end up being its own article so I am going to stop now.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental
No comments:
Post a Comment