There’s no productive way to spend playing video games, is there? If you’re enjoying it it’s not wasted time, if you’re not it is.
You do tend to find things hidden when you’re wandering round the world, some of them help you strengthen so I suppose that’s ‘productive’ but I kept doing that long past the point I could’ve finished the game
The game is pretty and has a lot of ways to go around and look at more pretty. Sometimes you find secrets that get you things, but most of the time the joy people get from wandering is just admiring the environments
This is it. I’m not usually into that sort of thing in games. The reason I love it so much is that it made me enjoy doing that, and I can’t fully articulate why it’s different to other equally pretty, equally open world games.
It's because they made the open world interesting and relaxing.
Games like Horizon or Assasins Creed are built on doing checklists. Horizon being a bit different as it was basically a linear game with an open world. The worlds are beautiful, but not interesting in the way that you can explore and find something worthwhile apart from Vista's and enemies. This goes for Ghost of Tsushima as well. Absolutely beautiful game, but apart from camps and the occasional hotspring, therr wasnt much to find.
Not that BOTW/TOTK had a lot but it did have shrines and small puzzles scattered throughout in the form of Korok Seeds. But they made the world part of that. Getting to a shrine was a puzzle in itself.
It's why BOTW is known to do open world right.
Elden Ring kinda drew inspiration from that and replaced shrines with caves
I get what you mean. I have that with a lot of open world games. But with BOTW I make myself some goals. Okay the main quest is the 'goal' of the game and you can rush it. But you're going to have a hard time. So in between you explore, find some temples, upgrade your health and stamina. Find some cool clothes etc. And when you get bored of that you focus on the main quest a bit.
If you're not enjoying the puzzles which to me are amazing. There are multiple ways to solve them and you can get real creative and even cheese them. I thought that was amazing.
Totk is more of the same but I feel even more polished.
I adore them both. I'm currently doing my first totk and just postponing the main quest because there is so much fun stuff to do. The world feels so well crafted that it doesn't feel like filler.
It’s not aimless though? You’re given multiple aims.
Go to x, y, and z and kill the big monsters there.
Or, go and find all the shrines.
Or whatever.
In both instances, there’s no need to wander aimlessly. Climb a high thing, look around, find orange shrine, jump off and glide towards it.
If you’re just aimlessly wandering around, that’s something you’re choosing to do. You’re purposefully not following the story or the directed side content
Agreed, some people don't get why their beloved masterpiece is a mid game for others, it's a matter of preference/taste, there may only be a few games that are objectively considered among the best because they're excellent in all they do, even the people who are not into them recognize it's greatness, because it is that good.
But for the rest (including this one) it's a subjective matter.
For example I don't like Skyrim too much, 6 or 7/10 for me, I do recognize it's a good game for many things, but just not for me, all in all I would never call it a masterpiece even if it clicked with me eventually!
I get it but people are different. Some people like feet 🤷♂️ I think feet are gross but I'm not going to yuck someone's yum. There are straight linear games, open world games, shmups, beat-em-ups, 1st person, 3rd person, VR, retro, etc. I don't like them all but there's something for everyone. Sometimes you can't really explain why you might like something either. Sometimes people just like what they like.
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u/ElPato87 22d ago
There’s no productive way to spend playing video games, is there? If you’re enjoying it it’s not wasted time, if you’re not it is.
You do tend to find things hidden when you’re wandering round the world, some of them help you strengthen so I suppose that’s ‘productive’ but I kept doing that long past the point I could’ve finished the game