After a 6 month gap, I finally went back and did the last couple of hours of TotK.

20. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)
My feelings towards this have changed quite a bit. The things I disliked about BotW are all there. Clunky, time-consuming menus and systems. Some of that has been improved. Some of it is worse than ever. The supporting characters are twats, the side quests are not great, some parts of the game feel about two decades old. The early game weapon-breakage (and by early game, I mean 20 odd hours) is a joyless ballache. And you come up against a lot of intentionally obtuse and frustrating decisions.  

And the Depths are rotten. You’ve seen one section, you’ve seen it all. It’s too big, not fun, not scary, not challenging. Navigating round the gloom swamps and fighting the gloom-covered baddies is dull. The broken heart, damage system adds an extra layer of annoyance. The mining it sends you down there for is the worst sort of insipid, soul-crushing busywork. 

It doesn’t help that the biggest deposits for mining are built around another problem area - the little enemy bases. Which have the same problem in the overworld as underneath. They should be nice little diversions. A fun few minutes of sword swinging and a reward. But all the fights are awkward, they nearly all play out the same. Try some clever distance tactic like shooting something in there to cause chaos, it doesn’t really work as intended, clumsily fight three or four of them at once, then find the remaining enemy that didn’t get caught up in the fighting, probably up a ladder, that you’ll climb while being shot at. Reward: 10 Rupees. I stopped bothering with them quicksmart in the overworld. But down below, that’s where the zonai deposits are, so I had to keep plugging away.  

Around the 50-60 hour mark, once the special battery meter was up to about 5 batteries (more than enough for whatever you need), and you’re past the halfway point on the shrines, the Depths are irrelevant. I was barely down there for the remaining 60 odd hours and the rest of the game completely opened up. The Sky Islands all become accessible. The weaponry you find gets more durable. And the Master Sword takes the edge of the weapon degradation bollocks. Unlocking all of that stuff, coming up with contraptions to get to distant floating islands on the top of the world. It's the best experience I've had in a game for a long time. I got properly obsessed with it in a way I haven’t done in years. 

The sky island exploration is so good. Invent stuff, launch it, hope. A couple of times I reached a new place by the skin of my fingertips, and ended up deperately clinging on the underside of an island, climbing over the lip just as my stamina was about to run out. 

Link’s powers are mental. Early game I had to climb a mountain and it was raining. About 5 minutes before I’d found a cave going underneath it. Then the lightbulb went on and I thought hang on can I ascend up through somewhere in that cave. Went back down, found a ledge near the ceiling and went for it. Ended up right at the summit as if the whole sequence had been designed that way. It takes some balls to release a game of this size and give players the tools to try and break it. 

Technically they've smashed it out of the park. One time, in a shrine, I was flinging a giant ball over a gap and down a hill, so it went out of sight. I went over there. No ball to be found. Ah it's fucked it I thought. Finally, a glitch. I was quite pleased. I went to leave the shrine to reset everything. And there the ball was by the door. It must have hit something and pinged off when I couldn't see it. That's the closest I've come to a technical fault.

Although that stability comes at the price of some designed limitations. There’s an overbearing Distance Supervisor constantly watching. Any treasured possessions or crafted vehicles can disappear into the void the second you stray too far from it. Items all have an in-built detection range and as soon as the player leaves that radius, POOF! Gone. Skycycles vanishing in the blink of an eye because you’ve gone to pick up a wild horse chestnut. That’s another thing that has to be managed.   

The kid decided to load up a wagon full of veg and meander from town to town, selling it to shopkeepers. But the game didn’t allow for that sort of spontaneous frivolity and she came back out of the first shop to find the game had vaporised her stock, leaving an empty wagon and a heartbroken child. No fun here please.

In some ways, it’s peerless, magnificent. But I think being that good has caused the devs to make some unforgivable mistakes. There’s a streak of arrogance running through it to be honest. It’s a 10 that forces you to spend about 20-30 hours playing a 5, and they’ve stuck in the combat system from a 6 / 7. It’s getting a [9] because some of it is spectacular, unique and mind-blowingly good.

2022:Final Post

For list of games played in 2022, click any of Parts 1-6 below. List removed from Part 7 onwards.

