I saw a lot of posts in other threads from folks around here that played/enjoyed this game so I thought I’d start a thread about it. I’m pretty early in the game so please avoid any major story spoilers if possible. I’m not hard over on it if some slip out but I’d rather they didn’t.
Couple of comments
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This game is the trash polka of open world gaming. It kind of dumps you into the middle of something (more about that later) with little direction, a metric assload of leveling and crafting mechanics. It’s definitely 75% BotW, 15% Assassins Creed and 10% God of War. It’s almost like they took those games, stuff them in a can, shook them up then Yahtzee’s then game
Decisions. This set up took me a while to adjust to. Less the mechanics and more the caring about anything that was happening.
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The combat is solid, so are the traversal mechanics. I captured a unicorn for my mount by accident t and I think it’s the fastes one in the game. Parry and dodge, dodge and parry. You gotta do both. This isn’t like Dark Souls or Seikero where you don’t HAVE to learn how to parry. Gotta do here. Thankfully the timing window is pretty forgiving.
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voice actors are clearly the people who voiced Odyessy and Origins. Nothing wrong with that but it is jarring hearing some of these voices coming out of these toons. Script is fun. Dialog is natural and the jokes are not cringe. This is really like playing a Disney movie. Maybe Hercules 2 or something.
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The map is huge but the enemies are widely varied. I’m playing on Switch and PS5 using cross save. PS5 load times destroy Switch and so does the frame rate but the switch it totally passable and doesn’t feel gimped . Colors are vibrant and the audio is good.
Here are a few questions
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why is Fenyx on the island to begin with? I picked this game up late last year and played for an hour and lost interest. Picked it up again a week ago and have the bug but can’t remember anything about why he’s here and what he’s trying to do.
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Am I right that there are some early red doors that are inaccessible without access to future powers?
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I HATE the arrow of Apollo missions. The controls are whack. Looks like I can spend upgrades on that arrow I’ll have to look into it.
What are your thoughts on that one?
I really liked this game quite a bit.
Fenyx is shipwrecked at the beginning of the game and finds that everyone on the island is turned to stone.
What do you mean by red doors? If you mean “puzzle doors”, I am not sure any on the first island are unsolvable at the start.
Oh, the arrow of Apollo ones? Those are OK. On the difficulty level I played, the torches I got stayed lit as long as I did not leave the activation platform.
This was the first true “Breath of the Wild clone” game I played and while it fell very short of BotW, it was a fun game.
I had to do one mission where I had to fly the arrow thru a bunch of rings on the back of red axes and then after the last one I had to light a torch back at the beginning. It was extremely annoying because the arrow doesn’t turn very tightly but some of the rings are pretty close together and needed precise turns and use stamina potions halfway thru flight. I got to the torch at the end multiple times and missed it, having to start over. I was able to complete it eventually. It turns out that there are upgrades for the arrow that allow you to slow time while flying it, which would have made it alot easier. Also the controls are screwy in that it won’t let you apply inverted controls just to flying, it also applies them to aiming which is not cool.
Couple of other observations after more time playing:
5: I think the shrines are pretty well done and have cool puzzles for the most part. Not quite BotW caliber but still clever. A few of them are janky though because they require alot of time manipulating the level to move a ball thru and if you hose it up and lose the ball into the abyss near the end you need to go all the way back to the beginning to get the ball.
6: The graphics are good and so is the art. The map design feels kind of jammed up though because they crammed so many different collectibles, activities into it. Some of the areas have a random feel to them.
7: I was working thru a really tough combat shrine with a whole bunch of high level minatours and cyclops with the gold crowns around their health and they were eating my lunch. After dying a bunch of times I realized I was supposed to lure them thru the laser beams in the arena which do boku damage and was able to kill them all without taking a hit.
8: It really is shocking just how much of the structure and mechanics are lifted whole cloth from BotW. It’s almost identical down to the animations when you cook potions and whatnot. The only place where it differs significantly is in the combat. Fenyx has much better combat that BotW IMHO.
9: I think they really blew it with the binoculars (or whatever it is called in here). It’s WAY too easy to find and mark all of the points of interest with very little effort. It even marks them thru hills and underground which makes no sense. Takes away the feeling of exploring and finding cool things.
10: The story isn’t groundbreaking or anything but I do like the narration and voice acting. I think the script is entertaining. This game is definitely not as melancholy as BotW where no characters showed any happiness or positive emotion.
I guess my lower difficulty setting changed this. The torches I lit stayed lit unless I stepped off the activation platform between attempts.
Oh, 100%. They shot big, but then realized maybe they didn’t want to go as big as BotW, so they added a way of marking everything out there.
If they make a sequel, they should make the world as big and varied as BotW and abandon the telescope thing. Make a world where it is fun to go out and explore and find things.
Updating to say I just beat the game the other night and wanted to add a couple of additional comments:
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I really enjoyed the game. Fenyx is a pretty likeable character throughout and the lighthearted tone and bright colors were a nice change from alot of other similar games.
