Anger rant - Breath of the Wild and it's "wonderful" physics engine
Physics engines can be the most wonderful thing in games. They can help a game feel better when performing actions, let things react to each other as realistically as possible, and other such things of that nature. However, these physics engines can also lead to the most frustrating things I've ever seen.
In this case, Breath of the Wild has given me far more anger issues with its physics engine than I care to count.
Remember when puzzles in Zelda could always be accomplished because you couldn't accidentally lose the piece to the puzzle irretrievably? Well, in Breath of the Wild, one could also just leave an area and come back and everything would reset.
There is one such island, far to the South West portion of Hyrule, where this is not the case.
There is an island where a shrine is located that requires the player to basically "reset" themselves. It takes away Link's gear and basically makes him play survival, on an island that wants him dead. There are blue level monsters, a Hinox, and unforgiving areas here that require either really great play, or just a lot of hearts, to make it through without problems.
I found this island and initially thought "oh cool!" when I came across it. However, a short ways in, that quickly turned into straight up frustration. I climbed a hill, stealthily dealt with the bokoblin weapons and murdered them, also watching as a thunderstorm tore apart the moblin that was chasing me down...then came to getting the orb into its spot. The problem became that there was a rock in the way, resting on top of the pedestal. No problem, I think to myself. I stasis the rock, pull out the large bokoblin club, and take a swing. I don't connect with it at first, but that's not the worst part.
That orb I set aside? I hit that with the swing. It careened off of the edge into the water below.
After twenty minutes of using cryonis to get it back to shore, I kill the Hinox now since its in my way and then find, much to my dismay, that the ONLY WAY UP THE MOUNTAIN IS CLIMBING. The game never thought the player would be STUPID enough to knock the ball off into the water below. There is, as far as I could see, no other way to get the orb up to the top and if there is, I was simply too frustrated to see it.
If there is no other way, that is a sign of just awful polish. Sure, it's one thing, in a game where there's so much to it that's otherwise fine...though this game has given me plenty more anger issues than I can count because of the physics engine still.
This sort of thing is NOT OKAY. It is just a bad idea to have a physics engine that can allow the player to easily screw him/herself over in place and then not create plenty of contingency plans in case the player does goof. A quick save system (which is also not possible, the game doesn't save your progress at all on that island) would suffice and the game does tend to have that, but it's not perfect...other things like respawning an item to its proper place if it falls out of bounds is a commonplace sort of treatment. If an object becomes irretrievable, it should just respawn...problem is, because most items in Breath of the Wild aren't technically ever out of bounds, that system simply isn't in place.
Writing this has helped me calm down but I think it speaks something towards the review I'm going to write on this game come Friday. This game is really fun and well designed...mostly. Things like this are what is going to keep me from preferring it if a better game with the same style comes out. This wasn't a fun experience today.
PS: This was written while I was still quite upset, so forgive the tone. It's one of those points of this game that can infuriate me heavily.
In this case, Breath of the Wild has given me far more anger issues with its physics engine than I care to count.
Remember when puzzles in Zelda could always be accomplished because you couldn't accidentally lose the piece to the puzzle irretrievably? Well, in Breath of the Wild, one could also just leave an area and come back and everything would reset.
There is one such island, far to the South West portion of Hyrule, where this is not the case.
There is an island where a shrine is located that requires the player to basically "reset" themselves. It takes away Link's gear and basically makes him play survival, on an island that wants him dead. There are blue level monsters, a Hinox, and unforgiving areas here that require either really great play, or just a lot of hearts, to make it through without problems.
I found this island and initially thought "oh cool!" when I came across it. However, a short ways in, that quickly turned into straight up frustration. I climbed a hill, stealthily dealt with the bokoblin weapons and murdered them, also watching as a thunderstorm tore apart the moblin that was chasing me down...then came to getting the orb into its spot. The problem became that there was a rock in the way, resting on top of the pedestal. No problem, I think to myself. I stasis the rock, pull out the large bokoblin club, and take a swing. I don't connect with it at first, but that's not the worst part.
That orb I set aside? I hit that with the swing. It careened off of the edge into the water below.
After twenty minutes of using cryonis to get it back to shore, I kill the Hinox now since its in my way and then find, much to my dismay, that the ONLY WAY UP THE MOUNTAIN IS CLIMBING. The game never thought the player would be STUPID enough to knock the ball off into the water below. There is, as far as I could see, no other way to get the orb up to the top and if there is, I was simply too frustrated to see it.
If there is no other way, that is a sign of just awful polish. Sure, it's one thing, in a game where there's so much to it that's otherwise fine...though this game has given me plenty more anger issues than I can count because of the physics engine still.
This sort of thing is NOT OKAY. It is just a bad idea to have a physics engine that can allow the player to easily screw him/herself over in place and then not create plenty of contingency plans in case the player does goof. A quick save system (which is also not possible, the game doesn't save your progress at all on that island) would suffice and the game does tend to have that, but it's not perfect...other things like respawning an item to its proper place if it falls out of bounds is a commonplace sort of treatment. If an object becomes irretrievable, it should just respawn...problem is, because most items in Breath of the Wild aren't technically ever out of bounds, that system simply isn't in place.
Writing this has helped me calm down but I think it speaks something towards the review I'm going to write on this game come Friday. This game is really fun and well designed...mostly. Things like this are what is going to keep me from preferring it if a better game with the same style comes out. This wasn't a fun experience today.
PS: This was written while I was still quite upset, so forgive the tone. It's one of those points of this game that can infuriate me heavily.
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