2023
Part 1: Games 1-3 (plus 2022 hangovers) (Judgment, Vampire Survivors, Miles Morales)

Part 2: Games 4-39 (Vaporum: Lockdown, DMC5:SE, Lost Judgment, Roadwarden, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Against the Storm, RE: Village PSVR 2, Tentacular, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Destiny 2: Lightfall, Tyranny, Lunacid, Pile Up!, Synapse, Far Cry 6, GTA 5, RE4 Remake, Tchia, Scarlet Nexus, Pistol Whip, Olli Olli World, Nier: Replicant, JETT: The Far Shore, Rune Factory 4: Special, Horizon: Call of the Mountain, DQ11:EoaEAS - Definitive Edition, Legend of Grimrock 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Whitewater Wipeout, Casual Birder, Pick Pack Pup, Crankin's Time Adventure, Direct Drive, Legend of Etad, Reel Steal, Recommendation Dog) 

Part 3: Games 40-43 (Dungeons and Puzzles, The Bookwalker, Chambers of Devious Design, Super Corporate Tax Evader)

Part 4: Game 44 (El Paso, Elsewhere)

Part 5: Game 45 (BABBDI)

Part 6: Games 46-54 (Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Teardown, Humanity, Walkabout Mini Golf, Shadows of Doubt, Omaze, Demon Quest 85, Slay the Spire...again)

Part 7: Games 55-61 (Vignettes, Froggy's Battle, co-open, Fatum Betula, Executive Golf DX, Questy Chess, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me)

Part 8: Games 62-65 (Crusader Kings 3, Football, Tactics & Glory, Backpack Hero, Starfield)

Part 9: Game 66 (Salamander County Public Television)

Part 10: Games 67-69 (Tangledeep, Jupiter Hell, Final Fantasy XVI)

Part 11: Games 70-71 (Druidstone, Mary Skelter 2)

Part 12: Games 72-77 (Slay the Princess, Etrian Odyssey 3 HD, Etrian Odyssey 5, Shogun Showdown, Brotato, Dotage)

78. Hitman: World of Assassination
It Hitman. I quite like the Hitman games, and have for a while, with Contracts and Blood Money being particular faves. The new Hitman series though has always been a less than enjoyable thing for me, due to the always online requirement, and IOs servers not playing nice with my VPN setup. 

Get disconnected? You don't get points, nothing unlocks...gotta do it all again, fucker.

Anyway, World of Assassination was on sale during the Steam winter sale and it's a Hitman 1-3 mega bundle thing. Given my work VPN shouldn't have any issues, I grabbed it and...yeah, it's Hitman. Lovely playbox levels, dark humour, immersive sim elements - that's all good stuff.

The way the game is laid out in running you through content is a bit weird - there's a lot of menus hidden in menus and it took a bit to know what everything actually was but...again, the game is great.

And that's kind of it. There's a cracking game here, hidden under an overcooked UI, poorly organised content bloat and unnecessary and anti-consumer always online / live service wrapper. If that matters to you, i'd avoid. If it doesn't, enjoy. [6]

79. Spider-man 2
I was never a big Insomniac fan, even though I respect their wizardry, though I was wondering if i was starting to come around on them after the first Spidey and R&C: Rift Apart. Well, that's not the case it seems.

The opening couple of hours of this are awful, and stripped any desire to continue out of me. Visually it's impressive. The voice acting is good. I'm sure there was tons of love put into it. I thought it was rancid. Deleted it. [3]

80. Darkest Dungeon
Tried it again. Realised why I never got on with it before. Still, love the vibes and the art. Not a bad game just...i have enough in that genre going for me right now. [6]

Next / The To-Play List:
Growing my Grandpa
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 
The Forest Quartet 
Spare Parts: Episode 1 & 2 
Unpacking
NUTS
Super is Hot
Neurocracy
Evolution
Slasher U
Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency
Prodigal
Scanner Sombre
Recursed
Kine
Vomitoreum
Moonring
Omen Exito: Plague
Supermarket Shriek
Marco & The Galaxy Dragon
Total War: Warhammer II
Inquisitor
Kiryu's Karaoke Sim featuring Punching with No Name
Alan Wake 2
Pawnbarian
Radical Rabbit Stew
Save me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition
Overboard! 
Marvel Midnight Suns

Always appreciate your write ups Cinty as they give me a great range of options when it comes to nabbing some esoteric titles that I otherwise would not have considered. Just started Slay The Princess for example.

It’s interesting so far, about to continue today, and despite it having a yellow on steam deck compatibility, it works just fine.

