The Ending of Games #1 - Zelda BotW

[pokoko]

SvennoJ said:

I don't remember the ending, only the last boss fight, which was pretty but about as challenging as chopping down a tree. In the end it didn't feel like an epic struggle, more like janitorial duties to clean up the left overs from some power struggle nobody really cared about anymore.

That's simply the pitfall of open world RPGs, no urgency, no change, main quest doesn't feel much different from an elaborate side quest, usually overpowered by the time you get to it.

The real ending is the reward of looking back on my journey through the game, realizing how much I've grown at using the game mechanics to my advantage and how I went from getting repeatedly one hit killed by a vanilla Lynel to taking on 2 silver maned ones at the same time.

This is something games need to work on in the future, especially as technology develops.  I remember "beating" Skyrim and still randomly getting attacked by dragons.  What the heck?  Wasn't that a big part of what I was trying to stop?  The Civil War questline felt a LOT more meaningful, as it represented real change to cities and forts.  

Fallout 4 was a mild improvement in that, with checkpoints of the winning side appearing around the map, but there needs to be more of a visible impact.  On the other hand, I build a thriving network of settlements while I was supposed to worried about my kid, so clearly that game failed at the "creating urgency" part.  Thank god for alternate start mods.

Speaking of alternate start mods, I've found them to be my favorite way to play and I hope developers take a look at their popularity.