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The combat gets pretty intricate once you unlock all of the powers/upgrades. And there are a bunch. It’s not a stretch to say that the late game combat is on par with God of War and Devil May Cry, not in difficulty per se but in complexity/options. This is NOT BotW. I waited WAY too long to unlock the ability to pull Fenyx up to flying enemies. I didn’t bother with that until I was near the end, which was a huge mistake. Makes combat much more enjoyable.
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If I would have scored the game prior to Kings Peak (kind of like the final level) it would have easily been a 9-9.5 for me. It was a great value with tons to do and open world format that let me take my time doing whatever I wanted to. With that said…
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The gameplay takes an absolutely bizarre, unfortunate turn with the final area Kings Peak (or final 2 areas if you include Tarturous as it’s own area). For some reason the game abandons the open world, find your own way approach to exploration that worked so well for the main 4 areas and forces you into following a (poorly marked) path that winds all around the Kings Peak. There are huge artificial swaths of airspace where you can’t fly or climb because they are “too cold” but they only serve to keep you on the predefined trail up the mountain (did I mention its terribly marked yet?). It feels so out of place and destroys the feeling of exploration the rest of the game worked so hard to develop. It’s exacerbated by the fact that Kings Peak is WAY too long with only a handful of fast travel spots with poor visibility. Once I finally started making my way up KP and realized how much of a slog it was going to be I decided I was done farting around with any of the other optional stuff/collectibles because I just wanted to finish the game but it just kept going, and going and going. It seemed like it just went on forever. This is the point at which the game switched from feeling fun and more like work. I swear KP was done by a totally different team than did the rest of the game.
14.1) So I finally make it to the top of KP after a couple of hours, feeling like “ok, I’m ready for this be over. Bring on the ending”. I finish the fight, which seemed way to easy and then… False ending! Not over. Ok, second fight, which also seemed way too easy. Again, False ending! Not over. Then the game unceremoniously teleports you to the real final area in the middle of the map. At this point I was exhausted, ready to finish. I hoped it was just going to be a big final fight but…
14.2) Nope, you go into the final area and everything grinds to a halt as you have to solve 8-10 environmental puzzles before you can even get to the fight. I put the controller down and walked away for the night because I really enjoyed the game and didn’t want it to be ruined by me feeling grumpy about how much work this turned into. Picked it back up the next night and it was STILL a couple of hours for me to finished the puzzles to get to the final fight. I don’t use Youtubes and walkthroughs so I guess it could have been done faster but going in blind it took me a couple of hourse. WAY too long. The final fight was decent. The story gets extremely convoluted and I glazed over by the final narrative. I honestly can’t remember who is who and what the twists actually were because I tuned out. Ready for it to end.
So before Kings Peak: 9-9.5. Including KP and the final vault? 8. The game is well worth the price ($30 most of the time) and is better than BotW in many ways. But the final hours were a huge misfire IMHO and really hurt the end of the game.
Oh, as an aside I own this on both the Switch and PS5. I’d say I played 50% of it on Switch in handheld mode and 50% on PS5. Unsurprisingly its MUCH better on PS5 in almost every way. Draw distance, load times, FPS, HDR, all make a huge difference. With that said It plays fine on Switch, the game is not gimped and other than the frame rate and load times it was solid.
I’m curious what your experience @Mahaloth was with KP and the final Vault.
I would say that I agree for the most part. The comparison would be Hyrule Castle in Breath of the Wild. It’s actually a lot of fun to explore it even though it is kind of self-contained. King’s Peak was on rails and I actually saw a lot of side-stuff I was never able to get to. Perhaps after the game you can go get that stuff.
I did enjoy it, but it was definitely created by a separate group in the game development and they worked on it self-contained. I agree massively about the final Vault being disappointing. I blew threw it really quickly with my son watching and I was disappointed I had to keep on going like a slog to get through it.
Final boss was whatever.
My advice to them would be:
Make the sequel like a full-blown Breath of the Wild game. Fully open world, no binoculars-that-reveal-everything needed, just a shrine detector type thing and a gigantic world to experience.
I hope this was a trial run at the game and the sequel is much bigger and better. I hope they make a sequel!
I did NOT buy any DLC. I heard mixed reviews and decided not to buy any.
Did you find it difficult to see where you were supposed to walk on KP? It was equally difficult on PS5 as it was on Switch for me. The blizzard effect really obscured the path and I was very hesitant to go offroading for the treasures around the way because there were very few fast travel points and alot of treasures seemed to require “leaps of faith” that I didn’t want to take because I didn’t want to have to find my way back up again.
I didn’t get stuck, but I did find myself thinking, “Uh, it better just keep showing me the next step.” I briefly wandered or backtracked accidentally, but I did find my way without too much trouble.
Played on PC, couldn’t be any better than PS5.