It can occasionally lose the focus, you can still scroll up and down on the choice but it won’t highlight, but you then just tap the choice on the touch screen.

Realised I've been very tardy updating my games ITT. This is me about done for the year, will aim for 26 games next year.

7. Valheim - PC Gamepass - 39 hrs - PC Steam - 46 hrs - I’m not into crafting survival games I told myself. But this is something really special with a deep set of interconnected systems that balance everything so well that you just keep coming back for more. With a combined 85 hrs played (originally across GamePass, but double dipped and bought on PC to also play on Steam Deck, I’m glad I did). [9]

8. Starfield - PC GamePass - 88hrs - my most played game this year, so it has to account for something. The contentious gameplay elements that have been discussed to death in the Starfield thread actually don’t matter when you are in the moment-to-moment action. I never really care about infinite maps or being able to directly dive into a planet’s atmosphere to land the ship. I do care about overly fiddly menu systems that should be more streamlined by now and the star mapping system which became a pain of plot course, jump to system, restart grav drive, jump to next system. You can see they decided to make you do this to have chances of being attacked by pirates etc. but the reality is with power all in the grav drive you could just jump back out before anything happened anyway, just made the game more frustrating than it needed to be and that is the games main weak point, frustrating UI choices that need not have been made. Anyway, it’s not all negative obviously, as I really enjoyed landing at a base, clearing out a bunch of bad guys, grabbing some great gear and powering up my character. Some of the side quests were fun and the main story idea was solid, despite it not being as well realised as it could be. The base building was also enjoyable and probably added a good 30 hours to my overall playtime. There is a lot to like here, but Bethesda sure make you work for it. [7]

9. Baldur’s Gate 3 - PC - 35hrs - have I finished it fully? No. Is it still the best game I’ve played this year, definitely. Choices choices are what sets the game apart, that and some excellent story and character writing. Once I have some time I’ll complete it but as it stands it’s still my favourite game I’ve played this year [10]

10. The Talos Principle - PC - 18 hrs. Not a huge puzzle fan, mainly dabbled in stuff like The Room games but bounced off The Witness after giving it a go a couple of times. This seemed to hit the sweet spot for me of a perfect puzzle that once solved, it seems so obvious, with only a few exceptions that I had to look up, due more so to my lack of experimentation with some of the latter tool set combinations. The setting is very well realised, with the back story, read through computer terminals following the usual list of logs, emails and historic data, but the apocalyptic tone was quite melancholic and sad, compared to something like Horizon’s back story (which I enjoy) this is a much more measured take on the end of the world. Performance wise I couldn’t complain either on Steam Deck (have it set at 40 and it never seemed to drop) or on PC at 120, but there isn’t that much going on so it should be able to run on pretty much anything. Time wise, think I clocked in just over 18 hours so not as bad Time to Beat claims, but I also didn’t get that many stars. Really enjoyed it, kept me interested until I finished it and I’ll definitely play the sequel [8].

11. Before Your Eyes - PSVR2 - 1 hour - Not so much a game as an experience. An experience that tells your life through flashbacks when you blink you move forward in time. Surprisingly hard to keep your eyes open in some scenes when you are trying to discover more of the story. At the start you have the option not to use eye tracking. I can’t see why you would want to switch this off as it is core to the experience and makes the whole thing more personal, which helps with the emotional heart of this game/thing. I’ll stick with game. One moment in the game really personally hit for me, it’s a small moment but I could directly relate. Some people may think it’s a bit schmaltzy but I thought it set out what it meant to do very well. A unique experience on the PSVR2 and I’m all for devs trying to find new ways to use VR. Edit - and at just over an hour it can be done in one sitting. [8]

12. Kayak VR - PSVR 2 - 1 hour - Biggest disconnect between what I was expecting and I what I ended up with. I’m not blaming the devs but I was expecting something more experiential than I got and was disappointed by the biomes available in the game. The only thing it had going for it was the visuals, which were great, but definitely bettered by other VR games. [4]

13. Cocoon - PC GamePass - 3.5 hrs - didn’t follow my own advice and ended up playing this across three sessions. Overall I loved it all. The style was beautiful, the puzzles taxing enough but not overly difficult, though I did get stuck on a really simple puzzle that I had half-solved but for some reason my brain wouldn’t work. After that it all built very nicely into a nice satisfying game. Would love a sequel. [8]

