Pasting this here from a comment I made in a tangential thread:
I played through this game hoping for the best this past weekend. The highest praise i can give is that while the presentation is perfect, the gameplay is half baked at best and frustrating at its worst.
The echoes are a great idea but they’re seriously lacking in depth. Maybe 5 of them can be used for almost every “puzzle”. The stronger combat echoes trivialize the combat. The dungeons are too short and simple save for maybe one or two of them. Thinking i liked gerudo, zora, and faron the best.
I was totally mesmerized by being able to traverse a “2d” zelda map in the manner that some of the more vertically inclined echoes. They even present you with some classic zelda dungeon rooms that can be maneuvered in the classic way or be completely subverted by the player if you remember you’re playing the new game. which is very satisfying the first few times. However, by hour ten and in the last few dungeons that novelty wore off and it became very clear they forgot to make any kind of challenging puzzle involving clever echo use beyond flying tile + platboom or water tile. i don’t think zelda games have ever been or have supposed to be “challenging” but I don’t think i’m off base asserting that some puzzles aren’t immediately solvable in older games.
The menus are dogshit and waste you time. The dialogue boxes waste your time. Resetting mini games waste your time. Making smoothies wastes your time. Sorting through your 127 echoes wastes your time. I’m not sure why this is acceptable but the only answer is that ppl buy it and complaints don’t have to be heard after they have your money so fuck it i guess. The only way to get a solid game out of these stooges is to force system memory limitations on them again.
Oh did you want to play in the old style? don’t worry we put that on a timer and you can go into link mode and feel what it’s like to play a tight lovingly crafted game for a few fleeting moments before your juice bar hits 0.
The dialogue itself is good. the tutorials aren’t annoying. tri is a good companion. i adore the art style. There is a lot of observational skill involved with some hidden items and heart pieces. I had fun, but I feel like they stopped just short of making a 10/10 to intetionslly a 5/10 baby game. Games are for children. just go play Tunic
WdyT?
If i were even more conspiracy brained i’d wager heavy that the media placed “not supporting ukraine” in the bad meanie republican fascist bin to make looney commies sound bad to unwitting kind blue fascist supporters
I think that thread can pull further when the article mentions briefly that her politics “sound confusing” and then plainly lays out the confusion of the Kamala campaign embracing Cheney. Blink and you might miss that. It’s also not exactly framed by the text as hypocritical or confusing on the dem’s part. Though i’m not certain this has caused any “confusion” with dem voters upon further consideration. i think most average clocked-out voters have been beaten down to voting for Kamala bc abortion, despite the fact she’s done nothing to get it done, that’s the narrative and that’s what they follow and then move on with their lives.
If i were able to pull the strings of big media I’d absolutely be trying to screw with every narrative i could. Make the unconscious prole as confused as possible. Then you maybe have to make 10,000 less insecure voting machines when your true voting machines live and breathe air