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SvennoJ said:
To be honest I got bored with it.... after 170 hours!

Sorry! I had to call this part out separately because it made me laugh out loud =D

SvennoJ said:
To be honest I got bored with it.... after 170 hours!

Yep, it was an amazing journey. However I make the same kind of journeys in other games. In Death stranding I completely ignored the story missions (and online stuff) to explore the entire chapter 3 area on foot, survival mode style. RDR2 the same, I spend many hours canoeing everywhere, trying to get into the forbidden areas. I've 'filled in' every single road in TDU, I've traveled around the galaxy in Elite Dangerous, 9 month journey, and currently on an exploration tour of Earth in FS2020 while trying out the limits of the game. https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/exploring-the-world-in-the-beechcraft-bonanza/266981

Breath of the wild was great to explore. I never used fast travel, hence the long play time, which made it even better, concentrate on what's around instead of following quests. After trial island I set off North into the desert then into the mountains. I didn't get to Kariko village (the first 'quest') to spend the seeds (or whatever they were called) until 80 hours in, already completed two of the main dungeons and fully explored castle Hyrule. (Should have done it sooner, that 8 slot weapon limit was a pain with how fast they break)

There is always the drive to find out what's beyond the river bend, over the next mountain etc. But I do lose some interest after exploring the map. TW3 got boring after I had 'completed' the exploration phase. In Death stranding I put the game on easy to rush through the story interruptions, back to hard for the delivery stuff. That's another thing that keeps me going, finding the most efficient way to do things. It could be the fastest way to dispatch Lynels or the fastest way to complete a delivery.

Great game, however my brain has been wired that way for a long time :)

For me, it was the superb detail of the design that drove the exploration that forced me to fall in love with Breath of the Wild was its massive attention to the surroundings. As you said, the game was a real page-turner, metaphorically speaking. One thing was always leading to another, and when the game first came out, I found myself wondering when I should stop playing. It always felt like I was stumbling on something interesting, even the most remote corners of the world. I never thought that starting a horse-archer hunting spree in a blizzardly plain would be as fun as it was. I made a game out of it, trying to see how many animals I could slaughter, and how much meat I could harvest before it froze. I honed my skill and became reasonably good at it. I also thought of the jungle as my home, as I was often hanging out there, running my circuit to get ingredients for my adventurer kits. That brings me to another point: emergent gameplay. I think this is the first time Nintendo has made a game that genuinely encourages this - although I know some people played around with Mario 64 and Galaxy stuff - but that had more to do with glitches and wasn't by design.

The emergent storytelling and gameplay, for me, provides a richer experience than I've perhaps found in all other Zelda games combined, at least since the 3D era began.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.