14. Final Fantasy XVI - PS5 - 35 hrs - it’s taken a while, after a long break getting distracted with too many other games I felt I had to finish this. It looks great, tells a solid high fantasy and the combat, eventually, becomes great fun as you chain multiple powers at different times balancing cool downs with timing the best attacks to stagger vs those to cause mass damage on the ever building enemy hp bars. The only real negative I have is the need for Square to add in quite uninteresting fetch quests to pad out the run time. There were some that gave you some additional ongoing gameplay benefit but for the most it was experience and money, and just not worth it. I got to the end game with many green markers strewn across the map. Overall, it’s a solid game and glad I played it but don’t think I’ll be going back [8]


15. Control - PC - 11hrs - still don’t know why this didn’t click for me cos I ended up loving it. It is a game where the setting clearly elevates it beyond it being a fairly normal third person shooter. And towards the end it does some nice messing with you though there was a bug that I initially thought was part of a puzzle. And it didn’t outstay its welcome. It’s a solid [9]

16. Jusant- PC GamePass - 4ish hrs - It was… ok. The climbing mechanic was obviously good though reminded me more of Astro rather than Uncharted. Took a bit longer than 4 hours mainly because I stopped to read everything. It was the typical melancholic story you find in these types of indie games. Overall not bad but not as special as I’d hoped [7]

17. Steamworld Dig - PC - 7 hrs and 18. Steamworld Dig 2 - PC - 10 hrs - My third play through of this great little game where you play as a robot digging through a mine gifted to you by your dead uncle, gaining powers Metroid-style, defeating enemies and bosses, and platforming through challenge levels. It all plays incredibly well and the mining to selling ore to upgrading loop keeps you coming back, perfect Steam Deck game that scores an [8] because the sequel does everything the first game does but makes it all a little bit better [9].

Bought Talos II, so... o/

Will take a look ta.

50% off in Steam sale what’s not to like

I'm unlikely to complete any more, so I might as well do a summary of my completions too... Comparing my list on the first page of this thread, and various Just Completed postings, shows three I'd missed (so 20 for the year not 17) and a couple of absent reviews - shocking!  Let's backfill...


1) God of War: Ragnarok (PS5)
This was ages ago now, and before the recent DLC.  But I still enjoyed it a lot - solid combat, looks amazing, production values up the wahoo, and I didn't quite think it outstayed its welcome.  Surely a very solid [8], arguments for one higher but I don't think I can give it that 11 months later...


2) Callisto Protocol (PS5)

First full game for a while and... it was pretty meh? Pretty one-track, painfully linear (basically every fork was advertised, mainline one way, treasure or key the other), looked nice but not much scenic variation. AAAA my aaaass. The melee was fun to start with, but didn't really go anywhere, and the enemies were near enough all the same apart from a cookie of late bullet sponge "bosses".

Story arc was also pretty lol.

Like a [6] I guess?


3) Stray (PS5)

Definite moments of eightness, witha tidy aesthetic and animation, and it indeed didn't outstay its welcome, but I think I'm going with a maybe-harsh [7] as the actual game didn't quite do it for me. A bit too simple, checkpointing a bit clunky in the bits you could die, sorry a bit too forced. I guess it did what it was trying to do pretty well... but that wasn't quite enough for me...


4) Humanity (PS5)

Much more of a genre mashup than I was maybe expecting, and it subverts the genres moderately inventively at points... but I basically didn't think it was very good? Like it was fine, but none of the sequences particularly shone, and it maybe peaked for me at like 3 of 7... and then didn't really build from there, instead meandering sideways via new mechanics with nothing building on top of what went before in any kind of satisfying manner.

I also found the UX not great - often failing a puzzle through a minor mixup that takes a while to rectify... even with unlocked stuff there's no rewind, and with the follow command in play you can't even rerun from exactly how things were. There's also randomness which annoys me in puzzle-likes.

Which I guess brings me onto the story which... yeah was basically pish. Added nothing to the game for me, no feels or depth, I don't even think it was trying to be overly pretentious or anything it was just dull and totally didn't resonate for me at all. Decidedly meh, and not an alibi for the gameplay bits I disliked.

I'm probably being a bit harsh. There weren't many bits that actively offended. But by making my failures be ones of execution not thought it didn't score philosophical points, it just left me feeling its own execution lacked, even if some argue that was its gameplay intention.

I could stretch to a generous [8] perhaps, but I'm not going to. [7] it is.

132 goldies our if 150 without too much effort, cba too see more, cos only about three levels actually stood out, and I've already forgotten what they were. Kudos for squeezing bosses out mind, even though they were particularly shit.

Could and I think should have been more.



5) Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

My first Switch game! I largely enjoyed it, but was kinda trying to rush a bit so couldn't really be arsed with unraveling some bits, some dungeons definitely weaker than others, and a cheesy final boss. But still, it's a top-down Zelda which I guess basically did what it sets out to do pretty faithfully, and looks very lush in hand-held mode.

I'm hovering between a harsh seven and a slightly generous / maybe nostalgia-infused eight. Having gone the other way recently with Humanity I'll give it the benefit of the doubt... [8] it is. No higher than that though.


6) Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch).

I actually think this is a bad game. It has poor mechanics, weak control fidelity, poor signposting for this kind of game, inconsistent difficulty, at times frustrating checkpoints, no real sense of difficulty progression, insta-death segments that you can't readily foresee, a losing sequence just long enough to grate, buddy characters that are only sometimes there, some better suited for the next bit than others often without clarity about which, nonsense rhino cameos, a bullshit snowball bit, weird camera angle changes, the odd silhouette section from nowhere, and just all a bit of a mess.

It looks pretty nice, which almost let's me stretch to a generous six, but fuck it, I'm going [5]. Fuck you moot, it sucks - I thought maybe I'd twig something I missed by playing all the way through, but no, it just gradually annoyed me more. How the fuck you rate this as top tier I'd a mystery I don't think I'll ever understand.


7) Blasphemous 2

The TLDR of what moot wrote. Shoulda been called Blasphemous 1.5 [8]


8 ) Kid A Museum (PS5)

A musical stroll.  Good tunes, but I'm not sure I really got the point of it.  [5].


9 ) Planet of Lana (SeX)

Basically a six, cos none of the puzzles were very original, there was no sense of difficulty progression throughout, and an element of tedious repetition. And the look of the humans kinda annoyed me, plus the QTEs ugh.

But everything else looked so nice. And the audio was decent. So for reasons I don't quite understand I'm giving a very generous [7] instead.


10) Venba (SeX)

A somewhat dosa-thin experience, basically a few cross-culture vignettes, crossed with cooking mama.  Albeit only with half a dozen recipes.  Much longer and it would have out-stayed its welcome, but I guess it's a solid enough [6].


11) Adios (PC?)

it did not get any better. What shite. Did not succeed at drawing me in, looked awful, played awful, gameplay elements were broken (eg clay pigeons being hit regardless of where you shoot), no invert, ending was nonsense. Fuck you all for saying it was good. It was not good. [4]


12) Jusant (SeX)

So I think I only had one real issue with the game, and that was that I didn't enjoy playing it.

Alas, that's a somewhat fundamental one, and it basically grew as the game continued (though the lady two chapters were slightly better, and at least short). Looked pretty nice, nice audio particularly with the shell bits, but just not all that fun once you've done the first five minutes of climbing. Which kinda made the clunkiness less forgiveable than it might otherwise have been.

I'm very close to a harsh [6], but I guess it did what it intended, and felt legit indie, so I'll stretch to a generous [7] cos that's the kind of guy I am.


13) The Talos Principle 2 (PS5)

I've written more in the thread, but basically it's a cracker that has a little bit of a quality dip in the middle before picking it back to at the end, including summer good optimal puzzles that really help the story.

At its peak it's absolutely superb, and it holds that calibre pretty well indeed. The story is more in your face than with the first game, but put that aside, enjoy it room by room, and it's little that you can't rate highly.

A pretty solid [9] in the end. My brain is fried, I'm a bit confused about what's just happened, but that was some good shit.


14) Will You Snail? (Steam Deck)

A classic moot 'em up, but a pretty decent one. Mainly a skill platformer, but with some innovative elements on top, and a few minor puzzly bits en route too.

The main differentiator is a vindictive narrator - and that bit actually works really well, as it taunts you (via adaptive difficulty) from start to finish, all very well executed.

The game itself isn't quite as good, the puzzles a bit week, some of the random elements a bit too brutal at the higher difficulties, but still impressively coherent for an obviously indie effort.

It's the weekend, so I'll just about stretch to an [8] but it's probably not quite that unless your name starts with an 'm'. Short but pretty sweet, for the main part. Like escargots with garlic.



15) Aperture Desk Job (Steam Deck)

Basically "How to use your new steam deck", but entertainingly done.  [6], almost one higher, but it really is very slight.


16) Subsurface Circular (Steam Deck)

Thought this was a pretty weak interactive story. UI wall slightly tedious without a proper mouse, but the main issue was the story wasn't very engaging. Maybe some interesting robot immigration narrative available in that space, but lots of better ways to explore it (as game or book).

A least it wasn't very long. A meh [5].


17) Nuclear Blaze (Steam Deck)

Left feeling a bit meh about it in the end... I quite liked the basic mechanic but it didn't really go anywhere particularly exciting, the upgrades a bit underwhelming, but mainly just not hugely fun once it got more fennickety, with dodges inconsistent and flame movement sometimes hard to read it just got a little dull. [6]



18) Trine (PS5)

I didn't think this was very good. I've been meaning to play through it for ages, having Davies back on PS4, but only just got round to it cos it plus sequels have been cheap in recent sales.

I think the main issue is it's trying to do multiple things at once, and doesn't do any of them very well, and they don't really add up to more than the sum of their parts. So it's kinda fine but nothing more than that.

Metacritic 80 is a tad surprising, I'm going stingy [6].



19) Cocoon (SeX)

Basically what everyone else said. Started a bit underwhelmed, then really liked it, but had slightly fallen out of love by the end.

Looks amazing, the orb swoop animation is top tier, the musical cues why extremely well done - but the actual puzzling list a bit of coherence at points, with behaviours that subtly changed at different points (not always in/out a layer).

Still, inventive, a bit different, and let great execution. So a solid [8] I suppose, desire getting like it could and maybe should have been higher (making it feel like it arguably deserves lower as punishment).


20) The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan (PS5)

A bit meh tbh. Invert look didn't work which always annoys me, but the overall game was pretty standard fare for this type of thing, with no particularly great plot twists or anything, graphics etc only fine, and I guess a couple of ok jump scares but really not much at all.

Will probably try the next one (which is meant to be better I think?) but for this one in isolation like a [6]. Didn't outstay its welcome, but kinda ended a bit abruptly in fact. Curator dude was kinda fun though I guess.

Great write ups gents, I've enjoyed reading through them

Barely played anything this month, so left stranded on 45. Although I'd be well over the line if I counted stuff I'd quit before the end.

Retro knows o/

190. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Switch (55hrs)

One of my most anticipated sequels ever, but one that I couldn't help treating with trepidation right from the initial reveal.  I wasn't quiet about my disdain for the reuse of the overworld map on here, much to the chagrin of the staunch Zelda defence squad, but the finished product proved to be a letdown for me chiefly because of familiarity.  It's not just a Hyrule harrrumph either; it rehashes so much of the existing BotW template that I'm still genuinely perplexed that a) it took 6 years to arrive, and b) it didn't get absolutely pelted for the fact that so much of the core experience is essentially a rerun of an existing game.  The reuse of assets genuinely surprised me, as did the readiness to defend it.  There was a point where even expressing disappointment that the sequel to a game that took interactive intrigue and exploration to a new level was set in the same sodding place was met with impassioned rerouting of power to Nintendo shields (on here and oh boy, elsewhere online), and yet...it's quite clearly not the sequel it could have been.  The engine was in place (tweaked to within an inch of its life no doubt, but fundamentally something that already existed).  The weapon system is familiar.  The physics behave as they used to.  The way Link controls - and feels to control - remains the same.  Not just walking and jumping, but climbing, gliding, holding and dropping napsack items, firing arrows - it's all the same.  The menu system is more or less straight from BotW.  A whole host of the wonderful tunes are repeats.  There's a list of 'here's something I made earlier' that's as long as Andy's arm.  Crucially though, the entire overworld map of an exploration driven game has been reused - with tweaks, admittedly - which leaves the player charting a map that they've already explored.  Which extinguished the whole I'M GOING ON AN ADVENTURE feeling for me.  Yes, there are some extra bits in the sky and a humongous dimly lit barren desolate wasteland below, but the meat and potatoes of the area you'll be Zeldaing in is the near-identical twin of what came before.  It's like replaying a massive game of battleships where everything keeps the same positions.  It'll never sit right with me, because it's at odds with everything I (reluctantly) learned to love about BotW, and it undeniably hampered my enjoyment of TotK.  It's not escaped my attention that this is often the way of it with Nintendo games (3D Mario games all control roughly the same as the first one, for example, and it took 3D Zelda 20 years to shake the OoT foundations), but in this day and age - coupled with how long this particular game was in the oven - I'm still surprised.  It took six years to make, and it felt infinitely less impressive than BotW to me simply because it piggybacks almost everything that game implemented.  The Sky Tower launches are magnificent, and the ascend ability felt like a God mode dev tool that should have broken the whole thing to bits, but they're not half as impressive as the fact that BotW existed in the first place.

This might have been easier to swallow had they overhauled the combat system along the way (along with the absence of proper dungeons, something that was absolutely top of my wishlist for the BotW follow-up), but that's been wheeled out again too.  And it's still depressingly weak.  It was bad in Breath of the Wild, and over half a decade on the deficiencies are even harder to ignore.  It was testament to the splendor of BotW that it still managed to be the best open world game ever (imho!) despite having the worst fight system of any of the major players (imho!), but the fact that it's blotting the copybook again in a sequel just isn't good enough.  It was crying out for a drastic overhaul, but I guess it's just something else they didn't have time for.  The dodging and parrying are borked and I've seen good workmen blame the tools on this, so I'm sticking with that opinion. 

The build element, fundamental to whether the whole makeover is likely to resonate with fans of the previous game, added an unwanted layer of tedium that ran through the entire adventure for me.  I wanted to enjoy the whole Nuts & Bolts thing, especially so considering that select Zelda entries have been among the highlights of my entire gaming career, but despite all the clever conundrums and remarkable DIY tools the whole construction side of it boiled down to monotonous, fiddly and repetitive tasks that continually halted progression while you stuck wheels on this, or attached fans to that.  You have to grab an item, rotate it, drop it, grab other items (which must be rotated), fuse them to the correct bit, readjust one or two things that didn't quite snap into place correctly, then carry it to where it's needed before starting it up to see if it's fit for whatever purpose you've made it for.  If it's not, you go again.  None of it ever happens quickly and the controls are so cumbersome it's like a fancier version of the way they got the Mega Drive version of Street Fighter II to work on a 3-button pad.  Rub your tummy while punching a horse like a topless Geordie, go on.  The rotating and affixing and unsticking feels grafted on and shoehorned in - another layer to a game that was already criticised for being a bit fiddly - and despite how genuinely impressive it all is it never felt intuitive to me, even after 50-60hrs of on and off enforced practice.  As an aside, the way you throw items in this is a joke - you have to wind up your weapon as if you're going to luzz it into the distance, then press (and hold) up on the d-pad, then scroll along to the item while the game is in super slow-mo, then let go.  Call me Captain Clutzhands, but that's a nonsense.  Anyway, back to the building: the freedom it gives the player to approach puzzles is unparalleled, and coupled with the aforementioned ascend mode it's mind boggling that the game not only isn't broken, but appears to glitch/bug free, with any exploits just existing as something they're fine to let you play with.  There are often a variety of ways to approach any given puzzle, which obviously makes some types of players tumescent with excitement, but for my personal tastes the easiest and quickest solution is invariably the least dull.  I don't want to knock the DIY stuff too much, because its successful implementation is remarkable, but I'm not quite finished yet: I think my biggest bugbear, after the time consuming nature of creating anything, is the fact that if you spend 20 minutes building a giant wooden badger it still disappears into thin air after about 3 seconds if you accidentally let it trundle downhill, gone forever.  The second time this happened (not that I ever made a badger, but the four wheeled cart I couldn't keep pace with as it rolled away from me took me long enough) I decided never to make anything non-essential again.  Take all this with a pinch of salt if you like creation options in games; I'll play your Trials Evo stages, your Little Big Planet levels or your Mario Maker 2 worlds, but you won't play mine because I've never made any and I never will.  Correction: I think I started to make a skatepark once in an early Tony Hawk game before getting fed up with it.  I haven't voluntarily stuck two pieces of Lego together since the early 80s and the thought of having to create anything in a game gives me the (sticklebr)ick.  YMMV on this, and I'm happy to report that this side of TotK would undoubtedly be wonderful in the right hands, just absolutely not mine.      

So what else didn't you like about it Moot, said literally no-one at this point.  The fiddly controls are an issue, as mentioned, but I think more than anything else Link's piddly little jump annoyed me the most.  There's a point in the game where he suddenly gets an odd floaty low gravity leap, and despite feeling a bit treacly and weird it's also quite clearly far more enjoyable to bound around with than his standard jump, and after it got taken away I spent the rest of the game missing it.  It's no exaggeration to say that it might be my least favourite jump in a 3D game ever.  It doesn't even guarantee you enough height to whip out the paraglider if you're standing on an updraft, unless I got the timings for that wrong too, which often seemed to result in me jumping on the spot once or twice before a successful button press took me skywards. 

What else can I moan about before I end up giving it an [8] anyway? Progression isn't suited for story hopping.  If you play it properly/as intended and level up all your gear, complete shrines for extra hearts and stamina, find the best weapons, fusings, synergies etc., it'll suck a 200hr hole out of your free time.  If you play it in 'get to the credits' mode you'll have to carry around an endless supply of health potions and meals to stick a quick bandage onto Link more or less every single time you get hit.  That goes with the territory to an extent - it's a game you can approach in pretty much any order at any time - but BotW was slightly less mean when it came to pushing through unprepared.  It's a dazzling Zelda if you're interested in every nook & cranny, but the main quest is lower-tier for me because the dungeons (which still aren't proper dungeons) aren't anywhere near as well designed as they were in traditional 3D Zelda games.  There are no chef's kisses in the temples here.  Much like BotW it's so vast that some of the Zelda magic ends up floating on the breeze just out of reach.  There's secret waterfall fluteboy feels fairy magic here, but it's diluted by the amount of game on offer. 

Given that so much of what existed before was essential to the excellence of BotW, what kind of monster could hammer out a windy review of its sequel without mentioning what's good about it?  It's the greatest videogame playground ever made, for a start.  Once the shackles of the quest were dealt with, and partly through watching Tilly play it properly (I'm gonna have fun, rather than I must get it done), I eventually realised that it really is a delightful experience.  The thought of playing this if you haven't played BotW blows my mind.  Also, the graphics are among the nicest I've ever seen - the visuals constantly impressed me, even moreso than they did with its still gorgeous looking predecessor.  In terms of pushing the host hardware to its limits I think you'd be hard pushed to find a better example from any previous generation.  The sky islands are a nice addition, and the depths aren't quite as bad as I was led to believe.  Having said that though, I only explored a postage stamp of the underground map outside of the sections that are absolutely necessary to finish the game (I did most of my Wombling on the surface), so grab that pinch of salt again.  

In summary: the main quest is a bit of a trudge (especially towards the end), the construction stuff is the antithesis of what I look for when I pick up a pad to play games, and despite the teflon sheen I'd still call this a lazy sequel(!), but...it's still a brilliant game.  Enjoyment will vary depending on where you sit with killing time in games.  I like to always be working towards something (the point where the credits roll and I play something else, usually), but if you approach this in the way it wants you to I could still just about understand why someone might have this as their pick for the greatest game ever made.  It's a lot, as the kids say, and the lot became too much for me, but if you can handle it you're in for a treat. I still think Eurogamer were doing a CLICK ME thing to herald the arrival of their scoring system change, but I agree with their 4/5.  

The fact that this released in such a refined, fully finished state is a marvel in the era of punt & patch, where so many games emerge like oven chips that have been baked for the minimum amount of suggested minutes in a non pre-heated oven.  [8]        

But wait, what's this!  I forgot to complain about the master sword.  I took on that quest when I was approaching the endgame - which ended up requiring maybe 3hrs of busywork - and thought 'nice, I'll treat myself for a bit'.  I fused it to a diamond, which I assumed was fairly hardy, then it promptly ran out of batteries after, honestly, killing less than 15 enemies.  You then have to wait ages for it to recharge, so instead of being an OMG SUPER SWORD it's more like spending a reward card voucher in Sainsbury's and having to slowly build up another 250 points.  I said this for BotW and I'll say it again - the master sword should be exempt from all forms of degradation.  By all means have more powerful weapons tucked away that deal more damage, but the Master Sword shouldn't be the equivalent of a non-mains operated Game Gear.  

I've not said nearly enough about how good this game is in spite of its flaws, but I enjoyed the rant almost as much as I'm enjoying how much Tilly's loving this now the quest is done. 

I deleted three paragraphs.